Mike Gardner: CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite- 'President Richard Nixon Enlists Governor's Aid In The War on Drugs (1971)'

Source:Mike Gardner- The CBS Evening News, covering President Richard M. Nixon and his failed War on Drugs, in 1971.

"Nixon enlists Governor's aid in the war on drugs. Nixon's psychedelic film experiment." 

From Mike Gardner 

I'm not sure about the exact year of this newscast, but I believe it's 1971. 

President Nixon actually seemed to have some good ideas up front when he launched the fake War on Drugs in 1971. Programs designed that were about prevention and treatment. Teaching students the dangers of using narcotics and get drug addicts into treatment instead of jail. 

Now, had President Nixon actually followed through on those policy's in his five and a half years as President, maybe the so-called War on Drugs wouldn't be the failure and joke that it is today. Where if anything narcotics are more available forty years later than they were then. And where we now have 2M people in prison today, the largest prison population in the world. And we only represent about 6% of the world's population, both China and India have four times as many people as we do and we have more prison inmates than they do. 

We have so many prison inmates, that we have overcrowded prisons and jails all across the country. Where hundreds of thousands of these people are in jail for using or possessing narcotics. You can actually go to prison or jail in America "The Land of the Free" for possession of narcotics. We now have drug addicts taking jail and prison cells that would normally be operated by violent offenders, people who belong in prison and belong there for a long time. 

Actually, one good thing about our overcrowded prisons and cells, is that some states like California (to use as an example) are now releasing non-violent offenders like drug addicts (to use as an example) shoplifters (would probably be another one) hopefully to halfway houses and drug rehab where they can get help for their issues. And help finding a job so they can be productive and saving that prison space for people who need to be there instead. California also has a debt and budget crisis as well. 

What we learned the last forty years in the fake War on Drugs or what we should've learned is how not to fight the War on Drugs. That it's not smart to treat drug dealers the same as drug addicts. Drug addicts are patients with a disease, called addiction they are not able to tell themselves that they've had enough cocaine. Or whatever they are addicted to, similar to obesity or alcoholism, 

Drug addicts should be treated like patients: send cocaine, heroin, and meth addicts to drug rehab instead of jail or prison and put them on what's called a three strikes policy to get them off of their addiction, not cure them, but get them off of whatever narcotics they are addicted to. 

Strike one, voluntary drug rehab. Strike two, involuntary drug rehab in jail. Strike three, jail time as well as more drug rehab in jail. And make them pay for all of their drug rehab as well. 

Drug dealers though should be treated like the criminals that they are because they prey off of addicts in order to make as much money from them as possible. Including blackmail and extortion and these people need to be in prison doing long sentences. And of course give them a shot at building their lives so they can get a legal job once they leave prison. 

The fake War on Drugs is about supply and demand like anything else in our economy. If people want something bad enough, there's going to be somebody to sell them what they want. So if drug dealers have less customers wanting their dope, meaning fewer drug addicts, they'll make less money.