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After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation (2009)

43 points by MrsPeaches 9y ago

awjr 9y ago
Prohibition is one of the most pernicious ideas within our society. It enables people to prey on the weak and vulnerable. Whether we like it or not, people will seek out chemicals to make their day better, be it chocolate, coffee, wine, or heroine. Governments should be recognising this base behaviour and ensure that those chemicals are available safely and taxed appropriately. Treating drug addiction as a medical condition and not a criminal activity is the first step. Something many countries fail to even recognise. The war on drugs is a complete failure.
- jorgec 9y ago
  > Whether we like it or not, people will seek out chemicals to make their day better, be it chocolate, coffee, wine, or heroine. Its excuse.
  - awjr 9y ago
    Ah the "they are weak" argument. Humans are fallible. Don't judge individuals by your god like ability to only survive on mineral water and lettuce.
- Jizzle 9y ago
  be it chocolate, coffee, wine, or [heroin] ensure that those chemicals are available safely and taxed appropriately While I agree that prohibition has proven time and again to be a terrible thing, I'd also argue that some drugs are so dangerous in small doses that sale should never be sanctioned. Still, I would not argue in favor of strict punishments for sale nor use, especially. Issues of sale should come with punishments similar to improper business practices--tax evasion, fraud, etc--based on the scope and scale of the transactions. As you point out, people often seek certain substances because at some level they feel it will make things better. The improvement they seek may be proportional to the strength of the substance, meaning those seeking out street drugs are probably also in the most dire straits. From that perspective, punishment seems quite cruel--kicking a person when they're already down.
  - XorNot 9y ago
    The thing is you can make it illegal to sell without being illegal to consume. There's an important difference there - product safety enforcement vs. morality policing. Particulary when most dangerous drugs are a result of chemical knockoffs to try and get around supply issues to making reasonably safe ones.
    - visarga 9y ago
      > The thing is you can make it illegal to sell without being illegal to consume. If they make it illegal to sell, then the state must sell it. Otherwise it just doesn't work. Why should people acting legally need to buy from criminals?
      - cklaus 9y ago
        If you look at Portugal, who has had the most success in reducing drugs, they decriminalized drugs. Which meant they kept them illegal, but if caught it was equivalent of parking ticket fine, but also if person hit a threshold of too many fines, there was drug addiction therapy required. Decriminalization removes the excessive fines, time in jail, and removes the criminal record black mark. Atlanta GA has decriminalized marijuana this year. If caught it's a $60 fee only. Previously it was $1000, up to 6 months in jail, and a criminal record. This decriminalization should be applied to all drugs. This has been proven to work, everywhere it has been tried.
  - GuB-42 9y ago
    Depending on the way drugs are sold, penalties could, and probably should go as high as involuntary manslaughter. Dealers often misrepresent what they sell, cutting with toxic chemicals, lying about purity or even selling an entire different product. With drugs as potent as opiates, it could mean death. In fact, I think this is the leading cause of death by drug use. These practices should be much more penalized than just selling the drug, even if both are illegal. Just like armed robbery is more severely punished than shoplifting.
    - 9y ago
- jstanley 9y ago
  > Whether we like it or not, people will seek out chemicals to make their day better, be it chocolate, coffee, wine, or heroine. And most importantly, whether we like it or not has absolutely no bearing on whether it's acceptable to limit somebody else's right to put whatever they want into their own body.
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  The war on drugs is a massive success for the people who profit from it. It's not just drug dealers and cartels who profit from illegal drugs, it's the law enforcement industry as well and of course shadowy groups like the CIA who need money for black ops.
adnam 9y ago
There hasn't been a serious "war on drugs" for over 30 years in the UK. Most drugs are de-facto legal since the laws are simply not enforced. To say "prohibition of drugs is a counterproductive failure" is a straw-man, because there is no enforcement. The laws would probably have been dropped many years ago were it not for international treaty obligations.
- chillydawg 9y ago
  The black market economy underpinned by money laundering and violence very much exists, though, and causes huge amounts of harm across the board.
- martinald 9y ago
  Sort of agree for possession but not for supply. People are still getting longer prison sentences for drug supply than murder.
  - adnam 9y ago
    Agreed, but if you don't address the demand problem you can't beat the supply problem. And that's where we are now.
    - gm-conspiracy 9y ago
      What is the "supply problem"? Can you elaborate?
      - adnam 9y ago
        The selling of illicit drugs.
    - krylon 9y ago
      But if you decriminalize it, you can a) save a lot of money in the law enforcement sector, b) tax it, so you make even more money, both of which frees up cash to c) spend a lot more on prevention of rehabilitation. Plus, as long as drug trade remains illegal, you have secondary problems such as bribery of officials, gang violence.

43 points by MrsPeaches 9y ago

awjr 9y ago

Prohibition is one of the most pernicious ideas within our society. It enables people to prey on the weak and vulnerable. Whether we like it or not, people will seek out chemicals to make their day better, be it chocolate, coffee, wine, or heroine. Governments should be recognising this base behaviour and ensure that those chemicals are available safely and taxed appropriately. Treating drug addiction as a medical condition and not a criminal activity is the first step. Something many countries fail to even recognise. The war on drugs is a complete failure.

jorgec 9y ago
> Whether we like it or not, people will seek out chemicals to make their day better, be it chocolate, coffee, wine, or heroine. Its excuse.
- awjr 9y ago
  Ah the "they are weak" argument. Humans are fallible. Don't judge individuals by your god like ability to only survive on mineral water and lettuce.
Jizzle 9y ago
be it chocolate, coffee, wine, or [heroin] ensure that those chemicals are available safely and taxed appropriately While I agree that prohibition has proven time and again to be a terrible thing, I'd also argue that some drugs are so dangerous in small doses that sale should never be sanctioned. Still, I would not argue in favor of strict punishments for sale nor use, especially. Issues of sale should come with punishments similar to improper business practices--tax evasion, fraud, etc--based on the scope and scale of the transactions. As you point out, people often seek certain substances because at some level they feel it will make things better. The improvement they seek may be proportional to the strength of the substance, meaning those seeking out street drugs are probably also in the most dire straits. From that perspective, punishment seems quite cruel--kicking a person when they're already down.
- XorNot 9y ago
  The thing is you can make it illegal to sell without being illegal to consume. There's an important difference there - product safety enforcement vs. morality policing. Particulary when most dangerous drugs are a result of chemical knockoffs to try and get around supply issues to making reasonably safe ones.
  - visarga 9y ago
    > The thing is you can make it illegal to sell without being illegal to consume. If they make it illegal to sell, then the state must sell it. Otherwise it just doesn't work. Why should people acting legally need to buy from criminals?
    - cklaus 9y ago
      If you look at Portugal, who has had the most success in reducing drugs, they decriminalized drugs. Which meant they kept them illegal, but if caught it was equivalent of parking ticket fine, but also if person hit a threshold of too many fines, there was drug addiction therapy required. Decriminalization removes the excessive fines, time in jail, and removes the criminal record black mark. Atlanta GA has decriminalized marijuana this year. If caught it's a $60 fee only. Previously it was $1000, up to 6 months in jail, and a criminal record. This decriminalization should be applied to all drugs. This has been proven to work, everywhere it has been tried.
- GuB-42 9y ago
  Depending on the way drugs are sold, penalties could, and probably should go as high as involuntary manslaughter. Dealers often misrepresent what they sell, cutting with toxic chemicals, lying about purity or even selling an entire different product. With drugs as potent as opiates, it could mean death. In fact, I think this is the leading cause of death by drug use. These practices should be much more penalized than just selling the drug, even if both are illegal. Just like armed robbery is more severely punished than shoplifting.
  - 9y ago
jstanley 9y ago
> Whether we like it or not, people will seek out chemicals to make their day better, be it chocolate, coffee, wine, or heroine. And most importantly, whether we like it or not has absolutely no bearing on whether it's acceptable to limit somebody else's right to put whatever they want into their own body.
hungerstrike 9y ago
The war on drugs is a massive success for the people who profit from it. It's not just drug dealers and cartels who profit from illegal drugs, it's the law enforcement industry as well and of course shadowy groups like the CIA who need money for black ops.

adnam 9y ago

There hasn't been a serious "war on drugs" for over 30 years in the UK. Most drugs are de-facto legal since the laws are simply not enforced. To say "prohibition of drugs is a counterproductive failure" is a straw-man, because there is no enforcement. The laws would probably have been dropped many years ago were it not for international treaty obligations.

chillydawg 9y ago
The black market economy underpinned by money laundering and violence very much exists, though, and causes huge amounts of harm across the board.
martinald 9y ago
Sort of agree for possession but not for supply. People are still getting longer prison sentences for drug supply than murder.
- adnam 9y ago
  Agreed, but if you don't address the demand problem you can't beat the supply problem. And that's where we are now.
  - gm-conspiracy 9y ago
    What is the "supply problem"? Can you elaborate?
    - adnam 9y ago
      The selling of illicit drugs.
  - krylon 9y ago
    But if you decriminalize it, you can a) save a lot of money in the law enforcement sector, b) tax it, so you make even more money, both of which frees up cash to c) spend a lot more on prevention of rehabilitation. Plus, as long as drug trade remains illegal, you have secondary problems such as bribery of officials, gang violence.