War on Drugs

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U.S. comparison to other countries

Official agencies and departments tasked with implementing drug policies, such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, argue that other countries with restrictive drug policies have for decades produced significantly better results than U.S. drug policies.^[59]^[60]

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Pharmaceuticals

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In another regard, the war on drugs affects the US in the manner of its impact upon how health care providers employ psychoactive medications already extant in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia (many of which have the potential for abuse, or for use as chemical precursors to substances proscribed by the Controlled Substances Act).

To take as one example, patients with ADHD are commonly prescribed various stimulant medications in maintenance regimens to control the symptoms of the condition. Frequently used drugs are Ritalin (Methylphenidate), Dexedrine (Dextroamphetamine), Adderall (Amphetamine), and Desoxyn (Methamphetamine). All three of these products (and their congeners) are rated as Schedule II drugs which - per CDS-imposed regulations - can only be dispensed in amounts suitable for a month's medication at most, with the requirement that each month's supply can be renewed only with the auhorization of yet another written prescription. Licensed prescribers are not even permitted to telephone or fax an authorization for refill to the patient's pharmacy.

This obliges patients on stable regimens of therapy to physically visit their health care providers for reasons of regulatory compliance rather than medical necessity, adding substantially to the aggregate burden in financial cost accruing nationally due to the incidence of ADHD in the population, and providing no substantive benefit to either the patient or the community.

Another example is found in the 2005 Combat Methamphetamine Act, which seeks to control the volume of retail purchase of pseudoephedrine, a safe and effective over-the-counter systemic decongestant, simply because the methods by which these pseudoephedrine products can be used to extract a chemical base for the illicit manufacture of methamphetamine has become widespread knowledge in the flourishing black market for drugs of abuse.

This latter government grope in the War on (Some) Drugs serves to impose a major financial burden on the pharmaceuticals industry (forcing the reformulation of well-established products with the substitution of the demonstrably less effective decongestant phenylephrine) as well as substantially increased costs upon pharmacies and inconveniences upon patients on the dubious grounds that it poses a minor inconvenience to the hardened criminals running meth labs.

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See also

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References

^ Edward Marshall: UNCLE SAM IS THE WORST DRUG FIEND IN THE WORLD, New York Times 1911
^ W.W. Willoughby: Opium as an international problem, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1925
^ ROOSEVELT ASKS NARCOTIC WAR AID, 1935
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Thirty years of america's drug war: a chronology
^ Nixon Commission Report Advising Decriminalization of Marijuana Celebrates 30th Anniversary - NORML
^ Reed Irvine: THE MEDIA AS DRUG PROMOTERS, AIM Report January 1986
^ Marihuana-hashish epidemic and its impact on United States security : hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-third Congress, second session [-Ninety-fourth Congress, first session .. (1974)]
^ Drug Policy News, Drug Policy Education Group, Vol. 2 No.1, Spring/Summer 2001, p.5
^ "Weekly News in Review", DrugSense Weekly, August 31, 2001 #215
^ National Drug Control Strategy—Budget summary. PDF. White House (February 2005). Retrieved on January 5, 2007.
^ The Economic Costs of Drug Abuse in The United States 1992–1998. PDF. Office of National Drug Control Policy (September 2001). Retrieved on January 5, 2007.
^ ^a ^b ^c Monitoring The Future
^ Stephen R. Kandall, M.D.:Women and Addiction in the United States—1850 to 1920
^ Charles White bread: The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States
^ Controlling Cocaine: Supply Versus Demand Programs
^ The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations / Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras. The National Security Archive, The George Washington University.
^ ^a ^b Cock burn, Alexander; Jeffrey St. Clair (1998). Whiteout, the CIA, Drugs and the Press. New York: Verso. ISBN 1-85984-258-5.
^ The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations
^ Excerpts From the Iran-Contra Report: A Secret Foreign Policy
^ DEA: What America need to know about Marijuana
^ Marijuana is US's biggest cash crop.
^ Lester Grinspoon, M.D.& James B. Bakalar, J.D. (February 3, 1994). "The War on Drugs—A Peace Proposal": 357–360. New England Journal of Medicine.
^ Federal Bureau of Investigation. Crime in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991.
^ Austin J, McVey AD. The 1989 NCCD prison population forecast: the impact of the war on drugs. San Francisco: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1989.
^ Jeff Yates, Gabriel J. Chin & Todd Collins, A War on Drugs or a War on Immigrants? Expanding the Definition of 'Drug Trafficking' in Determining Aggravated Felon Status for Non-Citizens, 64 Maryland Law Review 875 (1995)
^ Gabriel J. Chin, Race, The War on Drugs, and the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction, 6 Journal of Gender, Race & Justice 253 (2002)
^ Private Security Transnational Enterprises in Colombia José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective February, 2008.
^ Stokes, Doug (2005). America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia. Zed Books. ISBN 1-84277-547-2. p. 99
^ Boucher, Richard (2002-05-01). Colombia: Determination and Certification of Colombian Armed Forces with Respect to Human Rights-Related Conditions. U.S. Embassy in Colombia. Retrieved on 2006-06-23.
^ El Tiempo (2004-05-24). The nation is sentenced to pay 2000 million pesos to the victims of the attack on Santo Domingo. International Labor Rights Forum.
^ Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights (2005-12-11). El senado norteamericano pone objeciones a la Brigada XVII por violaciones graves al derecho internacional humanitario (Spanish).
^ Lloyd, Marion. "Attorneys general cite shared responsibility", Houston Chronicle, 2007-01-11.
^ Subject: Christic Institute (PDF). Lawsuit: Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey v. John Hull, et al.'. Federal Bureau of Investigation (1987).
^ Webb, Gary. "Iran-Contra articles", San Jose Mercury News.
^ Webb, Gary (1998). Dark alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the crack cocaine explosion. Seven Stories. ISBN 1-888363-68-1.
^ Frederick Hitz. "CIA Inspector General report into allegations of connections between the CIA and the Contras in cocaine trafficking to the United States". . CIA
^ Asia Times, Dec. 4, 2001, http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CL04Df01.html
^ Hager, Paul (1991). The Drug War and the Constitution. The Libertarian Corner.
^ Redlich, Warren (2005-02-05). A Substantive Due Process Challenge to the War on Drugs (PDF). “It is true that the approach suggested in this paper would limit the police power. Constitutional protection of individual rights exists for that very purpose. We face coercive government action, carried out in a corrupt and racist manner, with military and paramilitary assaults on our homes, leading to mass incarceration and innocent deaths. We can never forget the tyranny of a government unrestrained by an independent judiciary. Our courts must end the War on Drugs.”
^ Amicus brief NORML
^ Is the Constitution in Harm’s Way? Substantive Due Process and Criminal Law Eric Tennen
^ Don Podesta and Douglas Farah, "Drug Policy in Andes Called Failure," Washington Post, March 27, 1993
^ Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure
^ 2005 Coca Estimates for Colombia. Office of National Drug Control Policy (April 14, 2006). Retrieved on October 04, 2007.
^ Juan Forero, "Colombia's Coca Survives U.S. plan to uproot it", The New York Times, August 19, 2006
^ CBC News (2007-01-15). Canada's anti-drug strategy a failure, study suggests.
^ Bullington, Bruce; Alan A. Block (March 1990). "A Trojan horse: Anti-communism and the war on drugs" (in English). Crime, Law and Social Change 14 (1): 39-55. Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/BF00728225. ISSN 1573-0751.
^ Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2005). Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. Hamish Hamilton.
^ Miller, Richard Lawrence (1996). Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State (Greenwood Publishing Group). ISBN 0275950425
^ Eaton, Danice K.; Laura Kann, Steve Kinchen, James Ross, Joseph Hawkins, William A. Harris, Richard Lowry, Tim McManus, David Chyen, Shari Shanklin, Connie Lim, Jo Anne Grunbaum, Howell Wechsler (2006-06-09). Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2005. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
^ Miron, Jeffrey A. (2007-09-17). Costs of Marijuana Prohibition: Economic Analysis. Marijuana Policy Project. Retrieved on 2007-12-27.
^ Johnston, L. D.; O'Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G. & Schulenberg, J. E. (2005-11-30). Table 13: Trends in Availability of Drugs as Perceived by Twelfth Graders (PDF). Teen drug use down but progress halts among youngest teens. Monitoring the Future.
^ "Perspectives", Scientific American, December 2004
^ Nature Medicine, October 2003
^ How drug-free zone laws impact racial disparity–and fail to protect youth. Justice Policy Institute. Retrieved on July 27, 2006.
^ Rebecca Bowe, "The drug war on the Amazon," E: The Environmental Magazine, Nov–Dec, 2004
^ Larry Rohter, "To Colombians, Drug War is a Toxic Foe," New York Times; May 1, 2000
^ Blumenson, Eric; Eva S. Nilsen (2002-05-16). How to construct an underclass, or how the War on Drugs became a war on education (PDF). Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts.
^ UNODC World drug report 2007
^ UNODC: Sweden's successful drug policy, 2007

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External links

Cocaine overdose cases quadruple at hospitals Telegraph.co.uk 25 May 2008
The War on Drugs is the subject of the 2007 documentary film "American Drug War"
The War on Drugs is covered in the 2006 documentary film "Cocaine Cowboys"
Students for Sensible Drug Policy An international grassroots network of students working to end the War on Drugs.
Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy Full text of major government commission reports on the drug laws from around the world over the last 100 years
Historical Research on the Drug War Full text of numerous full histories of the drug war and thousands of original historical documents
National Drug Threat Assessment 2006 from the United States Department of Justice
War On Drugs: Legislation in the 108th Congress and Related Developments, a 2003 report from the Congressional Research Service via the State Department website
Review of the War on Drugs
Gabriel Chin, Race, the War on Drugs and the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction, 6 Journal of Race, Gender & Justice 253 (2002)
Michael Blanchard & Gabriel J. Chin, Identifying the Enemy in the War on Drugs: A Critique of the Developing Rule Permitting Visual Identification of Indescript White Powders in Narcotics Prosecutions, 47 American University Law Review 557 (1998)
Drug War Facts
Drug War Distortions
November Coalition—Working to end drug war injustice
The Anti-drugwar Over 100 years of Headlines
Wasted in the War on Drugs report by Citizens Against Government Waste
Cato Institute Drug Prohibition Research
The Media Awareness Project
Nobel Prize in Economics winner Milton Friedman interviewed about his opposition to the War on Drugs
Lawful Arrest FAQ
The Prison Industrial Complex War on Drugs Documentary
Another documentary film, The Damage Done
War on Drugs—How government drug war policies promote violence, destroy liberty and actually increase drug abuse.
How America Lost the War on Drugs—Rolling Stone Magazine, November 27, 2007
The Report of the Canadian Government Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs—1972
Drug War Victims
(Dutch) War on Drugs

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