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.
I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer?