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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?'

#111

Post by sokoloff »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #15
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…

> a national group that advocates for total drug decriminalization. Will this ever be achieved in the US in the next... 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?

I tend to expect a federal decriminalization of marijuana in the next 10 years. I doubt we'll see a decriminalization of crystal meth in the next 50 years.

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

#112

Post by [deleted] »

chrischen wrote: post #67
alamortsubite wrote: post #41

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,"…

I think the obvious answer often overlooked is that a lot of people are simply still totally fine marginalizing Blacks, Latinos, progressives, and other minorities.

[deleted]

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

#113

Post by jhgb »

tolbish wrote: post #68
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that exactly how you'd expect racists to act?

The difference is that racism is not a secondary motivator. Racism would be baked into the desire for power, as it would then be a desire to instill white supremacy.

Why couldn't racism be either primary or secondary motivator for something?

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

#114

Post by BurningFrog »

coopsmoss wrote: post #74
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…

I still find it abhorrent that incarcerated people can't vote in the US. That seems so obviously exploitable.

Voters should select their politicians.

Not the opposite!

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

#115

Post by reggieband »

I'm hazy on where I heard this justification, but I recall some argument that the rate of violent criminals who recreationally use drugs is very high. That is, if a violent criminal is caught walking down the street and is searched then there is a high probability that they will have some kind of illegal drug on them.

The opposite isn't necessarily the case. That is, a drug user is not high probability to be a violent criminal. But by having available such a large net and by removing a large number of recreational drug users from the streets - the end result is a high proportion of violent offenders are also removed from the streets.

So a combination of "stop and search" policing with "three strikes" policies has the effect of significantly reducing violent crime. However, there is a good argument to be made that the benefit is far outweighed by the damage such policies have caused.

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

#116

Post by tshaddox »

fosk wrote: post #98

Besides the controversial political agenda behind the "War on Drugs", I guess we all agree that drugs are obviously bad for society as a whole. But it's kinda hard to do a war on drugs without - you know - arresting the drug dealers on known corners. Looking at you San Francisco. Drugs enable misery, poverty, overdoses and homicides. Especially the ones that create physical addiction (opioids, meth, fentanyl, etc). B…

> I guess we all agree that drugs are obviously bad for society as a whole

That seems to require defining “drugs” very deliberately to only count substances and use cases such that by definition you’ve only included stuff that’s bad for society as a whole.

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

#117

Post by foldr »

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…

This seems oversimplified. Lots of politically very diverse countries around the world have harsh penalties for possession of heroin.

I don't doubt that the Nixon administration exploited the war on drugs for nefarious ends. However, I think the idea that the entire impetuous behind it was to target particular social groups is bordering on a conspiracy theory. It is a bit like suggesting that Democrats are pro immigration only because immigrants tend to vote Democrat. I'm sure it hasn't escaped the notice of Democratic electoral strategists that the party could stand to benefit from immigration. But it would be implausible to suggest that this is the only reason that Democrats tend to favor a more liberal immigration policy than Republicans.

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

#118

Post by damagednoob »

neither_color wrote: post #97
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…

I don't buy it. That's one administration's decision to capitalize on anti-drug sentiment, but it really is a world-wide phenomenon with many powerful countries not controlled by the US choosing to continue outlawing drugs, like middle eastern countries and China. Most Asian countries still have very harsh penalties for drug possession. If you use an earthquake or a hurricane to engage in some crony capitalism, it do…

Isn't it a convenient excuse for other countries, too? In the same way that 'think of the children' is an argument for more censorship and Big Brother-style laws.

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

#119

Post by Gibbon1 »

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.

The sway voters have on the policies politicians promote is nil. The people they do pay attention too either have no personal vested interest in stopping the drug war. Or have a vested interest in keeping it going.

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

#120

Post by tenebrisalietum »

the_economist wrote: post #30

Counterpoint: The war on drugs has been progressively ramped down since the late 90s. NYTimes wrote a long story about how during the feds quit using tactics such as convicted drug dealers to flip on their bosses, etc. We aren't putting as many drug dealers in jail and we aren't putting many drug users in jail. What you get is an epic rise in opioid deaths over the past 30 years and chaos on the streets of our cities…

Aren't current issues with LA/SF/Portland due to homelessness, which is exacerbated by housing supply issues?

AFAIK opioid deaths were also mostly caused by 100% legal means of getting drugs--via prescriptions.

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