L.A. Liberty

One extreme is expensive and tyrannical and unjust. The other extreme involves the munchies.

“One extreme can be to put all users in prison. On the other extreme, legalization. In the middle there may be more practical policies, such as decriminalizing consumption but putting all the efforts into interdiction.”

— President Obama • Speaking at the Summit Of The Americas in Colombia today. Obama sought, as he often does, to play the mindful pragmatist, seeking centrist ground. His former hypothetical is functionally impossible in a way the second one isn’t, really – there simply aren’t enough prisons to hold every person found to use drugs. However, the latter suggestion is opposed by a large chunk of the U.S. populace, and as such has scant support amongst the American political class, which Obama clearly understands: “…the time has come to simply analyze if what we are doing is the best we could be doing, or if we can find an alternative that would be more effective and less costly to society. This is a topic of extreme political sensitivity.” source (via • follow)

Obama thinks not jailing non-violent consumers of plants and unhealthy chemicals - who have harmed no one and have only violated some politician’s arbitrary (and undoubtedly crony-driven) decree - to be just as deleterious as jailing them all. So his “pragmatism” means that the best solution is somewhere in the middle: jail some non-violent consumers of plants and unhealthy chemicals. How many are “some”? Well, that’s for Obama to decide. And considering Obama’s track record, “some” seems to hover around the vicinity of “most.”

Me? I’m crazy. I only consider actions that harm others to be criminal transgressions. But I guess that makes me an extremist.

Posted April 14, 2012 at 5:38pm in ∆ War on drugs | comments || home