Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue and turning it into a crime and punishment issue.
I highly recommend anyone curious about the history of the war on drugs, and the major problems it has created, watch "The House I Live In" -- arguably one of the best documentaries I have ever seen -
Other features of the last 40 years, besides the drug war, include the virtual disappearance of urban rioting and the erasure of youth/minority political militancy.
I believe this is not a coincidence.
Arbitrary search and seizure, checkpoints, mass detention are common features of military counterinsurgency. They are also features of the drug war.
I'm not saying the drug war is consciously aimed at youth and minority citizens the way similar tactics were aimed at Communist guerrillas in the Malaya emergency, or Sunni insurgents in Iraq. But I am saying that the effect is about the same.
That's why it's probably a mistake to lean on rational utilitarian arguments against the drug war. The unspoken selling point is its unacknowledged side effects. Sure there are costs, but no more Watts, no more Black Panthers. The calculus of harm reduction is weak against dots that are never connected out loud.
Wait, last 40 years? What makes that your metric? Marijuana was outlawed in 1937, heroin in 1925. And the Black Panthers were in part a reaction against hamfisted selective enforcement of dumb laws - including drug laws - by the powers-that-be.
You don't think drug laws were zealously enforced during Prohibition in the 1920s? Or during the 1950s? I'm just not seeing it. There have been moral panics over drugs leading to ludicrous overreach (at various levels of government) on quite a regular basis since well before "Reefer Madness". It didn't start with "crack babies" and "glue sniffing" - claims that the latest new drug (whatever it is) is different and more addictive and more dangerous than any prior drugs and this makes users extra dangerous to deal with which justifies using extra force or even shooting people with higher caliber weaponry, goes back at least a century.
No, I don't, not to the extent they are now. We didn't send people to jail for life for simple possession of anything, and we didn't have a fucking "Drug Czar" either.
Drug prohibition is old. But the militarized quasi-Schmittian state organs devoted to enforcement them, and their attendant juridical pretexts, are of a more recent vintage.
Just want to chime in and recommend two great documentaries I recently saw regarding inner-city housing in the seventies. It's not hard to imagine the war on drugs stemming from the same racism which caused white flight.
Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue
It's never been a public health issue for its major proponents. The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex.
Or people who have seen family or friends suffer in ways that are easily attributed to heavy drug use and would genuinely like to reduce the occurrence of that. And to fight what they see as a force that damages the social fabric.
The point here isn't to argue whether drugs have this affect, or are a symptom rather than a cause, or to argue if the War On Drugs has much success in fighting it.
The point is that this genuinely is the motivation for a lot of people supporting it. Even if you believe they're wrong to do so, you'd be wrong to say that's not why they do.
This is the motivation of the people, but alone it could not bring on the wave of atrocities we now are witnessing as the war on drugs. The feelings of these people, while understandable, is just being used to support the worst set of policy decisions in US history since the Prohibition, and are used to expand government, militarize the law enforcement and curtail civil rights. In fact, it's much worse than the original Prohibition - at least there it collapsed after mere 13 years. The drug war is in its fifth decade now, and it's getting worse all the time. The feelings of these people are understandable, but they need also to understand what monster they are creating and supporting.
Fortunately the war on drugs situation is getting better, not worse. That momentum shifted several years ago in fact.
Incarceration rates are falling now. Legalization has gained a massive amount of momentum, obviously including the first two states, and the Feds are increasingly not willing to step in and interrupt that progress (including Holder recently telling the DEA chief to get in line with the new direction).
The rest of the world is going to relatively rapidly legalize many forms of drug use as well, with the US taking its boot of their throat on the issue. That will make it that much harder for the US to ever fall backwards and regain traction with the global war on drugs concept the government had been using.
That said, the militarization of police will likely continue regardless of the war on drugs ending. I view that as the next great issue to begin focusing on after several more states have legalized pot.
Also, mandatory minimum sentencing has completely lost steam. There is a lot of momentum toward rolling that back, and I think that momentum will continue. It's a failed approach, and a wide spectrum of people increasingly recognize that in my opinion. It will probably go out the window with the war on drugs. It'll be a huge victory if so.
You can support mandatory minimum sentencing without supporting drug prohibition. I think that preventing sentencing based on affinity is almost as important for minority groups as ending sending people to jail for drugs.
But mandatory minimums just raise the stakes of prosecutors choosing among overlapping potential charges based on affinity, and remove the ability of courts to compensate for that. So they do the opposite of preventing sentencing based on affinity,by changing the point of the process in which affinity applies to dictate sentencing.
Taking common sense and judicial discretion out completely is not the best way to achieve equality. It is the socialist way, if I can make the analogy - fighting inequality by making everybody equally poor (or, in this case, equally oppressed by insane sentences for minor crimes). Making policy changes that prevent anybody from getting insane punishments for minor crimes seems much better alternative to me.
The problem is that while specific substances can be added to the approved list, the effects of the war and policies introduced by it still remain - be it militant police, trained to treat the population as an enemy to be subjugated, not served and protected, or financial controls, or expansion of surveillance, or the whole civil forfeiture scandal. True, some of these are getting press attention, but so far not much has changed there yet.
I don't think the 'war on drugs' which happens in all sorts of countries, not just the US, is indicative or racism and corruption or police militarization or a prison system. Japan is very homogenous and they have very strict drug enforcement. Same goes for other Asian nations as well as European nations --many of the countries are quite homogenous compared to the US and yet they have strong policies. I think this would indicate that it's more a political issue. In China there is also an anti-imperial reason aspect, but I'd not say their policies are due to what you have described.
> I don't think the 'war on drugs' which happens in all sorts of countries, not just the US, is indicative or racism and corruption or police militarization or a prison system.
The War on Drugs that happens in many countries is, in fact, a result of that; specifically, its a result of (1) the War on Drugs in the US being a direct result of those things, and (2) the War on Drugs implemented in many other countries being a direct outgrowth of the exportation of the US War on Drugs through US foreign policy. (Ironically, this is true even of international treaties that foreign governments are now accusing the US of violating due to marijuana legalization efforts in some states.)
While true for a lot of countries, this not true for China, which have probably stricter drug policies (with the exception of maybe alcohol). China would not let itself be dictated by US policies.
Well, yeah, there are a number of countries that have their own parallels to some or all aspects of the US motivations for the war on drugs -- particularly as part of a broader militaristic centralization of authority, the racism involved in the US war on drugs is a less-common motivation -- and don't need to be pressured by the US. There's also religious authoritarianism in, e.g., the Islamic world, though that often overlaps with militaristic centralization.
My point was that a lot of the countries where there may not be direct domestic parallels to the US motivations still have a War on Drugs as a product of the same motivations because they do so as a result of US pressure.
Right. And what you end up seeing is that all disparate cultures, religions, non-religions, have concluded that they need to control drugs, in order to control the people. When Opium was unleashed China it just allowed the British to control the people.
Drugs are illegal in Europe, but Europe does not have war on drugs rhetoric nor such high incarcerations rates nor such high punishments for small amounts of marijuana nor stop and frisk policies nor cops militarized to the same degree.
In the UK police have powers of stop and search which are very wide ranging. Small, personal amounts of cannabis possession are sometimes overlooked or given a 'caution' (which still goes on your record) but its completely up to the cop's discretion. No surprise, figures out last month showed black people are rarely given a caution compared to white. Cannabis is the same class (B) as mephedrone and speed and more restricted than class C ketamine.
Few European countries have police as militarized or jails as full as yours, but many of them eat up the same war on drugs rhetoric.
"In China there is also an anti-imperial reason aspect, but I'd not say their policies are due to what you have described."
This is a reference to a period in Chinese history when the entire nation suffered from a crippling opium addiction. The opium was introduced by the British, in an effort to address trade imbalances.
I think it's a mistake to be completely cynical about the motivations for the war on drugs. A lot of the lobby groups that now seek to perpetuate it were in fact created by it (e.g. the prison lobby). The problem is that it was a kneejerk reactiom to a real problem (addiction) that simply had massive unintended consequences, including the creation of cynical interest groups.
I think that when arguing for drug liberalization one should acknowledge the validity of the concerns of those who have heartfelt support for drug laws. The point isn't that addiction isn't a problem, it's that criminalization doesn't fix it.
For now, I think the right course of action is to a) decriminalize and dismantle the system, and b) until that happens, don't do drugs at all. It's a corrupt system that you just don't want to be caught up in, ever.
(The most appalling thing to me is the lack of compassion shown to real drug addicts. It's like, "Aha! Your life is a horrible shithole now, but we're gonna make it worse. That'll learn you.")
Why is this being down-voted? Prohibition of drugs was a natural extension of prohibition of alcohol, which itself was borne of the Temperance Movement, a movement steeped in religion from the very beginning.
Some folks feel like the war on drugs infringes upon their freedom of religion. There have been some exceptions made [1], but the general populace is prohibited from using substances that have been used entheogenically for thousands of years[2][3].
It's a shame that our founding fathers didn't explicitly spell out a right to the dictate the contents/state of your own mind. Perhaps it is implicit in the other rights: what good is freedom of speech and religion if I'm not allowed to enter a contemplative state of mind in which I could have significant insights about my life and spirituality?
In the case of religion, you're confusing a transparent and rarely-invoked justification with the actual reasons for the WoD. In the case of politics, you're confusing the mechanism for prohibition with the actual reasons.
I disagree - when it comes to drug policy, politicians always pontificate about enforcing bans & leaving them in place, which in the US originate strongly with Protestantism & believing that austerity is the solution to various vices seen in society. The Prohibition era is a perfect example of that, and that attitude has never left US politics, which is fraught with religion driving political agenda.
Religion can and does drive political agendas in the U.S., true, but the question is whether the WoDPUD (war on some politically unpopular drugs) is being driven primarily by religion.
I know of no evidence for that proposition, and can offer counterexamples. One would be the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, made up of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish clergy, which supports drug law reform:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interfaith_Drug_Policy_Initiati...
You're correct that historically, "anti-vice" austerity linked to Protestantism was a powerful force in American society. But the Prohibition era began nearly a century ago, and society may have changed in one or two teeny tiny ways since then. Like the 1960s? Plus the easy availability of Internet porn should give the lie to the concept that "anti-vice" religious mores are dominant. :)
You're correct in that it's not as dominant now, and has been slowly losing its power over time, but its strength is still present, especially due in no small part to the Bible belt. Even alcohol is tightly regulated still in various parts of the country.
Congressmen still show a reluctance to reverse already existing laws regulating drugs - it's easier to get them to pass new laws than reverse existing ones unless the existing ones are truly broken.
Absolutely. That is, you're correct that congresscritters (the preferred politically correct gender-neutral term!) "show a reluctance to reverse already existing laws regulating drugs." But that's adequately explained by non-religious theories of political action, including wanting to appear tough on crime and memories of the Willie Horton attack ad.
I live near Zurich, which in the Nineties had a lot of issues with public drug use. For example, all bathrooms in public places and major department stores had blue lights instead of normal lights because you can't see the veins in your arm so it's hard to shoot up. There was also a serious crime element as addicts were robbing people to get money to buy drugs. Now, you can get them for free at clinics. With their new policies, the addicts are no longer nearly as visible and the related crime seems to be practically gone. The blue lights in the bathrooms are gone, needle park is gone and it's generally a very nice city to live in.
I always take issue with the idea that enforcement does not lower usage, and especially the insinuation that it raises it. Each drug has its own usage dynamics. So if we're talking about say OxyContin or Methamphetamine, I think we can be certain that enforcement suppresses a significant portion of usage. The perfect case in point is Florida, where there are loopholes to circumvent enforcement on OxyContin. Predictably, there is a very high OxyContin
addiction rate there.
Sure, in the abstract (whatever good that does), some amount of enforcement almost necessarily impacts some drug trade, pretty much by definition.
But in the practical sense, for relevant real-world drugs and populations, I don't think there's any evidence that enforcement has ever had one iota of effect. People switch drugs, switch suppliers, switch habits, switch methods of consumption etc. etc. Not to mention that some drugs are legal (mostly, such as alcohol and nicotine, or partly such as various medicines), so even if "drugs" are less-consumed, the legal variant might still be just as nasty which renders the enforcement pointless despite "success". And even if overall consumption were to drop, you still might find that drug harm has not - some methods of consumption are more dangerous than others.
Given the absurd level of long-term investment there's been, you'd expect some evidence of meaningful success. Where is it?
Florida isn't an abstract place, it's located in the southern United States. Contrast it with other states that enforce OxyContin better.
I believe you are confused about enforcement of sale vs use, and the specifics of any policy beyond the buzzword "drug war", which is typical of this debate.
Measured how? Overall harm is what we're interested in, not usage and not necessarily crime related to a specific drug.
In any case, I don't want to suggest that the alternative is some kind of anarchic free-for-all - so enforcement wasn't a well chosen word (sorry!). I mean prohibition specifically, not just any kind of regulation.
If anything, I think existing "legal" drugs like nicotine and especially alcohole could use more regulation, not less.
The saying perfect is the enemy of good pretty much sums up my stance here :-) - don't bother aiming for complete abolition despite the fact that that might be a "perfect" solution if achievable.
Portugal decriminalized possession of all drugs in amounts for personal use. 10 years later drug abuse has gone down, not up. [1]
I think the natural path for anything that is suppressed is to increase after the suppression is lifted, and then slowly decline. I wouldn't be surprised if drug legalization would increase drug use right at the beginning, but it certainly didn't have such a long term effect in Portugal -- quite the opposite.
I wouldn't be surprised if drug legalization would increase drug use right at the beginning, but it certainly didn't have such a long term effect in Portugal
It should be noted that we decriminalized them, not legalized them. The results shouldn't be naively extrapolated to an hypothetical legalization.
People need to understand exactly what Portugal has done. "Decriminalization" of use is very different than ceasing enforcement. They stopped sending users to prison, they did not stop enforcement.
You still need to enforce against the people who deal addictive drugs, and Portugal still does.
Also, if you are caught with personal use quantities in Portugal it is usually confiscated and you are obligated to some interactions with the state aimed at treatment.
>"Predictably, there is a very high OxyContin addiction rate there"
Missing the point. There is a very high addiction rate of alcohol, caffeine, porn, and sugar. Addicts are going to be addicted. Society has not yet collapsed despite these legal addictions running rampant. Closing the oxy loophole would lower oxy use. The same people would move on to different substances. What positive has been accomplished? Some of them would spend decades in jail, despite causing no other harm or threat to society. Think big picture. Are you trying to have a civil society or are you trying to end addiction? The only way to end addiction is the extinction of the human race.
If it will be done the same way war on drugs is done, people would be put into jail for mandatory minimum sentences for failing to register their home address with the police and for being on the streets while the curfew is in place. Any "precursor" materials such as warm clothes, tents, hiking boots, survival guides, etc. and hiking would be illegal (a teacher probably would be fired on spot for just suggesting the students to have an outdoors trip). Any outdoors activities which involve staying outside past curfew time will have to be issued a permit from the police, and only people passing special extensive anti-homelessness training would be allowed to possess such permits.
Places where homeless people could find shelter would be destroyed by the police or rendered uninhabitable at huge expense and use of toxic and lethal material (inevitable deaths following that would be dismissed as acceptable collateral damage). Anybody seen helping a homeless person with money or food or anything else would be also subject to arrest and felony conviction. Of course, the police would also involve massive amount of undercover agents to trick people into doing exactly that and later bust them for aiding and abetting the homelessness.
In short, if you want war - it would be a war. And war is not pretty. Especially when the government declares the war on its own citizenry.
perhaps if we (the US) would stop branding all our endeavors with battle phrasing, we'd stop being so apt to do battle.
How about we try to fix homelessness? It's surely a problem, I don't know if it's a battle, adversary, or fight. A struggle, perhaps, but can one call a struggle a war? I don't personally believe so.
1) police to care about this kind of crime enough to come quickly
2) victims to follow through and testify when an arrest is made
3) the public to be willing to commit resources to arrest and incarcerate perpetrators.
It may (or may not) be the case that targeting the behavior is less costly then banning it. Either way, it's not as simple as just banning the immediately-objectionable behavior.
There are also all the people stealing to get their fix, the people exploiting the people stealing to get their fix, etc.
Also, it's already illegal, but sometimes you have to go after the root causes. In this case, the next root cause would be addiction, and yes, I do think drug use should be seen as a medical issue.
People "stealing to get their fix" ought to essentially disappear once getting a fix drops to 1/10th the price (so much less money is required) and once a reliable source is easily obtained (so you don't have to spend any time searching for the next fix or dealing with roller-coaster withdrawal symptoms because you couldn't find it in time).
When drugs are legal, holding down a regular job will be compatible with drug use; people will work regular hours to pay for their habit, pick up their drug at the corner market on the way home, and take the equivalent of cigarette breaks.
When heroin was a branded product of the Bayer corporation, one of the founders of Johns Hopkins was a heroin addict; he took pills. (The chief long-term problem associated with regular heroin use is constipation.)
So, no: people stealing to get their fix is an argument for legalization.
(How many people are today "stealing to get their fix" of beer or cigarettes?)
This assumes they are employable and thereby able to afford it. And by "employable", I mean able to work, not merely able to pass background checks though the two are interrelated (i.e. there are rational business reasons to consider it a negative factor).
I have worked at a place that did not screen out such (a factory, one of the few places, as I understand it, where you could get employed with a record). We're talking about being unable to show up for work or follow simple directions after a week. I can only imagine how they might've behaved in something customer-facing (i.e. flipping burgers).
Now yes, there is the other side of that. There were also a number of folks struggling to fix up their life. These I commend and I helped where I could along that route.
I worked in an office that did perform background checks and wouldn't hire ex-convicts. Curiously, the drug addicts who worked there tended to be highly functional and even successful.
Crap, our anecdotes paint different pictures. Could it be that neither of our samples is representative of "drug users" as a population?
Someone who hid their illegal activities so well must have been a skilled liar. And skilled liars are often highly successful, but this isn't often argued as a good thing...
Some studies have found that illegal drug users earn more than average and are more productive than average. Though in searching for the relevant studies, the first thing I found was this followup:
Quote: "Using various measures of current and lifetime drug use and accounting for alcohol-use comorbidity, the authors find predominantly insignificant relationships (both direct and indirect) between drug use and both wages and absenteeism, regardless of gender."
I'm not sure whether some drugs have the effect of turning users into skilled liars or not, but that does sound like it would be yet another harmful (though logical) side-effect of prohibition.
This logic doesn't work. People steal and rob to buy BMWs, nice clothes and big TVs. You wouldn't outlaw luxurious goods because their lust for them is the root cause of illegal behavior in part of the population.
I really hope that in the next few decades we see a deescalation of the drug war. But I think many people overestimate how far along we are in terms of the general public's attitude.
It was only last year that majority of those polled supported legalizing marijuana: http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports.... At the time of the last dot-com bust (2001), it was 60-40 against legalization. Since actual voters skew older and more conservative, it's totally unsurprising that it has only been in the last few years that legalization efforts have gained traction.
Yet legalization of marijuana is just the first step, and one that's easy to take for middle class voters, whose kids may use marijuana or who may use it themselves. It'll still be a long, uphill battle to convince these voters that it'll be better to disengage from the drug war completely. A lot of the people involved in drug distribution are not sympathetic figures to the general public: uneducated, often minorities, and usually with long criminal records. The idea that disengaging from the drug war will mean "going soft" on these people will be a powerful one.
When this topic of marijuana legalization comes up, it seems like most conservative news agencies ask the loaded question, "Does this mean you're in favor of decriminalizing hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and meth?"
I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer?
So-called hard drugs are ... well ... they ain't health food.
But presumably I'm writing to an audience of utilitarian thinkers, so it should be trivial to load up the arguments onto a balance beam: for, and against.
We have lived through the against side it. We know exactly what those consequences are, for society. Importantly, criminalization does ZERO to limit demand, and thus, supply. Zero. This is demonstrably true. So, now imagine a world where all of those same people who already choose to abuse drugs to the point where it becomes a severe health and social hazard, except those activities are not illegal anymore.
Yes, you still have the dangers of those people acting irrationally, or even rationally, but just anti-socially, in pursuit of their high. But this happens now, already. With the added negatives of the so-called war on drugs (which in reality is a war on the American people, especially black people), just thrown into the mix.
Like so many others have done, I could write at great length (and so could you, dear reader, most likely; many of you) about this subject. It's completely fucked, in a word.
And I live in Colorado, so if you'd like to hear about what's happened after pot was legal, I can tell you: nada. Zip. Nothing bad. Zero. And that won't ever change, either. Yeah, pot's not cocaine, but believe it or not, doing a few lines of blow doesn't turn a normal human being into a psychopath. Or, if it does, that same person would become just as dangerous after a pint of vodka.
One thing I've always wondered: what would street dealers do if they couldn't make money selling crack anymore? I somehow doubt they'd give up and get a job at McDonald's.
Legalizing drugs might therefore lead to an increase in robberies, muggings, kidnappings, sex trafficking, etc as these former dealers need to find new ways to support themselves. Thoughts?
Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol prohibition was dropped? Exactly. There's a sort of twinge of classism (or even racism) in your comment, by the way.
The assumption that people who participate in a normal capitalist marketplace are inherently criminals is just silly. They do what they do because it's a bustling marketplace. Period.
> Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol prohibition was dropped?
"Bootlegging helped lead to the establishment of American organized crime, which persisted long after the repeal of Prohibition. The distribution of liquor was necessarily more complex than other types of criminal activity, and organized gangs eventually arose that could control an entire local chain of bootlegging operations, from concealed distilleries and breweries through storage and transport channels to speakeasies, restaurants, nightclubs, and other retail outlets. These gangs tried to secure and enlarge territories in which they had a monopoly of distribution. Gradually the gangs in different cities began to cooperate with each other, and they extended their methods of organizing beyond bootlegging to the narcotics traffic, gambling rackets, prostitution, labour racketeering, loan-sharking, and extortion. The national American crime syndicate, the Mafia, arose out of the coordinated activities of Italian bootleggers and other gangsters in New York City in the late 1920s and early ’30s."
Well, so some of them moved on to other activities that also shouldn't be criminalized, then. I speak about gambling. Which is de-facto legal now, because of how many Indian casinos there are in so many states. Prostitution? We have a long way to go in decriminalizing this. But slight progress is being made. Just another stupid moralizing law that achieves nothing.
Now as to protection rackets, extortion, etc. These would remain unaffected, most likely.
But can we agree that at least some (perhaps most) of the enterprises they moved into, most of the total crime these criminals are responsible for, are just also yet more normal human activities that should never have been illegal?
Can we also agree that decriminalizing normal human behaviors, while it won't eliminate all crime (that was never a claim I made), it will reduce the total overall amount of crime? How could it not?
It's tautological to say that decriminalizing things reduces crime. It would be more productive to do a cost benefit analysis. Most of the advocacy I've seen is starry-eyed and simply ignores or rejects the idea that the social costs--for example marginally or completely unemployable addicts. There's a fair point that this is true of legal drugs (alcohol) but it's not something we should want to expand (c.f. drunk driving), so it should be advocated according to a reasonable analysis of the trade-offs.
Yes. I am very simply saying that if certain vices (not sure how I even feel about employing that word, actually) were made legal, then by definition many of us would cease being criminals. Sure. It's pretty simple. Seems almost stupidly simple. But I argue that the actual situation we face really is just this simple. These should never have been illegal.
The analysis is being performed in my state right now. Re: legal pot. And the results, although only about 5 months' worth, are overwhelmingly clear: legalizing has zero negative consequences, while also having huge benefits; the benefits being both financial and of course, the big win is for the people, who are no longer being oppressed by counter-productive, society-damaging law.
What if it's not as complicated as we've been led to believe, in other words? Could that be? Could it actually be as simple as legalization? I argue yes, it is.
While I agree that the statement is tautological, it isn't necessarily irrelevant. Consider this. People who are released from prison are significantly more likely to commit another crime landing them back in prison than the average person. On one hand,some might conclude that it simply is because those in prison have some sort of inclination towards that life and simply are an ill fit for the society in which we live.
On the other hand, what if that wasn't really the case, what if it was how desensitized to hatred and violence most prisoners become after a stay in prison. And it was this desensitization combined with the relationships formed in prison, which inherently only could be with other "criminals," that led to an increased propensity to commit a crime?
If that were the case, then decriminalizing things reduces crime, not only by it's tautological implication, but because it reduces the desensitizing effects prison has, leading to the in-and-out cycle experienced by many in the prison system.
I recognize that the world is not 100% like the case I presented, but I would argue the truth lies somewhere in between (like it does in most issues) and that decriminalization or alternative punishments (especially with teens) have potential to significantly reduce crime, by all rights, both in number and it's relative proportion to the hypothetical rate pre-decriminalization.
Yes, I can agree that prison is sub-optimal and I would like to sees more reform. On the other hand, having had a family member violently murdered, I would like to point out that the rest of us should have the right not to have to see certain people free ever again. There are better tools, like being confined to one's house, for the more petty crimes. On that, I think we agree, as we do also on the fact that reducing recidivism is in everyone's best interests.
The biggest problem with prison it seems to me is that it pulls them further away from normal society and changes their social circle to one made of criminals. This then leads to all the other ills, as they experience a daily life of overt racism, violence and apathy. As you say, though, it's not 100%. I once knew a guy who, based on what I know of him, is most aptly described as a drug loser. He (amazingly) stayed out of prison for some years after pulling all sorts of really stupid crimes and bragging of them. He managed to avoid issues by being a skilled liar and there being a lack of solid proof. Also, there was the time he fled from the jurisdiction. In the end, he was turned in by his own parents after he attacked and seriously injured them. So as you say, it's "prison made them worse" is only part of the story and many of them. It's certainly true from what I can see, but it doesn't mean they were anyone you'd want to hang around in the first place. FWIW, that person had a loving home and parents who did everything they could to help him (counselors, doctors, etc.). I believe the doctors mostly resulted in him selling or trading his meds and/or taking them with alcohol...
While I do not want to see people go to prison for minor offenses, my biggest worry with decriminalization is that it will turn out to be like deinsitutionalization--i.e. they'll end up on the streets causing problems for everyone else with no real support from society. This does not seem like a net benefit for everyone who is not already a criminal.
Add to that the fact that felony conviction (and many drug crimes and other invented crimes are felonies) significantly reduces one's chance to ever find good well-paying employment, while prison comrades would be dangling the possibility of quick earnings under one's nose without the necessity to prove yourself twice as hard as the next guy on every step - and the picture becomes even more slanted towards recidivism.
Having worked with such people in a place where they were employed, being one of the few places in the area that did NOT reject folks for that, I am instead referring to violent or erratic behavior, inability to follow simple instructions, propensity to not show up for work (especially after being paid) as well as the fact that they can endanger others.
I have personally witnessed all of the above except for that violence, which I've only heard bragging of and, eventually, a conviction for. This was a factory environment. It does not take great skill to work there and it pays a very decent wage for unskilled labor and should be within the means of almost anyone capable of being useful.
> Or, you know the, hundreds of thousands incarcerated instead of out in the workforce.
Be careful what you wish for. I only hope you are someday able to work with some of the people I've met.
Instead of accusing people of racism, why I don't you try actually answering the question? "OMG, he said crack rather than meth, therefore racism!" So, what did all the bootleggers do? I don't have any idea, so I'm probably a racist too... I do know alot of them became politicians, so I think the suggestion that they might turn to a different criminal enterprise is entirely on point.
According to Freakonomics, a lot of low-level drug dealers make less than minimum wage. So why do they take those jobs? Can they not find legal employment (ue to lack of opportunities, disqualification due to criminal record, insufficient education, etc. or are they rejecting legal employment for a job that's more exciting, more acceptable among their peers, has a higher maximum vale despite lower expected value, etc?
If they're rejecting legal employment it's entirely plausible they'll move on to a different (probably criminal) enterprise that has similar characteristics.
No they really can't find other work. Drugs are the only option in many areas. Philippe Bourgois's book In Search of Respect is a good read on this. So there will be more issues in areas with no jobs after legalization.
I don't know, what did the low level bootleggers and enforcers do after prohibition ended? If I was one, I'd have moved on to similar work in narcotics and prostitution.
People choose to risk jail time and physical harm to make mediocre money as a street dealer because they have no better options. Most of them don't even have high school diplomas, what else are they going to do? If we don't do anything other than eliminate the black market for drugs their next best option is still going to be some sort of crime.
Sure. But you assume there's a permanent class of criminals whose only interest is crime. The principle interest in the drug game is money. It's a business.
What I'm saying is, there's not a "fixed amount of crime," which you imply; you basically say it's like squeezing a balloon. The amount of air doesn't change, it just gets displaced a little bit.
What we need is a sociologist (or someone who has otherwise done the reading) to come in with studies and numbers. I'm sort of working outward from my reference, Pinker's The Better Angels Of Our Nature, and suggesting that crime, too, overall crime, is dropping. And would drop even more if the laws were written correctly. In other words, there's not a fixed number of criminals, nor a fixed amount of crime.
That's exactly why it's so important to decriminalize (or outright legalize). Because the theory behind criminalization simply doesn't work. It is you who are naive, sir. Please see my other comments above. I explain this. I hope I explain this. What didn't I convey?
Oh, no I'm not naive. You think some Pinker book shows that complete legalization would result in people involved in the drug becoming upstanding members of society. You talk of "criminals" as some kind of theoretical agent.
I can see that were not going to connect here. And I shouldn't have called you naive. I should have said your position is naive.
But is it really such a stretch to expect alignment between swiftly declining rates of violence and declining rates of all anti-social behavior.
Keep in mind, doing drugs, just recreationally doing drugs, minding ones own business IS NOT A CRIME (or shouldn't be) and isn't anti-social (or doesn't have to be, and isn't for most casual users). Think: casual alcohol drinkers. As most are. Are there alcoholics? Of course. But that does nothing to diminish my case. It was never expected that all crime would vanish (or perhaps...you expect that?).
Most gangs are not directly involved in the sale of narcotics, instead they are involved in extortion "taxing" those who are selling drugs in their area. If drugs disappear they will find another black market to tax like gambling, fencing stolen goods or selling weapons. However the difference is they won't make a million dollars per month taxing somebody running an illegal gambling operation unlike jacking cocaine drivers. It will be a much smaller criminal enterprise, they won't be able to afford a small army of thugs to terrorize an entire city like they currently do here now with all their windfall narco profits.
As for non violent street peddlers I imagine they will go into exports, shipping narcotics to countries where it's still illegal. After Marijuana was symbolically decriminalized by police here refusing to arrest people for possession, and the black market was swamped with declining prices, many former dealers and growers instead decided to operate unlicensed tourist operations selling weed travel packages, and running their own storefronts for legal drugs using their profits as street dealers to bootstrap it.
Sure, but even if some number of drug dealers moved on to other crime, would there not necessarily be less crime, overall, if a major aspect of normal human life were to suddenly be decriminalized? In other words, when everything is a crime, we are all criminals. That's my basic position on the war on drugs, and so many other things.
But that is where the violence occurs. That's where the anti-social consequences occur. Are felt most directly. Impose most directly on peoples' lives.
So while it's true those big shots will move (or attempt to move) to other areas (politics springs to mind), decriminalizing would have a major impact on the street level crime. Again the analogy of prohibition. But also, see other countries, where even more legalization (than just pot, which we see here in Colorado now) has already occurred. There are models, and there are successes. I'm not aware of any failures, in fact. Well, except US drug policy, and all policies like it.
"Alcohol destroys more lives than any of those drugs: are you saying we should return to the era of prohibition and mafia violence? Should our children die because people can't be responsible? That doesn't sound like small government or liberty to me."
"Well INSERT_NAME_HERE, by hard drugs, you mean three substances which all are regularly administered as prescription drugs? Cocaine as cocaine hydrochloride, meth as desoxyn, and heroin as diamorphine? So to call them hard drugs is a bit of a misnomer used to unfairly elicit a negative connotation.
While decriminalizing all drugs is a controversial issue, a conversation on shifting the focus from drugs as a criminal act to a conversation on health effects and what we as a society can do to help those who have become dependent on these substances, as opposed to taking the inhumane approach of locking them up and throwing away the key."
It is kind of high schoolish to say "Oh ya, those 'hard drugs' are used by doctors so haha they are not hard drugs." I mean, really that's just kind of ridiculous. It's sort outrageous, people already refer to pain killers as being part of the "hard drug" addiction. It refers to chemically addictive drugs that are also more dangerous than things like marijuana. This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly.
Speaking of use by doctors, you call those "hard drugs" as opposed to marijuana. Marijuana is "schedule I" drug, which means no accepted medical use and no possibility of safe usage even under medical supervision. So it's more dangerous than most of the drugs you call "hard", if you believe the government. I'm not sure though even the government believes itself on that - but this is the sorry state of the matters. If we're talking about "high schoolish", you can't really get much worse than that.
>>> This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly.
Highly addictive substances definitely exist. Barbiturates are highly addictive, so is alcohol, so it tobacco. The humanity learned to live with the latter, and we seem to be able to manage the former without going to full-blown war.
I'd say "it is kind of high schoolish" to change the phrasing of my statement by adding the "Oh ya" and "so haha" making the statement sound silly by word choice, and not actually countering the argument whatsoever.
As a fact, those drugs are used by doctors commonly. And the idea of a drug being considered a "hard drug" is entirely based in opinion and semantics. So your outrage is entirely your opinion, which you have every right in the world to, but it does not make me wrong; it means we view something differently.
If you don't think opioid painkillers should be considered hard drugs, nothing I say can change that, so here is a challenge to you. Get a prescription for oxycontin. Take it everyday for two months then stop. Come back 2 days later and tell me if you still feel that way.
No, I think it is entirely appropriate. What you wrote is this sort of smart aleck sort of response. It's not as if most people are not aware that you can be prescribed drugs very similar to street drugs. I don't think it adds much, it's just typical way of trying up define problems out if existence.
The idea was to highlight the smart aleckness of your response, but my goal clearly failed.
But I'm really not quite sure what you are even trying to argue at this point. The original question posed was how to respond to the comparison of the legalization of marijuana to hard drugs.
> It's not as if most people are not aware that you can be prescribed drugs very similar to street drugs.
I have nothing but anecdotal evidence from real life and online forums, but I very much believe that this is false. Many people know cocaine is used as a prescription drug, few people know desoxyn is meth, and fewer still know about heroin. It is for this reason I made that a point of how to respond, in an attempt to question the distinction between legal and illegal drugs and to persuade the conservative viewers (the hypothetical scenario implied fox news) that there is still a conversation to be had, that the question is not already answered like most would believe.
Most people are unaware that meth is legal and less scheduled than pot, that heroin is used as a painkiller (and was a trademark of Bayer), and that ketamine is only Schedule III and regularly given to children.
Pointing out that what are usually stigmatized as 'hard drugs' are used in medical situations is meaningful, because it puts into question the categorization of a substance as 'hard' versus 'soft' drugs, which is reasonable.
Your characterization of all 'hard drugs' as 'chemically addictive drugs that are more dangerous than things like marijuana' also is at odds with the governmental classification system and the public debate: many people would put things like LSD (no known LD-50 in humans and in no way chemically addictive) in the realm of 'hard drugs', and nobody talks of tobacco as a hard drug (despite it being one of the most addictive drugs available, with a lot of dangers to one's health; certainly 'more dangerous than marijuana' and 'chemically addictive' by every study/classification I've seen), or alcohol as a hard drug (again, chemically addictive and quite bad for your body). People would probably also not classify Adderall (amphetamine salts) as a 'hard drug', despite it having similar effects as meth (methamphetamine salts) and similar symptoms for overdose, addiction, and withdrawal. (I don't know amounts or the like, so I'm not going to claim adderall is 'the same as meth', or 'as safe as meth', but it is in many ways a similar substance. As a side note, the way you take in a drug has a large effect on its half life, and to my understanding, therefore its addictiveness; if I remember the drugs class I sat in on in college, drugs with short half lives tend to be much more addictive than drugs with long half lives. Your classification system becomes even weaker if my memory is correct, as the uptake + half life of /the same or almost the same drug/ will differ depending on if you're snorting it, injecting it, smoking it, etc. When, then, is a drug 'hard' or 'soft'? What sort of addictiveness do you use if you can snort or orally take a drug?)
Classification systems like 'hard' and 'soft' for drugs are not rationally constructed, they exist because of public debate and because of what is and isn't legal. I don't think anyone could argue with your assertion that there are many drugs that are chemically addictive and more dangerous than marijuana: every study I've seen basically puts marijuana as 'not chemically addictive' and 'less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco', for instance. But the "hard drug"/"soft drug" classification is in many ways a red herring and socially constructed, it isn't really based on scientific facts.
(As a side note, alcohol withdrawal is one of the /most dangerous/ drug withdrawals to go through. It can /kill/ you, unlike the withdrawal from many 'hard drugs'.)
Pointing out that categories are used to create a false dichotomy in public discourse is not "playing coy", or a "quibble".
Unless you can show scientific research that firmly differentiates the addictivity and/or health effects of what people would consider hard drugs from what people wouldn't, in some meaningful way, your argument that "hard drugs" is a meaningful category doesn't hold up. You need to be able to make a meaningful distinction between 'hard drugs' and 'soft drugs', which holds up under scrutiny, which hasn't really been done in the public discourse.
As I said before, I don't think anyone is claiming that there are drugs that're more addictive and more harmful than marijuana: it's just that many legal drugs also fall into that category. If you aren't going to consider alcohol a hard drug (which is frankly an incredibly dangerous substance, fairly easy to overdose on, addictive, incredibly bad for almost all of your body, has one of the most dangerous withdrawal profiles, and causes some people to become aggressive, violent or otherwise dangerous), then you're clearly drawing the line somewhere other than where you're claiming to have drawn it.
> I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer?
"Yes" would be my answer.
I would ask the counter question: what is there to gain from criminalization?
Criminalization doesn't lower usage, it makes it harder on addicts (imprisonment retains them in the drug world), it increases the risk of fatality of the drug, and it increases crime, funneling funds from tax payers to criminals.
Every time I hear a story about drug cartels and their unspeakable violence and immense profits, all I can think of is "how can we be so stupid?". We are creating this problem ourselves, and we don't seem to even realize it.
The only argument for criminalization is the irrational one: it's not a good idea to do drugs -- it doesn't solve anything -- therefore we should make it illegal. Once you actually give the issue thought, the conclusion seems completely obvious to me.
>I would ask the counter question: what is there to gain from criminalization?
People ask the "what about hard drugs?" question as if criminalization has solved the problem. It obviously hasn't, and has instead created all of the problems associated with the supply-side (i.e. rampant violence, over-crowded jails, etc.)
The demand-side problem is clearly going to exist. So, in what possible way could it make sense to additionally create such a monstrous supply-side problem that criminalization creates? Worse, the incredible sums of money spent battling this completely manufactured supply-side problem could obviously go towards ameliorating the demand-side effects.
There are a great deal of dangerous things that we don't stop citizens from doing, and some of those things seem entirely unproductive (or counterproductive -- a biological hazard), such as extreme sports.
We need a culture that stops people from doing dangerous drugs through cultural techniques, not through police and courts, and that's what the government did with cigarettes. The government realized that criminalizing cigarettes was probably outside of its power, and instead it waged a campaign against the culture of smoking. It painted cigarette smoking as biologically dirty and smokers as inconsiderate or reckless.
I think that cigarette use is no longer popular not because the police have been jailing cigarette smokers, but because it has become a mildly dirty activity. If you use the law to prohibit things, then people won't develop the oral or cultural methods to tell their kids to avoid certain dangers.
The jury is out and this is a lost cause. Unfortunately it is all about money. This is a massive business. The budget just keeps growing. 2015 drug budget:
Of course they make it nearly impossible to figure out a real number of how much is going contractors but since the DEA is supposed to be about only drugs they had a $2,242M FY13 budget. Total contract actions in FY13: $513,659,660.69.
Largest recipient? A scandal plagued private security contractor. Meanwhile in an effort to curb spending House Republicans cut the syringe program in 2011. Needle sharing is 1/3 of all AIDS cases (354,000). Even if you don't want to change drug policy that is just simply a horrible idea.
Forbes article on the horror that happened in Portugal:
As more State's legalize eventually Washington will need to do something. I have a feeling we will end up with decriminalization which is going to keep the murders, theft and other problems around.
In the meantime Michele Leonhart should be fired, arrested and charged. The NSA running around wild on the Internet is one thing but the DEA using that to build phony cases and investigations is an entirely different animal.
The same thing that would happen to any country or state that decided to stop participating in the war on drugs.
They would be sanctioned and heckled by other city governments.
They may even have their drug enforcement programs carried out by other governments, like when Canada sat back for years while Marc Emery sold Marijuana seeds worldwide.
The DEA basically coughed and the RCMP had Emery arrested on the spot and extradited to the U.S.A. to face charges in a country he was not even a resident of.[0]
I am sure there was a bit more to it than that. The USA probably insinuated some very strong consequences for Canada if they didn't turn him over. But that's entirely speculation.
Marc Emery aka "the prince of pot" remains incarcerated in the U.S.A. to this day.
I live a block away from Emery's store. There's a seed store still there that is doing exactly what Emery was doing (selling pot seeds to Americans) yet they haven't been busted. This is probably because it's owner didn't give a million dollars to NORML in the US to fight prohibition of Marijuana.
Emery also writes a federal prison blog, interesting insight into how foreign prisoners are treated in the US, like the time he spent at D.Ray Fed prison where it's entirely made up of foreigners. No racism/forced segregation based on skin color, no homogeneous gangs of all one ethnicity, they all live together in dorms without any of the problems he saw in other fed prisons like Seatac where some guy threatened him because he was playing dominos with a black inmate and that was "not allowed".
The point about grants brings up what I consider to be one of the Federal government's most pernicious behaviors: micro-managing local government through the use of grants and other funds (see also education and school nutrition).
Excuse my ignorance, but is it legitimate for subordinate entities in a federalist system to simply not fund enforcement of policies they don't agree with? For example, would it be possible to have a vice squad with a budget of 1 dollar, effectively preventing enforcement of drug-related crime?
Yes, it is a legitimate policy choice. In general, FedGov has sharply limited constitutional authority to force the states to carry out its wishes in the case of enforcing federal criminal laws. The precedent that comes to mind is Printz v. US, where SCOTUS struck down a FedGov law requiring that local police check the backgrounds of Americans who wanted to buy a firearm through a licensed dealer.
And obviously in the case of marijuana legalization, states like Colorado are already engaging in quasi-nullification: they're thumbing their nose at FedGov despite a federal law saying that mere possession of pot is a crime.
This is why FedGov tries to tie its mandates on states to funding, like speed limits and drinking ages. Remember Real ID was not a direct mandate on the states but a carrot-and-stick approach to nationalized drivers licenses (or, you could argue, a uniform national ID).
Doesn't this just come down to capitalism? If there is a demand someone will find a way to supply it. We could have the government select the suppliers through law enforcement, weeding out the criminals that can't find a way to evade them, or we could license dealers, tax their profits and use that money for schools, treatment, and whatever else (Colorado).
People who have a physical or mental addiction will find a way to get their high. That's what we've learned from the WoD. It's water dripping on a stone, from both sides, distribution and consumption.
Tax-paying citizens, not making any judgements, should get back their investment on the fail that is the WoD.
The government and the taxpayers could easily make as much money through taxing drug dealers profits as they've ever made getting handouts from the prison and big-pharma lobby.
A: Those cities would develop more obvious/visible crime problems as the drug traffickers fought amoungst themselves unabated. The police forces would take a big hit due to the loss of seizure revenue, which means less overtime and poorer coverage.
I think the "war on drugs" is a joke, but local action isn't going to be very effective, because the locality will bear the brunt of the negative effects.
There's quite a bit of evidence that the exact opposite is true, that violence increases with stronger police enforcement, due to the destabilization of established trafficking lines and the resulting struggle to fill the void.
Here's a study done on the Marijuana trade in Denmark:
The proposal was decriminalizing drug offenses, not murder or assault. It'd arguably be better for those cities if the local police were able to persue crimes which take time to investigate rather than chasing drug possession charges to satisfy quotas and they'd be able to develop a better relationship (i.e. tips) with communities which currently associate the police with unconstitutional intrusions on their daily lives.
they would have to lay off massive amounts of their police forces, which have over the past couple decades come to rely on federal drug war funding for significant portions of their payroll.
Then organized crime would run the streets, as the combative pressure keeping these operations small would removed. Gangs would spring up like weeds, get absorbed into syndicates, and wield large amounts of power over ghettos and other blighted areas without regular sweeps to keep them in line.
I think you are very wrong, and your ironic responses don't apply, because there is a major problem with the approach shown in the article.
The problem is that they are not legalizing drugs, and providing a legal and regulated market that replaces the illegal, criminalized, drug-lords managed and violent market. They are just putting less energy and resources to enforce drug laws.
So, living in Argentina, a country that in the past few years has chosen the very same path, I can tell you that the expected result is not something like Amsterdam, but something like the favelas, in Brazil. Liberated zones, where criminal organizations grow much much more stronger, organized and richer than what you see today. Crime raises, because drug addicts need money to buy drugs from those gangs. Criminals get much more violent. Wars between gangs get much more open to control more land. And the entire society suffers.
You want something like Amsterdam? OK, chasing drug dealers, but provide a legal, cheaper and with better quality market. Offer and demand will make them go away. But without a legal market, stop enforcing drug laws and I can guarantee you, that things can only get much worse.
Usually there is a balance of power dynamic going on. The police know who the drug folks are, and basically let them be to some extent as long as they don't cross the line.
Chicago is a great example of why cops do this. The leadership of a few major gangs was taken out by the police, and the resulting power struggle basically ignited a street war with death counts similar to the war in Afghsnistan.
Well, one could argue that (in the short term) there would be more violence as the current power balance is disrupted and gangs search to expand into other areas to generate their money...
But the whole point is that the money not spent in the war on drugs would then be re-directed to control other criminal activities. I'd rather gangs go into white-collar crime than violent crimes.
The Mafia, Yakuza and the Hong Kong triads have in large measure done away from street crime and moved to more economic-oriented crimes such as buying legitimate companies and fiddling with their accounts to illegally import and sell goods, avoid taxes, peddle in corruption, gambling, ...
I realized the drug war was a farce when I was a teenager watching the evening news with my parents.
They ran a story about arresting a Colombian drug lord and raiding his mansion. Immediately following was a commercial break which featured August Busch talking about some charity his brewery was sponsoring.
And it hit me: one drug lord gets a small army sent after him and another drug lord is allowed to operate openly and even accepted as an upstanding member of the community. What is the difference between the two?
Of course the key difference is: when the drug is legal, it's far more profitable and easier to run above board, even with the burden of taxes and regulations. Why run a complicated network of smugglers and violent enforcers, running the risk of extended jail time, when you can just maintain a distribution network and pay for advertising? I'm sure Pablo Escobar would have gladly given up his thuggish ways in exchange for decent shelf placement in retail establishments and ads featuring "Escobar's Finest Blend. Don't settle for imitations!"
Agree except for the last part. Pablo Escobar brought a different set of skills to the table running his empire than would be required of someone running a legitimate business trafficking in the same goods. With legalization, the Pablo Escobars of the go into the business of stocking store shelves and picking up trash - they do not become CEOs of successful companies. Other people do that instead.
How did you get from "less or no prosecution of drug crimes" to "the police will stop enforcing law entirely, turning the inner city into a Plisskenian hellhole"?
Honestly, I think gangs would lose power as legal outlets took hold, but we'd have more widespread addiction problems and more trouble with jobless addicts stealing for their next fix.
Do you have any examples of where your theory has become reality? Because there are several examples of the opposite happening (e.g. overall less crime in Portugal).
In the case of marijuana legalisation - Big Pharma has spent millions researching and developing drugs for medical conditions that marijuana is able to treat just as effectively.
They make and will continue to make a lot more money keeping things they way they are, rather than letting Ma and Pa Kettle grow their own medicine.
http://www.economist.com/node/13237193 (you might need to Google "The economist failed states and failed policies" to read the article)
Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue and turning it into a crime and punishment issue.
I highly recommend anyone curious about the history of the war on drugs, and the major problems it has created, watch "The House I Live In" -- arguably one of the best documentaries I have ever seen -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125653/