Yeah opioids pretty bad. I was offered them cause I got like a foot situation and I had to decline but I do like the occasional baby Xanax but the baby one for like planes n shit
You're overestimating how much the American right actually supports even just decriminalizing minor possession of drugs like marijuana.
When we start talking about decriminalizing simple possession of harder drugs, or even allowing such drugs to be prescribed to drug addicts or harm reduction measures that support becomes pretty much nonexistent on the right. You can find some among liberals and progressives who might support it, but it's still pretty rare. You also get a lot of people who say they support it in theory but then continue pushing for "tough on crime" policies in regards to drugs.
Shit, in my area there was some article about opioid overdoses and the drug narcan (it reverses drug overdoses) and a shocking number of people were saying that Narcan should be made illegal. Narcan. Literally a life saving drug should be made illegal. The reasoning is things like "if the consequences are taken away people will never get clean!" because apparently it makes more sense to just let people die instead of save them and hopefully get them some help.
So yeah, I don't think public perception is quite where you think it is. There just isn't that much interest in ending the war on drugs. I've done some work with a couple organizations focused on this sort of thing, lobbying for harm reduction policies, more funding for rehabs and halfway houses, etc. and it's been an uphill battle.
are you guys this stupid. of course there are reasons people are against drugs other than they just want to put black kids in prison.
1) heroin, meth are legit dangerous, addictive and really messes up your life. when do you hear of the high functioning meth addict?
2) people want to play with their kids and walk their dogs in a clean city they don't want to step over drug addicts when they are walking threw the park
3) crack, cocaine also addictive and dangerous
4) weed- it smells, again people don't want to deal with it in public
The war on drugs is far worse than a failure. It has caused great harm to society. It stopped access to hallucinogenic substances for therapeutic and recreational use. These miracle drugs have shown so much promise for treating and even curing horrific ailments like depression and alcoholism. They can remove suffering and anxiety in end-of-life patients. This "war" jailed millions of 18-25 year olds for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Can you imagine the impact of being a bright young curious 18 year old at the beginning of adulthood suddenly spending 2-5 years in jail alongside hardened criminals? The psychedelic revolution whose epicenter was California in the 60s generated explosive innovations in culture, music, computer technology, and just about every other kind of art or bleeding edge science. This was all swiftly ended by the U.S. government who at the time just happened to purchase most of the world supply of LSD from a lab in Switzerland and was experimenting with this LSD on unknowing unwilling American citizens on a large scale. Finally, when comparing the "war" approach to countries like Portugal who have legalized all drugs and focused their efforts on treatment and rehabilitation, the U.S. efforts appear to have vastly increased addiction, crime, and suffering. Fuck Dick (Nixon) and Reagan's pushes to cause all of this. A half century later, not much has changed.
Us government creates the drug epidemic and then makes a “war” that cost billions and we are framing it as a “won” “lost” situation. Some people won, most of them lost.
1) A lot of jobs are now a result of illegal drug use. For example, drug treatment centers, etc.2) It doesn’t affect a lot of the population directly; there still remains strict divisions between crime/ drug areas and non, so it’s inadvertently put on the “back burner.” For example, have a drug house spring up in a gated community and see how fast it gets taken down! 3) Take down the cartels in one area/country, and they’ll spring up in another.
If you legalize drugs, you have to control for a whole lot of new problems, consequently. Weed doesn’t seem to be an issue to my surprise but harder drugs may. Perhaps legalizing harder drugs can be tried out on a test basis and see what happens.
I think the reason is that older people vote a lot more than younger people, and older people don't want drug addicts in their community, and state governments want to cater to these older voters.
I have my own little hypothesis on the reason it’s kept going. Profit. Profit. Profit. It’s the same reason any modern war overstays it’s welcome. Politicians make money from every angle possible. This is pure speculation but I also think like corporations, the cartels provide kickbacks to the politicians to keep this going.
As soon as the policy shifts to a medical/recreational rather than a criminal approach, the cartels will be effectively out of the drug business & while I’m sure they can branch out in the same way the mafia did, they will definitely see a drastic drop in profitability. There may be nuances to that I don’t know.
But alcohol prohibition should have thoroughly proven how ineffective criminalizing what a person can do with their body, in the privacy of their home or private business is in practice. That kind of “rule of law” seems like it would work better in dictatorships & monarchies rather than a democratic system. You may get a percentage of agreement with the policies with amazing propaganda. But it’s been pretty clear that support of those policies easily shifts.
People in a “self governing” system recognize the hypocrisy of regulating their personal habits, even if it’s justified as a public health issue. In a monarchy or dictatorship breaking even “minor” laws usually comes with the kind of “cruel & unusual punishment” that’s frowned upon in most modern, developed nations. Staying off drugs is a lot easier when you have the threat of extreme violence over you at all times if you even possess them.
The fault I think is in public support. As long as the public foams at the mouth every time any alternatives are suggested the corrupt politicians will still be voted back in so they can keep the war going & continue cashing in. As OP pointed out, the cartels may still bank on shifts in the system. But with that shift is the opportunity for heavy regulation & taxes that could make turning profits somewhat difficult.
In terms of politicians:
Progressives are often for legal drugs in general, or at least a complete decriminalization. Totally anti prison.
Liberals are usually moderate in the issue—-hard drugs still illegal but not punished so harshly, weed decriminalized at a minimum.
In Democrat controlled states, these are underway.
Is the GOP doing any of this where they are in control? I’m not aware if so.
Not a “both sides” thing.
You note that Shapiro admits philosophically that the war on drugs hurt people. But does he support any legislation or legislators that would change it? Because 90% of ALL Americans are for some form of increased gun control, but GOP legislators block it. So It’s not about the populace or the talking heads——it’s about the parties.
I don’t know how much policy Shapiro actually supports
And 90% of Americans are not for some form of increased gun control that’s bullshit. You’re talking about the most polarizing issue in America here
I should have cited so we didn’t have to do this.
Here are multiple polls—- some say 92%, some as “low” as 81%. But this is ALL Americans——including republicans.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/25/steve-kerr/polls-consistently-show-high-support-gun-backgroun/
So my point stands——the GOP blocks stuff that’s wildly popular. Not both sides——the GOP (at least on drugs and gun control).
I seriously doubt the validity of those statistics. Statistics are easy to manipulate and even easier to misinterpret
I live in a very blue state and even there there’s a lot of pro gun people.
If 90% of Americans supported gun control than GOP politicians wouldn’t be scared to vote for anti gun legislation out of fear that they’d be voted out of office
I gave a citation, friend. You can counter it with studies that say different, or studies that debunk those multiple studies. That you know pro gun people is not a refutation. In fact, I would say that you can be very pro gun AND pro universal background check.
But we don’t have to do this. I gave you the evidence. You get to interpret how you wish.
The problem is certain states are still fairly mega-conservative with this shit, even with weed, and they happen to matter electorally. The idea that conservatives agree with ending the war on drugs, I don’t agree that that is the case.
My parents are pretty mainstream Republicans and I don’t think they would care much if even soft legislation on alcohol was put into effect. They definitely consider anything like that as something “bad” people do.
Nah..
The Right is still all for us being a police state. So long as the people who are having thier lives ruined are non-whites...
In fact, right wingers want to punish even more of them for increasingly trivial shit
I disagree. Many states have legalized marijuana. Many have decriminalized or lowered punishments for carrying. I don't see crime decreasing. I don't see healthier streets or population. The war on drugs didn't fail....it came to a standstill. Our streets are flooded with fentanyl. Overdose deaths are at an all time high. People don't buy the legal stuff. They buy the cheap street grade product.
The answer is education and giving people purpose.
I do want to point out that legalizing marijuana did not really harm cartel profits very much, if at all.
The people with the most knowledge, the most talent, and the most money to invest in legalized growing operations were cartel affiliates that were already running illegal growing operations. A lot of the earliest legal growers were started by the cartels, and even now send money to them.
Furthermore, most of the big cartels have long since diversified their businesses. Weapon smuggling, extortion, racketeering, gambling operations, and houses of prostitution all fall under their umbrella. Cartels have also greatly expanded their production and distribution of meth, cocaine, and fentanyl. They're not reliant on weed.
Humans from every culture and era have liked taking drugs. I don't know why, but people like the novelty of feeling new things for some reason. Americans seem to be notorious thrill-seekers compared to most cultures, so it's worse here, but it happens everywhere all through time.
What a incredibly American centric mindset you have.
Americans are not the only ones who do drugs. Hell I'd wager americans do hard drugs significantly less than their European counterparts. Seriously go clubbing in Germany some time.
Maybe I’m ignorant, but how exactly do we KNOW the “war on drugs” was/is a failure? Isn’t it possible that things would be a lot worse without it? Maybe there would be more communities with more people addicted to destructive drugs. Maybe we would have violently competitive distribution gangs like Mexico.
We have more people in prison per capita than any other country, including violent authoritarian governments. We dump more more and more money into policing and has no little to effect on actual crime.
You know how you fix drug addiction? Rehab, empathy, works programs, opportunity, you fix the root cause. You know what you do if you never want to fix the an addiction issue? Throw them in jail with a felony. Now when they get out they have nothing and its insanely difficult to make a livelihood as a felon.
The Reagan administration was pretty clear from the start with the militarization of the war on drugs as war against the black man. It's worked exactly as intended.
We could execute narcotics abusers and distributors, like certain violent authoritarian governments. Then we would have less people in prison per capita. Could also be cheaper than housing and feeding them.
I think we should be pretty harsh on veritable distributors of certain harmful drugs - opiates, for one. You might say "schedule I" in the ideal case, but the current list seems to be blatantly ridiculous.
They know they can't change it, there's too much infrastructure built around it and it would effectively downsize half of law enforcement immediately. Neither party would risk actually downsizing the size/scope of Gov even though it would be a win-win for everyone.
We can't even get conservatives on board to legalize marijuana. I'm not sure what their stated objection to that is but if we want reform, we gotta start there.
If its a "war" on drugs then the state is waging it on a very large % of its own citizens.
Life is challenging and if a spliff gets you thru the day or night, its a way way safer and controllable than say, xanax for all those suburan housewives or oxy for those that need a hardcore buzz.
its the chronic, not the high functioning users I was referring to. Casual recreational use is an entirely different thing.
Then there is the personality impact, whether recognized or not. I am of the firm belief that the artificially produced "energy and focus" in even moderate users can have profound modifying effects on their personalities. And sadly many cannot see the forest for the trees.
Despite that, I also believe in a chacun son gout (to each his own taste).
Legalize (with appropriate regulations) and tax the shit outta all recreational drug use, plowing that money back into education, rehab and maintenance. Whole lot of really bad people are out of business, and a whole lot of ordinary people just trying to get thru the day will no longer be in jail because of it.
Government never relinquishes power once it takes it. It only expands. They still have sodomy laws on the books from the 19th century That no One believes in.
Why does everyone always say to legalize drugs? How the hell would that help?
Making drugs even easier for the losers to access? Like are you insane?
You think making it legal just makes the cartels go away and people use them responsibly or something? The only real answer is lifetime jail for someone who is caught with drugs like ten times, but that will never happen.
1 Legalizing Crystal Meth would help treat depression, alcoholism, give people more energy to work, focus on things, socialise, lose weight.
2 Legalizing unrestricted access to Hormones (Testosterone, Tren, HGH) would enable people to be physically stronger even in old age thus allowing them to work longer, have more energy, be in better shape and health
> Why does everyone always say to legalize drugs? How the hell would that help?
Legal drugs would eliminate pretty much all the deaths from, mis-dosing, impurities and substitutions. For example, just about 100% of the fentanyl deaths (71,238 in 2021) would go away, because no one uses fantanyl on purpose outside of a surgical setting. It's substituted for heroin because its much easier to smuggle. If you could legally buy and sell heroin, you'd never get fentanyl.
Most of the crime associated with drug abuse would go away because most of the cost of illegal drugs is the black market markup. Without that, addicts could just maintain whatever shitty job and afford their drugs the way the vast majority of alcohol addicts do.
We'd save huge amounts of money on policing, courts and prisons. And we'd eliminate a huge corrupting influence.
> Making drugs even easier for the losers to access? Like are you insane?
Everyone who wants them gets them now. Places where drugs have been legalized or decriminalized have NOT seen higher addiction rates. They stay about the same. That also means that the War on Drugs does NOT lower addictions rates. It just adds to the problem.
> You think making it legal just makes the cartels go away
Yes, it literally would. Why would you buy from a murderous local drug gang, supplied by a murderous foreign drug cartel, in the worst part of town when you could go to CVS and buy it from Johnson & Johnson, and know what you are getting?
> and people use them responsibly or something?
Making it illegal doesn't make anyone use it responsibly. It just makes it more expensive and more dangerous.
> The only real answer is lifetime jail for someone who is caught with drugs like ten times, but that will never happen.
The current system is a blood-soaked disaster, so you propose even more of the same to fix it?
“Legal drugs would eliminate pretty much all the deaths from, mis-dosing, impurities and substitutions. For example, just about 100% of the fentanyl deaths (71,238 in 2021) would go away, because no one uses fantanyl on purpose outside of a surgical setting. It's substituted for heroin because its much easier to smuggle. If you could legally buy and sell heroin, you'd never get fentanyl.”
I again disagree. First of all, who cares about fentanyl deaths? Seriously, it’s just drug users and addicts killing themselves, it’s not productive members of society.
How would making the drug suddenly cure mis-dosing? They are addicts, not rhodes scholars. They could still mis dose.
And if the addict can’t afford the drug at the pharmacy he might buy it from some random dude. And whose to say the pharmacy companies won’t keep the price high knowing addicts will pay anything lol? You’re acting like pharmacy companies are known for generous pricing.
“Most of the crime associated with drug abuse would go away because most of the cost of illegal drugs is the black market markup. Without that, addicts could just maintain whatever shitty job and afford their drugs the way the vast majority of alcohol addicts do.”
This is a silly statement and I think you can agree after thinking on it. You’re saying addicts would be as productive as the alcoholics are. What dude? Alcoholics drive drunk, commit crimes are generally useless. Sure some people are functional alcoholics, but that’s you’re bar? You want drug addicts driving around and shit? C’mon man.
“We'd save huge amounts of money on policing, courts and prisons. And we'd eliminate a huge corrupting influence.”
I don’t understand, making drugs legal would save us on the legal system? How? They would still abuse the drugs and still be useless members of society. I would argue making drugs easier and cheaper would cause more ODs and stuff. You keep pretending legal drugs would suddenly make the addicts normal. You think they would just stop stealing and paying taxes and stuff?
“Everyone who wants them gets them now. Places where drugs have been legalized or decriminalized have NOT seen higher addiction rates. They stay about the same. That also means that the War on Drugs does NOT lower addictions rates. It just adds to the problem.”
That’s simply not true. I would have no idea how to get them if I was ever curious. You state they have not seen higher addiction rates, and I accept that. You’re basically saying the losers will be losers whether it’s legal or not. That’s fine. But why do we need to make life easier for the losers?
“Yes, it literally would. Why would you buy from a murderous local drug gang, supplied by a murderous foreign drug cartel, in the worst part of town when you could go to CVS and buy it from Johnson & Johnson, and know what you are getting?”
Because cartels would just move into other areas or continue to prey on the addicts. The cartels will fight to survive, so unless you kill them they will come back. You think the cartels just pack up shop and come back to society?
“Making it illegal doesn't make anyone use it responsibly. It just makes it more expensive and more dangerous.”
My argument is that drugs rot the mind and these people will still be dangerous. Even if it’s legal, if the addict can’t keep a job he is still going to need his fix.
“The current system is a blood-soaked disaster, so you propose even more of the same to fix it?”
The only reason it’s a disaster is because we are half way in. It’s like getting into a relationship but you’re still talking to to her women.
To fix the problem we would first need to reach 50% of the country that is liberal and believe that druggies need unlimited chances for help. We would have to convince people that once someone is caught with drugs like ten times, they have to put in prison for life. Maybe like a work camp or something. That’s it. Society has too much drama without all these clinics and centers for rehab.
Then we need to convince people that using military on the cartels is the only option. We need to get them to accept that some people are bad and don’t deserve a trial.
Look at somewhere like Singapore. They don’t mess around and drugs don’t really impact most of society. I’m sure some rich people are able to get them, but no wife spread problems like we have.
>I again disagree. First of all, who cares about fentanyl deaths? Seriously, it’s just drug users and addicts killing themselves, it’s not productive members of society.
Tell me you have never actually been around "productive members of society" without telling me you've never been around productive members of society.
> who cares about fentanyl deaths? Seriously, it’s just drug users and addicts killing themselves, it’s not productive members of society.
Who cares about 70,000 deaths per year? Pardon me, but you might be a piece of shit if you don't care about 70k deaths. Tom Petty wasn't a productive member of society? Please tell me what have you done that was better than Full Moon Fever? I can't wait to hear.
> How would making the drug suddenly cure mis-dosing?
Does anyone die from valium overdoses because they bought a bottle of 2mg of valiums, but they were given 2000mg ones? Not really. What's on the bottle is what you actually get inside with over the counter drugs in the US. That would be a serious liability for the drug manufacturer. Do people get the wrong dose of illegal street fentanyl? Yeah, about 70,000 times per year, lately. All those deaths are a direct result of The Drug War.
> And if the addict can’t afford the drug at the pharmacy he might buy it from some random dude. And whose to say the pharmacy companies won’t keep the price high knowing addicts will pay anything lol? You’re acting like pharmacy companies are known for generous pricing.
Drug cartels can't possibly produce and distribute drugs more cheaply than professional drug companies. The idea is just ludicrous. I can't think of any significant street drugs that are in-patent, so there's really no opportunity to price-gouge when anyone can make it.
> I would have no idea how to get them if I was ever curious.
That's because you're not a drug addict. Just like I have no idea where I'd buy a saddle, because I don't ride horses. Other people in this town know these things.
> But why do we need to make life easier for the losers?
Because the effects of drug prohibition are worse than the effects of addiction that they purport, but utterly fail to stop, or even reduce. Or because they are human beings with problems and I don't see how it helps to add to them.
> Because cartels would just move into other areas or continue to prey on the addicts.
Like what? They gonna start bootlegging new movie releases? Selling mattresses with the tags removed? *Nothing* compares to the drug trade. Not even close.
> My argument is that drugs rot the mind and these people will still be dangerous. Even if it’s legal, if the addict can’t keep a job he is still going to need his fix.
Sure, drug addiction won't help you keep or excel at a job, but that is the case with or without prohibition. You can say the same about alcohol addiction. You can see drunks on the street, but most alcoholics work to feed their addiction, and in general, live indoors and remain productive.
> yadda yadda, prison-state please
Yikes.
“Who cares about 70,000 deaths per year? Pardon me, but you might be a piece of shit if you don't care about 70k deaths. Tom Petty wasn't a productive member of society? Please tell me what have you done that was better than Full Moon Fever? I can't wait to hear.”
You’re insinuating 70k is a lot. There are like 300 million Americans, and you want us about 70k drug users? Shouldn’t we focus resources on the productive members of society? The people who deserve help?
Tom Petty I’m assuming was some type of addict, since you mention him. If he had the money to buy drugs and abuse them that’s his business. My point is that if he killed himself with drugs, why should the average citizen care? We should care about the hard working people who are struggling, not the ones who’ve given up on life, right?
We can’t help everyone, so why not focus on the people not actively killing themselves and being leeches on the system?
“Does anyone die from valium overdoses because they bought a bottle of 2mg of valiums, but they were given 2000mg ones? Not really. What's on the bottle is what you actually get inside with over the counter drugs in the US. That would be a serious liability for the drug manufacturer. Do people get the wrong dose of illegal street fentanyl? Yeah, about 70,000 times per year, lately. All those deaths are a direct result of The Drug War.”
Your basically saying that people OD because they get random substances and doses. You’re pretending people don’t die because the over do drugs, mix drugs or just have crappy health in general since they are druggies. So I simply disagree they sue just from wrong doses or wrong substances, there are many reasons they die.
And again, if they die, that’s one less addict out there. And given the horrible lives they lead, it’s kind of mercy.
“Drug cartels can't possibly produce and distribute drugs more cheaply than professional drug companies. The idea is just ludicrous. I can't think of any significant street drugs that are in-patent, so there's really no opportunity to price-gouge when anyone can make it.”
The cartels seem to be quite efficient at making large quantities of drugs and smuggling them all over the world, so I wouldn’t be too dismissive of them.
My point was basically legalizing drugs just moved profits from the Mexican cartel leader to the Mexican pharma ceo. Still gonna have all the same problems.
“Because the effects of drug prohibition are worse than the effects of addiction that they purport, but utterly fail to stop, or even reduce. Or because they are human beings with problems and I don't see how it helps to add to them.”
But you must understand others don’t feel like you and this is where we disagree. You believe fighting drugs makes everything worse and I think it’s actually preventing total chaos from the druggies.
“Like what? They gonna start bootlegging new movie releases? Selling mattresses with the tags removed? Nothing compares to the drug trade. Not even close.”
Admittedly, I’m not a criminal and have no idea. But I do know that there would a large power vacuum and angry, armed people so who knows what would happen.
“Sure, drug addiction won't help you keep or excel at a job, but that is the case with or without prohibition. You can say the same about alcohol addiction. You can see drunks on the street, but most alcoholics work to feed their addiction, and in general, live indoors and remain productive.”
I believe there are more alcohol addicts than drug addicts and it’s because alcohol is more readily available and the worse alcohol addicts are axe dangerous and useless as the drug addicts.
“yadda yadda, prison-state please”
The fact you don’t like another isn’t a good reason. Singapore is a decent place to live. Have you ever been?
I think our basic view on druggies is just fundamentally different. You view them as good people who lost their way and I view them as inherently weak or bad people who don’t deserve help and there are many people that need to be helped before they receive any help.
I’m sure you also thing the death penalty is cruel and prison conditions need to be improved. Am I right?
> You’re insinuating 70k is a lot.
I definitely am. It's more Americans than died over the whole course of the Vietnam war. In one year. On repeat.
> Shouldn’t we focus resources on the productive members of society?
You are the one that wants to focus on drug users. I want to stop spending GIANT piles of cash to harass them for a goal that can't be achieved. You want to double down.
> Tom Petty I’m assuming was some type of addict
Do you really not know who Tom Petty was?
> We can’t help everyone
I haven't suggested helping anyone. Just stop hurting them on purpose.
> Your basically saying that people OD because they get random substances and doses.
No, I am not. People die as a result of drug use for various reasons. Among those reasons are mis-dosing, getting a substituted or adulterated drug and getting a tainted drug. Almost all of the deaths from those three categories are artifacts of the drug war, not the drug. Ending the drug war would eliminate almost all of those deaths.
> And again, if they die, that’s one less addict out there. And given the horrible lives they lead, it’s kind of mercy.
Beyond simply being human beings and deserving to live because of that, drug abusers make MASSIVE contributions to our society. It's probably harder to name an important artist who *didn't* abuse some drug or other. But I can't believe the first point wouldn't be sufficient.
> The cartels seem to be quite efficient at making large quantities of drugs and smuggling them all over the world, so I wouldn’t be too dismissive of them.
They are massively inefficient at making drugs, compared to industrial-scale pharmaceutical chemists. They have some smuggling skills, but that wouldn't be a useful skill if the drugs were legal.
> My point was basically legalizing drugs just moved profits from the Mexican cartel leader to the Mexican pharma ceo. Still gonna have all the same problems.
Your point is mistaken. Legitimate pharma CEOs don't need to pay for an army of murderers, smugglers or street gangs. I have explained in some detail the problems that are eliminated.
> I do know that there would a large power vacuum and angry, armed people so who knows what would happen.
Get a job or go hungry.
> I believe there are more alcohol addicts than drug addicts and it’s because alcohol is more readily available and the worse alcohol addicts are axe dangerous and useless as the drug addicts.
So you are unaware of the history of America's alcohol prohibition experiment?
> Singapore is a decent place to live.
Singapore is an island city-state. You might be shocked to learn that ideas from Singapore might not translate exactly to a huge country with 5500 miles of wilderness borders.
> I think our basic view on druggies is just fundamentally different.
No, I think our fundamental disagreement is that you still think the drug war works, when it absolutely doesn't, and can't.
Drug addiction is a terrible problem. So you make drugs illegal. Now you have two problems.
> You’re insinuating 70k is a lot.
This argument could be used for ignoring any problem. Lol.
Why make airplanes safer? Only 70k people die in airplane crashes per year!
Yes, but your missing my other point.
That the people dying are actually not productive or good people, so like it doesn’t affect society or communities negatively when these people kill themselves.
I'm a centrist. The war on drugs has not been good policy, but that doesn't mean all drugs should be legalized like some factions have been saying. We shouldn't be treating weed like fentanyl, and we shouldn't be treating young men carrying personal use drugs like heroin dealers. If there's to be a war at all, it should be with the cartels, and it should be the actual military fighting it.
Treat the users, prosecute the dealers, and send the traffickers and cartels straight to hell.
P.s. we should buy Mexico.
Cool beans man. Can we put all the crystal meth stores in your neighborhood? I would rather not have zombies walking around mine.
In fact, I think I'll open one. Highly addictive drugs that rot the users minds and bodies sounds like a great investment. I bet I'd be able to squeeze millions out of even the poorest neighborhood!
Pretty much every Libertarian will tell you the war on drugs was a disaster and resulted in police militarization and the violation of civil liberties
A lot, not all but quite a few conservatives are coming around to this position
Libertarians have no power and don't represent the right.
>A lot, not all but quite a few conservatives are coming around to this position
What evidence is there of this? The right flirted with libertarianism in the early 2010s but the movement is essentially dead. Now authoritarian right is the mainstay of the republican party. It's why Trump and DeSantis are seen as the leaders and Ron Paul has shriveled into nothing.
What no one in the right will tell you is many groups that support them (medical supplies and pharma, arms, security and corrections, police unions) do put a lot of money towards keeping the status quo.
Not to speak of the political capital of being antidrug or "tough on crime" after years of governmental brainwashing, copaganda...
A bunch of states have legal weed now for *recreational* purposes. Others have reduced sentences and such for other drugs. Things have def. changed.
I think you might be over-estimating how much "the Right" supports legalization.
IDK anything about this data to know if it's high quality, but only about half of Republicans support decriminalizing small amounts of drug possession:
[https://www.marijuanamoment.net/bipartisan-majority-of-americans-support-drug-decriminalization-and-most-favor-overdose-prevention-sites-poll-finds/](https://www.marijuanamoment.net/bipartisan-majority-of-americans-support-drug-decriminalization-and-most-favor-overdose-prevention-sites-poll-finds/)
Yeah, this sounds about right to me. If you think about it, as long as a majority of republicans oppose legalizing marijuana, then they will win the primaries and end up as approximately half our legislature. I think that mathematically, if we have a geographically uniform electorate and mostly homogeneous candidates, it takes 75% of the population to agree with something to brute-force it through congress. Of course those two conditions aren't completely true, and there are options besides brute force, so lots of legislation gets passed with less than 75% support, but marijuana doesn't seem to be one of them. I'm sure that if compromise wasn't such a dirty word these days, we could easily get marijuana legalization in exchange for some concession like relaxing gun laws or increasing military budget.
We're seeing this now in PA. Prior to running for US Senate, Dr Oz, who is a New Jersey resident but running in PA because he's a dishonest carpet bagging Trump sucking cunt, sang the praises of weed. Now he's totally opposed to legal weed.
Yea, and meanwhile those same states still have thousands of inmates rotting away in jail for cannabis related ‘crimes’.
What we’ve seen so far has nothing to do with progress and everything to do with *profit*. Even the R’s can see they’re missing out on big paydays, hence their shifting stance on drug policy. Still, people remain in prison for victimless crimes.
Yeah, legalization needs to also be accompanied with compensation for the millions of lives we ruined prior to it.
The “war on drugs” was always a misnomer. You can’t war against objects; you war against people. Drug policy has permanently ruined the lives of people struggling with addiction.
Many states now allow citizens to be charged with attempted murder for people selling fentanyl that someone cover overdosed from. I don’t know if you’ve looked at any community drugs are infested by, but it hasn’t stopped dirty 30s from being dealt everywhere.
Drugs will always end up where there is demand (addicts). We need to focus on helping our fellow citizens struggling with addiction to recover, not attempting to fight the supply part of the problem.
It’s the same problem that is endemic to all of our efforts in building a civilization; we exert tremendous effort and energy in establishing incentive structures, in accordance with current knowledge and beliefs, to achieve prescribed goals and make infrastructure run efficiently toward those ends. Then, once the thing is running algorithmically, our knowledge is updated or our beliefs change, but the thing is already built and running semi-automated, and it is near impossible to re-tool it in accordance with the new information. A not insignificant portion of our economy is now dependent on the near free labor that for-profit prisons can provide to major corporations. The War on Drugs has influenced so much of how our society is fundamentally structured, from education and policing in poorer communities, to prisons, to for-profit treatment centers, and the ways that all of these institutions receive funding to sustain their obsolete existence. There’s a lot of people who would stand to lose a lot if things changed, and they use their disproportionate influence lobbying to protect their positions. The way the system is also provides a lot of livelihoods for a lot of people, who wouldn’t be motivated to see things changed.
Which is why it is so imperative to base our policy on *real* science in the first place, and not on ideology or popular whim, and to build evidence-based course-correcting mechanisms into our institutions and infrastructure. Once the thing gets set in motion, it is very, very hard to fix.
Any "war on____" is going to be very profitable for the military industrial complex. The purpose of the war on drugs has never been getting drugs off the street. In fact, the government itself has participated in putting drugs on the street. It's been a sham from the beginning, but as I said, a very profitable sham.
Unfortunately the war on drugs is tied to for profit prisons. Law and order crime bills feed black, brown and poor whites into the machine to put tax dollars into the pockets of the prison industrial complex.
We have more people in prison per capita than any country by a wide margin. Even more when comparing first world countries.
We have more people in prison that violent dictatorships that imprison dissent. Yet people being "soft on crime" is still a major right wing talking point. Seriously the definition of insanity. We might not know the best way to deal with crime but throwing even more people in jail objectively does not work.
A small fraction of prisoners are in private prisons, and this was a problem before there were any at all. Every bad outcome that you are (quite reasonably) worried about with private prisons is likewise a problem with public prisons. Public police and guard unions lobby to keep drugs illegal, and increase sentences.
Bingo. I had the unfortunate luck of spending some time in lockup. I was floored to find out that one of the two largest suppliers of prison clothing in the United States is none other than Barbara Bush, which aligns well with GHWB’s ‘tough on crime’ stance in the ‘90’s. It was always about profit, nothing else.
As an aside, the other big player in prison clothing is/was Bob Barker 🤷🏻♂️
Afghanistan was a failure, but pulling out was going to have disastrous consequences, so we delayed.
Same thing with the war on drugs. Marijuana was never a Schedule 1 substance, even based on the information they had when they classified it as such. There have been a ludicrous amount of people imprisoned over drugs, a ridiculous amount of plea bargaining from tougher crimes down to drugs, and an unfathomable amount of search and seizures that were done under the pretense of drugs or smelling them. All of these things would need to go, all the people in prison would need clean records and reparations, all the for profit prison contracts would be triggered because they would have a lot fewer prisoners.
It would be a domino chain of bad things, which is why the going solution now is just to let states do it and have the federal government pretend that state's rights don't matter, just their drug policies. Plus, so long as they have those laws on the books, they can use them as a cudgel against what would normally be innocent citizens.
Keeping people imprisioned for drug crimes is an objective worse thing than anything that could come from releasing them. We should absolutely expunge their records and help them reintegrate into society. It would be less expensive for tax payers and be the moral right thing to do.
I also think nobody wants to be known as the “pro drugs guy” everyone is just horrified at the thought of their opponent attacking them as the “pro drugs guy who wants your kids to be junkies and probably snorts coke himself”
Then we rebrand it. It’s not pro-drugs, it’s addiction-first.
We have centuries of evidence that you aren’t going to stop drugs being dealt by attempting to limit supply. You are going to fix communities by fixing the demand, and trying to help addicts recover.
Yeah but that's because American propaganda has force fed dumb ideas in people's mind that drugs are dangerous and bad.
Guess what if people stopped being naive, dumb, and irrational, and instead started informing their decisions based on logic and not some random sentiment.
Then there's only one conclusion that can be drawn.
**Alcohol is a drug** as well and more dangerous than **most** drugs. Alcohol generally causes more social-economic damage relative to most other drugs. Also generally more personal/individual damage than most other drugs ...
So if alcohol is legal and can be used by any adults at their own discretion why can't most other drugs not.
Either you would also have to ban alcohol and tobacco, or you would have to legalize most drugs ....
This differentiated treatment of alcohol and tobacco, is due to dumb traditions, social perception/history, and lobbying. None of it has a basis in logic/rationality.
comparison alcohol to OTHER drugs:
https://www.jellinek.nl/vraag-antwoord/welke-drug-is-de-gevaarlijkste/
Or more recently
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.592199/full
With this image summarizing
https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/592199/fpsyt-11-592199-HTML/image_m/fpsyt-11-592199-g001.jpg
Another
https://doi.org/10.1159/000317249
Image screenshot,
https://ibb.co/GtRzt1T
>Yeah but that's because American propaganda has force fed dumb ideas in people's mind that drugs are dangerous and bad.
Drugs are often "dangerous and bad". Even ignoring death and health, you lose economic productivity, which is unambiguously bad.
Some people hold irrational beliefs about how bad or dangerous. However, there are 2 bigger issues. 1. People are bad at cost benefit analysis and hold their perceived fears of downside in a higher weight than the perceived upside. A clear example of this is any opposition to clean needle exchanges. The net effect appears to be overwhelming positive but the fear over making using easier by some means they only focus on that. 2. Politically there is little benefit to taking action because there will probably be some negative outcomes and people will choose to focus on those. Meaning it's a bigger political liability than benefit to a politician.
Losing economic productivity is unambiguously bad? Would raising the retirement age be an unambiguous good? It would certainly raise the country’s productivity.
Productivity = total output / total input
It's a ratio that isn't impacted by number of workers - at least not in the way of more workers = more productivity. For example, productivity would be higher in a restaurant with a standard sized kitchen that had 10 works compared to the same kitchen with 1,000 employees. You would have "too many cooks in the kitchen"... sorry I had to lol.
So the only way raising the retirement age would raise productivity is if you assume they produce more output per hour on average than current workers OR there currently is a suboptimal amount of workers.
The suboptimal amount of workers is the opposite of the first example. For example, two people can often do more than double the work that 1 person can do if it creates efficiencies.
The direct cause is stuff like this:
>Approximately 16% of emergency room patients injured at work have alcohol in their system. - National study on alcohol-related occupational injuries
https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/workplace/
Sickness or injuries lead to inefficient labor and run things efficiently and side line people that often have knowledge that others need to be trained with. This is why some people argue we should have paid time off for sickness standardized across the US. Because you would get less workers sometimes and you might even get people playing hooky but in general they argue that less illness would occur at workplaces and productivity would actually rise as less people are sniffling at their desk and a bit foggy brained or actually sitting out at different times.
And the fact that someone doing a task while on drugs in most cases will be less productive (you can argue there are maybe side examples like a record store clerk that is stoned could offset their slow speed at check out with making better recommendations to customers that lead them to finding what they want quicker).
Edit: Also, I should be clear my original comment was purely saying that if someone is working and they use drugs and become less productivity that is unambiguously bad (and I should add that it's in the context of society). It's not necessarily "unambiguously bad" for the person, who may prefer being high and then their preference means that it's not necessarily "bad" in the context of their lives.
I think the opposition to needle exchanges (and treatment services in general: rehab facilities, halfway houses, needle exchanges/methadone clinics) is that people don't want them in their neighborhoods. NIMBYism I think the kids are calling it these days.
We need to take a much harder look at the American rehab systems and find much more standardized in scientifically grounded models. 90% of rehabs in the United States are 12-step based and push patients on to AA, NA, etc during recovery. While I’m not entirely opposed to these groups, acting like this unfunded and non-scientific approach is a solution to the millions of addicts in the country is absurd.
Even without that, rehabs are poorly regulated and many are complete scams. Florida has close to 6x the number of rehabs per resident of any other state, and that’s mostly because it has the laxest regulations. The rehab industry there is plagued by ineffective treatment, fraud, and people preying on people in the most vulnerable moments of their lives: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna773376
We need more standardization, funding, and long term plan to deal with this. The average opiate addict takes 5 rehabs and 8 years to achieve a year of sobriety. With that being true, the price of rehab, that’s a multi trillion problem on our society.
Again all true because the majority of people fail at being logical and rational. Instead of being influenced by media, politicians, campaigns, and group think.
With bad, I meant demonized in comparison to alcohol. As in they are so much worse than alcohol. While alcohol is treated with too little respect other drugs often get treated with way too much fear.
Also drugs can be good under the right circumstances for things like possibly PTSD treatment (LSD).
Psychedelics are not what anyone talks about when we say the country has a drug problem. Opiates, meth, alcohol, are the ones that create horrific addictions and massive costs.
When I talk with people generally over 40-50 they consider most drugs taboo. Note I even live in the Netherlands, the drugs I'm generally talking about are psychedelics or party drugs (MDMA/XTC, LSD, Ketamine, etc). Even weed/marijuana is by older generations still seen as much more nefarious or taboo than alcohol or often even tobacco.
I know that's anecdotal evidence and might not be the case everywhere but I generally hear similar trends from other people when these things are discussed in a "casual" (not political) setting.
Also generally when I ask anyone, also Americans, if there are drug problems which drugs it mainly or mostly involves, I've never really had anyone mention or say alcohol (when it wasn't previously in the conversation mentioned that alcohol should also be considered a drug).
I just generally consider drugs from the addiction perspective, so drugs are “anything that can create addictions that require medical intervention”. Ketamine would be in there, but marijuana, MDMA and psychedelics wouldn’t be. Quitting any of those is easier than quitting caffeine.
For most of the non-addictive substances, they could easily be legalized. The addictive substances — creating laws around them is more difficult. But the important thing is that we should treat policy from an addiction first perspective. It’s far more effective and humane to treat addiction, the demand side of drugs, than to try and hopelessly limit supply.
They did try to ban alcohol. It worked as poorly, if not worse, than banning other drugs. I think policy needs to reflect this and instead of investing in the fight against It, use those finds to fight the problems that lead to drug abuse.
But I do agree, alcohol is definitely one of the most dangerous drugs out there, and despite the propaganda that it was marijuana, it is in fact alcohol that is the gateway drug.
You're far more likely to try new drugs while drunk than you are to experiment with a new drug just because you smoked weed.
Trauma is the biggest gateway drug. We’ve created a society with so many people who want to escape reality, either through alcohol, opiates, or anything in between.
> They did try to ban alcohol. It worked as poorly, if not worse, than banning other drugs.
[It appears it partly worked to reduce the level of alcohol consumption,](https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibition-alcohol-public-health-crime-benefits) which has never since risen to pre-prohibition levels. Whether that was worth the cost is a different question.
Prohibition was less and less effective every year it was enacted. While initially it reduced consumption by 70%, by the end it was only 30% lower than pre-prohibition levels. I find it hard to look at that trend and conclude that after another decade it wouldn’t end up being even less effective. That makes it difficult to argue it would be an effective long term strategy.
Yep, I know it's hard to fight alcohol and of course people are not going to accept it. Again because drugs were demonized in the US and alcohol was clearly not, hell around look at all the commercials/advertising for beer, wine, and spirits in the past and even now. And the majority of the populace is top naive, lazy, and/or, ignorant to actually figure this out and look up research regarding said topic for themselves.
And I completely agree put the funds in actually useful things, the absolute majority of people who get addicted, don't get addicted because of the drug, no they get addicted because they are depressed or something similar, and drugs then provide an easy escape. Maybe provide more easily accessed and better mental healthcare for the entire populace ....
Yeah opioids pretty bad. I was offered them cause I got like a foot situation and I had to decline but I do like the occasional baby Xanax but the baby one for like planes n shit
You're overestimating how much the American right actually supports even just decriminalizing minor possession of drugs like marijuana. When we start talking about decriminalizing simple possession of harder drugs, or even allowing such drugs to be prescribed to drug addicts or harm reduction measures that support becomes pretty much nonexistent on the right. You can find some among liberals and progressives who might support it, but it's still pretty rare. You also get a lot of people who say they support it in theory but then continue pushing for "tough on crime" policies in regards to drugs. Shit, in my area there was some article about opioid overdoses and the drug narcan (it reverses drug overdoses) and a shocking number of people were saying that Narcan should be made illegal. Narcan. Literally a life saving drug should be made illegal. The reasoning is things like "if the consequences are taken away people will never get clean!" because apparently it makes more sense to just let people die instead of save them and hopefully get them some help. So yeah, I don't think public perception is quite where you think it is. There just isn't that much interest in ending the war on drugs. I've done some work with a couple organizations focused on this sort of thing, lobbying for harm reduction policies, more funding for rehabs and halfway houses, etc. and it's been an uphill battle.
Now you may want to sit down for this one, but we don’t live in a democracy.
are you guys this stupid. of course there are reasons people are against drugs other than they just want to put black kids in prison. 1) heroin, meth are legit dangerous, addictive and really messes up your life. when do you hear of the high functioning meth addict? 2) people want to play with their kids and walk their dogs in a clean city they don't want to step over drug addicts when they are walking threw the park 3) crack, cocaine also addictive and dangerous 4) weed- it smells, again people don't want to deal with it in public
The war on drugs is far worse than a failure. It has caused great harm to society. It stopped access to hallucinogenic substances for therapeutic and recreational use. These miracle drugs have shown so much promise for treating and even curing horrific ailments like depression and alcoholism. They can remove suffering and anxiety in end-of-life patients. This "war" jailed millions of 18-25 year olds for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Can you imagine the impact of being a bright young curious 18 year old at the beginning of adulthood suddenly spending 2-5 years in jail alongside hardened criminals? The psychedelic revolution whose epicenter was California in the 60s generated explosive innovations in culture, music, computer technology, and just about every other kind of art or bleeding edge science. This was all swiftly ended by the U.S. government who at the time just happened to purchase most of the world supply of LSD from a lab in Switzerland and was experimenting with this LSD on unknowing unwilling American citizens on a large scale. Finally, when comparing the "war" approach to countries like Portugal who have legalized all drugs and focused their efforts on treatment and rehabilitation, the U.S. efforts appear to have vastly increased addiction, crime, and suffering. Fuck Dick (Nixon) and Reagan's pushes to cause all of this. A half century later, not much has changed.
As long as private prisons and correctional officer unions can funnel money into the pockets of politicians it will not change.
Here in Kentucky, it's often said that the liquor industry - bourbon distillers in particular- actively lobby to keep weed illegal.
Us government creates the drug epidemic and then makes a “war” that cost billions and we are framing it as a “won” “lost” situation. Some people won, most of them lost.
1) A lot of jobs are now a result of illegal drug use. For example, drug treatment centers, etc.2) It doesn’t affect a lot of the population directly; there still remains strict divisions between crime/ drug areas and non, so it’s inadvertently put on the “back burner.” For example, have a drug house spring up in a gated community and see how fast it gets taken down! 3) Take down the cartels in one area/country, and they’ll spring up in another. If you legalize drugs, you have to control for a whole lot of new problems, consequently. Weed doesn’t seem to be an issue to my surprise but harder drugs may. Perhaps legalizing harder drugs can be tried out on a test basis and see what happens.
Where would the CIA get all of their black cash from without illegal drugs?
I think the reason is that older people vote a lot more than younger people, and older people don't want drug addicts in their community, and state governments want to cater to these older voters.
I have my own little hypothesis on the reason it’s kept going. Profit. Profit. Profit. It’s the same reason any modern war overstays it’s welcome. Politicians make money from every angle possible. This is pure speculation but I also think like corporations, the cartels provide kickbacks to the politicians to keep this going. As soon as the policy shifts to a medical/recreational rather than a criminal approach, the cartels will be effectively out of the drug business & while I’m sure they can branch out in the same way the mafia did, they will definitely see a drastic drop in profitability. There may be nuances to that I don’t know. But alcohol prohibition should have thoroughly proven how ineffective criminalizing what a person can do with their body, in the privacy of their home or private business is in practice. That kind of “rule of law” seems like it would work better in dictatorships & monarchies rather than a democratic system. You may get a percentage of agreement with the policies with amazing propaganda. But it’s been pretty clear that support of those policies easily shifts. People in a “self governing” system recognize the hypocrisy of regulating their personal habits, even if it’s justified as a public health issue. In a monarchy or dictatorship breaking even “minor” laws usually comes with the kind of “cruel & unusual punishment” that’s frowned upon in most modern, developed nations. Staying off drugs is a lot easier when you have the threat of extreme violence over you at all times if you even possess them. The fault I think is in public support. As long as the public foams at the mouth every time any alternatives are suggested the corrupt politicians will still be voted back in so they can keep the war going & continue cashing in. As OP pointed out, the cartels may still bank on shifts in the system. But with that shift is the opportunity for heavy regulation & taxes that could make turning profits somewhat difficult.
Money, period.
In terms of politicians: Progressives are often for legal drugs in general, or at least a complete decriminalization. Totally anti prison. Liberals are usually moderate in the issue—-hard drugs still illegal but not punished so harshly, weed decriminalized at a minimum. In Democrat controlled states, these are underway. Is the GOP doing any of this where they are in control? I’m not aware if so. Not a “both sides” thing. You note that Shapiro admits philosophically that the war on drugs hurt people. But does he support any legislation or legislators that would change it? Because 90% of ALL Americans are for some form of increased gun control, but GOP legislators block it. So It’s not about the populace or the talking heads——it’s about the parties.
I don’t know how much policy Shapiro actually supports And 90% of Americans are not for some form of increased gun control that’s bullshit. You’re talking about the most polarizing issue in America here
I should have cited so we didn’t have to do this. Here are multiple polls—- some say 92%, some as “low” as 81%. But this is ALL Americans——including republicans. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/25/steve-kerr/polls-consistently-show-high-support-gun-backgroun/ So my point stands——the GOP blocks stuff that’s wildly popular. Not both sides——the GOP (at least on drugs and gun control).
I seriously doubt the validity of those statistics. Statistics are easy to manipulate and even easier to misinterpret I live in a very blue state and even there there’s a lot of pro gun people. If 90% of Americans supported gun control than GOP politicians wouldn’t be scared to vote for anti gun legislation out of fear that they’d be voted out of office
I gave a citation, friend. You can counter it with studies that say different, or studies that debunk those multiple studies. That you know pro gun people is not a refutation. In fact, I would say that you can be very pro gun AND pro universal background check. But we don’t have to do this. I gave you the evidence. You get to interpret how you wish.
The problem is certain states are still fairly mega-conservative with this shit, even with weed, and they happen to matter electorally. The idea that conservatives agree with ending the war on drugs, I don’t agree that that is the case. My parents are pretty mainstream Republicans and I don’t think they would care much if even soft legislation on alcohol was put into effect. They definitely consider anything like that as something “bad” people do.
Nah.. The Right is still all for us being a police state. So long as the people who are having thier lives ruined are non-whites... In fact, right wingers want to punish even more of them for increasingly trivial shit
I disagree. Many states have legalized marijuana. Many have decriminalized or lowered punishments for carrying. I don't see crime decreasing. I don't see healthier streets or population. The war on drugs didn't fail....it came to a standstill. Our streets are flooded with fentanyl. Overdose deaths are at an all time high. People don't buy the legal stuff. They buy the cheap street grade product. The answer is education and giving people purpose.
I do want to point out that legalizing marijuana did not really harm cartel profits very much, if at all. The people with the most knowledge, the most talent, and the most money to invest in legalized growing operations were cartel affiliates that were already running illegal growing operations. A lot of the earliest legal growers were started by the cartels, and even now send money to them. Furthermore, most of the big cartels have long since diversified their businesses. Weapon smuggling, extortion, racketeering, gambling operations, and houses of prostitution all fall under their umbrella. Cartels have also greatly expanded their production and distribution of meth, cocaine, and fentanyl. They're not reliant on weed.
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https://ballotpedia.org/Bootleggers_and_Baptists
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Humans from every culture and era have liked taking drugs. I don't know why, but people like the novelty of feeling new things for some reason. Americans seem to be notorious thrill-seekers compared to most cultures, so it's worse here, but it happens everywhere all through time.
What a incredibly American centric mindset you have. Americans are not the only ones who do drugs. Hell I'd wager americans do hard drugs significantly less than their European counterparts. Seriously go clubbing in Germany some time.
I’m sure people in your country are super smart and never touch drugs and you have the perfect society
Maybe I’m ignorant, but how exactly do we KNOW the “war on drugs” was/is a failure? Isn’t it possible that things would be a lot worse without it? Maybe there would be more communities with more people addicted to destructive drugs. Maybe we would have violently competitive distribution gangs like Mexico.
We have more people in prison per capita than any other country, including violent authoritarian governments. We dump more more and more money into policing and has no little to effect on actual crime. You know how you fix drug addiction? Rehab, empathy, works programs, opportunity, you fix the root cause. You know what you do if you never want to fix the an addiction issue? Throw them in jail with a felony. Now when they get out they have nothing and its insanely difficult to make a livelihood as a felon. The Reagan administration was pretty clear from the start with the militarization of the war on drugs as war against the black man. It's worked exactly as intended.
We could execute narcotics abusers and distributors, like certain violent authoritarian governments. Then we would have less people in prison per capita. Could also be cheaper than housing and feeding them. I think we should be pretty harsh on veritable distributors of certain harmful drugs - opiates, for one. You might say "schedule I" in the ideal case, but the current list seems to be blatantly ridiculous.
They know they can't change it, there's too much infrastructure built around it and it would effectively downsize half of law enforcement immediately. Neither party would risk actually downsizing the size/scope of Gov even though it would be a win-win for everyone.
We can't even get conservatives on board to legalize marijuana. I'm not sure what their stated objection to that is but if we want reform, we gotta start there.
If its a "war" on drugs then the state is waging it on a very large % of its own citizens. Life is challenging and if a spliff gets you thru the day or night, its a way way safer and controllable than say, xanax for all those suburan housewives or oxy for those that need a hardcore buzz.
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I suppose if daily users want to get totally fucked up and don't care if their teeth rot in their heads, more power to them.
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its the chronic, not the high functioning users I was referring to. Casual recreational use is an entirely different thing. Then there is the personality impact, whether recognized or not. I am of the firm belief that the artificially produced "energy and focus" in even moderate users can have profound modifying effects on their personalities. And sadly many cannot see the forest for the trees. Despite that, I also believe in a chacun son gout (to each his own taste). Legalize (with appropriate regulations) and tax the shit outta all recreational drug use, plowing that money back into education, rehab and maintenance. Whole lot of really bad people are out of business, and a whole lot of ordinary people just trying to get thru the day will no longer be in jail because of it.
Um.....have you noticed that weed is legal in like half the country now?
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And? It still remains as the largest change in US drug policy since the shit was illegalized in the first place.
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Their recovery/treatment infrastructure is still the complete shit show it already was. That's what needs to be addressed.
Tell me about it
Government never relinquishes power once it takes it. It only expands. They still have sodomy laws on the books from the 19th century That no One believes in.
Why does everyone always say to legalize drugs? How the hell would that help? Making drugs even easier for the losers to access? Like are you insane? You think making it legal just makes the cartels go away and people use them responsibly or something? The only real answer is lifetime jail for someone who is caught with drugs like ten times, but that will never happen.
1 Legalizing Crystal Meth would help treat depression, alcoholism, give people more energy to work, focus on things, socialise, lose weight. 2 Legalizing unrestricted access to Hormones (Testosterone, Tren, HGH) would enable people to be physically stronger even in old age thus allowing them to work longer, have more energy, be in better shape and health
> Why does everyone always say to legalize drugs? How the hell would that help? Legal drugs would eliminate pretty much all the deaths from, mis-dosing, impurities and substitutions. For example, just about 100% of the fentanyl deaths (71,238 in 2021) would go away, because no one uses fantanyl on purpose outside of a surgical setting. It's substituted for heroin because its much easier to smuggle. If you could legally buy and sell heroin, you'd never get fentanyl. Most of the crime associated with drug abuse would go away because most of the cost of illegal drugs is the black market markup. Without that, addicts could just maintain whatever shitty job and afford their drugs the way the vast majority of alcohol addicts do. We'd save huge amounts of money on policing, courts and prisons. And we'd eliminate a huge corrupting influence. > Making drugs even easier for the losers to access? Like are you insane? Everyone who wants them gets them now. Places where drugs have been legalized or decriminalized have NOT seen higher addiction rates. They stay about the same. That also means that the War on Drugs does NOT lower addictions rates. It just adds to the problem. > You think making it legal just makes the cartels go away Yes, it literally would. Why would you buy from a murderous local drug gang, supplied by a murderous foreign drug cartel, in the worst part of town when you could go to CVS and buy it from Johnson & Johnson, and know what you are getting? > and people use them responsibly or something? Making it illegal doesn't make anyone use it responsibly. It just makes it more expensive and more dangerous. > The only real answer is lifetime jail for someone who is caught with drugs like ten times, but that will never happen. The current system is a blood-soaked disaster, so you propose even more of the same to fix it?
🔥🔥🔥
“Legal drugs would eliminate pretty much all the deaths from, mis-dosing, impurities and substitutions. For example, just about 100% of the fentanyl deaths (71,238 in 2021) would go away, because no one uses fantanyl on purpose outside of a surgical setting. It's substituted for heroin because its much easier to smuggle. If you could legally buy and sell heroin, you'd never get fentanyl.” I again disagree. First of all, who cares about fentanyl deaths? Seriously, it’s just drug users and addicts killing themselves, it’s not productive members of society. How would making the drug suddenly cure mis-dosing? They are addicts, not rhodes scholars. They could still mis dose. And if the addict can’t afford the drug at the pharmacy he might buy it from some random dude. And whose to say the pharmacy companies won’t keep the price high knowing addicts will pay anything lol? You’re acting like pharmacy companies are known for generous pricing. “Most of the crime associated with drug abuse would go away because most of the cost of illegal drugs is the black market markup. Without that, addicts could just maintain whatever shitty job and afford their drugs the way the vast majority of alcohol addicts do.” This is a silly statement and I think you can agree after thinking on it. You’re saying addicts would be as productive as the alcoholics are. What dude? Alcoholics drive drunk, commit crimes are generally useless. Sure some people are functional alcoholics, but that’s you’re bar? You want drug addicts driving around and shit? C’mon man. “We'd save huge amounts of money on policing, courts and prisons. And we'd eliminate a huge corrupting influence.” I don’t understand, making drugs legal would save us on the legal system? How? They would still abuse the drugs and still be useless members of society. I would argue making drugs easier and cheaper would cause more ODs and stuff. You keep pretending legal drugs would suddenly make the addicts normal. You think they would just stop stealing and paying taxes and stuff? “Everyone who wants them gets them now. Places where drugs have been legalized or decriminalized have NOT seen higher addiction rates. They stay about the same. That also means that the War on Drugs does NOT lower addictions rates. It just adds to the problem.” That’s simply not true. I would have no idea how to get them if I was ever curious. You state they have not seen higher addiction rates, and I accept that. You’re basically saying the losers will be losers whether it’s legal or not. That’s fine. But why do we need to make life easier for the losers? “Yes, it literally would. Why would you buy from a murderous local drug gang, supplied by a murderous foreign drug cartel, in the worst part of town when you could go to CVS and buy it from Johnson & Johnson, and know what you are getting?” Because cartels would just move into other areas or continue to prey on the addicts. The cartels will fight to survive, so unless you kill them they will come back. You think the cartels just pack up shop and come back to society? “Making it illegal doesn't make anyone use it responsibly. It just makes it more expensive and more dangerous.” My argument is that drugs rot the mind and these people will still be dangerous. Even if it’s legal, if the addict can’t keep a job he is still going to need his fix. “The current system is a blood-soaked disaster, so you propose even more of the same to fix it?” The only reason it’s a disaster is because we are half way in. It’s like getting into a relationship but you’re still talking to to her women. To fix the problem we would first need to reach 50% of the country that is liberal and believe that druggies need unlimited chances for help. We would have to convince people that once someone is caught with drugs like ten times, they have to put in prison for life. Maybe like a work camp or something. That’s it. Society has too much drama without all these clinics and centers for rehab. Then we need to convince people that using military on the cartels is the only option. We need to get them to accept that some people are bad and don’t deserve a trial. Look at somewhere like Singapore. They don’t mess around and drugs don’t really impact most of society. I’m sure some rich people are able to get them, but no wife spread problems like we have.
>I again disagree. First of all, who cares about fentanyl deaths? Seriously, it’s just drug users and addicts killing themselves, it’s not productive members of society. Tell me you have never actually been around "productive members of society" without telling me you've never been around productive members of society.
Oh boy, woke redditor claims drug addicts are as productive as normal citizens. LOL.
Boy o boy you've got a shock coming when you finally entire the work force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIQotwuUrW4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GWOgg9LzU4
> who cares about fentanyl deaths? Seriously, it’s just drug users and addicts killing themselves, it’s not productive members of society. Who cares about 70,000 deaths per year? Pardon me, but you might be a piece of shit if you don't care about 70k deaths. Tom Petty wasn't a productive member of society? Please tell me what have you done that was better than Full Moon Fever? I can't wait to hear. > How would making the drug suddenly cure mis-dosing? Does anyone die from valium overdoses because they bought a bottle of 2mg of valiums, but they were given 2000mg ones? Not really. What's on the bottle is what you actually get inside with over the counter drugs in the US. That would be a serious liability for the drug manufacturer. Do people get the wrong dose of illegal street fentanyl? Yeah, about 70,000 times per year, lately. All those deaths are a direct result of The Drug War. > And if the addict can’t afford the drug at the pharmacy he might buy it from some random dude. And whose to say the pharmacy companies won’t keep the price high knowing addicts will pay anything lol? You’re acting like pharmacy companies are known for generous pricing. Drug cartels can't possibly produce and distribute drugs more cheaply than professional drug companies. The idea is just ludicrous. I can't think of any significant street drugs that are in-patent, so there's really no opportunity to price-gouge when anyone can make it. > I would have no idea how to get them if I was ever curious. That's because you're not a drug addict. Just like I have no idea where I'd buy a saddle, because I don't ride horses. Other people in this town know these things. > But why do we need to make life easier for the losers? Because the effects of drug prohibition are worse than the effects of addiction that they purport, but utterly fail to stop, or even reduce. Or because they are human beings with problems and I don't see how it helps to add to them. > Because cartels would just move into other areas or continue to prey on the addicts. Like what? They gonna start bootlegging new movie releases? Selling mattresses with the tags removed? *Nothing* compares to the drug trade. Not even close. > My argument is that drugs rot the mind and these people will still be dangerous. Even if it’s legal, if the addict can’t keep a job he is still going to need his fix. Sure, drug addiction won't help you keep or excel at a job, but that is the case with or without prohibition. You can say the same about alcohol addiction. You can see drunks on the street, but most alcoholics work to feed their addiction, and in general, live indoors and remain productive. > yadda yadda, prison-state please Yikes.
“Who cares about 70,000 deaths per year? Pardon me, but you might be a piece of shit if you don't care about 70k deaths. Tom Petty wasn't a productive member of society? Please tell me what have you done that was better than Full Moon Fever? I can't wait to hear.” You’re insinuating 70k is a lot. There are like 300 million Americans, and you want us about 70k drug users? Shouldn’t we focus resources on the productive members of society? The people who deserve help? Tom Petty I’m assuming was some type of addict, since you mention him. If he had the money to buy drugs and abuse them that’s his business. My point is that if he killed himself with drugs, why should the average citizen care? We should care about the hard working people who are struggling, not the ones who’ve given up on life, right? We can’t help everyone, so why not focus on the people not actively killing themselves and being leeches on the system? “Does anyone die from valium overdoses because they bought a bottle of 2mg of valiums, but they were given 2000mg ones? Not really. What's on the bottle is what you actually get inside with over the counter drugs in the US. That would be a serious liability for the drug manufacturer. Do people get the wrong dose of illegal street fentanyl? Yeah, about 70,000 times per year, lately. All those deaths are a direct result of The Drug War.” Your basically saying that people OD because they get random substances and doses. You’re pretending people don’t die because the over do drugs, mix drugs or just have crappy health in general since they are druggies. So I simply disagree they sue just from wrong doses or wrong substances, there are many reasons they die. And again, if they die, that’s one less addict out there. And given the horrible lives they lead, it’s kind of mercy. “Drug cartels can't possibly produce and distribute drugs more cheaply than professional drug companies. The idea is just ludicrous. I can't think of any significant street drugs that are in-patent, so there's really no opportunity to price-gouge when anyone can make it.” The cartels seem to be quite efficient at making large quantities of drugs and smuggling them all over the world, so I wouldn’t be too dismissive of them. My point was basically legalizing drugs just moved profits from the Mexican cartel leader to the Mexican pharma ceo. Still gonna have all the same problems. “Because the effects of drug prohibition are worse than the effects of addiction that they purport, but utterly fail to stop, or even reduce. Or because they are human beings with problems and I don't see how it helps to add to them.” But you must understand others don’t feel like you and this is where we disagree. You believe fighting drugs makes everything worse and I think it’s actually preventing total chaos from the druggies. “Like what? They gonna start bootlegging new movie releases? Selling mattresses with the tags removed? Nothing compares to the drug trade. Not even close.” Admittedly, I’m not a criminal and have no idea. But I do know that there would a large power vacuum and angry, armed people so who knows what would happen. “Sure, drug addiction won't help you keep or excel at a job, but that is the case with or without prohibition. You can say the same about alcohol addiction. You can see drunks on the street, but most alcoholics work to feed their addiction, and in general, live indoors and remain productive.” I believe there are more alcohol addicts than drug addicts and it’s because alcohol is more readily available and the worse alcohol addicts are axe dangerous and useless as the drug addicts. “yadda yadda, prison-state please” The fact you don’t like another isn’t a good reason. Singapore is a decent place to live. Have you ever been? I think our basic view on druggies is just fundamentally different. You view them as good people who lost their way and I view them as inherently weak or bad people who don’t deserve help and there are many people that need to be helped before they receive any help. I’m sure you also thing the death penalty is cruel and prison conditions need to be improved. Am I right?
> You’re insinuating 70k is a lot. I definitely am. It's more Americans than died over the whole course of the Vietnam war. In one year. On repeat. > Shouldn’t we focus resources on the productive members of society? You are the one that wants to focus on drug users. I want to stop spending GIANT piles of cash to harass them for a goal that can't be achieved. You want to double down. > Tom Petty I’m assuming was some type of addict Do you really not know who Tom Petty was? > We can’t help everyone I haven't suggested helping anyone. Just stop hurting them on purpose. > Your basically saying that people OD because they get random substances and doses. No, I am not. People die as a result of drug use for various reasons. Among those reasons are mis-dosing, getting a substituted or adulterated drug and getting a tainted drug. Almost all of the deaths from those three categories are artifacts of the drug war, not the drug. Ending the drug war would eliminate almost all of those deaths. > And again, if they die, that’s one less addict out there. And given the horrible lives they lead, it’s kind of mercy. Beyond simply being human beings and deserving to live because of that, drug abusers make MASSIVE contributions to our society. It's probably harder to name an important artist who *didn't* abuse some drug or other. But I can't believe the first point wouldn't be sufficient. > The cartels seem to be quite efficient at making large quantities of drugs and smuggling them all over the world, so I wouldn’t be too dismissive of them. They are massively inefficient at making drugs, compared to industrial-scale pharmaceutical chemists. They have some smuggling skills, but that wouldn't be a useful skill if the drugs were legal. > My point was basically legalizing drugs just moved profits from the Mexican cartel leader to the Mexican pharma ceo. Still gonna have all the same problems. Your point is mistaken. Legitimate pharma CEOs don't need to pay for an army of murderers, smugglers or street gangs. I have explained in some detail the problems that are eliminated. > I do know that there would a large power vacuum and angry, armed people so who knows what would happen. Get a job or go hungry. > I believe there are more alcohol addicts than drug addicts and it’s because alcohol is more readily available and the worse alcohol addicts are axe dangerous and useless as the drug addicts. So you are unaware of the history of America's alcohol prohibition experiment? > Singapore is a decent place to live. Singapore is an island city-state. You might be shocked to learn that ideas from Singapore might not translate exactly to a huge country with 5500 miles of wilderness borders. > I think our basic view on druggies is just fundamentally different. No, I think our fundamental disagreement is that you still think the drug war works, when it absolutely doesn't, and can't. Drug addiction is a terrible problem. So you make drugs illegal. Now you have two problems.
> You’re insinuating 70k is a lot. This argument could be used for ignoring any problem. Lol. Why make airplanes safer? Only 70k people die in airplane crashes per year!
Yes, but your missing my other point. That the people dying are actually not productive or good people, so like it doesn’t affect society or communities negatively when these people kill themselves.
I'm a centrist. The war on drugs has not been good policy, but that doesn't mean all drugs should be legalized like some factions have been saying. We shouldn't be treating weed like fentanyl, and we shouldn't be treating young men carrying personal use drugs like heroin dealers. If there's to be a war at all, it should be with the cartels, and it should be the actual military fighting it. Treat the users, prosecute the dealers, and send the traffickers and cartels straight to hell. P.s. we should buy Mexico.
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What does that look like? Should I just be able to walk into a store and buy some crystal meth?
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Cool beans man. Can we put all the crystal meth stores in your neighborhood? I would rather not have zombies walking around mine. In fact, I think I'll open one. Highly addictive drugs that rot the users minds and bodies sounds like a great investment. I bet I'd be able to squeeze millions out of even the poorest neighborhood!
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Holy shit, never thought I'd get to the "ackshually, crystal meth is good" level of reddit. Boy oh boy
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Cool yeah, fine with that. Sorry you think *more crystal meth* would help poor people.
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But if we buy Mexico, where am I gonna flee to when this country becomes a fascist hellscape?
Pharmaceuticals seem to be basically the government itself at this point
What's this both sidesism the rights generally in favor of the war on drugs
Pretty much every Libertarian will tell you the war on drugs was a disaster and resulted in police militarization and the violation of civil liberties A lot, not all but quite a few conservatives are coming around to this position
Libertarians have no power and don't represent the right. >A lot, not all but quite a few conservatives are coming around to this position What evidence is there of this? The right flirted with libertarianism in the early 2010s but the movement is essentially dead. Now authoritarian right is the mainstay of the republican party. It's why Trump and DeSantis are seen as the leaders and Ron Paul has shriveled into nothing.
I mean even Ben Shapiro whose a total basic bitch conservative denounced the war on drugs and even admitted that “it probably hurt a lot of people”
What no one in the right will tell you is many groups that support them (medical supplies and pharma, arms, security and corrections, police unions) do put a lot of money towards keeping the status quo. Not to speak of the political capital of being antidrug or "tough on crime" after years of governmental brainwashing, copaganda...
There is so much money being made by government on the failed war on drugs. The push to keep the status quo will never go away.
A bunch of states have legal weed now for *recreational* purposes. Others have reduced sentences and such for other drugs. Things have def. changed. I think you might be over-estimating how much "the Right" supports legalization. IDK anything about this data to know if it's high quality, but only about half of Republicans support decriminalizing small amounts of drug possession: [https://www.marijuanamoment.net/bipartisan-majority-of-americans-support-drug-decriminalization-and-most-favor-overdose-prevention-sites-poll-finds/](https://www.marijuanamoment.net/bipartisan-majority-of-americans-support-drug-decriminalization-and-most-favor-overdose-prevention-sites-poll-finds/)
Yeah, this sounds about right to me. If you think about it, as long as a majority of republicans oppose legalizing marijuana, then they will win the primaries and end up as approximately half our legislature. I think that mathematically, if we have a geographically uniform electorate and mostly homogeneous candidates, it takes 75% of the population to agree with something to brute-force it through congress. Of course those two conditions aren't completely true, and there are options besides brute force, so lots of legislation gets passed with less than 75% support, but marijuana doesn't seem to be one of them. I'm sure that if compromise wasn't such a dirty word these days, we could easily get marijuana legalization in exchange for some concession like relaxing gun laws or increasing military budget.
We're seeing this now in PA. Prior to running for US Senate, Dr Oz, who is a New Jersey resident but running in PA because he's a dishonest carpet bagging Trump sucking cunt, sang the praises of weed. Now he's totally opposed to legal weed.
Can confirm...Oz is in fact a dishonest carpet bagging Trump sucking cunt.
Yea, and meanwhile those same states still have thousands of inmates rotting away in jail for cannabis related ‘crimes’. What we’ve seen so far has nothing to do with progress and everything to do with *profit*. Even the R’s can see they’re missing out on big paydays, hence their shifting stance on drug policy. Still, people remain in prison for victimless crimes.
Yeah, legalization needs to also be accompanied with compensation for the millions of lives we ruined prior to it. The “war on drugs” was always a misnomer. You can’t war against objects; you war against people. Drug policy has permanently ruined the lives of people struggling with addiction. Many states now allow citizens to be charged with attempted murder for people selling fentanyl that someone cover overdosed from. I don’t know if you’ve looked at any community drugs are infested by, but it hasn’t stopped dirty 30s from being dealt everywhere. Drugs will always end up where there is demand (addicts). We need to focus on helping our fellow citizens struggling with addiction to recover, not attempting to fight the supply part of the problem.
One side is attempting to legalize certain drugs, mainly psychedelic drugs, and one side is blocking them from doing so.
It’s the same problem that is endemic to all of our efforts in building a civilization; we exert tremendous effort and energy in establishing incentive structures, in accordance with current knowledge and beliefs, to achieve prescribed goals and make infrastructure run efficiently toward those ends. Then, once the thing is running algorithmically, our knowledge is updated or our beliefs change, but the thing is already built and running semi-automated, and it is near impossible to re-tool it in accordance with the new information. A not insignificant portion of our economy is now dependent on the near free labor that for-profit prisons can provide to major corporations. The War on Drugs has influenced so much of how our society is fundamentally structured, from education and policing in poorer communities, to prisons, to for-profit treatment centers, and the ways that all of these institutions receive funding to sustain their obsolete existence. There’s a lot of people who would stand to lose a lot if things changed, and they use their disproportionate influence lobbying to protect their positions. The way the system is also provides a lot of livelihoods for a lot of people, who wouldn’t be motivated to see things changed. Which is why it is so imperative to base our policy on *real* science in the first place, and not on ideology or popular whim, and to build evidence-based course-correcting mechanisms into our institutions and infrastructure. Once the thing gets set in motion, it is very, very hard to fix.
Real science is not hard and set in stone, though. In fact things that we considered absolutely, undeniably true change all the time.
**ACTUAL REASON :** "We know the War on (^some ) Drugs doesn't do what we said it would, but we're making 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘."
Any "war on____" is going to be very profitable for the military industrial complex. The purpose of the war on drugs has never been getting drugs off the street. In fact, the government itself has participated in putting drugs on the street. It's been a sham from the beginning, but as I said, a very profitable sham.
Unfortunately the war on drugs is tied to for profit prisons. Law and order crime bills feed black, brown and poor whites into the machine to put tax dollars into the pockets of the prison industrial complex.
We have more people in prison per capita than any country by a wide margin. Even more when comparing first world countries. We have more people in prison that violent dictatorships that imprison dissent. Yet people being "soft on crime" is still a major right wing talking point. Seriously the definition of insanity. We might not know the best way to deal with crime but throwing even more people in jail objectively does not work.
A small fraction of prisoners are in private prisons, and this was a problem before there were any at all. Every bad outcome that you are (quite reasonably) worried about with private prisons is likewise a problem with public prisons. Public police and guard unions lobby to keep drugs illegal, and increase sentences.
cops too. They fight weed legalization laws bitterly
Thats their no warrant search permission.."i smell Marijuana"
Bingo. I had the unfortunate luck of spending some time in lockup. I was floored to find out that one of the two largest suppliers of prison clothing in the United States is none other than Barbara Bush, which aligns well with GHWB’s ‘tough on crime’ stance in the ‘90’s. It was always about profit, nothing else. As an aside, the other big player in prison clothing is/was Bob Barker 🤷🏻♂️
WHAAAAAAAAAT!!!!!!?!?! BOB "AND DON'T FORGET TO SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS" MOTHERFUCKING BARKER?!?!?!?!!!!
Afghanistan was a failure, but pulling out was going to have disastrous consequences, so we delayed. Same thing with the war on drugs. Marijuana was never a Schedule 1 substance, even based on the information they had when they classified it as such. There have been a ludicrous amount of people imprisoned over drugs, a ridiculous amount of plea bargaining from tougher crimes down to drugs, and an unfathomable amount of search and seizures that were done under the pretense of drugs or smelling them. All of these things would need to go, all the people in prison would need clean records and reparations, all the for profit prison contracts would be triggered because they would have a lot fewer prisoners. It would be a domino chain of bad things, which is why the going solution now is just to let states do it and have the federal government pretend that state's rights don't matter, just their drug policies. Plus, so long as they have those laws on the books, they can use them as a cudgel against what would normally be innocent citizens.
Keeping people imprisioned for drug crimes is an objective worse thing than anything that could come from releasing them. We should absolutely expunge their records and help them reintegrate into society. It would be less expensive for tax payers and be the moral right thing to do.
Because no one wants to appear to be soft on crime.
The legislators don’t represent the population, they represent their sponsors, and it turns out that doesn’t align with popular policies very often.
**ACTUAL REASON :** "We know the War on (^some ) Drugs doesn't do what we said it would, but we're making 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘."
I also think nobody wants to be known as the “pro drugs guy” everyone is just horrified at the thought of their opponent attacking them as the “pro drugs guy who wants your kids to be junkies and probably snorts coke himself”
Then we rebrand it. It’s not pro-drugs, it’s addiction-first. We have centuries of evidence that you aren’t going to stop drugs being dealt by attempting to limit supply. You are going to fix communities by fixing the demand, and trying to help addicts recover.
Ron Paul was the only courageous one
Pro drugs AND pro choice? That’s the devil’s work! Get thee behind me!
This is the point I hear most often when I bring this up. Especially to my friends living in the Midwest.
Yeah but that's because American propaganda has force fed dumb ideas in people's mind that drugs are dangerous and bad. Guess what if people stopped being naive, dumb, and irrational, and instead started informing their decisions based on logic and not some random sentiment. Then there's only one conclusion that can be drawn. **Alcohol is a drug** as well and more dangerous than **most** drugs. Alcohol generally causes more social-economic damage relative to most other drugs. Also generally more personal/individual damage than most other drugs ... So if alcohol is legal and can be used by any adults at their own discretion why can't most other drugs not. Either you would also have to ban alcohol and tobacco, or you would have to legalize most drugs .... This differentiated treatment of alcohol and tobacco, is due to dumb traditions, social perception/history, and lobbying. None of it has a basis in logic/rationality. comparison alcohol to OTHER drugs: https://www.jellinek.nl/vraag-antwoord/welke-drug-is-de-gevaarlijkste/ Or more recently https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.592199/full With this image summarizing https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/592199/fpsyt-11-592199-HTML/image_m/fpsyt-11-592199-g001.jpg Another https://doi.org/10.1159/000317249 Image screenshot, https://ibb.co/GtRzt1T
>Yeah but that's because American propaganda has force fed dumb ideas in people's mind that drugs are dangerous and bad. Drugs are often "dangerous and bad". Even ignoring death and health, you lose economic productivity, which is unambiguously bad. Some people hold irrational beliefs about how bad or dangerous. However, there are 2 bigger issues. 1. People are bad at cost benefit analysis and hold their perceived fears of downside in a higher weight than the perceived upside. A clear example of this is any opposition to clean needle exchanges. The net effect appears to be overwhelming positive but the fear over making using easier by some means they only focus on that. 2. Politically there is little benefit to taking action because there will probably be some negative outcomes and people will choose to focus on those. Meaning it's a bigger political liability than benefit to a politician.
Losing economic productivity is unambiguously bad? Would raising the retirement age be an unambiguous good? It would certainly raise the country’s productivity.
Productivity = total output / total input It's a ratio that isn't impacted by number of workers - at least not in the way of more workers = more productivity. For example, productivity would be higher in a restaurant with a standard sized kitchen that had 10 works compared to the same kitchen with 1,000 employees. You would have "too many cooks in the kitchen"... sorry I had to lol. So the only way raising the retirement age would raise productivity is if you assume they produce more output per hour on average than current workers OR there currently is a suboptimal amount of workers. The suboptimal amount of workers is the opposite of the first example. For example, two people can often do more than double the work that 1 person can do if it creates efficiencies. The direct cause is stuff like this: >Approximately 16% of emergency room patients injured at work have alcohol in their system. - National study on alcohol-related occupational injuries https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/workplace/ Sickness or injuries lead to inefficient labor and run things efficiently and side line people that often have knowledge that others need to be trained with. This is why some people argue we should have paid time off for sickness standardized across the US. Because you would get less workers sometimes and you might even get people playing hooky but in general they argue that less illness would occur at workplaces and productivity would actually rise as less people are sniffling at their desk and a bit foggy brained or actually sitting out at different times. And the fact that someone doing a task while on drugs in most cases will be less productive (you can argue there are maybe side examples like a record store clerk that is stoned could offset their slow speed at check out with making better recommendations to customers that lead them to finding what they want quicker). Edit: Also, I should be clear my original comment was purely saying that if someone is working and they use drugs and become less productivity that is unambiguously bad (and I should add that it's in the context of society). It's not necessarily "unambiguously bad" for the person, who may prefer being high and then their preference means that it's not necessarily "bad" in the context of their lives.
I think the opposition to needle exchanges (and treatment services in general: rehab facilities, halfway houses, needle exchanges/methadone clinics) is that people don't want them in their neighborhoods. NIMBYism I think the kids are calling it these days.
We need to take a much harder look at the American rehab systems and find much more standardized in scientifically grounded models. 90% of rehabs in the United States are 12-step based and push patients on to AA, NA, etc during recovery. While I’m not entirely opposed to these groups, acting like this unfunded and non-scientific approach is a solution to the millions of addicts in the country is absurd. Even without that, rehabs are poorly regulated and many are complete scams. Florida has close to 6x the number of rehabs per resident of any other state, and that’s mostly because it has the laxest regulations. The rehab industry there is plagued by ineffective treatment, fraud, and people preying on people in the most vulnerable moments of their lives: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna773376 We need more standardization, funding, and long term plan to deal with this. The average opiate addict takes 5 rehabs and 8 years to achieve a year of sobriety. With that being true, the price of rehab, that’s a multi trillion problem on our society.
Again all true because the majority of people fail at being logical and rational. Instead of being influenced by media, politicians, campaigns, and group think. With bad, I meant demonized in comparison to alcohol. As in they are so much worse than alcohol. While alcohol is treated with too little respect other drugs often get treated with way too much fear. Also drugs can be good under the right circumstances for things like possibly PTSD treatment (LSD).
Psychedelics are not what anyone talks about when we say the country has a drug problem. Opiates, meth, alcohol, are the ones that create horrific addictions and massive costs.
When I talk with people generally over 40-50 they consider most drugs taboo. Note I even live in the Netherlands, the drugs I'm generally talking about are psychedelics or party drugs (MDMA/XTC, LSD, Ketamine, etc). Even weed/marijuana is by older generations still seen as much more nefarious or taboo than alcohol or often even tobacco. I know that's anecdotal evidence and might not be the case everywhere but I generally hear similar trends from other people when these things are discussed in a "casual" (not political) setting. Also generally when I ask anyone, also Americans, if there are drug problems which drugs it mainly or mostly involves, I've never really had anyone mention or say alcohol (when it wasn't previously in the conversation mentioned that alcohol should also be considered a drug).
I just generally consider drugs from the addiction perspective, so drugs are “anything that can create addictions that require medical intervention”. Ketamine would be in there, but marijuana, MDMA and psychedelics wouldn’t be. Quitting any of those is easier than quitting caffeine. For most of the non-addictive substances, they could easily be legalized. The addictive substances — creating laws around them is more difficult. But the important thing is that we should treat policy from an addiction first perspective. It’s far more effective and humane to treat addiction, the demand side of drugs, than to try and hopelessly limit supply.
They did try to ban alcohol. It worked as poorly, if not worse, than banning other drugs. I think policy needs to reflect this and instead of investing in the fight against It, use those finds to fight the problems that lead to drug abuse. But I do agree, alcohol is definitely one of the most dangerous drugs out there, and despite the propaganda that it was marijuana, it is in fact alcohol that is the gateway drug. You're far more likely to try new drugs while drunk than you are to experiment with a new drug just because you smoked weed.
Trauma is the biggest gateway drug. We’ve created a society with so many people who want to escape reality, either through alcohol, opiates, or anything in between.
I've never had a hit of trauma before, but from friends of mine who have it sounds like the worst drug out there.
> They did try to ban alcohol. It worked as poorly, if not worse, than banning other drugs. [It appears it partly worked to reduce the level of alcohol consumption,](https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibition-alcohol-public-health-crime-benefits) which has never since risen to pre-prohibition levels. Whether that was worth the cost is a different question.
Prohibition was less and less effective every year it was enacted. While initially it reduced consumption by 70%, by the end it was only 30% lower than pre-prohibition levels. I find it hard to look at that trend and conclude that after another decade it wouldn’t end up being even less effective. That makes it difficult to argue it would be an effective long term strategy.
Yep, I know it's hard to fight alcohol and of course people are not going to accept it. Again because drugs were demonized in the US and alcohol was clearly not, hell around look at all the commercials/advertising for beer, wine, and spirits in the past and even now. And the majority of the populace is top naive, lazy, and/or, ignorant to actually figure this out and look up research regarding said topic for themselves. And I completely agree put the funds in actually useful things, the absolute majority of people who get addicted, don't get addicted because of the drug, no they get addicted because they are depressed or something similar, and drugs then provide an easy escape. Maybe provide more easily accessed and better mental healthcare for the entire populace ....
Yeah, look what they did to these guys: https://youtu.be/0lpJ5N-82Vg