Not as long as the corruption among the drug cops and politicians exists. It's like Vietnam: we had victories every day, and every night the honchos in Washington would give the gains back to the communists and keep the war going. "Drug Enforcement" is making too much money for too many people to ever go away or reach anything resembling a conclusion. As long as drugs are illegal, there is money to be made by the controlling powers - when drugs are legalized, then only the distributors and taxing authorities will get anything from it, and we can't have that, can we?

War? That is funny...especially when most of the drugs purchased and brought in this country is done by certain organizations within the government, then distributed into the street so that more money can be given to "special" narcotic units to push the "war on drugs." Full circle..

I refer you to a paper I wrote: Americans are spending more money on drugs than ever before. In turn, the government spends more money to fight drugs and incarcerate drug users and dealers. Drugs are already here. The stated goals of current United States drug policy -- reducing crime, drug addiction, and juvenile drug use -- have not been achieved, even after nearly four decades of a policy of "war on drugs". This policy, fueled by over a trillion of our tax dollars has had little or no effect on the levels of drug addiction among our fellow citizens, but has instead resulted in a tremendous increase in crime and in the numbers of Americans in our prisons and jails. With 4.6% of the world's population,America today has 22.5% of the world's prisoners. But, after all that time, after all the destroyed lives and after all the wasted resources, prohibited drugs today are cheaper, stronger, and easier to get than they were thirty-five years ago at the beginning of the so-called "war on drugs". The DEA admits that it has never had a significant impact on the drug markets at any time. The War on Drugs has not and does not work. It is a not a question of adding to anything. It is a question of finding the most effective way to deal with a problem we already have. The United States government spends over 69 billion dollars on this so-called "war on drugs" but there are still over 14 million Americans that are illegal drug users. The number of men and women (mostly people of color) incarcerated has quadrupled in recent years because of this. According to Judge James Gray, the situation is getting worse not better. Prohibition compounds the problem. This causes drugs to be exhorbantly expensive and of unknown quality. Throughout all of history, there have always been people who will find a way to get high. Prohibition does not stop that. However, it does increase the likelihood of fatalities. Users must associate with criminals then they are driven to become criminals to finance their habits. Existing drug policies have failed in their intended goals of addressing the problems of crime, drug abuse, addiction, juvenile drug use, stopping the flow of illegal drugs into this country and the internal sale and use of illegal drugs. By fighting a war on drugs, the government has increased the problems of society and made them far worse. A system of regulation rather than prohibition is a less harmful, more ethical and a more effective public policy. Drug abusers are three times later for work than nonusers are and have twice the absenteeism rate. They are five times more likely to file worker's compensation claims. Real estate property owners that have drug users and dealers as tenants face decreased property values and extensive property damage due to toxic contamination, fires and police raids. Some homes are even seized. Illegal drugs are expensive precisely because they are illegal. The products themselves are worthless weeds -- cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), and coca (cocaine) -- or dirt-cheap pharmaceuticals and "precursors" used, for example, in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Yet today, marijuana is worth as much as gold, heroin more than uranium, cocaine somewhere in between. It is the United State's prohibition of these drugs that has spawned an ever-expanding international industry of torture, murder and corruption. Recommendations to deal with drug control are: 1- Provide drug treatment and insurance to cover treatment expenses with a variety of options for treatment. The benefit to the drug addict would be huge. Getting his drugs from a legal source would access him to counseling, support, therapy - all the things he or she needs to break dependency. 2- Reduce children's exposure to cigarette and alcohol advertising. 3- Educate everyone (beginning with the children) about drugs and their effects on our bodies. Parents should keep an open line of communication with their kids. There also should be a zero tolerance policy with your children. Legalized drugs would mean that parents and teachers could discuss it with young people openly, not confrontationally. It means those thinking of using it will get education, not propaganda, and they will be less likely to take it as a gesture of adolescent rebellion. 4- Random drug testing for all jobs throughout the term of employment. 5- Legalization-Legalize drugs and tax them. Legalizing drugs will put drug deal; dealers out of business, which would in turn, lesson crime. We send other countries money for drugs and some of them use this to finance terrorism-if we legalize drugs, we would create more jobs and the FDA would be able to regulate the quality and safety of them. All taxes collected could be used for prevention and education of drugs and to pay for drug treatment programs for anyone who wants it. Regulated legalization of all drugs -- with stiffened penalties for driving impaired or furnishing to kids -- would bring an immediate halt to the violence. How? By (1) dramatically reducing the cost of these drugs, (2) shifting massive enforcement resources to prevention and treatment and (3) driving drug dealers out of business: no product, no profit, no incentive. In an ideal world, Mexico and the United States would move to repeal prohibition simultaneously (along with Canada). Even if we moved unilaterally, sweeping and lasting improvements to public safety (and public health) would be felt on both sides of the border. (Tragically and predictably, just as Mexico's parliament was about to reform its U.S.-modeled drug laws, the Bush administration stepped in, pressuring President Vicente Fox to abandon the enlightened position he had championed for two years.). With drugs stringently controlled and regulated by our own government, Mexico would once again become a safe, inviting place for American tourists -- and for its own citizens, who pay the steepest price of all for our insistence on waging an immoral, unwinnable war on drugs. If the drug policy reform movement is successful, harm reduction principles will form the basis of a more effective, scientific and humane drug control regime. The number of drug law violators behind bars will be a tiny fraction of today's population; drug policies will no longer provide the means and excuse to arrest, incarcerate, disenfranchise and otherwise harm millions of people, especially African American and Latino men and women; marijuana will be legal, no doubt with regulatory models varying from state to state, as is true with alcohol today; drug control efforts with respect to heroin, cocaine and other drugs will seek to reduce the negative consequences of both drug use and prohibition through strictly controlled availability as well as quality treatment and other viable alternatives to drug abuse and criminality; drug education for young people will be honest and well informed by science and scholarship; government resources currently devoted to punitive approaches will focus instead on education and affirmative alternatives to drug abuse and incarceration.

there is no war on drugs.....people who are going to run for office in America would like you to think there is a huge problem but its to make themselves look tough on drugs because thats what people like to see, and then they get your votes. its the dumb leading the blind

War is winnable simply by standing down. Stop waging it. If we license, tax, certify, inspect, and regulate drugs then our government would have fewer expenses and greater income, it would greatly reduce organized crime, and would help the health, balance, and well-being of our people. But organized crime will never let that legislation happen. Organized crime depends on lots of things being illegal! The more things are considered a crime, the more income sources they have available, outside of the legal channels. . America is based on a marketplace economy. When the entire market is a black market, then only criminals will rule and control us, through that market.

No, because it is a fantastic (fantasy) war. My 2 cents.

It is working just as well as prohibition did.

People take drugs for two reasons. It's pleasurable and it's fun to be rebellious. People would probably stop taking drugs if they realized that the government, and moreover the corporate interests that control it, WANT YOU TO TAKE DRUGS. Here's why... 1) Criminal elements of the government/ corporations are complicit in drug smuggling. They make it illegal so as to raise the price. The government knows that telling you not to do it, makes you want to do it even more. 2) They get to profit by making drug abusers work for nothing in privately owned prisons. 3) They want you to have health problems. Think about it... Do the pharmaceutical companies make more money if you are sick or healthy? They want you to die early. Then they don't have to pay your pension. 4) They want a decadent population that's out of touch with reality. They want you to damage your brain with drugs so never you'll figure out how badly they're screwing everyone. The solution to the drug problem is to make everyone realize it's rebellious not to take them. Check out www.infowars.com

the question is.. is it a FIGHTABLE war?

no

Just like any war, there are no winners, only survivors.

There is no war on drugs. Drugs are EVERYWHERE!. They are impossible to eliminate. I remember someone talking on a TV documentary saying: If I can make this for $1.00 (showing a ballpoint pen that he had on his hand) and I am able to sell it somewhere else for $1,000.00.... NOTHING IS GOING TO STOP ME!!! The profit margin is incredible. There is enough money, billions and billions of dollars, enough to buy Politicians, Government Officials, Heads of the Armed Forces, Judges, etc. It is a fantasy to think that there is a drug war that anyone will be able to win.

Yes; but the cost would be horrendous. We could turn the country into a prison; but there are drugs in prisons. By "drugs" do you also mean alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and pharmaceuticals? Now here are my questions on the issue: If D.E.A.th agents where in a shoot out with marihuana growers, who would you root for? http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/934842 In addition to this stupid war on Iraq, will McCain continue on the stupid War on Drugs? http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/919544 ;-)

fuck no its not... do you think that the gov can get everyone in the us to just stop doing drugs. we are wasting billions and billions of dollars each year on this bullshit thing. we could be building schools or giving scholarships to people that cant afford college. or give it back to our fucking social security that we pay for and arnt going to get a fucking dime of fuck the war on drugs