251–260 of 353 posts
It's helping law enforcement maintain high budgets. The drug war fuels the violence of the drug trade and that violence requires the police be well equipped to handle it.
What's a realistic alternative? What's it going to take for the US to mimic a legality stance towards drugs like Portugal's overnight?
Our government hasn't listened to us for decades: https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem
They're been no sign of that changing since I've been alive.
> On Tuesday, two House Democrats introduced legislation that would decriminalize all drugs in the U.S., shifting the national response to a public health model. The measure appears to have zero chance of passage. If that isn't just the perfect description of politics in the US, I don't know what is. I don't know what your political ideology has to be to think the War on Drugs is a good thing, after all the money was…
>If that isn't just the perfect description of politics in the US, I don't know what is. I don't know what your political ideology has to be to think the War on Drugs is a good thing, after all the money wasted, all the lives lost, all the people pointlessly locked up for things half the country can now do openly and legally. Well it does sound like you're equating the War on Drugs to the War on Marijuana. There are…
This is not how a free society operates. I choose what I put into my body and not you or anyone else. If doing so causes me to commit a crime, then punish that crime, but banning drugs because "most people" don't like them is not freedom. If you don't like them, then don't do them.
>Is it even possible to be a responsible Heroin user?
A free person should be given the opportunity to demonstrate their responsibility instead of it being assumed such responsibility is not possible simply because a majority of the populace finds a substance distasteful.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still find it abhorrent that incarcerated people can't vote in the US. That seems so obviously exploitable.
As with so many generalizations about the U.S., it's more complicated than that, and varies on a state-by-state basis. Most people in jail retain the right to vote, regardless of state. People currently in prison on felony charges CANNOT vote in most states, but this is up to each state. In many states, you get your enfranchisement restored after completing your sentence. https://www.thoughtco.com/where-felons-can-an…
They may have the right to vote. Whether the facility lets it actually happen is another matter.
The War on Drugs was and is: - Virtual signaling ("tough on crime") of the worst kind as it capriciously incarcerated minorities to the tune of millions of man-years; - Fear-mongering for political power; - Suppression of minorities, hippies and the anti-war movement; and - Yet another form of voter suppression that has plagued the US for a long time. It's like we learned nothing form Prohibition. But the damage this…
Also, the received wisdom that alcohol prohibition was a mistake is debatable. The many ills of alcoholism (health problems, violence, drunk driving) declined enough to possibly justify the experiment. But the experiment never changed human nature, of course. So it ended.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reasoning is well established at this point. It was started by the Nixon administration to reduce the amount of left and left-leaning voters, particularly black Americans. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the…
It's worth noting that Dan Baum didn't publish this quote until 16 years after Ehrilchman had already died.
> On Tuesday, two House Democrats introduced legislation that would decriminalize all drugs in the U.S., shifting the national response to a public health model. The measure appears to have zero chance of passage. If that isn't just the perfect description of politics in the US, I don't know what is. I don't know what your political ideology has to be to think the War on Drugs is a good thing, after all the money was…
If you ever watched police shows like "cops" they seem to spend 2/3 of their time arresting people for drugs. It's hard solve home burglaries, it's easy to bust people with petty amounts of drugs in their cars.
The war on the freedom to do drugs* It's no more a war on drugs than "gun control" is about controlling guns. "gun control" is actually citizen disarmament, because every law they pass exempts the police, military, and retired police. So its' not about guns, but who can have them . Both of these represent a propaganda technique known as 'framing': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) When people th…
I'm hazy on where I heard this justification, but I recall some argument that the rate of violent criminals who recreationally use drugs is very high. That is, if a violent criminal is caught walking down the street and is searched then there is a high probability that they will have some kind of illegal drug on them. The opposite isn't necessarily the case. That is, a drug user is not high probability to be a violen…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If that isn't just the perfect description of politics in the US, I don't know what is. I don't know what your political ideology has to be to think the War on Drugs is a good thing, after all the money wasted, all the lives lost, all the people pointlessly locked up for things half the country can now do openly and legally. Well it does sound like you're equating the War on Drugs to the War on Marijuana. There are…
>Is it even possible to be a responsible Heroin user? Or even Meth? Yes! And this is what is so fascinating is how well the "drug war" has helped shape societal opinion to think it's not possible to be a functional user. Yet, you may be surprised to learn we have millions of people prescribed Adderall, an amphetamine mixture that is functionally equivalent to methamphetamine. They go about their daily lives on this d…