5 ms·

Does the US really have harsh drug laws compared to other countries? Doesn't seem like it to me. I also don't believe that other countries are harsh on drugs j

Does the US really have harsh drug laws compared to other countries? Doesn't seem like it to me. I also don't believe that other countries are harsh on drugs just because the US or UN is. Doesn't seem to be a primary driver. I think it's much simpler. Most societies are very anti drug.

hardwaresofton 8y ago
Could you name a few countries you're thinking of? Also, there is a huge amount of nuance lost in the term "drug". Alcohol is a drug, Tobacco is a drug, Marijuana is a drug, Oxycodone is a drug. I think what most people mean when they mention drug laws being harsh in the US is the combination of very high penalties for drugs that have been proven to have minimal negative repercussions, and the CIA's sordid history in the US and abroad. You don't have to take my word for it, since wikipedia exists[0] (there's lots more but it's a good starter). Most societies may say they are anti drug, but how harsh is the sentencing, and how much of it is actually prosecuted? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
- adventured 8y ago
  Outside of obvious examples in Asia, Brazil's drug laws have created a disaster there for one very large example: "In 2005, 9 percent of those in prison were detained on drug charges -- now it’s 28 percent, and among women, 64 percent. The law, 11344/2006, has contributed to the last decade’s explosive rise of Brazil’s prison population. More than 620,000 inmates swelter in facilities built, in aggregate, for about 370,000." "Under the 2006 law many users have simply been prosecuted as traffickers, made easier by the fact that the law does not set a minimum quantity of drugs to differentiate between users and traffickers." https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/28/ten-years-drug-policy-failure-brazil https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/28/ten-years-drug-policy-fa...
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    Brazil also has a pretty big reputation for police corruption, and much more concentrated/blatant issues with organized crime which can skew those numbers, which is less of a problem in the US. Abuse of a bad law is one thing, but in the cases where some drug use was confirmed (even if arguably without intent to redistribute), I think the US has the heavier hand. Even if I'm 100% wrong about Brazil, compare their 28% to the US's 45%[0]. [0]: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
  I don't think you're wrong about any of the points you made at all. I still think that the influence of the US is not actually the cause worldwide. Do you think it's a sustained psychological attack by the US on all countries in the world? But then our enemies would stand up against that. They don't seem to. They seem more anti drug than we are. (China) I think the simplest explanation is that China wants it this way and it's their lucid choice. Maybe they have a massively deluded society? Are all societies massively deluded about pretty much everything? I guess that's a possibility. But it is a strong point to make.
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    I think it's actually the shared morality that seems to have gripped the world. Maybe it originated in the west, but I don't think so, I think it's been around longer than that. I could get really tinfoil-hat-y and say that it's often just a method of control (hard work as virtue to motivate people at the bottom of the pyramid), but I think it's safer to say that most of the time for one reason or another most societies decided the best way to attack the problem was through propaganda.
adventured 8y ago
No, only parts of Western Europe have tended to be particularly lighter than the US on drug laws. Aggressive US drug laws are also mostly a recent phenomenon (recent in the history of the country), the war on drugs era combined with mandatory minimum sentencing. For the majority of US history, there were few drug laws at all. Nearly all of Asia, comprising 35-40% of the world population, lives under far stricter drug laws than exist in the US. The US will federally legalize marijuana at some point in the next decade, as enough states legalize it. China is definitely not going to follow, you can expect them to hold firm on that. There's a chance that given some time (within two decades after the US legalizes it perhaps), South Korea and Japan will be seriously considering it. The US influence on those two nations will play a big role in the attitude change, and it'll still take a long time.
bregma 8y ago
> Does the US really have harsh drug laws compared to other countries? Depends on your race. The USA has the second-highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world, and a large proportion of those currently or formerly incarcerated are black men facing time for simple cannabis posession. Not a problem if you're a white male who went to a good school and "knows this guy," and has time to post on HN.

hardwaresofton 8y ago

Could you name a few countries you're thinking of? Also, there is a huge amount of nuance lost in the term "drug". Alcohol is a drug, Tobacco is a drug, Marijuana is a drug, Oxycodone is a drug. I think what most people mean when they mention drug laws being harsh in the US is the combination of very high penalties for drugs that have been proven to have minimal negative repercussions, and the CIA's sordid history in the US and abroad. You don't have to take my word for it, since wikipedia exists[0] (there's lots more but it's a good starter). Most societies may say they are anti drug, but how harsh is the sentencing, and how much of it is actually prosecuted? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs

adventured 8y ago
Outside of obvious examples in Asia, Brazil's drug laws have created a disaster there for one very large example: "In 2005, 9 percent of those in prison were detained on drug charges -- now it’s 28 percent, and among women, 64 percent. The law, 11344/2006, has contributed to the last decade’s explosive rise of Brazil’s prison population. More than 620,000 inmates swelter in facilities built, in aggregate, for about 370,000." "Under the 2006 law many users have simply been prosecuted as traffickers, made easier by the fact that the law does not set a minimum quantity of drugs to differentiate between users and traffickers." https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/28/ten-years-drug-policy-failure-brazil https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/28/ten-years-drug-policy-fa...
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  Brazil also has a pretty big reputation for police corruption, and much more concentrated/blatant issues with organized crime which can skew those numbers, which is less of a problem in the US. Abuse of a bad law is one thing, but in the cases where some drug use was confirmed (even if arguably without intent to redistribute), I think the US has the heavier hand. Even if I'm 100% wrong about Brazil, compare their 28% to the US's 45%[0]. [0]: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
I don't think you're wrong about any of the points you made at all. I still think that the influence of the US is not actually the cause worldwide. Do you think it's a sustained psychological attack by the US on all countries in the world? But then our enemies would stand up against that. They don't seem to. They seem more anti drug than we are. (China) I think the simplest explanation is that China wants it this way and it's their lucid choice. Maybe they have a massively deluded society? Are all societies massively deluded about pretty much everything? I guess that's a possibility. But it is a strong point to make.
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  I think it's actually the shared morality that seems to have gripped the world. Maybe it originated in the west, but I don't think so, I think it's been around longer than that. I could get really tinfoil-hat-y and say that it's often just a method of control (hard work as virtue to motivate people at the bottom of the pyramid), but I think it's safer to say that most of the time for one reason or another most societies decided the best way to attack the problem was through propaganda.

adventured 8y ago

No, only parts of Western Europe have tended to be particularly lighter than the US on drug laws. Aggressive US drug laws are also mostly a recent phenomenon (recent in the history of the country), the war on drugs era combined with mandatory minimum sentencing. For the majority of US history, there were few drug laws at all. Nearly all of Asia, comprising 35-40% of the world population, lives under far stricter drug laws than exist in the US. The US will federally legalize marijuana at some point in the next decade, as enough states legalize it. China is definitely not going to follow, you can expect them to hold firm on that. There's a chance that given some time (within two decades after the US legalizes it perhaps), South Korea and Japan will be seriously considering it. The US influence on those two nations will play a big role in the attitude change, and it'll still take a long time.

bregma 8y ago

> Does the US really have harsh drug laws compared to other countries? Depends on your race. The USA has the second-highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world, and a large proportion of those currently or formerly incarcerated are black men facing time for simple cannabis posession. Not a problem if you're a white male who went to a good school and "knows this guy," and has time to post on HN.