And we have laws against drunk driving that have brought down the rates dramatically. It is truly amazing what happens in a regulated market. The VAST majority of drug users are able to use their drugs of choice responsibly. There are exceptions, they are called addicts and they make up about 1.3% of the population.
First off, I would not start at a biased website. Secondly lets start over with points we might actually agree on. Weed is "less harmful" than alcohol and should be further decriminalized on a federal level. Steroids are a joke in the fact they are Schedule 1. We can increase the price and reduce the supply of drugs using less resources than we are currently doing by locking up users. For instance further securing of the border and less focus on end users.
You have a very weird definition of dramatically, and it also shows that even with severe penalty there will still be considerable deaths.
Where would you start, ONDCP? lol Agreed. I don't really get what you are saying here, are you advocating for the rescheduling of steroids to a lower level? I think it has been definitively proven that no matter how "secure" we try to make our borders, drugs will still enter our country one way or another. Despite tens of billions in interdiction and eradication, the price of drugs has gone down and the purity has increased since Reagan stepped up the WoD in the 1980s. We agree about not locking up nonviolent drug users, though.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/18/national/main533451.shtml I would call cutting drunk driving rates in half over 20 years a "dramatic" improvement.
I think we need to make our fight against substance abused more science and resource based rather than brute force. For instance, steroids are low potential for abuse, medium to high damage to body but no real society concerns so why the hell is it schedule 1? Same for LSD, why are we wasting our resources on these substances. And while we will never stop the importation of drugs if we focused purely on border security with our billions instead of locking up users I think the prices would come around.
these numbers show basically no change in the last 13 years. Auto accidents are the number 1 killer of 20 and under, many of these are caused by what I guess you would call, "non-addicts" http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html
I find it interesting that you would say that our policy should be based more on science and then reject the immense success of the Swiss prescription heroin program and the history that shows that cocaine can be consumed responsibly as part of a regulated beverage. But we agree on basing our drug policy on science. I would go further and say that the bulk of our drug policy dollars should go to healthcare and education as education is the single biggest factor that helps people refrain from problematic drug use. If we had a drug policy that was based in sound science and focused on healthcare and education, I would be happy. We have the opposite now.
So you are just going to ignore the period in which the drunk driving laws were toughened up that saw a 50% reduction in drunk driving rates? Interesting blinders you wear.
WHile yes our culture has changed in many ways but human physiology is still the same in regard to how physical addiction works. Andymoon makes a compelling case and you saying that our society is different doesn't refute any of his points since what has changed might not have anything to do with the points he is making. Can you point out in what ways our society has changed that would make the experience regarding Prohibition no longer valid?
The fact that during prohibition the amount of people living in cities or on farms are so different it is not even funny. People today have enough food at home for about 2 days (max) and are totally reliant on going to the 24hr store. We tend to trust everything in a package with a federal stamp on it. We are also now more of a drug culture than back then. Again the culture changes are directly related to the substance we are discussing.
that is just false. The laws have really incresed with 3 DWI's resulting in prison in the last 10 years. The drop during that time is less than 1K. 15K die a year from your "responsable users". compare that to Iraq or any single cause and see how staggering that number is!
The point he is trying to make is that 15k died, but that is the minimum achievable number probably. The way he comes to this conclusion is that every other method attempted has not only NOT helped, but has worsened the situation.
