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How many people do you wager bled any amount over the half century in this 'war'? It is my understanding that a lot of people (rightfully) faced criminal penalt

How many people do you wager bled any amount over the half century in this 'war'? It is my understanding that a lot of people (rightfully) faced criminal penalties, and even that number pales in comparison to the victims of actual violence in real wars.

paloaltokid 9y ago
You're completely uninformed. The US drug war has had devastating effects on many countries around the globe, from Colombia to Afghanistan. For a well-written and in-depth overview, I recommend "The Politics of Heroin."
- manyhands 9y ago
  You are horribly underinformed if you think any of Afghanistan's issues are rooted in US domestic drug policy. I recommend reading more than one book on the history of the region.
  - whyenot 9y ago
    Do you have any suggestions for another good book to read?
    - manyhands 9y ago
      Any holistic examination of the history of conflict in the region should suffice. Even this should suffice: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(1978–present) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(1978–pre...
isubkhankulov 9y ago
For the prohibition, conservatively the homicide rate dropped 5-13%. if about 15k people in the US are murdered every year. Ending drug prohibition would save lets say 10% of those murdered? or 1,500 people. thats about half the amount killed on 9/11. This isn't counting all the deaths south of the border or all of the violence. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/the-not-so-roaring-20s.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/the-not...
- manyhands 9y ago
  This is a rather lazy analysis. Would you like to consider any more than a single act of terrorism on the other side of your accounting? 'All of the death [or violence] south of the border' is also rather imprecise and self-generous.
  - dang 9y ago
    Your comments are breaking the HN guidelines by crossing into incivility. Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them when commenting here?
    - manyhands 9y ago
      It is not my intention to hurt any feelings. I apologize if I have been interpreted as personally hostile. I will take care to avoid any further confusion. Thanks. As a side note, this is my tenth+ (stopped updating this) attempt to post this comment due to the slowban you've imposed on my account, so I would like if you clarified to readers that my ability to comment further here has been impaired, contrary to the plain subtext of your post.
throwaway2016a 9y ago
I don't have an answer for you but I do know that if there is one it needs to include: - Murders due to the existence of a black market (people don't tend to get killed in such high volumes in an open market) - Deaths due to enforcement of the laws. Both "criminals" and law enforcement. - Deaths due to people failing to seek medical help because they don't want to go to jail - Deaths in prison of people who are only there because of prohibition - Suicides due to the consequences of prohibition - May or may not count people whose lives were generally ruined because they are felons now and the trickle down punishment of those people's families as well. I have no doubt that number will pail in comparison to a "real" war. But that doesn't mean those lives are not worth saving. It is a bad precedence to say that because one thing (real war) is worse than another (drug war) that we shouldn't try to end both.
- manyhands 9y ago
  The OP chose to talk about bloodshed. We are now characterizing how bloody the 'war on drugs' has been. We are not characterizing how bad it might be in any other sense. This is a focused argument intended to examine something precisely. I asked about bloodshed in response to a claim about bloodshed. I don't want to hear about 'trickle down punishment' in response. Do you understand how inadequate that is?
  - nitrogen 9y ago
    Nobody wants to engage in debates over arbitrarily specific terms just to satisfy one person's pedantic beef. Also, you don't own the thread; people can respond as they please and the votes and mods will sort it out.
    - manyhands 9y ago
      It is my hope that the power of our words will sort things out. I'm here to argue in the original sense of the word, and while I am ultimately interested in the broad consequences of drug laws in the US, I consider it healthy and productive to first focus on an indisputably negative consequence, physical harm -- especially when it has been proposed that these laws have resulted in more of this than any war in recent history. If we can't talk through this point, a fair treatment of broader and less easily chracterized consequences is hopeless.
equalunique 9y ago
Imagine if I actually linked to cartel machete execution videos right here on HN just to give you some real examples.
- manyhands 9y ago
  When cartels can't sell drugs, they sell organs, arms, and women. We have lawlessness in countries hosting organized crime and a troubled, self-destructive underclass driving demand for their product to blame, not drug laws themselves. Those laws are almost the only good thing about the situation.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    But the drug money funds them and funds them well. It's just too lucrative. That money comes from the illegality of the inelastic demand product. You don't see people cutting off heads for the cigarette or alcohol trade. The cartels are only powerful because they have the money to be powerful. I can't imagine selling organs would be nearly as lucrative. I mean Pablo Escobar was worth $30 billion dollars in 1993, which is around $51 billion today. For reference, Gates is worth around $86 billion, and Gates operates within the law while Escobar could buy off entire countries and was, for the longest time, immune from real prosecution. You can't buy that by selling organs.
Clubber 9y ago
>a lot of people (rightfully) faced criminal penalties Because an arbitrary law envisioned by a paranoid man to silence his political opposition makes it rightful? http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richa... I can see that you are a true believer. Please research the death tolls in Mexico and Columbia to try to convince yourself of our folly.

paloaltokid 9y ago

You're completely uninformed. The US drug war has had devastating effects on many countries around the globe, from Colombia to Afghanistan. For a well-written and in-depth overview, I recommend "The Politics of Heroin."

manyhands 9y ago
You are horribly underinformed if you think any of Afghanistan's issues are rooted in US domestic drug policy. I recommend reading more than one book on the history of the region.
- whyenot 9y ago
  Do you have any suggestions for another good book to read?
  - manyhands 9y ago
    Any holistic examination of the history of conflict in the region should suffice. Even this should suffice: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(1978–present) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(1978–pre...

isubkhankulov 9y ago

For the prohibition, conservatively the homicide rate dropped 5-13%. if about 15k people in the US are murdered every year. Ending drug prohibition would save lets say 10% of those murdered? or 1,500 people. thats about half the amount killed on 9/11. This isn't counting all the deaths south of the border or all of the violence. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/the-not-so-roaring-20s.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/the-not...

manyhands 9y ago
This is a rather lazy analysis. Would you like to consider any more than a single act of terrorism on the other side of your accounting? 'All of the death [or violence] south of the border' is also rather imprecise and self-generous.
- dang 9y ago
  Your comments are breaking the HN guidelines by crossing into incivility. Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them when commenting here?
  - manyhands 9y ago
    It is not my intention to hurt any feelings. I apologize if I have been interpreted as personally hostile. I will take care to avoid any further confusion. Thanks. As a side note, this is my tenth+ (stopped updating this) attempt to post this comment due to the slowban you've imposed on my account, so I would like if you clarified to readers that my ability to comment further here has been impaired, contrary to the plain subtext of your post.

throwaway2016a 9y ago

I don't have an answer for you but I do know that if there is one it needs to include: - Murders due to the existence of a black market (people don't tend to get killed in such high volumes in an open market) - Deaths due to enforcement of the laws. Both "criminals" and law enforcement. - Deaths due to people failing to seek medical help because they don't want to go to jail - Deaths in prison of people who are only there because of prohibition - Suicides due to the consequences of prohibition - May or may not count people whose lives were generally ruined because they are felons now and the trickle down punishment of those people's families as well. I have no doubt that number will pail in comparison to a "real" war. But that doesn't mean those lives are not worth saving. It is a bad precedence to say that because one thing (real war) is worse than another (drug war) that we shouldn't try to end both.

manyhands 9y ago
The OP chose to talk about bloodshed. We are now characterizing how bloody the 'war on drugs' has been. We are not characterizing how bad it might be in any other sense. This is a focused argument intended to examine something precisely. I asked about bloodshed in response to a claim about bloodshed. I don't want to hear about 'trickle down punishment' in response. Do you understand how inadequate that is?
- nitrogen 9y ago
  Nobody wants to engage in debates over arbitrarily specific terms just to satisfy one person's pedantic beef. Also, you don't own the thread; people can respond as they please and the votes and mods will sort it out.
  - manyhands 9y ago
    It is my hope that the power of our words will sort things out. I'm here to argue in the original sense of the word, and while I am ultimately interested in the broad consequences of drug laws in the US, I consider it healthy and productive to first focus on an indisputably negative consequence, physical harm -- especially when it has been proposed that these laws have resulted in more of this than any war in recent history. If we can't talk through this point, a fair treatment of broader and less easily chracterized consequences is hopeless.

equalunique 9y ago

Imagine if I actually linked to cartel machete execution videos right here on HN just to give you some real examples.

manyhands 9y ago
When cartels can't sell drugs, they sell organs, arms, and women. We have lawlessness in countries hosting organized crime and a troubled, self-destructive underclass driving demand for their product to blame, not drug laws themselves. Those laws are almost the only good thing about the situation.
- Clubber 9y ago
  But the drug money funds them and funds them well. It's just too lucrative. That money comes from the illegality of the inelastic demand product. You don't see people cutting off heads for the cigarette or alcohol trade. The cartels are only powerful because they have the money to be powerful. I can't imagine selling organs would be nearly as lucrative. I mean Pablo Escobar was worth $30 billion dollars in 1993, which is around $51 billion today. For reference, Gates is worth around $86 billion, and Gates operates within the law while Escobar could buy off entire countries and was, for the longest time, immune from real prosecution. You can't buy that by selling organs.

Clubber 9y ago

>a lot of people (rightfully) faced criminal penalties Because an arbitrary law envisioned by a paranoid man to silence his political opposition makes it rightful? http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richa... I can see that you are a true believer. Please research the death tolls in Mexico and Columbia to try to convince yourself of our folly.