Speak Out: Brad Pitt blasts U.S. 'War on Drugs,' calls for policy rethink

Posted by Rick Vandeven on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 10:57 AM:

"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Brad Pitt has thrown his weight behind a documentary that blasts America's 40-year war on drugs as a failure, calling policies that imprison huge numbers of drug-users a "charade" in urgent need of a rethink.

The Hollywood actor came aboard recently as an executive producer of filmmaker Eugene Jarecki's "The House I Live In," which won the Grand Jury Prize in January at the Sundance Film Festival. The film opened in wide release in the United States on Friday.

Ahead of a Los Angeles screening, Pitt and Jarecki spoke passionately about the "War on Drugs" which, according to the documentary, has cost more than $1 trillion and accounted for over 45 million arrests since 1971, and which preys largely on poor and minority communities."

http://omg.yahoo.com/news/brad-pitt-blasts-u-war-drugs-calls-policy-192950161.ht...

Replies (27)

  • War on drug and prohibition. Both the same but at least they got smart and ended prohibition.

    -- Posted by We Regret To Inform U on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 2:35 PM
  • I'm too cynical to believe this documentary will change the CIA's position. Too much money involved for them.

    -- Posted by dchannes on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 3:42 PM
  • DC,

    I agree that this documentary will not end the failed war on drugs. However, it is a sign that opposition to the failed war on drugs is getting more and more mainstream everyday. Libertarians have been the lonely voice in the wilderness on this issue for decades. Just thought that I would toot my own horn. Forgive me if I break into a rousing rendition of "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool" :)

    -- Posted by Rick Vandeven on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 4:28 PM
  • Good point Rick.

    -- Posted by Rick Vandeven on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 5:07 PM
  • The answer is quite simple. Collect up all the drug dealers, large and small, and put them before a firing squad immediately.

    With apologies to Jonathan Swift and his solution to the Irish Problem,

    -- Posted by voyager on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 5:10 PM
  • "Jennifer Aniston"

    I like my gals to have a few callouses on their their hands. I doubt she has any. :)

    And Rick V, I hope the film helps wake more people up to the insanity of the War on Drugs.

    -- Posted by dchannes on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 5:18 PM
  • The cost of drugs has caused us to have labs making bathtub mixtures that are really popping up on the radar not to mention all of the gang activity and violence that comes with it.

    It will get worse.

    -- Posted by We Regret To Inform U on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 6:34 PM
  • Nice! V'ger breaks out the classics. Well played!

    DC and Rick,

    Angelina Jolie isn't anything to scoff at either. Brad Pitt could have any woman in the universe. He did all right for a kid from Missouri.

    -- Posted by Rick Vandeven on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 6:36 PM
  • "He did all right for a kid from Missouri." I reckon he did. How many kids does he have now, a dozen? :)

    I tell you what I can't understand is these kids smoking the whatever the latest version of K2 is. I asked one of them what was in it. He said he didn't know. Whaaaa??? I said, why don't you just smoke pot? At least you know it's organic! I told him he was nuts for smoking something when he had no idea what the heck was in it.

    The other thing they are doing is "bath crystals". I don't know how it's ingested. I assume by smoke. Me, bourbon is just fine!

    -- Posted by dchannes on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 8:01 PM
  • Voy

    Immediate hanging of Opium dealers and anyone possessing it in China cleared the problem up in no time.

    -- Posted by We Regret To Inform U on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 8:07 PM
  • Regret, what are you talking about? People want to get "high", and that's worthy of a death sentence? I don't get it. How does that cause you harm?

    I never had any opium, but I've had morphine, which IS a morphine derivative I believe. It's quite helpful if you are in pain. I guess the government is the only one that can tell us how and when to use it. Is that what you mean?

    -- Posted by dchannes on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 10:24 PM
  • You, too Voy...death sentence for drug usage? If people want to kill themselves with dope isn't that their choice? I guess I have to go Libertarian here.

    -- Posted by dchannes on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 10:27 PM
  • Who's Brad Pitt?

    -- Posted by Old John on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 10:33 PM
  • Oh! Old John you want some too? :) Oh nevermind...I'm going to bed...

    -- Posted by dchannes on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 11:16 PM
  • First off, unless it's Hollywood celebrities that have been around long enough to find their real selves apart from a mixture of all the characters they have portrayed, I can't help but pay little attention to what they blast or endorse.

    When I consider the outcome of the state's policies concerning illegal drugs, I have to encompass the origin and reason certian so called drugs are deemed illegal and where it is headed.

    What will be next?

    dc, Do we need less government absolutes when it comes to the drug war and more government regulation enforcing what is in our food?

    I suspect your answer is yes.

    I figure this isn't any goofier than some of the other posts. What do you think? :)

    -- Posted by Old John on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 11:56 PM
  • bourbon and morphine explain a lot.

    Hey druggie and alcoholics your choices do impact society. You kill by driving under the influence. You cost businesses productivity. You teach children how to break the law and become unproductive citizens.

    -- Posted by survivalist on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 2:38 AM
  • My children have been taught the difference between mala in se and mala prohibita.

    -- Posted by Rick Vandeven on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 6:44 AM
  • I hope I implied a distinction between drug pusher/seller and a drug user.

    The drug pusher has no consideration for fellow human beings. Consequently they deserve no consideration except a fair and speedy trial. The penalty of which should be swift and sure.

    The drug user/abuser should be allowed a chance for treatment. Third time is permanent strike out and removal from society.

    -- Posted by voyager on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 7:38 AM
  • "dc, Do we need less government absolutes when it comes to the drug war and more government regulation enforcing what is in our food?"

    What we need is for the regs that are already in place to be enforced by FDA and for them not to just make it up as they go along.

    I just think the war on drugs or drug "dealers" or drug users is stupid. I have found that if a person want to get high, they will find a way, come hell or high water. I've seen them drink fingernail polish remover. I've seen alcoholics drink rubbing alcohol and after shave.

    I say let them have their drunks or highs as safely as possible as cheaply as possible and lets the rest of us go on to Montana. :)

    -- Posted by dchannes on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 8:50 AM
  • Well, the 47th Legislative District (GOP) committee named this man as the Republican candidate in their race:

    http://www.mitchrichards.com/meet-mitch.html

    If you can believe what Jerry Berger says, he supports a roll-back in the (failed, IMO) war on drugs:

    http://bergersbeat.com/gop-nominates-marijuana-legalization-activist-for-mo-legi...

    He's what I would call a "Liberty Republican." I read through his web site...heartening! Haven't we all been saturated with control of our money, our personal choices, the air, the water, the molecules (sugar and CO2), the kinetic energy, the potential energy, the nuclear energy......

    -- Posted by Givemeliberty on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 9:49 AM
  • I was listening to a conservative talk show yesterday, the Mike Schnitt Show, and he was ranting about Mayor Bloomberg's soda consumption law. On and on he went about how "the government doesn't have the right to tell us what we can and cannot put into our bodies".

    Of coarse he is correct. But like most conservatives, he is inconsistent in that he doesn't extend his beliefs to those things in which he personally does not approve of, i.e. drugs.

    -- Posted by Rick Vandeven on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 10:40 AM
  • The drug testing thing is driven by the insurance companies. They found out that people who are under the influence of mind altering drugs at work are more likely to get into or cause an accident, which costs them money. Duh. They hold employers hostage with no coverage or very high premiums if they don't at least do a pre-employment test.

    "Weed" and opiates, I believe, store in the fat cells for weeks, so even though a person may not be "high" at the time of testing they can still be classed as under the influence or likely to be. I think this is a bit stupid. Here's why: If a guy goes out camping on Friday and takes a couple of tokes off a joint with friends, then on the following Monday gets called in for a random drug screen, is he "high"? No. This fellow is not a problem. It's the, what I call "wake and bakers", who smoke a doobie first thing in the morning and off and on all day that are a problem at work and behind the wheel. As far as I know, it's really next to impossible to test for this differential in a cost effective manner. I think everyone would probably agree that if you have an employee that is shooting meth in the bathroom at work that you have a problem! Or coke. Etc., etc.

    On the other hand, I've worked with wake and bakers in the past and found that they did their jobs well and one one was a tree trimmer. I saw him climb some pretty tall trees(80 ft) and do some tricky take downs while stoned out of his gourd. He was a very high-strung dude unless he was stoned. He was so used to it, all it did was mellow him out I think. Don't get me wrong, he was an absolute nut either way, but he was a good tree man.

    I don't approve of drinking to excess or drugging to excess either. But that's just me. I don't have the answer. However, throwing druggies into the slammer for a decade and confiscating, (stealing their personal property) is an enormous crime in and of itself. The natural consequences of a life of daily drug abuse is enough. If it is decriminalized, you take the profitability out of it. That equals less violent crime and theft right off the bat. IMO

    -- Posted by dchannes on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 1:57 PM
  • I bet all of "Follywood" will fight the war on drugs. It would ruin their parties.

    -- Posted by Mowrangler on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 2:18 PM
  • Mowrangler, time has proven that morality can NOT be legislated. Their "parties" go on either way.

    I watched my ex-mother in law die of cancer. In the end, the only way she could hold her pain medication down was by the smoking of illegal marijuana. It was the only thing that worked. Her children put themselves at risk to prosecution and prison time in order to help ease the excruciating pain of her last weeks.

    There's always a flipside.

    -- Posted by dchannes on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 2:34 PM
  • "Collect up all the drug dealers, large and small, and put them before a firing squad immediately."

    voyager, you DO realize a large number of CIA would fall into the category of "drug dealer", right? Without going to too much trouble you can find plenty of articles to verify my assertion. Here's one of many by Judy Morris, a well known Libertarian researcher and blogger: http://judymorrisreport.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-cia-is-biggest-drug-dealer-on-p...

    -- Posted by dchannes on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 3:05 PM
  • -- Posted by dchannes on Mon, Oct 15, 2012, at 10:24 PM

    I'm for legalization. The tweaker pool will clear up quick since they will over medicate themselves. When I visited Amsterdam I was told here I would see the druggies in the parks passed out all over the place. I didn't see them.

    I tried to bring back a pot menu from a bar but was told since it had buds stuck to it at one time I couldn't bring it home. It was really very civilized and friendly there and they didn't have a drug problem.

    -- Posted by We Regret To Inform U on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 4:24 PM
  • Regret, I've not been to Europe, but I had a friend who used to go all the time. He like to go to Prague in the mid 1980s and would stay for months at a time. He said the girls were beautiful and they knew how to have fun. I asked what was wrong with American girls. He just said they were spoiled and waved his hand at me and shook head. I never saw that he had a problem with the American girls, but that's another story. :) He also liked Amsterdam and said the same thing about it as you did.

    Maybe world travel and seeing other cultures is what is necessary to overcome fears people have. I didn't need to go there to see it for myself the destructiveness of our war on drugs, so called.

    By the way, how was your "bar" experience? :)

    -- Posted by dchannes on Tue, Oct 16, 2012, at 5:38 PM

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