Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

d2v wrote: post #200

freedomben wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with you. But, some advice, if you want to have a chance at changing somebody's mind, leave out the attack on the GOP. You trigger emotional thinking and defensiveness when you do that.

Yeah. Worth noting that the Democrats helped make things significantly worse with the crime bill as well. Nixon and Regan got the ball rolling, but the Clinton admin doubled down on all of it.

That's because the Overton window was being dragged rightward in the wake of Reagan.

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

#212

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #70

devenblake wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of existing drug laws in America is to give police the means to harass minorities though. See: https://archive.attn.com/stories/1503/war-on-drugs-real-reas... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/real-reasons-marijuana-is-ban... http://www.history.com/news/why-the-u-s-made-marijuana-illeg... https://www.salon.com/2015/07/02/the_real_reason_marijuana_i... (though this one pretty much reiterates the attn article)…

So what’s the purpose of them in Japan?

We don't have to explain the purpose of the laws in Japan to prove their purpose in the United States.

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

#213

Post by jowsie » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #204

pessimizer wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you really think that heroin production should ever be legalised? Yes. The actual cost of producing heroin is about a nickel a dose. Junkies who get their heroin are productive members of society, and aside from the criminal element they're forced to associate with, the crime they commit to get the cash to not get sick, the inconsistency of product, and the aggression of the state, we have no reason to think the…

Why concentrate on ongoing use rather than providing addiction treatment?

You're a lot less likely to relapse and commit crime when you're already on a stable dose of your drug of choice. Considering how many people in america are on legitimate opiod prescriptions I find it insane how people instantly jump to 'well you wouldn't legalise heroin would you?!', there's no meaningful difference between opiods whether they're prescribed or not.

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

#214

Post by jessaustin » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #204

pessimizer wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you really think that heroin production should ever be legalised? Yes. The actual cost of producing heroin is about a nickel a dose. Junkies who get their heroin are productive members of society, and aside from the criminal element they're forced to associate with, the crime they commit to get the cash to not get sick, the inconsistency of product, and the aggression of the state, we have no reason to think the…

Why concentrate on ongoing use rather than providing addiction treatment?

Why concentrate on anything? Heroin addicts who desire treatment will be welcome to it, but others will choose otherwise.

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

#215

Post by wombatmobile » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #209

wombatmobile wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does it necessarily follow that law enforcement budgets will be cut if weed is legalised? Ideally, how might the budget be reconfigured constructively with the same dollar amount to make a better community?

It's not so much a question of law enforcement budgets as it is municipality budgets. Many of these smaller pass-through towns make significant money harassing travelers (speed traps) and through seizures of property. If MJ is legal, they can no longer use things such as "I smell marijuana" as a pretext for exacerbating a traffic stop or stacking more charges.

How do you quantify the revenue derived from that?

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

#216

Post by Supermancho » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

brodo wrote: post #198

throwaway201103 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it was stepped up by Clinton/Biden in the 1990s with the crime bill. There is plenty of blame to pass around for the situation we are in today. Arguing about who started it decades ago is not very helpful.

Politics always exists in a context and one can't make rational decisions in politics without that context. I think our society suffers greatly because people don't know history.

> Politics always exists in a context and one can't make rational decisions in politics without that context.

You can act outside of political historical context and I would go so far as to recommend it wholly. This kind of "context" (which is human ascribed) has no bearing on acting rationally. Pay attention to consequence borne by data, not past intent.

> I think our society suffers greatly because people don't know history.

I'm not sure how that applies to something that has circumstantial relevance, like past political conditions.

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

#217

Post by jariel » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

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…

" legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized."

Weed is not crack.

Conscientious voters are not on the front lines of seeing the problems that drugs cause, just the opposite, are probably more likely to know people who go to Burning Man occasionally and who don't have a problem with a little bit of this or that now and again.

I live in a neighbourhood with homeless people and can indeed assure you that 'drugs' are a massive social, health and criminal problem, it's really a pain to have to remind people of that.

Crack, Meth and Opioids/Fentanyl in particular are fairly corrosive, the legalization of them would result immediately in a non-significant chunk of the population becoming adversely affecting, causing a health crises somewhere on par with a pandemic.

Opioids are already a massive problem, huge source of addiction and they are quite a controlled substance.

In Canada, they don't prescribe 10 or 15 or a small bottle - often they will give you literally only two or three pills max - because they are so excessively addictive.

It's shocking to have to get people to look beyond their own safe neighbourhood to remind them of out ugly it really is and can be out there.

Weed is not a problem and possibly not Mushrooms (although it will take some weird regulation because it's literally poison) - but almost everything else is off the table.

America is literally in an opioid crisis, and it's disturbing the same people in the 'pro mask' camp seem to want to discount actual science of addiction, overdose etc. when it comes to a 'problem' that interferes with their 'recreation'.

So we 'like' the CDC, right? Scientists? Public health? Esp. during a pandemic? I do! Have a look at their data. [1]

Also, from the Lancet [2]

We wear masks partly to 'not propagate' an actual disease - some forms of drug addiction are the same thing a social disease that is communicated by the actions we take. It's not a big deal to 'wear a mask' and it's not a big deal to 'not do crack'.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths/drug-overd...

[2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

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

#218

Post by nemo44x » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #172

throwaway201103 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not born yet, it was absolutely devastating. At least the equivalent of today's opioid crisis if not worse. Entire neighborhoods just fell apart. Politicians and voters freaked out and demanded harsh new drug laws and penalties. Lobbiest support from those who benef…

I was a black teenager living on the South Side of Chicago during that time, and the media crack obsession was largely hysterics, and sometimes outright fiction (as with "crack babies.")

I think in addition concentrating so much poverty in place amplified how bad it was. In actuality and also in perception.

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

#219

Post by fatjokes » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

They didn't reject it. They just sided with drugs and drugs won. Long live drugs!

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

#220

Post by bosie » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

thatcat wrote: post #164

bosie wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> Drugs are already highly available.

not sure i follow, what is your definition of highly available? if cocaine is highly available, how do you classify nicotine and/or alcohol?

> 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.

do you have a link to a writeup of sorts showing the damage on the national cost perspective (don't even care if it is health or any other associated cost). it just seems 'some small statistical probability' and 'not negligible' is borderline orthogonal. would be interesting if that is already non-negligible how much worse the real offenders are.