War on Drugs has Failed... and in Other News the Sky is Blue

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I don't know what the solution is, but it isn't what we have now. Coca grow faster than bullets. The weapons industry has made an absolute killing from both sides.

And when, anytime in the last 6 millenia, has the weapons industry not found a way to thrive? The ploughshares folks have had a few rough patches, but Krupps et al seem to do just fine.

[PanzerJaeger]

A couple points - unlike murder and robberies, no one is hurt by the act of someone getting high.

I generally agree that our anti-drug strategy needs serious reform. It only takes a few minutes in Rabbit's thread to see the deadly excesses of the current approach. However, substance abuse, including that involving alcohol, tobacco, or drugs, has tremendous social costs - and those costs should be factored in to any public policy decisions on the subject.

People mock prohibition, but don't seem to understand the mindset behind it. Just because alcohol cannot effectively be banned does not mean that it does not constitute a huge detriment to the public health without offering any substantive benefits. We as a society have just decided that the hundreds of thousands of drunk driving deaths and the billions of dollars in property damage associated with it, the millions of lives lost and the social potential they represent, and the millions of broken families and dysfunctional children of alcohol abuse, are worth the ability to go out on the weekend and get wasted.

Also, I would suggest ending the use of the generic term "drugs" in crafting such future decisions. Individual drugs vary greatly in their effects, and lumping them all together is part of the current flawed public mindset. For example, making marijuana legal, and thus easily attainable, would involve a far different cost/benefit analysis than doing the same for crystal meth.

[phonicsmonkey]

I generally agree that our anti-drug strategy needs serious reform. It only takes a few minutes in Rabbit's thread to see the deadly excesses of the current approach. However, substance abuse, including that involving alcohol, tobacco, or drugs, has tremendous social costs - and those costs should be factored in to any public policy decisions on the subject.

People mock prohibition, but don't seem to understand the mindset behind it. Just because alcohol cannot effectively be banned does not mean that it does not constitute a huge detriment to the public health without offering any substantive benefits. We as a society have just decided that the hundreds of thousands of drunk driving deaths and the billions of dollars in property damage associated with it, the millions of lives lost and the social potential they represented, and the millions of broken families and dysfunctional children of alcohol abuse, are worth the ability to go out on the weekend and get wasted.

Also, I would suggest ending the use of the generic term "drugs" in crafting such future decisions. Individual drugs vary greatly in their effects, and lumping them all together is part of the current flawed public mindset. For example, making marijuana legal, and thus easily attainable, would involve a far different cost/benefit analysis than doing the same for crystal meth.

Hear hear.

[Samurai Waki]

And when, anytime in the last 6 millenia, has the weapons industry not found a way to thrive? The ploughshares folks have had a few rough patches, but Krupps et al seem to do just fine.

One less avenue for major profit, the proliferation of guns is obviously not going to go away; Krupps will still do fine from the profits used to kill brown children from other nefarious reasons.. not Krupps fault, they're just supplying what's demanded.