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After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

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Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#41

Post by alamortsubite »

I feel like Ehrlichman admitting the war on drugs was just a pretext for marginalizing Blacks and progressives should have been the end of it. But no, and that's already 25 years ago:

In a 1994 interview published in Harper's Magazine, Nixon adviser John Ehrlichman suggested racial animus was among the motives shaping the drug war.

"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the [Vietnam] War or Black," Ehrlichman said. "But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities."

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#42

Post by ElViajero »

bgroins wrote: post #19
ElViajero wrote: post #8

> "The war on drugs was an absolute miscalculation of human behavior," said Kassandra Frederique, who heads the Drug Policy Alliance, a national group that advocates for total drug decriminalization. For me it would be incredibly interesting to know how much it was a miscalculation or actually it was very well calculated. The "War on Drugs" have failed to make USA safer, healthier or any other positive metric. But, i…

The reasoning is well established at this point. It was started by the Nixon administration to reduce the amount of left and left-leaning voters, particularly black Americans. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the…

> It was started by the Nixon administration to reduce the amount of left and left-leaning voters, particularly black Americans.

That is interesting information, thank you for commenting.

It shows that there was not a misinterpretation, as the article suggests, at least, not the initiators of the "War", but more of a well-calculated hidden agenda that had nothing to do with "drugs".

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#43

Post by pope_meat »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #22
pope_meat wrote: post #3

Created a lot of jobs in the industry of arresting and detaining humans. Being number 1 per capita in prison population isn't a lean operation, a lot of people's lives depend on the system continuing. I think the solution is to rent bulldozers, armor them, and just level a bunch of them. Too many prison beds, too many laws, it's all gotten very dumb.

And so many episodes of Brooklyn Nine-nine

Copaganda was very funny. I laughed and related to our heroes in blue.

Funny they don't seem to shoot unarmed kids in the show at all, wish our cops took inspiration.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#44

Post by jkestner »

pope_meat wrote: post #3

Created a lot of jobs in the industry of arresting and detaining humans. Being number 1 per capita in prison population isn't a lean operation, a lot of people's lives depend on the system continuing. I think the solution is to rent bulldozers, armor them, and just level a bunch of them. Too many prison beds, too many laws, it's all gotten very dumb.

Let's start with the prisons about to be built, of which there are still many. A campaign to convince the Travis County (Austin) commissioners not to fund a new $80M women's prison succeeded this week. Next step is to get them to instead fund diversion and mental health programs.

You may find similar movements that you can join in pressuring local officials. The fun thing is that at this level of government, commissioners will often respond themselves, so you know even relatively few emails are making an impact.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#45

Post by dlsa »

ElViajero wrote: post #8

> "The war on drugs was an absolute miscalculation of human behavior," said Kassandra Frederique, who heads the Drug Policy Alliance, a national group that advocates for total drug decriminalization. For me it would be incredibly interesting to know how much it was a miscalculation or actually it was very well calculated. The "War on Drugs" have failed to make USA safer, healthier or any other positive metric. But, i…

Personally I think it had more to do with corruption than anything. The CIA was happy to profit off it. The anti-drug people loved it, particularly those who were against cannabis. anyone who hated hippies. Anyone working against the antiwar movements. Those against hemp were happy. That's a lot of money just there. Politicians could use it to demonstrate a hard line stance against crime. Or just use it to target particular groups.

Then theres the people lobbying for anti-drug laws to expand the prison population. Lawyers and respective district attorneys that were happy as well.

The drug war was basically a felony printer as well. This made all sorts of social problems including unemployment / housing even more problematic. It tore apart families and still does. Meanwhile other legal drugs (opioids in general) flourished.

Then there's the overdoses / poisonings because the source and distribution networks are utterly motivated to mess with the supply.

The truly stupid aspect is that drug use has not significantly decreased. The whole "war" aspect was a complete failure. So it wasn't a good investment anyway.

So many parallels with prohibition. Government poisoned that supply as well and killed thousands.

Just say no. Indeed.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#46

Post by uberdru »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #28
bgroins wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning is well established at this point. It was started by the Nixon administration to reduce the amount of left and left-leaning voters, particularly black Americans. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the…

Whether or not it was Nixon and friends acting like racists is secondary. Tons of individuals and institutions piled on because there was power and money in it for them.

My read is that your statement is incorrect, in that they were not simply 'acting like racists'. Instead, they were instituting racially motivated policies to combat the advances of the civil rights movement through the '60s. Plus ca change.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#47

Post by camjohnson26 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #32
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do we need to do next that would have the biggest effect, decriminalize cocaine/crack cocaine?

Legal and purity regulated heroin would have by far the biggest impact, because of the scourge of fentanyl deaths. If I had to choose between legal cannabis and legal heroin, I’d choose the latter on utilitarian grounds. (Although obviously I support both wholeheartedly.)

Given how addictive heroin is how do people supporting decriminalization suggest dealing with hard core addicts that can’t afford the drug? Giving it away for free in a clinic, hospitalizing hardcore users, letting legal dealers take on the risks directly?

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#48

Post by whydoineedthis »

People say it failed without recognizing how bad the crack epidemic was, and is currently only a shadow of what it could be had it been left unchecked.

Yes, there are still drug problems - but not to the common extent you saw in the 80's.

I think the issue is that people hear the word "war" and think that only the cops and military are the sole soldiers. There is only so much they can be expected to capture without some massive invasion of citizen rights.

The truth is that more must be done by the communities themselves. Whether you call it a "war", or by any other name, you will need more than just cops and TLA's to solve the problem.

And yes, we should spend more on education as part of all of these efforts. The concerned citizens of this country have been asking for that balance to change for a large number of reasons. Unfortunately the status quo remains.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#49

Post by throwaway0a5e »

dcolkitt wrote: post #24
BitwiseFool wrote: post #9

This is one of those weird things about American Democracy where everyone I speak to thinks the Drug War was a terrible thing and should be stopped. And yet, our politicians never substantially do anything to change the status quo.

You almost certainly occupy a bubble in this. I hate the War on Drugs with every fiber in my being, but it’s broadly popular. Cannabis legalization may recently be popular. But I’d be shocked if more than 5% of Americans supported the legalization hard drugs, and if more than 20% supported by Portuguese style decriminalization. Even soft drug prohibition, like MDMA and LSD, are supported by sizable majorities of vote…

>but it’s broadly popular.

In a "twist words, give people 4 option multiple choice and count 3 of them as support" sort of way.

The illegality of trafficking hard drugs is broadly supported and it goes down from there.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#50

Post by rektide »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #16
a2tech wrote: post #2

Its still doing the most important things--lining the pockets of some, criminalizing large groups of people that the government wants to marginalize, and acting as a cornerstone of restrictive laws that are imposed upon the citizenry.

> large groups of people that the government wants to marginalize Who does the government want to marginalize? I thought the government (and the rest of the world, really) was all about equality and inclusion as of late.

> Who does the government want to marginalize? I thought the government (and the rest of the world, really) was all about equality and inclusion as of late.

Only the moral & good parts of the government. There's plenty of politicians & forces out there whose campaign message & activities are rather the opposite.

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