| truth: the Anti-drugwar | Analysis & Commentary | Accept the $1 Challenge |
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"Our ultimate destination: a drug-free America. And now in the eleventh hour of this Presidency, we give a new sword and shield to those whose daily business it is to eliminate from America's streets and towns the scourge of illicit drugs." -- President Ronald Reagan, Nov 18, 1988, Remarks on Signing the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.
The bill declared it the policy of the US government to "create a Drug-Free America by 1995." "Progress does not come overnight. America has had a long, dark struggle with drugs. It’s not a war we’ve been fighting for 20 years. We’ve been fighting it for 120 years. -- DEA Pub, "Speaking Out Against Legalization" |
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Yes, the drug war really has been going on for over 100 years. But there are two small reasons why 'stamping out drug use' will never work -- small reasons, but really important ones:
Reason 1: Humans are biologically hard-wired to seek novelty and pleasure Historically, mankind has not had a great deal of success overturning the basic laws of nature. Even God couldn't get humans to "just say no" -- who do you think you are? Reason 2: Where there is a demand, a market will rise to supply it Stop the demand? -- biology says you lose. |
| This year we'll win -- we just need to try harder! | |||
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| Year | Headline | Publication | Issue Date |
| 1903 | War on the traffic | Missionary Review | Aug |
| 1907 | Warfare against opium-smoking in America | 19th Century | Dec |
| 1908 | Plan world war on opium traffic | New York Herald* | Dec 31 |
| 1909 | Warfare against opium-smoking in America | Outlook | Feb 6 |
| 1909 | Fight against opium | Nation | Jul 29 |
| 1910 | National fight on baby killers | Survey | Oct |
| 1911 | Progress in solving the opium problem | Outlook | Jul 1 |
| 1912 | Combating the drug evil in San Francisco | Overland | Jul |
| 1913 | Knock-out blow for opium | Literary Digest | Jun 28 |
| 1914 | War and drug famine | Literary Digest | Sep 19 |
| 1922 | New weapons in the war against narcotics | Survey | Jun 15 |
| 1924 | Fight against opium | Nation | Nov 5 |
| 1924 | America's part in the world war on opium | Literary Digest | Dec 6 |
| 1925 | Losing fight against the deadly poppy | Literary Digest | Jan 3 |
| 1926 | Sara Graham-Mulhall, a world leader in the war on drugs | Pictorial Review | May |
| 1927 | Uncle Sam scores one on opium | Survey | Jan 15 |
| 1928 | New chapter in the opium war | Survey | Oct 1 |
| 1929 | Step toward solution of the narcotics problem | Current History | Jan |
| 1929 | Fight against opium | New Republic | Jul 31 |
| 1930 | League fights the poppy | New Republic | Aug 20 |
| 1931 | Effective plan to control traffic in drugs adopted by twenty-eight nations | Nation | Jul 29 |
| 1931 | New plan to curb drug traffic | Current History | Aug |
| 1933 | End of illicit traffic now in sight | Literary Digest | Jul 29 |
| 1936 | Rising tide of narcotics over world | Literary Digest | May 16 |
| 1943 | Narcotics; war has brought illicit traffic to all-Time low | Life | Jul 19 |
| 1946 | New protocol on narcotic drugs signed | U.N. Bulletin | Dec 31 |
| 1948 | War against dope runners | Colliers | Jul 31 |
| 1950 | Our global war on narcotics | American Mercury | Mar |
| 1952 | Man strikes hardest blow yet against dope | Life | Jan 14 |
| 1953 | International treaty endorsed for limiting world opium production | U.N. Bulletin | Jul 1 |
| 1955 | Battle with dope in British Columbia | Newsweek | May 2 |
| 1956 | World war against narcotics | Reader's Digest | Jan |
| 1957 | Dope: congress encourages the traffic | Nation | Mar 16 |
| 1962 | Narcotics victory | Commonweal | Mar 9 |
| 1966 | New prohibition? intensified federal drugs crackdown | Newsweek | Feb 7 |
| 1967 | War on narcotics | Todays Health | Jul |
| 1968 | Waging a war on drug abuse | Business Week | Jan 20 |
| 1968 | Alarming rise in dope traffic | US News | Sep 2 |
| 1969 | UN to develop plans to control illegal narcotic drug crops | U.S. Dept of State Bulletin | Jan 20 |
| 1969 | Growing menace of drugs | US News | Jul 28 |
| 1969 | Operation impossible | Time | Oct 17 |
| 1969 | Nixon's new plan to deal with the marijuana problem | US News | Oct 27 |
| 1970 | We must fight the epidemic of drug abuse! | Reader's Digest | Feb |
| 1970 | Broader attack on drug abuse, to dry up the flow of drugs | US News | Mar 23 |
| 1970 | War on drugs: it's meaning to tourists | US News | Sep 7 |
| 1970 | Booming traffic in drugs: the government's dilemma | US News | Dec 7 |
| 1971 | America's battle against the white death | Newsweek | Mar 29 |
| 1971 | Sensible new plan to fight drugs in our schools | Ladies Home Journal | Apr |
| 1971 | Continuing battle over pot | Science News | Apr 24 |
| 1971 | President calls for comprehensive drug control program | U.S. Dept of State Bulletin | Jul 12 |
| 1972 | Last week was a bad week for the narcs; eventual decriminalization of marijuana | Science News | Feb 19 |
| 1972 | Drive to curb hard drugs gets a no 1 priority | US News | Apr 3 |
| 1972 | New progress in the war on drugs | US News | Aug 7 |
| 1972 | U.S. scores in the war on drugs | Newsweek | Aug 28 |
| 1972 | Victory soon in fight against drug traffic? | US News | Sep 25 |
| 1972 | Teenage war against drugs | Parents | Dec |
| 1972 | Big gains in drive to cut off narcotics | US News | Dec 25 |
| 1973 | Tide has turned in the war on heroin | US News | Jul 16 |
| 1973 | Victory over opium: capture of Lo Hsing-han | Time | Jul 30 |
| 1974 | Holy war against heroin | Progressive | Jan |
| 1974 | Incredible war against the poppies | Esquire | Dec |
| 1974 | U.S. to provide helicopters to Burma for narcotics control | U.S. Dept of State Bulletin | Dec 9 |
| 1975 | Our chronic drug dilemma | Saturday Evening Post | May |
| 1975 | Tranquilizer war: controlling Librium and Valium | New Republic | Jul 19 |
| 1975 | Drug abuse 1975: the war is past, the problem is as big as ever | Science | Nov 14 |
| 1975 | U.S. pledges continued efforts in drug abuse control | U.S. Dept of State Bulletin | Dec 8 |
| 1976 | Losing battle against heroin | New Republic | Feb 7 |
| 1976 | President urges redoubled efforts against illicit drug traffic | U.S. Dept of State Bulletin | Feb 9 |
| 1976 | Phony opium war: Washington can't kick the habit | Nation | May 15 |
| 1976 | War over marijuana | Psychology Today | Dec |
| 1976 | How U.S. aims to dry up the heroin supply | US News | Dec 13 |
| 1977 | Mexican heroin flow continues unabated | Science | Apr 29 |
| 1977 | Let's end the dope war: a junkie view of the quagmire | Nation | Jun 25 |
| 1979 | $45 billion yearly drug traffic hits Main Street | US News | Feb 19 |
| 1979 | War on drugs | Maclean's | Apr 2 |
| 1979 | White House prepares war on marijuana | US News | May 21 |
| 1979 | Ban on drug paraphernalia? | Newsweek | Nov 26 |
| 1980 | War on drugs | Time | Jun 30 |
| 1980 | At war with the mushroom pickers | Maclean's | Dec 1 |
| 1980 | New flood of heroin, and why it isn't stopped | US News | Dec 8 |
| 1981 | New federal war on drugs | Newsweek | May 11 |
| 1982 | Reagan gets tough on drugs | Rolling Stone | Apr 15 |
| 1982 | All-out war on heroin in Golden Triangle | US News | May 24 |
| 1982 | Joining the war on drug abuse | Nations Business | Jun |
| 1982 | Reagan's war on drugs | Newsweek | Aug 9 |
| 1982 | Feds vs. drug runners: game gets trickier | US News | Oct 4 |
| 1983 | The marijuana wars | Newsweek | Aug 29 |
| 1984 | Why the U.S. is losing the war against drugs | US News | Feb 6 |
| 1984 | Drug traffic can -- and must -- be curbed | USA Today (Periodical) | May |
| 1984 | War on the cocaine mafia | Time | May 28 |
| 1984 | More bad news in the war against drugs | US News | Jul 16 |
| 1984 | California's war against pot | Newsweek | Oct 8 |
| 1984 | The war on drugs | Nation | Oct 27 |
| 1985 | Fighting the cocaine wars | Time | Feb 25 |
| 1985 | Drug war gets even more vicious | US News | Mar 18 |
| 1985 | Flood of drugs -- a losing battle | US News | Mar 25 |
| 1985 | A continental drug war | Maclean's | Apr 1 |
| 1985 | Drugs drugs everywhere -- and no solution in sight | National Review | Aug 9 |
| 1985 | A war that must be won | Vital Speeches | Aug 15 |
| 1985 | Time for a real war on drugs | Newsweek | Sep 2 |
| 1986 | Drug wars: the new alliance against traffickers and terrorists | U.S. Dept of State Bulletin | Apr |
| 1986 | An inadequate war against drugs | Newsweek | Jul 28 |
| 1986 | The battle against drugs | Vital Speeches of the Day | Aug 15 |
| 1986 | The latest antidrug war: better luck this time? | US News | Aug 25 |
| 1986 | War on drugs: more than a 'short-term high'? | US News | Sep 29 |
| 1986 | Business' war on drugs | Nations Business | Oct |
| 1986 | The drug wars will be won with treatment, not tests | Business Week | Oct 13 |
| 1986 | The U.S. campaign against international narcotics trafficking: a cure worse than the disease | USA Today (Periodical) | Nov |
| 1986 | The war on drugs: light, camera, overreaction | US Catholic | Dec |
| 1987 | How to lose the coke war | Atlantic | May |
| 1987 | Exporting the drug war | National Review | May 22 |
| 1987 | How should we attack the drug problem? | Courier | Jul |
| 1987 | The drug war bogs down | Time | Nov 23 |
| 1988 | Where the war is being lost | Time | Mar 14 |
| 1988 | Losing the war? | Newsweek | Mar 14 |
| 1988 | The drug wars: a multi-national force? | Newsweek | Apr 18 |
| 1988 | The lost 'drug war' | National Review | May 27 |
| 1988 | A war on drugs with real troops? | Science | Jul 1 |
| 1988 | The war on drugs get serious | Common Cause | Jul/Aug |
| 1988 | The U.S. drug war in Peru | Nation | Aug 13 |
| 1988 | Losing the drugwar: drugs, banks, and Florida politics | American Spectator | Sep |
| 1988 | Colombia and the war on drugs | Foreign Affairs | Fall |
| 1988 | Soviet drug war | New Leader | Nov 14 |
| 1989 | How to win the war on drugs: target the users | USA Today (Periodical) | Jan |
| 1989 | The newest drugwar | Newsweek | Apr 3 |
| 1989 | It's deja vu all over again | US News | Apr 3 |
| 1989 | The most effective weapon in the war against drugs: the paycheck | Nations Business | Jul |
| 1989 | Spies and soldiers enter the drug war | US News | Jul 31 |
| 1989 | Bennett's drug war | Newsweek | Aug 21 |
| 1989 | The annals of permanent war | US News | Aug 28 |
| 1989 | Now for the real drug war | US News | Sep 11 |
| 1989 | Now it's Bush's war | Newsweek | Sep 18 |
| 1989 | The war? program? experiment? on drugs | Science | Sep 22 |
| 1989 | A lost cause is a lost cause | National Review | Sep 29 |
| 1989 | Why we're losing the war on drugs | Reader's Digest | Oct |
| 1989 | Some winning maneuvers in the war on drugs | Business Week | Nov 27 |
| 1990 | Fighting drugs with the military | Nation | Jan 1 |
| 1990 | A worthless crusade | Newsweek | Jan 1 |
| 1990 | More and more, a real war | Time | Jan 22 |
| 1990 | A failed 'test case': Washington's drug war | Newsweek | Jan 29 |
| 1990 | New drug warriors: lasers, labs and coke-eating bugs | US News | Feb 19 |
| 1990 | The administration's drug war can reduce demand | Vogue | Mar |
| 1990 | In the cocaine war ... the jungle is winning | NY Times Magazine | Mar 4 |
| 1990 | How to win the war on drugs | Fortune | Mar 12 |
| 1990 | The war on (some) drugs | Harper's | Apr |
| 1990 | America's forgotten drug war | Reader's Digest | Apr |
| 1990 | A frontal assault on drugs | Newsweek | Apr 30 |
| 1990 | When TV enlists in the war on drugs | Channels | May 7 |
| 1990 | The drug war of words | Nation | May 21 |
| 1990 | Drug-free zones: winning the war on drugs | New Republic | May 21 |
| 1990 | The drug war is only make-believe | U.S. Catholic | Jun |
| 1990 | Good news in the drug war: prices up, purity down | Newsweek | Jul 2 |
| 1990 | Bill Bennett can't lose the drug war | Esquire | Sep |
| 1990 | D.C.'s War on drugs: why Bennett is losing | NY Times Magazine | Sep 23 |
| 1990 | Does the administration really want to win the war on drugs? | Utne Reader | Sep/Oct |
| 1990 | Declaring war on drugs: teens fight back | 'Teen | Oct |
| 1990 | A losing battle | Time | Dec 3 |
| 1991 | United States stands with Colombia in the war against narcotics | US Dept of State Dispatch | Mar 4 |
| 1991 | Drugs -- to make war or peace? | America | Apr 27 |
| 1991 | President's war on drugs reduces customs seizures | Conde Nast Traveler | Jun |
| 1991 | The widening drug war | Newsweek | Jul 1 |
| 1991 | Drug war fraud continues | Utne Reader | Jul/Aug |
| 1991 | What should we do about drugs? | Vital Speeches | Aug 1 |
| 1991 | An unproductive war against drugs | Forbes | Nov 11 |
| 1992 | The newest war | Newsweek | Jan 6 |
| 1992 | CIA drug ties thwart our war on drugs | Utne Reader | Jan/Feb |
| 1992 | Cracks in the drug war: why the U.S.-Andean alliance to stop the cocaine flow is in trouble | US News | Mar 2 |
| 1992 | Losing battles in the war on drugs | World Press Review | Jun |
| 1992 | What ever happened to the 'war on drugs'? | NY Rev of Books | Jun 11 |
| 1992 | The winnable war | Vital Speeches | Jul 15 |
| 1992 | How's that drug war going guys? | Sassy | Sep |
| 1992 | Rangel cites statistics revealing U.S. is losing in its war on drugs | Jet | Sep 21 |
| 1992 | High technology's growing role in war on drugs | USA Today (Periodical) | Nov |
| 1993 | Fighting the right drug war | US News | Apr 26 |
| 1993 | Can Janet Reno bust the war on drugs? | Rolling Stone | Jun 10 |
| 1993 | The next war on drugs: targeting the inner cities | Brookings Review | Summer |
| 1993 | Clinton's shift in the war on drugs | US News | Sep 27 |
| 1993 | Clinton and drugs: war without end | Nation | Nov 15 |
| 1993 | Clinton's drug policy is a bust | Time | Dec 20 |
| 1994 | The new opium wars | US News | Oct 10 |
| 1994 | O.K., call it war | NY Times Magazine | Dec 18 |
| 1995 | Drug war, II | NY Times Magazine | Jan 29 |
| 1995 | The longest war | Rolling Stone | Apr 20 |
| 1995 | New war over crack | US News | Nov 6 |
| 1996 | The war on drugs wants you | Nations Business | Feb |
| 1996 | The no-win war | New York | Feb 5 |
| 1996 | The war on drugs is lost | National Review | Feb 12 |
| 1996 | The politics of drugs: back to war | Newsweek | Aug 26 |
| 1996 | The phony drug war | Time | Sep 2 |
| 1996 | Why this country is losing the drug war | US News | Sep 16 |
| 1996 | Pot shots in the war on drugs | Newsweek | Oct 14 |
| 1997 | War ends, drugs win | Nation | Jan 6 |
| 1997 | The war over weed | Newsweek | Feb 3 |
| 1997 | The drug war's phony fix: why certification doesn't work | Nation | Apr 28 |
| 1997 | A timeout in the military's war on drugs | US News | Aug 4 |
| 1998 | The lost war on drugs | World Press Review | Feb |
| 1998 | The war over weed | Newsweek | Mar 16 |
| 1998 | The battle for medical marijuana in the war on drugs | America | Apr 11 |
| 1998 | Winning the drug war isn't so hard after all | NY Times Magazine | Sep 6 |
| 1999 | Call off the drug war | American Spectator | Apr |
| 1999 | Bush & the drug wars | National Review | Sep 13 |
| 2000 | The drug war is only a hallucination | U.S. Catholic | Mar |
| 2000 | Scenes from the crack wars | Harper's | May |
| 2000 | A new front in the drug war | Newsweek | Aug 28 |
| 2000 | U.S. hopes to fight drugs, not war, in Colombia | NY Times Upfront | Oct 2 |
| 2000 | The war on coca: how far will the U.S. go? | Business Week | Nov 20 |
| 2001 | Just say no to this drug war [Plan Colombia] | U.S. Catholic | Jan |
| 2001 | War no more | National Review | Feb 5 |
| 2001 | The war on drugs goes to the air [anti-drug ads] | Newsweek | Feb 12 |
| 2001 | High on drug-warring | National Review | Feb 19 |
| 2001 | Lifting the lid on a failed drug war | World Press Review | Mar |
| 2001 | The war against the war on drugs | Time | May 7 |
| 2001 | War without end | Newsweek | May 21 |
| 2001 | I'm proof: the war on drugs is working | Newsweek | Jul 2 |
| 2001 | It's time to give up the war on drugs | Business Week | Sep 17 |
| truth: the Anti-drugwar | Analysis & Commentary | Accept the $1 Challenge |