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Unemployed farmers and butchers, that's all that remains, if you state-distribute the drugs and fire the thugs. With the rise of synthetics, and the first make

Unemployed farmers and butchers, that's all that remains, if you state-distribute the drugs and fire the thugs. With the rise of synthetics, and the first maker-chem-bot not far away- i wouldn't wonder if the Narcos would do what all businesses do, if the change is upon them- lobby for protectionism. Im against drug liberalization, but just to reduce the economic and social Fallout this would be worth it.

bluejekyll 10y ago
The "war" on drugs has been abismal, and created horrendous conditions in Central America. Liberalization of drugs is a funny way to put it. It's realism. We are spending ridiculous amounts of money on the war on drugs, that we could instead be spending on education and rehab. We incarcerate far too many people at far too high a cost to society due to drugs. Incarceration is both a tax on society in the sense that it destroys families, and the cost on taxpayers to fund prisons, as well as the ridiculous for profit prisons that have no reason to rehabilitate the people in them. We in the US have a serious problem that we keep ignoring, it's not a liberal vs conservative issue, this is a societal problem that needs to be addressed. Drug abuse is rampant and our ignorance of how to deal with it is even crazier. We have basically allowed those with money to get legal corporate drugs, while we've made natural drugs illegal and has far more negative consequences legally for poorer communities. The legalization of marijuana is one step to start correcting these issues, but it's not far enough in properly appropriating money in better ways to make our people and society stronger.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  > We are spending ridiculous amounts of money on the war on drugs As a society yes, but there are clearly some actors of the "war on drugs" that benefit from it, such as the police with asset forfeiture laws. Since they have a huge influence on politicians it's very unlikely the rhetoric ever changes. On top of that local police have also gone against state laws legalizing some specific drugs so the resistance goes far beyond just law-making.
  - taxicabjesus 10y ago
    > As a society yes, but there are clearly some actors of the "war on drugs" that benefit from it, such as the police with asset forfeiture laws. Some people hate the police (or fear them) because of that time they got arrested for not hurting anyone. The "War on Plants" is the mistake that transforms the police forces from Public Servants into political operatives. One night I chatted with our team's night driver, just before turning the cab over to him. He commented about smelling some "really good" marijuana on one of his recent South-Phoenix passengers. I said, "But [Xxxx], you used to fight in the War on Plants..." I knew he'd gotten an early retirement from a police force a few states away. He responded, "yeah, but they told me it was a gateway drug, and I believed them. Now it seems that plant actually has medical benefits." Police are just as much the victims of the drug war as everyone else.
    - jfududj 10y ago
      Oh yeah, for sure, police are total victims cause they also sit in jail for decades for smoking a plant, and they also get their cash seized without recourse. Except that's complete shit, none of that happens to cops. Ignorance isn't an excuse, and just following orders isn't an excuse either. Cops support an illegitimate system with violence and are rewarded for it. Fuck cops.
      - withdavidli 10y ago
        You know the drug busts, and shootouts, and car chases from the drug war. Yea, cops are there too. They have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too. It's the same thing for soldiers, they fight wars other people declare. If you pay taxes you support this system financially. Don't live in the US? Does your country trade with the US? Someone somewhere is almost somehow contributing to some problem. You also neglect the good cops do, doing the job means you do all of the job. From being first responders to drug enforcement.
        pessimizer 10y ago
        > They have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too. No, they don't. You probably somehow managed not to be. I've never been tempted.
- Hondor 10y ago
  It's sad how few people worried about this back when it was most extreme. Now people are already in prison, already dead, or already have criminal records for life, and the incarceration rate is falling. It seems like too little too late to start being concerned now. Didn't people notice Bill Clinton's toughness on crime [1] when voting for Obama, from the same party? [1] https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt "Mandatory life imprisonment without possibility of parole for Federal offenders with three or more convictions for [...] drug trafficking crimes."
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
jacobush 10y ago
... so you are for drug liberalization?
- hyggyhhfdd 10y ago
  Yes
lazaroclapp 10y ago
I am strongly in favor of drug legalization, because I am from Mexico. Drug traffic is ruinous for the Mexican economy, even if you didn't care ethically about the human cost of a >250,000 death toll in the last 10 years (the drug war in Mexico is, depending how you count, the 3rd or 4th deadliest armed conflict in the world today, after Syria, Iraq, and Afganistan[1]). In purely economic terms, even though some money does flow into the country through the cartels, the lack of basic security caused by a weak state interacting with extraordinarily wealthy criminal organizations makes it very hard for industry to develop: investment doesn't want to come (and if it does, must hedge against extortion in its plans), there is a huge brain-drain of skilled talent, and no local wants to take any risk, specially not a business risk that might put them in the sight of organized crime. Mexico has some high-tech industry, and it has the potential to develop far more, but it is stunted by a climate of lack of human security and personal safety. Not all of it is because of the drug war (Mexico has a level of economic inequality that makes the divide in the US look quaint, and in practical terms is an incredibly young democracy, for example). Legalization in the US would not solve all of Mexico's problems, but it might give it enough breathing room to reverse what currently feels like a slow collapse... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict... (note that the cumulative official death toll number shown there is extremely under-reported)
- mjolk 10y ago
  > I am strongly in favor of drug legalization, because I am from Mexico. Drug traffic is ruinous for the Mexican economy, even if you didn't care ethically about the human cost of a >250,000 death toll in the last 10 years... If the Mexican government is unable to keep its people from getting killed as a result of a neighboring country policing intoxicants, that's a failure of the Mexican government to control crime within its borders, not reason for another nation to change its laws -- you're asking not just for decriminalization, but also legal native manufacturing of addictive substances in the US, as otherwise the lucrative export market would continue to exist.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    If drugs were legal to produce and distribute then it wouldn't be a black market and thus violence and criminality would reduce (people wouldn't buy from shady characters; they'd just go to the store and buy it like anything else). I don't know any ricelords or any significant criminal gangs that distribute rice. This is only a problem encountered with drugs and other illegal things. Also, (paraphrasing Milton Friedman), drug users don't report the crime unlike other crimes like burglary or murder because the victim is the offender.

bluejekyll 10y ago

The "war" on drugs has been abismal, and created horrendous conditions in Central America. Liberalization of drugs is a funny way to put it. It's realism. We are spending ridiculous amounts of money on the war on drugs, that we could instead be spending on education and rehab. We incarcerate far too many people at far too high a cost to society due to drugs. Incarceration is both a tax on society in the sense that it destroys families, and the cost on taxpayers to fund prisons, as well as the ridiculous for profit prisons that have no reason to rehabilitate the people in them. We in the US have a serious problem that we keep ignoring, it's not a liberal vs conservative issue, this is a societal problem that needs to be addressed. Drug abuse is rampant and our ignorance of how to deal with it is even crazier. We have basically allowed those with money to get legal corporate drugs, while we've made natural drugs illegal and has far more negative consequences legally for poorer communities. The legalization of marijuana is one step to start correcting these issues, but it's not far enough in properly appropriating money in better ways to make our people and society stronger.

ekianjo 10y ago
> We are spending ridiculous amounts of money on the war on drugs As a society yes, but there are clearly some actors of the "war on drugs" that benefit from it, such as the police with asset forfeiture laws. Since they have a huge influence on politicians it's very unlikely the rhetoric ever changes. On top of that local police have also gone against state laws legalizing some specific drugs so the resistance goes far beyond just law-making.
- taxicabjesus 10y ago
  > As a society yes, but there are clearly some actors of the "war on drugs" that benefit from it, such as the police with asset forfeiture laws. Some people hate the police (or fear them) because of that time they got arrested for not hurting anyone. The "War on Plants" is the mistake that transforms the police forces from Public Servants into political operatives. One night I chatted with our team's night driver, just before turning the cab over to him. He commented about smelling some "really good" marijuana on one of his recent South-Phoenix passengers. I said, "But [Xxxx], you used to fight in the War on Plants..." I knew he'd gotten an early retirement from a police force a few states away. He responded, "yeah, but they told me it was a gateway drug, and I believed them. Now it seems that plant actually has medical benefits." Police are just as much the victims of the drug war as everyone else.
  - jfududj 10y ago
    Oh yeah, for sure, police are total victims cause they also sit in jail for decades for smoking a plant, and they also get their cash seized without recourse. Except that's complete shit, none of that happens to cops. Ignorance isn't an excuse, and just following orders isn't an excuse either. Cops support an illegitimate system with violence and are rewarded for it. Fuck cops.
    - withdavidli 10y ago
      You know the drug busts, and shootouts, and car chases from the drug war. Yea, cops are there too. They have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too. It's the same thing for soldiers, they fight wars other people declare. If you pay taxes you support this system financially. Don't live in the US? Does your country trade with the US? Someone somewhere is almost somehow contributing to some problem. You also neglect the good cops do, doing the job means you do all of the job. From being first responders to drug enforcement.
      - pessimizer 10y ago
        > They have to be the enforcers for the crap laws that get passed too. No, they don't. You probably somehow managed not to be. I've never been tempted.
Hondor 10y ago
It's sad how few people worried about this back when it was most extreme. Now people are already in prison, already dead, or already have criminal records for life, and the incarceration rate is falling. It seems like too little too late to start being concerned now. Didn't people notice Bill Clinton's toughness on crime [1] when voting for Obama, from the same party? [1] https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt "Mandatory life imprisonment without possibility of parole for Federal offenders with three or more convictions for [...] drug trafficking crimes."
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

jacobush 10y ago

... so you are for drug liberalization?

hyggyhhfdd 10y ago
Yes

lazaroclapp 10y ago

I am strongly in favor of drug legalization, because I am from Mexico. Drug traffic is ruinous for the Mexican economy, even if you didn't care ethically about the human cost of a >250,000 death toll in the last 10 years (the drug war in Mexico is, depending how you count, the 3rd or 4th deadliest armed conflict in the world today, after Syria, Iraq, and Afganistan[1]). In purely economic terms, even though some money does flow into the country through the cartels, the lack of basic security caused by a weak state interacting with extraordinarily wealthy criminal organizations makes it very hard for industry to develop: investment doesn't want to come (and if it does, must hedge against extortion in its plans), there is a huge brain-drain of skilled talent, and no local wants to take any risk, specially not a business risk that might put them in the sight of organized crime. Mexico has some high-tech industry, and it has the potential to develop far more, but it is stunted by a climate of lack of human security and personal safety. Not all of it is because of the drug war (Mexico has a level of economic inequality that makes the divide in the US look quaint, and in practical terms is an incredibly young democracy, for example). Legalization in the US would not solve all of Mexico's problems, but it might give it enough breathing room to reverse what currently feels like a slow collapse... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict... (note that the cumulative official death toll number shown there is extremely under-reported)

mjolk 10y ago
> I am strongly in favor of drug legalization, because I am from Mexico. Drug traffic is ruinous for the Mexican economy, even if you didn't care ethically about the human cost of a >250,000 death toll in the last 10 years... If the Mexican government is unable to keep its people from getting killed as a result of a neighboring country policing intoxicants, that's a failure of the Mexican government to control crime within its borders, not reason for another nation to change its laws -- you're asking not just for decriminalization, but also legal native manufacturing of addictive substances in the US, as otherwise the lucrative export market would continue to exist.
- witty_username 10y ago
  If drugs were legal to produce and distribute then it wouldn't be a black market and thus violence and criminality would reduce (people wouldn't buy from shady characters; they'd just go to the store and buy it like anything else). I don't know any ricelords or any significant criminal gangs that distribute rice. This is only a problem encountered with drugs and other illegal things. Also, (paraphrasing Milton Friedman), drug users don't report the crime unlike other crimes like burglary or murder because the victim is the offender.