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Cory Booker Slams Drug War As A Failure

Posted: July 16, 2012

Cory Booker

Newark, New Jersey – Newark, New Jersey is no stranger to drug crime.  As on of the cities in the country with an above average crime rate, Newark has been plagued by drugs since riots in the 60′s reduced the city to slums.  Now Newark Mayor Cory Booker has decided to speak out.  The Mayor went on Reddit this past Sunday to criticize the War on Drugs.  Booker said the Drug War was a minimum completely ineffective, at most “represents big overgrown government at its worst.”.

Booker further wrote,

“The so called War on Drugs has not succeeded in making significant reductions in drug use, drug arrests or violence. We are pouring huge amounts of our public resources into this current effort that are bleeding our public treasury and unnecessarily undermining human potential.”

Booker is able to see what a growing percentage of Americans are…that arresting drug users is not the answer to the drug problem in the United States.  At one point Booker called Drug Arrests a “Game”.

Booker then called drug arrests a “game.”

“My police in Newark are involved in an almost ridiculous game of arresting the same people over and over again and when you talk to these men they have little belief that there is help or hope for them to break out of this cycle,”

On a separate Drug War issue Booker also came out strongly for a robust Medical Marijuana system in New Jersey.  The New Jersey Legislature has already passed, and the Governor signed, Legislation that legalizes marijuana for medical purposes but has yet to implement the law.

Booker said,

“NJ should do more to make it real for those who need it.”



Comments


One Archived Response to “ Cory Booker Slams Drug War As A Failure ”

  1. Malcolm Kyle
    Jul 17, 2012

    The U.S. comprises 5 percent of the world's population yet uses 60 percent of the world's drugs. The prohibition on these drugs has been waged for 70 years and has cost $1.5 trillion.

    Prohibition has cruelly ruined the lives of millions of peaceful and productive citizens while bankrolling the most evil people on the planet. Prohibition has stagnated the normal economy while allowing criminal enterprises to control an untaxed thriving underground economy worth over 300,000 million dollars. By it's emphasis on the eradication of marijuana/hemp we have also been denied the most workable and logical solutions to a number of growing problems, be they medicinal, industrial, chemical or commercial.

    According to the CATO Institute, ending prohibition would save an annual $41 billion of expenditure while generating an estimated $46 billion in tax revenues.

    http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf

    Thanks to Prohibition we now have a far higher percentage of our own citizens locked in cages than any other nation on the whole planet. Apart from the fact that these extra prisoners are not contributing economically to society, it also costs 50,000 dollars per annum to incarcerate them. Additionally their families often go on government assistance, and it's again the average tax payer who has to pick up the bill. Their kids may be taken into care or raised by foster parents, again with tax payer money. Now add to all this the court costs, jail costs, and the salaries of all those people that have to deal with the enforcement of prohibition, like police officers, judges and public defenders and you'll start to get a fair idea of why "Black Thursday", October 24, 1929 happened during the period of another of our great experiments – Alcohol Prohibition.

    * The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
    * 743 adults incarcerated per 100,000 population at year-end 2009.
    * 2,292,133 adults were incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2009, that's approx. 1% of US adults.
    * Additionally, 4,933,667 adults at year-end 2009 were on probation or parole.
    * In 2009, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, or incarcerated) – about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.

    Chart Of The Day: Federal Drug Prisoners.
    http://tinyurl.com/csfvb9n

    During alcohol prohibition, all profits went to enrich criminals and corrupt politicians. Young men died every day on inner-city streets while battling over turf. A fortune was wasted on enforcement that could have gone on education, etc. On top of the budget-busting prosecution and incarceration costs, billions in taxes were lost. Finally, the economy collapsed. Sound familiar?

    Prohibition causes massive crime and suffering, causes government/police corruption, causes America to have the highest prison population of any country in the history of the planet, causes Americans to lose all their rights and all their true core-values, causes the waste of trillions in taxpayer dollars, causes wars, violence and death (at home and abroad), perpetuates racism, causes America to be hated by other countries, and funds both criminals and terrorists.

    For God's sake wake up! The prisons are bursting, the police are corrupt, most of us are not even safe in our own homes anymore and the whole country/planet is on the verge of a total social and financial collapse.