Pete Guither at Drug WarRant has an interesting post, here stolen in its entirety:
Robert Almonte, executive director, Texas Narcotic Officers Association and El Paso police deputy chief (retired), had a different view of the war on drugs than most of the learned participants in the recent conference in El Paso (surprise, surprise): ‘War on Drugs’ conference got the issue wrong.
It’s a pretty bad piece of dreck, full of standard stale prohibitionist misdirection, strawmen, and cherry-picked statistics. I particularly noted the ending:
Our children deserve better; El Paso deserves better. O’Rourke, in calling for the public to exert pressure on our elected officials to legalize marijuana, has stated: “As evidence, I point to the 3,200 people who have been killed in Juárez.”
I say to you, Mr. O’Rourke, as evidence against legalizing marijuana and other dangerous drugs, I point to the countless Americans and their families whose lives have been destroyed by drugs and the over 38,000 Americans who die from drug overdoses each year.
Let me get this straight. As a defense of prohibition, we should ignore the 3200 killed in Juárez under prohibition, and instead focus on the 38,000 Americans killed by overdoses under prohibition.
Right.