The taboo that kills

Drugs are really just agricultural products, like flour or soy.  The prohibition makes the drugs such a valuable commodity ($320bn a year).  Without prohibition, you can make about as much money on opium poppy as you can from soy beans (hint: not so much). So the war on drugs actually benefits the drug cartels - it is a necessary condition for their existence.

The losers in the war on drugs are the people whom it was meant to protect:

• At least 170,000 American lives could have been saved (according to the US government's own calculation methods) if the US government had not spent $1000bn on this "war" the past 40 years, but rather on healthcare, road safety and other protection for citizens.  Similar figures are likely for the rest of the world.
• People all over the world are terrorized by organizations financed by drug money: The Taliban, the Mexican drug cartels responsible for at least 38,000 deaths and endless troubles for their country, the dictatorship in Burma, the drug barons of Guinnea Bissau (who assasinated their head of state two years ago), the FARC guerilla in Columbia ... and the well-oiled "retail" organizations working on strategies to get your child hooked on the stuff.
• Ordinary people who are victims of crime perpetrated by drug addicts to finance their drug use, or who are scared in their cities and their homes because of such crime.
• Drug addicts who are denied a dignified life, because both their ailment (the addiction) and the way they finance it makes them criminals and outcases.  It should be possible to live a dignified life despite a drug addiction, but today it isn't.

The alternative does not need to be sudden, reckless and total legalization.  In their report, the Global Commission on Drug Policy (made up of very respectable people) suggests "experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens".  This kind of nuanced view is necessary, and it can only be brought into policy by the debate we are not having right now.

An American 'J'accuse'

Once in a long while, a single person will point a finger at the powers that be, and by the sheer moral weight of their accusation make the foundations tremble.  Matt Taibbi just did.

In his recent Rolling Stone article "The People vs. Goldman Sachs", he raises an indictment of not just a very crooked investment bank, but also of the Department of Justice, SEC and a string of administrations who have pandered to the financial industry and ensured minimal regulatory oversight.  In the 12 years leading up to the financial crisis, the number of criminal referrals from ever weakening regulators was reduced by a factor of 25. And as Taibbi points out, Goldman "stands now on the precipice of officially getting away with one of the biggest financial crimes in history".  With a 650-page bipartisan Senate report as his source, Taibbi points at how Goldman swindled both customers and the US tax payer, and how they merrily set about milking the financial crisis they saw coming (with no thought of, you know, warning anyone or trying to prevent the disaster).

This article is the Real Thing, the Stuff That Changes the Future.  It is already credited with shaving a few billion off Goldman's share price.  It channels the rage of millions and millions of Americans who did not appreciate their economy being crashed by Wall Street and on top of that having to pick up the bill.  It could still single-handedly force the DoJ and the SEC to grow the balls to confront these very powerful interests.

If I were an American, I would be looking for the "US Tahrir Square".

Has the US releaked the cables?

The Norwegian broadsheet Aftenposten has apparently got hold of the full package of cables leaked by Wikileaks.  How did a small newspaper in a remote corner of the world get hold of this treasure, when none of the world's powerful media giants could not?

Could it be that the US government decided to get the stuff out more quickly, to avoid the slow torture planned by the Wikileaks consortium?

Brave Cameron in China

David Cameron urges China to embrace democracy in an act of bravery which seems to be a hallmark of the present UK government.

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I fell out of blogging. I may do so again (it doesn't matter much, as I am not promoting this blog to anyone). It is mostly a repository for my thoughts and observations.