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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:10 am Post subject: Obama grows the drug war |
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It was not long ago when President Barack Obama's new drug czar, former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske, swept into Washington, D.C. and declared the "drug war" a public policy relic.
The Obama administration, he said, would move toward handling drug addiction as a medical problem, moving away from the brash enforcement tactics that hallmarked prior administrations.
"We're not at war with people in this country," Kerlikowske told The Wall Street Journal in May.
However, if the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) budget for fiscal year 2011 is to be believed, Kerlikowske was full of hot air.
According to 2011 funding "highlights" released by the ONDCP (PDF link), the Obama administration is growing the drug war and tilting its funds heavily toward law enforcement over treatment.
The president's National Drug Control Budget also continues the Bush administration's public relations tactic of obscuring the costs of prosecuting and imprisoning drug offenders. "Enron style accounting," is how drug policy reform advocate Kevin Zeese described it, writing for Alternet in 2002.
The budget places America's drug war spending at $15.5 billion for fiscal year 2011; an increase of 3.5 percent over FY 2010. That figure reflects a 5.2 percent increase in overall enforcement funding, growing from $9.7 billion in FY 2010 to $9.9 billion in FY 2011. Addiction treatment and preventative measures, however, are budgeted at $5.6 billion for FY 2011, an increase from $5.2 billion in FY 2010.
In short, the Obama administration's appropriations for treating drug addiction are just short of half that dedicated to prosecuting the war. |
http://rawstory.com/2010/02/obama-grows-the-drug-war/
Obama is a total disappointment. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:47 am Post subject: Re: Obama grows the drug war |
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| mises wrote: |
Obama is a total disappointment. |
Obama supports neither economic liberty nor personal liberty. He continues to pursue military interventionism.
0 for 3 on liberty.
Obama is a fascist-socialist. |
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Konglishman
Joined: 14 Sep 2007
Location: Nanjing
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 5:46 am Post subject: |
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Luckily, many Latins are refusing to follow along and going a different route.
Latin America distances itself from U.S. on drug war
Jose Luis Varela, Agence France-Presse
February 9, 2010
LIMA - Latin America is shifting focus in counter-drug strategies, moving away from a U.S. strategy of a "war on drugs" that is widely seen as having failed, experts here said.
Researchers from Latin America, the United States and Europe agreed that the debate is now centered on a search for local solutions rather than the broader policing strategy long dictated from Washington.
"There is an awareness that continuing to do what we have been doing does not work," said Ricardo Soberon, a Peruvian expert.
"Latin America has faithfully carried out policies dictated by Washington for 30 years, and we have found to our surprise that some countries are beginning to change that," he said.
He pointed to Ecuador, which in 2008 pardoned more than 2,000 people detained for carrying less than two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of drugs, and Bolivia's expulsion of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) the same year.
For several years, a group of former presidents led by Mexico's Ernesto Zedillo, Colombia's Cesar Gavira and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil has called for decriminalization of drug use.
That position has gained support from many leading intellectuals like the late Argentine writer Tomas Eloy Martinez and novelist Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru.
"Why is it that governments, which day after day prove how costly and useless the policy of repression is, refuse to consider decriminalization?" Vargas Llosa recently asked.
continues at link |
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RufusW
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Busan
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| Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 3:52 pm Post subject: |
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This is Obama's first budget, right? So Bush did the 2010 budget?
If you look at the graph in the pdf from the article you'll see % changes from the 2010 budget. Overall the budget has gone up 3.5%. Prevention has gone up 13.4% but Domestic Law Enforcement only 1.9%. So there is some targeting there. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:40 am Post subject: |
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| RufusW wrote: |
This is Obama's first budget, right? So Bush did the 2010 budget?
If you look at the graph in the pdf from the article you'll see % changes from the 2010 budget. Overall the budget has gone up 3.5%. Prevention has gone up 13.4% but Domestic Law Enforcement only 1.9%. So there is some targeting there. |
Don't make excuses. He's rubbish. |
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asylum seeker
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Location: On your computer screen.
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:02 am Post subject: Re: Obama grows the drug war |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
Obama is a total disappointment. |
Obama supports neither economic liberty nor personal liberty. He continues to pursue military interventionism.
0 for 3 on liberty.
Obama is a fascist-socialist. |
You know, I really don't think you use this epithet enough and your posts would be improved immensely if you could use it more often.
Just saying. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:07 am Post subject: Re: Obama grows the drug war |
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| asylum seeker wrote: |
| ontheway wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
Obama is a total disappointment. |
Obama supports neither economic liberty nor personal liberty. He continues to pursue military interventionism.
0 for 3 on liberty.
Obama is a fascist-socialist. |
You know, I really don't think you use this epithet enough and your posts would be improved immensely if you could use it more often.
Just saying. |
Nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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Mr. Pink
Joined: 21 Oct 2003
Location: China
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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Hell Yeah!
Black Dynamite would put Obama into his place! Then he'd probably do Mrs. Obama cause that's the way Black Dynamite rolls. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:47 pm Post subject: |
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http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=ee7f2919aec805b3
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Kevin Germane Britton, 33, was arrested at his home in the 100 block of Porter Street in La Marque about 4 a.m. He was charged with manufacturing and delivery of a controlled substance as well as an outstanding Harris County warrant for deadly conduct, Aragon said. He was being held in the county jail on bonds totaling $15,000.
A 48-year-old man at the house also was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor drug charge, police said.
Police did not reveal how much in narcotics were found during the raid, but Britton�s booking sheet showed his charge was for less than 1 gram of narcotics.
The La Marque police were assisted by League City, Dickinson, Alvin, Pearland and Baytown police, the Galveston County Sheriff�s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in the investigation and subsequent early morning raid. |
How much did it cost to nab a guy with a gram on him? |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:00 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=ee7f2919aec805b3
| Quote: |
Kevin Germane Britton, 33, was arrested at his home in the 100 block of Porter Street in La Marque about 4 a.m. He was charged with manufacturing and delivery of a controlled substance as well as an outstanding Harris County warrant for deadly conduct, Aragon said. He was being held in the county jail on bonds totaling $15,000.
A 48-year-old man at the house also was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor drug charge, police said.
Police did not reveal how much in narcotics were found during the raid, but Britton�s booking sheet showed his charge was for less than 1 gram of narcotics.
The La Marque police were assisted by League City, Dickinson, Alvin, Pearland and Baytown police, the Galveston County Sheriff�s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in the investigation and subsequent early morning raid. |
How much did it cost to nab a guy with a gram on him? |
Government make-work jobs. The perp should feel proud for having assisted so many of his fellow citizens during this economic recession. |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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| RufusW wrote: |
This is Obama's first budget, right? So Bush did the 2010 budget?
If you look at the graph in the pdf from the article you'll see % changes from the 2010 budget. Overall the budget has gone up 3.5%. Prevention has gone up 13.4% but Domestic Law Enforcement only 1.9%. So there is some targeting there. |
Great. We're spending more money we don't have on increasing Law Enforcement against drugs.
Gotta go with Mises on this issue. Disappointing. |
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