A Platform for 2020; Stop the Vampire Liberty

The current Republican Party has a platform.  You can read about it on their website by clicking the link above.  If you don't want to waste your time reading empty rhetoric, I'll save you that time and tell you that it contains a lot of platitudes that would be useful if the Republican Party, or any party, actually "walked the walk."  Like any politician, they will tell you what you want to hear and then do what they want once elected.  What they want in most instances is to make a lot of money for themselves, their friends, and above all their campaign fund so they can get re-elected.

The Republican Platform
(To be more accurate, Trump should be right-handed and
hopefully, that shark is a Democrat)

I hate to pick on the Republicans here but they are an easy target.  They are in power in the White House, they control both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and they have abandoned the main plank in their own political platform.  They used to be the party of fiscal responsibility.  What they have actually been doing is, what we used to call in the Navy, enjoying a "vampire liberty."

For those of you who didn't have the privilege of serving in the United States Navy, let me explain this old nautical term.  A sailor who has the opportunity to go on leave (aka liberty), but who doesn't have enough money, would head to the nearest blood bank and sell a pint of blood.  This accomplished two things.  First, it gave him some ready cash.  Second, whatever money he spent on alcohol would be more effective in its intended purpose because he was already a pint low.  So, to complete our analogy, Republicans are spending money like a drunken sailor.  To see what their policies have done, partially due to the recent tax reforms, just look here at the current national debt clock.

Snapshot of National Debt taken on 8/5/2018 at 5:12 a.m.(click the link for a current update)

Sorry for the use of the masculine pronoun in that previous reference but, when I was in the Navy, it was almost exclusively male.  Secondly, know that "vampire liberties" as I knew them, are a thing of the past.  You can no longer sell your blood for profit, but you may donate blood and get leave.

Now it is time to pick on the Democrats.  They have myopically championed the "little guy" and not the "middle guy" in their old platform planks.  They have lost sight of the importance of the middle class.  The Democrats, just like their Republican brethren across the political aisle, don't walk the walk.  While the Republicans don't seem to bear any resemblance to the party for which I occasionally voted years ago, the Democrats haven't fared much better.  They seem to have followed the poor little sheep made famous in the 1909 Yale University a capella group's, Wiffenpoof Song and have lost their way.

Wiffenpoof Song click link at left for youtube performance

I won't bother to go into detail here, but it should be clear to one and all that the Democratic Party, that used to be the champion of the middle class, can no longer make that claim.  They can't win a presidential election, a Senate seat, a governor's mansion, or even run successfully for dog-catcher, with their current political platform.  Somehow, their current direction doesn't ring true for middle anything.  Middle America or the middle class can't see what you are trying to do because they are in fear of losing their jobs.  Some of that fear is misplaced but, perception is a reality to most voters.

Let's just take one example here, immigration.  Neither party has come up with a plan that works.  Why not think outside the box on this one and come up with something that most Americans can accept.  I came up with an idea, granted it was a 5 a.m. "lightbulb moment" after only six hours of sleep, but it might just provide some relief.  It is a "what-if" proposal and would certainly not work in all instances and it probably has a few holes that I haven't thought of yet, but I'll throw it out there to hopefully stimulate some dialogue.

Lightbulb Moment
(maybe it's Goofy)

What if we relocated new immigrants, particularly those from south of our border, to Puerto Rico.  Let the new hopefuls be part of the rebuilding of that nation.  For the past decade, that nation's population has been in decline and that decline has been exacerbated by the 2017 Hurricane Maria.  We would need to make an investment in the Puerto Rico infrastructure, but that investment is long overdue anyway.  Most of the new immigrants already speak Spanish and this could be an easier assimilation than here in the U.S.  We could even establish, as part of the overall plan, a path to statehood to ease the shock to the local population.

This solution should even assuage the fears of the xenophobes that run around in their little red hats screaming that the sky is falling.  It consolidates the problem into a more manageable area, allows for the rebuilding of a nation, and provides a path to citizenship and statehood.  [Note:  The current citizens of Puerto Rico are already citizens of the U.S. and the statehood question would need to be put to a vote.]

The proposal above would only be a part of an immigration plank in the platform of a political party.   A creative Democratic solution to the immigration problem might just sway some Republicans who must be in a funk watching their old party morph into something created by Lewis Carroll.  Since the "tea party," the "freedom party," and the "religious right," are all influences into whatever President Trump has painted on top of the Republican platform, the Mad Hatter reference is not out of line.

Trump, the Mad-Hatter of the Republican Party

The Democrats, on the other hand, need a complete rethink of their current platform.   They need some new lumber to rebuild the party since the old platform isn't getting them elected.  They need to address the problems of the dwindling middle class.  If you can salvage the middle class, the poor will have something with which to aspire.  If "trickle down" can work anywhere it would be that the poor would be better off with a healthy middle class.

Democrats need to come up with a platform that addresses immigration, rebuilds our crumbling infrastructure, provides job retraining to restructure for a modern economy, reigns in the current Republican runaway spending, provides for a strong military streamlined for modern warfare, repairs our relationships with our allies without breaking the piggy bank, and which reinstates those controls necessary to repair the damage to the environment, consumer safety, and education wrought by the Trump administration.  I use the term "administration" loosely as it normally infers the "proper" execution of executive duties.

It's hard to have foresight when you have your head....

It is too late for a platform change in the midterm elections but, you could have one engineered, designed, assembled, sanded, varnished, and polished for the 2020 presidential elections.  Develop the platform but don't let it languish as platitudes on some party webpage.  Have an actual plan for implementation and don't forget, your success will require that you work across the aisle.  This country was built on bilateral compromise and cooperation.  Your voters will not stand for party infighting where nothing of note gets accomplished.  Democrats, it is time to roll up your sleeves and build a better platform upon this nation can proudly stand.

2018, 2020, etc.

You've Been Conned

If you are a staunch Republican and blindly support President Trump and his tax reforms, you might want to consider some information that hasn’t been handed you by one of the greatest con artists of the twenty-first century.  Perhaps it is time to smell the roses and see how much manure is stacked around the base.

While individual tax cuts will vary wildly across the nation, just know that, if your net worth is somewhere south of $10,374,030, you are not in the top one percent.  To put that in perspective, your household income for last year would need to be around $430,600, for you to enjoy the biggest piece of the pie from the new legislation.  The further away you are from those numbers, the worse you were treated in the last round of tax reforms.

The Fat Cats Know How to Party With Your Money

In my state of Florida, the top one percent earned $682,090.  It is projected that 98% of those wealthy individuals will get, in 2019, a tax cut of around $101,350.  If you are a wage earner, your paycheck may be a bit larger than it was this time last year.  Two factors enter here for individuals earning an hourly wage.  If you got an actual raise, congratulations, you are in the minority.  What you will normally see, would be a reduction in your withholding taxes that caused your check to be bigger.  Before you get too excited about this “raise” just know that it was done with the money we borrowed from countries like China.  Yes, your tax cut based raise should have a Made in China sticker affixed, just like your Ivanka Trump handbag (which was exempted from recent US tariffs, actually all clothing missed the list not just her stuff.)

 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, from June 2017 to June 2018, real average hourly earnings decreased 0.2 percent, seasonally adjusted.  Combining the change in real average hourly earnings with a 0.3-percent increase in the average workweek resulted in no change to real average weekly earnings over this period.

Source:  Bureau of Labor Statistics

While you may see a reduction in your hourly wage taxes, wealthy individuals and corporations got the giant bulk of this Republican sponsored windfall.  Also, know that their (corporate) income bump is permanent and yours is temporary.  The con man in chief will tell you that the corporate tax cuts, again paid for with money we borrowed from China and others, will eventually “trickle down to you.”  Well, history shows that it didn’t trickle down under Reagan and it didn’t trickle down under any administration elected since.  Most of this latest round went to corporate stock buybacks and executive bonuses.  There is not much left to trickle.

Where the lion's share of the corporate tax-cut landed: Wealthy America

When you see that the stock market is doing well you can rest assured that there are people out there making a nice profit.  If you don’t manage a stock portfolio of significant size, you don’t get to celebrate by buying a new ostrich skin jacket.  (I couldn’t resist the Paul Manafort reference)

Who Do We Owe?

President Trump claimed that people like him wouldn’t benefit from the tax cuts.  In fact, he claimed that the new tax bill will, “cost me a fortune.”  Well, he just got a top individual tax reduction of 2.6% (now 37% down from 39.6%) and the new “pass-through” provision will give the Trump Organization an additional 20% reduction for his pass-through business, which is taxed as personal income.  His business is basically a large holding company that is exempt from corporate income tax and brings in around $9.5 billion annually.  He would only be taxed on the amount distributed to shareholders.  President Trump and Jared Kushner will be getting this windfall for the near future and it will be financed by increasing the national debt and borrowing more money from China and others.

Average American's Slice of the Pie
(That's Your Share, enjoy your crumbs)

Over the next seven years, the tax bill benefits for individuals will expire, but the corporate benefits will continue.  The bill that was passed will result in higher individual income taxes for over half of all Americans in nine years.  The takeaway here is that you may have gotten a small sliver of the pie but the fat cats got a giant serving of pie a-la-mode.  President Trump got his pie with extra sprinkles.

Fat Cat Serving of the Tax Cut Pie
(Sorry, but they've already started eating theirs)

Jack's Razor: Truth = Facts + Conjecture / Perception

This sad commentary on our times came to me after watching "Backstabbing for Beginners" (available on Amazon Prime Video). Recommended!

The philosophical razor (See Title) at the top of this post was an amalgam of quotes from the dialogue of the movie; mostly uttered by the character played by Ben Kingsley. The movie is based on the factual events surrounding the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the massive corruption within the U.N. Oil for Food Programme. The movie was developed from the memoir by Michael Soussan, the real-life U.N. official who exposed the scam.

Quotes from the movie upon which I based the above razor are listed below. I find they have meaning in our analysis of our current history. I think they are all accurate as I paused the movie and read them into a voice to text app on my phone.

"It's not a lie, it's an opportunity to reach a wrong conclusion."
"You don't lie, you choose the truths with the utmost care."
"In diplomacy the truth is not a matter of fact, it is a matter of consensus."
"The truth isn't about the lies we told each other, it's about the lies we told ourselves."

Party Loyalty in the Modern Age; At What Cost Our Ideals?

The Republican Party of my youth (1950’s) is gone.  The Democratic Party with which I identified in my formative years, no longer exists.  Neither party today has what could be described as a preponderance of honest, hard-working individuals with a better America as its goal.  Political morality is now an oxymoron.  Even when either party expresses what sounds like a meaningful plank for its platform, they don’t back those ideals with deeds.  Politicians on both sides of the aisle have developed the art of doublespeak, which combines the Orwellian concepts of doublethink and newspeak.

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

― George Orwell, 1984 ―

I consider myself to be a political agnostic.  Living in the State of Florida means I am forced to join either the Democratic or the Republican parties if I want to have a choice when I vote.  Registering as an independent vacates much of my ability to have an influence on our political structure.  I registered many years ago as a Democrat because that’s what my parents had done.  That decision wasn’t absolute as both of my parents voted for Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican.  I too have jumped ship and voted for Republicans on occasions when I thought they were the better candidate.  I find that I am more traditionally aligned with Democratic principles than with Republican ideology, but I am open in my opinion on many fronts.  Many Republicans have expressed ideas that I hold true and likewise Democrats have expressed opinions that differ from my own.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and all the clocks were striking thirteen."

 -George Orwell, 1984-

I have many learned friends who are Republicans.  I want to understand their positions, especially today.  It is easy to comprehend the political motivations of a farmer who is very dependent on the future of soybean, or corn production.  It is likewise simple to understand why an unemployed blue-collar worker might grasp at some hope of new jobs or a rebirth of manufacturing or mining endeavors in their communities.  Those motivations are simple.  Most of my friends however, are financially comfortable and better educated than much of the Middle America I see blindly supporting our president at his rallies.  I would like to better understand my Republican friends and have some dialogue that makes their positions clear.  I respect their opinions as much as I do the opinions of my Democratic friends.  I will however, challenge either who accept contradictory positions within their philosophies.

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?” 

-George Orwell, Animal Farm- 

Politicians today toss around such feel-good terms as “Restoring the American Dream,” “Government Reform,” “Rebirth of Constitutional Government,” and “America Resurgent,” without so much as a clue as to what, why, and how these things will be brought to fruition.  They sound warm and fuzzy and you can find supportive bullet points ad nauseam within their online publications, but what does it all mean.  To quote Macbeth, “..it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

We are a long way from the idealism of Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”  We seem to be closer to the dystopian reality of “1984,” thirty-four years late.  For any of us to blindly follow our respective parties is pure folly.  Each politician needs to be separately challenged on his or her own merits and not judged by the ideals expressed in some parroted phrasing of party ideology.  If party loyalists universally support someone because of some narrow personal objective, and ignore all other acts of greed, corruption, moral turpitude, and malfeasance, such support is grossly misguided.

"I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong." 

-Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange-

If you are pro-life and abhor abortion, fine.  Fight for your cause.  Just don’t use that cause myopically while abandoning all of the other ideals you hold dear.  Be consistent in your beliefs; thoroughly understand your position as it relates to other legislative and social topics.  I’m sure you can understand others questioning your pro-life stance if you support those who would murder doctors who might work in a women’s clinic.  People might also question your beliefs if they are based on religious ideology and you choose to ignore many of the other teachings of that religion.  Where do you stand on the death penalty, sex education in schools, birth control, and similar topics?  This article is not specifically about any of these items but it is about consistency when it is time to support a position or candidate.  You can’t in good conscience, fully support an individual or party who holds to your singular belief, but regularly violates other areas of that same conscience.

We can all agree that something like fair trade with our trading partners is a laudable objective, but we might still disagree on how we achieve that objective.  That’s where frank discussion and compromise are tools, which may be used to find a way forward.  The best among us should analyze the possibilities, develop a strategy, and bring forth a plan to resolve the problem.  In a representative democracy, our leaders should work for their constituencies and the country as a whole.  They should not work for their own financial or political gain.

Our elected leaders should be well educated and of sound mind.  I follow a laissez faire attitude when it comes to the personal lives of any politician.  Your legal personal choices and lifestyle won’t enter into my decisions of support or lack thereof.  Our leaders should not however, have outside financial interests that could affect their unbiased decisions.  Before a politician takes any elected job, they should be forced to fully disclose all financial ties and obligations.  If a politician has taken any monies from an industry or business, they should be forced to recuse themselves from any decisions that could benefit that entity. 

The financial disclosures of all elected officials should be in the public domain and regularly reviewed.  You shouldn’t be able to come to office with a net worth of ten million dollars, have a historic annual investment or business income of one million dollars, earn a congressional salary of $174,000 each year for four years, and end your first term with fifty million dollars in the bank.  Both parties should fully support comprehensive mandatory financial disclosures of all elected officials and their immediate family members.

Border Collies tending their flock

As a member of either of our two political parties, you should regularly challenge your leaders as to their adherence to those ideals you hold in high regard.  You should not accept aberrant behavior in your politicians to attain some singular benefit.  Be the Border Collie that guides the herd, not one of the sheep that merely runs in all directions with the rest of your wooly partners in life.

Be the Border Collie

All Roads Lead to Trump

It seems that no matter what I do these days something, somehow, leads me to the fact that everything is Trump related.  There I was, minding my own business, watching a season two episode of the witty Australian drama, Rake, and it happened again.  This series, available on Amazon Prime Video, involves the escapades of the rascal barrister, Cleaver Greene.  In this particular episode, two very bright young girls plan and commit a murder just for the thrill of the act and the fact that they believe they can get away with it.

Great Australian Comedy Drama

During some of the dialogue, a reference is made to the Hitchcock thriller Rope, which was based on the play of the same name.  Both of these fictional accounts are in turn, based on the real life drama from 1924, which involved Leopold and Loeb.  If you are not familiar with the case and trial, wherein Clarence Darrow delivered an impassioned plea supporting his clients and attacking the death penalty, it is worth researching or following the link above.  This was the start of my research and the cause of my consternation.

Leopold (l) and Loeb (r)

In this episode of Rake, there is also mention of Nietzsche's doctrines as they related to the Leopold and Loeb case.  It was Nietzsche who proposed the possibility that there were Übermenschen, or supermen who, because of their superior intellects and abilities, were above man’s laws.  Such individuals were not bound by society’s ethics and rules, and were subsequently not liable for anything they might do.

If you have been awake and living in a civilized country for the past couple of years, some individual may come to mind at this point.  I’ll give you a minute on this one.  Well, those of you up on Greek mythology might think of Narcissus who gazed upon his own reflection in a pool of water and fell in love.  In the Greek myth, Narcissus was unable to leave the beauty of his own image, lost the will to live, and in typical Greek fashion, died.

Those of you who thought immediately of Narcissus get two points for having stayed awake in high school.  Our discussion here however deals with NPD, or Narcissistic personality disorder, named after our Greek son of the river god Cephissus.  Affected individuals have exaggerated feelings of self-importance and a continued need for admiration.  They are fixated with achieving power and success.  They tend to exaggerate their skills and accomplishments as well as their level of intimacy with people they consider high-status.  They want to monopolize conversations.  They are intolerant of others’ views and often devalue, denigrate, insult and blame others when they feel threatened.  They do not tolerate criticism and will respond with hostility and anger.

Narcissus Gazing at His Own Reflection

I’ll bet you have someone in mind now who meets these criteria.  If you don’t, take off your red MAGA hat and read the list below to see if this sounds familiar.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists the following as NPD’s telltale signs:

1. Grandiosity with expectations of superior treatment from other people
2. Fixated on fantasies of power, success, intelligence, attractiveness, etc.
3. Self-perception of being unique, superior, and associated with high-status people and institutions
4. Needing continual admiration from others
5. Sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others
6. Exploitative of others to achieve personal gain
7. Unwilling to empathize with the feelings, wishes, and needs of other people
8. Intensely envious of others, and the belief that others are equally envious of them
9. Pompous and arrogant demeanor

Yes, OMT, Our Man Trump seems to tick off all the boxes here.  He dominates the news cycle and, even when I’m trying to watch a simple comedy-drama he invades my privacy.  Do we really have to keep this up for two more years?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Perhaps at some point in the future NPD will be renamed TPD.

Hey, It's Me, Look at Me

Thirteen Is A Manageable Number

Football is currently dominating the world stage.  While much of the globe is watching the World Cup play in Russia, perhaps the most famous football team around is the Wild Boars.  They are playing the game of their lives, 7,065 km southeast of Moscow.  (Translation for the U.S., football = soccer, and that’s about 4,390 miles)

As this is being written on Sunday, July 8, 2018, rescuers are bringing out the first of the twelve Thai football players, and hopefully their coach, from 4 km deep inside the Tham Luang cave.  I guess the mere thought of being buried alive brings out the claustrophobia in all of us.  Ever since Lassie ran across the fields to the farmhouse to alert the residents that Timmy (or Jeff if you are a bit older) had fallen down the old well, our fears of deep damp spaces has been buried in our psyches.  We can only hope that all thirteen people will be rescued.

All the world watches the rescue efforts

My point here is not one of the rescue and its dangers (one diver has already lost his life), but of how a small group of children and their coach could so quickly garner so much attention.  Even Elon Musk dipped into his 20 billion dollar portfolio to offer his engineers and hastily constructed kid-sized submarines to help in the rescue effort.  Master showman and media manipulator Donald Trump was even nudged out of the spotlight on occasion.   How is this possible?

My only explanation lies in the more manageable number, thirteen.  I think here of the perhaps 100,000 people at risk of starvation and death in South Sudan. Yemen too, has millions at risk of dying from starvation.  In the U.S., over 37,000 will die each year on our nation's highways.  Air pollution will kill an estimated 5.5 million people around the globe each year.  These numbers are staggering and perhaps they are beyond our grasp to either comprehend or feel like we could make a difference.  Yes, thirteen is indeed a figure we can contemplate.  We can more easily root for a small group of young children and one adult than we can attempt to address the plight of hundreds of thousands of people in other situations.

Deaths due to starvation, air pollution, and highway accidents are all addressable problems with higher potential rewards.  They do not however represent a profile where the media can roll out their Breaking News banners or where workable solutions are not more complex.  

I just heard on the news from our bedroom that the first couple of children have been taken out alive from the cave.  We can only wish them all well.

Immigration – Why Current Solution Proposals Will Fail

I think most people in America will agree that we can’t afford an open border and that we really have a problem managing the flow of immigrants into this country.  Where I think we are being myopic is in the solutions being promoted.  Just as zero tolerance and strict enforcement hasn’t solved our nation’s drug problem, the same approach to immigration will meet a similar fate.  We really need to look at the big picture to find the solutions.  An antacid may make your stomach pain tolerable but, if a bleeding ulcer is the source of that pain, perhaps another treatment regimen is in order.

While greatly reduced since 2000, illegal immigration is still a problem

I will agree that some legislative changes will be needed to better manage the influx of people across our southern borders.  The rules in place now are universally thought to be inadequate.  Policy changes within our immigration enforcement agencies are clearly needed.  Changes will likely be aimed however, at managing the problem, not solving the problem.  Border walls, more judges, drone patrols, more officers, etc., are all fodder for debate.  They are the antacid, not the cure.  The real solution to our immigration problem lies closer to its source.  Our nation’s war on drugs, is inexorably linked to much of the recent influx of refugees from Mexico and Central America.

Our moderate drug enforcement successes in Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia, have just managed to move trafficking routes to other regions in the area.  These Whack-A-Mole efforts may have diminished production in one area only to have that production pop up in another country.  Despite over forty years of drug control efforts that involve eradication of production, interdiction of traffic, and criminalization of consumers, our US drug problem has still managed to reach epidemic proportions.

Whack-A-Mole
Knock one down, another pops up

Mexico and Central America have within their borders some of the world’s most dangerous cities.  El Salvador tops the charts with 82.8 homicides per 100,000 people, more than 15 times the US rate.  Seven of the world’s top ten most dangerous countries are in Central & South America and the Caribbean and it can largely be traced to drug trafficking.  Just as migrants pour across European borders fleeing war zones, Central American residents are fleeing an even more dangerous war.  It is our war on drugs.

2016 Murder Rates per 100,000 People
The US rate is 5.35

This war on drugs began under President Nixon in 1971.  If forty seven years of a failed drug policy have shown us anything, it is that we need a better solution.  When you analyze complex social problems you will most often need to follow the money.  One current estimate pegged the annual illicit drug trade at 320 billion dollars.  I won’t debate the accuracy of that estimate but just know there is too much money involved here to solve the problem with current tactics.  The demand for illicit drugs has not subsided and we have made little progress in cutting off the supply.  Where there is a demand, there will be suppliers to meet that demand.  It is a basic business model with a long record of accomplishment.

The Hidden Costs of Our Drug Problem

A drastic change in our thinking is needed.  When I say drastic, I’m not kidding.  This country, by one estimate, has spent over 213 billion dollars since 2008, on law enforcement, drug treatment, and resources dedicated to fight trafficking.  We are again not looking at the big picture for a proper solution.  If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results, we are guilty as charged.

I offer you here a "what if" scenario where I think a shift in our direction would be of great benefit.  I believe that these changes would reduce the northern flow of immigrants, provide a more humane policy for addiction, reduce crime, reduce prison populations, reduce unemployment, improve our infrastructure, and perhaps even save some tax dollars.

What if we:

• Decriminalized simple possession of all drugs.
• Legalized marijuana and controlled its sale like alcohol.
• Researched new medications to curb the desire for hard drugs.
• Took away much of the profit motive of illicit drugs by offering chemical alternatives to those hard drugs for free.
• Provided free counseling and treatment for addiction.
• Diverted some of the money being spent on the drug war and unnecessary incarcerations to pay for all of the above.
• Took the money left over and put it to improving our nation’s infrastructure.
• Enacted legislation for legitimate seasonal migration for agricultural workers.
• Increased penalties for illicit importation or sale of hard drugs.

Before you dismiss this seemingly radical health oriented approach to our drug problem, know that in 2001 Portugal decriminalized the use of all drugs and the results were mostly positive. Drug overdoses and drug-related HIV transmission decreased dramatically, without a significant increase in drug use.

"The Global Commission on Drug Policy includes Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, and the former presidents of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland. They broke new ground with their initial report in 2011 by advancing and globalizing the debate over drug prohibition and its alternatives. Their subsequent report, released in September 2014, not only reiterates their demands for decriminalization, alternatives to incarceration, and greater emphasis on public health approaches – but also calls for responsible legal regulation of currently-illegal drugs."  Drug Policy Alliance

By removing the profit motive from the illicit drug trade, that business model will collapse.  We would still have drug addicts but they would not be clogging up our prison systems and they could avail themselves of our new drug treatment facilities.  The money we save by shutting down the current drug war and not incarcerating drug users could be used for drug treatment and repairing our infrastructure.

172 Million Dollars of Cocaine

The rebuilding of our infrastructure would provide employment opportunities to people who, without jobs, might turn to drugs.  Without the money to corrupt politicians and without an outlet for their drugs, current drug traffickers would need to turn to hopefully less violent means of employment.  The predictable reduction in crime in Central America and Mexico would greatly lower the incentive to move to the U.S.  Those individuals who want to move north for financial reasons would have a means of doing that through new legislation that would provide a legal pathway to fill those jobs that Americans don’t want.  Seasonal worker programs for agriculture would be one example.  It could be fashioned after the H-1B Visa program that President Trump uses to staff hotel positions that local citizens apparently don’t want.

H1-B Visa Program for Seasonal Immigrant Employees
President Trump uses such workers in his hotels

The United States could also bring financial pressure to bear on those countries who don't address their drug and crime problems.  These countries are directly contributing to the mass exodus responsible for our current immigration crisis.  We need to confront the source of the immigration problem and not just try to clean up the mess caused by the crime and corruption of countries south of our borders.  This is not a perfect solution but our efforts to date have certainly not yielded the results we want.  Mass immigration through our southern borders is a direct result of our own drug crisis.  When faced with violence and murder in their home countries, the dangerous trek northward is seen as the lesser of two evils.

Closing note:  Statistics provided here were from reliable sources but, as with all facts and figures, there is a margin for error.  These numbers should be seen as indicative of the nature of our problem, but not as some exact measure of the problem.