How Many Liberals Actually Support the War on Drugs?

[millych3]

We now know that Barack Obama supports the War on Drugs. Now many are making him out to be Republican-like because of this. But I guess many liberals do have a reason to support the war on drugs, and demonizing everybody who holds this position may not be good for us.

For Example, the TaraElla Post recently put out this position:

"There is a reason I can think of that may make many liberals support continuing the ban on illicit drugs: drugs are harmful to liberalism. The 1960s in the west was remembered for its liberal achievements, but this was marred by the presence of mind-altering drugs, and this was part of the reason liberals lost out by the 1980s. The other thing is that if a significant amount of liberals got addicted to drugs, we will be a significant disadvantage in the cultural wars, just like how China was in the Opium Wars.

Zero tolerance against drugs isn't exactly always politically conservative either: even some liberals in liberal Sweden support it."

Source: http://taraellapost.blogspot.com/2011/07/liberals-can-hold-any-view-regarding.html

[judgegblue]

1. We need to stop calling it th "war on drugs"

Haven't we had enough wars? On terror,on crime, on poverty. The term is used to raise public support and the expenditure of the teasury with little public debate or consideration as to whether it is a good and effective policy. We need to addreess the serious and pervasive abuse of drugs which is ruining lives throughout the country. Saying that we are waging war leads to what we are doing now- trying to prosecute our way out of the problem. Incarcerating addicts is a waste of resources and doesn,'t work. I do believe we need to go after those who profit off of the drug trade, including phsicians who racklessly dump prescription drugs into our communities.

[libguy_6731]

8. Great post.

[SteveM]

10. The term "War on Drugs" is what prohibitionists use...

And I believe we should stop calling it that -- by ending the "War."

What kind of legalization (which is necessary for regulation) would you propose?

[truevote]

18. Cartels

The cartels in Mexico are a much more direct danger to the US than some of the people we're chasing in the Mid-East right now. Yet US military force isn't brought to bare upon it. The drug war is just another way to profit off of drugs.

[Alanofsac]

19. pervasive abuse of drugs

If drugs were legal the "ruining of lives" would be much less pervasive. Drug use is a private matter that the state has NO BUSNESS in. is in the criminalization that causes harm. Yes and lets go after the people who profit from the (illegal) drug trade
Private Prisons, Police, courts, jails, "narcotics" task forces funded by property seized from "drug dealers" , the violence we are doing to our own citizens not to mention the US Constitution is appalling but much better to throw our kids in jail and embrace a failed policy supported by corruption racism and a pervasive idea that it is governments function to control the people

[izquierdista]

2. Those afraid of being "soft on crime"

If they cast one vote against some idiot-policy that can be shown not to work, the fascists will take to the airwaves to denounce them for ushering in an age of people unable to work because they are too stoned. So they vote to lock up more 'criminals'.

[RainDog]

3. social conservatives are in both parties. they aren't liberals

Obama is a social conservative, or, at least, he panders to them at the expense of the majority of Americans in this nation who do not support their position - and that majority is made up of people who identify as Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, liberals and fiscal conservatives.

Social conservative positions are based upon traditional beliefs, no matter how wrong they are.

from the blog:

However, I probably should clarify that liberals can hold any position on the matter, and I am not suggesting that a zero-tolerance policy be the new default for liberals either. Liberalism is a broad camp, and besides basic issues like respect for the secular state, a basic standard of living for all, freedom on social issues, freedom of religion and the like, I guess a diversity of opinions should be accommodated.

of course other beliefs are accommodated. we accept that social conservatives are more comfortable putting men of color in jail at disproportionate rates due to cannabis arrests, for instance, because it somehow makes them think they're doing the right thing, in spite of scientific evidence to the contrary.

Social conservatives within the democratic party also often do not respect the secular state and argue to allow intrusion of their religion into others' lives b/c they don't see the harm - because they don't want to see the harm b/c it makes them feel better when they can impose their beliefs upon others... for our own good.

Democrats, not liberals, may also hold fiscally-conservative positions - either because they're selfish and blinkered by their own good fortune or b/c they are rewarded for fucking over poor and infirmed people. They aren't liberal, either, but some of them are Democrats.

A diversity of opinions may be accommodated but when you have no data to back your position, you deserve no respect for that position and should be challenged on it.

If you choose to hold that opinion in spite of evidence that indicates your position is harmful to the general good and creates more problems than it solves - then you're just being like a creationist who is too scared to confront the truth b/c of what it says about a certain belief system.

[TheWraith]

4. I don't believe Obama exactly supports current drug policy...

So much as he doesn't see this as a useful time to pick a fight on the federal level. He's not a stupid man, and he doesn't strike me as the type who suddenly goes all moralizing in his later years.

I imagine most reform will continue to come from the state level.

[RainDog]

5. then why is his record on raids of dispensaries and growers double that of the Bush admin?

http://www.alternet.org/story/150840/what%27s_up_with_obama%27s_cynical_approach_to_medical_marijuana

From May 4, 2011:

...The Obama administration has attacked medical-marijuana providers on several fronts. Since January 2010, it has staged more than 90 raids on dispensaries and growers, according to figures collected by the patient-advocacy group Americans for Safe Access. That represents a pace double the Bush administration's, says ASA spokesperson Kris Hermes. The administration has also threatened state officials with prosecution if they participate in licensing or regulating medical marijuana. The Internal Revenue Service has expanded auditing dispensaries for tax evasion, on the grounds that drug-trafficking enterprises cannot legally claim business-expense deductions.

also

The Obama administration has also continued Bush-era prosecutions of medical-marijuana providers. On May 2, Californians Dr. Mollie Fry and Dale Schafer turned themselves in to begin serving five-year federal mandatory-minimum sentences. Fry, a breast-cancer survivor, and Schafer, a hemophiliac, were raided in 2001. In 2007, they were convicted of manufacturing and conspiracy charges for growing more than 100 plants over several years. “The Obama administration vigorously fought an appeal of their sentence,” says ASA.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-morgan/obama-medical-marijuana_b_857852.html

On the threats issued to state employees -

It's a sweeping intervention that instantly divorces the Obama Administration from its stated policy of not focusing resources on individuals who are clearly compliant with state law. Unlike the numerous recent dispensary raids, which could theoretically result from competing interpretations of state law, this new incursion constitutes a direct threat of arrest against state employees acting in good faith to administer perfectly lawful state programs.

The mindlessness of all this operates on multiple levels, beginning with the fact that no state employee or state-licensed business has ever actually been prosecuted for involvement with medical marijuana. The suggestion that they'd do such a thing is nothing more than a cynical scare tactic aimed at stalling the numerous state programs moving forward this year.

If Obama has more important things to do, then he should BACK OFF on threats to the states.

The reality is that Obama is working to hinder enactment of the will of the people in various states that have voted for medical cannabis, just as he is hindering any forward movement on federal medical marijuana by SIMPLY having Holder reschedule cannabis - and by taking medical issues out of the hands of law enforcement - where they do not belong.

Medical cannabis is an issue for doctors, not law enforcement, to decide. Law enforcement has a vested interest in lies, as Michelle Leonhart has demonstrated repeatedly (tho, she has also indicated she would prefer to have alcohol prohibition in force in her "perfect" nightmare world, too, so wtf is she even doing in the position she holds? she's like a 19th century holdover from the saloon busters.)

Like you, I don't think it's a moral issue for Obama. I think it's a cynical giveaway to drug warriors, the federal govt's equivalent of civil war re-enactors, who benefit from putting innocent people in prison.

He wouldn't have to do one thing other than tell Holder to call for a rescheduling hearing, as the AMA has requested. Let evidence and science speak - Obama said he wasn't going to be anti-science, yet, here his administration is, just this last month, denying the medical benefits of cannabis.

The hypocrisy is so blatant now, with the DEA trying to do a reach around for big pharma, that Obama just looks like he's doing something like making it possible for pharma cos to make big profits at the expense of American's health, that sort of thing. Maybe that was part of the deal they reached before health care reform was ever put "on the table."

[RainDog]

6. and a reminder: more people in CA voted for medical marijuana than voted for Clinton

in 1996.

More people in that state thought this issue was important enough to get out and vote for it than thought it mattered who was president or, if they did care, than voted for the Democratic candidate.

so, if Obama doesn't think this is a priority, his current stance, attacking state implementation, demonstrates he is tone deaf to the will of the American people on this issue.

Legalization will be on the ballot in CA and CO in 2012.

If Obama wants the votes of those who support legalization, he should stop trying to interfere with states whose citizens have decided they want to end prohibition.

[Harry J Asslinger]

9. If only it became part of the 2012 elections/debates.

With the economy looking to get worse, and questioning of the government's drug policy entering the public debate, marijuana legalization will push its way in. Probably not as an issue that would see one candidate losing votes to another over it, (since that would entail legalization as part of their platform) but it will be in there somewhere.

One would think that at this point, candidates would see it as something to adopt as part of their platform, and educate themselves on it. The inevitable scurrilous attacks aside (pot president, etc.), it is one of those few things where change can immediately be seen. Unlike many of the things that are discussed during debates and campaigns, marijuana legalization has a direct, and very tangible effect on everyday life. It is not one of those abstruse things swept under the umbrella of "politics is bullshit".

[SteveM]

11. He opposes legalization.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RainDog]

7. oh, but in answer to your question - 65% of Americans think the WoD is a failure

that includes all political demographics, based upon a poll in July of last year.

I have no doubt that more people think the WoD is a failure after the information released around the anniversary of this failure this year.

People also think America has a drug problem - but, of course, that's because of the incredible about of propaganda that spews from those who make money by creating this view.

Portugal has shown a better way - but too many Americans are too conservative, no matter if they call themselves liberal or not, to consider policy that doesn't try to hurt people but, instead, tries to provide meaningful interdiction.

Interesting, the current "drug czar" also admits the war on drugs is a failure - and yet - proposes to continue the same failed policies. Reminds me of living through 30 years of Reaganomics and the failed economic policies of the right and seeing them continually touted in spite of their failures.

which makes me think I must live in the stupidest fucking nation in the western world.

[SHRED]

13. "Liberals" who grow pot for a living

I am willing to bet they have a vested interest in the artificially high prices caused by the War on Drugs.

---

[RainDog]

14. TaraElla is also spouting unsupported bullshit to claim that drugs are harmful to liberalism

Mind-altering drugs were not the reason liberals lost out by the 1980s. Please, supply ANY supporting data for this claim.

Reagan basically won because of the October Surprise - an illegal and treasonous appeal to the Iranian religious revolutionaries to delay the release of the hostages in return for weapons. And because of inflation that had swept the nation.

To claim that mind-altering drugs was a negative is preposterious. Tell that to Carl Sagan. Tell that to all the people in Silicon Valley who CREDIT the mind-altering properties of some drugs for inventing the entire PC revolution that came about in San Francisco - the epicenter of alternative culture. The use of mind-altering substances was responsible for the major music and literary movements that began in the 1940s, not 60s.

Honestly, TaraElla should just admit that she is a social conservative who wants to put people in prison for using substances that are less harmful than alcohol. The end of prohibition of alcohol did not bring down society and the end of prohibition of cannabis will not do so either.

Anyone who is a social conservative should look at the data that indicates that legalization or de facto legalization actually decreases usage and harm to society. That's the evidence that's available. not this bullshit claim that mind-altering drugs put Reagan in power.

[RainDog]

15. oh, and the southern strategy appeal to racists is also what put Reagan in office

so TaraElla should recognize that aligning with drug warriors, she is aligning herself with racists.

[Centrist2011]

16. ME!

One Dem here :)

[RainDog]

17. 50% of ALL Americans want to LEGALIZE cannabis

and, again, if you look at the breakdown of support, if follows what I noted, earlier, about the social conservative position.

The vast MINORITY of Democrats are in favor of this war on drugs.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=218&topic_id=5911&mesg_id=5911

[johnb72341js]

20. not me