California's capital punishment system is a disaster. It is yet another example of the collateral damage imposed by California's system of ballot initiatives. It is an injustice that only the voters can remedy.

These are just some of the conclusions I reached while completing an extensive research paper (pdf, Creative Commons license) for my seminar in capital punishment law. What I discovered only strengthens my conviction that California's system of ballot initiatives is little more than a tool for political manipulation, which should be abandoned or significantly reformed.

I, personally, am a death penalty abolitionist. I believe that capital punishment is impossible to justly administer, and represents a cruel and unusual punishment that has no place in modern society.

But regardless of one's moral views of the death penalty, it is clear that California's death penalty is in need of significant reform.

First, how is California's capital punishment system a disaster? Keep Reading >>

I love this new ad from the Drug Policy Alliance (via boing boing) - let's make the drug war an issue in 2008!

While we're on the topic of Nancy Reagan's "War on Drugs" (thanks to Boaz for pointing out that connection), allow me to briefly explain why the war on drugs is both futile and destructive.

• The government will never be able to successfully dictate what people do to their own bodies. It's simply not feasible. If it bans one substance, people will just find an alternative. Methamphetamine, anyone?
• On a related point, prohibition doesn't work. Didn't we learn this lesson in the 1920s? Newsflash: alcohol is a drug!
• The drug war has created a massive black market economy where 12 year old kids walk around with thousands of dollars in cash and automatic weapons. If this isn't a recipe for violent crime, I don't know what is.1
• The incarceration rate in the United States has more than quadrupled since the "War on Drugs" began in 1980,2 after 50 years of stability, from about 315,000 (.14% of the population) to nearly 1.5 million in 2005 (.49% of the population), and over 2 million today (.70% of the population).3 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.4
• Assuming an average cost of $100/inmate/day,5 we are now spending $150 million per day to incarcerate American citizens, the vast majority of them for drug or black market-related offenses. That adds up to nearly $55 billion per year!
• If the incarceration rate today were the same as it was before the War on Drugs began, we would have only 412,000 citizens incarcerated, for a total annual cost of only $15 billion per year. That's a $40 billion difference in incarceration costs alone. Imagine the collateral economic effects of adding an additional 1.5 million people to the workforce, and the cost savings are even greater.
• Substance abuse is a public health problem, not a criminal activity. Treating the public health aspects of substance abuse -- addiction, disease transmission, and organ damage -- while eliminating the black market, would make America safer and save billions of taxpayer dollars per year.

1. 1. No, I'm not making this up... anecdotal evidence from an ex-cop of 20 years.
2. 2. Yes, I am aware that there may be other causes for the increase in the prison population, notably the deinstitutionalization of mental health treatment, but the War on Drugs and the related black market are by far the largest factor
3. 3. Source: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
4. 4. Source: International Centre for Prison Studies
5. 5. This varies considerably from state-to-state; I chose $100 as a nice, round number; YMMV.