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The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are t

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it. Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves, why do they persist with it? A few reasons present themselves: Ideological motivations, they just don't like the drugs. The fact that if you terrify the population you can use that as means for greater political control and discipline. And the fact that Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis. Lastly the CIA has been found to be involved in the drug trade on a vast scale. This is not a conspiracy, there are many well-documented books on this. They need large sums of untraceable money for clandestine operations, and drugs are an ideal source of this. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR331.html http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR331.html Noam Chomsky on the War on Drugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-JX0yXDlh8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-JX0yXDlh8

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dragonwriter 11y ago
It absolutely is a conspiracy. I think you mean it's not an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.
tim333 11y ago
Nearly all countries have some ban so I doubt full legalization is the answer. I think if you approach it to minimise harm you'd probably have varying policies depending on the drug and the situation. For example cannabis, maybe legalize and tax like cigarettes. Stuff like Heroin and Meth don't legalize private sales but let drug counsellors hand it out to addicts to kill the illegal market, prevent them being harmed by contaminated drugs and stop them breaking and nicking stuff.
- tomp 11y ago
  > Stuff like Heroin and Meth don't legalize private sales but let drug counsellors hand it out to addicts to kill the illegal market, prevent them being harmed by contaminated drugs and stop them breaking and nicking stuff. That's the worst of both worlds. What will happen is a lot of people will become "addicts", get the drug (legally), then sell it to drug dealers to cash out. Criminals will keep their profits high, but they'll decrease their risk (because the government will be a safe and reliable supplier).
  - anon4 11y ago
    Who will the drug dealers sell it to?
    - tomp 11y ago
      People who don't want to go through the hassle, or don't want to be associated with the stigma of, getting the drugs legally.
      - callinyouin 11y ago
        Hassle? Stigma? Hardcore drug addicts will do anything to get their fix. I have known heroin addicts, for example (one was a friend who sadly got sucked into that world). When you're zonked out on heroin most of the time, the way society perceives you is of very, very little consequence.
        tomp 11y ago
        > Hardcore drug addicts As another commenter mentioned, I'd imagine a lot of drug trade (maybe not in heroin, but definitely in cocaine) is not hardcore drug addicts, but occasional (or even regular) users who live (relatively) normal lives.
    - adrusi 11y ago
      The people who aren't dependent and don't qualify for government provided dope. And there could be a lot of such people: imagine how much less risky a heroin habit sounds when you know that as as an addict you can get free clean drugs reliably, and that it will always be in front of a drug expert. And it is less risky. I'd support a system that gives I'd more junkies of the junkies aren't destroying their health, aren't stealing, have jobs. But of you're only allowing heroin use for dependent users in a clinic, you won't destroy the black market. There are still people developing new heroin addictions in Switzerland. And not only new users will use the black market to get heroin. Anyone who wants to use it in their own home, anyone who wants to keep their use secret will have no other choice.
zamalek 11y ago
> why do they persist with it? So far as I understand, a treaty[1][2] is the root of this problem. I assume that the validity and efficacy of this treaty will come into question April 19 through 21. Amending this treaty would pave the way for sensible drug control. [1]: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/single-convention.html https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/single-convention.ht... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...
puranjay 11y ago
I always wonder what would happen to drug use if it was widely and easily available. Would usage drop because it wouldn't be "rebellious" to get drugs? That was at least the motivation for a lot of younger drug users I know. In my country (India), there is a region in the Himalayas - Kasaul - where marijuana grows in the wild. It is so easily accessible that you can literally pluck some on a walk through the forest. You'd expect with such easy availability, the locals would be all addled on weed/hashish all the time. Yet, most locals tend to be non-users. Most users tend to be tourists and outsiders who come solely for the purportedly "best in the world" hashish
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  Oscar Wilde put it best: desire makes everything blossom and flourish; possession makes everything wither and fade. Humans tend to want what they can't have - it's reactance in action.
- jdietrich 11y ago
  Portugal decriminalised personal possession of drugs 15 years ago, which has given us some useful evidence. HIV infection rates and drug-related deaths have reduced significantly, and the prison population has reduced by over 50%. The proportion of people who have ever used drugs has increased slightly, but there has been a reduction in the number of regular drug users. We don't really know what would happen in a laissez-faire system, but we can be fairly confident that a medicalised approach would have substantial positive effects. https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/Transform-Drug-Policy-Foundation/Drug-decriminalisation-in-Portugal.pdf https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civ...
  - jfmfhhdkdkd 11y ago
    But Japan and Hong Kong and many others still have far lower drug use and crime rates despite their very tough laws on drug use, when compared to Portugal.
    - parenthephobia 11y ago
jfmfhhdkdkd 11y ago
And yet, there are plenty of Asian countries (Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, etc) where drug laws are much stricter than the US's, there are very few drug addicts, and there is very little crime.
- jfmfhhdkdkd 11y ago
  I really find it absurd that stating facts is downvoted here on HN because it doesn't fit the hivemind. Singapore and Indonesia execute drug offenders and despite what I am told should happen in this thread, there is very little crime despite their crazier "War on Drugs". When compared to a country like Portugal, Singapore and Indonesia have far lower crime and drug use.
  - jdietrich 11y ago
    Execution is a very drastic drug-related harm. If we killed everyone at age 50 then cancer rates would fall drastically, but it would be completely unreasonable to suggest that we had effectively solved the cancer problem. It is worth noting that Indonesia have changed their drug policies in recent years and are moving towards a medicalised rather than criminalised approach to drug use, largely as a response to rising rates of HIV infection amongst injecting drug users. https://www.unodc.org/indonesia/en/issues/hiv-and-drugs.html https://www.unodc.org/indonesia/en/issues/hiv-and-drugs.html
    - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
      So in these countries is the number of executions per million population higher than the deaths in the USA, say, directly attributed to drug sale/use?
  - parenthephobia 11y ago
    I think that what gets down-voted is more the implication that making drugs offences capital crimes is the chief reason Singapore and Indonesia have lower drug usage rates. I believe that more significant influencing factors are that drug usage is socially unacceptable Singapore and Indonesia, that citizens are more willing to accept government control over their private activities, that drugs are harder to acquire. It seems more likely that those countries are able to have capital punishment for (what the West would consider to be) minor drugs offences precisely _because_ drug use is already low and drug users are more consistently vilified by society.
melling 11y ago
Politicians do whatever gets them, and keeps them, elected. If they poll and find 70% of their electorate are in favor of something, guess how they're going to vote? I really don't understand why people put themselves in echo chambers then complain to each other why the world is the way it is. It's a waste of time.
- bdavisx 11y ago
  Actually, that's not true. In Florida a year or two ago, ~58% voted to legalize medical marijuana, but the vote needed 60% because it was a ballot initiative. How come the Florida reps didn't go ahead and do it themselves since obviously a majority of their electorate voted that way? It's about a lot more than the electorate.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    58% of the population or of the voters in that poll?
    - LeifCarrotson 11y ago
      More to the point, the 58% is the fraction of the people who feel strongly for or against the drug question. Those are likely not the same segment of the population that votes for the legislature, and neither group is representative of the population!
    - bdavisx 11y ago
      People who vote are the electorate, if you don't vote, you don't matter. But to answer your question, it was voters.
      - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
        Then what the sibling comment above says would be my point also. 58% of people who voted on one issue is not going to be representative of those who vote in elections; ergo the candidates would be wrong to simply bypass the system and vote in an issue that hasn't otherwise passed. I'd like to see more direct democracy though, more atomic voting to address issues individually; that would perhaps help in this situation.
dspillett 11y ago
> why do they persist with it? A few reasons present themselves Also: theatre. Much like a lot of airport/airline security measures are theatre to reassure the common people that something is being done, the war on drugs continues because people who don't know any better (or don't believe the ineffectiveness argument) will feel less safe if it officially stops or even steps down a notch. This situation perpetuates itself, and any escalation doesn't get reversed, and feeds into the politics point others have already mentioned because people feeling less safe are less likely to vote for you next time.
purpled_haze 11y ago
> Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis. To state this in another way- think of all of the Budweiser/Bud Light sponsorships and commercials and replace that Bud with the other kind of bud. That's about the scale and usage to expect, at the very least, if cannabis were to be completely legal everywhere alcohol is. And all of the abuse, drunk driving, etc? Increase that somewhat. They won't be able to control all of it with treatment and education any more than they have with alcohol. Also, imagine the level of drinking at work even in the 1940's and 50's after alcohol prohibition was lifted. Aside from cannabis, think of all of the other drugs that could be abused. Yes, drug violence, etc. will go down, but there is a tradeoff.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  Did the abuse of alcohol and it's impacts go up or down after prohibition? Probably depends on whether you count making gangsters rich and famous, and people dying from drinking bathtub gin as abuse or not, but even if you exclude all that, it's not a slam dunk that there would be a big shift in either direction for users, or that it wouldn't simply displace other drugs, legal or illegal, which you'd need to measure to get a true picture.
- pjc50 11y ago
  It's possible to have the thing on sale while banning advertising for it; much of Europe has restrictions on tobacco advertising, sale, "plain packaging" requirements, etc. Note that drinking at work has gone away without government intervention.
Pxtl 11y ago
My understanding wasnt that the CIA was directly involved in the drug trade, but that their normal activities create infrastructure for their partners that are shady international organizations that operate outside local laws naturally creates drug smuggling networks. They work with local organized crime to create covert hideouts and border crossings for CIA use, and give them funding and weapons in exchange, and things like the drug trade come out of that almost automatically.
jMyles 11y ago
> This is not a conspiracy It is absolutely a conspiracy, just one that happens to actually have occurred and probably continues to occur.
_yosefk 11y ago
My favorite conspiracy theory regarding drug legalization is, "the rich" will want to legalize drugs to get rid of "the poor" on the theory that people who've been put out of work by machines are an unnecessary burden, and that widespread use of drugs among such people is a good way to reduce their numbers. (I don't quite "believe" this theory in the sense of imagining a bunch of rich people sitting in a room, conspiring about this and cackling evilly. I "believe" in this more in the sense of, I think drugs are very bad for you on average and they certainly are the #1 cause of untimely death among the people I've personally known, and I think that the kind of people making policy decisions will not be that upset if large numbers of poorer people are very adversely affected by legalization, any more than they are upset by the adverse effects of draconian prohibition measures.)
- gedy 11y ago
  Interesting theory, but for pacification, not elimination.
  - _yosefk 11y ago
    I've known a few drug addicts who died young and left no children.
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- tremon 11y ago
  You see, the problem with blanket statements like that is that they're always wrong. Doctors prescribe drugs all the time; there must be something positive to them for doctors to expose their patients to such danger, don't you think?
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venomsnake 11y ago
Can't "keep the black men as much as possible in prison" probably also play a "minor" role? War on drugs hits the poor and black communities the most. That is by design - the crack cocaine 100 times as powder cocaine being good example.
Jtsummers 11y ago
What the government knows (legalization with education and rehab being better than current methods) and what it does is normal. The government consists of hundreds of thousands of employees (military, civilian and contractor) plus a small handful of politicians who decide the rules. Being politicians, it doesn't matter so much what they know as what their constituents want (or believe they want). Which leads to the government being a screwed up, multi-headed entity with many competing and opposing objectives and directives.
rayiner 11y ago
The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-feels-more-negative-toward-people-with-drug-addiction-than-those-with-mental-illness.html http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe.... When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you know that at the time alcohol prohibition was instituted, fully 1/3 of the federal budget came from liquor taxes? Alcohol producers were incredibly powerful, yet their product was banned because of moral panic. To a significant degree, women's' suffrage happened when it did so they could vote for prohibition. There is a great PBS series on this: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition. It's a story of a grass-roots national movement of Americans, many of them heretofore politically marginalized, rising up against money and power to effect change.
- ghayes 11y ago
  I feel you're right that, at the end of the day, prohibition has been based on public opinion. That said, the government does benefit from reasons OP mentioned, and thus politicians may be likely to push an agenda that strongly supports a war on drugs when speaking to constituents, rather than having an open conversation about the pros and cons of decriminalization.
  - soneca 11y ago
    Exactly. The history said, in this case, that money and power did not win the dispute, not that their influence does not exist or should be considered negligible. So, if in the case of drugs, society moral standards, money and power are all at the same side; what's the chance of grassroot movement changing the laws? That question was not rethorical, but giving my own answer, I think the path is changing the perception about drug addicts. That they are ill people, not criminals. If the social perception of a drug addict is the same as an alcoholic, then there is a chance of stopping the war on drugs.
tomphoolery 11y ago
They're not the only ones who benefit from the drug war. It's a tool in order to allow for mass incarceration of "undesirable people". The book "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander really spoke to me as a resident of Philadelphia. I knew full well that if a cop found 1/4oz of weed or less on me, they wouldn't do anything...but if I was black, I'd be put in jail. Now that marijuana has been "decriminalized" (I call it "equalizing" the law because it's now fair for all people) in Philadelphia, that's not as much of a problem in my city...but I'm pretty sure statewide it's still a big problem. Essentially, I think the drug war is a big, lame excuse for putting people in jail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow
- jernfrost 11y ago
  This is actually a very interesting aspect of the dangerous results of having lots of laws and bans. It is like companies which makes long lists of things which can get you fired. List which are such that everybody has done a fireable offense. This allows companies to fire people at their own discretion because they will always have something on you. Likewise the corruption laws in developing countries seem to largely be about getting rid of political opponents. Everybody is basically guilty of corruption, but only those who are on the wrong side politically actually get prosecuted. Look at Russia, if you cross Putin they can charge you with corruption right away because they no almost everybody has done it. In this regard laws which masquerade as fighting undesirable things in society really becomes a tool of oppression.
belorn 11y ago
> why do they persist with it? I suspect a major cause is that prohibition is a well known method, used to handle other substances which the state wants to limit access to. Narcotics is intended for medicine and research, which makes it easy to regulate to licensed organizations. They use the same method for substances that is used to create explosives, weapon components, radioactive material, and so on. In Sweden, even things like pure alcohol or pure oxygen is regulated and require a license, since the target audience for that is quite narrow. No one ever got fired for buying IBM, and no politician got blamed if they create regulations that limit use to only the intended target audience. Its not about being effective.
ridgeguy 11y ago
To your reasons, I'd add financial interests of those involved in the WoD. Think of pre-trial asset confiscation, WoD-based grants to local law enforcement, $ to aerospace companies for WoD surveillance and detection technology, etc. Legalization would hit many powerful interests in their revenue streams.
- EdHominem 11y ago
  Drugs are also a perfect excuse for anything. Drop a bag of something in someone's car and suddenly they have to prove it's not theirs. They can't, of course, so now anything you do to them is justified. Did you accidentally beat up the wrong person? Plant drugs on them and charge them with resisting arrest and possession.
ThrustVectoring 11y ago
The government is made up of people who respond to incentives. The war on drugs is happening because American voters will crucify politicians who are "soft on drugs". Since the politicians can't be "soft on drugs", neither can the appointed bureaucrats that answer to them.
maxxxxx 11y ago
A lot of people in law enforcement, prisons, CIA and defense industry probably also did a cost-benefit analysis and found that prohibition is a very effective way to keep their jobs.
- fapjacks 11y ago
  The prison lobby (guard unions, etc) is actually fairly loud about this. They make a lot of noise around things that put and keep more people in jail. It's way past "probably"!
spacehome 11y ago
> This is not a conspiracy Of course it's a conspiracy. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy
baddox 11y ago
> A few reasons present themselves: Ideological motivations, they just don't like the drugs. The fact that if you terrify the population you can use that as means for greater political control and discipline. And the fact that Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis. I'm sure those are all factors, but I bet the biggest factor is just police forces pushing for huge amounts of federal funding.
daveheq 11y ago
Also because the ATF and law enforcement agencies get huge funding allocations fighting drugs and have lobbied for more and stricter laws as well as increased spending; it's become culturalized and almost a heritage to the point of being something families and groups rely on almost religiously throughout generations, not to mention the moralities mixed in heavily with religion.
fapjacks 11y ago
Right. Can verify. Step one of the CIA "send operations people into a country to fuck them up" is generating the money necessary for the operation locally (with the first recommendation towards that goal being to deal drugs). Global drug legalization would make it very hard for the CIA to undermine foreign governments so quickly. If you take drugs out of the equation, it is hard to generate lots of cash quickly.
maxthegeek1 11y ago
The government isn't a single person. There are conflicting interests.
jksmith 11y ago
It's means become ends, like so many government efforts. DEA is a jobs program, prison system is an industry. Refer to the character Lawrence Kramer in "Bonfire of the Vanities" talking about feeding "the chow" into the criminal justice system.
metaphorm 11y ago
> And the fact that Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis. is that true? these things aren't really mutually exclusive right? this is just my supposition, but I would imagine that there is market synergy between legal cannabis and alcohol and tobacco.
- georgemcbay 11y ago
  The conspiracy theory I hear more often that is quite a bit more believable (though still a conspiracy theory) is that legalization would be harmful to pharmaceutical companies, based on the idea that is way more profitable to get people hooked on prescription opioids or such than have them manage long-term pain by smoking weed.
  - metaphorm 11y ago
    its not exactly a conspiracy, is it? that implies that it is a secret and this is not a secret. pharmaceuticals DO directly compete with cannabis. they manufacturers of those drugs have a clear motive in opposing legalization of a competitor.
anigbrowl 11y ago
Therefore the government understands NNo, some people who work in the government understand that. Others have conflicting interests of cognitive biases or are stupid or have other reasons for disagreeing. 'The government' is simply not a monolithic entity and outside of certain narrow legal contexts pretending that it is leads to fallacious conclusions.
conceit 11y ago
Or maybe they don't see Drugs as a problem. I don't think e.g. Victorian aristocrats saw poverty as a problem or that the slave traders saw exhaustion or torture and other forms of violence as a problem, far from it. I believe slaves would rather be given coffee instead of food coffee.

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dragonwriter 11y ago

It absolutely is a conspiracy. I think you mean it's not an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.

tim333 11y ago

Nearly all countries have some ban so I doubt full legalization is the answer. I think if you approach it to minimise harm you'd probably have varying policies depending on the drug and the situation. For example cannabis, maybe legalize and tax like cigarettes. Stuff like Heroin and Meth don't legalize private sales but let drug counsellors hand it out to addicts to kill the illegal market, prevent them being harmed by contaminated drugs and stop them breaking and nicking stuff.

tomp 11y ago
> Stuff like Heroin and Meth don't legalize private sales but let drug counsellors hand it out to addicts to kill the illegal market, prevent them being harmed by contaminated drugs and stop them breaking and nicking stuff. That's the worst of both worlds. What will happen is a lot of people will become "addicts", get the drug (legally), then sell it to drug dealers to cash out. Criminals will keep their profits high, but they'll decrease their risk (because the government will be a safe and reliable supplier).
- anon4 11y ago
  Who will the drug dealers sell it to?
  - tomp 11y ago
    People who don't want to go through the hassle, or don't want to be associated with the stigma of, getting the drugs legally.
    - callinyouin 11y ago
      Hassle? Stigma? Hardcore drug addicts will do anything to get their fix. I have known heroin addicts, for example (one was a friend who sadly got sucked into that world). When you're zonked out on heroin most of the time, the way society perceives you is of very, very little consequence.
      - tomp 11y ago
        > Hardcore drug addicts As another commenter mentioned, I'd imagine a lot of drug trade (maybe not in heroin, but definitely in cocaine) is not hardcore drug addicts, but occasional (or even regular) users who live (relatively) normal lives.
  - adrusi 11y ago
    The people who aren't dependent and don't qualify for government provided dope. And there could be a lot of such people: imagine how much less risky a heroin habit sounds when you know that as as an addict you can get free clean drugs reliably, and that it will always be in front of a drug expert. And it is less risky. I'd support a system that gives I'd more junkies of the junkies aren't destroying their health, aren't stealing, have jobs. But of you're only allowing heroin use for dependent users in a clinic, you won't destroy the black market. There are still people developing new heroin addictions in Switzerland. And not only new users will use the black market to get heroin. Anyone who wants to use it in their own home, anyone who wants to keep their use secret will have no other choice.

zamalek 11y ago

> why do they persist with it? So far as I understand, a treaty[1][2] is the root of this problem. I assume that the validity and efficacy of this treaty will come into question April 19 through 21. Amending this treaty would pave the way for sensible drug control. [1]: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/single-convention.html https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/single-convention.ht... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...

puranjay 11y ago

I always wonder what would happen to drug use if it was widely and easily available. Would usage drop because it wouldn't be "rebellious" to get drugs? That was at least the motivation for a lot of younger drug users I know. In my country (India), there is a region in the Himalayas - Kasaul - where marijuana grows in the wild. It is so easily accessible that you can literally pluck some on a walk through the forest. You'd expect with such easy availability, the locals would be all addled on weed/hashish all the time. Yet, most locals tend to be non-users. Most users tend to be tourists and outsiders who come solely for the purportedly "best in the world" hashish

madaxe_again 11y ago
Oscar Wilde put it best: desire makes everything blossom and flourish; possession makes everything wither and fade. Humans tend to want what they can't have - it's reactance in action.
jdietrich 11y ago
Portugal decriminalised personal possession of drugs 15 years ago, which has given us some useful evidence. HIV infection rates and drug-related deaths have reduced significantly, and the prison population has reduced by over 50%. The proportion of people who have ever used drugs has increased slightly, but there has been a reduction in the number of regular drug users. We don't really know what would happen in a laissez-faire system, but we can be fairly confident that a medicalised approach would have substantial positive effects. https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/Transform-Drug-Policy-Foundation/Drug-decriminalisation-in-Portugal.pdf https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civ...
- jfmfhhdkdkd 11y ago
  But Japan and Hong Kong and many others still have far lower drug use and crime rates despite their very tough laws on drug use, when compared to Portugal.
  - parenthephobia 11y ago

jfmfhhdkdkd 11y ago

And yet, there are plenty of Asian countries (Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, etc) where drug laws are much stricter than the US's, there are very few drug addicts, and there is very little crime.

jfmfhhdkdkd 11y ago
I really find it absurd that stating facts is downvoted here on HN because it doesn't fit the hivemind. Singapore and Indonesia execute drug offenders and despite what I am told should happen in this thread, there is very little crime despite their crazier "War on Drugs". When compared to a country like Portugal, Singapore and Indonesia have far lower crime and drug use.
- jdietrich 11y ago
  Execution is a very drastic drug-related harm. If we killed everyone at age 50 then cancer rates would fall drastically, but it would be completely unreasonable to suggest that we had effectively solved the cancer problem. It is worth noting that Indonesia have changed their drug policies in recent years and are moving towards a medicalised rather than criminalised approach to drug use, largely as a response to rising rates of HIV infection amongst injecting drug users. https://www.unodc.org/indonesia/en/issues/hiv-and-drugs.html https://www.unodc.org/indonesia/en/issues/hiv-and-drugs.html
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    So in these countries is the number of executions per million population higher than the deaths in the USA, say, directly attributed to drug sale/use?
- parenthephobia 11y ago
  I think that what gets down-voted is more the implication that making drugs offences capital crimes is the chief reason Singapore and Indonesia have lower drug usage rates. I believe that more significant influencing factors are that drug usage is socially unacceptable Singapore and Indonesia, that citizens are more willing to accept government control over their private activities, that drugs are harder to acquire. It seems more likely that those countries are able to have capital punishment for (what the West would consider to be) minor drugs offences precisely _because_ drug use is already low and drug users are more consistently vilified by society.

melling 11y ago

Politicians do whatever gets them, and keeps them, elected. If they poll and find 70% of their electorate are in favor of something, guess how they're going to vote? I really don't understand why people put themselves in echo chambers then complain to each other why the world is the way it is. It's a waste of time.

bdavisx 11y ago
Actually, that's not true. In Florida a year or two ago, ~58% voted to legalize medical marijuana, but the vote needed 60% because it was a ballot initiative. How come the Florida reps didn't go ahead and do it themselves since obviously a majority of their electorate voted that way? It's about a lot more than the electorate.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  58% of the population or of the voters in that poll?
  - LeifCarrotson 11y ago
    More to the point, the 58% is the fraction of the people who feel strongly for or against the drug question. Those are likely not the same segment of the population that votes for the legislature, and neither group is representative of the population!
  - bdavisx 11y ago
    People who vote are the electorate, if you don't vote, you don't matter. But to answer your question, it was voters.
    - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
      Then what the sibling comment above says would be my point also. 58% of people who voted on one issue is not going to be representative of those who vote in elections; ergo the candidates would be wrong to simply bypass the system and vote in an issue that hasn't otherwise passed. I'd like to see more direct democracy though, more atomic voting to address issues individually; that would perhaps help in this situation.

dspillett 11y ago

> why do they persist with it? A few reasons present themselves Also: theatre. Much like a lot of airport/airline security measures are theatre to reassure the common people that something is being done, the war on drugs continues because people who don't know any better (or don't believe the ineffectiveness argument) will feel less safe if it officially stops or even steps down a notch. This situation perpetuates itself, and any escalation doesn't get reversed, and feeds into the politics point others have already mentioned because people feeling less safe are less likely to vote for you next time.

purpled_haze 11y ago

> Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis. To state this in another way- think of all of the Budweiser/Bud Light sponsorships and commercials and replace that Bud with the other kind of bud. That's about the scale and usage to expect, at the very least, if cannabis were to be completely legal everywhere alcohol is. And all of the abuse, drunk driving, etc? Increase that somewhat. They won't be able to control all of it with treatment and education any more than they have with alcohol. Also, imagine the level of drinking at work even in the 1940's and 50's after alcohol prohibition was lifted. Aside from cannabis, think of all of the other drugs that could be abused. Yes, drug violence, etc. will go down, but there is a tradeoff.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
Did the abuse of alcohol and it's impacts go up or down after prohibition? Probably depends on whether you count making gangsters rich and famous, and people dying from drinking bathtub gin as abuse or not, but even if you exclude all that, it's not a slam dunk that there would be a big shift in either direction for users, or that it wouldn't simply displace other drugs, legal or illegal, which you'd need to measure to get a true picture.
pjc50 11y ago
It's possible to have the thing on sale while banning advertising for it; much of Europe has restrictions on tobacco advertising, sale, "plain packaging" requirements, etc. Note that drinking at work has gone away without government intervention.

Pxtl 11y ago

My understanding wasnt that the CIA was directly involved in the drug trade, but that their normal activities create infrastructure for their partners that are shady international organizations that operate outside local laws naturally creates drug smuggling networks. They work with local organized crime to create covert hideouts and border crossings for CIA use, and give them funding and weapons in exchange, and things like the drug trade come out of that almost automatically.

jMyles 11y ago

> This is not a conspiracy It is absolutely a conspiracy, just one that happens to actually have occurred and probably continues to occur.

_yosefk 11y ago

My favorite conspiracy theory regarding drug legalization is, "the rich" will want to legalize drugs to get rid of "the poor" on the theory that people who've been put out of work by machines are an unnecessary burden, and that widespread use of drugs among such people is a good way to reduce their numbers. (I don't quite "believe" this theory in the sense of imagining a bunch of rich people sitting in a room, conspiring about this and cackling evilly. I "believe" in this more in the sense of, I think drugs are very bad for you on average and they certainly are the #1 cause of untimely death among the people I've personally known, and I think that the kind of people making policy decisions will not be that upset if large numbers of poorer people are very adversely affected by legalization, any more than they are upset by the adverse effects of draconian prohibition measures.)

gedy 11y ago
Interesting theory, but for pacification, not elimination.
- _yosefk 11y ago
  I've known a few drug addicts who died young and left no children.

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tremon 11y ago
You see, the problem with blanket statements like that is that they're always wrong. Doctors prescribe drugs all the time; there must be something positive to them for doctors to expose their patients to such danger, don't you think?
- deleted 11y ago
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venomsnake 11y ago

Can't "keep the black men as much as possible in prison" probably also play a "minor" role? War on drugs hits the poor and black communities the most. That is by design - the crack cocaine 100 times as powder cocaine being good example.

Jtsummers 11y ago

What the government knows (legalization with education and rehab being better than current methods) and what it does is normal. The government consists of hundreds of thousands of employees (military, civilian and contractor) plus a small handful of politicians who decide the rules. Being politicians, it doesn't matter so much what they know as what their constituents want (or believe they want). Which leads to the government being a screwed up, multi-headed entity with many competing and opposing objectives and directives.

rayiner 11y ago

The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-feels-more-negative-toward-people-with-drug-addiction-than-those-with-mental-illness.html http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe.... When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you know that at the time alcohol prohibition was instituted, fully 1/3 of the federal budget came from liquor taxes? Alcohol producers were incredibly powerful, yet their product was banned because of moral panic. To a significant degree, women's' suffrage happened when it did so they could vote for prohibition. There is a great PBS series on this: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition. It's a story of a grass-roots national movement of Americans, many of them heretofore politically marginalized, rising up against money and power to effect change.

ghayes 11y ago
I feel you're right that, at the end of the day, prohibition has been based on public opinion. That said, the government does benefit from reasons OP mentioned, and thus politicians may be likely to push an agenda that strongly supports a war on drugs when speaking to constituents, rather than having an open conversation about the pros and cons of decriminalization.
- soneca 11y ago
  Exactly. The history said, in this case, that money and power did not win the dispute, not that their influence does not exist or should be considered negligible. So, if in the case of drugs, society moral standards, money and power are all at the same side; what's the chance of grassroot movement changing the laws? That question was not rethorical, but giving my own answer, I think the path is changing the perception about drug addicts. That they are ill people, not criminals. If the social perception of a drug addict is the same as an alcoholic, then there is a chance of stopping the war on drugs.

tomphoolery 11y ago

They're not the only ones who benefit from the drug war. It's a tool in order to allow for mass incarceration of "undesirable people". The book "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander really spoke to me as a resident of Philadelphia. I knew full well that if a cop found 1/4oz of weed or less on me, they wouldn't do anything...but if I was black, I'd be put in jail. Now that marijuana has been "decriminalized" (I call it "equalizing" the law because it's now fair for all people) in Philadelphia, that's not as much of a problem in my city...but I'm pretty sure statewide it's still a big problem. Essentially, I think the drug war is a big, lame excuse for putting people in jail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow

jernfrost 11y ago
This is actually a very interesting aspect of the dangerous results of having lots of laws and bans. It is like companies which makes long lists of things which can get you fired. List which are such that everybody has done a fireable offense. This allows companies to fire people at their own discretion because they will always have something on you. Likewise the corruption laws in developing countries seem to largely be about getting rid of political opponents. Everybody is basically guilty of corruption, but only those who are on the wrong side politically actually get prosecuted. Look at Russia, if you cross Putin they can charge you with corruption right away because they no almost everybody has done it. In this regard laws which masquerade as fighting undesirable things in society really becomes a tool of oppression.

belorn 11y ago

> why do they persist with it? I suspect a major cause is that prohibition is a well known method, used to handle other substances which the state wants to limit access to. Narcotics is intended for medicine and research, which makes it easy to regulate to licensed organizations. They use the same method for substances that is used to create explosives, weapon components, radioactive material, and so on. In Sweden, even things like pure alcohol or pure oxygen is regulated and require a license, since the target audience for that is quite narrow. No one ever got fired for buying IBM, and no politician got blamed if they create regulations that limit use to only the intended target audience. Its not about being effective.

ridgeguy 11y ago

To your reasons, I'd add financial interests of those involved in the WoD. Think of pre-trial asset confiscation, WoD-based grants to local law enforcement, $ to aerospace companies for WoD surveillance and detection technology, etc. Legalization would hit many powerful interests in their revenue streams.

EdHominem 11y ago
Drugs are also a perfect excuse for anything. Drop a bag of something in someone's car and suddenly they have to prove it's not theirs. They can't, of course, so now anything you do to them is justified. Did you accidentally beat up the wrong person? Plant drugs on them and charge them with resisting arrest and possession.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago

The government is made up of people who respond to incentives. The war on drugs is happening because American voters will crucify politicians who are "soft on drugs". Since the politicians can't be "soft on drugs", neither can the appointed bureaucrats that answer to them.

maxxxxx 11y ago

A lot of people in law enforcement, prisons, CIA and defense industry probably also did a cost-benefit analysis and found that prohibition is a very effective way to keep their jobs.

fapjacks 11y ago
The prison lobby (guard unions, etc) is actually fairly loud about this. They make a lot of noise around things that put and keep more people in jail. It's way past "probably"!

spacehome 11y ago

> This is not a conspiracy Of course it's a conspiracy. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy

baddox 11y ago

> A few reasons present themselves: Ideological motivations, they just don't like the drugs. The fact that if you terrify the population you can use that as means for greater political control and discipline. And the fact that Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis. I'm sure those are all factors, but I bet the biggest factor is just police forces pushing for huge amounts of federal funding.

daveheq 11y ago

Also because the ATF and law enforcement agencies get huge funding allocations fighting drugs and have lobbied for more and stricter laws as well as increased spending; it's become culturalized and almost a heritage to the point of being something families and groups rely on almost religiously throughout generations, not to mention the moralities mixed in heavily with religion.

fapjacks 11y ago

Right. Can verify. Step one of the CIA "send operations people into a country to fuck them up" is generating the money necessary for the operation locally (with the first recommendation towards that goal being to deal drugs). Global drug legalization would make it very hard for the CIA to undermine foreign governments so quickly. If you take drugs out of the equation, it is hard to generate lots of cash quickly.

maxthegeek1 11y ago

The government isn't a single person. There are conflicting interests.

jksmith 11y ago

It's means become ends, like so many government efforts. DEA is a jobs program, prison system is an industry. Refer to the character Lawrence Kramer in "Bonfire of the Vanities" talking about feeding "the chow" into the criminal justice system.

metaphorm 11y ago

> And the fact that Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis. is that true? these things aren't really mutually exclusive right? this is just my supposition, but I would imagine that there is market synergy between legal cannabis and alcohol and tobacco.

georgemcbay 11y ago
The conspiracy theory I hear more often that is quite a bit more believable (though still a conspiracy theory) is that legalization would be harmful to pharmaceutical companies, based on the idea that is way more profitable to get people hooked on prescription opioids or such than have them manage long-term pain by smoking weed.
- metaphorm 11y ago
  its not exactly a conspiracy, is it? that implies that it is a secret and this is not a secret. pharmaceuticals DO directly compete with cannabis. they manufacturers of those drugs have a clear motive in opposing legalization of a competitor.

anigbrowl 11y ago

Therefore the government understands NNo, some people who work in the government understand that. Others have conflicting interests of cognitive biases or are stupid or have other reasons for disagreeing. 'The government' is simply not a monolithic entity and outside of certain narrow legal contexts pretending that it is leads to fallacious conclusions.

conceit 11y ago

Or maybe they don't see Drugs as a problem. I don't think e.g. Victorian aristocrats saw poverty as a problem or that the slave traders saw exhaustion or torture and other forms of violence as a problem, far from it. I believe slaves would rather be given coffee instead of food coffee.