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After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

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Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#261

Post by annoyingnoob »

slownews45 wrote: post #75
dcolkitt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You almost certainly occupy a bubble in this. I hate the War on Drugs with every fiber in my being, but it’s broadly popular. Cannabis legalization may recently be popular. But I’d be shocked if more than 5% of Americans supported the legalization hard drugs, and if more than 20% supported by Portuguese style decriminalization. Even soft drug prohibition, like MDMA and LSD, are supported by sizable majorities of vote…

Even Cannabis legalization may get rolled back a bit I think, there's been a bit of a backlash locally where I around it.

Where I live cannabis legalization seems to be a huge win. Cities that were against it are now looking for ways to bring it in for the tax revenue. We had illegal but ever present cannabis, then we had medical cannabis, we had whatever problems there may be from cannabis my whole life. Now we have fewer criminals and more tax revenue - help alleviate the problems.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#262

Post by greedo »

hourislate wrote: post #52

Just think of the the savings if they just removed Cannabis from the war and legalized it? I'm guessing a trillion $$ over the last few decades. Just think of how many peoples lives have been utterly destroyed by the system over low level Cannabis possession/use? Even now the Biden Administration and the Democrats in Congress are dragging their feet and not fulling an election promise to the American people by legali…

Just a side note about the "100's of millions" line. Our Congressional representatives are pliable for much much smaller sums. Like $10K...

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#263

Post by spathi_fwiffo »

fosk wrote: post #98

Besides the controversial political agenda behind the "War on Drugs", I guess we all agree that drugs are obviously bad for society as a whole. But it's kinda hard to do a war on drugs without - you know - arresting the drug dealers on known corners. Looking at you San Francisco. Drugs enable misery, poverty, overdoses and homicides. Especially the ones that create physical addiction (opioids, meth, fentanyl, etc). B…

I have to disagree with your big assumptions:

1. " I guess we all agree that drugs are obviously bad for society as a whole."

I don't think drugs are good or bad for society. There are positives and negatives.

I do think that our drug policy is bad for society, though.

2. "Drugs enable misery, poverty, overdoses and homicides"

a. ... "enable misery": or they reduce pain and misery (medical applications of many things (pot, cocaine derivations, opiate derivations, mdma/shroom derivations for depression/ptsd/etc).

b. ... "poverty" I don't think they enable poverty. i would say that addiction does so, which can be a result of drug use. but not all users are addicts, and not all of the 'drug' class substances are addicting. Addition to legal substances have the same issues of emptying wallets (tabbacco, alcohol, pills).

c. ... "overdoses". this is almost totally a result of the world's drug policies and the requirement of using a black market to get the drugs. If the purity and dosing information were provided with the drugs, the number would likely go in line with overdose numbers for legal substances. We also wouldn't have people taking spiked/doctored/cut/etc drugs in the same numbers -- remove the black market and you remove black market problems

d. ... "homicides". again this is 100% a black market/drug policy issue. The numbers will go in line with normal legal substances once the black market is removed. New issues may pop up (mainly because the existing market is so heavily managed by crime organizations), but those new issues will be better than the current issues, and they will be solvable, unlike the current black market issues (there is demand, so a black market will exist).

3. " they enable lower social economical classes into thinking that selling drugs is a viable and alternative" -- entirely due to the black market (created by the current drug policy).

4. "It also encourages illegal immigration."

- what? how? why? maybe a few migrants agree (or are forced) to transport drugs when they cross, but that's not why the people are migrating illegally.

5. "arresting drug dealers on every corner ... disrupt the supply" -- how is arresting a dealer going to damage the supply. The supply is already done when it gets to the dealer (at least the supply into the country, perhaps not the supply to the consumer, but lack of supply does not produce lack of demand). And because there is demand, they will just find new dealers. ... this is basically the entire war on drugs. The fact that you are complaining about this as not having been done or been effective 50 years in is more proof that it has failed.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#264

Post by slacktide »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #202
tetranomiga wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity of skin color is not meaningful change in the slightest if all the policies stay the same. They're just hiring different faces to say the same things.

Are you trying to say there are existing racist policies in 2021? Can you list some examples?

The existence of the Electoral College, which was specifically designed to give slaveholding states an advantage when selecting the President.

The gerrymandering of electoral districts to maximize the concentration of white voting power.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#265

Post by imrelaxed »

cwkoss wrote: post #159
ElViajero wrote: post #8

> "The war on drugs was an absolute miscalculation of human behavior," said Kassandra Frederique, who heads the Drug Policy Alliance, a national group that advocates for total drug decriminalization. For me it would be incredibly interesting to know how much it was a miscalculation or actually it was very well calculated. The "War on Drugs" have failed to make USA safer, healthier or any other positive metric. But, i…

The historical goals of the "War on Drugs" have not been to make the USA safer (though proponents often claim that). The goal has been white supremacy, which is served by giving cops laws that they can enforce based on racial prejudice. Cannabis was made illegal because it was mostly used by Mexican immigrants. https://www.history.com/news/why-the-u-s-made-marijuana-ille... Crack was sentenced at a 10x higher rate th…

I am all for decriminalizing drug use but let’s not throw around false narratives. Here are the actual reasons for the “war on drugs” straight from the horses mouth: NIXON: [...] Let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root 'em out. They don't let 'em around at all. I don't know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They're trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, [Attorney General John] Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.

With regards to the differing penalties for crack and cocaine, there are logical (though fundamentally misguided) reasons for it that have nothing to do with race as well. Crack cocaine is designed to be smokable, which makes it far more potent and addictive than regular cocaine . In addition, due to these properties, crack is significantly more correlated to other criminal behaviors than cocaine.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#266

Post by drdavid »

whakim wrote: post #239
drdavid wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to see this: https://www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights/voter-restoration/...

I stand corrected. Thanks for this.

I used to think the same thing, until I read an article that made me look into it. The article I read was a local affair that pointed out that inmates are encouraged (in my state, Maine) to file absentee ballots in the town they lived in prior to incarceration.

There are just a couple of states that allow that, but I learned that quite a few jurisdictions restore rights after incarceration, after probation, etc...

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#267

Post by iammisc »

pope_meat wrote: post #223
iammisc wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you advocating for the violent destruction of government property? Is that allowed on hacker news?

it doesn't have to be violent. structures feel nothing.

So destroying public property is not violence now? Okay... thanks I guess.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#268

Post by pmoriarty »

lettergram wrote: post #66

If you look at violent crime over the last 50 years it has steadily decreased. I think it’s reasonable to see a correlation. It’s possible decriminalizing could lead to a huge wave in crimes as people try to pay for their fix. That being said, I’m pro-liberty. I feel all drugs should be accessible

"It’s possible decriminalizing could lead to a huge wave in crimes as people try to pay for their fix."

The only reason that drugs cost enormous amounts of money is that they're illegal.

Once they're legal they could be produced for virtually nothing, and no one would have to turn to crime to afford them.

In an enlightened-enough state, the government could even subsidize drugs for those that couldn't afford them. For therapeutic drugs like psilocybin and MDMA it's probably going to happen before long, though I'm not holding my breath for it happening in the US for cocaine or heroin within my lifetime. But they still don't have to be expensive, once they're legal.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#269

Post by foldr »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #166
foldr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems oversimplified. Lots of politically very diverse countries around the world have harsh penalties for possession of heroin. I don't doubt that the Nixon administration exploited the war on drugs for nefarious ends. However, I think the idea that the entire impetuous behind it was to target particular social groups is bordering on a conspiracy theory. It is a bit like suggesting that Democrats are pro immigr…

So having rules and laws designed to leverage the justice system against Black Americans is conspiratorial? That's literally the history of this country, from The Black Codes, to Jim Crow, to the War On Drugs this has been standard operating procedure.

Steady on – that's not what I said. I'm sure the Nixon administration exploited the war on drugs for racist ends (just as they exploited many other things for racist ends). That doesn't mean that the sole explanation for the war on drugs is a Nixonian plot.

Re: After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

#270

Post by greedo »

the_economist wrote: post #30

Counterpoint: The war on drugs has been progressively ramped down since the late 90s. NYTimes wrote a long story about how during the feds quit using tactics such as convicted drug dealers to flip on their bosses, etc. We aren't putting as many drug dealers in jail and we aren't putting many drug users in jail. What you get is an epic rise in opioid deaths over the past 30 years and chaos on the streets of our cities…

You should look at the Sackler family which has literally made billions selling opioids.
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