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Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

theguardian.com

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Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#421

Post by mmjaa »

negativ0 wrote: post #145
mmjaa wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Less Handguns, less handgun crime. (More violent knife crime, though. This goes ignored by the anti-gun nuts.)

yeah but you cannot kill 40 people in 20 seconds with a knife... come on guns are just wrong

I can defend myself against a knife-wielding maniac with a gun far better than I can defend myself against a knife-wielding maniac with .. another knife.

So, just keep that in mind in the equation. Knife crime is absolutely heinous in the UK - it does not get the attention it deserves.

Banning guns didn't fix that. Just made it harder to defence oneself against a blade, which is part of the UK policy - the individual is not allowed to defend themselves, and must depend on the state for that service .. and then only when its severe, i.e. likely to get a politician in trouble.

Check the stats, down-voters: the UK has one of the worst statistics for violent knife crime trauma of all the western nations. Its nothing to be proud of.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#422

Post by mmjaa »

DanBC wrote: post #206
adventured wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edit: I'd like to see the people downvoting my facts , counter how this doesn't amount to a wave or big surge of crime, these numbers are huge increases in a short amount of time. --- Crime has seen a huge increase in Britain and it appears set to keep getting worse. Crime in London has increased dramatically. I'm not going to claim that's due to gun laws, however it is factually correct that crime is surging big tim…

> Crime has seen a huge increase in Britain No, it hasn't. We've seen better recording, different definitions, better detection, and there have been several operations targetting gangs and street violence and weapons. Importantly: police recorded crime statistics are not reliable, and so we don't use them in the UK. We use the ONS, which doesn't rely on police recording. > "Knife crime also increased by 24% with 12,0…

>knife laws

Solve nothing.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#423

Post by ceejayoz »

cellshade wrote: post #419
ceejayoz wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not a loophole. It's simply [describes something that anyone can see is a loophole]."

It was an explicit compromise that was added in order to pass the original national background check legislation. A loophole is generally something unintended which this was not.

That doesn't appear to be a universally agreed upon distinction. https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Tax+Looph...

> A deliberate or accidental provision in tax law that allows an individual or corporation to be exempt from some provision. Most loopholes are deliberate and are created to ensure that the law is not draconian, to please a lobbyist, or for some other reason.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#424

Post by moduspol »

mikeash wrote: post #420
moduspol wrote: post #383

Singapore's radical drug policy has worked pretty well, too [1] [2]. Why hasn't the world copied that? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/05/singap... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24428567

Haven’t they? I thought a lot of countries had draconian anti-drug policies like that.

Yet they don't work as well as Singapore's?

Hmm. Perhaps it's not as simple as "if it works here, it will work there."

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#425

Post by jjaredsimpson »

mmjaa wrote: post #421
negativ0 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah but you cannot kill 40 people in 20 seconds with a knife... come on guns are just wrong

I can defend myself against a knife-wielding maniac with a gun far better than I can defend myself against a knife-wielding maniac with .. another knife. So, just keep that in mind in the equation. Knife crime is absolutely heinous in the UK - it does not get the attention it deserves. Banning guns didn't fix that. Just made it harder to defence oneself against a blade, which is part of the UK policy - the individual…

Policy shouldn't be optimized to address these outlier events. Knife wielding maniacs aren't a real problem. Spousal abuse and suicide are.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#426

Post by CptFribble »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #412
toomanybeersies wrote: post #50

This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of p…

> For example, it's fairly well established that the less guns there are, the less gun crime there is But that's just a talking point. It's like saying if there are less silver cars, there are less car accidents involving silver cars. That doesn't tell you anything about whether it makes sense to ban silver cars. You can insert literally anything into that sentence and it's still true. If there is less food, less peo…

Actually, it's not "just" a talking point. Your counter examples are trite and pointless because silver cars, food, and water are all completely essential to daily life.

Also, there isn't a National Silver Car Association that is influencing Congress to block research into silver car related deaths.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#427

Post by vorotato »

Intermernet wrote: post #393
Angostura wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> secular (e.g. leftist) The two are nowhere near synonymous.

I think this comes about due to the fact that in the US there is a group defined as the "religious right". The simplistic opposite view is the "secular left" despite the religious / secular spectrum only being loosely related to the spectrum of political ideology. There is definitely a correlation, but it shouldn't be used as a basis of assumption regarding religiosity or political ideology.

For example, Jesus Christ would be a good example of a religious left. He advocated taxes, social programs for the poor, and the moral ill of wealth. His view was less populist because he felt that this change should happen by those with power and money, but still very left even by modern standards. If Jesus' economic philosophy was made law, it would probably be the most socialist society in the world.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#428

Post by Helmet »

mikeash wrote: post #417
Helmet wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it mad? Government's are capable committing atrocities of unprecedented scale against their own citizenry. I wonder if the Russian Kulaks could have organized an armed resistance, or perhaps the Chinese peasants during Maosism. Also, I recommend to you the fascinating history of the African-American tradition of arms in the US. Black's used firearms to defend their families and communities against KKK and whit…

Both the Russians and Chinese had big civil wars in which the governments you mention eventually came into power. The question of armed resistance isn’t a hypothetical. It was tried and it failed. The notion of gun rights as essential to defending against tyranny is inherently self-defeating. If all it takes to defeat gun owners is passing some laws making them illegal, won’t a tyrant do that before they start with o…

Both the Russians and Chinese had big civil wars in which the governments you mention eventually came into power. The question of armed resistance isn’t a hypothetical. It was tried and it failed.

This has nothing to do with my point, or if it does, it certainly isn't clearly elucidated. As far as I'm aware, there is no strong history of armed resistance from either of the groups that I mentioned. And I'll leave you to the research the history of successful resistance movements, as there are many. I would start with the American Revolutionary War and then perhaps the importance of guns and armed resistance by blacks during Antebellum South and the Jim Crow period.

The notion of gun rights as essential to defending against tyranny is inherently self-defeating. If all it takes to defeat gun owners is passing some laws making them illegal, won’t a tyrant do that before they start with other forms of oppression?

Your argument is circular as it's based on a false premise. Yes, they may very well begin with outlawing guns. Which is why we have guns. If you try to take my gun by force, I will shoot you.

If all it takes to defeat gun owners is passing some laws making them illegal

This isn't what it takes. This would be the first formal step, but what it would take is for the State to pry them out of my hands, which would be met with resistance. Not just by me, but by the millions of gun-owners across the country - which is precisely why it won't happen.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#429

Post by [deleted] »

kbutler wrote: post #394
sandworm101 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the sky has fallen. For these people the big evil is the thing they are fighting against. They dont want gay marriage not because of its impacts but because they dont want gay marriage. Full stop. They dont want to decriminalize drugs because they dont want them decriminalized. When an issue becomes so internalized, so tied to ones identity, it is impossible to change. We need to work on keeping people from ident…

This is a mischaracterization of people who disagree with you and inhibits finding common ground and working together. Opponents of gay marriage want strong families with good environments to raise children. Opponents of drug legalization want to prevent the individual and societal harm caused by drug use. Viewing opponents with that perspective helps find more effective ways of working together. It's also interestin…

[deleted]

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#430

Post by mikeash »

Helmet wrote: post #428
mikeash wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the Russians and Chinese had big civil wars in which the governments you mention eventually came into power. The question of armed resistance isn’t a hypothetical. It was tried and it failed. The notion of gun rights as essential to defending against tyranny is inherently self-defeating. If all it takes to defeat gun owners is passing some laws making them illegal, won’t a tyrant do that before they start with o…

Both the Russians and Chinese had big civil wars in which the governments you mention eventually came into power. The question of armed resistance isn’t a hypothetical. It was tried and it failed. This has nothing to do with my point, or if it does, it certainly isn't clearly elucidated. As far as I'm aware, there is no strong history of armed resistance from either of the groups that I mentioned. And I'll leave you…

Right, but why is there always such a fuss about gun control laws? Every time politicians propose some restriction, gun advocates talk about how this is dangerous because it will leave us unable to resist tyranny.
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