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> put people behind bars for victimless crimes Have you been to any of the regions where these drugs are produced? They aren't victimless crimes. The drug trad
by jeffreyrogers 6y ago
> put people behind bars for victimless crimes
Have you been to any of the regions where these drugs are produced? They aren't victimless crimes. The drug trade creates very real social problems in both the regions they're produced and where they're consumed. Now, maybe certain policies and the war on drugs create more problems than they solve, but the problems they aim to address are very real, and do have victims associated with them.
- stronglikedan 6y ago> The drug trade creates very real social problems The drug war creates those problems. A legal (or maybe just decriminalized) drug trade would eliminate most of them.
- luckylion 6y agoProhibition, not war. You don't need a war on drugs to create those situations, as France currently proves, you need prohibition. It's the laws that create the incentives, not how crazy you enforce them.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoI mostly agree with that, however, they are still not victimless crimes.
- jansan 6y agoSo the whole OxyContin scandal is based on false accusations? What we had here was a quasi-legalization of drugs that should be strictly regulated. It destroyed families, lives, whole communities. This is what you get if you fully legalize drug trade. It's insanity.
- stronglikedan 6y agoIf addiction were not stigmatized, in (very) large part due to the war on drugs, there would not be a OxyContin scandal. Legalization has nothing to do with that.
- Reelin 6y ago> It destroyed families, lives, whole communities. This completely unfounded moral panic is what fuels the vast majority of organized crime (among other things) throughout the world.
- colordrops 6y agoIf sugar was illegal you'd see the same sorts of crimes. You can't blame it on drugs or drug users the same way you wouldn't blame it on sugar or sugar users. The blame rests squarely on bad laws and those who create them.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoI think you can still blame murder, bribery, and corruption, all of which are associated with the drug trade and occuring in the US and elsewhere, on the people committing them, while also admitting that some aspects of the problem are caused by the US government's own actions.
- colordrops 6y agoI fully agree. Just saying that drugs and drug users are not criminal.
- pessimizer 6y agoI think that blame isn't exclusive. The US government is responsible for the entire problem, because murder, bribery, and corruption are being used by people purely in reaction to government policy. That doesn't somehow exonerate people that kill to preserve the cash flow that US policy institutionalizes. The bribery and corruption actually occurs within government, so it's weird to separate those acts from the people in government that benefit from them. There's no reason I know of why an above-ground drug trade would be violent, corrupting, or even attractive, other than if they're taxed wildly out of proportion to the strain that their effects would put on (a hypothetical) health care system, preserving the illegal trade to some extent. Sin taxes themselves are a form of corruption that attacks a minority by convincing a majority that they deserve it due to some moral failing. We can certainly figure out how to maintain a drug war on the poor while still legalizing drugs. If we don't bother, drug usage will become a chronic medical problem, like asthma.
- Reelin 6y ago> other than if they're taxed wildly out of proportion Amusingly this seems to have happened to a limited extent with weed in Washington state. There's still a bit of availability on the black market, but not nearly as much as before. (Of course tobacco is also available on the black market the world over so I suppose it isn't unexpected.)