United Liberty
Will Obama Bring Change to U.S. Drug Policy?
Sun, 11/30/2008 - 12:20pm | posted by Michael Orion Powell
A recent news report asks an important question about Obama’s administration:
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President-elect Barack Obama’s pledge to change relations with Latin America will be tested in one key area — the future fight against illegal drugs, political leaders and analysts say.
From Ecuador’s decision to close a military base in Manta that the United States used for anti-drug activities, to Bolivia’s recent expulsion of US Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Latin America’s leftist leaders have put their defiance on display.
Democrats have not hidden their discomfort over the tone coming from a region that has dramatically swung to the left in recent years, with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez at the helm of the vocal movement.
Our drug policy makes absolutely zero sense. Our efforts to combat the growing of various drugs from cocaine in Latin America to opium in Afghanistan has gotten in the way of other foreign policy priorities, and with no real benefit to us. It has also done little to endear ourselves to the countries in which these are some of the only crops.
This is the real test for Obama. If anything in the United States needs change, it is our absurd drug policy. Is Obama going to use his power to put a stop to this destructive use of our resources?
Of course not. He selected one of the biggest champions of the War on Drugs as his VP. Will we stop flying crop dusters over fields in Columbia that kill all of their exportable crops without regard to the health of the people? No. Will we stop destroying the economies of nations like this? No. Instead, we will spend the money designated, kill the people, kill the crops, and buy off the government with our “aid.”
I hope so!
If pot is not legal in the next five years I have No hope in society
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