The War on Drugs is Useless

[Lallante]

By the "problem" of demand I mean that I wonder about the basic reality here. Why do human beings need to intoxicate themselves. Obviously, this has been done by a fairly large segment of the population since the first time Ooog found those pretty mushrooms or that that jar of fruit in the back of the cave had become rather tasty...

Naturally, not everyone "abuses" drugs in that they become addicted; though some drugs are so very addictive that they can become problematic to a very large percentage of folks that try them...(Crack and meth....Among others).
Still...Is it just part and parcel of the human condition that intoxication is attractive? Is depression more widespread among humans than is normally thought to be the case, and are people merely self-medicating. (some public-health authorities think this may be the case)

People only ask this question if they have never had a profound hallucinogenic experience.

The question is no more insightful than "why do we listen to music?" or "why do we play games?" or "why do we debate subjects on internet forums?".

 

[Amazer]

Getting high on what? Weed? Probably not. But you said legalize the lot. If you sit and home with your friends and do heroin you'll end up with a dependence, you won't be able to hold down a job and society will be forced to subsidize your drug habit.

For one, people with a dependence on heroin are just as much sitting at home, unable to hold jobs in your current system.
Society is already subsidizing their drug habit. It's just that the source of funding changes to an extent.

I have to say that this line of reasoning is silly. You are just pretending that the cost you mentioned aren't paid in the current system.

I told you that proponents of legalization should avoid bringing up alcohol because that gun only points at your foot. Think about all the social problems and costs caused by alcohol abuse then multiply that by at least three. Once for heroin, once for coke, once for meth. That's the most generous projection. That still doesn't take into account all the other drugs you want legalized that are habit forming.

A proportion does. Alcohol can be used in moderation to give a mild buzz. People don't use heroin for a mild buzz, they use it to get zonked. The addiction rate for exposure is much higher for drugs like heroin than alcohol. But even taking this into consideration, there is still a huge social cost involved with alcohol.

So why aren't you fighting to have alcohol and tobacco banned as well?

In addition I'd like to point out you are assuming that the number of drug users would actually increase if all drugs were legalized. Would you care to back that assumption up with some studies? Because for all I know you are pulling those assumptions from somewhere unpleasant.

 

[dtugg]

Appeal to personal testimony.

I'll take that as an acknowledgment that I hurt exactly nobody by using heroin and that there is no legitimate reason for it to be a crime.

I know when someone is trying to deflect the issue. We're talking about legalizing heroin, coke and meth, not criminalizing alcohol.

No. You know that you cannot answer the question without being a inconsistent hypocrite so you chose to not answer it at all.

Yeah right. Making drugs risk-free to obtain and cheaper will not increase the number of users. Talk about faith-based initiatives.

It's not my fault that you have no evidence whatsoever for your claims.

 

[Lallante]

There are a lot of people in this thread with very little exposure to or understanding of drug culture. Drug use is not a problem, Drug abuse (like abuse of anything else in society) is a problem. At the moment the government has no tool to distinguish between the two or discourage the latter.

Legality has no real effect on whether someone who wants to take drugs will or wont, except in terms of ease of access.

Getting 'caught' is not a significant risk for most sensible casual users (which make up the vast majority of all drug users). Legalisation wont suddenly create more users.

If anything, selective legalisation will drive people away from the remaining illegal drugs that are substitutes for the legal ones (for example, see 2009s MDMA -> Mephedrone exodus).

Thus intelligent, selective legalisation combined with government run 'shops' will generate tax, reduce use of remaining illegal drugs, allow purity and dosage to be controlled and monitored, and generally allow huge harm reduction.

 

[Bikewer]

Lallante:
I would imagine that the percentage of folks who have had a "profound hallucinatory experience" would be rather tiny compared to the numbers of individuals who "just want to get high" to excape for some period their life's problems.
Most of the people I encounter who are drug users are far from thoughtful folks seeking transcendent experiences...They are addicts seeking to steal enough to get another hit of rock.
We know that some folks are far more susceptible to addiction than others, and that certain drugs are powerfully effective in that regard. There are folks who manage to "chip" heroin for years without ever becoming addicted.
There are folks who take a single hit of crack and are on the road down....

Over the years, I've known many users of various substances. To the question, "why do you...." (insert substance of choice here) The reply is often, "to get through the day."

This is incomprehensible to me, since I frequently find that there is not enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do. However, it's obviously compelling to many.

 

[DC]

Create conditions where the folks trying to make money off of drugs ... can't.

Do this by making the drugs available to those who want/need them at or below what it costs those who want to profit from them to make them.

Decriminalize use under most circumstances.

But make the sale of drugs for profit an offense with a VERY severe penalty.

And finally, properly fund treatment programs.

Prohibition should have taught us a lesson.

Socialised Drugdealing?

 

[nvidiot]

If the rates of use of drugs is the defining factor in the success or failure of drugs policy, then prohibition is an abject failure.

If the rates of problem use amongst users is the defining factor in the success or failure of drugs policy, then prohibition is an abject failure.

If the reduction in deaths amongst users from incorrect or dangerous usage methods is the defining factore in the success or failure of drugs policy, then prohibition is an abject failure.

In all three of those measures, a prohibitionary (and inconsistent) drugs policy can be shown to increase drug usage rates particularly amongst minors, increase problem use rates amongst those who use, and increase the death rates amongst those who consume them. All these figures are lower under a regulated legalisation policy for alcohol. Why should we treat any other recreational drug any different?

You can't argue that recreational drugs are more harmful than alcohol, because they're not. (note quality control, another failure not of drug use but of prohibition here) You can't argue that recreational drugs are less likely to be used under prohbition because nations which have relaxed these policies have lower use and problem use rates. You can't argue that prohibition is in any way a successful policy to reduce either the use rate of drugs in society and by individuals, that it makes it safer for society or individuals, or that it has helped to reduce incidental crime associated with the inevitable black market supply of these substances.

So what do you have to argue with?

 

[nvidiot]

Oh, and @ Bikewear:

The statistics on rates of use and numbers of users and their occupations would tend to disagree with you. Just because someone wears a suit and works 9-5 with a mortgage and two kids doesn't mean that if they use drugs they're necessarily going to become even a problem user let alone an addict.

I suggest if anyone is actually interested in challenging their preconceptions and ideas about drug policy should look up a very well reasoned (pun intended) book by Jacob Sullum, called Saying Yes: In Defence of Drug Use.

The only reasonable argument I've ever heard for maintaining the status quo is that the inevitable pricing drops that would come with a return to legalised drugs would have a severe economic impact due to lost revenues and taxes. Let's face it, there's a heck of a lot of money sloshing around in the black market as a result of prohibition, and it doesn't cost much more to produce an ounce of cannabis compared to an ounce of tobacco. That's not to say I necessarily find this argument compelling, as the gains in social welfare and savings for policing expenditure would outweigh any temporary macro-economic shift caused by the reduction in price for legalised and regulated drugs.

 

[dtugg]

The only reasonable argument I've ever heard for maintaining the status quo is that the inevitable pricing drops that would come with a return to legalised drugs would have a severe economic impact due to lost revenues and taxes. Let's face it, there's a heck of a lot of money sloshing around in the black market as a result of prohibition, and it doesn't cost much more to produce an ounce of cannabis compared to an ounce of tobacco. That's not to say I necessarily find this argument compelling, as the gains in social welfare and savings for policing expenditure would outweigh any temporary macro-economic shift caused by the reduction in price for legalised and regulated drugs.

A lot of (most?) of that money goes south of the border. I am sure that the loss of drug money would depress the economy there. But I am also sure that your average Mexican would happily put up with that in order to stop the drug wars.

Drug cartels are, of course, about the last people on earth who would want the end of drug prohibition. They would lose billions every year.

Prohibitionists, Joaquín Guzmán Loera^WP, Mexico's most powerful drug lord would like to thank you for making and keeping drugs illegal in the USA. Thanks to you he is one of the richest and most powerful people in the world (he is on the Forbes list for both). Who knows how many people he has killed to get there.

 

[nvidiot]

A lot of (most?) of that money goes south of the border. I am sure that the loss of drug money would depress the economy there. But I am also sure that your average Mexican would happily put up with that in order to stop the drug wars.

This could be true for the US, but I wouldn't put it at "most" of the money, I would suggest the markup and distribution costs would result in the larger portion of the money spent on drugs and drug distribution would remain the country of intended destination.

Countries like Australia would see distinctly different effects in the case of cannabis. Most of it is locally produced, with little being imported the economic impacts of a legal and regulated market would be larger. Other drugs like amphetamines and ecstacy require components not easily sourced here, and so are largely imported whole or manufactured locally from wholly imported ingredients. (geez that sounds like a label from a soup can)

The following link is a good try at quantifying some of the costs of the current regeime and proposes some alternative solutions.


http://adlrf.org.au/global-drug-prohibition-costs-consequences-and-alternatives/

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Getting high on what? Weed? Probably not. But you said legalize the lot. If you sit and home with your friends and do heroin you'll end up with a dependence, you won't be able to hold down a job and society will be forced to subsidize your drug habit.

This is the kind of scare-mongering that I just loathe. What do people gain from going around telling this to each others and teens?

 

[Alt+F4]

Drug cartels are, of course, about the last people on earth who would want the end of drug prohibition. They would lose billions every year.

Add to that American weapons manufactuers. I believe that Mexican drug cartels get 95% of their guns from the U.S.

 

[dtugg]

Add to that American weapons manufactuers. I believe that Mexican drug cartels get 95% of their guns from the U.S.

Source?

 

[Alt+F4]

Source?

Ooops, sorry about that:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4695848&page=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/us/26borders.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/28/AR2007102801654.html

 

[roger]

Most of the people I encounter who are drug users are far from thoughtful folks seeking transcendent experiences...They are addicts seeking to steal enough to get another hit of rock

That's because you are a cop. You run into the people at the margins of society. You cannot conclude from that that everyone is at the margins of society.

edit: think about it. If alcohol was still illegal, everybody would be hiding their use from you, too. The only users you would run into would be the drunks on the road, the ones getting into domestic conflicts, etc. The chronic abusers (no pun intended). It would be unreasonable to conclude that every drinker is a drunk driver and spouse abuser, even through that's all you ever witnessed.

 

[dtugg]

Ooops, sorry about that:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4695848&page=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/us/26borders.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/28/AR2007102801654.html

According to factcheck.org, there is no solid basis for those claims. Basically, the 90% is only from guns given to the ATF to check. It is not surprising that most of the guns given to an American law enforcement agency to check came from America. But there is no reason to believe that this number is representative of all the illegal guns in Mexico.

 

[Alt+F4]

But the act of using drugs has no victim.

I think there is a victim, many victims....in Mexico. The U.S.'s insatiable desire for drugs is what fuels the thousands of senseless murders in Mexico each year.

I don't use illegal drugs for the same reason I don't shop at Walmart, I don't like how the supplier treats those that manufacture the product.

 

[dtugg]

I think there is a victim, many victims....in Mexico. The U.S.'s insatiable desire for drugs is what fuels the thousands of senseless murders in Mexico each year.

I don't use illegal drugs for the same reason I don't shop at Walmart, I don't like how the supplier treats those that manufacture the product.

You have a point. Of course, if it were not for the moral crusaders who made and keep drugs illegal, this would be a non-issue.

 

[Alt+F4]

According to factcheck.org, there is no solid basis for those claims. Basically, the 90% is only from guns given to the ATF to check. It is not surprising that most of the guns given to an American law enforcement agency to check came from America. But there is no reason to believe that this number is representative of all the illegal guns in Mexico.

Ok, I'll go with this quote from the factcheck article:

Whether the number is 90 percent, or 36 percent, or something else, there’s no dispute that thousands of guns are being illegalIy transported into Mexico by way of the United States each year.

Anyway, my point was that it's that it's not just the Mexican cartels that don't want an end to the drug war, it's the gun industry in the U.S. too.

 

[nvidiot]

@ alt-f4

Is that really your reason for not using illegal drugs? If these drugs were produced and manufactured under a legal and regulated environment would you take them?

If you could produce your own legally would you?