Illegal drugs: The wars don’t work

It's definitely not a baseless stereotype, but then again few truly are. It is however a stereotype that is pretty inaccurate and more readily accepted than it should be.

Your last statement alludes to other related stereotypes; that people who smoke cannabis are the kind of people who make this argument, or that people who smoke cannabis secretly only want to legalise it for the sake of their personal weed-greed.

This isn't targeted at you, I'm not saying that you believe these things.

I'm all for drug legalization, however, this should also be a part of the laws:

-Businesses should be able to fire someone for being under the influence of any mind-altering substance. The CA proposition a few years back had a clause in there that made it very difficult. Calling addiction a "medical issue" makes it even worse because the differences between recreational use and addiction aren't that easy to distinguish. -The individual should pay for all of their own issues, medical expenses, etc due to drug addiction. Many of the advocates not only want legalization (because it's their choice, their body) but none of the consequences that come along with it (medical bills due to addiction). It's unfair for me, as an individual that chooses not to put those drugs into my body to also have rising medical costs that pay for the people that willingly ingest drugs. -Tort reform. We all know heroin is addictive and will cause many deaths and ruin many lives. If a company sells it and you choose to take it and die, your family shouldn't be able to sue the company or the government.

We still have cigarette lawsuits..and it's been known to cause cancer for 50+ years (it's even written on the box).

I think my overall issue is that advocates want all of the benefits (ability to use illegal drugs legally) yet also want society to pay for any of the negative effects that come along with it (death, addiction). You should have the choice to legally put anything in your body....but be responsible for anything negative that comes along with it. If you don't have the resources to deal with the consequences, you probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

No, I don't think it's a war of any kind. That's a label used by governments to get buy-in from the public. If it's war, it must be serious and we should fund it seriously.

This campaign against drugs is not racist in essence, but it is coincidental with race in some places. However, you'll see the same attitudes toward drugs in homogeneous countries as well as Africa, Latin america and Asia.

The policy against drugs comes from a fear it will make citizens beholden to something unproductive. That is drugged up people don't contribute to society and makes people lazy. It also means the government has less influence on these people. They provide unwanted drag.

On the other hand, if you want a docile population, do drug them up like they did during the opium wars in Asia.

I think any association with race is coincidental. That's to say we'd have had this policy in the US even if we had been 100% homogenous population. However, we do know the policies affected those population most susceptible to the effects of drug addiction. Poor people black and white. Appalachia is just as ravaged by drugs as any place in the us, trailer parks, etc. Poor people can't get treatment, they can't hide their addiction as easily, can't hire competent lawyers, etc.

It was never a war though. It was a bad policy. Just like the one child policy in China. It was not a war on families, it was terrible policy.

Unlike most other drugs, alcohol intoxication greatly increases the likelihood that you will consume more alcohol, thus leading to a compounding cycle that can very quickly lead to an unintentional "massive loss of control". Unintentionally consuming more than a "normal dose" is perhaps the quintessential regret of habitual alcohol users.

Of course it works. It all depend on what the goals are. If the goal is to stop people from using drugs, that'll never work. But if it is to make a lot of money for some, it sure works.