Cynical Nation

You got this one very right. Especially regarding the "political calculus". It is true that the Democrats have taken the minorities for granted because they get their votes anyway. I'm not sure if this issue would get them anywhere with the libertarians, though. I think taking the "We are the party of smaller government and responsible management of your money" line might do them more good there, especially by playing off the irresponsible mismanagement of funds that we saw when the GOP had complete control of the federal purse. If they can sell that, I think they skim off a lot of votes, and not just the libertarians. The WoD line could be a part of that, but the picture is much bigger than that.

The problem with dropping the WoD is not so much the ammo it gives to the true believers of the right, but the question of "What do we do about an addicted society?" "Sell more popcorn and pretzels" is not the answer, though, if the WoD were to be called off I would definitely invest in candy, pretzel, and chip companies. The answer that is going to come to that question, automatically, is "We have to spend more on treatment." The core question is whether ending the WoD will result in a greater cost to society in terms of addiction. Do more people use drugs if you decriminalize them? There are countries where drugs have been, to some extent, decriminalized, but I don't know if that resulted in more addiction or, more to the point, more widespread usage.

Anyone?

I would actually vote for a democrat who put an end to the decades long atrocity glibbly called "The War on Drugs."

How many lives have been lost to this pointless, unwinnable exercise in governmental hubris? How much national treasure wasted for nothing?

Anything would be better than the situation we have now.

By the way, the pork on the supplemental funding bill won't help them even with the fact that the Republicans did the same thing. I don't care for the argument about that issue where bloggers said, "Look, here are the Republicans who are complaining and they all voted for the Bridge to Nowhere and the Railroad to Nowhere" because it pretty much says that the pork barrel legislation is okay, just don't be a hypocrite about it. Democrats would get farther by showing that they aren't around for the pork and that the Republicans are. That would go along with what I said above.

The war on drugs is a joke, like the fake "war" in Iraq -- nobody really wants to win either one.

Chimp must stay in control of the puppet Iraqi government to assure that Big Oil gets to suck out more trillions in profits, this time with Iraqi oil contracts, not just American taxpayer dollars that Halliburton steals.

Why would Chimp ever want to leave Iraq? He doesn't give a shit who dies. It's about money -- how surprising!

Similarly, who cares if inner city scumbags take drugs? Nobody. Dems don't want to lose the inner city vote by taking away their favorite activity, and Repugs slap criminal records on those who partake, removing them from the voting roles. It's a win-win.

The "war on drugs" was an attempt to "save people from themselves."

In that regard, it's very much like prohibition, bicycle and motorcycle helmet laws and seat-belt laws. ALL of those things can be said to "save lives," but there is really no way to "save self-destructive people from themselvs."

The "war on drugs" has been a failure because even in prison the drug trade flourishes and if you can't stop it in such a controlled environment, you have no chance of stopping it in society.

But, even if drugs were decriminalized, or legalized, there'd still be calls, even more calls for government to crack down on those bringing drugs into the country illicitly, for one (1) they'd be paying no taxes on those profits and (2) they'd be a threat to the registered and licensed drug enterprises that would spring up and demand protection.

In other words, there isn't any system under which the current street drug trade and the drug smugglers would be allowed to operate.