The War On Drugs, Is It Worth It?

I wonder how much money the United States has spent fighting the war on drugs over, well, let's say the last 30 years. Experts figure that the cost runs into the area of 50 billion dollars a year trying to stop the drug traffic, and 100 billion per year when you factor in the cost of putting drug offenders thru the court system. The monetary reason alone of course is not the only reason that drugs should be legalized, there are many other reasons why the war on drugs is not worth the time, money, and effort that is spent on it.

Legalizing drugs would free up police and other law enforcement resources to be used in other areas, fighting non drug related crimes. Statistics show that 1/3 to 1/2 of law enforcement is used in the drug prevention and interaction support. This money could be served much better by going after offenders involved in rape, murder, robbery, and other violent crimes. Also, many violent crimes are committed as a result of the criminal trying to support the drug habit, because the cost of drugs is so highly inflated by the illegality of the drugs themselves. Let's say a kilo of cocaine costs $8000 in Columbia, it would sell wholesale for $75,000, and go for $750,000 on the streets of the United States. The more expensive the habit, the more difficult it is to obtain that 'fix' that a drug user wants, this results in more crime to obtain ways of getting the drug.

Prisons within the United States are horribly overcrowded, and the single largest category of prisoner is the drug user, in most cases a non violent crime, such as possession of a controlled substance. Legalizing drugs would free up much of this prison space, in turn costing the tax payers less money. Money would also be saved in the judicial system, because not only would it eliminate petty drug court cases, but also a lot of violent crime related to getting the drug, making our streets safer also. Burglaries and theft to support habits would decrease by at least 50% if drugs were legalized because the price of the drugs would go down so much. Gang crime related to drugs would become nearly non existent, because the money would no longer be there for gangs to collect. How often do you see street gangs in a rival war over cigarettes? You don't, because as a legal commodity, cigarettes do not carry near the market value to entice black market interest. This in turn would cripple organized crime, which relies heavily on the street value of illegal drugs to market it's operations.

I'm not for capitalism or free trade of drugs though, I believe the government would be the only entity given the right to sell drugs, and we all know the government is unable to make money at anything, so God knows no one will be able to undersell them. As the price of drugs goes down, crime will also go down, and no one can compete with the government to try and make money off of drugs if they are priced around the same as cigarettes. Even if drugs were prices a mere 5 times what cigarettes are priced, that is still 20 times cheaper than black market prices for illegal drugs now, and would still be so cheap that organized crime would be unable to compete, how can you compete with the government? Our government has a long and proud tradition of losing tons of money, nothing is going to change now!!!

Those who buy drugs from the government would have a profile for their drug use and be required to attend intervention classes and discussion meetings with others who use drugs in order to help those addicted to drugs, rather than just tossing them in prison with very little intervention. I suppose you could say this isn't really "legalizing" drugs, more like subsidizing drugs to the public, but it's for damn sure better than what we have going on now. People who are in these programs would have to show some sort of progress to get over their need for drugs, through a lot of therapy, one on one and group. Oh, you might say, what about the cost of all of this on the taxpayer? Well, it's unlikely that the amount of money we spend as taxpayers on programs such as this would come even close to the amount of money spent the way things are going right now, I doubt even 1/10th of the money we spend now would be needed. Plus money collected from the sale of drugs would be used to fund the programs too.

But what about the movie stars and other people who are well known who use drugs, they will refuse to enter programs for interdiction? These people aren't normally the people you see car jacking and robbing others to support their habits, the low chance that you will see someone with money committing violent crimes would supersede a huge need for them to enter programs to help them with their drug addictions.

I am not advocating drug use by any means, and I think it's sad that people have to resort to the use of illicit drugs rather than finding responsible, natural highs to make life enjoyable. This is probably my most controversial post to date, but as I look in the paper and on TV every day and see all the bad things that happen as a result of illegal drug use, and all the money that is dumped into fighting illegal drugs, I realize that our nation has really done nothing to actually curtail either the flow of illegal drugs into the United States, nor the use of the drugs by the American public, so something different has to happen.

Sports Rock, Wear Your Jock!!!

Actually though, I haven't worn a jock strap since the 8th grade, and that was the only time I ever wore one. I played football that year, I just had to try it once. 45 of us went out for football, and they had only 15 of these coveted practice jerseys, and I won the last one, that was my moment of fame in football.

But anyways, I figured since I tend to spend a considerable amount of time checking out sports, be it watching ESPN on television, reading about things in the Omaha World Herald sports section, or browsing espn.com online, I should maybe put up a fun little post about a few things in sports. I'm certain that I could probably go on and on for about 10 pages of text here but I'll try somehow to shorten what I've got here.

My favorite sport is college football. Yah, you NFL junkies can say what you want about 'level of competition' and all that jazz, and I do like the San Fransisco 49ers in the NFL (even though they hired a complete moron as head coach in Dennis Ericksen), but college football is awesome, EVERY game means EVERYTHING in college football, there are few sports you can say that about. This is because college football has no real playoff format, at the end of the season, whoever the pollsters deem to be number one and number two, they go at it in the title game, a 'bowl game' with all the marbles at stake. A loss during the season can be the end to any team's hopes of winning the national title. In the NFL, a team can lose 5, 6, even 7 games and still get into the playoffs, still having a shot at winning the Super Bowl, and although I do enjoy watching the NFL, the emotion levels in college ball are so much higher.

In the NBA I like the Charlotte Hornets, woops, I mean, the New Orleans Hornets. Forgot momentarily that they moved a couple years back. Oh my, but wait, now Charlotte has a group together and they are going to have the next NBA team, so who in the hell am I supposed to root for now??? Oh the confusion, I think I'm going to wet my pants!!! But honestly, do I stick with the city, the team, the players, the team colors??? The colors haven't changed for the Hornets, but the players change all the time, the city has changed, all this is perplexing, first off, why did Charlotte ever allow the Hornets to leave in the first place if they are going to get another team in right away?? Secondly, interestingly enough, New Orleans had a team once, it was called the Jazz, now of course they are the "Utah Jazz", a name that is hilarious if you think about it, why don't they change the stinking team name to something more appropriate, like the Utah Latter Day Saint Ballers, or the Utah Basketballigamists? (sorry, had to poke a little fun at the Mormons heh). Well, when it costs about 100 bucks for two tickets to a game, I guess I have to realize that what the fans want is usually the last thing on anyones minds in management, be it the team management or NBA management overall.

In major league baseball, I like the Oakland A's. But there are some truly screwy things in baseball. This sport has the most ludicrous sense of what a salary cap is for, I have tried to understand it, I cannot. If there is a salary cap of some kind, obviously the Yankees have found some way to circumvent and weasel their way around the cap. They outbid every other team to steal away every big name player you can think of, and then thier fans wonder why people HATE the Yankees with such vehemency, well DUH, doesn't really take a genius to see why, what the Yankees and that jackass owner of their's Steinbrenner do is cheating, legal or not. It's so fun to watch them lose, and I think that they will be doing a lot of losing, perhaps not during the season, but certainly in the post season, because a team with that many big name stars on it cannot gel with any reasonable amount of cohesion, where as teams like the A's, the Angels, and even the fun loving Twins, can gel because there aren't a bunch of big names in the clubhouse that don't get along with one another. It's sort of like why you don't want a bunch of roosters at one time in your hen house.

For the record, I like the Pittsburgh Penguins in the National Hockey League, but I don't know jack about hockey so I don't follow them too closely. In NASCAR I tend to follow the Dodge cars, because I'm a Dodge man, although... each time I see the Subaru WRX I sort of get all excited and nearly need a cold shower, but that's another story altogether.

Ahh, I love sports, and it's so fun to bitch about sports too haha.

Deer = Menace To Society

Oh, how I remember during my early teenage years, living on our farm, how I hoped that people who would ask to hunt on our land wouldn't be killing deer, because deer were so precious looking, so innocent, God forbid someone try and hurt little Bambi.

Now I would readily pay people to hunt them outright. There are now more deer on the planet, by far, then there ever have been in the history of the planet. They are a vermin scum of the earth. Having hit three of them with two different cars, you could say that my attitudes about deer have changed. Today there are more than 27 million deer roaming around our nation. There are more than 1.5 million deer/vehicle collisions annually, resulting in well over a billion dollars in damages and injuries, and that doesn't even take into account the death tolls. In 1994, 211 people died in deer/vehicle collisions.

In October of 2001, I was driving my Chrysler Lebaron convertible along, when BOOM, a deer was in front of me and I struck it. I never even had time to touch my brakes before the impact, the airbag in my car deployed, giving me a bloody nose and ripping my chin open (I advocate the use of airbags though, they are important safety devices). The first thought that went thru my head was: "how the hell did that bastard get INTO my car to kick me???". This was before I realized it was the airbag that blasted me.

The car I drive presently is a 1991 Dodge Shelby Daytona IROC. Purchased at a police auction for a mere 190 dollars, I spent more than 3000 in time and money putting the car back together. Then in December of 2001, I was driving along highway 66 again, and there were deer in both lanes as I crested a hill, and I glanced one of them off the side of my driver's front fender. This was extremely irritating. Then in September of 2002, I hit one again, on the SAME HIGHWAY, so hard off the passenger side that it ripped the headlight cover clean off and bent the hood in, along with pushing the fender back so I could not open the passenger door.

I have also hit a dog with my Daytona, and a cow with my Turbo Sundance, but those are other stories. As you can see, my dislike for deer was developed by a series of mishaps with them, leading me to wonder: Why are deer so incredibly suicidal? And also, why do they choose my car to end thier lives against? Of course, my friend Travis has a better idea as to what is going on.

Travis asked me one day if I had the deer whistles on my car. I laughed, because I have read several times that they don't do any good at all (independent studies done have shown negligible differences between having the whistles and not having them.) Travis said that I most likely have them on backwards, to which everyone present laughed, myself included. The thought of deer, merrily going about thier business in a corn field, suddenly hearing my car, and running as fast as they can because they are attracted to the noise, and throwing themselves into the path of my vehicle, well, that was good for a pretty decent chuckle.

Laws on deer hunting were brought about to protect deer around the turn of the century when thier numbers had dwindled to about 300,000. Now they have obviously made more than a comeback. They no longer have much if any of natural enemies, grizzly bears numbers are way down, mountain lions are rarely ever seen in most areas east of the Rockies. Overpopulation of deer destroy even thier own habitat, not allowing the natural progression of forestry to occur, this in turn significantly reduces the numbers of rare songbirds and other animals who depend on woodland areas to live.

It's really high time that deer are hunted year round, any weapons, no limit to how many a hunter can bag. The bleeding heart animal rights activists should all be forced to drive Geo Metros and have collisions at 55 mph with deer until they realize that, yes, my goodness, there truly is a problem that needs to be addressed.

A Humorous Quote For Today

I saw this a couple days ago, unfortunately I can't remember who it was who said it, I read it in the newspaper.

"I was a liberal for years, then I got a real job."

Made me laugh when I saw it.

Beef, Satan's Meat

I was recently doing one of those online tests. You know the ones I'm talking about, that can tell you everything from what actor you were in another life to what bird best represents you. Anyways, this one had to do with my health. Supposedly, this test was going to tell me my 'actual age' compared to my real age. So I was bee-bopping along, doing the questions, telling them how I exercise, how my family has a history of this or that, that my blood pressure is low compared to the average, when I came across this question. "How often do you eat red meat?"

Now, the question itself wasn't offensive in nature, it was the choice of answers that totally blew my mind. "(a) once a week, (b) once every two weeks, (c) once a month,
(d) fewer than once a month." What sort of idiot, tree eating moron comes up with a question like this? I eat red meat at least 4 times a week, usually in a moderate helpings. So does nearly everyone else I know. Are we in the midwest insane? Are our eating habits that of the extinct caveman, with all of us ready to follow him into the never to be seen again cave of doom? I can only imagine what sort of atrocious damage these so called 'experts' attribute to red meat and the horrific danger of eating it. I also exercise regularly, I do not smoke, and I don't drink all that often. I would say that my driving would be more dangerous to my health than my eating of red meat would ever be.

At least the authors of this particular test didn't attack beef outright like some people have done. Take Howard Lyman, director of the Humane Society's "Eating With Conscience" campaign. Lyman appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1998 and attacked beef, making the most outrageous claims you could imagine about how bad eating beef is. Winfrey asked Lyman: "You say this disease could make AIDS look like the common cold?" "Absolutely," Lyman answered. Ms. Winfrey herself had sworn off eating both chicken and beef. "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger," she said. How interesting, because time has told the truth, considering that to date, there have been 2 cases, count 'em, two cases of the so called "Mad Cow Disease" within the United States.

As far as "Mad Cow Disease" goes, the best that any expert was ever able to do was to link the use of dead animals in the feed of cattle to the disease itself. United States beef producers have not used dead animals in cattle feed since the 1960's. There is still a critical lack of hard evidence to suggest that Mad Cow was ever even a credible disease to begin with. Even in Great Britain, where the "epidemic" started, the death toll was around 110, far below what many scientists had estimated, some of the more insane estimates were nearing 150,000 deaths. Oprah Winfrey can quit eating burgers, that's fine with me, that just means more for me to eat. And as far as her eating habits, seems to me Winfrey has a lot more to worry about than simply cutting back on the red meat.

I have watched my father yo-yo up and down with his weight for as long as I can remember. He has gone from 170 lbs (looking gaunt and deathly, with horrible breath because his body wasn't getting what it needed nutrition wise) to 320 lbs, which obviously was not good at all. His unhealthy eating lifestyle had way more to do with his ridiculous intake of carbohydrates than it had anything to do with red meat. Of course, I'm not trying to say that no one should ever eat pasta or bread. The point I'd really like to get across is this: eating just about anything to excess is not good for you. But putting a huge bulk of the unhealthy American lifestyle on red meat is completely unfair. The simplest way to be healthy is to maintain a reasonable weight by 1) decreasing caloric intake, and 2) increasing your cardiovascular exercise. Less food,more activity, basically, in simplest terms.

I will be starting a "Plant Lover's United" organization to attack vegetarians around the world for killing and eating off our beloved green species, our oxygenating friends, being ingested for the pleasure of vegetarians everywhere. Sounds pretty ridiculous, far fetched? Well, that's how I consider anyone trying to take a flame broiled cheeseburger out of my hands to be too.