How We Won the War on Drugs, Repeatedly, and How to Win the Afghanistan War

How We Won the War on Drugs, Repeatedly, and How to Win the Afghanistan War
Stanton Peele
addiction expert, psychologist, raconteur
Posted: July 7, 2010 02:32 PM

The head of American drug policy was not always the drug czar. That took place under Ronald Reagan - pressed by then-Senator Joe Biden (Joe has always been a nut around drugs and alcohol), the Senate created the position of head of overall American drug policy in 1982 - although the current Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), whose director is the czar, was only created in 1988.

Bill Bennett was drug czar under the first George Bush, and remains a strong supporter of the war. Making great claims for his tenure, Bennett repeatedly expressed displeasure with the results brought about by the Clinton drug czars he handed off to - Houston police chief Les Brown and General Barry McCaffrey.

According to Richard Cortes, writing in Vanity Fair in July 2009, during the Bennett-Brown-McCaffrey years, "Incarceration for drug-law violations increased 1,100 percent between 1980 and 2002 (from Reagan through Bush I and Clinton), yet cocaine and heroin prices fell by 80 percent."

McCaffrey, like Bennett, claimed he did a bang-up job, infinitely improving the illicit drug situation in the U.S. - a claim that was repeated by the drug czar under George W. Bush, John Walters. But, according to Cortes, before making way for the Obama Administration, Walters spent "more than $100 billion to the war. Still, illicit drug use among adult Americans during the Bush administration remained unchanged."

~snip~

So here's how you succeed as commander in the Afghanistan War, General Petraeus. You stay a reasonable length of time, cherry pick some likely looking statistics that reflect favorably on your tenure, then get your butt out of there and blame all subsequent failures on your successor. The important thing is to get out before an obvious and overwhelming defeat occurs on your watch. Just a steady state of failure is all you need to be able to point proudly to the accomplishments under your leadership - then you can seek higher office, or become a pundit for Fox or MSNBC News. Sweet.

That's the only plan for Afghanistan that is going to work.

Thanks, camper.

Of course, it's all the same war, really......

seriously, the heroin i have heard about because i dont take it, but i have noticed that previously i paid 4 to 5 euros a gram for shitty cut blonde hash from morocco (i live in france) now we pay 5 to 6 euros a gram for excellent quality afghan black hash, it is written in gold on the plastic wrapper "sharif afghanistan super quality" in english so i am confident it is from the cia or mi6 it is damn good stuff though, i hear tell that some of the best has a gold label and is written 'taliban' or the bomb which is written 'al quida afghanistan' but i have not been able to get my hands on those brands

People who know, know the perfection of good reduction.