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

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

#301

Post by vkou » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

tetranomiga wrote: post #168

vkou wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If political change is impossible without major financial backing, you should be able to tell me which billionaires sponsored the de-stigmatization, normalization, and legalization of homosexuality in the United States over the past 30-50 years.

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

#302

Post by vkou » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

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…

> The holdout states give a voice to the people in holdout counties whose lifestyles are at the whim of a super-majority in the city.

Every non-geographic minority group in this country somehow manages to deal with this problem. What makes rural conservatives require such a truly exceptional level of representation?

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

#303

Post by cactus2093 » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #298

cactus2093 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> But I don't see any reason to believe that decriminalizing everything would make things better. The stated intent of decriminalization, redirecting resources from enforcement to treatment, switching to a public health strategy, is harm reduction. We still don't know what will reduce use and abuse. Whatever the merits of the War on Drugs, it manifestly failed to reduce either.

That's also a hard sell right now based on the catastrophic failure of US public health policies during the pandemic.

Public health systems have shown they can do a pretty good job given a miracle vaccine to work with. Short of that, not so much. And unfortunately we don't yet have a shot that cures drug abuse.

A little more specifically, I don't think the lack of availability of rehab programs is what is the problem here, and that's about all public health could offer.

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

#304

Post by pope_meat » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:26 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #267

pope_meat wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it doesn't have to be violent. structures feel nothing.

So destroying public property is not violence now? Okay... thanks I guess.

I think destroying something like water treatment plants, or gas pipelines could be constituted as violence, but not prisons, not in a country with the highest prison population per capita in the world. i refuse to believe that the people here are inherently more criminal and dangerous than anywhere else in the world, and if that belief is correct then our over-packed prisons are a sign of a legal system that got way out of control, but due to the size of the system and it's inertia, it will continue to self perpetuate unless challenged. Due to just how many peoples lives are intertwined with this machine, i don't see a civil path forward to a solution. It was the same case with slavery in this nation, we all knew it was a problem, but because too much money was tied in the economy supporting it...nothing changed until people took to civil disobedience.

if you don't want bulldozers, perhaps write to your representatives, and urge them to do something before the modern day John Browns start doing it for them.

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

#305

Post by klyrs » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #186

klyrs wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, white liberal raised by an addict here. I've known quite a few meth addicts over the years. The ones who get sent to prison are uniformly worse off than those who get sent to rehab. A notable distinction, white addicts I know have been mostly sent to rehab; everybody else winds up in jail/prison where there's a booming drug trade and surprise surprise, they don't get clean.

Rehab is more expensive than jail and convincing citizens to spend tax money on drug addicts who chose to screw their own lives up instead of putting that tax money into schools is a tough sell for politicians. Drug addicts are typically a terrible investment with near zero return. Better to spend money on people who choose to live their lives in ways that better their communities. "War on drugs" was actually genius…

Only, it's pennywise, pound foolish. One day in jail is cheaper than one day in rehab, but a month in rehab is cheaper than a lifetime of recidivism. So it's not genius marketing for people who genuinely want to keeps costs down, it's genius marketing for authoritarianisn.

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

#306

Post by alessivs » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

soperj wrote: post #142

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…

>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

> The real answer is to legalize & sell it, no more drug dealers

On the other hand, there are huge profits and motivators for money laundering. Ask HSBC, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Western Union, or Citigroup.

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

#307

Post by stephc_int13 » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #273

stephc_int13 wrote: post #81

There is, I think, a global misunderstanding about the nature of addiction. When pushed to the extreme, any addiction can be destructive. Food, sex, alcohol, tobacco or games are a few perfectly legal examples. Food addiction is especially interesting because it is at the same time widespread and denied. Also, the immediate effects and destructive power are less spectacular than crack. From my completely empirical ob…

I was seriously addicted to video games for years. Thank god I wasn't thrown in jail for it. That's an extra source of misery that neither me nor my family needed. Imagine if they threw fat people in jail for being addicted to food. This is basically the same thing they're doing to drug addicts. It's insane.

Yes, there is a mix of denial and misunderstanding about the nature and weaknesses of the human mind.

Controlling addictive behaviors requires the full cooperation of the subconscious part of ourselves, this is easier said than done, and I have not seen anyone succeeding while being miserable.

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

#308

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #186

klyrs wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, white liberal raised by an addict here. I've known quite a few meth addicts over the years. The ones who get sent to prison are uniformly worse off than those who get sent to rehab. A notable distinction, white addicts I know have been mostly sent to rehab; everybody else winds up in jail/prison where there's a booming drug trade and surprise surprise, they don't get clean.

Rehab is more expensive than jail and convincing citizens to spend tax money on drug addicts who chose to screw their own lives up instead of putting that tax money into schools is a tough sell for politicians. Drug addicts are typically a terrible investment with near zero return. Better to spend money on people who choose to live their lives in ways that better their communities. "War on drugs" was actually genius…

> Rehab is more expensive than jail

Inpatient treatment is more expensive per day than jail, sure. But not all treatment is inpatient, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to compare per day, anyway. There’s plenty of studies showing that treatments saves money compared to (and especially in) criminal justice.

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

#309

Post by lr4444lr » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

barbacoa wrote: post #256

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…

I don't think the laws are the way they are because people don't have common sense. Think of all the lawyers, drug testing lab techs, court clerks, judges, and probation officers that would lose their jobs if the war on drugs was lifted. If you ever watched police shows like "cops" they seem to spend 2/3 of their time arresting people for drugs. It's hard solve home burglaries, it's easy to bust people with petty amo…

This. Exactly this. People seem to forget that whole industries and careers in the tens if not hundreds of thousands would be overturned at the stroke of a pen, even if it is a good idea for lots of reasons. And the people with a vested stake in the status quo are going to fight like hell to keep it. Ending the war on drugs needs to be practically unwound in a manner that doesn't trigger a huge special interest outcry that will thwart any and all progress.

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

#310

Post by username90 » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

thatswrong0 wrote: post #290

cactus2093 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That is a strawman. Most countries keeps drugs illegal without sending addicts to jail. There is no reason you have to go with one or the other.