Should the US be allowed to continue to not comply with international laws that the UN set forth in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (refered to from here on out as UDHR)?
The following is taken from Human Rights and the Drug War, an orgainization based in El Cerrito CA. Website: www.hr92.org
UDHR Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment
The US Drug war to Article 5: The Federal mandatory minimum sentences will put first time, nonviolent drug offenders in prision for five, ten, twenty years or life without the possibilty of parole. Most murderers, rapists, and robbers have no mandatory minimum sentence and are eligible for parole, the average time being spent in jail only 6 years. Yet, those last three are violent crimes.
UDHR Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without disticition of any kind such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
The US Drug War to Article 5: Racial profiling. 1 in 3 African American males are in his 20s are either in prision or on probation. The same applies to 1 in 6 Latino males and 1 in 23 white males.
UDHR Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protectio of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
US Drug War Reponse to Article 7: 13% of regular drug users are black but 62.7% of those in prision for drug offenses are black. White Americans admit to a higher rate of crack use but blacks serve 88% of crack sentences 28% of which are longer than those of whites charged with the same crime.
UDHR Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
US Response: Judges are not allowed to make judicial discretion because of the mandatory sentences. In a conspiricy a person answering a phone and saying where a friend is who has no idea the friend deals drugs CAN and IS given a similiar if not higher (for they have no barganing power) then the friend who is dealing drugs. Threats and plea bargins replace public hearings.
UDHR Article 11.1: Everyone charged with a penal offense has the tight to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to the law in a public trial at which he has all the guarantees necessary for his defense.
US Response: Informants reduce or work off charges by providing evidence. Entrapment is allowed. A person's entire life savings can be siezed before they are charged with a crime making near impossible to hire a good attorney. Medicinal and religious reason are routinely kept out of court.
UDHR Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
US Response: Intrusions such as phone taps, invasive urine testing, garbage and mail searches, computer searches of bank records and utility bills, even infra-red heat scanning are allowed. Warrents can be based on hersay or from shopping at a garden supply store under survailence. A person with $100 on them can have the money siezed as drug income even if you can prove otherwise. The drug profile stereotype (race, culture, political ties, and musical interests) can single a person out for probable cause harassment.
UDHR Article 16.3: The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state.
US Response: To allow kids to see their parents arrested and their house ransacked. To strip parental rights and throw kids into foster care if no relative will take them all in. Sepration of siblings. Loss of a home, car, parents, and money.
UDHR Article 17.2: No one shall be arbitraily deprived of his properties.
US Response: In a drug charge even property of innocent parties without a conviction can lose everything from their home, car, business, and life savings. This applies even if you haven't been charged with a crime.
UDHR Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion: This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and feedom, either alone or in commuinity with others and in public or private to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.
US Response: In 1993 the Supreme Court struck down Congress's Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to allow the Native American Church to use peyote (it is now legal on reservations). It also outlaws traditional cannabis-based religions including the Rastafari, Coptic Christians, Sufi Moslem, and Sadhu Hindu. It would also ban mention of religious motives when "Facts" are presented to a jury in a drug case as well as personal use of pyschedelics for spiritual gain.
UDHR Article 25.1: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services.
US Response: The DEA forbids the health care profession to perscribe or administer cannabis or psychedelics even in the cases or easing pain and prolonging life. It also bans hemp (non-pyschoactive cannabis) which costs an estimated million jobs and an estimated tens of billions of dollars.
UDHR Article 27.1: Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and the share in scientific advancement and it's benefits.
US Response: To target the subcultures that are part of "THE DRUG CULTURE". This includes Rastafarians, hippies, ravers, jazz fans, reggae fans, hip-hop fans, those in the psychedelia music and art culture. These are the people singled out for persecution. THe police can barricade roads to political rallies and cultrual events that pull these people in and then harass and intimidate participates to chill freedom of assembly. Not only can people not use drugs medicinally they can be arrested for self-medicating. And political agencies such as National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) will censor science to block research and bias their OWN research findings.
BACK TO ME:
Should the US be allowed to continually hold itself above INTERANTIONAL laws that have been in place by 1948 and by an organization that they are a part of?
Working Link is:
http://www.hr95.org/index.html 
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