321–330 of 353 posts
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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.
>Most countries keeps drugs illegal without sending addicts to jail. This has to be a joke, right? Which countries?
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> 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…
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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 outcr…
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So should we criminalize being obese as well before implementing tax-payer funded healthcare? Yuck.
No, but we could start making them pay more for their airline tickets.
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>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…
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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 so called 'flaw' is exactly how the Senate works. A 51% red state will be represented by 2 100% red senators, and same for blue.
>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.
So instead the lifestyles are controlled by a super minority?
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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.
>Most countries keeps drugs illegal without sending addicts to jail. This has to be a joke, right? Which countries?
> 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 it's "corporate stooges or obstructionist trolls" - people are just profoundly ignorant in the matter and are unwilling to change their minds about it, however large tall the most idiotic war of all wars takes. It'd be easy if it were just a bunch of corporate lobbyist trolls. Widespread ignorance is much harder to overcome.
> 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…
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It seems weird to say that is the reason In most states (including CA) the percent of minorities in jail for weapons offenses is as disproportionate to the population as drug offenses. And today in states like CA - 50% more people are in jail for weapons charges than drug charges. Is the reason that drug laws/weapons laws exist to disenfranchise people? Or is a true problem in society that in theory would be good to…
Drugs can literally rewire your brain so that you feel an overriding urge to go out and find them. So a lot of low level drug offenders(mere possession) I feel sorry for. What's the argument for weapons violations? If weapons laws are designed to disenfranchise people, then shouldn't Europe have way more disenfranchisement than Americans?
I am saying the conclusion that drug charges were put in place to disenfranchise people is a bit silly. There were other reasons (even if they were panic reasons) to ban drugs.