Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

gohrt wrote: post #225

rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe... . When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you kno…

Is it true that > The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: or > Americans have a moral opposition to drug use, because the government persists with the drug war ? Impressionable children are indoctrinated against drug use, by US law enforcement, in US public schools. > 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. That's impossible, because mari…

> Impressionable children are indoctrinated against drug use, by US law enforcement, in US public schools.

If you mean things like DARE, its worth noting that studies of DARE have shown that (despite its name and how it is sold to parents, etc.) it has no effect on participant's attitudes toward (or propensity for) drug use, but does make their attitudes toward law enforcement more positive.

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

#242

Post by mikeash » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

magicGLASSman wrote: post #235

mikeash wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there may be policies which work well if the population participates in them consistently, but which fall apart if everybody gets to pick and choose. The whole point of government is to do these things.

But if most the people agree that the policies are good and best combination of all the other states wouldn't they pay those taxes voluntarily instead of having to be coursed into paying? That is democracy right? otherwise it seems kinda selective as to whose votes mater the most.

That works if and only if the best individual choice is also the best group choice. This isn't always true, see the Prisoners' Dilemma.

For example, perhaps society benefits when you tax the wealthy to help the poor. But given the choice, the wealthy will move to where their taxes are lower, so that plan works poorly if you let individual states pick and choose.

Or perhaps society benefits when you don't tax the wealthy to help the poor, and make the poor pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But the poor will move to a state with more aid, again defeating the plan.

Obviously there are differences between the states right now, so this isn't a total obstacle. But it really only works to the extent that there is a lack of mobility between the states (people tend to want to stay where they are), or on issues where it doesn't matter.

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

#243

Post by chongli » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #221

rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe... . When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you kno…

You have the moral panic thing backwards. Alcohol is by far the greatest cause of addiction, addiction-related violence, and economic misery due to substance abuse. So much so that hard drug use and addiction is a drop in the bucket. Alcohol prohibition was relatively well-supported in social reform theories compared to the Drug War. There is no functional basis to support legal bans on psychedelics and soft drugs. T…

Alcohol is by far the greatest cause of addiction, addiction-related violence, and economic misery due to substance abuse.

I don't think it's been established that alcohol causes alcoholism. In fact, research shows that excessive drinking does not correlate with alcoholism[0]. A much stronger predictor of alcoholism is SES. So if we really want to fight alcoholism, we should be fighting poverty.

[0] http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2014/14_0329.htm

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

#244

Post by ThrustVectoring » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 5:02 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

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,…

The government is made up of people who respond to incentives. The war on drugs is happening because American voters will crucify politicians who are "soft on drugs". Since the politicians can't be "soft on drugs", neither can the appointed bureaucrats that answer to them.

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

#245

Post by talles » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 5:02 PM UTC

humbleMouse wrote: post #234

talles wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The demand for high quality weed has never been higher. That's my point too. And I believe that this increase in demand for high quality weed made many street dealers that sell shitty weed go for heroin. Now heroin is a cheap and common option at your local street corner. > (...) those types of dealers have been selling every kind of drug they can get their hands on and will never stop. Exactly. As you put it, they…

I guess to clarify is that what I see (Minneapolis-based) is that weed dealers tend to deal strictly with weed, and the other type of dealer just sells anything and everything they can get their hands on. Furthermore, the weed dealers I know who have been doing it for 10 years+ have no intentions to stop making money when it is legalized here at some point. They are not going to start selling heroin. In Minneapolis a…

> Once a dealer decides to sell things that come with heavy jail time then they dont give a fuck what they are selling. They are just in it for the $$$

They just don't care for the penalty (jail time) so they will sell anything for money, there's nothing we can do about it. This thinking is precisely what I'm criticizing, this one folded way to analyze the problem.

Let's take LSD vs Nbomb example once again. Making LSD is extremely hard specially because how hard is to find the ingredients. Nbomb is a piece of cake. Here's an example which there's nothing to do with addiction or punishment, it's just the plain practicality of dealing with the substances.

Maybe there's a way to set up an environment where the law breakers would still do it while causing less harm on society. That's the discussion I'm missing, how we coerce the bad guys to not be so bad.

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

#246

Post by Synaesthesia » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #158

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

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,…

The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe... . When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you kno…

I think popular attitudes have changed significantly, particularly with respect to Cannabis. I think we're at a point where more than 50% of Americans will want to see weed legalized, or at the very least decriminalized. When Bernie Sanders said the war on drugs was a failure, there was hardly any comment, and not much public outcry at all. I don't think it's a controversial statement anymore.

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

#247

Post by Synaesthesia » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #158

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

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,…

The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe... . When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you kno…

I think popular attitudes are changing rapidly, particularly with respect to Cannabis. I think we're at a point where more than 50% of Americans will want to see weed legalized, or at the very least decriminalized. When Bernie Sanders says the war on drugs is a failure, there is hardly any comment, and not much public outcry at all. I don't think it's a controversial statement anymore.

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

#248

Post by calibraxis » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 5:06 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #158

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

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,…

The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe... . When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you kno…

We can just look at the results: "one of every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics_of_incarcerated_Afr...)

Just apply the standards we'd use for any official enemy nation. The US jails more of its own populace than anyone else. For many people, the US is effectively a police state. Highly effective outcome of the drug war: social control of certain population segments.

We can research who's been targeted historically: Irish (and other) immigrants by alcohol prohibition. Mexican immigrants by marijuana prohibition. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron....)

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

#249

Post by Synaesthesia » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #205

wfo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug prohibition is a direct effect of the lift of alcohol prohibition: officials and LE officers needed something to do after there was no more alcohol smuggling to go after, so a new target was invented. Public opinion does not drive policy in this case, it is driven by policy. The public has been whipped up into a frenzy about drugs for years using various fear tactics, primarily racism to scare them into havi…

> The drug prohibition is a direct effect of the lift of alcohol prohibition: officials and LE officers needed something to do after there was no more alcohol smuggling to go after, so a new target was invented. That's a ridiculous proposition. There was a 40+ year gap between the two. > The public has been whipped up into a frenzy about drugs for years using various fear tactics Nixon coined the term "drug war" in 1…

Not really. Cannabis and narcotics were banned in a big series of regulations between 1906 and 1937 in the USA. That was the first war on drugs. The 2nd came in the early 1980's. recommend reading Johann Hari's "Chasing the Scream" for a definitive history of the war of drug prohibition, especially Harry Anslinger's campaign against Marijuana from 1930-1937, which indeed stemmed significantly from the lift of alcohol prohibition.

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

#250

Post by Synaesthesia » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #66

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

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,…

I always wonder what would happen to drug use if it was widely and easily available. Would usage drop because it wouldn't be "rebellious" to get drugs? That was at least the motivation for a lot of younger drug users I know. In my country (India), there is a region in the Himalayas - Kasaul - where marijuana grows in the wild. It is so easily accessible that you can literally pluck some on a walk through the forest.…

Before drugs were criminalizes in the early 20th centuries they were easily available at pharmacies, cocaine, heroin, p even hashish tinctures. The addiction rate was approxiamately the same as it is today, about 7% of the population. Most people don't get addicted to drugs, and don't want to abuse drugs. It's more of a psychological disorder, particularly exacerbated by childhood trauma and despair.