Reddit reviews Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs
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Used Book in Good Condition
Since you mentioned the name I'll go ahead and mention his book. Anyone interested in this subject should read Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs - Judge James P. Gray.
Consider border control. The government wants to stop the flow of drugs over the border. It has its agents in place. The drug cartel offers one agent twice what he makes in one year to simply look the other way at 1:10pm. He does, the drugs pass through and he pockets the money for having done nothing but turn his head. While not all agents can be bribed, you only need one or two. And you can always find one or two. Hence corruption is nearly inevitable.
While that story is contrived, the next is a lengthy quote from "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It" by Judge James P. Gray, p. 51:
"We decided to test the effectiveness of simultaneously arresting every drug seller on the streets of an isolated city, and picked Phoenix for the exercise. Using more 'buy money' than Arizona had ever seen before, we bought into each street dealer we could find, two or three times each. It turned out that Phoenix had 76 drug pushers. In the middle of a weeknight, with the help of state and local police, we arrested all 76 at the same time.
For a week it was impossible to buy drugs on the streets of Phoenix. The single local drug treatment program was swamped. Addicts who could not get treatment left town to score elsewhere. But on the eighth day, new street pushers began to appear in the city, and before a month had elapsed, it was business-as-usual. We had spent tens of thousands of federal tax dollars, and sent scores of pushers to prison, but there was no lasting effect on the availability or price of illicit drugs."
Consider cocaine. The vast majority of users are white, yet the vast majority serving time are black. Why does the government focus so much energy on low-level crack users on the street, but doesn't go after the banks laundering the cocaine receipts?
The more you study the problem the more you realize that it's not about stopping drugs at all.
If anyone is interested in hearing more from this guy he wrote an entire book on the drug war and the inherent problems with prohibition and its implementation in our society. I'm reading it at the moment and it's excellent, I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in knowing more about the pitfalls of the drug war.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Drug-Laws-Have-Failed/dp/1566398606/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1335596836&sr=8-2
Chapter President of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) from University of Oregon here. I wanted to add that SSDP is a great way for you to start your marijuana law reform career if you're still in college. It opens the door for many new possibilities, makes you feel good about the work you're doing, lets you meet amazing people, and is honestly one of the best things you can ever do during your time in college.
*Edit: I also have a book suggestion
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Drug-Laws-Have-Failed/dp/1566398606