From the "Market Analysis" Today on our beloved SI:
And finally, results released earlier this month indicated that the prison population in the US has doubled during 1990s. Perhaps the fact that Congress is considering a pledge of $1.6 billion in military aid to Colombia is the government's attempt to try to curb the rising prison population from a different angle. Cocaine produced in that country has been finding its way to our shores at an increasingly rapid rate, spurring this initiative.
The war on drugs is surely the catalyst, but the cost of housing an extra million criminals is far more expensive than $1.6 billion. In essence, a side effect of the Congressional effort to clean up the streets could save taxpayers money and help the government clean up and balance its books.
Thoughts:
1. The doubling of prisoners is itself proof of the failure of the War on Drugs. Supply is up, cost is down, prisoners continue to flood the jails.
2. The 1.6 billion dollars to Columbia military is the beginning of the Vietnamization of the War on Drugs. Not content to fail spectacularly in the 80s and 90s by imprisoning 1 percent of its own population, US now attempts to get in the middle of a civil war for the sake of a "War on Drugs"
3. Does this guy really think the Gov't is attempting to reduce the prison population by other means by entering the Columbian civil war? If they wanted to reduce the prison populations they would get rid of 20 year mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenses.
4. Whoever wrote this (Cousin Bob?) sounds like a very clever satirist, a government lackey, a naif, or a total idiot. Pouring 1.6 billion bucks on top of another 20 billion dollars in drug war funds is going to clean up and balance our books? That's insanity! And this guy is "analyzing markets"?
Last Thought: Drug prohibition is an expensive failure and causes most of the things it blames drug use for (corruption, crime, etc). The fact that Bush, Gore, and Clinton have all done drugs and continue to support this out of control drug war is a mark of shame. Watch our involvement in Columbia -- it all starts with a third world civil war, and American aid and "military advisors" for one side. Sound familiar? |
