Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs • Hacker News Board

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#201

Post by atemerev » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #151

atemerev wrote: post #67

Here's what we have in Switzerland: http://www.premiereligne.ch/quai9/ (basically, a drug user's paradise: a "consumption space" injection rooms, clean drugs available, medical attention and reanimation in case of overdose, therapy programs and support programs with the intention to help people quit drugs without stigmatizing them and pushing them to it). It is immensely successful. Drug crime becoming nonexistent he…

Wait, you are talking maybe about heroin addicts beyond saving. But if you just want to buy some weed, you definitely must go to shady characters standing on corners of dark streets in the night, and buy overpriced at-best-mediocre-quality stuff from there (I am not racist or anything, but 100% of them in Geneva are black - that's 5 years of experience). Police guys are constantly patrolling these areas (often with d…

Yes, I think it is still illegal to buy and sell marijuana here. And I am not sure if it's possible to smoke a government-issued joint at Quai9. :) Probably not.

But: you can legally grow it for your own consumption!

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#202

Post by ryanlol » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

jfmfhhdkdkd wrote: post #90

jfmfhhdkdkd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, there are plenty of Asian countries (Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, etc) where drug laws are much stricter than the US's, there are very few drug addicts, and there is very little crime.

I really find it absurd that stating facts is downvoted here on HN because it doesn't fit the hivemind. Singapore and Indonesia execute drug offenders and despite what I am told should happen in this thread, there is very little crime despite their crazier "War on Drugs". When compared to a country like Portugal, Singapore and Indonesia have far lower crime and drug use.

I downvoted you because you're simply wrong with a couple of those countries, for example in Hong Kong there's a plenty of drug users. The statistics just aren't reported like they are in some western countries.

Singapore only executes drug dealers, producers and traffickers. This hasn't really had a significant effect on drug availability, and it still remains a major transit point for drug trafficking in Asia.

Indonesia? Drugs everywhere.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#203

Post by 55555 » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:37 PM UTC

parenthephobia wrote: post #110

jfmfhhdkdkd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really find it absurd that stating facts is downvoted here on HN because it doesn't fit the hivemind. Singapore and Indonesia execute drug offenders and despite what I am told should happen in this thread, there is very little crime despite their crazier "War on Drugs". When compared to a country like Portugal, Singapore and Indonesia have far lower crime and drug use.

I think that what gets down-voted is more the implication that making drugs offences capital crimes is the chief reason Singapore and Indonesia have lower drug usage rates. I believe that more significant influencing factors are that drug usage is socially unacceptable Singapore and Indonesia, that citizens are more willing to accept government control over their private activities, that drugs are harder to acquire.…

Yeah, for evidence of the impact culture has, look at alcohol. In almost all countries it is treated similarly: after 16-18 years old, drinking is legal. Yet there are vast differences in addiction rates and per-capita consumption.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#204

Post by jernfrost » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

tomphoolery wrote: post #165

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it. Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves,…

They're not the only ones who benefit from the drug war. It's a tool in order to allow for mass incarceration of "undesirable people". The book "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander really spoke to me as a resident of Philadelphia. I knew full well that if a cop found 1/4oz of weed or less on me, they wouldn't do anything...but if I was black, I'd be put in jail. Now that marijuana has been "decriminalized" (I cal…

This is actually a very interesting aspect of the dangerous results of having lots of laws and bans. It is like companies which makes long lists of things which can get you fired. List which are such that everybody has done a fireable offense. This allows companies to fire people at their own discretion because they will always have something on you.

Likewise the corruption laws in developing countries seem to largely be about getting rid of political opponents. Everybody is basically guilty of corruption, but only those who are on the wrong side politically actually get prosecuted. Look at Russia, if you cross Putin they can charge you with corruption right away because they no almost everybody has done it.

In this regard laws which masquerade as fighting undesirable things in society really becomes a tool of oppression.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#205

Post by rayiner » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

wfo wrote: post #192

rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe... . When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you kno…

The drug prohibition is a direct effect of the lift of alcohol prohibition: officials and LE officers needed something to do after there was no more alcohol smuggling to go after, so a new target was invented. Public opinion does not drive policy in this case, it is driven by policy. The public has been whipped up into a frenzy about drugs for years using various fear tactics, primarily racism to scare them into havi…

> The drug prohibition is a direct effect of the lift of alcohol prohibition: officials and LE officers needed something to do after there was no more alcohol smuggling to go after, so a new target was invented.

That's a ridiculous proposition. There was a 40+ year gap between the two.

> The public has been whipped up into a frenzy about drugs for years using various fear tactics

Nixon coined the term "drug war" in 1971. Ever since then, public support for legalizing marijuana has been steadily growing: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1657/illegal-drugs.aspx. I don't think that jives with your theory of causation.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#206

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:40 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #121

analog31 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US culture, I think a lot would depend on marketing and advertising. Consider the marketing of high fructose corn syrup, which is cheap, legal, hardly "rebellious," possibly a sort of low-grade high, and consumed in toxic quantities. I'm not arguing against legalization. But I had a similar conversation with my kids about legalizing pot. I told them that whatever the health aspects of pot use are, the pot indu…

It's not unreasonable to suggest that HFCS is in fact more toxic and more dangerous than any whole-plant drug. (and I mean traditional plant medicines here, not, obviously, hemlock and the like :-)

Lots of plants that have medicinal effects are immediately dangerous, especially compared to what ends up being a poor diet choice that takes a while to have much of any effect.

"Medicinal" partly implies that a small amount of the substance will have an impact on the body, and there are many substances in plants where the dose does matter.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#207

Post by ridgeguy » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:40 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it. Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves,…

To your reasons, I'd add financial interests of those involved in the WoD. Think of pre-trial asset confiscation, WoD-based grants to local law enforcement, $ to aerospace companies for WoD surveillance and detection technology, etc.

Legalization would hit many powerful interests in their revenue streams.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#208

Post by zamalek » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #156

zamalek wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> won't significantly increase their consumption It could. That's not the point. The main point that Annan is making is that there should be a health system in place for addicts, instead of a penitentiary system (where addictions typically become worse). The past 50 year study/failed experiment known as "The War On Drugs" has shown us that there is nothing you can do to stop people from taking drugs. The war on drugs…

This is simply not possible if you are getting your fix from a regulated supply chain. Well, it would still be possible (see e.g. last year's horse meat scandal in Britain), but the entire supply chain would be known and could be prosecuted.

You're right, I really shouldn't have such evocative language.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#209

Post by jernfrost » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

jfmfhhdkdkd wrote: post #77

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it. Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves,…

And yet, there are plenty of Asian countries (Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, etc) where drug laws are much stricter than the US's, there are very few drug addicts, and there is very little crime.

And yet there are lots of European countries with low crime rates and liberal drug laws and low usage. That is the point. There is no clear correlation here.

But these asian countries and the european ones do have a number of things in common which is different from the US. Neither has poverty problems on the scale found in the US. Neither have racial conflict at the level found in the US.

And how comparable is really Singapore? It is a single city, tightly controlled with 3x the police force of a regular western country, where they practice DDR like surveillance in the sense that citizens are taught to report each other for all sorts of minor transgressions.

The US is a lot more similar to Europe so if one was ever too look at alternative policies I think looking at European experiences makes a lot more sense for the US than looking at Asian countries which are vastly different historically, culturally and in what political system they currently employ.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#210

Post by rayiner » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

soneca wrote: post #180

ghayes wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you're right that, at the end of the day, prohibition has been based on public opinion. That said, the government does benefit from reasons OP mentioned, and thus politicians may be likely to push an agenda that strongly supports a war on drugs when speaking to constituents, rather than having an open conversation about the pros and cons of decriminalization.

Exactly. The history said, in this case, that money and power did not win the dispute, not that their influence does not exist or should be considered negligible. So, if in the case of drugs, society moral standards, money and power are all at the same side; what's the chance of grassroot movement changing the laws? That question was not rethorical, but giving my own answer, I think the path is changing the perceptio…

You're ignoring a morally significant dimension to the problem. Nobody becomes a drug addict by accident. They choose to do drugs and take the risk not just of bodily harm, but of becoming unable to support their families and becoming a burden on society. And your suggestion is that society should spend money to treat them of an illness that was their fault to begin with.

I happen to agree with you that treatment, not prosecution is the answer for drug addicts. But there's legitimate moral reasons to oppose the idea.

Besides that, drug use is already well on its way to becoming decriminalized. The drug war is aimed not at users, but mainly at importers and purveyors. That poses another moral question: if drugs are harmful and addictive, why can't society ban people from selling them, like it does for all sorts of other harmful products? I understand the cost-benefit justification (bans are ineffective), but voters aren't driven by cost-benefit analysis. There are legitimate moral reasons to oppose the idea that we should just let people defy society and sell harmful products just because we can't effectively prevent them from doing so.