Drug War. Greens versus Libertarians. Harm reduction drug reform. Nader's views.

Drug War. Greens versus Libertarians. Harm reduction drug reform. Nader\'s views.

Ralph Nader and Greens worldwide. Drug War, cannabis, marijuana, hemp, etc.. Universal health care and its relation to harm reduction drug reform. Libertarians versus Greens. MANY LINKS and charts. Please vote for Ralph Nader. Stop supporting the Republican-led, Democrat-installed drug war. Please distribute widely.

Green Party candidates, positions, platforms, etc.. Concerning the Drug War, cannabis, marijuana, harm reduction. Worldwide links. Ralph Nader "called for the legalization of marijuana as part of an overhaul of the nation\'s \'self-defeating and antiquated drug laws.\' ... Legalizing marijuana, Nader said, would allow the government to regulate and potentially tax its use like tobacco products." -Albuquerque Journal, September 8, 2000.

If you are viewing this from somewhere (forum, message board, email list archive, IndyMedia site, etc.) other than a source webpage, and can\'t see the photos, then click the source link just above. The source webpage shows the photos, and the latest revisions. 

*MAP/DrugNews press archives search SHORTCUT for Ralph Nader. The press articles are pulled up in chronological order with the latest articles on top.
http://www.mapinc.org/find?BK=ralph+nader  

*Excite Search Results for "nader" -- Web News, refreshed four times a day, provides headlines from over 350 Web sites, including ABCNews, Boston Globe, CNN Interactive, E! Online and Popular Science.
http://search.excite.com/search.gw?c=timely&search=nader 

*Excite Search Results for "nader" -- Newswires, updated every hour, collects breaking stories and photos from wire services like Associated Press, Reuters, SportsTicker, Business Wire and Dow Jones.
http://search.excite.com/search.gw?c=hourly&search=nader

*Northern Light Search: nader. "Current News: A searchable 2-week archive of real-time news from 56 continuously updated newswires. ... To search news stories that are more than 2 weeks old, use the Power Search form, accessible through the navigation bar below, and limit your documents to news sources."
http://www.northernlight.com/nlquery.fcg?dx=1006&cb=0&qr=nader 

*AltaVista - News Results for: nader. SHORTCUT for searching for latest Ralph Nader news. 
http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?stype=ntext&pg=q&q=nader 

*Yahoo! News Full Coverage-Green Party News.
http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/fc/US/Green_Party/

*AlterNet.org "On the Road With Ralph" page. 
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=10

*10-00. 15,000 Help Nader \'Rock the Garden.\' "Tim Robbins, came out draped in an American flag in a wheelchair playing Bob Roberts, a fictional right-wing politician from his movie of the same name, and sang a satirical song called \'Drugs Stink.\' ... Singer Ani DiFranco played what she called \'a little ditty about the drug war.\' "
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=9933 and 
http://www.workingforchange.com/news/article.cfm?ItemId=8294 

*Yahoo! Photo Search Results. SHORTCUT for Ralph Nader news PHOTOS. Pages of thumbnail photos that enlarge when clicked. Each thumbnail comes with a description and date.
http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=nader&n=20&c=news_photos 

*10-00. About 13,500 supporters pack a sold-out Madison Square Garden at a rally for Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in New York on Friday, Oct. 13, 2000. (AP Photo/Ed Betz). - Oct 13 10:53 PM ET. Click thumbnail to enlarge.

*10-00. MTV.com. Vedder, DiFranco, More Play For Nader In NYC. Madison Square Garden, Friday, October 13, 2000. Article with photos and music video-clips of Eddie Vedder (of musical group Pearl Jam), Ani DiFranco, Ben Harper. Click photos to start RealVideo clips. "In his speech, Nader condemned the concentration of corporate power, advocated ending the war against drugs, ... Actor Tim Robbins brought a touch of humor to the event, taking the stage in the guise of the arch-conservative, folk-singing title character of his 1992 film \'Bob Roberts.\' \'It\'s my honor to be at this rally to support George W. Bush,\' Robbins said, taking in the crowd\'s boos before launching earnestly into anti-drug and pro-Wall Street folk songs."
http://www.mtv.com/sendme.tin?page=/news/headlines/001016/story10.html 

*10-00. Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, left, and Pearl Jam\'s Eddie Vedder, right, laugh as they listen to Phil Donahue speak at a press conference before a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, Friday, Oct. 13, 2000. (AP Photo/Stephen Chernin). - Oct 13 8:12 PM ET. Click thumbnail to enlarge.

*10-00. Salon.com Politics | Nader packs \'em in at the Garden. "He [Phil Donahue] brought up a few of the central issues of the night: the need for universal healthcare, the evils of corporate mergers and the failed war on drugs. \'If you fall while ice skating, you\'re covered in Canada because you\'re Canadian. Ask Canadians if they want to swap with us,\' he said. ...  And, he said, \'Ralph Nader wants to end the rootin\' tootin\' Wild West of the war on drugs.\' "
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/14/nader/index.html

*10-00. CNN.com - Loyal Nader fans pack Madison Square Garden. Friday, October 13, 2000. "Speakers assailed Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore as ideologically similar candidates in the pocket of corporate America. They said the two have similar views on trade, foreign policy and the war on drugs." Article with photos.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/14/nader.ap/index.html 

*10-00. NYC-IMC radio > Keepin\' it real on the streets and in the studio since 2000. Go to the section called "Ralph Nader \'Super-Rally\' at Madison Square Garden, New York City - October 13, 2000." Many audio clips of music and speeches archived at New York City Independent Media Center. 
http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/audio/nycradio.html 

*10-00. New York City IndyMedia site. Lots of articles, audio, and photos of the October 13, 2000, Ralph Nader, Super-Rally at Madison Square Garden. Also some video. Use the search engine from the home page. Here is a search shortcut using the search term "madison" 
http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/search-process.php3?medium=all&keyword=madison 

10-00. Rob Lowe, left, host of "Saturday Night Live," rehearses a sketch with Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the show\'s set Saturday, Oct. 7, 2000, in New York. In the sketch, Nader is asking why he wasn\'t allowed to be in the "debate sketch," a sketch which preceded this sketch. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Nader has not been allowed to participate in debates with presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush. Photo by NBC, Mary Ellen Matthews (AP). Click photo to enlarge. 

*10-00. Hey eco! Nader did a skit on SNL & mentioned Pot. Saturday Night Live season premiere October 7, 2000. "Ralph Nader did a skit with Rob Lowe and he said in his mind that maybe I should tell him I want to legalize pot when I become president." -as reported by FoM of CannabisNews.com fame. 
http://cann.com/b1/messages/30/30496.shtml 

*10-00. Nader Alert on drug war, death penalty, prison industrial complex. October 2, 2000 Action Alert from the Nader 2000 Campaign email list. 
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/nader.htm 

*9-00. Nader Tells Corporations to Get Out of the Prison Industry. September 27, 2000 at rally in Youngstown, Ohio. Nader on the  prison industrial complex. 
http://votenader.org/press/000927corpprisons.html and 
http://www.egroups.com/message/drugwarnews/529

*9-00. MAP/DrugNews SEARCH SHORTCUT for many press articles about RALPH NADER\'s September 8, 2000 press conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he called for legalizing cannabis/marijuana, and for harm reduction drug reform. Ralph Nader "called for the legalization of marijuana as part of an overhaul of the nation\'s \'self-defeating and antiquated drug laws.\' ... Legalizing marijuana, Nader said, would allow the government to regulate and potentially tax its use like tobacco products. " -Albuquerque Journal, September 8, 2000.
http://www.mapinc.org/find?BK=nader+johnson+santa&YY1=1997 

*9-00. US: Nader Says Decriminalize Marijuana. Long article. "Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, joining Republican Gov. Gary Johnson in criticizing the nation\'s war on drugs, called Friday for the legalization of marijuana as part of an overhaul of the nation\'s \'self-defeating and antiquated drug laws.\' ... Johnson has made waves politically for more than a year by advocating the legalization of marijuana and heroin. However, he has since dropped his support for making it legal to use heroin because it proved too controversial. He is the nation\'s highest-ranking elected official to publicly support drug legalization. ... Legalizing marijuana, Nader said, would allow the government to regulate and potentially tax its use like tobacco products." -Albuquerque Journal, September 8, 2000.
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread6977.shtml and 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1339/a06.html 

*9-00. Nader favors legalizing marijuana. "Nader on Friday [September 8, 2000] advocated the legalization of marijuana as part of an overhaul of the nation\'s \'self-defeating and antiquated drug laws.\' ... \'Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem,\' Nader said at a news conference where he was flanked by the GOP governor. \'We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. We do not send nicotine users to jail in this country. Over 500,000 people are in our jails who are non-violent drug users.\' Nader -- like Johnson -- supports lifting criminal sanctions for marijuana possession. For other drugs, such as heroin, he advocated \'harm reduction\' programs, ..." Short AP story was posted in various newspapers. For example: 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1339/a02.html?34290 -AP 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1339/a02.html?34296 -press 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1343/a01.html?34296 -press 

*9-00. Johnson Joins Nader In Decrying Drug Laws. Long article. "... criticizing the nation\'s war on drugs, calling for the legalization of marijuana and reform of what Nader calls \'self-defeating and antiquated\' drug laws. \'Addiction, no matter what kind of addiction, should not be criminalized,\' Nader said at a news conference [on September 8, 2000]." -Santa Fe New Mexican, September 9, 2000.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1345/a05.html 

*9-00. Sept. 8, 2000. Nader Urges New Strategy for the War on Drugs. VoteNader.org 
http://www.votenader.org/press/000908drugwar.html 

Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Nader 2000 campaign staff member Stacy Malkan, talk during a news conference in Washington, Tuesday Sept. 5, 2000, where Nader criticized a Drug Enforcement Administration plan to ban hemp foods. Photo by Rick Bowmer (AP).
http://cann.com/b1/binaries/29/29857.jpg

*9-00. MAP/DrugNews SEARCH SHORTCUT for press articles about RALPH NADER\'s September 5, 2000 press conference about HEMP.
http://www.mapinc.org/find?BK=nader+hemp+dakota&YY1=1997 

*9-00. September 5, 2000. Statement of Ralph Nader. DEA Reportedly Will Propose New Restrictions on Hemp Food Products, Ignore Plea by Farmers and Businesses to Allow Hemp Crops in the U.S.. VoteNader.org  
http://www.votenader.org/press/000905hemp.html

*8-00. August 2, 2000. Philadelphia Youth Conference, Question and Answer with Ralph Nader. Drugs section excerpted after the link URL.
http://votenader.org/press/000802PhillyYouthTranscript.htm 

Drugs

The cost of imprisoning one person each year totals $23,000, whereas the cost for treatment in a methadone rehabilitation clinic totals only $4000. Yet, most alarming is the percentage of minorities in prison. The US is comprised of 75% Caucasian, nearly 75% of the prison population may be categorized as minority. Mr. Nader, our goal is to help facilitate people with drug abuse problems to take control become a positive part of the community. Funding must be reallocated to rehabilitation centers across the country. Our first solution is to recall the laws governing mandatory minimum drug sentencing that wastes monetary resources and destroys communities. How do you feel about this, Mr. Nader?

Nader: Agreed. You have to treat individual\'s injustices as individuals. Our second solution is to decrease prison funding and increase funding for drug rehabilitation. You don\'t treat nicotine addicts as criminals; you don\'t treat alcoholics in this country as criminals. Why are you treating drug addicts as criminals instead of treating them as patients bringing all the problems up to the surface so we can treat them? Instead, we are criminalizing the problem, we are militarizing the problem and we are wasting tens of billions of dollars on policies that are failing. The war on drugs has got no standard of failure attached to it. There is no way of telling that their policies are failing. And by the way, always distinguish between pharmaceutical drugs and street drugs. There are a lot of young people in this country that are over medicated and over drugged. [end of drugs section excerpt]

*6-00. In his June 25 2000 acceptance speech, Ralph Nader elaborated beyond the written statement. On the drug issue, Nader asked of the Drug Enforcement Agency: "What standard of failure would you apply before we can go back to the table (to discuss drug policy)?"
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread6549.shtml

*6-00. Ralph Nader acceptance statement. Drug war quotes pulled to the top. Hemp, too. June 25, 2000 Green Party presidential nomination acceptance statement. Nader condemns drug war, corporate prison industry, racist criminal justice system, and hemp prohibition.
http://cann.com/b1/messages/27/27673.shtml and 
http://www.egroups.com/message/drugwarnews/382

"At home our criminal justice system, being increasingly driven by the corporate prison industry that wants ever more customers, grossly discriminates against minorities and is greatly distorted by the extremely expensive and failed war on drugs." ...

"In Hawaii, we visited one of the only two plots in the United States (the other is on the Pine Ridge Reservation) legally permitted to grow industrial hemp, that 5000 year old, versatile plant with thousands of uses, including textiles, fuel, food and paper. A fraction of an acre was surrounded by barbed wire fence, saturation night lights inside a larger fenced area. This medieval experience brought home once again that for the sake of farmers, the environment, consumers and energy independence, it is necessary to free industrial hemp from the proscribed list of U.S. Drug and Enforcement Agency."

*For archives of the latest press and media about all aspects of Ralph Nader\'s campaign:
http://votenader.org/newslinks.html

*CannabisNews.com press archives search SHORTCUT for Ralph Nader.
http://www.cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=nader 

*6-00. Ralph Nader for President Press Information. June 25, 2000 ACCEPTANCE STATEMENT. With some PHOTOS, too. And link to VIDEO!
http://www.votenader.com/press/000625acceptance_speech.html

*C-SPAN. Campaign 2000. RALPH NADER. Speeches and interviews. VIDEOS. Green Party presidential nominee. One needs to install RealPlayer first. Using RealPlayer one can move forward or backward in the videos almost instantly. C-SPAN also has a search engine available for the whole site, including the video transcripts.
http://www.c-span.org/campaign2000/naderspeeches.asp 

*Greens. Drug War Platforms. Also some info from Usenet messages by a webpage compiler of Green Party platform links. Links, processes, history, and sources for Green platform positions on drug war. 
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/platforms.htm 

*Green Party platforms. A collection of Green Party platforms for North America.
http://www.greens.org/plats.html 

*Association of State Green Parties. This IS Ralph Nader\'s platform according to the the webpage of North American Green Party platforms above, and according to VoteNader.org site.
http://www.gp.org/platform_index.htm

*5-00. the Greens/Green Party USA. Platform. This is NOT Ralph Nader\'s platform (according to the webpage of North American Green Party platforms). 
http://www.greens.org/gpusa/Platform061100.html

Question: Do you think that cigarettes should be illegal? 
Ralph Nader:  No. You never prohibit an addiction because what you do is you drive it underground and a huge black market occurs. What you do with an addiction is expose the addicters to massive information, protect them from deceptive advertising, protect the young from being sold such [things] as tobacco products. Keep the research up to make whatever tobacco is consumed less lethal in terms of nicotine and other levels and increasingly make it socially stigmatized so that people often will stop smoking or won\'t smoke, not because it\'s bad for their health, but because it\'s no longer the thing to do. When I was in college, non-smokers were on the defensive. The smokers would blow smoke derisively in non-smokers faces. You\'d never see that today. 
--Source: David Frost interview Oct 21, 1994.

A few of the many other interesting worldwide Green Links concerning the Drug war: 

*4-99. US CA: A Big Green Upset. Audie Bock, the first Green to win a state legislature seat in the USA. "even though this will probably get me into trouble," she wants marijuana legalized. She won a state office seat from the Bay Area in California. April 1999.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n395/a09.html

*7-00. Germany. Greens, Social Democrats, Socialists. For medical cannabis in Bundestag. IACM-Bulletin of 9 July 2000.
http://cann.com/b1/messages/27/27752.shtml 

*12-99. The Greening Of NEW ZEALAND. Jeanette Fitzsimons\'s victory. "Drug abuse is a social and public health problem, not a legal one... possession and cultivation of small amounts of cannabis for personal use should be decriminalised."
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n1332/a01.html?397

*MAP/DrugNews press archives search SHORTCUT for Green cannabis press worldwide. The press articles are pulled up in chronological order with the latest articles on top. Most of the press is from outside the USA, since "cannabis" is the term for marijuana in many nations outside the USA. 
http://www.mapinc.org/find?BK=green+party+cannabis&YY1=1997  

*POWER LINKS. INTERNATIONAL. Saner Cannabis and Drug Policies worldwide. Older compilation of many world press articles. Many with Green Party info. In chronological order. [Click table of contents (TOC) names, not the TOC URLs.]
http://homepages.go.com/homepages/m/a/r/marthag1/power_links.htm and 
go to the "research" section at:
http://www.cannabis.com/linkscgi/#research

-------------------------------------------

*WORLD DRUG WAR CHARTS. JUST THE CHARTS. Tables and rates. For incarceration, race, jail, prison, cannabis, drugs, mandatory minimums, drug related crime, poverty, murder, and more. Revised. Very few notes. 
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/charts2.htm

USA. 6.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at yearend 1999 -- 3.1% of all U.S. adult residents. 
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/charts2.htm

BLACK AND WHITE MALE PRISONERS per 100,000 male residents in the U.S. (of same race as inmate). Compared to apartheid South Africa. The USA rates do not include jail inmates (which would further increase the US rates).

----------------------------------------------

The separate and growing power of the corporate prison industrial complex. I pledge allegiance to Wackenhut. Libertarians actually like the idea of privatizing prisons. 

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing."  
-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (One Thousand Americans, George Seldes, page 5.)
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas3.htm

\"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.\" -Mussolini

\"The only difference between Bush and Gore is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock at the door.\"
-Ralph Nader (Green Party presidential candidate)

The insane worldwide drug war, the prison-industrial complex, and the CIA\'s (and others\') far-right, drug-funded, covert operation, death squad network worldwide is being dismantled outside the USA mainly through HARM REDUCTION drug reform, often led by Greens. This has been occurring mainly in Western Europe and is spreading to other Western industrialized nations such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. 

Prison is being less and less used, especially for soft drugs. Drug maintenance, voluntary treatment, and/or mandatory treatment outside prison is being implemented for hard drugs. Prison is used less and less for all drug users, or not at all. Crime due to drugs is much lowered in the regions affected. Drunk driving, deaths due to driving while intoxicated, domestic violence due to alcohol, etc. are all drug harms that are being lowered through more targeted education and laws. Germany has drastically reduced drunk driving and driving-while-intoxicated deaths. By much lower blood alcohol limits, and loss of driver\'s license for a period of time depending on the level of blood alcohol. 

Europe is exposing death squad groups in Latin America (some are drug-funded) and death squad leaders new and old (such as Chile\'s U.S.-supported ex-president and mass-murderer Augusto Pinochet). The latest "Plan Colombia" military and death-squad approach to the drug war has been strongly opposed by European governments.

*9-00. Europe Leading The Way To Smarter Drug Laws. One of the most thorough and understandable histories of harm reduction drug reform in one article. (Canadian newspaper article from the Ottawa Citizen).
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread7039.shtml

Nearly all Western nations other than the USA have universal healthcare. It allows much more comprehensive care of drug users who desire help. It is essential for in-depth harm reduction drug reform, since many drug users can\'t afford the healthcare help they desire and/or need.

The USA ranks badly when compared against other Western industrialized nations concerning infant mortality rates, life expectancy, child poverty rates, etc.. Yet the USA spends far more yearly per capita per person for total, combined, private and public, healthcare expenditures. Much money in the USA is wasted on paperwork, overly priced drugs, and for care that is given far too late and when it is most expensive. Over 70,000 (mostly untested and unsafe) chemicals saturate the air, food, water, workplace, homes, etc. in the USA.

Links below have healthcare statistics and rankings for many nations. For example; overall performance, infant mortality, life expectancy, total health expenditures per capita in dollars, or total expenditures as a percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product = total economic output of a nation).

*WHO. World Health Reports 2000 and 1999. Statistics. Select topic and then click. Pulls up ranked stats for all countries.
http://www-nt.who.int/whosis/statistics/whr_statistics/select.cfm and 
http://www-nt.who.int/whosis/statistics/menu.cfm?path=statistics,basic

*OECD Health Data 2000- FAD (Frequently Asked Data). Links to 18 tables on the web.  OECD = Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
http://www.oecd.org/els/health/software/fad.htm

*OECD Health Data 2000. Total health costs. % GDP. 1960-98.
http://www.oecd.org/els/health/software/fad16.htm 

*IDB Aggregations. Select "Mortality Measures" to get infant mortality rates and life expectancies for all nations for any year selected. In one list! IDB = International Data Base of the U.S. Census Bureau.
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbagg.html 

*Nader Calls for Single-Payer Health Care System. July 29, 2000. "Ralph Nader today called for a universal health care system in the U. S. which would be similar to the single-payer system in Canada. Nader noted that in the U. S. 24 cents of every dollar spent on health care goes to administrative costs compared to 11 cents in Canada. He said the difference could go a long way in covering the 47 million Americans who now have no health insurance."
http://www.votenader.org/press/000729SinglePay.html and 
http://www.votenader.org/press/000827healthcare.html

In the USA: Centrist, leftist, Green, European, and other harm reduction voices for drug reform are mostly kept out of the censored U.S. news.

Discussion of drug policy in the US mainstream corporate media has been (until recently) dominated for the most part by fanatical Republicans and fanatical Libertarian Party members.  Rabidly-rightist Republicans (supported by the far-right National Rifle Association), "law-and-order," drug warriors want ever-longer prison sentences. They have been opposed (in the media) by equally-hard-right (at least on economic issues), "sell-all-hard-drugs-in-the-cereal-sections-of-grocery-stores" Libertarian Party members. As rabid rightists all three organizations religiously oppose universal healthcare and most aspects of the safety net.

What a ridiculous and stark choice! Harm reduction drug reform is a cheaper \'THIRD WAY" alternative that is working NOW. The Libertarian Party (LP) fanatically opposes such compromise, gradualism, harm reduction based on universal healthcare, the safety net, etc.. The LP is basically a cult of true believers and ideologues.

Major stockholders of most big mainstream news corporations are rich. Therefore most of them are Republican or rightist. Allowing only Libertarian opposition to the drug war favors rightist politics in general, because Libertarians make Republican drug warriors look rational and centrist in comparison. All while the media acts as if they are allowing a "debate." 

Yet both sides of the "debate" are on the hard right! Both talk about opposing government spending, yet both support a vigorous (and expensive) police and military. Libertarians believe government spending is OK for services to protect their property rights. Such as police, military, civil courts, contract law courts, criminal courts (to get back their property from criminals), etc..

The government wastes an incredible amount money. Agreed. It wastes it in the areas Libertarians actually approve of. Get the picture? Property over mere people. That is the rightist mantra. 

What is important are spending PRIORITIES, and keeping total taxes as a percent of the economy lower than it is now. My priorities are the safety net and universal healthcare-based harm reduction drug reform.

The USA spends ONE-HALF of ALL the world\'s military spending. NATO should be taking on MUCH more of the West\'s share of military spending.

Charity will never cover the needs of the safety net and universal healthcare-based harm reduction drug reform. So this is an obvious area where government needs to do what people can\'t do for themselves. This happens to be the exact logic used by Libertarian ideologues for military and police spending. They are areas where doing it via the private sector just wouldn\'t be practical or feasible.

Police and court and prison money have become the new safety net. "3 hots and a cot" in a prison cell. With free (unwanted) sex via regular prison rape. 

Universal healthcare is cheaper than Libertarian healthcare for the few. Amazing but true. A real safety net is cheaper than prisons and courts and police. Amazing but true.

Green Harm reduction drug reform is cheaper than prisons and courts and police. Amazing but true. 

To explore working alternatives to this rightist drug policy insanity in the USA media, see the section called "Politics 101" farther down about "big tent" harm reduction drug reform worldwide. And check out :) this surprising (to Libertarians) link:

*7-00. July, 2000. Portugal. Socialists legalize drug use! BBC. The funny thing in this article is that relative to the Socialists, the Social Democrats are considered conservative. :-) And "decriminalization" is the more accurate description.
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread6323.shtml

-----------------------------------------------

"Nearly one in four persons (23.7%) imprisoned in the United States is currently imprisoned for a drug offense. The number of persons behind bars for drug offenses (458,131) is roughly the same as the entire prison and jail population in 1980 (474,368)." From the July 2000 report, "Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States."
http://www.cjcj.org/drug/exsumm.html and 
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/index.html#distortion and 
http://drcnet.org/wol/147.html#risingnumbers

In addition, "The FBI has reported that almost one-third of people convicted of robbery and burglary, and more than one-quarter of people convicted of larceny, committed their crimes to get money for drugs. Moreover, 6.5 percent of the murders in the United States in 1990 occurred in narcotics-related circumstances" (The Washington Post, Jan. 18, 1994).

The Nov. 2, 1995 Chicago Tribune reported: "The latest Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of U.S. prison inmates in 1991 found that 27 percent of robbers admitted they committed crimes to buy drugs; 30 percent of burglars said so, and 5 percent of convicted murderers did." Reader\'s Digest (September 1996) reported: "The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates that half of all violent crime and a third of all homicides are tied to narcotics." 

*The USA has 2 million of the world\'s 8 million prisoners. So, the USA has 5% of the world\'s population, and 25% of the world\'s prisoners. The USA surpassed Russia in 1999 and now has the world\'s highest incarceration rate! It is 5 to 17 times higher than all other Western (long democratic traditions) nations. 6.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at yearend 1999 -- 3.1% of all U.S. adult residents. See: 
*WORLD DRUG WAR CHARTS. JUST THE CHARTS. Revised. Very few notes: 
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/charts2.htm

"JUST SAY NO!" -Nancy Reagan. From page 100 of the 1998 book "Drug Crazy" by Mike Gray: "In June of 1982, [Ronald] Reagan reopened the War on Drugs with a broadside from the Rose Garden. \'We\'re taking down the surrender flag that has flown over so many drug efforts. We\'re running up a battle flag.\'"
http://www.drugcrazy.com

*8-99. Ireland: OPED: Drugs War Invented By Nixon To Extend His Power. 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n840.a11.html

*U.S. Rightist Republican-led (GOP) Drug War. GOP fascists lead, Democrat flunkies follow. Huge LINKS list! Amnesty 2000. Revised edition. GOP\'s holy war. Drug war leaders: rabid right, hate radio, hate television, NRA (National Rifle Association), religious right, (snortin\') George Bush the hypocrite, etc.. 
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/gop.htm 

*Greens and the Drug War. Worldwide. LINKS. Green Party candidates, positions, platforms, etc.. Concerning the Drug War, cannabis, marijuana, harm reduction, etc.. Ralph Nader info, links.
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/greens.htm and 
*9-00. MAP/DrugNews SEARCH SHORTCUT for many press articles about RALPH NADER\'s September 8, 2000 press conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he called for legalizing cannabis/marijuana, and for harm reduction drug reform. Ralph Nader "called for the legalization of marijuana as part of an overhaul of the nation\'s \'self-defeating and antiquated drug laws.\' ... Legalizing marijuana, Nader said, would allow the government to regulate and potentially tax its use like tobacco products." -Albuquerque Journal, September 8, 2000.
http://www.mapinc.org/find?BK=nader+johnson+santa&YY1=1997 

*USA has 2 million of the world\'s 8 million inmates. 14K. FREE BANNER! 
http://cann.com/b1/binaries/28/28259.jpg 

*World Incarceration Rates chart. 28K. FREE CHART GRAPHIC!
http://cann.com/b1/binaries/28/28291.gif

----------------------------------------------