The Problem With The War On Drugs

[Strike For The South]

See, this is the problem with meddling with language. With too big words, too casually tossed about.

If you call a 'coordinated and intense effort' a 'War' on Drugs, then inevitably it will become thought of in terms of war. Inevitably people will come to understand the project in martial terms. So when it isn't being 'won', the question is perfectly logical and legitimate to ask why the marines aren't send in to shoot drug using college kids.

After all, it is a war, right?


Vuk is right. Vuk is perfectly logical. It is the language of Washington that is wrong. Its projects to steer reality through langauge and terminology are mistaken, are having a debilitating effect on public discourse.


Summat like this, yes.

Sometimes you're too much of a polemicist for your own good.

Let’s go through point by point the mind numbing stupidity and intellectual dishonesty that is the op

I submit to you that perhaps the problem with the War on Drugs is that it is not a real war.

Of course it's not, it's wrapped up in that nice little bow of jingoism to whip up the masses so congress can justify pouring money, men, and material into the same countries we've been screwing with since the Monroe doctrine. The war on drugs consists of mostly slush fund money to old anti communists and slush fund money to those that would further US interests. It is no surprise that the same drug dealers the US wishes to stamp out are the ones that give US backed interests the most problems

Those rebels in the Venezuelan jungle (backed by drug money) have had a much easier go than those in Columbia (backed by drug money)

I WONDER WHY

So yes in that sense it’s not a war, an imperialist venture would be a much more suitable and honest term

If you made taking drugs and selling drugs a treasonous offense (as helping the drug trade enriches our enemies) and mandated the death penalty for anyone who sold drugs, and a 1 shot and you are out deal for anyone taking them (the first time you are caught you get life in prison...the second time death), do you really think that the drug trade would continue in America?

You make the naive, childlike assumption the war is actually about drugs, just like Nam was about the Communism and Iraq was about WMDs. It's amazing the bull excrement people believe when a man in a suit tells them it. I need to invest in more suits apparently. But I will indulge you in the vain hope of changing your mind lest you open your mouth and try to recruit the masses to your untenable, ridiculous position

So the rule of law is just a fad now? We're going back to draconian measures, which of course history have shown time and time again have the opposite of the intended effect. You would have 100 million poor Indians banging on the door of the DF, Caracas, and Sao Paulo by lunch time. I would love to see how you would spin yanqui breaking down doors and shooting anyone who has ever come into contact with drugs. That’ll go over real well

As long as there is money to be made the drugs will continue to flow. Now I'm sure these violent fantasy sound awesome in your head but in the real world violence seldom has the intended effect schoolboys want it to have

If you cooperated with the Mexicans (and other Latin American countries) to send in military forces and torch any opium fields, wipe out meth labs, and kill everyone involved and everyone aiding them (inside the US, and where possible outside), would that not nearly completely stop illegal drug use?

Do you know how armed troops in Mexico would go over? Do you know anything about Mexico? Do you know how many US troops would die? How much bad favor we would curry? How many young Mexicans who would grow up with a poisonous view of the US? How much this would cost? How tenable is destroying everything?

You have no plan based in ethics or logic, just to many nights up at 3 am playing total war

And killing our own citizens for a dime bag? I can tell you were raised with the republic in mind

Maybe we just have not been taking a hard enough line...

No the line we are taking is to hard and it is what creates gangs in the first place. If someone wants to ingest something, that's their business not the states. By forcing it underground you create these problems; we are reaping what we sowed in the 30s.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Sometimes you're too much of a polemicist for your own good.

Let’s go through point by point the mind numbing stupidity and intellectual dishonesty that is the op

Non! There is never too much polemicism!

Rather than mere name-calling, one can ask why people think what they think. How come that in the course of the past ten years America went from overwhelmingly homophobic to overwhelmingly liberal on the issue? Is it because Americans became mind numbing smart and intellectually honest, or because of other mechanisms? In case of the latter, what mechanisms?


If the drugs issue was described in other terminology, say a liberal policy as a source of national pride, then we'd have an entirely different thread here. ('You Euros may not like freedom very much, but we Americans don't like our government telling us which recreational drugs we can and can not use')

[Strike For The South]

Non! There is never too much polemicism!

Rather than mere name-calling, one can ask why people think what they think. How come that in the course of the past ten years America went from overwhelmingly homophobic to overwhelmingly liberal on the issue? Is it because Americans became mind numbing smart and intellectually honest, or because of other mechanisms? In case of the latter, what mechanisms?

meh, gays in America are still fighting a tough fight, I would argue there are bigger issues are at play and those social issues some small interest groups were able to push in the 90s when times are good get pushed to the wayside. Thus making it eaiser for gays

Gay rights are something any sane and mature inividual would agree with

If the drugs issue was described in other terminology, say a liberal policy as a source of national pride, then we'd have an entirely different thread here. ('You Euros may not like freedom very much, but we Americans don't like our government telling us which recreational drugs we can and can not use')

I don't like the government telling me what drugs I can use. I despise even more the "war on drugs"