Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health • Hacker News Board

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#181

Post by beerandt » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #95

gravypod wrote: post #4

Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I would have assumed that a majority of these states - and my home state of NJ - would be very anti-drug but these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. If you had asked me a few years ag…

> If you had asked me a few years ago if I thought this was what the general American populous thought I'd have said no because, of all of the politicians who advocated for legalization of drugs, very very few got elected. Compare this with the legalization of gay marriage. As late as the mid-2000s it was considered (national-level) political suicide to publicly support gay marriage. Even plenty of politicians that m…

One is getting overturned the correct political way via legislation, one was legislation from the bench.

Completely different, in that public perception & approval must lead for changes in political branches. It largely follows when from court cases, if it changes much at all.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#182

Post by mhh__ » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

jjd33 wrote: post #170

I think all drugs legal or not currently (including Alcohol, even beer etc. And Cigarettes) should only be sold in pharmacies and all should require a proof of IQ test as kind of a driving license.

After all no one with a high IQ has ever got addicted to drugs?

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#183

Post by brodo » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:44 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #172

throwaway201103 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not born yet, it was absolutely devastating. At least the equivalent of today's opioid crisis if not worse. Entire neighborhoods just fell apart. Politicians and voters freaked out and demanded harsh new drug laws and penalties. Lobbiest support from those who benef…

I was a black teenager living on the South Side of Chicago during that time, and the media crack obsession was largely hysterics, and sometimes outright fiction (as with "crack babies.")

Yea, I think experts agree that journalists are almost as much to blame for the war on drugs as politicians. If I remember correctly Johan Hari also writes about this in "Chasing the Scream".

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#184

Post by pessimizer » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:44 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #89

dantheman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you legalize consumption but not production and sale - you make the black market thrive and basically sponsor organized crime. Full legalization is the only moral and practical approach.

There's some threshold you probably don't want to legalise. With less addictive alternatives being available, do you really think that heroin production should ever be legalised? Otherwise what's to stop someone from creating a custom highly addictive drug purely for maximising profit? There are labs ready to do that. In Poland the drug laws targeted specific listed substances for a while which created a market for c…

> do you really think that heroin production should ever be legalised?

Yes. The actual cost of producing heroin is about a nickel a dose. Junkies who get their heroin are productive members of society, and aside from the criminal element they're forced to associate with, the crime they commit to get the cash to not get sick, the inconsistency of product, and the aggression of the state, we have no reason to think they wouldn't live long happy lives other than ideological ones.

Every junkie death is by statute.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#185

Post by karmakaze » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

Whenever you see the phrase "War on ...", remember that there is often an entire industry built upon it which is only interested in self-preservation. The industry doesn't want X to go away, but rather perceive it as being a large looming threat worth all the spending.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#186

Post by post_below » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

throwaway201103 wrote: post #147

hourislate wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only data Politicians use is campaign donation data. When you have several different industries that rely on a steady flow of meat into the grinder (Prison, Police Unions, Lawyers, Probation Officers/Administrative, etc) and they give generous support and campaign donations , well you know why it has taken so long to end this useless "War on Drugs". Millions of Tax dollars were spent incarcerating people for havi…

A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not born yet, it was absolutely devastating. At least the equivalent of today's opioid crisis if not worse. Entire neighborhoods just fell apart. Politicians and voters freaked out and demanded harsh new drug laws and penalties. Lobbiest support from those who benef…

What you're describing is the story the media told. The numbers don't support the kind of coverage it got at the time.

When you add the race issues, which drove the narrative, policies and policing, there's really no comparison between the crack and opioid crises.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#187

Post by pessimizer » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #46

jagged-chisel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much generalization. Alcohol makes lots of folks so frickin' depressed... (edit: sure, fine, drink enough and you don't even know the world exist...)

Alcohol is serotonergic. Yeah, it has other negative side effects, but actual FDA approved antidepressants are also convincingly shown to increase suicide ideation in some cases, and it's actively monitored by psychiatrists. The point I think is that the therapy rebranding is not a license for recreational excess, and shouldn't be invoked as a trojan horse to that end.

I think we should stop licensing for recreational excess. If people are free to do what they like for recreation (without breaking non-drug laws), the research can proceed separately without the moralizing.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#188

Post by TheSoftwareGuy » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

hourislate wrote: post #131

gravypod wrote: post #4

Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I would have assumed that a majority of these states - and my home state of NJ - would be very anti-drug but these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. If you had asked me a few years ag…

The only data Politicians use is campaign donation data. When you have several different industries that rely on a steady flow of meat into the grinder (Prison, Police Unions, Lawyers, Probation Officers/Administrative, etc) and they give generous support and campaign donations , well you know why it has taken so long to end this useless "War on Drugs". Millions of Tax dollars were spent incarcerating people for havi…

How do unions rely on “a steady flow of meat into the grinder?”

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#189

Post by anonAndOn » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #162

crispyporkbites wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things have large negative externalities that the individual doesn’t pay for. Drugs don’t really have that- unless you make them high cost and illegal.

That isn't quite true, addiction has a high social cost. Hurts relationships, breaks families apart, and increases national medical spending.

If you think medical spending is high (pun intended), you should see what incarceration costs, perhaps 10x as much.[0]

[0]https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-abuse...

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#190

Post by post_below » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #33

downrightmike wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war on drugs was started as a way to target people of color by Nixon. Before then, MJ was around and used, it is a plant and good pain killer that you can grow yourself. And Nixon stated that is why he was doing it in the White House tapes. For 50 years the WoD was used to justify invading other countries and setting up coups and all that has lead to our current issue with powerful militarized Narco gangs and all…

> The war on drugs was started as a way to target people of color by Nixon So was Planned Parenthood. Instead of endlessly prosecuting the past, which can never change, let's look at today and tomorrow instead. Or, if you prefer, we could look at the exact opposite approach- the Opium wars were fought to force China to allow the sale and consumption of opium, the extensive use of which was practically epidemic. As su…

I think understanding the past, especially the truer version that tends to become available years later, is extremely important.

Personally I appreciate when people point out what really happened (based on evidence) as a counterpoint to the cover narratives of the time, which so many still believe. We need cynicism where politics and public institutions are concerned.