Drugs drugs drugs

I found a fantastic article written by a smart man who sees the light. Norm Stamper, a retired police chief, has made an excellent point in his article titled Ending the "War on Drugs": The Fierce Urgency of... When? He claims that our government has a history of diverting billions of US taxpayers' dollars to a system that punishes drug users and spends even more money keeping them locked up, using prohibition as our motto. Since prohibition has never been quite the success in the US, he proposes that we simply follow a plan of regulation instead, making certain things that were once illegal legal, and therefore taxing them to make money instead of wasting it. California would definitely benefit from this type of action as they would be making more money from the tax on marijuana than they do currently from taxes they earn on selling fruits and vegetables. Stamper also makes the excellent point against the old belief that terrorism and drugs are linked, claiming that if the US legalized some of these drugs, the terrorists would have to find a new source of finds (as if drugs were their main source of income in the first place? Hard to believe...) This argument, while it certainly would appeal to youth who have been negatively effected by the harsh penalties against drug possession, has far reaching effects throughout every age group and most social organizations. It's a win-win situation! Why can't the government see that not only will our prisons be less crowded with minor offenses, but they could bank from this proposal as well? Maybe with the new Obama registration the US can finally make some needed changes to the current situation of the so-called "War on Drugs".

When is science not the answer?

The development of science technology with regards to the changing climate should be the main issue in Washington right now. Even with all of the problems in our economy, money won’t matter much once we finally suffocate the world with carbon emissions. With that being said, this article deals with the challenge of how to go about making drastic changes to the way we live in our environment, and the US secretary of energy makes it pretty simple: all we have to do is make Nobel-level breakthroughs, no big deal. Aside from how drastic this sounds, it doesn’t seem like the steps to achieve it should be too difficult. Instead of looking for remote places to dump radioactive waste, lets come up with solutions to neutralize it. Lets improve solar energy, get the cap-and-trade system going, and make a genuine effort to start reversing some of the damage we have and are still creating while we still can.