Drug Sub Culture

With cocaine now trading at half of the price it was going for 10 years ago (I don't have personal knowledge of this...just relaying what I've read) it's crystal clear that the "war on drugs" has been a disastrous failure. The only so-called "success" from this war is the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people (primarily black males) in the US for drug crimes.

Now drugs are being smuggled in freaking submarines...how crazy is that!

My view on certain drugs is that you should treat the problem for what it is, an addiction, not as a crime. The crime element associated with drugs is an outgrowth of their illegality...illegality= danger=high price=criminality on the users side to get $$$ to buy drugs and on the dealers side to protect their turf. Remove the money from the equation and most of the criminality will similarly disappear.

If decriminalization for drug abusers can work in Portugal, why can't it work elsewhere?

From the NYT...

THE CRAFT FIRST surfaced like something out of a science-fiction movie. It was November 2006, and a Coast Guard cutter spotted a strange blur on the ocean 100 miles off Costa Rica. As the cutter approached, what appeared to be three snorkels poking up out of the water became visible. Then something even more surprising was discovered attached to the air pipes: a homemade submarine carrying four men, an AK-47 and three tons of cocaine.