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What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

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Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#101

Post by smsm42 »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #58
Natsu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex. So, there's nothing about not liking the addicts who hassle people on the street?

Maybe we should start a war on homelessness.

If it will be done the same way war on drugs is done, people would be put into jail for mandatory minimum sentences for failing to register their home address with the police and for being on the streets while the curfew is in place. Any "precursor" materials such as warm clothes, tents, hiking boots, survival guides, etc. and hiking would be illegal (a teacher probably would be fired on spot for just suggesting the students to have an outdoors trip). Any outdoors activities which involve staying outside past curfew time will have to be issued a permit from the police, and only people passing special extensive anti-homelessness training would be allowed to possess such permits. Places where homeless people could find shelter would be destroyed by the police or rendered uninhabitable at huge expense and use of toxic and lethal material (inevitable deaths following that would be dismissed as acceptable collateral damage). Anybody seen helping a homeless person with money or food or anything else would be also subject to arrest and felony conviction. Of course, the police would also involve massive amount of undercover agents to trick people into doing exactly that and later bust them for aiding and abetting the homelessness.

In short, if you want war - it would be a war. And war is not pretty. Especially when the government declares the war on its own citizenry.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#102

Post by smsm42 »

nmjohn wrote: post #81
Natsu wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tautological to say that decriminalizing things reduces crime. It would be more productive to do a cost benefit analysis. Most of the advocacy I've seen is starry-eyed and simply ignores or rejects the idea that the social costs--for example marginally or completely unemployable addicts. There's a fair point that this is true of legal drugs (alcohol) but it's not something we should want to expand (c.f. drunk dr…

While I agree that the statement is tautological, it isn't necessarily irrelevant. Consider this. People who are released from prison are significantly more likely to commit another crime landing them back in prison than the average person. On one hand,some might conclude that it simply is because those in prison have some sort of inclination towards that life and simply are an ill fit for the society in which we liv…

Add to that the fact that felony conviction (and many drug crimes and other invented crimes are felonies) significantly reduces one's chance to ever find good well-paying employment, while prison comrades would be dangling the possibility of quick earnings under one's nose without the necessity to prove yourself twice as hard as the next guy on every step - and the picture becomes even more slanted towards recidivism.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#103

Post by Natsu »

glenra wrote: post #89
Natsu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also all the people stealing to get their fix, the people exploiting the people stealing to get their fix, etc. Also, it's already illegal, but sometimes you have to go after the root causes. In this case, the next root cause would be addiction, and yes, I do think drug use should be seen as a medical issue.

People "stealing to get their fix" ought to essentially disappear once getting a fix drops to 1/10th the price (so much less money is required) and once a reliable source is easily obtained (so you don't have to spend any time searching for the next fix or dealing with roller-coaster withdrawal symptoms because you couldn't find it in time). When drugs are legal, holding down a regular job will be compatible with dru…

This assumes they are employable and thereby able to afford it. And by "employable", I mean able to work, not merely able to pass background checks though the two are interrelated (i.e. there are rational business reasons to consider it a negative factor).

I have worked at a place that did not screen out such (a factory, one of the few places, as I understand it, where you could get employed with a record). We're talking about being unable to show up for work or follow simple directions after a week. I can only imagine how they might've behaved in something customer-facing (i.e. flipping burgers).

Now yes, there is the other side of that. There were also a number of folks struggling to fix up their life. These I commend and I helped where I could along that route.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#104

Post by smsm42 »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #51
nmjohn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Well INSERT_NAME_HERE, by hard drugs, you mean three substances which all are regularly administered as prescription drugs? Cocaine as cocaine hydrochloride, meth as desoxyn, and heroin as diamorphine? So to call them hard drugs is a bit of a misnomer used to unfairly elicit a negative connotation. While decriminalizing all drugs is a controversial issue, a conversation on shifting the focus from drugs as a criminal…

It is kind of high schoolish to say "Oh ya, those 'hard drugs' are used by doctors so haha they are not hard drugs." I mean, really that's just kind of ridiculous. It's sort outrageous, people already refer to pain killers as being part of the "hard drug" addiction. It refers to chemically addictive drugs that are also more dangerous than things like marijuana. This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs d…

Speaking of use by doctors, you call those "hard drugs" as opposed to marijuana. Marijuana is "schedule I" drug, which means no accepted medical use and no possibility of safe usage even under medical supervision. So it's more dangerous than most of the drugs you call "hard", if you believe the government. I'm not sure though even the government believes itself on that - but this is the sorry state of the matters. If we're talking about "high schoolish", you can't really get much worse than that.

>>> This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly.

Highly addictive substances definitely exist. Barbiturates are highly addictive, so is alcohol, so it tobacco. The humanity learned to live with the latter, and we seem to be able to manage the former without going to full-blown war.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#105

Post by watwut »

mc32 wrote: post #33
chongli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue It's never been a public health issue for its major proponents. The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex.

I don't think the 'war on drugs' which happens in all sorts of countries, not just the US, is indicative or racism and corruption or police militarization or a prison system. Japan is very homogenous and they have very strict drug enforcement. Same goes for other Asian nations as well as European nations --many of the countries are quite homogenous compared to the US and yet they have strong policies. I think this wo…

Drugs are illegal in Europe, but Europe does not have war on drugs rhetoric nor such high incarcerations rates nor such high punishments for small amounts of marijuana nor stop and frisk policies nor cops militarized to the same degree.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#106

Post by adventured »

smsm42 wrote: post #100
waterlesscloud wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or people who have seen family or friends suffer in ways that are easily attributed to heavy drug use and would genuinely like to reduce the occurrence of that. And to fight what they see as a force that damages the social fabric. The point here isn't to argue whether drugs have this affect, or are a symptom rather than a cause, or to argue if the War On Drugs has much success in fighting it. The point is that this g…

This is the motivation of the people, but alone it could not bring on the wave of atrocities we now are witnessing as the war on drugs. The feelings of these people, while understandable, is just being used to support the worst set of policy decisions in US history since the Prohibition, and are used to expand government, militarize the law enforcement and curtail civil rights. In fact, it's much worse than the origi…

Fortunately the war on drugs situation is getting better, not worse. That momentum shifted several years ago in fact.

Incarceration rates are falling now. Legalization has gained a massive amount of momentum, obviously including the first two states, and the Feds are increasingly not willing to step in and interrupt that progress (including Holder recently telling the DEA chief to get in line with the new direction).

The rest of the world is going to relatively rapidly legalize many forms of drug use as well, with the US taking its boot of their throat on the issue. That will make it that much harder for the US to ever fall backwards and regain traction with the global war on drugs concept the government had been using.

That said, the militarization of police will likely continue regardless of the war on drugs ending. I view that as the next great issue to begin focusing on after several more states have legalized pot.

Also, mandatory minimum sentencing has completely lost steam. There is a lot of momentum toward rolling that back, and I think that momentum will continue. It's a failed approach, and a wide spectrum of people increasingly recognize that in my opinion. It will probably go out the window with the war on drugs. It'll be a huge victory if so.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#107

Post by glenra »

deciplex wrote: post #97
glenra wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, last 40 years? What makes that your metric? Marijuana was outlawed in 1937, heroin in 1925. And the Black Panthers were in part a reaction against hamfisted selective enforcement of dumb laws - including drug laws - by the powers-that-be.

IIRC the sort of zealous enforcement of drug laws we see now, didn't really gain traction until the 60s and 70s, which supports slurry's argument.

You don't think drug laws were zealously enforced during Prohibition in the 1920s? Or during the 1950s? I'm just not seeing it. There have been moral panics over drugs leading to ludicrous overreach (at various levels of government) on quite a regular basis since well before "Reefer Madness". It didn't start with "crack babies" and "glue sniffing" - claims that the latest new drug (whatever it is) is different and more addictive and more dangerous than any prior drugs and this makes users extra dangerous to deal with which justifies using extra force or even shooting people with higher caliber weaponry, goes back at least a century.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#108

Post by hrktb »

Natsu wrote: post #65
pekk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then outlaw hassling people on the street.

There are also all the people stealing to get their fix, the people exploiting the people stealing to get their fix, etc. Also, it's already illegal, but sometimes you have to go after the root causes. In this case, the next root cause would be addiction, and yes, I do think drug use should be seen as a medical issue.

This logic doesn't work. People steal and rob to buy BMWs, nice clothes and big TVs. You wouldn't outlaw luxurious goods because their lust for them is the root cause of illegal behavior in part of the population.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#109

Post by tomp »

mc32 wrote: post #33
chongli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue It's never been a public health issue for its major proponents. The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex.

I don't think the 'war on drugs' which happens in all sorts of countries, not just the US, is indicative or racism and corruption or police militarization or a prison system. Japan is very homogenous and they have very strict drug enforcement. Same goes for other Asian nations as well as European nations --many of the countries are quite homogenous compared to the US and yet they have strong policies. I think this wo…

A lot of the "war on drugs" in other countries happened because of US pressure, because other countries want to kiss US's ass.

Re: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

#110

Post by tomp »

Natsu wrote: post #45
chongli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue It's never been a public health issue for its major proponents. The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex.

> The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex. So, there's nothing about not liking the addicts who hassle people on the street?

I don't recall ever getting hassled by an addict. Plenty of drunk people though. Why don't we ban alcohol too? (Hint: it doesn't work.)
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