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Since a few threads lately have gotten off track talking about drug policy i thought I would start a thread for discussing just this topic.
So, are we winning, is it worth fighting, is it even moral to have such a war?

It's a waste of money, time, and energy better spent elsewhere.

depends what side of 'we' you are on?

Drugs are winning the drug war.

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That's my opinion also. It just seems like the effort is way more destructive to society than drugs ever could be. There is also the total hypocrisy of allowing the drugs lawmakers enjoy while clamping down on what they don't understand. If we really cared to help people we would surely make alcohol and tobacco illegal.

Or we could recognize that we have two drug problems. 1=The medical problem of addiction and abuse. 2=The criminality associated with drug use. We do almost nothing to help drug addicts. We simply arrest them as a punishment for their medical condition. As for the criminality, most of that comes from it's illegal status. People would not be killing each other over drugs if they were legal.

What a waste of needed resources. And who stands to gain? The big drug cartels for one. If we legalized marijuana, for example, the bottom would drop out from the Zetas and the other groups destroying Mexico. They benefit greatly from it's illegal status and their ability to game those laws.

+1

The drug gangs and cartels are clearly winning...

"The more effective prohibition is at raising costs, the greater are drug industry revenues. So, more effective prohibition means that drug sellers have more money to buy guns, pay bribes, fund the dealers, and even research and develop new technologies in drug delivery (like crack cocaine). It’s hard to beat an enemy that gets stronger the more you strike against him or her."
  - http://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2012/04/19/lets-be-blunt-its-time-to-end-the-drug-war/


As well as Governments and other official agencies that use it as an excuse to bring forward all kinds of draconian measures to use against citizens they don't like.  

There are lots of theories about policy. They all have a problem though: their premises don't always lead directly to their conclusions. A simple example is economic policies: Karl Marx sounded sincere, but he glossed over the lack of incentive that straight-up socialism provides. (Let's not hijack this thread here; that was only an example and I would rather find another one than debate economics.)

My take on it is that it is best to look at real-world history. Using the above example, we'd look at the U.S.S.R's stunning rise to an indestructible, fair, proletariat-oriented superpower abusive autocracy which killed more people than the Holocaust and led to its eventual collapse.

So now lets look at Prohibition. (With a capital 'P', relating to the amendment to the United States constitution.) Doesn't it sound nice on paper? No more drunken people, no alcohol poisoning, no fetal alcohol syndrome, no drunken fights, clearer decision-making from the general populace, etc. What did Prohibition actually bring? A sharp increase in organized crime, bootleggers, a loss in taxes gained from the legal sale of alcohol, and people drinking denatured alcohol. It was that last point which caused the death of over 100,000 people. Before, people could drink alcohol which was guaranteed to be safe in moderation. (Sort of...) Afterwards, they had no idea.

This applies to drugs as well. Some drugs are inherently dangerous and can kill you in one go. Ironically, 1/3 of people who try inhalants for the first time die, but I can buy inhalants legally with cash at the nearest corner-store shop. Marijuana is heavily debated, but it seems to me that cigarettes are just as dangerous, if not more carcinogenic and filled with stuff. By stuff I mean arsenic. And nicotine. When marijuana is ingested (not smoked), you get no tar, no arsenic, and only a psychological (not a physical) addiction. Chocolate is psychologically addictive.

If marijuana were legalized by the state, you'd get all of this for the low price OF JUST BTC19.95! sorry, I just wish I could be as cool a seller as Billy Mays.
1. Tax money
2. People consuming safe (in the sense that legal tobacco is "safe" -- it's not just parsley and arsenic mixed together by some shady guy with a beard on his foot) marijuana
3. People not going to gangs for their joints
4. Medicinal use without a grey area
5. Hemp growing -- did you know that the United States is the world's largest importer of hemp? Hemp is a mother-effing super-doohicky! Fabrics, rope, food, fuel, AND it's easy to grow sans-pesticides!
6. Other cool stuff like jobs


- It's not just about marijuana, but marijuana makes a good starting point.
- Like I said, look at history. Learn from it. ??? Profit!
- Marijuana wouldn't be a "gateway drug" if it were legal; cigarettes aren't one.
- I am pro-freedom. A guy in another thread said even suicide should be one's own choice. I wonder where the line between morally right (painful terminal illness?) and morally wrong (I need attention, and my girl left me, and I'm 12?) euthanasia is, but that's also offtopic. Marijuana is far from suicide, and I think it and other things should be one's own choice.
- Education is key.

True - just don't forget that some of the cartels wear blue costumes and collect pensions.

Drug gangs and cartels are propped up, maintained, and removed as needed by People Intelligence Agencies. It is a tool to usurp control from 'We the people'.

There are a few countries who have taken their troops out of the drug war, Peru for one. Drug use statistics remain unchanged, but violent crimes as a result of drug use have dropped sharply. Basically, they have proven that the drug war perpetuates violence.

I disagree with this philosophy. Drugs should be legal, not because it's a waste of money, time, and energy, but because every individual should have sovereign rights on her or his body.

Honestly, this should be self-evident.

Or, as Nick Cage would say,

A war, perpetuating violence?
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/210/119/+_2acc5a8841f8752904d37f90a8014829.png?1322693145

A lot more money through taxable sales would be made if we stopped this war on drugs and sold them with monitoring like alcohol and tobacco

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

poor silkroad/dealers/cartels

most violence is directly cause by enforcing prohibition... Cops beating a dude down for having a bag of weed or growing a few plants......



Where would all these enforcement jobs go?



Alcohol companies are one of the biggest supporters for the war on drugs....

Could not say it any better myself.

The government should protect me from other people, not myself. In my view drug use is a victimless "crime".

Some countries have more progressive drug policies, namely the Netherlands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands

and Portugal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal

Just imagine how violent things would get if caffeine was prohibited. The caffeine wars would make the current drug wars look like a picnic.

But yes, the "war on drugs" is really a "war on society".

yes. War is a social behavior between people, not between people and an inanimate substance. War also implies there should be guns and violence and cool helicopters. Blood should be spilled and rights should be suspended.
Why? I thought the problem was "Jim" is addicted to coke? He's ruining his life and the lives of people around him because he has a medical condition. Why not spend a lot less and offer free help getting off drugs? I don't think most people like Jim want to be junkies. If Jim instead chooses to steal to get drug money then lock him up for stealing, if he gets crazy and punches a toll booth attendant; book him for assault. But not for being a drug addict. This is what we do now for people addicted to the drug called alcohol.
The drug war is has been a disastrously expensive misadventure in dollars and the lives of American citizens. Surely we can do better than this.



 

Want to see who is head of DEA? LoL. I am still pondering over this video. Grabbed it from norml.org.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFgrB2Wmh5s

The DEA is a military organization created by the executive branch and overseen by the President.

Here's one of my standard comments explaining the link between prohibition and violence:

The war on (some) drugs fuels violence because the “WAR”� on drugs IS violence. It’s the policy of sending men with guns to arrest the sellers of certain drugs and their customers and lock them in government cages. All of the other violence that surrounds the (non-alcohol, non-tobacco) drug trade is fundamentally a REACTION to that initial state-sponsored violence. Prohibition renders contracts unenforceable and makes it impossible for competitors to use the courts or the police to challenge intimidation or settle disputes. There are plenty of legal businesses that might love to “kill the competition,” but that only becomes a viable strategy under the black market conditions that prohibition creates. (Note that nobody from Coke or Pepsi has their decapitated corpse hung from a bridge as a result of the so-called “Cola Wars.”) Prohibition also raises the prices of illicit drugs and hence their profitability. (Econ 101: risk demands compensation.) This only increases sellers’ incentives to do “whatever it takes” to capture market share. Today you don’t see rival beer distributors engaging in deadly shoot-outs over turf, but you USED TO — during alcohol prohibition. Run a Google image search for “U.S. homicide rate graph” (not all together in quotes). Take a look at the murder rate before, after, and during alcohol prohibition (1919-1933). Then read some current news out of Mexico (pretty much any news will do). Spot a pattern? The use of state violence to address what is really a medical and health issue (as well as a matter of personal choice) has been a disaster. And it needs to stop.

If "we" are indeed winning the "drug war" it might be because the "drug war" takes "second stage" to the "cryptocurrency war".

The "government" might "give up the drug war" to maintain its powerbase and take usefullness out of cryptocurrency.

Bahahahahahahaha...


Drug's are bad.. My job hard... Stop making me think...

lolololololololol

jobs are bad....My drugs are hard ...... stop stopping me thinking.

LOL.... Dum twat...

What is more addictive? Crack or heroin ? Or marijuana ?


Well IMO its Marijuana because its BAD...... HAHA dum twat.... go work the harveys drive through where you belong

Yea, I was waiting for ppl to reply about this. Messed up to the max.

Polis gave it to her, and showed the stupid behind DEA. I applause Polis.

That is awesome.

With regards to marijuana, 2 is clearly false, 3 is clearly false, 1 is like your opinion man.

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I believe that we should not be tutors than we should let every person to decide. nobody is stupid, people know what they do when they smoke (60 cigaretes per day), drink (2 liter of votka), use marijuana or anything stronger. if people want to enjoy even they know they destroy themselves, solution is educative measures and not repressive measures.
believe it or not, I am almost 40 years old and I never saw any educative program against smoking (in the school, or anywhere else), drinking, using any kind of drugs. there is only news about making prisons full with people who just wanted to enjoy.

imagine student get beaten by cops after they catch him to smoke weed, then he finish in custody and in the prison several months, when he spend half year with prisoners he will listen whole day everyday only about criminality and he will adapt himself and become the same like they are, criminal in his head, when he goes out from the prison, he will just watch how to steal something. after several days he will become normal again. if he spends 2 years in the prison, he will stay criminal whole life.
in my country we say: with whom you are, that's what you will become. it means that most people adapt themselves in their community and they become the same like people around.
so, let people to enjoy, finish univeristy, find job and get good life, it is better than to make them criminal. nobody can stop people to enjoy, surely not in represive way, even if all drugs are destroyed, people will find plants (peyote) and drug themselves.
and for the end, yes, drug war is misused to finance right wing politicians and make ideoliogical war against socialism in latin america. and racist police don't touch hollywood white stars, they arrest massivly poor afro americans. american prisons became industry.

Prisons are school for more Crime..... The Prison system has the oposite affect when it comes to drug use... Go in a user, come out with great dealer hookups......

yes, I am agreed.

Just saw this.

https://i.imgur.com/LEsrW.jpg

Therefore, illegality must not be based on therapeutic ratio.

Clearly.

Sadly it seems lots of people have no clue about any of these numbers though.

I've had conversations with quiet a few people that think smoking too much pot has killed people.  Showing them a chart like this that has prescription drugs like Prozac on it can be at least a little educational.

:)

Exactly! We ARE winning the drug war! The Silk Road is like the Napster of drugs - not quite perfected yet, but shows what is possible and what will become widespread and easy in the future.

It's already easy and sorta wide spread :P

Yep, "we" ARE winning. And we're also winning the battle for public opinion. I always encourage people to run a google image search for "cannabis Gallup poll" and look at the trendline.  In 1969 (the year polling began), only 12% of Americans wanted to legalize pot. In the mid-90s that number had crept up to 24%. Last year, support for reform hit 50% and it continues to grow FAST. (The Internet era has not been kind to the drug warriors and their propaganda.) An even more recent Rasmussen poll showed 56% support for legalizing and regulating cannabis with only 36% opposed.  Support for reform also gets stronger the younger the demographic. In fact, the only age group that continues to strongly oppose legalization is the 65+ crowd, and they won't be around forever.  It seems that the long-awaited "tipping point" is finally here. (Of course, cannabis legalization isn't the entire drug war, but it will be a huge and important first step.)

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I love reading this, and will do so over and over.

Yeah... I've realized that sometimes the only way to get change is to wait for the stubborn people to die.

The most telling thing in this thread is that no one seems willing to defend our current policy. Is there anyone left who believes prohibition is a good idea? I open to hearing a sensible argument. 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/drug-briton-faces-death-penalty-173915024.html

That's outrageous.  £262 for 20g! Oh, and the death penalty part.

It's injustices like that that make me wish some cop would snap and shoot up the judge and everyone that agreed with him.

Find someone old...

Or a prison guard, or a cop, or a large scale drug trafficker...

Those people benefit enormously from prohibition.

Where did Rarity go? He was proclaiming the powers of prohibition in the George Zimmerman defense fund thread.  That's why this thread got made and he never even posted here.

Haven't seen that cute Avatar in a while :P

There are no "winners" in a war and drug war is not an exception. Just saying..

Ha, yeah. It must be a real war because it's mostly civilians dying.

More violence comes from enforcing prohibition then the drugs themselves.

Yep, the way I see it there are at least three ways that drugs can be associated with violence: (1) black market violence; (2) acquisitive crime violence to feed an addiction; and (3) under-the-influence violence (i.e., the psychoactive effects of a particular drug increase an individual’s propensity for violence). With respect to category 3 violence, alcohol is BY FAR* the worst offender. Drug prohibition CREATES category 1 violence and exacerbates category 2 and 3 violence by, respectively, making a person’s addiction more expensive and encouraging people who want to “get high” to use booze to get there. It is a moronic and disastrous policy.

*From Marijuana is Safer: “The U.S. government estimates that alcohol contributes to 25 to 30 percent of all violent crime in the America, including 30 percent of homicides and 22.5 percent of sexual assaults. However, the approach federal researchers used to calculate these figures attributes the use of alcohol as a primary cause of violent behavior in only 50 percent of the cases where the perpetrator had been drinking. Yes, you read that correctly. In order to be conservative with their estimates, researchers only consider booze to be a contributing factor in half of the cases in which alcohol was actually involved. This means that in reality alcohol was involved in some manner in 60 percent of homicides and almost half of all sexual assaults.”