Left & Right: Boston bombing caused by our pet causes

Tamerlan & Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Whether it’s from boxing-induced brain damage …

Could the amateur boxing career of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the deceased suspect in last week’s Boston Marathon bombings, have had a role in the massacre? That’s a question leading brain researchers at Boston University’s School of Medicine hope medical examiners look into when they perform an autopsy of the 26-year-old who was killed during a firefight with law enforcement officials early Friday morning.

[…]

“Is it possible that some changes might have gone on in his overall functioning due to his boxing and potentially related brain disease? Yes,’’ said [Dr. Robert Stern]. “Anything is possible. But to then jump to the disease leading to well-planned behavior like this, I couldn’t go there.’’

… or marijuana-induced brain damage …

Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid is citing reports that the two Boston marathon bombers may have been drug dealers and that “the younger brother was a pothead” to argue “that dope’s effect on the brain is what may have led him into his brother’s terror activities.”

… it’s always reassuring to watch both the Left and Right go to ridiculous lengths to try and shoehorn an as-of-yet unexplained act of terrorism into their pet issues, especially if it allows them to eschew any uncomfortable discussion about possibly complex and nuanced factors in favor of a lazy and uselessly simplistic answer like “their brains work wrong!”.

Daily Blend: Saturday, July 07, 2012

Pres. Barack Obama

Nifty interactive map of global drug use by substance type.
(via The Agitator)

President Obama ^[pictured] jokes with bar patron about turning off Fox News; cue hysterical far-Right screeching about cowardice and censorship.

Conservapedia hearts Ed Brayton.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: World Drugs Report 2012 • United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime • Barack Obama • Fox News • conservatives • wingnuts • Twitchy • Conservapedia • Ed Brayton • Dispatches from the Culture Wars • obesity

Study: The relative (actual) harm of drugs

It’s obvious that the heavily politicized and increasingly militarized anti-drug effort in the U.S. (and to a lesser extent, elsewhere) has very little to do with the actual threat to individuals and society presented by the illicit substances, themselves. But for all the fear-mongering propaganda, it’s nonetheless evident that some drugs are more dangerous than others. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some sort of side-by-side comparison to see how different types of mind-altering chemicals rank in terms of the actual dangers they pose?

Well, a team of researchers and Britain’s Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs did just that, publishing a new study that summarizes their findings thus:

[full size (944×786)]

And here, the effects of society’s irrational approach to different drugs becomes clear. Some of the most dangerous and destructive substances (alcohol, cigarettes) are some of the most widely accepted and commercially available products sold over-the-counter practically on every street corner, whereas some of the more genuinely innocuous drugs with little or no actual harm (marijuana, LSD, even ’shrooms) will get you thrown behind bars for years merely for using them on your own time and dime. It all brings a new level of evidentiary support to the idea that were alcohol introduced just today, it would be universally decried as the greatest danger to society since the Commies – yet because it’s been such an integral part of human history, watch them rage (not that they shouldn’t) if anyone ever tried to take it away from them.

Study: Medicinal marijuana doesn’t increase teen drug use

Even though pot use amongst teenagers is reportedly on the rise and is apparently eclipsing cigarettes in popularity, a new study declares that contrary to prohibitionists’ baseless fear-mongering, there’s no evidence to suggest that the legalization of medicinal marijuana in several states is the cause:

For the new study, economists at three universities analyzed data from the youth risk survey that were collected from 1993 to 2009, and compared those results with when medical marijuana laws were passed. Over the 16-year-period included for analysis, medical marijuana was legalized in 13 states, including Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Currently 17 states legalize medical marijuana.

Researchers specifically examined the relationship between legalization and marijuana use at school, whether the teen was offered drugs on school property, and alcohol and cocaine use. Their results provided no evidence that medical marijuana legalization led to increases in pot use at school, the likelihood of being offered drugs at school, or the use of other harmful substances. The researchers also looked closely at state surveys of youth risk behavior and didn't find such evidence.

To be sure, this study is hardly the definitive word on the matter, least of all as it hasn’t been peer-reviewed, though these findings have also been confirmed in previous research on the matter. But nonetheless, it should be quite telling to any rational mind that the only evidence regularly – if ever – presented for why marijuana is so bad that legalizing it, even just for medicinal use, would result in youths everywhere being caught in its leafy, life-destroying clutches consists solely of third-party anecdotes that are endlessly rehashed around the prohibitionist circle-jerk until they retain all the legitimacy of Reefer Madness.

(via Study Finds/@radleybalko)

Tags: marijuana • pot • National Youth Risk Behavior Survey • YBRS • Centers for Disease Control • CDC • Institute for the Study of Labor • teenagers

DEA chief refuses to admit heroin is worse than marijuana

Michele Leonhart

I’m not sure which warps brains more, being on drugs or being put in charge of overseeing the ever-ongoing (and worsening) Drug War. Just look at poor Michele Leonhart, the DEA chief best known for declaring that mounting drug violence leading to scores of children being murdered is a sure sign that prohibitionists are approaching victory over the cartels. And now, here she is, unable (or unwilling) to admit that there are worse drugs in existence than mere weed:

During a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Drug Enforcement Administrator Michele Leonhart repeatedly refused to admit that anything was more addictive or harmful than marijuana.

Democratic Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado pressed Leonhart on whether illegal drugs like methamphetamine and crack, as well as legal prescription drugs, caused greater harm to public health compared to marijuana. But within a three minute time-span, Leonhart dodged his questions eleven times.

“Is crack worse for a person than marijuana?” Polis, who has called for an end to marijuana prohibition, asked.

“I believe all illegal drugs are bad,” Leonhart responded.

“Is methamphetamine worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?” Polis continued. “Is heroin worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?”

“Again, all drugs,” Leonhart began to say, only to be cut off by Polis.

“Yes, no, or I don’t know?” Polis said. “If you don’t know this, you can look this up. As the chief administrator for the Drug Enforcement Agency, I’m asking a very straightforward question.”

Be sure to watch the video of the exchange, which really brings home just how clueless she sounds:

Daily Blend: Wednesday, June 13, 2012

The written truth

Excellent piece by Radley Balko on the importance of always questioning authority.

Seven more U.S. states may legalize medicinal marijuana in 2012.

Oh, The Onion. ^[pictured]

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Radley Balko • David Brooks • authority • individualism • marijuana • pot • medical marijuana • medicinal marijuana • Illinois • HB 0030 • Massachusetts • Missouri • HB 1421 • New York • SB 7283 • New Hampshire • SB 409 • Ohio • Ohio Medical Cannabis Act of 2012 • Pennsylvania • SB 1003 • The Onion • U.S Military • Afghanistan • soldiers

Daily Blend: Friday, June 01, 2012

Dennis “Dave Mabus” Markuze

Connecticut becomes 17^th state to legalize medicinal marijuana. (Or, to the Obama administration, to paint a bull’s-eye on their dispensaries.)
(via @todayspolitics)

An update on the current status of Dennis “Dave Mabus” Markuze ^[pictured]. (If the name doesn’t ring a bell … good.)

Why do people keep trying to link atheism to high-functioning autism (aka Asperger’s)? (Better yet, why do some think it’s a mark against atheists?) Aspies’ brains are wired to favor logic over emotion; if anything, their conclusions are generally more reliable, less prone to emotional contamination. (Not that I’m biased, of course …)
(via The Daily Grail)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Connecticut, USA • medicinal marijuana • medical marijuana • marijuana • pot • Dennis Markuze • David Mabus • trolls • autism • Asperger syndrome

How to turn away pain patients: the game

Dr. McCarthy (r) testing “drug abuse detection” videogame

As if policies regarding prescription painkillers weren’t draconian enough already, there’s a new educational videogame on the way that would purportedly teach physicians how to recognize drug abusers posing as pain patients and turn them away, presumably with no risk whatsoever of actual pain sufferers being labeled as junkies and denied their medication:

As Dr. Danielle McCarthy listens to a man beg for a prescription for painkillers, she weighs her possible responses.

A 31-year-old emergency room physician, she listens patiently as the man tells her that “every morning I wake up in pain,” describing the agony he continues to endure, three years after being injured in a car wreck.

He has tried physical therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic treatment, he says. Nothing works except pills, he insists, as his voice grows louder and more demanding.

Their exchange is similar to conversations that take place on almost every shift at Northwestern Memorial Hospital here, Dr. McCarthy said. But it is fiction — part of an interactive video game designed to train doctors to identify deceptive behavior by people likely to abuse prescription painkillers. The patient is an actor whose statements and responses are generated by the program.

The video game was designed based on research by Dr. Michael F. Fleming at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and draws on technology used by the F.B.I. to train agents in interrogation tactics. It teaches doctors to look for warning signs of drug abuse, like a history of family problems, and to observe nonverbal signs of nervousness, like breaking eye contact, fidgeting and finger-tapping.

The game, which is in its final phase of testing, is aimed at primary care and family doctors, who often feel uncomfortable and unqualified assessing their patients in this regard.

Anyone who can’t immediately identify about two hundred problems with just about every aspect of this idea is categorically unfit to debate drug policy, much less craft it. Though, to be fair, I suppose the only option left for drug warriors who wanted to make the whole situation even more ridiculous and restrictive was to literally make a game of it.

The government seriously needs to get the hell out of the relationship between doctors and their patients. The only thing resulting from threatening medical workers with harassment and prosecution for doing their jobs is more and more victims of injury and malady being denied access to medicine. Chalk it up to yet more casualties in the blindly ideological and transparently futile war on human nature itself.

(via @jacobsullum)

Tags: Danielle McCarthy • Michael Fleming • drug abuse • drug abusers • pain patients • doctors

Daily Blend: Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Pitbull

Ohio does the right thing, declassifies pitbulls ^[pictured] as inherently “vicious”. More of this elsewhere, please.
(via @michaelbd)

A record low of 41% of Americans call themselves “pro-choice”. I wonder if that number would change minus the mistaken “pro-abortion” connotation given by lying anti-choice assholes.
(via ThinkProgress)

On the other hand, a record high of 56% of Americans support legalizing and regulating marijuana.
(via ThinkProgress)

Researchers update last year’s study showing how Fox News viewers are the least informed (even compared to people who don’t watch any news at all), increase the sample pool from New Jersey to nationwide. Same results.
(via @todayspolitics)

This “article” (read: collection of bratty tweets) from Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy only shows why you should, in fact, avoid anything related to Michelle Malkin.
(via @radleybalko)

Today’s winner for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Being So Ridiculous to the Point of Possible Satire.

What is it with Vox Day’s obsession with President Obama’s IQ?

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Ohio • pitbulls • dogs • pro-choice • pro-choicers • anti-choice • anti-choicers • anti-abortion • anti-abortionists • pro-abortion • pro-abortionists • marijuana • pot • Fox News • news channels • misinformation • Fairleigh Dickinson University • Twitchy • Michelle Malkin • Twitter • Charles Blow • Adam Serwer • American Thinker • Robert Gates • Mara Zebest • Poe's Law • Vox Day • Theodore Beale • Barack Obama • IQ • intelligence quotient • intelligence

Mexico’s top drug lord thanks Obama & Bush for his empire

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman

This dates back to 2009, but I only just heard about it and it’s so beyond priceless that I just had to mention it. From the annals of damning praise, this one ranks pretty much at the very top:

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera reported head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes' yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, today officially thanked United States politicians for making sure that drugs remain illegal. According to one of his closest confidants, he said, "I couldn't have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you."

I think I’m feeling empathetic pain for the new asshole every president since Nixon has just been torn. (Note that the latter doesn’t count because it would mean ripping his entire being in half.)

Even the Mexican President finds it hard to disagree:

According to sources in the Mexican government, President Calderon is begging American officials to, in the words of reggae great Peter Tosh, legalize it. "Oh yeah," said an official close to the Mexican president, "Felipe is going crazy. He's screaming at everybody who comes in, 'Why don't they make this sh*t legal already! You're killing me here!' Look, everyone knows, when you have Prohibition, you create gangsters. And the more you prohibit, the more gangsters you make. El Chapo is hero now to all those slumdogs who want to be millionaires. Kids in the street, when they play games, they all want to be El Chapo, the baddest man in the whole damn town."

“El Chapo” has since been named the “world’s most powerful drug trafficker” by the U.S. Treasury Department.

At this point, from spawning the Taliban to propping up dictators around the world, I’m starting to think the U.S. Government just enjoys continually creating its own worst enemies. Surely no-one can possibly be so wildly incompetent by accident?

Tags: El Chapo • Joaquin Guzman • drug lords • Mexico • Barack Obama • Felipe Calderon • War on Drugs

Daily Blend: Sunday, March 11, 2012

Pres. Barack Obama

Cough, cough. I’m sick. And I think my bed’s trying to eat me.

Part three of Radley Balko’s exposé on the war on prescription painkillers is now up. (Part 1 - Part 2)

President Obama ^[pictured] signs “Trespass Bill” criminalizing protests at certain Secret-Service-guarded restricted areas.

Shit like this …: Daily Kos diarist valiantly threatens the job of an elderly cashier for mildly criticizing the President.
(via @ggreenwald)

Vox Day explains why all you weak, uppity feminist wimmen really hate his blog: It’s because he’s right and you know it.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Radley Balko • painkillers • opioids • Drug Enforcement Administration • DEA • pain patients • Barack Obama • Obama administration • Trespass Bill • H.R. 347 • Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 • protests • DuzT • Daily Kos • Vox Day • Theodore Beale • women • feminists • misogyny • egalitarianism

Daily Blend: Thursday, February 23, 2012

Helen Ukpabio

ImageShack has decided to stop being cool and now demands a paid subscription to remove its new limit of 500 images. As a result, some older images on this blog may go dark on March 01, but given that I use Imgur by default, things should work out smoothly anyway. Stay tuned.

Nigerian child-witch-hunter and all-around deranged monster Helen Ukpabio ^[pictured] is coming to Texas.

Judge to atheist attacked for wearing Muhammad costume: “You were being offensive, even though you fully have the right to do so, and so you deserved to be assaulted, you doofus.”

Scientific American debunks more marijuana myths: “[M]ost people suffer no ill effects from a single or occasional use of the drug.”

Don’t call out reprehensible CNN commentator Dana Loesch with her own quotes, or she might call you a child-molesting sex offender.
(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Helen Ukpabio • witch-hunters • witchcraft • Marathon Deliverance • Parading Atheists of Central PA • Ernest Perce • Muhammad • Talaag Elbayomy • assault • Scientific American • marijuana • pot • Dana Loesch • Charles Johnson • defamation

Smart kids don’t do drugs – they jump off rooftops instead!

It’s long been established that advocacy groups who rely on shock-value and fear-mongering over appealing to people’s reason are universally terrible at what they do. And nowhere is this represented more vividly than in anti-drug PSAs from government outfits, such as with this video from Above the Influence:

My transcript: (click the [+/-] to expand/collapse →)

[−]

A teen boy prepares to leave school when he sees other kids smoking a doobie in a stairwell. He climbs past them, runs onto the roof and then starts jumping across rooftops from building to building, watching as other teens consume alcohol and other drugs on the streets below. He finally lands on the ground and starts walking coolly.

BOY (v.o.): Every day, I rise above it.

The lesson, kids: Drugs are dangerous, so you should jump off of rooftops instead. ’Cause Parkour totally isn’t dangerous.

Amazing incompetence.

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Above the Influence • Public Service Announcements • PSAs • Rise Above • Parkour • freerunning

Daily Blend: Monday, February 06, 2012

Diane Avera

Mississippi grandmother ^[pictured] who went to Alabama to buy cold medication now faces a year in prison.
(via @radleybalkp)

Report: U.S. drones increasingly target rescuers and mourners at sites of previous drone attacks.
(via The Agitator)

Meanwhile, cowardly anonymous Obama administration official calls drone attack critics al-Qaeda enablers.

Today in horrifying but vital upcoming documentaries: Kidnapped for Christ.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) goes after the racist vote.

Poor ol’ Woody(’s (newly-fired) PR flack) crashes and burns during Reddit AMA session.
(via @ebertchicago)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Sudafed • cold medicine • Diane Avera • pseudoephedrine • methamphetamine • meth • crystal meth • Glenn Greenwald • unmanned drones • Kidnapped for Christ • Christians • gays • Escuela Caribe • Pete Hoekstra • China • Debbie Wabenow • campaign ads • racism • xenophobia • Woody Harrelson • Reddit • AMA • Ask Me Anything • Rampart

Daily Blend: Thursday, January 26, 2012

Bill Gates

• Shorter Washington State police: “There’s no good evidence for it, but we think your kids might all be getting hooked on heroin.”
  (via The Agitator)

• “In sum, Obama has deftly and intelligently pursued ignominious and ignoble foreign-policy goals.”

• The Land of the Free slips to #47 in world press freedom index. (Canada is #10 – yay?)
  (via The Agitator)

• Funny world: Founder ^[pictured] of evil technological empire is quickly becoming the greatest philanthropist in human history.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: heroin • Washington • Dave Hoag • Glenn Greenwald • Barack Obama • foreign policy • Press Freedom Index • Reporters Without Borders • USA • United States • Canada • Bill Gates • Microsoft • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • charity • Global Fund

Illinois police now tracks everyone who buys cold medicine

Side-effects may include drowsiness, dry mouth and heightened police interest

Falling sick just got that much more uncomfortable, at least for anyone who buys cough syrup or allergy pills in Illinois:

Buying a package of allergy medicine at the corner drugstore will put you in a state police database under a new Illinois law aimed at identifying people who make methamphetamine.

Gov. Pat Quinn signed the measure into law Friday, saying a pilot project in southern Illinois has helped police tracking sales of medicines that can be used to make meth has helped police crack down.

The goal is to watch for large purchases of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, which are found in some cold, allergy and sinus medicines such as Claritin-D and certain Sudafed products.

Stores already keep the products behind the counter to guard against theft and record who buys them. Now stores will transmit those records electronically to state police. The information sent to authorities will include the customer’s name and address.

The tracking program started as a pilot project in 2009 in several southern Illinois counties. Since then, police have found and seized 155 meth labs and made 231 arrests thanks to the pilot project, Quinn said.

Oh, well, that makes the eradication of people’s expectation of privacy and the relentless expansion of the police state feel like totally small beans by comparison, don’t it? As long as a bunch of ground-level druggies are shut down, to hell with those civil liberties and stuff.

I have to wonder, though, is whether products like Claritin-D, Advil and Sudafed should now start placing “Please note that buying this product places you under police surveillance” warning labels on their products.

(via @radleybalko)

Tags: Illinois • Pat Quinn • cold medicine • allergy medicine • meth • crystal meth • methamphetamine

MO pot legalization activists fined for petitioning

What are we looking at, here: Typical blundering from half-competent St. Charles, Missouri law enforcement, or a deliberate tactic to discourage marijuana legalization advocates from rallying support? From Daily RFT:

Show-Me Cannabis Regulation activists plan to canvass the intersection of Main and Monroe streets tonight at 9:30 p.m. as a peaceful protest against two of its volunteers being cited by St. Charles police for "soliciting without a permit" shortly after midnight this past Saturday.

​According to John Payne, Show-Me Cannabis Regulation's Saint Louis Regional Director, the two volunteers were soliciting nothing -- they were actually asking people to sign their petition for the legalization and subsequent government regulation of cannabis in Missouri. "The right to petition our government is the most fundamental right we possess as Americans and is part of the foundation of republican government. These citations will not deter us from exercising that right," Payne stated in the group's press release.

[…]

At the moment, the Missouri Civil Liberties Association (MOCLA) is considering pursuing a civil suit against the City of St. Charles "for violating the right of citizens to petition the government for redress of grievances" on behalf of the two volunteers.

It seems clear that the activists were well within their rights to gather names for their petition, which brings me back to questioning the motive for their citing. Were the cops ignorant of the law or mistaken about the petitioners’ activities, or else was this an intentional strike against the pro-legalization lobby?

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Show-Me Cannabis Reform • marijuana legalization • pot legalization • marijuana • pot • petitions • Missouri Civil Liberties Association • MOCLA • St. Charles, MO • John Payne

Daily Blend: Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Bob Marshall (R-VA)

My mother just argued that modern medicine is unreliable because Medieval doctors thought diseases were spread through the eyeball. Or something. (Pity me).

• Melbourne, FL police: That 66-year-old man with dementia we beat up attacked us! Dash-cam: No, he didn’t.
  (via The Agitator)

• Marine biologist faces $500K fine and 20 years in prison for watching whales eat.
  (via The Agitator)

• Christian-Rightists: It’s totally unfair that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls us “hate groups” for lying about those immoral, diseased, perverted, child-molesting, diaper-wearing, anti-human faggots!

• Stupid and dishonest: SOPA sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and MPAA dismiss Wikipedia & co. protests as a “publicity stunt” to “further their corporate interests”.

• Virginia Senate candidate Bob Marshall’s (R) ^[pictured] 10 greatest (outrageous) hits.

• How to Write a Clichéd, Unpersuasive Argument Against Drug Legalization.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Andrew Sullivan defends President Obama’s accomplishments and long-term goals, though his numerous abuses and betrayals – the hardest-hitters in my book – barely get a passing mention.
  (via @VeritasKnight)

• Post-racial!
  (via @VeritasKnight)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Melbourne Police Department • Albert Flowers • WFTV • Derek Middendorf • Nancy Black • killer whales • grey whales • Marine Mammal Protection Act • Americans For Truth About Homosexuality • AFTAH • Liberty Counsel • Peter LaBarbera • Matt Barber • Southern Poverty Law Center • SPLC • homosexuality • gays • Patrick Wooden • Stop Online Piracy Act • SOPA • Lamar Smith • MPAA • Motion Picture Association of America • Wikipedia • Bob Marshall • Virginia Senate • Scott Morgan • marijuana • pot • medical marijuana • medicinal marijuana • Manon McKinnon • Andrew Sullivan • Barack Obama • MLK • Martin Luther King, Jr. Day • racism

Daily Blend: Friday, January 06, 2012

Newt Gingrich

• New study suggests that previous studies and the media exaggerated the dangers of meth.
  (via The Agitator)

• Ed Brayton explains in painstaking detail why President Obama, for all the good he’s done, is nonetheless a liar, fraud, and disaster. I sadly couldn’t agree more.

• Ed also demolishes the laughably ridiculous claim that the U.S. is “the greatest force for good the world has ever seen”.

• “Historian” Newt Gingrich ^[pictured]: Pot-growing Founding Fathers would have violently persecuted pot-growers.
  (via The Agitator)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: methamphetamine • meth • crystal meth • Ed Brayton • Barack Obama • State Secrets Privilege • Obama administration • USA • United States • Michele Bachmann • Newt Gingrich • Thomas Jefferson • marijuana • George Washington • hemp

Fail Quote: DEA chief spins hundreds of dead children as sign of victory in Drug War

Michele Leonhart

In case you wanted more proof of the utter amorality that’s leading the endless and entirely pointless bloodbath that is the War on Drugs, look no further than the head of the DEA herself, Michele Leonhart, as she offers this astounding reaction to the news that children are becoming increasingly targeted in the ever-escalating violence between cartels:

U.S. and Mexican officials say the grotesque violence is a symptom the cartels have been wounded by police and soldiers. “It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs,” said Michele Leonhart, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The cartels “are like caged animals, attacking one another,” she added.

In other words: “I know this sounds completely fucking demented, but hundreds of children being butchered actually means we’re winning! For real this time! No, seriously!”

These drug warriors – Leonhart being a stellar example – are always coming up with new ways to spin butchery and inhumanity into a sign that the authorities are getting ever-so-closer to finally winning the Drug War. Of course, the grisly truth, as is obvious to anyone with their head not stuck up their ass, is that there can be no victory in such a barbaric conflict. The reason is abundantly simple: The primary enemy is not so much a clear or singular opponent, such as the cartels in themselves, but rather the desperation and greed that fuel them. In other words, these drug prohibitionists are effectively fighting against human nature in itself. This is why no prohibition has ever worked in the course of human history, and nor will it, no matter how far either side goes in their quest for supremacy.

One of the core lessons in life is never to attack the symptom(s), but the root cause(s) of a problem. Drug prohibitionists, in their mule-headed zeal and ignorance, are apparently content to keep squeezing the cartels, either not knowing or caring that they can never win, that the war will never end, and that the only outcome of increased pressure is increased casualties amongst the innocents. The only way to end the violence is, evidently enough, to end the war. Should that ever happen, the results would undeniably be remarkably similar to what the U.S. experienced soon after the 5^th of December 1933. It’s simple and evident logic, and history is not short on examples that demonstrate this with indisputable clarity.

At the very least, we would do well to prevent abject ghouls such as Michele Leonhart from being placed in charge of anything regarding public policy.

(via @radleybalko)

Tags: Michele Leonhart • War on Drugs • Drug War • DEA • Drug Enforcement Administration • drug cartels