"The War on Drugs Doesn't Work"

[Xeng He]

So, I've heard this statement before, and though I'm naturally inclined to want legalized drugs (though I myself don't like the idea of taking them, bar hallucinogenics once or twice in life I guess), the broader implications of this statement, and the reasoning behind it, bother me. They imply that laws as a whole do not work, which sort of starts to suggest that politics, or at least a whole branch of it, is pointless.

So, I want to understand the difference between drug laws, and other laws. Why is it that according to some statistics and even officials (more on that here, also here and kind of here) drug use has basically stayed the same overall despite greater enforcement, even though many say trafficking has gone up in places like the Netherlands since prostitution was made legal, and even though on a simple mechanical level, arresting someone for using drugs should lower the number on account of the fact that a buyer was removed from the market.

I have a few thoughts on all this, many of them relating to demand, and the ability to create new demand. If the demand for drugs so vastly outstrips their supply that removing one person from the market simply shortens the line for other people in the market, the net number of users will remain the same. In a slightly less hopeless scenario, if the demand doesn't currently outstrip supply like that, but the dealer has the ability to generate new demand for relatively low costs, this might be functionally equivalent to the first scenario. Meanwhile, there is no serious wait list for murders--if you want to kill someone that badly, you just go do it. As far as prostitution goes, if we believe that trafficking has gone up, that may be a result of raised demand being followed by raised supply, with the supply of drugs having more barriers preventing its growth.

However, this model has obvious flaws, such as the fact that low supply should mean high price. An alternative model might be that drugs on the street were already overpriced and the drug dealers have responded to harsher penalties hitting demand with a price decrease. And again, the price of murder for everyone (as opposed to only some people) basically is the legal consequence.

So, what are your thoughts?

[Telconi]

I understand the issue with the idea of "X law doesn't work" being used as an undermining tactic. I fully agree that the incidence of compliance with a law, doesn't necessarily reflect on the law's validity. However, it's possible for it to reflect.

Drug laws don't work, but their failure is not necessarily in the difficulty of enforcement, their failure is in public perception. When a majority, or significant minority of a population opposes the law on principle, it becomes an unworkable law. Take for example speeding violations. Most people, when asked, say they support speed limits, and enforcement thereof. Yet speed limits are perhaps the law with the single lowest incidence of compliance. Most people speed, most of the time. But the speed limit, a law that's supposed to create a hard limit, in fact creates a soft limit. The sign might say 55, and most people might go over 55, but few exceed 65, a still reasonably safe speed. So the 55 limit has had the effect of creating a practical limit of 65. We see this in enforcement, most LEOs would ignore a motorist doing 60 in a 55 zone.

On the opposite side we have drug laws, which are enforced as a very hard limit in many jurisdictions. That state trooper who ignored you going 60 MPH, would jail you in a heartbeat for a single gram of cannabis. When this hard enforcement policy meets widespread public opposition, you have a failed law. Many people violate it, even more oppose it's existance, and even more resent the perceived draconian enforcement.

[Ambarii]

I think a large contributor to the drug problem is international crime organizations. It's hard to crack down on drugs when gangs are based in other countries that are either too corrupt or too incompetent to do anything.

[Infected Mushroom]

As far as I'm concerned,

Anti-Drug Law = some drug dealers are getting arrested = some justice is done = the law works

the rest of it, supply and demand things, what happens to addicts, whether or not new drug lords pop up, these things don't interest me. I'm only interested in seeing some justice being enacted (some drug lords and dealers being arrested and dealt with). It brings me a lot of satisfaction to see this kind of justice being done.

So for me, its always been working.

And I'm more than willing to pay some of my taxes towards this kind of work because the alternative is either these guys profit without any retribution ever (ultimate injustice) and/or the government hypocritically starts selling the stuff while preventing others from selling. Both much worse outcomes on a moral scale.

[Pope Joan]

It serves two latent purposes very effectively.

It supports a massive enforcement and incarceration infrastructure. If drugs are legalized, think of the unemployment!

and it supports organized crime. Keeps them busy, gives them something to do other than extortion and racketerring.

[The Foxes Swamp]

It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom.
Bill Hicks

[Ambarii]

It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom.
Bill Hicks

What about Bill Hicks?

[Nakena]

Obviously it does not work.

[Alvecia]

It serves two latent purposes very effectively.

It supports a massive enforcement and incarceration infrastructure. If drugs are legalized, think of the unemployment!

and it supports organized crime. Keeps them busy, gives them something to do other than extortion and racketerring.

"If we create a whoile new industry, there will be unemployment" seems like an odd position to take.

I also thought the idea was that we combat organised crime, not merely accept their existence and do nothing.

[Gyrenaica]

I would like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs.

[The Foxes Swamp]

It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom.
Bill Hicks

What about Bill Hicks?

its his quote but he's right.

you gotta wonder whats really important to these people.

[Ambarii]

What about Bill Hicks?

its his quote but he's right.

you gotta wonder whats really important to these people.

What's your stance on gun control?

[The Foxes Swamp]

its his quote but he's right.

you gotta wonder whats really important to these people.

What's your stance on gun control?

at least some responsible gun ownership rules because we all have the potential to be irresponsible.

[Ambarii]

What's your stance on gun control?

at least some responsible gun ownership rules because we all have the potential to be irresponsible.

You are arguing that it is worthwhile to curb civil liberties to prevent irresponsible gun ownership. How then, can you you condemn the "drug war" for doing the same thing to prevent drug abuse?

[Zottistan]

A war on drug dealers I could get behind, or manufacturers, but the main issues I take with the war on drugs as it currently is are that a) it results in a lot of stupid kids ruining their lives for being stupid kids, which I'm uncomfortable with, and b) it's a cheap rhetorical trick to declare a "war" on an undefined enemy with undefined goals. It plays on people's emotions and builds hysteria, and rapidly escalates into a hole we throw money at to fix, not only a problem that moar monayz isn't going to fix, but a problem that we don't even seem able to clearly define.

A degree of state opposition to hard drugs is just reasonable, but the US is currently going full helicopter mom on it, wasting state time and resources and making the problem worse rather than fixing it.

[Zottistan]

at least some responsible gun ownership rules because we all have the potential to be irresponsible.

You are arguing that it is worthwhile to curb civil liberties to prevent irresponsible gun ownership. How then, can you you condemn the "drug war" for doing the same thing to prevent drug abuse?

Nobody's ever shot up a school full of kids with a joint.

[Chestaan]

Textbook economics explanation of why/how drug prohibition doesn't work is because drugs, particularly those which are most addictive like heroin, have an inelastic demand curve. In laymans terms that means that the demand for drugs doesn't fall by much if the price increases.


Banning drugs means that essentially they are more costly to acquire, whether that is through the actual price being higher or being harder to get, fear of punishment etc. All of these things can be viewed as fundamentally equivalent to a price increase. But, as drugs have an inelastic demand curve, addicts are still willing to go to the additional effort and pay the additional cost to acquire these drugs, the law banning drugs has very little actual effect on the amount of drugs sold.

[Washington Resistance Army]

You are arguing that it is worthwhile to curb civil liberties to prevent irresponsible gun ownership. How then, can you you condemn the "drug war" for doing the same thing to prevent drug abuse?

Nobody's ever shot up a school full of kids with a joint.

AG Sessions has told me otherwise.

[The Lone Alliance]

Well for one thing for a "War on drugs" it's not really treated as a war, if you really wanted to end the drug trade you'd more or less have to go into drug producing countries and wage full scale total war on the people living there.

Or if one was even crueler or sicker could do like in the Philippines and just kill the addicts.

Unless you can eliminate the suppliers or the demanders, there's not much one can do.

Since we can't do that everything else is just a show, it does fill the coffers of the prison industrial complex though.

[Ijo]

The War on Drugs is just ineffective. My opinion is that hard drugs like heroin, alcohol (easy to make and the only reason why this simple molecule is legal) are impossible to control.

The government fill their pockets with taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. What should happen if we ban coffee, nicotine and alcohol ?

I agree with the local police officer: if you aren't creative you are selling drugs, get a job The government must be really creative if they ban all their incomes, beverage industries, tabacco industry, local tobacco farmers and so on.

The government is involved in drugs like research chemicals, beverage industry (alcohol), tabacco industry.

The War on drugs is a quick way to fill their own pockets and sure there is much media attention all the time. Young people start to experiment because they are excited.

Be honest too: Albert Hofmann the inventor of LSD: 102 year old
Alexander Shulgin (aged: 88 years),...

The government is interested in money, they don't care about your personal health. As long as their industry remains healthy.

That's why it always failed.

[La Cosa Fedora]

Well the weed part of the war on drugs is one thing, but not sure about the failure in the case of harder drugs.

[Philjia]

Its just led to prisons packed with people who got done for posession. Neither supply nor demand have been greatly reduced, and people keep dying from overdoses and contaminated batches. Illegal drugs provide a huge amount of income for organised crime. It's definitely a failure.

[Ambarii]

You are arguing that it is worthwhile to curb civil liberties to prevent irresponsible gun ownership. How then, can you you condemn the "drug war" for doing the same thing to prevent drug abuse?

Nobody's ever shot up a school full of kids with a joint.

No, but 47,055 people died from drug overdoses last year, which is more than the 33,599 that died from gun violence. I think it's hypocritical to condemn the "drug war" as an assault on personal liberty while supporting gun control. If one of them is justifiable, then the other should be justifiable, since drug use is as much a problem as gun violence, if not more.

[The Foxes Swamp]

Nobody's ever shot up a school full of kids with a joint.

No, but 47,055 people died from drug overdoses last year, which is more than the 33,599 that died from gun violence. I think it's hypocritical to condemn the "drug war" as an assault on personal liberty while supporting gun control. If one of them is justifiable, then the other should be justifiable, since drug use is as much a problem as gun violence, if not more.

its all perspective drugs are illegal and people died, guns are legal and how many have died?

legalize drugs and the death toll goes down, tighter gun regulations and the death toll goes down.

[Ambarii]

No, but 47,055 people died from drug overdoses last year, which is more than the 33,599 that died from gun violence. I think it's hypocritical to condemn the "drug war" as an assault on personal liberty while supporting gun control. If one of them is justifiable, then the other should be justifiable, since drug use is as much a problem as gun violence, if not more.

its all perspective drugs are illegal and people died, guns are legal and how many have died?

legalize drugs and the death toll goes down, tighter gun regulations and the death toll goes down.

Have any evidence to backup that theory?