“We have now spent 1 trillion dollars waging the drug war since it began. A trillion. Those funds could have been used for education, jobs and drug treatment in the communities that needed it most. We could have used those funds for our collective well being, instead those dollars paved the way for the destruction of countless lives, families, and dreams.” WayWellsHas BeensWarDreamJobsUsedCommunityNeededDrugDestructionDollarsWell BeingCollectivesTreatmentFundCould Have BeenFamily LifeWar On Drugs Author:Michelle Alexander
“We need to take a hard look at the war on drugs and the number of non-violent offenders who end up getting their lives destroyed by going to prison. We need to look at mandatory minimum sentencing and give judges more flexibility when there are issues of drug abuse or addiction.” NeedsGivingLooksWarEndsHardNumbersIssuesJudgingDrugAbusePrisonAddictionViolentDestroyedMinimumFlexibilityWar On DrugsOffendersNon ViolentDrug Abuse Author:Bernie Sanders
“Three strikes' laws make no sense as policy. They are more about the politicians responding to the people's desire to see their fury at social dysfunction reflected in the law. Our sentences are way too long. We need to look at the war on drugs, which is to say we need to look and this is easier said than done. Once again, politically, not an easy lift at all. Nevertheless, our policy is self-defeating. We're not keeping people from using the substances. We're creating a huge black market, just like we did under prohibition, which attracts all kinds of criminal enterprise.” PeopleKindLongWarDoneDesireEasyBlackPolicyPoliticianDrugAll KindsEnterpriseFuryProhibitionWar On Drugs Author:Glenn Loury
“None of us are rational economic men as we're supposed to be portrayed in economic theory where mixes of passions, of desires, of moral principles, of self-deception, of altruism, of concern of others, of concerns for ourselves and an interest in our bank accounts. And social policies have to be responsive to the complexity of who we are as people or else, like the war on drugs, they're simply going to fail.” PeopleMenWarDesirePassionInterestMoralFailingEconomicPolicyDrugConcernRationalComplexityAltruismWar On Drugs Author:Dale Jamieson
“Various "wars on drugs" throughout history have killed millions, enslaved millions more, destroyed families, are usually just thin pretenses for mass incarceration, mass surveillance, ethnic cleansing, population control.” WarDrugVariousPretenseWar On DrugsIncarceration Author:Kool A.D.
“The War on Drugs is a war on people, but particularly it's been a war on low-income people and a war on minorities. We know in the United States of America there is no difference in drug use between black, white and Latinos. But if you're Latino in the United States of America, you're about twice as likely to be arrested for drug use than if you're white. If you're black, you are about four times as likely to be arrested if you're African American than if you are white. This drug war has done so much to destroy, undermine, sabotage families, communities, neighborhoods, cities.” PeopleWarDoneBlackCommunityDrugAfrican AmericanNeighborhoodLatinoWar On DrugsSabotage Author:Cory Booker
“We started America with the sin of slavery that led right into the post-reconstruction period which was the greatest period of domestic terrorism in our country's history. Then after that, we had Jim Crow emerge and just when the Jim Crow laws were ending came the onslaught of the drug war. Well, the drug war has so perniciously effected, insidiously infected communities of color that in some ways it has come full circle, and we now have more African Americans under criminal supervision than all of the slaves in 1865. This is a profoundly unjust war.” WarCommunitySinDrugSlaverySlaveTerrorismAfrican AmericanCrowWar On DrugsJim CrowSupervision Author:Cory Booker
“Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls was made all about drugs, when to most of us, that just meant pot and magic mushrooms. He made it seem like we were all shooting heroin into our eyeballs. But that's part of the whole '60s and what it represented: feminism and civil rights and trying to stop the war. Hopefully we're starting to see some of that optimism again, through the excitement around Barack Obama.” TryingWarEasyMagicFeminismDrugOptimismRageCivil RightsHopefullyBarackExcitementPotHeroin Author:Margot Kidder
“The murder clearance rate now in my city Baltimore is almost non-existent. Nobody can solve a murder, nobody can do any actual police work, because they've learned how to do bad police work, chase drugs. Fighting vice, while being unable to respond to sin. Generations of cops have learned how not to police work by policing the drug war. Not only are they police brutal, they're ineffective. Baltimore is more violent than it has ever been in modern history.” WarFightingSinModernDrugMurderPoliceRateViolentCopBrutalWar On Drugs Author:David Simon
“Barack Obama's understanding of what the drug war had cost the country was meaningful. And very quietly in his second term, he and Eric Holder did make some adjustments in terms of the use of the Department of Justice, on the federal level. You saw ratcheting back of drug prohibition, and mass incarceration. You also saw, on the part of some certain states, a realization that they followed the war on drugs to a useless place, that they were only doing damage to communities, and bankrupting budgets with prison construction.” WarCountryUnderstandingTermCommunityJusticeDrugPrisonMeaningfulRealizationBarackConstructionProhibitionWar On DrugsIncarceration Author:David Simon
“The thing I wrote we ought to look to Canada for is the shorter sentences. I mean, the mess we're in here, is because of the drug war and this idea of adding another five years, another 10 years, you know, like it means nothing to the people involved. It certainly does nothing for crime prevention - what problem are we hoping to solve?” PeopleMeanWarProblemCrimeDrugMessWar On Drugs Author:Peter Moskos
“When you hear the ex-politician tell you that the reason they created the War on Drugs was to get black people and to get hippies...that to me is just as shitty as saying all Mexicans are murderers and rapists. Or all Muslims. That's what I'm paying attention to. And everybody is hedging their bets when it comes to marijuana. The government is sitting on this lie saying it's a gateway drug.” PeopleWarReasonLyingBlackAttentionDrugPay AttentionBlack PeopleMarijuanaMurdererHippieWar On Drugs Author:Whoopi Goldberg
“If you want to fight a war on drugs, sit down at your own kitchen table and talk to your own children.” IfsWantChildrenWarFightingDrugTablesKitchenWar On DrugsKitchen Table Author:Barry McCaffrey
“We first fought... in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.” FirstsWarNamesPeaceDrugExcuseTerrorismCommunismAnti WarAntiwarDominationPeace WarUbuntuFighting Terrorism Author:Serj Tankian
“See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.” IfsLooksWarGovernmentViewsRolesEconomicDrugProtectPoint Of ViewWar On DrugsCartelsDrug Cartels Author:Milton Friedman
“Failure of government programs prompts more determined effort, while the loss of liberty is ignored or rationalized away...whether is it is the war on poverty, drugs, terrorism...or the current Hitler of the day, an appeal to patriotism is used to convince the people that a little sacrifice of liberty, here or there, is a small price to pay...The results, though, are frightening and will soon become even more so.” PeopleLittlesWarGovernmentUsedLossResultsEffortPayLibertyPovertySacrificeDrugProgramCurrentsTerrorismDeterminedAppealsConvinceFrighteningIgnoredPromptsGovernment ProgramsWar On Poverty Author:Ron Paul
“Scratch any fortune and you'll find blood only a generation or two back...child labor in mines or mills...Slavery. Drugs. Stock swindles. Wasting nature with clear-cuts, pollution, harvesting to extinction. Monopolies. Disease. War. Every fortune comes out of something unpleasant.” ChildrenTwoWarClearCuttingGenerationsBloodMinesDrugDiseaseLaborSlaveryFortunePollutionScratchesExtinctionMonopolyMillsChild Labor Author:Chuck Palahniuk
“Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly better than no drugs at all.” WarGovernmentDrugWar On Drugs Author:Kurt Vonnegut
“I loved when Bush came out and said, 'We are losing the war against drugs.' You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it.” PeopleKnowsSaidWarHumorFunnyWinningDrugLosingPsychedelicRevolutionary Ideas Author:Bill Hicks