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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?'

#151

Post by sokoloff »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #138
sokoloff wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What drug would be next to target on the list of "good candidates for decriminalization" after marijuana?

I don't know enough to judge and I would hope that we'd look to the science, medicine, and what other countries have done with success to make that determination.

Psilocybin is the first possible candidate that comes to my mind, but I'd rather have us use a sound framework of harm-minimization than to favor/disfavor any particular drug.

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

#152

Post by callmeal »

reggieband wrote: post #115

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 violen…

> "three strikes" policies has the effect of significantly reducing violent crime.

That's not quite true. The three strikes policy had the effect of increasing violent crime. After all, if it's going to be their third strike, why would anyone go small?

https://slate.com/business/2008/03/do-three-strikes-laws-mak...

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

#154

Post by whydoibother »

jimbob45 wrote: post #132
ericbarrett wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People destroy their lives with alcohol just the same. Should we abolish liquor again? (I have meth-addled family too btw)

I would argue that we (assuming you're US, like me) largely already have with the liquor ban until 21. However, no, I don't agree that alcohol is "just the same". People rarely commit robbery and murder to get another hit of alcohol. Conversely, many drug addicts are unable to stop themselves from taking desperate measures to get their next hit when it is not easily accessible.

>People rarely commit robbery and murder to get another hit of alcohol.

Weird. Almost like making it legal, relatively cheap, and easily accessible makes it so you don't have to resort to desperate means.

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

#155

Post by tempodox »

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…

It also creates an unholy amount of bullshit jobs in law enforcement and the prison industry. Can't lose those voters.

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

#156

Post by pjc50 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #25
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.

> Created a lot of jobs in the industry of arresting and detaining humans. What portion of those arrested + detained are the type of people we want in society/civilization?

Quite a lot of them are young people whose ""type"" is not yet fixed. To believe that America's high prison population all deserve to be there is to believe that America is a place full of uniquely bad people, which is quite the .. unpatriotic? take.

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

#157

Post by aurelius83 »

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…

There is literally no proof that John Ehrlichman said this to Dan Baum in 1994 and when Dan Baum made this statement John Ehrlichman was already dead and could not refute it. Note that his estate has denied this statement.

It also is not accurate that the Nixon administration increased incarceration of drug use. That occurred under Reagan and Clinton.

However, Nixon was the first president to coin the term "war on drugs" but this was a rhetorical flourish. The Nixon Administration repealed the federal 2–10-year mandatory minimum sentences for possession of marijuana and started federal demand reduction programs and drug-treatment programs.

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

#158

Post by bosswipe »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #138
sokoloff wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What drug would be next to target on the list of "good candidates for decriminalization" after marijuana?

Psychedelics are probably next. Already there is some movement, Oakland and Denver have decriminalized magic mushrooms.

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

#159

Post by cwkoss »

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 historical goals of the "War on Drugs" have not been to make the USA safer (though proponents often claim that). The goal has been white supremacy, which is served by giving cops laws that they can enforce based on racial prejudice.

Cannabis was made illegal because it was mostly used by Mexican immigrants. https://www.history.com/news/why-the-u-s-made-marijuana-ille...

Crack was sentenced at a 10x higher rate than cocaine because black citizens disproportionately used crack, while white users disproportionally used cocaine.

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

#160

Post by smoldesu »

reggieband wrote: post #115

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 violen…

"Recreational drug" can describe anything from pot to PCP, it's our government's mistake for not coloring a gradient between them.
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