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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?'

#241

Post by greedo »

fosk wrote: post #220
soperj wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Perhaps the simplest thing to do in order to disrupt the supply. When you're removing supply, but not disrupting demand, a way will be found. The real answer is to legalize & sell it, no more drug dealers, remove the overdoses because it was cut with fentanyl, no longer fund gangs = less homicides

This is false. Arrest drug dealers day after day for a generation, and the demand will lower because new generations won't even know what drugs are, or when the effect of heroin is, therefore they won't chase it. Demand for a good (or drug in this case) it is not inevitable. It can be disrupted too, it's not a given. But the demand for any good cannot be disrupted without first and foremost removing the supply. So we…

Economics would tell us that if you decrease the supply of something that has a high demand, then the price will rise. That means it's more valuable for criminals to distribute, and they will also use more violence to protect this trade.

So while we're cracking skulls to achieve your drug-free nirvana, we've basically consigned a generation to hell. Constant police patrolling and intervention in their communities, extremely violent narco-traffickers, and yet somehow no treatment for addicts.

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

#242

Post by stickfigure »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #180
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, 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 wasted, all the lives lost, all the people pointlessly locked up for things half the country can now do openly and legally. Well it does sound like you're equating the War on Drugs to the War on Marijuana. There are…

> Is it even possible to be a responsible Heroin user? Or even Meth?

Pharmacologically, Adderall is extremely similar to methamphetamine. So, it sure seems like it.

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

#243

Post by coderintherye »

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…

>Why aren't the Feds arresting drug dealers on every corner in a large scale operation first and foremost?

Because they did, and it was a large reason our prison population boomed. And...it didn't work. Read the article.

>Drugs enable misery, poverty, overdoses and homicides

No, drugs use is a respite for people in misery and poverty. It is a symptom not the underlying wound. I highly suggest taking a read of "Dignity" by Chris Arnande for a personal and expansive look at this. Though if you prefer academic articles the NIH has more papers on it then you can read in a lifetime and happy to link you to them.

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

Hard disagree, and in fact you are actually in a small minority now in this position: https://news.gallup.com/poll/323582/support-legal-marijuana-...

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

#244

Post by cwkoss »

RookyNumbas wrote: post #218
cwkoss wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

The crack vs. cocaine comparison is no good, we should stop using it. Free base is a very different drug than cocaine. An equivalent "white" version of crack would be crystal meth, which has had similar sentencing guidelines to crack.

I was under the impression that they are pharmacologically identical and main distinction is that crack can be smoked/vaporized and while cocaine is predominantly snorted.

I would be surprised if the harms of smoked crack were worse than the harms of IV cocaine.

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

#245

Post by ddlatham »

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,"…

It's worth noting that quote was actually first published 5 years ago, and its veracity is in dispute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote

I do believe the War on Drugs has been a terrible policy, doing disproportionate harm to Blacks and other marginalized people. I'm not convinced that was the intent by most of those who supported its creation and sustained it.

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

#246

Post by soperj »

fosk wrote: post #220
soperj wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Perhaps the simplest thing to do in order to disrupt the supply. When you're removing supply, but not disrupting demand, a way will be found. The real answer is to legalize & sell it, no more drug dealers, remove the overdoses because it was cut with fentanyl, no longer fund gangs = less homicides

This is false. Arrest drug dealers day after day for a generation, and the demand will lower because new generations won't even know what drugs are, or when the effect of heroin is, therefore they won't chase it. Demand for a good (or drug in this case) it is not inevitable. It can be disrupted too, it's not a given. But the demand for any good cannot be disrupted without first and foremost removing the supply. So we…

Show me somewhere that it has worked and I'll believe you, I've never seen it though.

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

#247

Post by coderintherye »

macspoofing wrote: post #162

What the difference between the American "War on Drugs" and almost every other nation having similar anti-drug laws?

To start with, the fact that those other nation's drug laws in many cases were directly influenced into being by the United States. More importantly, the money for resources for enforcing those laws often comes from specifically earmarked U.S. funds.

To put it another way, how many other countries in the world have active agents in the field in multiple other countries to interdict and disrupt drug supply chains?

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

#248

Post by greedo »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #47
dcolkitt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't know the solution to this, but I'm open to trying anything other than the failed police policies we've been repeating for what seems like forever.

One of my nieces died from heart failure last year. She had been living on the street and been a hard core drug user. I can't say that it was heroin that killed her, because like most street users, she took anything she could get her hands on. But her heroin addiction was what kept her on the street. She had been through treatment more times than I can count. None helped for very long. In the end, she's dead at 29, a life completely wasted.

Would legalized heroin with clean needles have saved her? Don't know. But our current system sure didn't.

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

#249

Post by MauranKilom »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #234

The war on the freedom to do drugs* It's no more a war on drugs than "gun control" is about controlling guns. "gun control" is actually citizen disarmament, because every law they pass exempts the police, military, and retired police. So its' not about guns, but who can have them . Both of these represent a propaganda technique known as 'framing': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) When people th…

> When people think of it as "gun control" it presupposes the notion that guns are out of control when that isn't the issue.

To clarify: Are you saying guns are not out of control, or guns being out of control is not an issue?

Also, if you were to substitute "nukes" or "ebola vials" for "guns" in your argument, would it still stand? If not, where do you see the difference?

(To be clear, I'm not convinced that your argument applies equally to drugs and guns, this is why I'm extrapolating it here.)

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

#250

Post by cmendel »

neither_color wrote: post #192
cmendel wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that our system is broken. Wildly popular policies can't pass because of republican obstructionism in the senate. Worse, the senate is hugely anti-democratic. It's not 1/3-1/2 of the population; its the reps of 4/25. ""The 25 most populous states contain nearly 84 percent of the 50 states’ total population. So 16 percent of the country controls half of the seats in the United States Senate (and that’s…

>25 most populous states contain nearly 84 percent of the 50 states’ total population. So 16 percent of the country controls half of the seats in the United States Senate Not really, the flaw here is seeing each "blue state" as 100% blue and each "red state" as 100% red. A blue state can be simply a matter of a single blue city surrounded by red counties. The holdout states give a voice to the people in holdout count…

Whether government corruption is inevitable is frankly irrelevant to the broader question of political representation. I understand very well the (R) v (D) distinction is predominantly Rural v Urban. I believe in democracy and, as such, believe that people, not land should vote. Any system that is as so incredibly unrepresentative is unjust.

If 1% of CA moved to Wyoming; Wyoming would be majority Californian. Them having equal representation in a co-equal political body is insanity. Wyoming has a population half the size of the city of San Jose.

As an aside; I find the coding of land to be deeply misleading. https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/hpB3wkTVkPJsrJ6-qjtbU...

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