"The War on Drugs has failed"

Deciphering the many layers of the 'War on Drugs' is complex, but this Nytimes video does an excellent job. Insatiable US demand for illegal drugs bankrolls violent Mexican drug cartels. Those cartels, or drug-trading organization (DTOs), then use that money to buy US weapons, buy off police and government officials, and support their foot soldiers, informants, and leaders on both sides of the border -- as well as many countries in Latin America and even parts of Africa. At the same time, the US government gives financial aid and legal training to the Mexican military, an institution that has been criticized of Human Rights violations during the War on Drugs. Still more, the US prison system and law enforcement benefit from the arrangement, as strict enforcement of anti-drug laws in the US continues to increase our prison population, drawing ever more money from the taxpayer's tab.  

Now on to the subject of this post, that "The War on Drugs has failed." This quote echoes the findings of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. The panel -- made up of, among others, "former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, and the entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson" -- recently released a report in June 2011. The report contends that current policies, which identify illegal drug use and abuse primarily as a crime issue, are not working. In fact, between the years of 1998 and 2008, during which time the U.S. significantly increased funding for 'The War on Drugs,' estimates of total annual drug consumption rose dramatically.    

These statistics make a strong case for a policy change. Increasingly, a school of thought recommends a new framework for dealing with drug problems, one that views drug use/abuse as a public health issue rather than a criminal one. Such a policy calls for the decriminalization, even legalization, of drugs, in order to shift the focus away from criminal punishment of users. Only then can our country begin to address the issue through a public health lens, using preventative medicine and regulation of drugs to ensure the safety of users and society as a whole. Fiscally, keeping nonviolent drug users of out of jail (the U.S. bureau of prisons 2011 budget is $6.8 billion and nearly 50% of all U.S. incarcerations are drug related) would probably more than fund this type of policy shift. And that doesn't even factor in the money that could be saved by the resultant scaling down of U.S. law enforcement.

Statistics on the 'War on Drugs' in Mexico:  

• 34,612 have died in Mexico since 2007, at least 12,000 were innocent civilians 
• At least 15,000 people were killed in 2010 in Mexico, the bloodiest year to-date and a 60% increase from 2009
• 80 journalists have been killed for publishing narco-related news. Mexico is now widely regarded as the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism
• As of 2010, Mexican drug cartels are increasingly targeting government officials and civilians
• 14 mayors and 11 journalists were killed in 2010

Statistics on the War on Drugs in the US:

• 90% of all guns seized in Mexico have been linked to American gun shops
• 50% of all criminal offenses are drug-related
• US prison population quadrupled from 1980-2003
• U.S. now has one fourth of global prison population
• US government spent over $15 billion on the War on Drugs in 2010
• 1 American is arrested for violating cannabis laws every 30 seconds

This Esquire article is especially interesting. A former commander in Maryland's DEA, Neill Franklin argues for legalization and regulation of drugs as a way of decreasing drug-related violence and overdoses: "You have to take the money out of it. Many people talk about legalization and decriminalize — it's still illegal, but you're just not sending as many people to jail, especially for the nonviolent offenses. However, the money is still being made in the illegal sales, so you still have the drug wars. It's prohibition that's killing our people. That's why people are dying."

"So," I ask, "you want to legalize everything?"

"Yes. But I like to put it like this: I want regulation of everything. Because right now, I think they're confusing prohibition with regulation. What I'm talking about is applying standards — quality control, just like alcohol. We should have learned our lesson during alcohol prohibitions — we repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and applied standards of sale and manufacture, so it has to be a certain quality and you can't sell it to just anybody, and you still go to jail if you sell it to the wrong people. So, among other things, you'll also reduce overdoses — the majority of the overdoses we have is people who don't know what they're getting or buying because the purity level fluctuates. In addition, people are afraid to get help because they don't want to go jail, so they let their friends die."

The article also argues that, when calculating drug-related homicides and overdoses in the US, as many as 15,000 American deaths per year are drug related. It is clear, then, that drugs are taking lives on both sides of the border. Although Mexican and American government officials deny it: The War on Drugs -- on inanimate objects -- is, without a doubt, failing.

Occupy Togther, video links to some of the issues at hand

After a lengthy absence, Left Coast Prost (LCP) returns today with a post focusing on a few of the many environmental, social, and economic issues at hand -- both domestically and globally. As the Occupy Together movement continues to spread across the country and world, many people still don't quite understand what the issues at hand are. When they ask members of Occupy Together why they are protesting, they inevitably reply: "It's complicated." This is because the Occupy Together model is a peaceful, grassroots movement that cannot be boiled down into one specific issue or demand. The vital issues of our time are nearly as diverse and numerous as people on the planet; as a result, the movement's message can never be summarized into a succinct definition, which frustrates mainstream media and conventional politics. The lack of a clearly defined message, however, may actually be one Occupy Together's greatest strengths. It is exceptionally difficult to oppose something without fully understanding what you are opposing.

Another key tenet of the movement is the idea of Horizontal Leadership and Consensus-based Participatory Democracy. Horizontal leadership operates under the core belief that every single person's opinion and input are equally valid. Everyone has a voice and deserves to be heard, as well as a "piece of the truth," regardless of their views. This style of organization contrasts to the prevailing top-down system of leadership to which we, as a society, are accustomed. It may be far from perfect, but it is definitely a more equitable and inclusive way of organizing and governing a local community than a conventional hierarchy of leadership. One complaint leveled at this kind of participatory direct democracy is: It takes too much time and energy. While it truly requires lots of both, as one women at Occupy Bend put it, "Direct democracy is not fast food, it is hard work." And it is empowering and worth it!

For more information on consensus-based participatory democracy, read this short handbook, packed with information on the process of a general assembly, your rights when dealing with police (who isn't interested in that?), and also the international movement.

Ok, now to return to some of the issues that unite the movement at a national level. They include but are not limited to: Campaign Finance Reform (divorcing special interests and corporate contributions from our government; Banking Sector Reform (which played a central role in sending the global economy into recession by way of countless nefarious lending and investment practices, and also enriched an elite group of bankers at the expense of taxpayers [privatized profits, socialized risk] using government bailout money; and Increased Tax Rates for the richest 1% of Americans (who, on average, pay a much lower tax rate than the middle and upper middle class, as well as control 40% of the national wealth).

Other deep social and environmental issues abound, yet for the sake of time I cannot address them in any sort of depth right now. Nor can I dive into any of the local issues that acutely affect our local community of Bend, Oregon at this time.

In short, yes, the reason for these organic, citizen-led protests is very, very complicated. I hope this post might help answer a question or two for someone out there. Or better yet, encourage someone to start researching the problems themselves. When Congressional Approval Ratings are at an all-time low of 12%, as of September 2011, citizens must take the lead, rather than relying on our elected officials to solve the pressing issues of our times. The top-down structure of our government is failing to address the most important problems our society faces today for 2 reasons: 1) Many members of our government are in fact members of the 1%, or at least directly benefit from enacting policies that solely favor the interests of the elite and the rich; 2) They are Planners, mostly too far removed from the situation to ask the right questions. In glaring contrast, we, as the other 99%, know the realities of systemic inequality and unfairness. We are the Searchers, and we are just now beginning to come together as a community and ask the right questions at a collective level.

Consequently, this movement is organic, local and decentralized, and always-evolving. No one knows in which direction it is headed, only that its emphasis is on peacefulness and causing a global paradigm shift or values.  

Here are some videos and articles that I found particularly informational contemporary:

1) A 10 minute clip of a documentary called Gasland, which investigates the role of 'fracking,' and the carcinogenic chemicals it uses to drill for natural gas and oil. This process contaminates freshwater in the U.S. and abroad, leading to widespread illness of people who drink the contaminated water.

2) An Nytimes article on fracking. Read carefully. The last few paragraphs illuminate the debate. The oil and natural gas lobby argue that, because there is no scientific evidence proving that fracking is the culprit for environmental and freshwater contamination, it is absolved of responsibility. That skirts the real issue: It has been scientifically proven that drilling for gas production, with current high pressure methods and harmful chemicals, is contaminating the environment and water systems. In sum, drilling is absolutely polluting the environment, but there's no science to pin any of the blame on the new, dubious fracking quite yet. It all sorta feels like, I definitely shot the sheriff (you can prove it, and it wasn't in self-defence), but I won't admit to the deputy just yet (even though it looks bad, the onus is on you [the bureaucratic and underfunded EPA] to prove it!)

3) A 90 minute video by Robert Lustig, a doctor of Pediatrics at UCSF School of Medicine. He makes a water-right argument that sucrose and fructose (both sugar, sucrose is cane and beet sugar. Fructose is stuff like high-fructose corn syrup) are known chronic toxins. Over time, the chronic additive of sugar to foods leads to what is called the metabolic syndrome: A conglomerate of conditions that includes cardiovascular disease, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, among others. Sugar, both fructose and sucrose, is added to processed foods because it is so cheap. As the U.S. exports more and more food abroad, other countries that start to adopt our diet of sugar-heavy processed foods -- even those with a traditionally healthy cuisine and national food heritage, like Italy and Japan -- begin to see an endemic of the same metabolic syndrome diseases that plague our country today. Lustig argues that the food industry understands the malicious effect of sugar on health, but there is no real pressure to omit sugar from processed foods because sugar adds additional calories to food on the cheap and: The US only exports 3 things well in this global economy -- 1) Arms, 2) Enertainment, and 3) Food.

4) A Charlie Rose interview with Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the U.S. and the world. Financially conservative but socially pragmatic, Buffet argues that the rich absolutely need to be taxed at a much higher rate than they are currently. Interestingly, he discloses that out of all the people who work in his office, he is taxed at the lowest rate, only 17% on the total money he earned during the year. The next lowest rate is 33%, the highest 41%. This is because the marginal tax rate of capital gains (the money you have invested in stocks, bonds, and real-estate) is extremely low, and the rich clearly have more invested in capital than the rest. Last, the income tax only applies to the first $100,000 dollars made by an individual, benefitting the highest earners. Anyway, lots tax information and policy ideas can be found in this video.

5) Another Chalie Rose interview, this time with economist and professor Jeffrey Sachs. Also a lot going on in this video, but some of the best points are that the political/economic system is clearly not working the lower and middle classes, as well as the idea that our politicians are inept are producing medium/long-term structural plans to increase our global competitiveness. Instead, they play a polarizing political game and advocate short-term stimulus that may buy us a few fish today but do not teach us how to fish tomorrow.