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

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281–290 of 353 posts

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

#281

Just think of the the savings if they just removed Cannabis from the war and legalized it? I'm guessing a trillion $$ over the last few decades. Just think of how many peoples lives have been utterly destroyed by the system over low level Cannabis possession/use? Even now the Biden Administration and the Democrats in Congress are dragging their feet and not fulling an election promise to the American people by legali…

It's more than that. It's a moral panic.

Drugs and crime are inexorably wedded in many people's minds, so to them drug users are criminals so moving towards legalizing drugs is being soft on crime, which is a non-starter for a lot of politicians who want to seem tough on crime.

The media also loves to whip up a sensationalistic frenzy when they publish lurid drug stories... and the public, including many politicians, buy this.

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

#282
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Based on studies: Under 7% of cocaine abuse is IV. Self reported ratings of high, liking and stimulated are greater after smoking than after IV with similar plasma concentrations.

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

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>There are other substances that most people really don't think should be accessible to everyone This is not how a free society operates. I choose what I put into my body and not you or anyone else. If doing so causes me to commit a crime, then punish that crime, but banning drugs because "most people" don't like them is not freedom. If you don't like them, then don't do them. >Is it even possible to be a responsible…

As a society we've already concluded that it's okay to prioritize safety over freedom, as long as the tradeoff is sufficiently profitable: we have seatbelt laws, we did lockdowns during the pandemic, and you can be involuntarily committed for mental health.

I think a much better argument is to point at countries that decriminalized drugs and didn't see an increase in crime. If legalizing marijuana resulted in a 10x rise in crime I'd 100% for keeping it illegal

(This is all from someone who is very much AGAINST the war on drugs)

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

#284

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 s…

"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."

How exactly was it checked?

It's never been hard to buy crack if you wanted it, and for every dealer busted 2 more would move in to take their place.

I've yet to see evidence that the drug war did anything except for ruining a whole lot of lives and make some people very rich.

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? Yes! And this is what is so fascinating is how well the "drug war" has helped shape societal opinion to think it's not possible to be a functional user. Yet, you may be surprised to learn we have millions of people prescribed Adderall, an amphetamine mixture that is functionally equivalent to methamphetamine. They go about their daily lives on this d…

> functionally equivalent to methamphetamine.

"The average crystal meth addict uses about 500 mg a day. And they snort it, which probably produces about double the peak plasma level as taking it orally. So they're getting the equivalent of 1000 mg oral amphetamine daily. The average Adderall patient takes 20 mg."

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-o...

The fact that it's safe to have licensed people prescribe a tightly-controlled substance at 2% of recreational doses is... not at all a good argument for fully unrestricted 100% recreational doses.

(I'm still against the war on drugs, for what it's worth)

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

#286
post #113
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It absolutely can be. It just is not in this case. They were not merely "acting like racists". I hope this distinction helps.

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

#287

> 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…

> 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. A lot of people continue see locking up addicts as keeping dangerous people off the streets, so basically a good thing. They tend not to think significant rates of rehabilitation…

The answer is your ideology needs to be conservative. Helps to be racist, classist, and ignorant too.

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

#288

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…

"Marijuana destroys personal ambition, productivity and self-esteem."

It would be very eye opening if you could build a case for this being so, apart from saying that's been the case in your experience and that of your friends/acquaintances.

Have there been any research showing this is the case? If so, how large/good are those studies? What's the scientific consensus on this issue?

As far as I know there's very little research in this area, so most of what we have to go on are anecdotes.

"Marijuana is addicting even though people say its not. It is much easier to quit than Tobacco, but denying that its not addicting is not true in my experience."

But many other things are addictive in the same way -- like food, sex, sports, video games, etc... and addiction to any of those could lead to very severe consequences. Would you say it's time to make food, sex, sports, or video games uncool?

I'm also wondering why we should be focusing on cannabis when alcohol is way, way worse, and whose use is far more widespread.

"Marijuana is a nuisance on streets, apartments, etc. It has such a potent smell, it is impossible to get rid of. I would say it has 100x power of smell than perfumes, probably even more. You can smell Marijuana in your car if someone on the road is smoking it."

I like the smell of most cannabis strains, though some are unpleasant. Tobacco smell is way worse for me. Also, when vaping there's almost no smell at all. In any case, I hope there is social pressure not to smoke indoors where people who don't like the smell might be present, like on subways. That's pretty rude.

"Lung damage, it's undeniable."

You can eat it, and when smoking it you could run it through water to take out some of the impurities and/or vape it, which helps too.

"Marijuana is a gateway drug"

Not sure what to say to this. Some people are going to experiment with drugs. If they don't start with cannabis they'll start with something else, whether alcohol (which is way worse), some "bath salts" (which are usually some random novel designer drugs of unknown toxicity or known to be more toxic) or whatever. You're not going to keep these people from experimenting by making pot "uncool".

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

#289
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It absolutely can be. It just is not in this case. They were not merely "acting like racists". I hope this distinction helps.

The present simple "is not" seemed to be a general statement to me (but that just may be my L2 English).

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

#290

> 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…

> I don't know what your political ideology has to be to think the War on Drugs is a good thing This is quite a straw man, not wanting to decriminalize all drugs is not the same as thinking the War on Drugs is a good thing. (And it's not like there is one particular policy that on its own constitutes the "War on Drugs", so this is a very vague statement anyway). It's also interesting to me that in many other argument…

Sending those pesky addicts to jail will certainly fix the issue.
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