Brad Schlesinger writing at examiner.com has the scoop on John Carnevale's analysis of December 2011 on the Federal anti-drug budget for FY 2012 if the broad cuts take effect that Congress ordered in the event Deficit Supercommittee reached no agreement. (And you recall there was no agreement.)
Relying on highly experienced assumptions about the federal budget process, Carnevale's fear is that prevention will get much bigger cuts ( -40%) than interdiction ( -6%). Treatment could be cut by - 16%, domestic law enforcement by -18% and international programs by -21%. These are guesses, just informed guesses.
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Cuts in the Obama anti-drug budget under sequestration
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Law Enforcement idiocy exposed by Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal has a front page story on the idiotic priorities of county sheriffs in California. They are facing enormous budget shrinkage: they are laying off deputies, closing floors of the county jail, eliminating patrols, eliminating major crimes investigators, letting convicted drunk drivers out of jail early (predicting that they will drink and drive and hurt people). But they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of their scarce local funds to cut down marijuana plants because the Federal government will give them grants to help cover some of the costs. Do they even arrest the marijuana growers who they say are dangerous fiends from the Mexican drug trafficking organizations? No. They make arrests only 10 percent of the time.
How does it make sense for law enforcement agencies to knowingly endanger public safety in order to cut down marijuana plants?
How does it make sense for the Federal government, which is going to spend more than $1.3 trillion this year that it has to borrow, to cut down marijuana plants?
This is the scenario: The U.S. borrows dollars from the Chinese to pay cops who can't catch criminals from Mexico to cut down marijuana in California that when used as intended won't hurt people as much as alcohol and drunk drivers.