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Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

arstechnica.com

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Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#161

Post by legulere »

gravypod wrote: post #4

Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I would have assumed that a majority of these states - and my home state of NJ - would be very anti-drug but these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. If you had asked me a few years ag…

Voters opinions are not a black and white thing. People might be in favor of something but still vote for you even if you aren’t. Especially in a two party system politicians have to optimize for not losing your voters. If 80% of your voters are for legalization and 20% against it but you would loose 15% of your voters if you would take it into your political platform, the you simply won’t do it.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#162

Post by ip26 »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #134
supernova87a wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the war on drugs was a failure. But is your position that whatever people want to do, you should not try to prevent it? What are your positions on applying that logic to carbon emissions, letting people work for less than minimum wage, companies putting out products that people buy willingly but are non-repairable? Should government step out of those areas too? People want to do all those things.

Those things have large negative externalities that the individual doesn’t pay for. Drugs don’t really have that- unless you make them high cost and illegal.

That isn't quite true, addiction has a high social cost. Hurts relationships, breaks families apart, and increases national medical spending.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#163

Post by jahaja »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #156
rayiner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden has harsh drug laws too. So does China. The point is that there are other reasons people favor drug laws, since many homogenous countries have them too.

I'd take 10 years in a swedish prison over 3 months in a US prison...

"Harsh" is very relative. I would be very surprised to see anyone caught using drugs for the first time, or even the 3rd time, not just getting a fine unless they're in possession of a larger quantity. The maximum sentence is 3 years, which I would assume would require a substantial criminal record.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#164

Post by thatcat »

bosie wrote: post #121
gravypod wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your opinion of Alcohol, lower grade stimulates (Caffeine), and pre-processed unnatural addictive substances (pure sugar)? If you are on welfare should you be prohibited from drinking alcohol? What about eating low nutritional value fast foods? Obesity and alcoholism is far more rampant than most drugs used in the war on drugs. In America ~40% of our population was obese in 2016 [0], ~25% of people drank >5 d…

Not OP but how do you normalise this statement: > Obesity and alcoholism is far more rampant than most drugs used in the war on drugs. since ... of course alcoholism is more rampant when i can just buy it legally in the supermarket. that is a nobrainer conclusion. same for nicotine. caffeine has so little impact in a drug-related conversation that i won't even bother going there. i dont think you do yourself any favo…

Drugs are already highly available. The availability of legal drugs would result in reduced medical complications due to increased regulation on supply side. Caffeine, etc has some small statistical probability of triggering a heart issues which is the most common cause of death - from a nationalized health cost perspective this is not negligible. If you consider quality of life as the metric rather than death then low nutrition food is probably worse than caffeine, etc.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#165

Post by koboll »

legulere wrote: post #161
gravypod wrote: post #4

Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I would have assumed that a majority of these states - and my home state of NJ - would be very anti-drug but these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. If you had asked me a few years ag…

Voters opinions are not a black and white thing. People might be in favor of something but still vote for you even if you aren’t. Especially in a two party system politicians have to optimize for not losing your voters. If 80% of your voters are for legalization and 20% against it but you would loose 15% of your voters if you would take it into your political platform, the you simply won’t do it.

Certain stances also carry more political risk than others. For example, if you openly want to make small changes to social welfare programs that make them more sustainable -- the kind of changes that would be a part of negotiations on any social welfare reform bill anyway -- you'll get crushed by ads saying you want to destroy social welfare.

It's the same with drug policy. On an individual level, most voters would probably understand drug policy liberalization if you sat down with them and showed them data around how it affects use, recidivism, et cetera. But if you vocalize support for it, you'll be risking your opponent taking a soundbyte and turning it into an ad for how you're soft on crime and you want to let dangerous criminals out of prison. So unless you have a lot of politicians in safe seats, or voters have had a lot of time to learn the nuance around these issues, it's a risky undertaking.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#166

Post by tomatocracy »

supernova87a wrote: post #97
intricatedetail wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you want to discuss? People have natural urge to use drugs and there is nothing you can do about it apart from trying to educate and ensure drugs are as safe as possible. Banning drugs is an idea of the same sort like banning music or sex for pleasure. Cartels make money on drug supply, because there is mostly no one else people can buy drugs from.

I agree that the war on drugs was a failure. But is your position that whatever people want to do, you should not try to prevent it? What are your positions on applying that logic to carbon emissions, letting people work for less than minimum wage, companies putting out products that people buy willingly but are non-repairable? Should government step out of those areas too? People want to do all those things.

Many things in life and in politics are not a case of “good” vs “bad” but of “bad” vs “worse”. I think it’s quite acceptable to think that legalisation might be the least worst policy there is even for hard drugs. Yes it will have negative effects but they may be less bad on aggregate than the alternative.

The same may well be true for the other examples you cite (I tend to personally believe not but it doesn’t mean it’s not a balancing act or that I’m right) - but I suspect that a lot of these things are also all likely to have quite a lot of local situational differences in determining which is worse.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#167

Post by TedShiller »

ggggtez wrote: post #41
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #6

> Cannabis has been rebranded as a wellness panacea. Mushrooms and MDMA are making headlines as therapy tools, not party fuel. Man, these guys are late to the party. Alcohol works great for treating symptoms of stress, too! Can't be stressed, anxious, or depressed if I'm blitzed out of my mind!

The doses involved in using drugs as medicine are often a lot lower than what someone would take to get "blitzed". Do you homework.

I drink alcohol every day to feel calm. I hope you don’t look down on me for that.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#168

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

the_only_law wrote: post #149
quattrofan wrote: post #100

Sigh. Going to be years before that happens in the UK, the Tories are still stuck in the past and listen to the Daily Mail.

I was surprised to learn from some research I did that the UK is often more strict on drugs than the US.

Copyright too. It’s still illegal to rip a CD in the UK, for example.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#169

Post by intricatedetail »

supernova87a wrote: post #97
intricatedetail wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you want to discuss? People have natural urge to use drugs and there is nothing you can do about it apart from trying to educate and ensure drugs are as safe as possible. Banning drugs is an idea of the same sort like banning music or sex for pleasure. Cartels make money on drug supply, because there is mostly no one else people can buy drugs from.

I agree that the war on drugs was a failure. But is your position that whatever people want to do, you should not try to prevent it? What are your positions on applying that logic to carbon emissions, letting people work for less than minimum wage, companies putting out products that people buy willingly but are non-repairable? Should government step out of those areas too? People want to do all those things.

Your example is wrong. I am talking about natural instincts. Any intelligent specie seeks for ways to alter their consciousness (or whatever close they have). Google about dolphins getting high...
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