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AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

arstechnica.com

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Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#171

Post by dragonwriter »

genwin wrote: post #31
moens wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and for there to be a war on drugs in the first place. Eliminate the fundamentals, and there should be no issues at all, really.

I have a problem with a war on marijuana, or violating the Constitution during the war on drugs. But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crack or other drugs that increase the odds that I'll be a victim of violent crime or robbery. (I'd punish simple users with rehab rather than prison.)

> But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crack or other drugs that increase the odds that I'll be a victim of violent crime or robbery.

Why do you think that the war being fought on those drugs isn't reducing the risk of you being a victim of violent crime or robbery? Or do you just assume that the existence of those drugs create a risk which justifies the war, even if the war makes that risk even greater?

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#172

Post by dragonwriter »

jlgreco wrote: post #94
baddox wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about nicotine? Granted, there have probably been people who steal cigarettes are steal other things to buy cigarettes, but I think it's a much smaller problem than with illegal drugs.

If COPS is representative of real life, there are plenty of people willing to rob convenience stores of cigarettes. I have little doubt that this would turn much uglier if nicotine was banned.

> If COPS is representative of real life

Its not. Its representative of what its producers think will appeal to its target market.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#173

Post by genwin »

baddox wrote: post #73
genwin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a problem with a war on marijuana, or violating the Constitution during the war on drugs. But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crack or other drugs that increase the odds that I'll be a victim of violent crime or robbery. (I'd punish simple users with rehab rather than prison.)

Would you be okay with a war on drugs funded only by the people who, like yourself, desire a war on drugs?

No, things that benefit society at large should be funded by society at large. I support a war on drugs only when it's constitutional and benefits society, doing more good than harm including its cost.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#174

Post by genwin »

anigbrowl wrote: post #141
genwin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a question of what does more harm than good. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol can still be sober at work. Whereas a crack addict will tend to be high all day, unable to work, thus needing to rob to feed their addiction.

That's nonsense. GCracks'a horrible drug, crack addicts are tedious & depressing to be around, but they're not all as dysfunctional as you suggest. The most common crime I've seen among extreme crack addicts is prostitution rather than robbery.

> GCracks'a horrible drug, crack addicts are tedious & depressing to be around, but they're not all as dysfunctional as you suggest.

Have you researched this, as you suggested I do, or is it just what you believe?

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#175

Post by mrinterweb »

diydsp wrote: post #29
mrinterweb wrote: post #14

So assuming worst case scenario that the DEA actually was able to make a whole bunch of arrests based on this historical data, would we really want to pay to jail that many more inmates? What could be the point of this?

Pressure against individuals: To put pressure on people to get them to do your bidding. To compel people to turn up evidence on bigger fish or your family members. To compel someone to be a patsy for a different crime. To compel celebrities to come out in support of the security state. Nationally (or bragging rights): To look good to other countries when we ask for loans ("we're a secure nation- we could arrest all o…

Yikes. I prefer to think that the government would not be that evil, but then again, that's just me choosing ignorance/optimism over thinking about how bad things could actually be.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#176

Post by shawn-furyan »

genwin wrote: post #169
shawn-furyan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The idea that you can squash a market with inelastic demand is soundly dispelled by all current and historical attempts at doing so. > The demand comes after the addiction. Remove addiction and the demand is reduced. To me the latter statement reads like: "If you can create a perpetual motion machine then energy would be free" This is the very problem, using impossible potential ends to justify means. >> This is a…

> You seem to be assuming that we can somehow overcome all of the imperfections of past policies but do not offer a clear, strong novel mechanism by which that can happen. Actually I think what I propose has nil chance of becoming reality in my lifetime and maybe for centuries in the future, if only because the masses wouldn't support it. That doesn't stop me from supporting the best possible solution to hard drug ad…

> I definitely don't buy an argument that nothing better can be done now than ending the war on drugs in its current form.

This isn't really quite what I'm saying, per se. I would rather say that I think that currently people tend to couple the idea of changing the status quo with the introduction of superior policy. I'm skeptical that significantly superior policy can be achieved, so I would prefer that the two problems be decoupled. We shouldn't be letting blood just because it's the only action that we've come up with to respond to an intractable disease. We should stop the blood letting (pursuit of harmful policies), and then work on actual cures to the difficult problems of addiction and substance abuse thereafter. The harmful policies only serve to give the illusion of addressing the problem, and so actually hamper the search for effective policies. And if we maintain the status quo for lack of a superior alternative, then I fear we'll never see the end of it.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#177

Post by genwin »

dragonwriter wrote: post #167
genwin wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be assuming that a war on drugs must make them illegal. It needn't. Instead the war could do whatever is most effective (per dollar spent) at reducing usage. I support rehab for alcoholics, and measures to reduce drunk driving. I don't support the war on drugs in its current form.

> You seem to be assuming that a war on drugs must make them illegal. It needn't. Instead the war could do whatever is most effective (per dollar spent) at reducing usage. You mean, it could be legalization, taxation, and using taxes to fund intervention, referral, and treatment programs, and not be opposed to legalization at all? If so, then its obviously not what people supporting legalization are arguing against w…

Yes, that's consistent with my top-most comment in this thread, where I describe a different, gentler and constitutional war on drugs.

I wouldn't stop at using the taxes from the sale of hard drugs to reduce their usage. If spending $X against drug usage lead to $2X in net benefits, I'd support spending $X no matter how much higher it was than those taxes.

A key component would be rehab, in which case it might be tough to make the drug legal. Suppose crack is legal and so there's some parent high on crack all day, providing only the most basic of care for the kids. If it takes keeping crack illegal to legally force that parent into rehab, then I'd want crack to stay illegal, but change the consequence to rehab.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#178

Post by api »

shawn-furyan wrote: post #131

As a meta-commentary on this category of issues, I tend to be against these sort of substance bans (PEDs[1] in sports is another timely example), and I often see that people who support such measures tend to talk about what things would be like if these substances were completely gotten rid of[2]. To me, this is complete fantasy because there's never been a substance ban that has been very effective at reducing usage…

Depending on the drug, are you sure you'd even want them completely gotten rid of? Ban psychedelics and you'd have a lot less good music and art.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#179

Post by genwin »

shawn-furyan wrote: post #176
genwin wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to be assuming that we can somehow overcome all of the imperfections of past policies but do not offer a clear, strong novel mechanism by which that can happen. Actually I think what I propose has nil chance of becoming reality in my lifetime and maybe for centuries in the future, if only because the masses wouldn't support it. That doesn't stop me from supporting the best possible solution to hard drug ad…

> I definitely don't buy an argument that nothing better can be done now than ending the war on drugs in its current form. This isn't really quite what I'm saying, per se. I would rather say that I think that currently people tend to couple the idea of changing the status quo with the introduction of superior policy. I'm skeptical that significantly superior policy can be achieved, so I would prefer that the two prob…

Agreed! That's why I say concurrently, decoupled but ideally in parallel.

> The harmful policies only serve to give the illusion of addressing the problem...

Politicians currently have the incentive to give such illusions rather than true solutions. That's another problem, close to the root cause, that I support fixing.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#180

Post by dllthomas »

jlgreco wrote: post #149
dllthomas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this doesn't demonstrate that it doesn't prevent greater harm with a "hard" drug, which was the point at issue as I read things.

Well, if I wanted to argue that point I would just point out that I am pretty sure drunk fathers kept on beating their children during the 1920s. I mean, that is the sort of shit that spawned the temperance movement, but when prohibition came into effect, did the temperance movement actually see the sort of social change that they anticipated? I doubt that the 1920s were some sort of utopia for battered children and…

My understanding is that overall consumption of alcohol did decline slightly under prohibition, so "drunk fathers kept on beating their children during the 1920s" needs a citation - and, in particular, that they kept doing so at the same rate. The problem with prohibition wasn't that it did no good in any way ever - the problem was that the harm overwhelmingly outweighed the good. Likewise with the current war on drugs.
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