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Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

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Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#41

Post by Synaesthesia »

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it.

Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves, why do they persist with it? A few reasons present themselves: Ideological motivations, they just don't like the drugs. The fact that if you terrify the population you can use that as means for greater political control and discipline. And the fact that Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis.

Lastly the CIA has been found to be involved in the drug trade on a vast scale. This is not a conspiracy, there are many well-documented books on this. They need large sums of untraceable money for clandestine operations, and drugs are an ideal source of this.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR331.html

Noam Chomsky on the War on Drugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-JX0yXDlh8

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#42

Post by Synaesthesia »

Yaggo wrote: post #19
wfunction wrote: post #11

Is there evidence to show that legalizing drugs (I don't mean e.g. tobacco here; I mean the far more dangerous ones) won't significantly increase their consumption? I ask because, unless there is, I'm afraid I do not understand why it would be rational to do so...

Far more dangerous ones, such as alcohol? Tobacco is already the 6th dangerous drug in the world. http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/whats-most-dangerous-...

And by FAR the deadliest drug in the world. Something like 90% of all drug deaths globally. It's an incredibly harmful drug. Hard drugs cause less than 1% of drug deaths that tobacco causes.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#43

Post by tomp »

lossolo wrote: post #38

What about people that are involved in illegal drug industry after legalizing drugs? Most of them know only how to deal drugs, know only crime, they will need to find new way to make money and probably it will not be a legal one. So i don't know if it's better that someone stay on corner and sell cocaine to people that WANT cocaine, without (in most cases) hurt anyone else in the process OR make that person steal, ex…

The beauty of drug dealing (from a criminal's perspective) is that it's easy and profitable - there's a high demand from customers willing to spend a lot of money on drugs, and enforcement is very poor (judging from the ease end-users can buy drugs). Prostitution is very similar. So, if you legalize all businesses with which criminals easily earn a lot of money, a lot of them will be economically incentivised to start participating in legal businesses.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#44

Post by luso_brazilian »

CrLf wrote: post #23
icebraining wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm very glad we did so, I have to point out that decriminalization of possession of small amounts of drugs is very far from legalization.

Also, it didn't really fix the drug abuse problem. It did help a lot with the social consequences of abuse by removing obstacles to seek help (or provide help).

The drug abuse problem was not completely fixed but at least it shifted the principal caretaker of the problem from the security forces to the social security.

In my view these were the main factors for the relative (and undeniable as per [1]) success of the Portugal approach:

- Decriminalizing the use and possession without the intent to distribute (the measure that gets all the credit)

- The harm reduction program [2] with measures like needle exchanges, safe rooms for drug injection (popularly known here as "salas de chuto", roughly "kick rooms"), methadone clinics

- Relocation, requalification and housing programs to vacate popular drug hotspots like, for instance, Casal Ventoso (before [3], after [4])

It is interesting because in the span of one generation heroin consumption turned from "cool, rebelious and chic" (like in Kate Moss heroin chic) to a bums drug, provided by the government to the ones that lost their ways.

This change in perception helped to break the cycle of graduation from light drugs (like cannabis) to hard drugs (like heroin) in the youth and most likely is a significant factor in the success of the portuguese approach.

Kids won't touch the hard stuff because they can see very clearly based on who ends up in "salas de chuto" or in the methadone centers the harmful effect of the drug.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr...

[2] http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/country-data/harm-reduction/Port...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7lOXcR05_E (graphic, drug use, in portuguese)

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqIUU80W60M (in portuguese)

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#45

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

wfunction wrote: post #32
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"colloquial sense" ... "or what have you" This right here is why we don't have a sensible drug policy; many, many people think like this when approaching the subject.

I was merely trying to describe a category of drugs so that I can ask a question about it; you can name it whatever you want so that you can answer it, but your condescending tone and lack of an answer isn't exactly helpful in responding to the question. If you don't like my category you can always feel free to ask your own questions about other ones instead of changing mine.

Sorry if it came across as condescending; I'm just tired of the lazy "drugs are more dangerous than tobacco" argument because it's easy to repeat, but essentially meaningless. Answering your question is difficult because very few countries have legalised 'the most dangerous' drugs.

Let's take Portugal as an example, though. It decriminalised heroin in 2001; for the sake of argument, let's agree that heroin is at least very slightly more dangerous to the individual than tobacco. Portugal now has a way, way lower incidence of death due to overdose than almost every country in Europe [1]. That's not relative to numbers taking heroin, that's relative to the population, so even if heroin use has rocketed (which it hasn't; lifetime use has increased from 0.7% to 1.1% [2]) lives have still been saved overall.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal#Observ...

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#46

Post by mseidl »

wfunction wrote: post #11

Is there evidence to show that legalizing drugs (I don't mean e.g. tobacco here; I mean the far more dangerous ones) won't significantly increase their consumption? I ask because, unless there is, I'm afraid I do not understand why it would be rational to do so...

Why would they increase consumption? Do you think there are millions of people saying "Oh, I wish I could do meth, but I just don't want to get arrested!"

Smoking kills more people than all other drugs combined. WAAAAAY more. Same with alcohol.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#48

Post by zamalek »

wfunction wrote: post #11

Is there evidence to show that legalizing drugs (I don't mean e.g. tobacco here; I mean the far more dangerous ones) won't significantly increase their consumption? I ask because, unless there is, I'm afraid I do not understand why it would be rational to do so...

> won't significantly increase their consumption

It could. That's not the point.

The main point that Annan is making is that there should be a health system in place for addicts, instead of a penitentiary system (where addictions typically become worse).

The past 50 year study/failed experiment known as "The War On Drugs" has shown us that there is nothing you can do to stop people from taking drugs. The war on drugs not only wastes tax money, is not only completely ineffective, but actually drives people toward dangerous usage. If drugs aren't regulated you never know what you are getting. Just recently tourists were being sold white heroin in Holland instead of cocaine (3 fatalities AFAIR). If used in the same way as cocaine is, white heroin can be lethal. This is simply not possible if you are getting your fix from a regulated supply chain.

Basically, by regulating drugs there is hope that there will be fewer drug-related fatalities and in the long-run (possibly decades) we'll most likely see less drug-related crime. This quote from the piece sums up the remainder of the piece perfectly:

> It is time to acknowledge that drugs are infinitely more dangerous if they are left solely in the hands of criminals who have no concerns about health and safety.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#50

Post by vzcx »

random_upvoter wrote: post #10
AndrewDucker wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only country with a measure of success seems to be Singapore" So, completely discounting the massive improvements in Portugal since decriminalisation?

Note that manufacture, import and sale of drugs is still illegal in Portugal. I find it hard to understand why so many people in the US want to switch drug policy from one extreme of the spectrum to the other. It's a rash social experiment with consequences that are hard to predict.

Well it's certainly not because they want to be able to order their heroin online, have it delivered next day, and mainline it in the safety of their own homes. Because they can already do that.
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