Because I don't subscribe to some narrative where freedom is always a good thing and must be protected at all costs - especially so for the freedom to get high. The reality is that Prohibition happened in the first place precisely because a lot of soft power stuff was attempted before, but it didn't work. They then went for a more extreme solution. Why? Opium was dragging China down into degeneracy. I mean, practically everyone knows how bad it got for them during the 1800s. Whether his method was the best way to do so is one thing, but there are methods to stamp out drug abuse aside from the legalization of everything which just happens to coincide with the "FREEDOM IS ALWAYS GOOD" idea stuck in a good deal of people.
I think you're underestimating the amount of people who smoke crack or meth. And with many middle-class and under I believe there are more people who smoke on the regular than snort coke. It's cheaper and an instant high. Smokers are who took the drug businesses to another level. As far as asking drug users to exchange one habit for another, and or exchange their methods on how they use drugs... That seems like cart before the horse talk to me. I'm not concerned about the regulation of hard drugs... But I am concerned about the ridiculous prison time that repeated drug users and nickel and dime drug dealers get. I've seen people who commit murder, rape, armed robbery, and child molesters get less time. I also think people who are on any type of government assistance should be drug tested regularly. Because a lot of our tax dollars are going 'up in smoke' or being used on senseless prison time and people aren't getting the help they need.
There are plenty of documentaries out there on drugs. Michael Moore has a couple of good ones as well. Have you ever heard of Ricky Ross... Not the fat rapper with the beard but the big time 80's drug dealer. Many in the know says he did George Bush's and Oliver North's time in jail because he was getting his dope from the CIA. http://www.newsofinterest.tv/video_pages_flash/politics/drug_war/adw_ricky_ross.php Modern day slavery.
You didn't ask, but it needed to be said. The "tweakers" you describe wouldn't be committing the amount of property crime they do if there was a regulated market. I suppose there is some small percentage of people who commit crimes to support their alcohol habit, but the reason property crimes are committed by addicts is largely because of the inflated prices caused by prohibition.
It isn't about stopping drugs. It is about minimizing the harm done by drugs and drug policy. Our drug policy has caused more harms than drugs themselves ever could. Yes, look at how reasonable regulation of the market along with taxes skewing the risk/reward ratio can reduce the use of a dangerous substance. Many of us believe the same kinds of actions could do the same for currently illicit substances. I'll also point to the way that the Taliban eradicated poppy in Afghanistan, they were so good at it that the Bush administration gave them $43 million for their drug fighting efforts just a few months before the 9/11 attacks. Of course, to duplicate the "success" of the Taliban and Mao, we would have to implement a police state and even THAT wouldn't work, most likely. People are able to get drugs in maximum security prisons, which are supposed to be the most secure environment we can create. I'm pretty sure that We, the People who live in the "land of the free" aren't willing to go to those kinds of lengths to prosecute what is a completely failed policy. Not according to the numbers I've seen. The table at this link shows homicide rates increasing from 1910 to 1919 (from 4.6 to 7.2 per 100k), dropping the first year of prohibition (to 6.8), then increasing to over 8 for all years between 1921 and 1930 with the exception of 1923, when the rate was 7.8. Then, towards the end of prohibition, the number went over 9, followed by a steady decline after prohibition was repealed. I haven't worked through a causal analysis of these stats, so I won't begin to claim causality, but there is a definite correlation between prohibition and increased murder rates. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/homrate1.htm Decriminalization is the worst possible solution. Decrim keeps the same regime in place regarding distribution and sales, exposing all users to inferior or unknown products at exorbitant prices without the ability to recoup the social costs through taxation. If all you have interpreted from my writing is "lol Prohibition bad legalize everything," maybe you should go over it again. I've been studying this problem since the late '80s, I know what I'm talking about.
A solution which failed and caused as many or more problems than it solved. I'm on board with stamping out drug abuse, but we won't get there by being even more draconian with our drug policy. We need to be concentrating our efforts on drug ABUSE and leave the people who are able to use drugs responsibly to use that responsibility to run their own lives.
I think you're way overestimating it. According to SAMSHA... •In 2012, there were 1.6 million current cocaine users aged 12 or older, comprising 0.6 percent of the population. These estimates were similar to the number and rate in 2011 (1.4 million persons and 0.5 percent), but they were lower than in 2003 to 2007 (e.g., 2.4 million persons and 1.0 percent in 2006). •The number of past month methamphetamine users decreased between 2006 and 2012, from 731,000 (0.3 percent) to 440,000 (0.2 percent). http://archive.samhsa.gov/data/NSDU...s/NationalFindings/NSDUHresults2012.htm#ch5.4 Current cocaine users (indicated by use in the last month) are 0.6 percent of the population, add the meth users and you're talking about less than 1% of the population. That is an absolutely minuscule percentage, and that is the entirety of the users. You might be able to argue that significant percentages of these folks ingest by smoking rather than snorting (I wasn't able to quickly find stats on that), but either way, you are talking about a very small slice of the country. It is called harm reduction. People want to use cocaine, people want to use amphetamines. The market will respond by providing forms of these drugs even when manufacture, distribution, and sales are prohibited, look at the real world for proof. Since people are going to use these drugs, it is the socially responsible thing to make sure that the substances they buy are regulated, properly labeled, and preferably use a safer method of ingestion than smoking, snorting, or shooting. Doing these things would drastically reduce overdose deaths as well as deaths due to impure or impersonated products and would also reduce the potential for abuse as stomach ingestion (for cocaine) or pill form (for amphetamines) tend to have a lower potential for psychological addiction than methods which hit the user harder. Completely agreed. Disagree, these programs spend more than they recoup. The cost/benefit analysis clearly shows that these programs are ineffective.
Oh yea... I got to watch that. I read Gary Webb's 'Dark Alliance' 14 years ago. I was always surprised that the CIA didn't kill him. I hope the movie did the book justice.
You're looking at surveys and I'm looking at the streets. And surveys can sometimes be like the (+/-) stat in basketball... Useless. You make it sound like a business... But it's cheaper for tax payers in the long run for those programs to be implemented instead of continuously paying for the problem at hand.
As far as surveys regarding drug use and abuse, SAMSHA is the gold standard. While I agree that survey data should be taken with a grain of salt, this is the most reliable actual data we have. I'll take even survey data over your perceptions from "looking at the streets." It should be approached in a businesslike way. According to the data we have (there was a recent study from the program implemented in Florida), drug testing welfare recipients caught almost nobody and cost dramatically more than was saved from ending the benefits of the people who were caught.
I'll take what I actually see and read over surveys you read and take with a grain of salt. It's bad business for programs like that to work because it could possibly help people straighten their lives out and create a smaller base of people for the government to incarcerate. Which means less prisons, less law enforcement jobs, less money from tax payers for the war on drugs, plus the tax dollars spent for the jobs created and the expansion of others, and less money off the sale of drugs. Your data is short sighted and plus you're using the data of Florida who even F'd up their vote count and Florida is a southern state who would never want to see something like that work.
Good to know you'll accept anecdotal "evidence" in place of empirical evidence. Such knowledge lets me know I should take what you say with a grain of salt the size of a deer lick. Except that the evidence doesn't show that any of this is the case. I haven't seen so much as a single study which indicates that drug testing welfare benefits results in less drug use among welfare recipients, much less the larger population made up of the people who do not use such benefits. The above is all based on assumptions which aren't supported by anything empirical at all. My data is merely data. It is salient because Florida actually implemented this policy, resulting in dramatically more expenditures than were recouped by eliminating benefits for those who tested positive. In addition, there weren't any resources dedicated to getting those people help and, given that they are people who already exhibit inelastic demand curves with regards to drugs, it seems unlikely that those people would have been sufficiently prodded to quit using drugs. You're welcome to advocate for inefficient use of resources, as you have here, but you should recognize what your advocacy will lead to.
You're quick to point to 'evidence' when you already admitted you're using surveys that should be taken with a grain of salt to make your case. Totally agree with that. Short sighted data that over looks the fact that the government is profiting off of drugs being illegal. CIA planes are being found with tons of dope on them headed to America. At least we both agree that there is a problem so I won't indulge in the primate poo slinging over how to solve that problem.
You're right. Must watch. Watch "American Drug War: The Last White Hope: Pre Release Cut" on YouTube American Drug War: The Last White Hope: Pre Release Cut: http://youtu.be/6CyuBuT_7I4
Watch "The Phony Drug War: How the US Government Deals Drugs (Documentary)" on YouTube The Phony Drug War: How the US Government Deals Drugs (Documentary): http://youtu.be/qJkFZ4W4bjg
Just because there may be a bit of measurement error in the data (measurement error that exists because people won't accurately self-report under a prohibitionist regime) doesn't invalidate the data, it just means we should be aware that the data may be a bit off. The data are still DRAMATICALLY more accurate than your perceptions of the people on the street. Data are not "short sighted," people are short sighted. People who look at anecdotes for evidence are drastically more short sighted than people who look at data. I agree that the government profiting off drugs being illegal is a massive problem. This is one of the major reasons we need to regulate the manufacture and sale of drugs. I wasn't aware that my suggestions about how to solve the problem constituted the slinging of poo. My slinging of poo started when you chose to claim that your perceptions of drug use on the street were more accurate and reliable than the data we have regarding drug use and abuse.
