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Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

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Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#141

Post by pyre »

rayiner wrote: post #124
mgkimsal wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stopping a war on drugs waged by the police and courts and prisons doesn't have to include giving up on discouraging drug use." There's big business in prisons and law enforcement. There's also big business in rehab and pharma. Getting the monied interests to shift their focus from one of incarceration to one of health shouldn't be this hard. We just need to shift dollars from one big industry to another. Perhaps ph…

Man the "money" argument for the drug war is so stupid. Private prisons are a small minority of prisons even today, and were very uncommon in the 1980s and 1990s when the drug war really heated up. Blaming monied interests is a cop out here. They are just the opportunists. Its "just say no!" moms and dads, teachers and school officials, that keep the drug war alive.

I would throw in the prison workers' unions as 'monied interests' even if their members are public employees. At least in California, they are a huge lobby, and always push for longer prison sentences in legislation.

Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#142

Post by nostromo »

criley2 wrote: post #129
rayiner wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man the "money" argument for the drug war is so stupid. Private prisons are a small minority of prisons even today, and were very uncommon in the 1980s and 1990s when the drug war really heated up. Blaming monied interests is a cop out here. They are just the opportunists. Its "just say no!" moms and dads, teachers and school officials, that keep the drug war alive.

Private prisons are a small minority. However, we do pay an ENORMOUS AMOUNT of money to support our INSANE prison population, and a lot of that money does indeed go to private hands through contracting. The money argument is not stupid. It's big business, even in public prisons.

Do you know that you can place emphasis on a word on HN by surrounding it in *?

Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#143

Post by beat »

rthomas6 wrote: post #68
vkou wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that both drug prohibition and the War on Drugs both started as highly racist policies, it seems to be working as intended.

I'd like to read more about this. Do you have a source for this?

You'd have to google around for authoritative sources, but the history is pretty straightforward. Opium/heroin prohibition started as anti-Chinese policy. Marijuana prohibition was drenched in anti-black and anti-Mexican racism, as using it for intoxication was virtually unknown in the white community (although it was often an ingredient in "patent medicines").

There's a healthy bit of conspiracy theory that says the real motivation for the marijuana prohibition was a Dupont family political move against Henry Ford, who was looking at alternative fuels based on hemp. Certainly, Harry Anslinger, the primary campaigner for anti-marijuana laws, was a Dupont in-law, lending credence to the theory. Still, it's conspiracy theory and should be taken with a grain of salt.

But in the longer political run, marijuana makes an excellent nuisance crime for harassing social undesirables - blacks, latinos, and white hippies and artists who were unduly influenced by black culture. That's not a matter of research, it's just plain obvious. And since it's kind of hard to actually show that marijuana causes black men to rape white women or that it leads directly to heroin and communism or whatever, there is quite a cottage industry in faux-science to "prove" the dangers of a basically harmless herb.

The bigger problem in modern years, imho, has been the rise of the private drug testing industry. It doesn't hurt the self-image of big businesses to demand that potential employees pee in a cup to prove their competence, but it's completely shameful socially. It's ridiculous.

Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#145

Post by adventured »

crusso wrote: post #130
rayiner wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man the "money" argument for the drug war is so stupid. Private prisons are a small minority of prisons even today, and were very uncommon in the 1980s and 1990s when the drug war really heated up. Blaming monied interests is a cop out here. They are just the opportunists. Its "just say no!" moms and dads, teachers and school officials, that keep the drug war alive.

To be fair it's a complete puritan/authoritarian culture thing. Most of the media avoids tackling the issue as well. If it wouldn't be for John Stossel's show, I doubt that there would be any news program talking about the positive outcome of Portugal and the negative aspects of the drug war itself.

And it perfectly matches up with the numerous other authoritarian aspects of American culture that have arisen over the last few decades.

- Criminalizing anything and everything they can

- SWAT teams abusing and murdering at will, serving warrants with extreme violence

- militarization of police forces

- the espionage state, from the NSA to the FBI

- destruction of justice, through techniques such as parallel construction

- the treatment of all individuals as potential terrorists

- the spread of the TSA and DHS throughout American society, whether it's needed or not, including trial runs of setting up checkpoints on interstates and at sporting events

- military projection by the federal government, war and bombings without any authorization by Congress

- droning, the murder of civilians anywhere and at any time just based on supposedly trying to kill terrorists

- trial balloons for arresting people based on free speech issues, eg saying something on Facebook

- using the espionage act, among other laws, to prosecute leakers and journalists; and or otherwise intimidate journalists, including with illegal spying (tapping the phones of the AP / Fox)

and on and on it goes

Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#146

Post by dboat »

astine wrote: post #119
walshemj wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More sectarian than a pure race thing it was Nativist Protestant's vs recently immigrant Catholics. the KKK started out as an Anti catholic group

This is not true, or is only partly true depending on which KKK you are talking about. The original group formed in the 1960s as an anti-reconstruction organization and used terror tactics to chase politicians and businessmen they didn't like out of certain communities in the South. It didn't last long though and was disbanded in the early 1870's. The 'second' Klan was originally a merchandizing effort surrounding th…

FYI, you have a typo. The first clan started in the 1860's.

Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#147

Post by MichaelGG »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #132

I believe the results of decriminalization may vary according to your social context. I live in Brazil and I don't think decriminalization would reduce violence around here, it would, at its best, move the focus away from the drug addict to other parts of the society. Collaborators from large drug organizations (tens of thousands of criminals, running millionaire operations, heavily armed) won't simply boo-hoo, go ho…

I'm unfamiliar with Brazil drug operations. But certainly these other crimes have significantly less profit/risk than the huge markup on illegal drugs?

If they are properly legalized, the price should plummet. So even stealing or going wholesale is far less lucrative. You can already steal other goods. You could hijack a shipment of beer - but end-users aren't going to pay $15 a bottle for it because the normal price is known to be far less. So even if these organizations moved into theft, they wouldn't be able to finance huge armies anymore.

I'd also note that stealing does not have a cost of zero. You need to finance people to attack, pay for their weapons, etc. And the cap on pricing means even if stealing was cheaper, the absolute profit still won't be as high, overall.

Unless Brazil has a problem with criminal gangs already monopolizing distribution of other goods (like aspirin, tabacco, or alcohol), it seems like a stretch to say they'd do this for drugs.

Even in the US, people have been killed in hijackings of trucks containing Intel processors.

Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#148

Post by canvia »

rayiner wrote: post #124
mgkimsal wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stopping a war on drugs waged by the police and courts and prisons doesn't have to include giving up on discouraging drug use." There's big business in prisons and law enforcement. There's also big business in rehab and pharma. Getting the monied interests to shift their focus from one of incarceration to one of health shouldn't be this hard. We just need to shift dollars from one big industry to another. Perhaps ph…

Man the "money" argument for the drug war is so stupid. Private prisons are a small minority of prisons even today, and were very uncommon in the 1980s and 1990s when the drug war really heated up. Blaming monied interests is a cop out here. They are just the opportunists. Its "just say no!" moms and dads, teachers and school officials, that keep the drug war alive.

" All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses or manufacturing textiles, shoes and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day."

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/21st_century_chain_gangs/

Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#149

Post by [deleted] »

mgkimsal wrote: post #114
tokenadult wrote: post #87

"We called on governments to adopt more humane and effective ways of controlling and regulating drugs. We recommended that the criminalization of drug use should be replaced by a public health approach." So the request here is not to say that everyone should use drugs however they wish without regulation, but rather that use of certain drugs should no longer be subject to criminal penalties. A few years ago, Richard…

"Stopping a war on drugs waged by the police and courts and prisons doesn't have to include giving up on discouraging drug use." There's big business in prisons and law enforcement. There's also big business in rehab and pharma. Getting the monied interests to shift their focus from one of incarceration to one of health shouldn't be this hard. We just need to shift dollars from one big industry to another. Perhaps ph…

[deleted]

Re: Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs'

#150

Post by chongli »

rayiner wrote: post #124
mgkimsal wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stopping a war on drugs waged by the police and courts and prisons doesn't have to include giving up on discouraging drug use." There's big business in prisons and law enforcement. There's also big business in rehab and pharma. Getting the monied interests to shift their focus from one of incarceration to one of health shouldn't be this hard. We just need to shift dollars from one big industry to another. Perhaps ph…

Man the "money" argument for the drug war is so stupid. Private prisons are a small minority of prisons even today, and were very uncommon in the 1980s and 1990s when the drug war really heated up. Blaming monied interests is a cop out here. They are just the opportunists. Its "just say no!" moms and dads, teachers and school officials, that keep the drug war alive.

It's more than just prison owners. What would happen to the DEA? Hell, huge numbers of local police would be unnecessary without the drug war.
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