Should Drugs Be Legalized?

Karen Goldstein attends a rally for Florida Attorney General candidate,
Jim Lewis, who is running on a platform of legalizing marijuana on October 12, 2010
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Lewis believes that legalizing the drug will save the state
hundreds of millions of dollars that can be redirected for spending on education,
environment, and other necessary items. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Back in 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs." With $2.5 trillion dollars spent, drug use is half of what it was 30 years ago. Thousands of offenders are successfully diverted to treatment instead of jail. But 22 million Americans still use illegal drugs. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world much of it for drugs.

A US-trained 'jungle commando' disembarks from a Blackhawk helicopter,
while a crop-spraying plane flies past, during an anti-drug operation
in an illegal coca plantation, in 2000, under the US-backed, billion-dollar
Plan Colombia. Photograph: Reuters/Eliana Aponte Eliana Aponte/Reuters

"The war on drugs has been a war on communities of color. The racial disparities are staggering: despite the fact that whites engage in drug offenses at a higher rate than African-Americans, African-Americans are incarcerated for drug offenses at a rate that is 10 times greater than that of whites." ~ American Civil Liberties Union

For legalizing drugs: Paul Butler, who is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and Nick Gillespie, who is Editor in Chief of Reason.tv and Reason.com

Against legalizing drugs: Asa Hutchinson, who is a former Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration and Theodore Dalrymple, who is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Source: intelligence2 Debates: Legalize Drugs

Privacy on the Internet

What can Internet surveillance learn about you? Steve Henn invited a couple computer guys to bug his Internet connection for a week. They discovered what a stranger can learn about you from smart phones and free WiFi.
Source: planet money: Episode 548: Project Eavesdrop

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Download or Play Legalizing Drugs Part 2
Download or Play Legalizing Drugs Part 3
Download or Play Privacy On The Internet


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