"The War on Drugs Doesn't Work"

[Conserative Morality]

Pot's too easy to grow and demand is too high due to it being a cheap low-risk drug to meaningfully suppress.

[Donut section]

Drugs should be legalised and treated the same as alcohol.

The only problem with this is what are we going to do with all the empty jails? Convert them to homeless shelters or do we just scrap them and save butloads of money.

[La Cosa Fedora]

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 real question is, how much of the gun violence deaths resulted from drug related gang or other violence.

Also is the gun data including suicide?

[Washington Resistance Army]

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 real question is, how much of the gun violence deaths resulted from drug related gang or other violence.

Also is the gun data including suicide?

Yes it is, about 2/3 of that number are suicides.

[La Cosa Fedora]

The real question is, how much of the gun violence deaths resulted from drug related gang or other violence.

Also is the gun data including suicide?

Yes it is, about 2/3 of that number are suicides.

Are any drug-related suicides?

[Ambarii]

The real question is, how much of the gun violence deaths resulted from drug related gang or other violence.

Also is the gun data including suicide?

Yes it is, about 2/3 of that number are suicides.

If that were true (which it isn't), it would further prove my point.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Yes it is, about 2/3 of that number are suicides.

If that were true (which it isn't), it would further prove my point.

I'm sure you have a source that it isn't true? Because about 20,000 or so of that 30,000 ARE suicides. The remainder are homicides, lawful killings, accidents etc.

Yes it is, about 2/3 of that number are suicides.

Are any drug-related suicides?

I dunno. Probably a few.

[Genivaria]

Drugs should be legalised and treated the same as alcohol.

The only problem with this is what are we going to do with all the empty jails? Convert them to homeless shelters or do we just scrap them and save butloads of money.

I'd like to imagine that one day we'd use these prisons as museums to show the primitive methods we USED to use to handle crime.

[Chestaan]

Yes it is, about 2/3 of that number are suicides.

If that were true (which it isn't), it would further prove my point.

Those who take drugs are responsible for their own death, those who are shot are not.

[WikiPlay]

I fully agree with that point. The definition of criminality is to mentally or physically hurt someone else without their permission.

Drugs isn't a crime in this context.

If I took a line of amphetamines then the only inner feeling that I have is an euphoric rush. It doesn't make me a criminal because I don't hurt the society with it.

In other words: you aren't a criminal if you took a pill. I find 'the war on drugs 'rediculous' and way too expensive for us.

A better education about all kinds of drugs and don't make them legal under the age of 18 (brain development) is a way better idea, purely my opinion..

This is a good topic if I read all the replies.

[Tyrassueb]

The war on drugs, like alcohol prohibition in the 20's, simply drove the market underground and out of sight. It was also used to help instate some versions of Jim Crow laws. If you make smoking marijuana a felony and your state says felons can't vote, follow that up with unequal enforcement targeting minority neighborhoods/towns then add in a good serving of minimum mandatory sentencing and a for-profit prison system and... Well, you can see where I'm going.

Simple fact is, I don't want all drugs legalized. Marijuana is fine, my state has it legalized (woo Washington!) and so far there has been nothing but net positives (lower crime rate, decreased rates of arrest and jailing, MASSIVE tax revenues, etc). And contrary to wide spread misinformation, the drug has not "trickled down" into the hands of the youth.

Harder drug users should be diverted to rehabilitation centers if they are non-violent, much like what Portugal did in I think 2000. Target the creators of the illegal drugs but even then I think lighter sentencing (community service and fines) would be far better than effectively making them hardened criminals for life with a stint in prison of a decade or longer. At the same time it would help fight the cartels and other illegal drug operations, again being a win-win scenario.

The reason the war on drugs doesn't work gets summarized rather nicely here.

[The Greater Siriusian Domain]

There's three things I've noted about the war on drugs.

First off, like it's probably been mentioned previously, drug legislation has basically fueled a very strong black market operated by cartels. Granted, this is kind of a par-for-the-course thing - if you ban a product, it's just going to force the market underground. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if the drug cartels have their hand in drug legislation.

On a side note to that, increased restrictions on prescription opiates has actually increased the number of Heroin users, as people are having to turn to underground sources to get their fix. Meanwhile, people suffering from severe pain are punished for, well, being in severe pain.

Second, and this is probably the bigger issue, not only could drug legislation be used to target minorities through unequal enforcement... it actually has. I'd have to find the article where I found this, but Richard Nixon's chief advisor actually came out and said that doing so was the ulterior motive for implementing no-tolerance policies on recreational drugs.

Finally, it results in a ridiculously high prison population... in a nation with a private prison system where inmates are used as free labor. I'm not going to read too much into that, but make of it what you will.

That being said, you can't deny that certain recreational substances can be incredibly dangerous in their own right, so you need at least some sort of safeguard.

My thoughts on how to find a good balance are as follows:

• Refocus enforcement towards rehabilitation rather than punishment.
• Legalize some recreational substances, particularly the non-refined ones, and regulate and tax them like tobacco or alcohol.
• If someone is caught with a non-legalized drug, just take the stuff away - there's no reason to punish them if they''re not harming anyone else. And as stated in my first bulletpoint, get the guy some help.
• Treat intoxication by any substance in the same way as drunkenness. If it's not a good idea to drive drunk, it's not a good idea to drive stoned or high either. And honestly, THAT's when people other than the user can come into harm anyway.
• And as for the war on drugs itself, well, we can still have one - against the cartels.

[Cedoria]

Drugs should be legalised and treated the same as alcohol.

The only problem with this is what are we going to do with all the empty jails? Convert them to homeless shelters or do we just scrap them and save butloads of money.

What a good pair of ideas:)

Will never happen though.

The War on Drugs is the most ludicrous social policy developed. When it ends, we'll shake our head about how stupid we were that we ever let Richard Nixon declare one...

[Zottistan]

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.

Those people harmed themselves, not others. It's not hypocritical at all because the two issues are fundamentally different. Regulating drugs regulates what you can do with your own body. Regulating guns is an attempt to regulate what you can do with others.

This is speaking as somebody who's generally anti-drugs and pro-guns. Your argument is faulty and rests on an unfair comparison.

[Isyrannaea]

The only thing that needs to happen to the war on drugs is escalation.

[Ethel mermania]

We should just admit we lost and get overy it.

[Internationalist Bastard]

The problem isn't that the laws don't work, it's they punish the wrong people. We're constantly throwing people in jail for being addicts or hell, just trying it, and then throwing resources at trying to stop drug cartels without actually doing anything to stop new ones from popping up

[Korhal IVV]

My country's president, Rodrigo Duterte just wants to, quote, "Slaughter them all".

[Internationalist Bastard]

My country's president, Rodrigo Duterte just wants to, quote, "Slaughter them all".

"How many folks did you kill today?"

[Dumb Ideologies]

It's not a simple matter of current system vs legalise. Those who want to see reduced levels of drug use should refer to the Portuguese model. They don't make it a police matter, their system gets social workers together with solicitors and psychiatrists to arrange the treatment plan and sanctions for not following it such as fines (tied to people's ability to pay) bans on associating with certain people or going to certain places, potential cuts to benefits etc etc. Portugal has substantially reduced the social problems from drug addiction this way, while places that just simply adopted lax policies without cohesive thinking (such as many ex-Soviet countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union) saw rates increasing.

[Korhal IVV]

My country's president, Rodrigo Duterte just wants to, quote, "Slaughter them all".

"How many folks did you kill today?"

As of now nearly 12,000 have been slain since he was inaugurated, mostly either by vigilantes, drug lords who don't want to get their cover blown, and by police operations. It is accompanied by a massive decrease in crime(40% according to what I have seen in our TV) but murder rates are up.

Personally, I disapprove of the needless slaughter, as it just targets the shoals of sardines and not the whales. Defeats the purpose in the long run.

[Internationalist Bastard]

"How many folks did you kill today?"

As of now nearly 12,000 have been slain since he was inaugurated, mostly either by vigilantes, drug lords who don't want to get their cover blown, and by police operations. It is accompanied by a massive decrease in crime(40% according to what I have seen in our TV) but murder rates are up.

Personally, I disapprove of the needless slaughter, as it just targets the shoals of sardines and not the whales. Defeats the purpose in the long run.

Exactly, it's just encouraging violence on the poor bastards who do drugs, not the big time dealers

[Frank Zipper]

Just think how much more stable and prosperous Mexico would be if weed had always been legal.

[Ashmoria]

y'all should look up the book "chasing the scream" by johann hari. its probably at your local library if you are in the US. he probably also has several youtube videos that go over the same topic.

he explains how the war on drugs increases violent crime and how making drugs illegal spurs on addiction.

its worth checking out.

[Pasong Tirad]

"How many folks did you kill today?"

As of now nearly 12,000 have been slain since he was inaugurated, mostly either by vigilantes, drug lords who don't want to get their cover blown, and by police operations. It is accompanied by a massive decrease in crime(40% according to what I have seen in our TV) but murder rates are up.

Personally, I disapprove of the needless slaughter, as it just targets the shoals of sardines and not the whales. Defeats the purpose in the long run.

A bit overblown there. Actual number's hovering between 7,000 - 8,000.

But that's not the point, I digress.