cannabisnews.com: Fixin' Under Nixon Part Two!





Fixin' Under Nixon Part Two!
Posted by FoM on May 13, 1999 at 08:01:49 PT
Source: Salon Magazine
You have to go back to the 1970s to find the last time that the United States had any real success in keeping heroin or cocaine out of the country. The drug traffickers have become so sophisticated and powerful that they have, in the last 20 years, shown themselves able to frustrate and counter every single tactic that the U.S. government has thrown at them.
There is so much cocaine produced that there is a glut on the world market, and the supply in this country, as measured by the price, has remained at extremely high levels, despite our growing investment. I think it is a huge waste of our resources to keep up these efforts. I recently wrote an article in which I tried to show that for the cost of one customs surveillance plane, which is about $47 million, it would be possible to get rid of all the waiting lists for treatment in Washington, D.C.You argue that Reagan made the crack epidemic worse than it had to be.One cannot blame a government for the eruption of a drug epidemic. It has deep causes. What I fault the Reagan administration for is doing nothing to provide services to people caught up in the crack epidemic. There was ample warning that something terrible was developing. Treatment experts were going to the White House and telling them, "Cocaine is becoming cheaper, it's going down the socioeconomic ladder, if it reaches the inner city, we are going to have a major crisis on our hands." The Reagan people listened to this and completely ignored it. They did nothing to try to provide services, or make more treatment available, in anticipation of this, and ... even after crack hit, they continued to refuse to provide relief to these treatment facilities, which were becoming so overwhelmed with addicts. I feel that as a result of that, the crack epidemic was much worse than it needed to have been.Article found by DdC!Thanks DdC!Click the above link to read part two!
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