The Problem With The War On Drugs

[Crazed Rabbit]

Welll....unless you smoked / used some homegrown American drugs, you did just that. Then you really did work to destabilise Colombian, Mexican, Central Asian societies, did fund terrorism.

Such is the depravity of the War on Drugs. It creates its own enemies, makes itself complicit in, even the cause of, the crimes and destruction it seeks to combat.


Light a joint and you do kill a Mexican.

No.

The ones who brought it to that are the people and politicians who deemed themselves the masters of others and demanded drugs be made illegal. Those same people who insisted violence be used on harmless people, that agents of the government hunt consensual drug users down and use deadly force if necessary to make them stop, those are the ones responsible.

Those people are who started this war, and the blood is on their hands.

CR

[ReluctantSamurai]

It still leaves the matter of responsibility and culpability.

And who is going to determine either/both of those factors? In these modern times, one can hardly use any commercial product, whether food, drug, fuel, or any other commodity, without being "responsible" for harm or death to come to some living thing, human or otherwise.

[Beirut]

And who is going to determine either/both of those factors? In these modern times, one can hardly use any commercial product, whether food, drug, fuel, or any other commodity, without being "responsible" for harm or death to come to some living thing, human or otherwise.

Exactly!

Eating a chocolate bar no more makes one a murderer of Africans any more than smoking a joint makes one a murderer of Mexicans.

If an African guy or a Mexican guy is going to cut off the head of his fellow man for some cocoa or pot profits, odds are he would cut someone's head off for pretty much any reason at all. The point is that the guy killing his fellow man is a scumbag, and it is 100% his own fault that his picked up the knife/gun/club and killed the guy next to him with it.

[HopAlongBunny]

The "War on Drugs" is a farce.

The politicos unleash the force of the state on users; basically a never-ending supply of victims. The users of course are rarely drawn from the "professional" or wealthy sectors (they might get "rehab" if they are ever even tagged) It's a mask, allowing the state to trample rights and funnel money to their friends imho.

It pours money into an exercise in futility, and away from anything that might possibly remedy the situation.

[rory_20_uk]

More than that - the war on druge helps inflate the profit in the whole supply chain. If cannabis was grown in massive fields there would be as much reason to grow cannabis oneself as there is to grow tomatoes - people do it, but there's little if any money to be made in it.

If labs were making tonnes of the synthetics the margins would be a barrier of entry for many others. It would cost too much to set up the supply chain.

If one really wanted to "win" the war on drugs, first step would be to legalise them, and on the same day to flood the market with the stuff from lisenced channels. Get one's coke from Wall Mart or some white substance from an odd chap in the corner of a bad neighbourhood? Tough call...

[Ronin]

The "War on Drugs" is a farce.

The politicos unleash the force of the state on users; basically a never-ending supply of victims. The users of course are rarely drawn from the "professional" or wealthy sectors (they might get "rehab" if they are ever even tagged) It's a mask, allowing the state to trample rights and funnel money to their friends imho.

It pours money into an exercise in futility, and away from anything that might possibly remedy the situation.

to quote the tv show 'The Wire'

"This isn't a war. Wars end"

[ICantSpellDawg]

Modern drug laws are completely insane. Current laws trample all over everyones rights and make a mockery of what this country represents. Lately, Ive been hearing instances of police physically assaulting people outside of their homes for smoking weed. As dumb and pointless as weed is, any police officer who thinks he has the right to assault someone for smoking leaves should be thrown into the stockade. The older I get, the more absurd I see our legal system as being. We need to radically overhaul this pig. Guns in the hands of everyone and only laws that protect the lives and direct property of others should have any place in modern society. Set fire to red tape everywhere.

[Shibumi]

First of all, drugs have been a part of our society for as long as history and archeology goes back. One train of history actually claim drugs is the very reason we got civilized at all! It was the basis of why we left the hunter/gathering society, and formed communities. Oh, and this is not some small toker school of historical thought, this is more or less mainstream in historical circles these days.

With this said, is drugs good? Nope, hence we call it drugs.

As this is an international board, I use the term drugs for such things as alcohol too (in many countries alcohol is banned but marijuana is not - for the same reasons as we ban it the other way around, one being considered more dangerous).

Studies has shown that a very large amount of people to recreational drugs in their younger years, but stop when they get older and more settled. I would say that more people than not use recreational drugs without it affecting their work, social contacts and so on.

We thus have to make a difference between drug use and drug abuse.

Drug abuse is mainly due to other factors, HoreTore got into them. If you are poor and without dreams of a better future, it is an easy escape route from everyday life. Some take to World of Warcraft, some have a spliff, some do meth.

I was picked by the police for having a spliff in my younger years.

At the time, I did a pretty good job building up a company (that I later sold for quite a good win). I was on the board of two other companies, all doing well. I got together with the girl I have now, building up a functional relationship. The weed I smoked was grown by a friend of mine, on his yard.

Now Vuk goes on to say I should serve the rest of my life in jail, possibly get shot. What was my crime? Can anyone point out what I did wrong?

We already have laws dictating what people can and can not do. If someone does something stupid while being high he should get the same punishment as people unaffected by drugs.

But to take away drugs for recreational use - way?

I imagine Vuk has this image of drug user equals some black guy in the hood with shaky hands and a pistol.

The effects drug usually have on me is that I play Super Mario Kart with some friends, over eat chocolate and fall asleep early. So shoot me.

[HopAlongBunny]

Hurray for Canada!

Listening to some random politico from the Conservative Party today (don't recall name); they seek to remove the problem of drug abuse by removing access.

We are about to officially join the USA in a pointless exercise of violence against our own population.
Where ye lead we shall surely follow /sigh

[Scienter]

One key element of legalization is that you both effectively eliminate the criminal component (since you make it unprofitable for them). If anyone who wanted could grow a Cannibis plant in their backyard, do you think drug dealers could make anything selling it?

Another is that you remove a lot of the very dangerous elements from drug use - dirty needles, drugs being misrepresented, being pushed harder drugs without knowing (A lot of different things are sold as ecstacy...).

Anyway, to quote Princess Leia, . To be honest, it is true. Study after study has shown that treatment and regulation work better than the authoritarian hard-line punishment approach.

But I know this post is 99.9% likely to be a waste of time and energy, but what the heck, maybe someone in here has an open mind.

I agree with your post.

I think that legalization + treatment is a good option. Alcohol is a drug, too. People can use it responsibly or not. There are laws in place to punish people who abuse alcohol and hurt other people as a result (DUI, etc.). Why not treat other drugs the same way? Mostly I'm in favor of legalizing marijuana first and then seeing what happens. I know that heroin is physically addictive and I don't know what kind of burden a legalization + treatment program would put on the gov't.

Yes, the black market will still exist. But I think for some drugs (marijuana, for example), people would be more willing to buy it at a store than from a drug dealer and I think that taking business away from drug dealers is a good thing.

Legalize it, tax the out of it, and slap a health warning on it like we do with alcohol and cigarettes. Make the penalties for driving while high the same as driving while drunk. In other words, treat it like the drug that is already legal.