Good summary. If we thought the drug war was lost before (and by any metric was lost a long time ago…), we will go from stopping approx 10% - by the gubments own estimation so likely far lower - this will make it more like 1%.
I’d thought most fentanyl was Chinese produced and sold to the Cartels to distribute, but it appears they are producing it themselves, no doubt, using easy to obtain Chinese raws. That’s one way the Chinese are intentionally chipping away at the US from the inside.
The ChiComs have learned from the British during the 19th Century. They’re doing their exact playbook. Ever heard of the Opium Wars?
Of course I have. I’m a student of history. But, econ 101 page one of the text book: where there’s demand there will be supply, full stop. Trying to attack the issue from the supply side does not work, can’t work, has never worked, the end. One thing we can’t blame the Chinese, nor the cartels for, is the demand. That’s 100% on us.
Addressing the demand side is much more difficult, messy, and long term investment and commitment, so as we apparently learned nothing from prohibition, and ignore data and the uber basics of econ and base human behavior. It’s “let’s throw another trillion dollars at it and put more people in jail, and maybe this time it will work cuz drugs are bad…” approach per usual.
I’m not in the LE or mil community, but I communicated with enough DEA agents, SOF types, etc who are deep in the muck, all will say the same, it’s all BS. A buddy of mine was a SEAL, worked drug interdiction with the DEA in Peru, Colombia and Mexico, and when I asked him what he thought of the efforts made during his stint (80s/90s) he laughed at me and shook his head. Dude just retired as CO for of a SEAL time, highly experienced BTD guy.
In my experience, those truly on the front lines in the “war on drugs” are unanimous about that. Obviously, I have only spoken to a small % and can’t claim they all feel that way, but also seems to a man, members here and other forums I visit, who do that work at the tip of the spear level, say same.
And they are putting it in everything that comes across the border.
The coke and meth heads are bitching about it here, they have test strips to check if their dope has fentanyl in it.
Quite a few lately with 100K pil busts, that they just turn loose…
The way to get more people brushing their teeth is by making brushing teeth illegal.
Just ask any honest cop who’s worked patrol for more than two years…
It turned me into a hardcore libertarian and I know many more who believe the same, that the drug war is a full blown waste of time and money.
I just want the border mined and a few villages from Mexico to Honduras carpet bombed with snake and nape.
THEN we legalize it.
Don’t they turn them over to the Mexican’s for “prosecution” ? Same thing of course, just adds maybe 20 minutes of inconvenience to the cartel types or their mules.
If it causes cognitive dissonance, uber easy to understand human nature and psych gets ignored. True story.
I have have, many over the decades, and I’d say 98% agreed with you. A few interestingly were still for drug interdiction and rattled off all the horrible stuff they’d seen as a result of drug use. They were unable to connect the dots, but they were also younger guys who perhaps still under the fantasy they were making any difference. Not one who’d been at it for decades didn’t have your POV on the matter just as they did for guns and prostitution.
One quit being an LEO and became a minister and opened his own church as he felt that was the more effective way he could serve the community. He started programs ad such to that end, and felt he was actually making a difference, and was.
We hade an Lt come in to our unit about 10 months before we deployed. He was a good Lt, did the right things made 1st Lt kept a semi tight ship.
So when we come back from deployment, the Army starts drawing down a bit and the LT starts doing job interviews and dropping resume’s.
He went through a couple of interviews with DEA. And came back kind somewhere between shook and disappointed. He told me the DEA had just too many temptations, money and drugs laying about, sometimes you’re alone on these things.
He just said, “No, it’s just not for me.”
Don’t they turn them over to the Mexican’s for “prosecution” ? Same thing of course, just adds maybe 20 minutes of inconvenience to the cartel types or their mules.
No.
They are allowed to sleep on the street and sell it as well.
If arrested they are out in hours.
As if the new meth wasn’t bad enough, mix it with that crap too.
Yep, letting them do as they please, sleep and crap where they please is working out splendidly here.
All over the place here.
We have a values, morals and culture problem that we sub-divide into “Wars on……”. Guns, drugs, you name it. You don’t solve these problems, but you can make them worse. And who has been driving the culture bus the last 5 decades? Ain’t us.
I’m so sick of hearing a complex issue turned into prohibition or winning/loosing.
Humanity has had, and struggled with alcohol for thousands of years. It was widely socially acceptable up until prohibition. Alcohol is not the same as meth or fentanyl. There will never be a time when the majority of the population are productive, casual meth users who sometimes overdo it on a Friday night.
I’m no fan of big parts of the war on drugs. But it’s not as binary as libertarians try to convince us either. We will never win the war, but that doesn’t mean giving up and legalization is all rainbows.
Maybe making some improvements to an always imperfect war on drugs is the best we can hope for in an imperfect world.
Not sure I track that one. One thing we can’t blame the lib left for (assuming that’s what you meant) is the war on drugs. Not to say where ever they added their hands to it, they didn’t succeed in making it worse, they have not been the drivers of that one. Well written summary:
https://www.history.com/topics/crime/the-war-on-drugs
We can never win the war, was lost a long time ago, and anyone who claims legalization is rainbows is an idiot.
And again, note the positions of those here working in LE who see it and deal with it posting in this thread. They are very representative of the many others I have spoken with/communicated with over the last 3 decades or so.
Screw that!
Do you honestly have any idea just how many rights you’ve lost due to the glorious revolution on some drugs?
Freedom from Unreasonable Search and Seizure…
Freedom of Speech…
Freedom of Religion…
Right to Vote…
Right to travel…
Right to own firearms…
President Nixon declared a “war on drugs.” By the time 1989 rolled around, a Washington Post-ABC News Poll found that 62 percent of Americans would be willing to give up a few of their freedoms in order to fight the war on drugs. And Uncle Sam has been more than willing to take them up on it. Most of the court cases within the past 40 years that have methodically abridged individual rights like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures and property rights, have all concerned drugs. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall even coined a term for the growing practice of sacrificing constitutional rights in the name of the fighting drugs: the “drug exception.”
It seems appropriate on this Constitution Day to take a few moments to mourn all that we’ve lost from the Bill of Rights and the Constitution due to these “drug exceptions:”
All it takes for me to separate you from your car is me saying the magic words… I smell marijuana, that’s it. I don’t even have to find any weed to support my statement, but if I find something else illegal you get hooked up for and court after court after court has and will continue to call it a good search.
No, I don’t think most do, as it’s become background noise for so many. The Rights lost/infringed on in the war on drugs makes what Rights lost/infringed on via the War On Terrorism look small time. Anyone talking about the Patriot Act for example, needs to history up…
Don’t forget The Rico Act to add to your list of above of totally Unconstitutional crap used in the war on drugs.
Your position is we need more tweakers to own guns?
We could stop all the war on drugs nonsense and just keep drugs illegal. That’s the silliness a false binary creates.
You’re statement is just plain ridiculous, making it illegal is how we got to the nonsense to begin with… good grief. 
We will never end drunk driving and we have unconstitutional roadblocks, do we need to legalize drunk driving or can we just end the roadblocks?
And another thing, I’m tired of drug legalization arguments always turning to marijuana. I can be open to legalizing marijuana but not fentanyl. Because I’m not stuck on some arbitrary binary.
You’re roadblock example is perfect!
And reinforces why I said, making it illegal is how we got to the nonsense to begin with…
DUI laws got you unconstitutional roadblocks, just as drug laws got you a whole pile of other unconstitutional nonsense.
Sure you can pick and choose to legalize marijuana but not fentanyl. But understand I’m for full blown leave me the hell alone legalization just as much as I’m for the selling of crew served artillery at Walmart!
If you’ve got the money to buy a battleship then so be it, you want your own aircraft carrier and you’re Elon Musk rich then great!
If I want to ride the DMT train to sleep every night then it’s nobody’s business but mine and certainly not the ****ing governments.