Common Sense Shows the War on Certain Drugs was Designed for Other Purposes, Such as Invasion of Your Privacy, and Feeding the Prison Industrial Complex.

The war on certain drugs has long been fought by the government in public. In private, the drug war is very different. Publicly, it is a prohibition campaign designed to curtail the flow of illicit narcotics to the population.

The real agenda can be seen from the outcomes of the war. The government tells us that the war on drugs is for the good of society and for the good of our children. If this is what is true, alcohol and tobacco would be banned tomorrow.

Alcohol and tobacco kill more people every year than all the illicit drugs combined by an order of magnitude. No, the war on certain drugs isn't about the good of society and the numbers very clearly tell us that.

When we think about freedom and democracy, one thing we seldom realise is that in America we have easily the largest prison population in the world per head of the population.

During 2006, 7.2 million people were in prisons because of the war on drugs. This is equivalent to an incredible 3.2% of the US adult population or one in every 31 adults.

THE WAR ON CERTAIN DRUGS QUESTIONABLE

The US has less than 5% of the world's population, yet 23% are prisoners. This is an almost 5 times higher than average incarceration rate compared to the rest of the world.

Where are these extra prisoners coming from? Federal prisons were estimated at 179,204 inmates as of September 2007. Of that number 95,146 were incarcerated for drug offences.

This is more than half of all the prison population in federal prisons. Most of these offences were victimless and a huge proportion of them were for drugs like cannabis, which are legal and medicinal under certain circumstances.

AFRICAN AMERICANS TARGETED

In the war on drugs, the rate of incarceration for black men is almost 6 times higher than it is for white men. One in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 years old is under some form of correctional supervision and control. This number is greater than the number of young black men college.

THREE STRIKES AND YOU'RE IN-FOR LIFE

The 'three strikes and you're out' sentencing guidelines means that a disproportionate number of young black and Hispanic Americans are likely to be imprisoned for life under scenarios in which they were guilty of little more than drug addiction and a few prior drugs related offences.

Considering that drug use among black Americans is 9.8% compared with 8.5% of white Americans who use illicit drugs, what possible factors account for the vastly higher numbers of black and African Americans in prison compared to their white counterparts?

One really has to look at detection and incarceration rates. Black and African Americans are much more likely to be detected and incarcerated for their drug use.

There seems to be a bias in the enforcement of drug laws and in the judicial process against black and African American drug users and in favour of white drug users.

It is difficult to see any other mechanism that can account for the huge disparity in incarceration rates between these two groups. What we can say for certain is that the war on certain drugs is having a disproportionate effect on young black males.

Rates of childlessness are a higher for incarcerated black males as is HIV, latent tuberculosis and lowered fertility. What does this all, in essence, mean?

It means that the governing powers don't even allow your own body to belong to you. It means they tell you what you can and can't do to your body

It means they tell you certain drugs-the pharmaceutical multi-million dollar-making ones that are regulated by the banking mafia-are allowable, while the ones they cannot profit from, are not. Clearly something is wrong with the war on certain drugs.