How America Lost the War on Drugs

[Lemur]

Sorta like you've been addressing flaws in the article I posted? Oh, wait, you haven't. Have you even read it?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Oh, let us not get all pissy about this.

Bias = as in a predilction for/preference for a given outcome or agenda = is virtually inevitable in any communication

Prejudice = regardless of data I will do/think/act/vote a given way = is the real problem.

So far, one may argue that the article is "biased" -- as are most [all?] but I don't think it fair to assert it as "prejudiced" toward one perspective. A case is made and data put forward in support. The data was not, to all appearances, edited to make evaluation impossible, so.....

[Banquo's Ghost]

Bias = as in a predilction for/preference for a given outcome or agenda = is virtually inevitable in any communication

Prejudice = regardless of data I will do/think/act/vote a given way = is the real problem.

Meh. You're clearly biased against people of prejudice.

[Gregoshi]

Oh, let us not get all pissy about this...

On the bright side, it saves me having to read 2-3 pages of questionable point/counter-point posting before the pissing match begins. This kind of "speed pissing" has got to be a real time saver for the moderators too.

[Papewaio]

Its my fault, I started the bias claim in jest. It did get to the endpoint quicker, it just missed the meat in the sandwich.

We could all do we actually reading the article as it has some very valid ideas concerning the war and drugs. Also with regards to community policing it would seem one of the ways to go forth with the war on terrorism.

Cops can't do much without the trust of people in their communities, who are needed to turn in offenders and serve as witnesses at trial. Being a good cop meant understanding the everyday act of police work not as chasing crooks but as meeting people and making allies.

Also the reason the policy makers are waging the war this way is because they don't want to be seen as soft on drugs. If the community was better informed then they would be happier to be behind something that garners results and that would include treating drug use as a health issue, removing the amount of hardcore users by intervention, saving lives, saving lifestyles and drying up the demand side of the market.

When Everingham's team looked more closely at drug treatment, they found that thirteen percent of hardcore cocaine users who receive help substantially reduced their use or kicked the habit completely. They also found that a larger and larger portion of illegal drugs in the U.S. were being used by a comparatively small group of hardcore addicts. There was, the study concluded, a fundamental imbalance: The crack epidemic was basically a domestic problem, but we had been fighting it more aggressively overseas. "What we began to realize," says Jonathan Caulkins, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studied drug policy for RAND, "was that even if you only get a percentage of this small group of heavy drug users to abstain forever, it's still a really great deal."

Pareto principle stuff (pun intended).