Has The Drug War Corrupted The FBI?

[Teahive]

The fact is, advocates of loose drug laws just do not like this piece of information.

Most advocates of loose drug laws aren't against treating addicts, or indeed preventing addicts. Law enforcement (the way it's currently done) just isn't the right tool.

[Diogenes]

OK. Emotional arguments beat rational arguments. But do they lead to good policy? Of course. And we have the Democrat policies in America to prove it.

That is actually a good example of what I'm talking about.

So are you endeavoring to raise the level of discourse or lower it? Because if your aim is to lower it the Ds will beat your azz silly.

I'm looking forward to it.

I've gone up against Ds many times in the court of public opinion. It has not been my @ss which got beaten silly. One sore loser was so mad he filed a complaint against me with the FEC. I still have the letter I received from them in a drawer.

You talked about Tulsa earlier. The Tulsa world is a very Liberal Newspaper, and we were notified by our contacts in the Tulsa area that they regarded our activities in Norman Oklahoma to be an "Embarrassment to the State." (We protested Sarah Brady at a speech she gave at Oklahoma University. We also had managed to make sure most of the audience she spoke before was gun owners. )

I sent them the following letter.

"Dear Tulsa World

It has come to our attention that you regarded our activities at OU to be an "Embarrassment to the State." We find this news most encouraging and we were wondering if you could prepare a list of other activities that you would regard as an embarrassment so that we could proceed to do them as quickly as possible! "

They Called me on the phone and told me they were publishing my letter. I gave them Kudos for letting me poke fun at them. Something I always told the group. "Laughter rocks the highest throne. "

Things like: "Spending doesn't matter when people are going without medical care." Or "Why are junkies denied medicine and forced to get theirs on the street?" Or, "Why when Whites and Blacks use and sell drugs in roughly equal proportions (per capita) are Blacks about 8X as likely to go to prison? Republicans, who are the main supporters of this program, are racists." Actually it is just that Republicans are ignorant. In the main because the just don't want to know. It would shake their faith. It will get worse. The breaking of Drug Prohibition will discredit their faith. Something D thinks is important to maintain. How ironic. Deliciously ironic.

I'm looking forward to it.

What is new is not persuasive. H3ll, what is old isn't persuasive either. It is a fact of life that Whites prefer powdered cocaine, while black prefer crack. It is likewise a fact of life that crack is far more addictive than is the powder. Why that is so I cannot say, but that is what I have seen. Add to that the availability of money, and you further select for disparity.

Whites: Cheaper drug, less addictive, posses more money.
Blacks: More expensive drug, much more addictive, posses less money.


One more thing. From my own personal experience, Black drug dealers are far more "out there" than are their white counterparts. They tend to put on the bling, drive the "pimped out" cars while playing BOOM BOOM rap, carry the guns, and play the "gangsta dozens" with their cohorts and associates. The "club" is a must. The pimp slappin gang banger is a highly sought after social status in their community. In contrast, white drug dealers tend to keep things on the down low as much as they can. Less ostentatious and far more circumspect. Not all, but most.

Most people in drug addicted communities know about this, and realize when someone "be actin the fool" they are more likely to get caught. As a result, they aren't all that surprised when it happens.

Add to that ordinary racism and it skews the results far out of proportion to what would otherwise happen.

[choff]

If the stories of drug related corruption I keep finding on line are even half true then the drug war was doomed from the start, you could say even that democracy itself is imperiled. The court case Mike is waiting for a verdict on could be subverted by it.

Some of the stories suggest that the drug war was primarily concerned with elimanating competition from upstart rivals, and that the focus of a section of the intel community was to control the drug trade from S. America since 1945.

Before you can even begin to solve the drug abuse problem you`ve got to clean out the rot.

[Diogenes]

D,

Drugs do not cause addiction. If they did everyone who tries heroin would be a junkie. Only about 1/10th of the people who try heroin get addicted. And only about 1/10th the population ever tries the stuff. I tried morphine once - in the Navy - administered by a Navy nurse, in a Navy Hospital (Long Beach). So why aren't I a junkie? No pain, no need.
.

Fine, let's say your numbers are correct. !/10th on the first try. Another 1/10th on the next try. A third 1/10th on the try after that. Persistence of opportunity will eventually yield an ever growing trend regardless of how small the increments are. It took China 140 years to get to the 50% addiction rate.

Addiction is caused by pain. Those in chronic pain will be chronic users. Well duh.

So why were there so many users in China? For the same reason alcohol use in America was so high during our development era. Conditions were very harsh.

Escapism may be a way to blunt the harshness of reality, but it leaves those who practice it vulnerable in the future. The fact is, Addiction rates in China soared and made the harsh conditions even worse. It also made China as a Nation, weak.

You want fewer junkies? Do something about child abuse. That causes long term pain for those genetically predisposed. Fortunately we do not have to worry about generally harsh conditions. Except for our warriors and victims of child abuse. .

And what is to be done about child abuse? In the absence of Government Intervention (as if they could do anything properly) the only solution that comes to my mind is to allow society to teach people not to abuse children, and present the fates that ought to follow those that do as negative examples. We have gotten away from that concept, not only in this country, but world wide.

Even so, a belief that you are going to stop all of anything is a fallacy. Nature and Human Nature is so constituted that it sends feelers in every direction. (even what to our mind are bad directions.) As nature cannot know before hand that some circumstance might not eventually arise that would confer selection on child abusers, it is constrained to try that too. As an example of what I mean,
Who would have thought that copulating by stabbing the females in their stomachs would be a viable system?

In every system there is losses. It is important to determine where the optimized (as is reasonably possible) quiescent point should be.

Look up the "addictive personality" theory that was once so prevalent. It was supposed to explain why everyone who tried drugs didn't become a life long user. No one could define it. Which should have been a clue right there.

As if people could see into genes by talking. Why did some people survive the "black death" and others not? At the time it was attributed to Godliness v Evil spirits. Just because people cannot see the answers with their technology does not mean that the answers don't exist.

Drugs attach to receptors in the human body intended for natural chemical signaling for various physiological processes. Some people have more or less of different types of receptors, and their mind processes the stimuli in different ways. Others have different combinations, and are less susceptible. It's mostly driven by genes.

Oh. Well. My arguments are merely logical and evidence based. They have no chance with D.

Do you regard my arguments as irrational and rumor based? I'm sorry you feel that way.

[Diogenes]

For 90+ years emotion has reigned supreme on the drug question. Reason is now rearing its ugly head. Dang.

80% of the American people favor med-pot. 76% say drug prohibition is not working. 57% of men favor legalization (the Rs are the man's party). There are not enough "moral" people to win an election. Four more years of Obama and the Ds. Fine by me. Enjoy.

As Casey Stengel once said,"Can't anybody here play this game?".

Quoting whoever favors this or that is Argumentum ad populum.

[Diogenes]

The fact is, advocates of loose drug laws just do not like this piece of information.

Most advocates of loose drug laws aren't against treating addicts, or indeed preventing addicts. Law enforcement (the way it's currently done) just isn't the right tool.

On that you might have an argument. I am very dubious of cash and property seizures without due process.

[KitemanSA]

[/quote]

The thing "D" refuses to acknowledge is that the Chinese experience was NOT a case of people "choosing" to use drugs in a free system but the result of a CONSERTED effort by the Brtitish Government to recoup some of the gold that had been accumulating in China.

Are we supposed to believe that the British went around with pipes forcing people to smoke them? The stuff markets itself. It doesn't need coercion.

No, the British just made it "glamorous" and handed out free samples, kind of like pushers do today.
Drugs seldom "MARKET" themselves. They are usually "pushed". Free markets eliminate "pushers" and the addiction rate goes WAY down and the PROBLEMS disappear.

The growth was due to strong external pressure by ONE group in a land whenre importing the drugs was illegal; so there was no competition. Kind of like what we have now.

Not quite right. The British forced the Chinese to legalize the stuff. The addictions skyrocketed after that.

Source? My recollection was they forced the Chinese to let THEM import it. MASSIVE market opportunity. What the Chinese did wrong was to keep it otherwise illegal.

The Maoist government then used the addicts as an excuse to eliminate many people.

A predictable outcome. You allow a nation to get half it's population addicted to a serious narcotic, and it becomes helpless to defend itself from either external or internal enemies. An Addicted population will always produce a dictator. You just have to look further down the probability curve than the short term.

True, but EVERY experience of drugs in a "free" market shows a VERY low addiction rate. Only where you find "tolerance" of the "illegal" activity do you find such massive pushing and massive addiction.

[choff]

I suspect that a lot of the disproportional incarceration of blacks over whites isn't so much racial or the types of drugs each prefers but financial. Proscecutors go after people who can't afford a good lawyer, the easier to convict.

The problem in America is that the people who are supposed to be protecting the country are the ones running the drugs, and the 'drug war' is more about maintaining monopoly of the drug trade as opposed to stopping it. If you looked at some of the last names that ran opium in China you might find some of them 'protecting' America today.

So, if the drug war gets stopped by the courts, a change for better or worse will come, a lot will depend on the people on top of the drug business. If everything goes to hell it could mark the beginning of a real war on drugs.

[KitemanSA]

I suspect that a lot of the disproportional incarceration of blacks over whites isn't so much racial or the types of drugs each prefers but financial. Proscecutors go after people who can't afford a good lawyer, the easier to convict.

Back when I was up on these things, the "Mandatory Minimum" for crack was much greater per hit than it was for cocaine. Crack = black, cocaine = white.
Similarly, the studies showed that all else being equal, the black was charged with possessing or selling a specific amount of drug (which kicks in the MANDATORY part) while the white was charged with possessing or selling "drugs" which left the sentance at the discretion of the judge.

[MSimon]

I suspect that a lot of the disproportional incarceration of blacks over whites isn't so much racial or the types of drugs each prefers but financial. Proscecutors go after people who can't afford a good lawyer, the easier to convict.

The problem in America is that the people who are supposed to be protecting the country are the ones running the drugs, and the 'drug war' is more about maintaining monopoly of the drug trade as opposed to stopping it. If you looked at some of the last names that ran opium in China you might find some of them 'protecting' America today.

So, if the drug war gets stopped by the courts, a change for better or worse will come, a lot will depend on the people on top of the drug business. If everything goes to hell it could mark the beginning of a real war on drugs.

Choff,

Support for your point of going after those who can't resist (excellent point btw)

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/201 ... -drug.html

Drug runners in days of yore:

http://www.ctrl.org/boodleboys/boddlesboys2.html

The Bush family was in on running opium to China.

"When we sold the Heathen nations rum and opium in rolls,
And the Missionaries went along to save their sinful souls."
The Old Clipper Days -- Julian S. Cutler

"If the trade is ever legalized, it will cease to be profitable from that time. The more difficulties that attend it, the better for you and us."
-- Directors of Jardine-Matheson

[choff]

They also had a hand in inventing and marketing the counter-culture, the better to sell the drugs. Most old hippies would be surprised by the extent to which their opinions and attitudes were shrewdly shaped and manipulated by the very system they were in opposition to.

[MSimon]

They also had a hand in inventing and marketing the counter-culture, the better to sell the drugs. Most old hippies would be surprised by the extent to which their opinions and attitudes were shrewdly shaped and manipulated by the very system they were in opposition to.

Do you have some links or key words?

[choff]

Here's a good place to start.

http://www.skilluminati.com/research/en ... d_curtain/

Sometimes truth isn't just stranger than fiction, it's stranger than science fiction.

[MSimon]

Here's a good place to start.

http://www.skilluminati.com/research/en ... d_curtain/

Sometimes truth isn't just stranger than fiction, it's stranger than science fiction.

Pretty thin gruel there. No mention of MK-Ultra. League Of Spiritual Discovery. At Kleps. Millbrook. Leary's direct CIA connection. etc.

The article looks like misdirection to me.

This is non-sense:

massive marijuana imports from the Middle East

Before the CIA covered its tracks well in the US - you could tell where they were operating by the drugs that came in. Blond Lebanese Hashish when they were in Lebanon. Thai-stick Marijuana from Thailand. Opium from the Humong in Vietnam, Cocaine from South America (an Ollie North specialty was Iran/Contra Central America - Ollie is now an anti-prohibitionist) etc.

Look up McCoy for "The Politics of Heroin in South East Asia". Or if you like "Air America".

I was hoping you had something on Bush.

I thought you had something useful. Or maybe you are just trying to get me to out myself about my knowledge. Too late. I already blogged it.

BTW BEL in Laguna Beach? It was The League Of Spiritual Discovery that was bigger there with Leary involvement. I lived in Costa Mesa at the time (working for Raytheon Computer) and BEL was hardly ever in the papers. "Underground" or otherwise. The League was mentioned all the time. Big action was hard to keep underground at the time. BTW the local paper "The Orange County Register" was big on prohibition at the time. They have gone all libertarian on us in the mean time.

No mention of the Jefferson Airplane's Shell Oil Chemist. No mention of the #1 conduit the Hells Angels who were the connection between the very rough boys and the hippies. See Altamont.

Or how about that guy during the Clinton times who eventually bought the farm? A TV movie was made about him (I forget his name).

And liquid LSD? Give me a break. A solution of LSD. i.e. 2.2 Kg might be a few grams of LSD the rest solvent.

I wouldn't give the guy who wrote it the time of day for fear he'd make up a story about it.

[MSimon]

Here is a quote I got from the front page:

Those of us who do believe in conspiracy theories have one feature in common with those of us who don't -- we're all pretty pleased with ourselves. Despite the odds, we've all managed to figure out the truth, and somehow we all manage to be humble about it, too.

Actually I have no idea what the truth is. All I have is data points I believe to be factual. It could all be just compound craziness.