L.W.M

The question I asked was this: Can anyone here point to any federal level politicians of *either* party who are in favor of ending the War On (some) Drugs?

Your link did not speak to that question.

There are two such politicians in the US and I can name both of them.

Actually, it does. But you have to read it. Key to understanding it is some concept of the narrow area of acceptable political positions in American politics and why that occurs and some understanding of the Overton Window and how far to the right it has shifted. With the exception of 4 or 5 federal level politicians, 99% in the Democratic party are moderate conservatives. That means the GOP is populated by conservatives who are not moderate or centrist, to say the least. Then there is Ron Paul. Ron Paul is so conservative he is an anomaly but if you are claiming you don't understand the difference between Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul, I'd have to say you were being intentionally obtuse and disingenous. Ron Paul's ideas on ending the drug war wouldn't be pretty. He's not likely to approach it sensibly like the Dutch. He's anti-state and an Austrian economist. Kucinich or Sanders would.

Don't join the Prohibition Party. They are alive and well and the oldest third party still in continuous existence.

http://www.prohibition.org/

What is the primary defining characteristic of a police state?

I know what I think, I would like to know what you think..

I'm not going to get into specifics, but you could not come from my family without having intimate knowledge of snake pits like Creedmoor, psychiatric barbarism, as well as the shortcomings of more contemporary insurance policies and the community mental health system. You also would know that these issues preceded the Reagan presidency.

Is my style *really* that easy to spot?

Or is it that my obsession is easy to spot?

Maybe I should start copying david sugarman.. ;-)

Sorry, it was your comment about "drug mule" that sent me off on that tangent.

I'm older than you and have been fighting this battle for a long time also..

You can find posts of mine on the usenet political newsgroups about this subject from twenty years ago.

Welcome back, jonathan/Jonathan Hogue!

For Californians like me, the "Reagan Era" began at a minute past midnight January 2, 1967, when Ronald Reagan was ingurated as Governor at a time selected by Nancy's astrologer (according to wags). And he most certainly did "close the mental hospitals" in California beginning almost as soon as he got into the Corner Office. His reputation is for closing the mental hospitals is derived from his actions as Governor, not so much as President.

But Reagan's haigiography largely ignores his Gubernatorial interlude. It isn't exactly forgotten, it is just overlooked.

Your whole post was based on the premise that the War On (some) Drugs is right and proper. It's not your fault, we have grown up in that climate and know nothing different.

No, it was not. If I have a religion, it is ending the drug "war." (Did you read the link to my post about prison and the drug war at Glenn's old blog site?) And I'll bet I know more about that abomination than you do, and have been in the trenches fighting against it most of my adult life; I'm 51. But if we are going to continue to imprison non-violent drug offenders, a minimal improvement would be to not incarcerate them with depraved and violent offenders.

Liberals love to wring their hands and have giant puppet protests in the streets for dirty people in romantic sounding far away lands they intend to vacation in some day, while their own fellow citizens right here rot in squalor and crime and are incarcerated because lord knows, dem brown people sure do be scarey whens theys aks for a quarter.

Your pity comment notwithstanding, Tildeman is essentially correct.

There are only two federal level politicians in favor of ending the War On (some) Drugs and Mona has named both of them. It is quite telling that neither has a snowflake's chance in hell of winning the presidency.

So, where are all the "liberal" lawmakers who are in favor of maximum freedom for the maximum number of people?

Actions speak louder than words.

Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill was not a Reagan-era thing. It began in the 60s and picked up steam in the 70s, as a more or less progressive cause. The idea was that many of those in the hospitals could live in a less restrictive environment in their communities, with the proper supports and programs.

True, and I was in favour of it. Places like Creedmoor (described in an intense piece in The New Yorker in the '70s) were hell-holes. Then there's "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".

Reagan's great 'innovation', once courts started ordering the shutdown of these dungeons, was to deny funding for outpatient clinical care and services, and residential treatment centres, and let 'em all just get dumped on the street to fend for themselves as best they could. Charming.

We still severely limit mental health treatment even under most of the best and most expensive medical insurance plans (just look at the coverages on your own policies; it might scare you sober). But because mental illness is almost always a chronic or recurrent condition, it means you're pretty much SOL on getting treatment -- without going broke so the state picks up the tab (and even then, getting substandard care).

Cheers,

"For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.”

Left, right and center are all guilty of offering these simple non-solutions to complex problems.

There are two such politicians in the US and I can name both of them.

So can I -- Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Both oppose drug prohibition.

If your president says "We don't torture" and then refuses to say what torture is because that's a big secret that if our enemies found out they'd be able to harm us, just realize that the "enemies" he's talking about might be an independent judiciary or an international criminal court and the "harm" he's talking about might be war crimes trials. Anyway, if he does not, by his actions, stand firmly in favor of internationally recognized standards against torture, you not only do not live in a free country, you are being intimidated not to bring it up.