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Brad Pitt calls on the US government to rethink its 40-year War on Drugs policies, because it makes no sense. Pitt is the executive producer of The House I Live In. This documentary won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Prohibition is simply driving commerce underground, creating enormous black-market profits that attract the most ruthless criminal elements. http://venitism.blogspot.com
Pitt says: I know people are suffering because of it. I know I've lived a very privileged life in comparison and I can't stand for it, The US drug policy is a charade. It's such bad strategy. It makes no sense. It perpetuates itself. You make a bust, you drive up profit, which makes more people want to get into it. To me, there's no question; we have to rethink this policy and we have to rethink it now.
Illegal drugs constitute a half-trillion-euro-a-year global industry. Those vast revenues enable the cartels to bribe, intimidate, or kill their opponents at will. Prohibition strategies have never worked. People should consider relegalization, as a strategy to break the economic structure that allows gangs to generate huge profits in their trade, which feeds corruption and increases their areas of power.
According to the documentary, the War on Drugs has cost more than $1 trillion and resulted in over 45 million arrests since 1971. US drug policy affects mostly poor and minority communities, and has made America the world's largest jailer.
The documentary also examines how political and economic corruption have fueled these policies for decades, despite persistent evidence of its moral, economic, and practical failures.
The House I Live In shows the perspectives of multiple victims and perpetrators of the War on Drugs, from the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge.
Approved in 1919, alcohol prohibition led to a steady rise in both alcohol usage
and violent crime. Al Capone and myriad mafiosi showed up. The murder rate
rose 50% between 1919 and 1933, peaking at 10 murders per 100,000 population in
1933, when the country finally decided enough was enough. Immediately after the
repeal of alcohol prohibition, gangsterism went into a swift decline, with all
of the major gangs disappearing within 18 months, and the murder rate dropping
every single year for more than a decade. http://venitism.blogspot.com
Now, the drug prohibition is another tragedy. Millions of people are arrested
each year, trillions of euros are spent each year, and drug gangsterism is at a
level that dwarfs its alcohol equivalent and which has led to bloodbaths, not
because of drugs, but because of drug laws. Over 40% of Westerners have used
drugs.
This tragedy is the result of kleptocrats' refusal to allow people to engage in
peaceful choices as to what they consume. Even if drug use were to rise upon a
return to the tradition of tolerance, our streets would be safer, innocent
people would not have their homes raided and pets killed by narcotics agents
entering the wrong house, victims of asset forfeiture laws wouldn't have their
houses and other assets seized without due process, and resources would be freed
to spend on improving peoples' lives instead of destroying them.
A single speech of Basil Venitis will be cherished by your conferees forever, guiding them at the crossroads of their lives and your organization, increasing their efficiency, and improving the good will of your organization. venitis@gmail.com