I don’t know if David Schubert is guilty. You don’t either. But it wouldn’t shock me if a jury convicted him, or if he pled out. You probably wouldn’t be surprised, either.
The fact that we aren’t shocked is what is shocking about the story.
You see, Schubert is the Nevada prosecutor who has handled many celebrity drug prosecutions — Paris Hilton, most famously. He has now been arrested for possession of cocaine.
Common story: The people in charge of prosecuting America’s ongoing War on Drugs are often drug users themselves. Many are “on the take” to drug gangs and warlords and kingpins. Or themselves embroiled in the drug trade.
The evidence for mass corruption, up and down the criminal justice system’s chain of command, is massive itself. It reminds me of the stories of Inquisitors themselves accused of heresy, in the Middle Ages. It’s a very old story.
And now it’s become a way of life in America. Corruption is endemic, and that says something about the drug war itself. About our drug laws.
Which could be repealed.
Did you know that Portugal has had great success decriminalizing pretty much all recreational drugs?
Last week, Rep. Ron Paul castigated House Republicans for overlooking America’s foreign wars as targets for cutting America’s overblown budget. I agree with him, but really: We should look close to home, too.
It is high time for a complete cease-fire in the costly War on Drugs.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “The Next War to End”
Except perhaps the development of the female contraceptive and the adaptation of baby slaughter as a recreational fix, Prohibition may very well have brought about the most marked change, ever, in Human behavior and its consequences.
And it has moved all of the truly massive wealth and all of the political power into the hands and under the control of the world’s most evil men.
Witness the modern “Democrats.”
This should be no surprise; after all the Criminal Justice System is the most aptly named branch of our government, “of the criminal, by the criminal, for the criminal and, all too often administered by criminals”!
Paul, I could not agree with you more. We need to reduce our troop presence around the world (why are we still in Korea?), and stop this silly, expensive, bureaucratic jobs program known as the War on Drugs.
The war on drugs is a $40 billion a year jobs program that has people looking to the government for direction and employment. No consequenses for 50 years of poor results. How would anyone expect them to voluntarily put an end to that? And then, what would all those people do instead? And what about all those people who are providing jobs at the penitentiaries by being locked up for the victimless crime of using? And what would the people that are taking “care” of them do? We have a greater percentage of young adult black males incarcerated for using than any other country in the world. And off the unemployemnt roles. If there was no war on drugs, then you’d REALLY see some unemployment numbers.
The joke used to be that the Baptists would lose sleep at nite worrying that somewhere, someone was having a good time.
Now it’s the socialist/progressive/democrat/libs losing sleep worrying that someone is not being regualted.
My late brother was born in 1938; when he was 12 or 13, and in ( those days-Junior High School-now Middle School)-there were lectures, etc. about the evils of pot.; and ” the war on drugs”. That would have been 1950-51; and we still are saying the same crap–.
i disagree with Obama on many things- but agree (as a first step) the decriminalization of medical marijuana- but think eh shoudl go further.
And the GOP is full of idiots if they don’t push it- where is there a greater show of ‘INDIVIDUAL REPSONSIBILITY” then here? To suse or not sue drugs.
But, when it suits “conservatives”- they also believe in regulating behavior.
Decriminalize drugs as long as we refuse to support the users after they screw up their brains and are unable to hold down a job or care for themselves due to the addiction that will be easier to acquire.
Anybody looked at Portugal’s economy lately? Sweden, in 1980 had a higher per capita GDP in 1980. In 1990, our per capita GDP surpassed their per capita GDP. Sweden along with their nany state has the laxest drug laws of any western state. China has one of the strictest anti-drug regimes and their GDP has been growing at close to a double digit rate for 10 years maybe longer. Think there might be a positive correlation here. Maybe someone can write a new Aesop fable like the hare did speed while the tortoise did not. Don’t blow sunshine up my butt.