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And if you are wondering what decriminalizing drugs might do to your country then take a look at a country that has already done this. https://mic.com/articles/

by josho 10y ago

And if you are wondering what decriminalizing drugs might do to your country then take a look at a country that has already done this. https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decriminalized-all-drugs-here-s-what-s-happening https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decr... Though, I suspect the US would see different results because decriminalizing requires resources in public health, which seems to be overly politicized in the US and therefore not likely to happen.

erelde 10y ago
From the outside it seems like the USA are overdue for a deep change. Other Western countries (except maybe the UK, it may be related to the mindset of Common Law) have had multiple deep political changes. Think Germany, the current system isn't 30 year old, France is at its "fifth repupblic", Spain democracy was formed after Franco's death 1975, etc. In short the old world isn't so old.
- andy_ppp 10y ago
  I think Thatcher did change Britain unrecognisably as did the Blair government (immigration).
  - alex_hitchins 10y ago
    I would say Blair did a lot more than just immigration. I'm not a massive fan of the man, but many of the policies New Labour brought in were radical. Renationalising the rail network for one[0]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack Edit to mention it was I believe Blair who relaxed Cannabis from Class B to C, and Brown who put it back to B. C being the lowest classification.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  > France is at its "fifth repupblic" What does it prove exactly ? The Fourth republic was a total mess with extreme political unstability, despite being "new" at the time. Newness is hardly any indication of good.
  - erelde 10y ago
    I didn't say that... In fact I made almost no judgement on the quality of the changes... But, if I had to discuss this subject: I would say that in a nuclear computer powered world, a political system originally designed for farmers and horses, on which we consistently hack workarounds, isn't the best choice. And on the subject of the Fourth Republic, would you agree with me that this was a direct consequence of WWII and that in terms of "political time" it was changed very quickly?
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      > a political system originally designed for farmers and horses I don't think the time span is THAT relevant. Constitution and Laws are very much a matter of philosophy and human behaviour understanding, rather than technological advances. Look at how the philosophy of ancient Greek still resonates with us even though they were living in a totally different world. I'm sure if we could get writing from prehistoric men we would still be able to relate to them and understand their feelings and behaviours. Talking about France, the Code Napoleon was written way before the modern Era yet most of the civil code is still coming from it. If anything, the American Constitution is a model of stability. It separates powers, bring clear principles but does not delve in black listing specific stuff and therefore makes it flexible to the advances in technology. If anything, most of the issues in the US at the moment is not because the Constitution and Laws are obsolete, rather that the Federal Government is directly violating them and nobody cares enough to fight for them.
      - erelde 10y ago
        All of those are also valid points. Thank you. Though I still believe some kind of societal "shedding of skin" is required from time to time in human societies. I also believe there are different expectations from people used to the Common Law concept and those not used to it.
- Nutomic 10y ago
  Why is the current system in Germany only 30 years old? As far as I know, there weren't any laws changed with the unification (except of unifying Germany of course). So it's really a 70 year old system. Agree with your point though.
andy_ppp 10y ago
Just to get a feel for things: Healthcare spending (2015) £3.2tn vs War on drugs spending (2015) $51bn So maybe if all that spending went to healthcare it might be enough to care for people harming themselves. It won't go to health of course if it were to become available...
- pavlov 10y ago
  Does that "war on drugs spending" number include any of the US prison industry? The United States spends a lot of money on keeping its citizens locked up for drug offences. If that money were redirected to healthcare, it could make a difference.
  - nickff 10y ago
    The US Federal Government spends about 8.5 billion dollars on prisons (which are all government-owned as far as I know), and about half of prisoners are there on drug-related offences, though many of those have committed other offences as well. A much smaller percentage of state prisoners are there on drug offences (somewhere on the order of 10%), but many states have private prisons. I am not sure that this amount of money would be a meaningful contribution to healthcare. Please also remember that some of the strongest advocates for greater incarceration rates are the prison staff unions, which have very strong lobbying groups, and are much larger than any of the private prison corporations. The unions can monopolize the state supply of jailers, whereas the prison companies cannot.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > The US Federal Government spends about 8.5 billion dollars on prisons (which are all government-owned as far as I know), They are not; the justice department only just announced that it would begin phasing out the use of private prisons.
      - Jarwain 10y ago
        Roughly 6% of state prisoners are in private prisons, and 16% of federal prisoners. All in all, private prisons are a minority compared to public. Phasing out the use of private prisons is a step in the right direction, but the private companies that service prisons hemorrhage money. https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization-criminal-justice/private-prisons https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization...
beachstartup 10y ago
> which seems to be overly politicized in the US and therefore not likely to happen. to be quite blunt, this was because "drugs" was largely seen by most americans as an urban (i.e. black and hispanic) problem before meth overtook rural white america and heroin/pills started showing up and killing kids in affluent white suburbs in the last 10 years. as it turns out, anyone can get addicted to drugs! who knew. enforcement policy is already starting to change because of this.
munificent 10y ago
> resources in public health, which seems to be overly politicized in the US and therefore not likely to happen. The US spends a ton of money on public health. If you look here [1], fully a quarter of all federal spending is on healthcare. Remember that discussion and news is always biased towards things that get attention, and that's always the problems. No one writes news articles about stuff that's continually working. "Medicare Seems to Be OK This Year So Far" isn't exactly great click bait. The US does have serious problems around healthcare. I think the main ones are: 1. Because healthcare providers are private instead of being direct public institutions, there's a lot of financial overhead when you have federally-provided healthcare funds (insurance) that goes to the patient, and which then makes its way through the insurance system and finally to private healthcare providers. 2. Federally funding for healthcare currently takes care of old people (Medicare) and poor people (Medicaid), but everyone else is left to fend for themselves. The Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction, and we're gradually chipping away at the problem. But when you're talking about something where the US is already spending close to a trillion dollars every year, it's a little naive to expect us to fix it overnight. Ships that big don't turn fast. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending.png
norea-armozel 10y ago
I think the approach to decriminalization and possible legalization should always contain a means to get addicts off of the drugs which probably means it won't happen because that would likely require some form of single payer system (probably eclipsing Medicaid and Medicare along the way). The fact single payer healthcare is a bad word in both parties means this approach won't ever happen at least not with the current political climate.

by josho 10y ago

erelde 10y ago

From the outside it seems like the USA are overdue for a deep change. Other Western countries (except maybe the UK, it may be related to the mindset of Common Law) have had multiple deep political changes. Think Germany, the current system isn't 30 year old, France is at its "fifth repupblic", Spain democracy was formed after Franco's death 1975, etc. In short the old world isn't so old.

andy_ppp 10y ago
I think Thatcher did change Britain unrecognisably as did the Blair government (immigration).
- alex_hitchins 10y ago
  I would say Blair did a lot more than just immigration. I'm not a massive fan of the man, but many of the policies New Labour brought in were radical. Renationalising the rail network for one[0]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack Edit to mention it was I believe Blair who relaxed Cannabis from Class B to C, and Brown who put it back to B. C being the lowest classification.
ekianjo 10y ago
> France is at its "fifth repupblic" What does it prove exactly ? The Fourth republic was a total mess with extreme political unstability, despite being "new" at the time. Newness is hardly any indication of good.
- erelde 10y ago
  I didn't say that... In fact I made almost no judgement on the quality of the changes... But, if I had to discuss this subject: I would say that in a nuclear computer powered world, a political system originally designed for farmers and horses, on which we consistently hack workarounds, isn't the best choice. And on the subject of the Fourth Republic, would you agree with me that this was a direct consequence of WWII and that in terms of "political time" it was changed very quickly?
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    > a political system originally designed for farmers and horses I don't think the time span is THAT relevant. Constitution and Laws are very much a matter of philosophy and human behaviour understanding, rather than technological advances. Look at how the philosophy of ancient Greek still resonates with us even though they were living in a totally different world. I'm sure if we could get writing from prehistoric men we would still be able to relate to them and understand their feelings and behaviours. Talking about France, the Code Napoleon was written way before the modern Era yet most of the civil code is still coming from it. If anything, the American Constitution is a model of stability. It separates powers, bring clear principles but does not delve in black listing specific stuff and therefore makes it flexible to the advances in technology. If anything, most of the issues in the US at the moment is not because the Constitution and Laws are obsolete, rather that the Federal Government is directly violating them and nobody cares enough to fight for them.
    - erelde 10y ago
      All of those are also valid points. Thank you. Though I still believe some kind of societal "shedding of skin" is required from time to time in human societies. I also believe there are different expectations from people used to the Common Law concept and those not used to it.
Nutomic 10y ago
Why is the current system in Germany only 30 years old? As far as I know, there weren't any laws changed with the unification (except of unifying Germany of course). So it's really a 70 year old system. Agree with your point though.

andy_ppp 10y ago

Just to get a feel for things: Healthcare spending (2015) £3.2tn vs War on drugs spending (2015) $51bn So maybe if all that spending went to healthcare it might be enough to care for people harming themselves. It won't go to health of course if it were to become available...

pavlov 10y ago
Does that "war on drugs spending" number include any of the US prison industry? The United States spends a lot of money on keeping its citizens locked up for drug offences. If that money were redirected to healthcare, it could make a difference.
- nickff 10y ago
  The US Federal Government spends about 8.5 billion dollars on prisons (which are all government-owned as far as I know), and about half of prisoners are there on drug-related offences, though many of those have committed other offences as well. A much smaller percentage of state prisoners are there on drug offences (somewhere on the order of 10%), but many states have private prisons. I am not sure that this amount of money would be a meaningful contribution to healthcare. Please also remember that some of the strongest advocates for greater incarceration rates are the prison staff unions, which have very strong lobbying groups, and are much larger than any of the private prison corporations. The unions can monopolize the state supply of jailers, whereas the prison companies cannot.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > The US Federal Government spends about 8.5 billion dollars on prisons (which are all government-owned as far as I know), They are not; the justice department only just announced that it would begin phasing out the use of private prisons.
    - Jarwain 10y ago
      Roughly 6% of state prisoners are in private prisons, and 16% of federal prisoners. All in all, private prisons are a minority compared to public. Phasing out the use of private prisons is a step in the right direction, but the private companies that service prisons hemorrhage money. https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization-criminal-justice/private-prisons https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization...

beachstartup 10y ago

> which seems to be overly politicized in the US and therefore not likely to happen. to be quite blunt, this was because "drugs" was largely seen by most americans as an urban (i.e. black and hispanic) problem before meth overtook rural white america and heroin/pills started showing up and killing kids in affluent white suburbs in the last 10 years. as it turns out, anyone can get addicted to drugs! who knew. enforcement policy is already starting to change because of this.

munificent 10y ago

> resources in public health, which seems to be overly politicized in the US and therefore not likely to happen. The US spends a ton of money on public health. If you look here [1], fully a quarter of all federal spending is on healthcare. Remember that discussion and news is always biased towards things that get attention, and that's always the problems. No one writes news articles about stuff that's continually working. "Medicare Seems to Be OK This Year So Far" isn't exactly great click bait. The US does have serious problems around healthcare. I think the main ones are: 1. Because healthcare providers are private instead of being direct public institutions, there's a lot of financial overhead when you have federally-provided healthcare funds (insurance) that goes to the patient, and which then makes its way through the insurance system and finally to private healthcare providers. 2. Federally funding for healthcare currently takes care of old people (Medicare) and poor people (Medicaid), but everyone else is left to fend for themselves. The Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction, and we're gradually chipping away at the problem. But when you're talking about something where the US is already spending close to a trillion dollars every year, it's a little naive to expect us to fix it overnight. Ships that big don't turn fast. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending.png

norea-armozel 10y ago

I think the approach to decriminalization and possible legalization should always contain a means to get addicts off of the drugs which probably means it won't happen because that would likely require some form of single payer system (probably eclipsing Medicaid and Medicare along the way). The fact single payer healthcare is a bad word in both parties means this approach won't ever happen at least not with the current political climate.