This Is Your War on Drugs
—By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
"... the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a.k.a. the drug czar, who in 1998 was mandated by Congress to oppose legislation that would legalize, decriminalize, or medicalize marijuana, or redirect anti-trafficking funding into treatment. And the drug czar has also been prohibited from funding research that might give credence to any of the above. These provisions were crafted by Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Bob Barr (R-Ga.)... Though the vote count was not recorded for history, it got enough bipartisan support to be signed into law by Bill "Didn't Inhale" Clinton.
...the drug war has never been about facts—about, dare we say, soberly weighing which policies might alleviate suffering, save taxpayers money, rob the cartels of revenue. Instead, we've been stuck in a cycle of prohibition, failure, and counterfactual claims of success. (To wit: Since 1998, the ONDCP has spent $1.4 billion on youth anti-pot ads. It also spent $43 million to study their effectiveness. When the study found that kids who've seen the ads are more likely to smoke pot, the ONDCP buried the evidence, choosing to spend hundreds of millions more on the counterproductive ads.)
If we want a sensible drug policy, ditching the liar's law would be a good start."
I think our side knows that our logic is simply superior to the opposition, but its frustrating to see the fascists drug warriors dominate the public sphere. I've created an app based on argumentation theory: http://arg.umentum.com/ which should help the more logical arguments reach through the muck. If you could try it out, and send me feedback -> argument.app@gmail.com, i would really appreciate it.
Posted by: Arjun Vasan | July 06, 2009 at 05:51 PM