Negative Space: drug war
- ACLU and War on Drugs
- The following was written on ACLU Letterhead.
- America’s Crusade
- Subtitled “What is behind the latest war on drugs”, from Time, September 15, 1986, pp. 60-66, 86. The insane rhetoric of the war on drugs ranges from fears of bullet-proof blacks among turn-of-the-century Southern sheriffs to a comparison with foreign invasion by Charles Rangel, still a member of the House as I write this in 2006.
- Anti-War Fliers
- If you want to end the war and shit you’re gonna have to sing louder! Anti-drug war and anti-gun control fliers and posters.
- As reporters grow dependent on their regular drug-crisis fix
- Adam Paul Weisman writes about the “journalistic dream-world” where he “can write almost anything” and “nobody is going to call him on it”. From the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, September 26, 1986, p 21A.
- Beyond the War on Drugs: Overcoming a Failed Public Policy
- Steven Wisotsky’s 1990 book is subtitled “Breaking the Impasse in the War on Drugs”. It comes with an introduction by Thomas Szasz and in many ways is a repeat of so many books that have come before, chronicling the failures of the war on drugs but it also quantifies the “successes”: how the war on drugs energizes crime and corruption. “The law can imprison a black marketeer, but not the market itself.”
- Black Man as a Cash Crop
- According to Xona, America’s most profitable crop is the Black-American, reaped by the Criminal Justice System.
- Cargo cult police science
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Why should Johnson County deputies Mark Burns and Edward Blake be expected to perform better science than the climate scientists they see celebrated in the news?
- The Cartoon Guide to Recreational Drugs (213.7 KB)
- The Birds and the Bees do it, Pigs and Porcupines do it. But evidence suggests that humans are champion drug users. We are born with a natural urge to alter our consciousness. Children spin until they drop for the same reason that their parents drink alcohol. Nature requires it.
- The Crisis in Drug Prohibition
- David Boaz edits this collection of reasons for ending modern prohibition.
- DEA Agents fear the end of the drug war?
- DEA agents recognize that their paychecks depend on not winning the drug war?
- Designer Drugs
- Jack Shafer writes about the rise of “designer drugs”, the drug scourge of the eighties. From Science 85, March 1985, pp. 60-67.
- Drug Prohibition Recommended Reading
- Recommended books about the drug war and about recreational drugs in general.
- Drugs Around the World
- Links to information about the drug war outside the United States.
- If you support keeping drugs illegal…
- If you support prohibition, you support robbery, assault, higher taxes, and rape.
- Justice conjured is justice denied
- Blunting criticism of bad laws by exempting nice people.
- Learning from alcohol prohibition
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If the people against ending drug prohibition had been around in the thirties, we would never have ended the prohibition of beer and cocktails, because of the dangers of pure alcohol and bathtub gin. One of the lessons of the alcohol prohibition era is that we don’t have to go from banning everything to allowing everything. There is a middle ground.
- The Pathology of the War on Drugs: Corruption and Violence in the Black Market
- Prohibition isn’t just lucrative for organized crime, but also for law enforcement. Whereever prohibition is stepped up, corruption among law enforcement and the criminal justice system increases.
- The Pathology of the War on Drugs: The Assault on Justice and Civil Liberties
- The drug war begins to resemble the witch-hunts of centuries past, where lawyers are discouraged from representing the accused. And the tactics of drug warriors resemble the tactics of criminals so much that when criminals put on the uniform and masquerade as law enforcement, their victims can’t tell the difference.
- Solve the Drug War
- On December 5th, 1933, prohibition ended. That day, the drug lords were out of business. Today we have a new drug war, but the solution is the same: take away their profits and put the drug dealers out of business!
- Support the Dope
- Some narcotics officers group is cold-calling for fundraising, and they’re actually prepared for marijuana supporters.
- Tianamen Square and the Drug War
- Peter McWilliams, outspoken critic of the war on drugs, became a casualty in that war on June 14, 2000.
- Toward a Sane National Drug Policy
- Rolling Stone tackles the drug issue with an article by Ethan Nadelmann and Jann S. Wenner in Rolling Stone, May 5, 1994.
- Using (Recreational) Drugs
- Links to web pages about the drug war and prohibition.
- What lack of drugs does to you
- It’s amazing what a lack of drugs does to an otherwise rational human being.
- Why End Prohibition? (123.1 KB)
- A practical solution to the marijuana question.
More Information
- Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do
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Peter McWilliams died in defense of freedom: this book, an incredibly well-written and well-researched book about “the absurdity of consensual crimes in a free society” was probably his death warrant.
- Drug Law Studies Over the Years
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How many times does science have to say “no problem” before politicians get the picture? A great collection of summaries of major prohibition studies over the years.
- Ex-Cop Chides Calvo for Questioning the Cops Who Nearly Killed Him
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“When you’re using tactics designed to confuse and disorient the people in the house you’re raiding, you can’t then turn around and blame them when, disoriented and confused, they mistake the police for invading criminals.”
“The utter tone-deafness of this line from Schweinsburg is appalling. How dare this mayor question the cops who nearly killed him.”
