Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 353 posts

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

#161

Post by csours »

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.

And a lot more people are fine with "Law and Order" without really thinking about what that means - among other things it means 'I don't want to see or deal with other people's problems'. It's a really easy position to have until other people's problems become your problems, or your family's problems and they can't get out of a bad situation.

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

#163

Post by CodeWriter23 »

whydoibother wrote: post #91
systemvoltage wrote: post #64

It would be suicidal to challenge marijuana, since it is going against the current mob mentality on HN and elsewhere, but I am going to do just that. In my personal experience: - I think Marijuana should be legalized but it needs to be made uncool to consume just like Tobacco. Currently, it is the opposite. Social media loves weed. - Marijuana destroys personal ambition, productivity and self-esteem. - Marijuana is a…

You do realize you can vape flower/concentrate and eat edibles, right? >Marijuana is a gateway drug, I strongly believe this but open for changing my mind if there is data supporting otherwise. The burden of proof is on you to show this. What you strongly feel doesn't matter.

The "gateway drug" assertion isn't an "all or nothing" issue. There's nuance to it.

Ask a bunch of drug addicts if they used weed before [heroin|coke|speed|lsd||aota], most of them will say yes. At least the ones I've been hanging out with in NA for the past 25+ years.

Does that mean, smoke weed and you'll automatically end up using other drugs? No.

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

#164

Post by randomhodler84 »

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…

I buy it. It was forced on the world by the UN with the convention of psychotropic substances 1971. Only a handful of nations, now including the US are seeing this as a horrible mistake.

It is, was and always will be a horrible mistake, maybe the worst sociopolitical action in the 20th century. The brutality we have seen as a result of these policies leaves little moral ambiguity.

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

#165

Post by kragen »

sokoloff wrote: post #111
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Crystal meth was discovered in 01893; it has been legally available by prescription in the US since at least the 01950s. I don't think it's ever been entirely illegal like marijuana. Nowadays its main legal use is for obesity treatment under the name Desoxyn.

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

#166

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

foldr wrote: post #117
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…

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 immigr…

So having rules and laws designed to leverage the justice system against Black Americans is conspiratorial? That's literally the history of this country, from The Black Codes, to Jim Crow, to the War On Drugs this has been standard operating procedure.

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

#167

Post by [deleted] »

duped wrote: post #95
chrischen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not just "fine" with it, it's the current driving force behind the Republican Party.

[deleted]

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

#168

Post by tetranomiga »

vkou wrote: post #107
tetranomiga wrote: post #23

> On Tuesday, two House Democrats introduced legislation that would decriminalize all drugs in the U.S., shifting the national response to a public health model. The measure appears to have zero chance of passage. If that isn't just the perfect description of politics in the US, I don't know what is. I don't know what your political ideology has to be to think the War on Drugs is a good thing, after all the money was…

> If that isn't just the perfect description of politics in the US Yes, but not in the way that you say. Political change happens step by tiny step. You have to hammer the same point for decades to get somewhere. You hammer it by winning elections, by having better candidates win your primaries, by getting the news media, large corporations, and celebrities to virtue signal, by rallies, by protests, by sabotaging the…

> Political change happens step by tiny step.

No it doesn't, political change is simply impossible without massive financial backing, which is why policies that benefit the classes that don't have a lot of money have to jump through all those hoops you mentioned to eventually get the money behind it.

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

#169

Post by systemvoltage »

whydoibother wrote: post #91
systemvoltage wrote: post #64

It would be suicidal to challenge marijuana, since it is going against the current mob mentality on HN and elsewhere, but I am going to do just that. In my personal experience: - I think Marijuana should be legalized but it needs to be made uncool to consume just like Tobacco. Currently, it is the opposite. Social media loves weed. - Marijuana destroys personal ambition, productivity and self-esteem. - Marijuana is a…

You do realize you can vape flower/concentrate and eat edibles, right? >Marijuana is a gateway drug, I strongly believe this but open for changing my mind if there is data supporting otherwise. The burden of proof is on you to show this. What you strongly feel doesn't matter.

That's true, I think Vaping is still not that healthy for your lungs.

Fair enough about burden of proof. I found one that supports and one that opposes the argument:

Kind of supporting, it says it is complex to evaluate the gateway hypothesis: https://doi.org/10.1080/09595230500126698

Opposing: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11292-021-09464-z

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

#170

Post by depaya »

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.

Robbery and murder are already illegal. Why are we criminalizing motivations for crime instead of trying to prevent crime?

Do you you think drug-related robbery and murder would decrease if we simply provided free drugs to anybody who wanted them?

Post reply on HN