10 Steps To End The Drug War
By Mark Greer
While the main purpose of DrugSense is to encourage accuracy and honesty in the media with respect to illegal drugs, our goal is ultimately to stop the costly and ineffective drug war. Through our extensive archive of more than 170,000 articles on all aspects of drug policy, we have identified 10 specific steps that would result in ending prohibition as we know it.
1. Grant agronomist Lyle Craker a license to grow medicinal-grade
cannabis at the University of Massachusetts.
http://www.mapinc.org/people/Lyle+Craker
Effect: End the federal government's monopoly on growing marijuana to
meet the FDA's requirement for an independent, high quality cannabis supply for approved cannabis-based research and product development.
2. Pass the Hinchey-Rohrbacher Amendment.
http://www.mapinc.org/people/Hinchey
Effect: End the costly DEA harassment of California dispensaries and
allow states in which medical cannabis is legal to begin regulated access without federal interference.
3. Accept the Petition to Reschedule Cannabis.
http://mapinc.org/find?165
Effect: Remove cannabis from the restrictive Schedule I designation of
the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and permit its prescription by physicians like pharmaceuticals.
4. Make Afghani opium available to pharmaceutical companies.
http://www.mapinc.org/areas/Afghanistan
Effect: Develop a licensing system so that opium grown in Afghanistan
can be legally sold to make narcotic pain relievers, thereby alleviating a worldwide shortage of these medications.
5. Defund the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.
http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm
Effect: Save taxpayers hundreds of millions by eliminating this
campaign, which has only resulted in making drug use more attractive to teens.
6. Increase funding for needle exchange and safe consumption sites.
http://www.mapinc.org/find?142
Effect: Prevent overdoses, reduce drug-related hospital admissions, and
slow the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.
7. Eliminate Mandatory Minimum Sentencing.
http://www.mapinc.org/find?199
Effect: Reduce the non-violent prison population, and end the racial
disparity in sentencing that has resulted in one in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 being under correctional control.
8. Free non-violent drug prisoners and stop the Federal trials of Marc
Emery and Ed Rosenthal.
http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery
http://www.mapinc.org/people/Ed+Rosenthal
Effect: Save the taxpayers the wasted time and expense spent trying
these non-violent individuals on unpopular charges.
9. Develop citizen oversight boards for SWAT squads.
http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm
Effect: Save lives and property that are needlessly disrupted through
the use of a violent techniques for non-violent situations, which are too often drug raids based on bad information.
10. Pass as many lowest-priority marijuana initiatives as possible.
http://www.mapinc.org/props.htm
Effect: Help the government understand that citizens want to be
protected from violent terrorists, not non-violent marijuana consumers. Public officials, including police, need to prioritize their scarce dollars and resources according to that which is most dangerous and most urgent to public health and
