Biden should legalize cocaine to ‘defang the gangs’: The Economist (Connecting the Dots: The Economist, Mark Malloch-Brown, The Open Society Foundations & Soros funded Think Tanks All Networking)

Biden should legalize cocaine to ‘defang the gangs’: The Economist (Connecting the Dots: The Economist, Mark Malloch-Brown, The Open Society Foundations & Soros funded Think Tanks All Networking)

President Biden should legalize cocaine, according to The Economist magazine.

AFP via Getty Images

New York Post

By Ariel Zilber

October 13, 2022 12:08pm  Updated

https://nypost.com/2022/10/13/the-economist-wants-biden-to-legalize-cocaine/

President Biden has been “timid” in decriminalizing marijuana and should go even further by legalizing cocaine as a means of weakening Colombian drug cartels, according to an influential British publication.

“Legalization would defang the gangs,” The Economist wrote Wednesday.

“Obviously, some would find other revenues but the loss of cocaine profits would help curb their power to recruit, buy top-end weapons and corrupt officials.” 

The Economist urged the Biden administration, which moved last week to pardon those convicted of marijuana possession, to fully roll back the “war on drugs” by making it legal to consume cocaine.

The Post has sought comment from the White House.

“Prohibition is not working — and that can be seen most strikingly with cocaine, not cannabis,” The Economist wrote.

Cocaine is the third-most used illicit drug in the United States.Getty Images

The magazine noted that since the Nixon administration launched the “war on drugs,” the volumes of cocaine that have flooded the United States have surged. In 2020 alone, US authorities seized more than 42,000 tons of cocaine at border crossings and ports of entry.

The US has also spent billions of dollars in Colombia, where the armed forces have failed to “suppress production” of the drug. Cocaine, the third-most used illicit drug in the US, is derived from coca plants grown in the foothills and plains of the South American country.

The Economist said that Washington’s strategy of paying the local armed forces to “spray coca plantations with herbicide from the air or to yank up bushes by hand” has failed.

“When coca is eradicated on one hillside, it shifts to another,” according to the magazine.

The Economist wrote that the illicit drug trade has made cartels more wealthy and powerful than local state authorities in Colombia.

 

Making cocaine legal would also be “less dangerous,” The Economist claimed.Bloomberg via Getty Images

As long as cocaine remains illegal in the US, “cocaine gangs will remain powerful.”

Legalization of cocaine would “allow non-criminals to supply a strictly regulated, highly taxed product, just as whisky- and cigarette-makers do,” according to The Economist.

Making cocaine legal would also be “less dangerous,” The Economist claimed, “since legitimate producers would not adulterate it with other white powders and dosage would be clearly labelled” similar to whisky bottles and cigarettes.

The Economist wrote that legalizing cocaine would weaken drug cartels.

“Cocaine-related deaths have risen fivefold in America since 2010, mostly because gangs are cutting it with fentanyl, a cheaper and more lethal drug,” according to The Economist.

Governments can use tax revenue from legalized cocaine to fund research into whether the narcotic is more addictive than other substances such as alcohol or tobacco, the magazine wrote.

“In private, many officials understand that prohibition is not working any better than it did in Al Capone’s day,” The Economist wrote.

“The benefits — safer cocaine, safer streets and greater political stability in the Americas — far outweigh the costs.”

Connecting the Dots:

The Economist is a publication for the Economist Group.

Marjorie M. Scardino was the CEO for the Economist Group and is a director at the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank).

Open Society Foundations was a funder for the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank).

George Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations a board member for the International Crisis Group, a director emeritus for Refugees International and was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society. 

Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Refugees International.

Mark Malloch-Brown is a global board member for the Open Society Foundations, a co-chair for the International Crisis Group, was the vice chairman for Refugees International and a political correspondent for The Economist.

The Economist is a publication for the Economist Group.

Resources: Past Research

'The Economist' Misses the Point on Crony Capitalism (Past Research on The Economist)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 2014

https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-economist-misses-point-on-crony.html

Working Together to Help Refugees (Where does that money go?) (Past Research on Refugees International)

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2017

https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2017/08/working-together-to-help-refugees-where.html

I do Believe the Election is Rigged! (PAST RESEARCH) (Past Research on Mark Malloch-Brown, Open Society Foundations & Smartmatic)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2020

https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2020/11/i-do-believe-election-is-rigged-past.html