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Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

532 points by nnx 6y ago

stevend3 6y ago
wow
- stevend3 6y ago
  haha
gravypod 6y ago
Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I would have assumed that a majority of these states - and my home state of NJ - would be very anti-drug but these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. If you had asked me a few years ago if I thought this was what the general American populous thought I'd have said no because, of all of the politicians who advocated for legalization of drugs, very very few got elected. Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances. The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    Well, and taxes, too, as has been the case with distilling alcohol since before marijuana became an issue. The government gets pissed if they don't get their cut. Way more fires would be caused by illicit stills blowing up if it was actually about safety.
    - asdff 6y ago
      Taxes are a red herring. You can grow tax free in every legal state. Enough to have pounds a year.
  - gravypod 6y ago
    I'm not so sure if that's the only thing people voted for when they wanted to be hard on drugs. As you can see in this comment thread (on an extremely left-leaning site) we have some people who think drug use is immoral. One of the sister comments says "I believe it's wrong". Definitely some section of the population wanted to use this as a way to bully minorities but another section of the population was convinced "drugs are bad". Either way if "hard on drugs" was a dog whistle to signal "hard on minorities" then politicians may realize saying "hard on drugs" will actually hurt their voter base far more than they realized. Maybe that will put an end to this kind of signalling/abuse.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      I think drug use is immoral, especially in a society with a welfare system. (That’s the basis for anti-drug attitudes in places like Sweden.) I’m against harsh drug laws because I think they’re create a lot of problems in criminal justice and are abused against Black communities.
      - kmonsen 6y ago
        I’m curious why you think that is so, and why is for example alcohol and cigarettes (or even sugar) included as drugs? Certainly many medical drugs should be included. There is a reason people use all of these and for example marijuana is not really more dangerous.
      - gravypod 6y ago
        What is your opinion of Alcohol, lower grade stimulates (Caffeine), and pre-processed unnatural addictive substances (pure sugar)? If you are on welfare should you be prohibited from drinking alcohol? What about eating low nutritional value fast foods? Obesity and alcoholism is far more rampant than most drugs used in the war on drugs. In America ~40% of our population was obese in 2016 [0], ~25% of people drank >5 drinks in 1 day over the past year [1], >50% of America drinks coffee daily and of that group 50% report "severe head aches" that last 2 to 5 days when attempting to stop. Meanwhile cannabis usage is around ~12% of the population [3] and I've not been able to find unrefuted studies of it's negative effects while for obesity, alcoholism, and caffeine there's some compelling work out there linking these to interesting population statics. It's medicine so it's not actually science or iron clad but from a risk & pervasiveness perspective do you think introducing legislation on these substances is warranted? [0] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2018/021.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2018/021.pdf [1] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm [2] - https://healthresearchfunding.org/shocking-caffeine-addiction-statistics/ https://healthresearchfunding.org/shocking-caffeine-addictio... [3] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/284135/percentage-americans-smoke-marijuana.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/284135/percentage-americans-smo...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
    - ggggtez 6y ago
      Just because the USA uses the war on drugs to harass people by skin color doesn't mean you need to assume that is the only reason possible. The USA tends to think of all white people at the same, but europeans don't. In europe, remember that the "lower class" could still be visually "white", but just from a different ethnic background. (Turks, for example).
  - miles 6y ago
    > The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations. Japan is largely homogenous and has very harsh drug penalties: Japan drug law among world’s toughest, personal possession attracts five-year jail https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/japan-drug-law-among-worlds-toughest-personal-possession-attracts-5-year-jail/articleshow/69121499.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-b... Why Japan Is So Strict About Drugs https://kotaku.com/why-japan-is-so-strict-about-drugs-1833286755 https://kotaku.com/why-japan-is-so-strict-about-drugs-183328... Drug Laws in Japan: You'd Better Have a Prescription https://www.tofugu.com/japan/drug-laws-in-japan/ https://www.tofugu.com/japan/drug-laws-in-japan/
    - loeg 6y ago
      GP's comment can of course be read more correctly as "the purpose of existing drug laws (in the US), ..."
      - refurb 6y ago
        Canada had very harsh drug laws too (at least for hard drugs). And so did much of Europe. Did all those countries also create those laws to harass certain populations?
        rjknight 6y ago
        In many cases yes: European attitudes towards the lower classes are often similar to (though not as extreme as) racist attitudes in the US.
        tpxl 6y ago
        Lots of European countries (and probably the rest of the world) also copy US laws for no apparent reason. More or less everyone I know has tried drugs (MJ, magic mushrooms, LSD) or does them on a regular basis, but I don't know anyone who's ever been arrested over it. What I'm saying is there doesn't seem to be (much) of a stigma against drugs, neither with the population, nor with the cops. Nevertheless, MJ is illegal, and the protests for legalization started soon after the ones in the US.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    No it isn't. The purpose is to provide a source of labor for for-profit prisons, to legally extort money from an activity or activities that largely harm no one, and to provide something for the police to actively do. If police were to enforce what most people consider the "important" laws, their death rate would go through the roof, because they'd be actively chasing after large criminal gangs. They want the low-hanging fruit of an 18 year old who's dealing a little pot, they don't want to have to go after the crime syndicate that will kill them and their family.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations. I've heard it argued that this is the purpose of traffic laws as well. A lot of enforcement is based on officer discretion which is IMO a moral trap.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Red light cameras seem to be hated because they catch everybody impartially.
- mmm_grayons 6y ago
  > these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. It's worth remembering that these aren't the same. People can vote for legalization while believing that recreational drug use is immoral. I believe it's wrong but support all drug legalization because I believe it's the job of the state to stop aggression, not to enforce morality.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Even people who think that MJ is immoral or wrong may be against outright ban. It is not purpose of criminal justice to enforce virtue or morality per se, unless one believes in very strict interpretation of their religion (even religious police powers in Saudi Arabia were recently watered down). Victimless crimes will always wake some kind of unease in free-minded people. P.S.: Politicians may not always act on wishes of silent majority. If the minority is strong and aggressive enough, they will be tempted to yield. Same dynamics as on Twitter, in principle; that is why ballot initiatives, where individual voters cannot be intimidated into voting in a certain way, are so important to democracy.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    Agree. I'm a fan of decriminalizing all of it, even though I believe things like meth and heroin to be highly destructive. Negative legal consequences do very little to stop it. I'd rather the money go to something more productive.
    - Master_Odin 6y ago
      Portugal is one of the hallmarks here where decriminalizing the drugs, and then spending the money on outreach, safe needle programs, and recovery centers have helped them not just with drug addiction problems they had, but also in lowering the knock-on effects of not having these things (like HIV and Hep C from dirty needles). Like a lot of areas of life, a softer more compassionate touch yields far better results than putting people into prison and throwing away the key.
- downrightmike 6y ago
  The war on drugs was started as a way to target people of color by Nixon. Before then, MJ was around and used, it is a plant and good pain killer that you can grow yourself. And Nixon stated that is why he was doing it in the White House tapes. For 50 years the WoD was used to justify invading other countries and setting up coups and all that has lead to our current issue with powerful militarized Narco gangs and all the people trying to get asylum in the US. So the GOP created a war to go after people of color and now are using terrible results of their actions to further justify why the GOP should stay in power. And the ignorant voters who don't study any history eat that up. What has happened is that enough people have seen through the rhetoric and failed policies and see that the laws have to change to support the evidence.
  - freedomben 6y ago
    I completely agree with you. But, some advice, if you want to have a chance at changing somebody's mind, leave out the attack on the GOP. You trigger emotional thinking and defensiveness when you do that.
    - d2v 6y ago
      Yeah. Worth noting that the Democrats helped make things significantly worse with the crime bill as well. Nixon and Regan got the ball rolling, but the Clinton admin doubled down on all of it.
      - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
        That's because the Overton window was being dragged rightward in the wake of Reagan.
  - zdragnar 6y ago
    > The war on drugs was started as a way to target people of color by Nixon So was Planned Parenthood. Instead of endlessly prosecuting the past, which can never change, let's look at today and tomorrow instead. Or, if you prefer, we could look at the exact opposite approach- the Opium wars were fought to force China to allow the sale and consumption of opium, the extensive use of which was practically epidemic. As such, it could also be argued that legalizing drugs is an attack in minorities who are disproportionately poor and thus prone to consumption- a return to the days when inner cities were ravaged by crack. Things are way more complex than just pointing at simplified versions of history and banging on the race drum.
- vmception 6y ago
  people don't agree with locking up the consumers.
- chiefalchemist 6y ago
  > Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances. Lots to unpack here. As a general rule, politicians will say or do whatever furthers their agenda (i.e., reelection). Hard stance on X are generally a reflection of appeal in the market. Moral of the story: Few politicians have the wherewithal to lead, most reflect (in a focus group driven sort of way). I'm not so sure it's that most ppl are against drug laws. It's that the laws aren't working. They're not delivering on what was promised. It's yet another case - consciously or not - where the public is realizing that you can't cure a problem by attacking a symptom. If there's a hope it's that more politicians step up, lean in, and lead. "Wait a minute, that's not a solving a problem, that's only a symptom." When we hear that often then we'll know the paradigm has changed. As it is, one change (e.g., drug laws) is not a trend.
  - gravypod 6y ago
    > As a general rule, politicians will say or do whatever furthers their agenda ... Few politicians have the wherewithal to lead, most reflect (in a focus group driven sort of way). We just saw a focus group questionnaire given to the entire population and, from my position, there was a significant difference from the data being used to drive the political candidate's general propaganda and the reality of what our population (in NJ) want. Will elected officials ignore this information (sticking to data from internally run focus groups) or will they change their behavior because of this wide spread pattern in voting? > I'm not so sure it's that most ppl are against drug laws. It's that the laws aren't working. They're not delivering on what was promised. I've spoken to some people around where I live (coworkers, at stores, etc) in NJ and brought up the ballot. More than half of the people I've spoken to were excited to be able to get good weed legally and on Tinder in my age range a majority of the profiles are "420 friendly". This is obviously all anecdotal but it would be really cool to see some sentiment analysis by region because I think a lot of people just want access to pot. Someone on the research side of Tinder could probably make a heat map and predict (from 420 friendly profiles) where the next vote to legalize pot will be. Might be a great way to preemptively buy up farm land, set it up for growers, and sell land/equipment to people after votes when people want to buy in.
- Shivetya 6y ago
  Well, no. What it tells us is the people are leaning one way and politicians on both sides aren't. Mainly because for the most part with the war on drugs the politicians are listening to the police and sheriff unions which in some states have incredible political power. For what its worth, the voters of the US also rejected giving politicians more tax powers, prevented the reinstatement of preferential college admissions, and of course clamped down on politicians selectively deciding who is a contractor and who is not. A big win all around for the voters and a rebuff to politicians - where they were allowed to vote. Some states either don't allow it or make it too hard to get anything out there.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances. I'd love to see this, but I doubt it. I've sat in on court sessions, and towns and cities pull in a lot of revenue through low-level drug offenses, and cops spend a significant amount of their time investigating and arresting kids for drug offenses. The criminalization of drugs, especially low-level offenses, are revenue generators for municipalities, and jobs programs for law enforcement. There is a lot of money, and plenty of high-paying jobs with full pensions, that are kept afloat by the criminalization of drugs.
  - michaelcampbell 6y ago
    > There is a lot of money, and plenty of high-paying jobs with full pensions, that are kept afloat by the criminalization of drugs. This is the heart of it.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      There's a reason that my local PBA is losing their minds over the potential for drugs like marijuana becoming legal, and it isn't because marijuana is harmful. It's because 60% of the town's budget goes to funding law enforcement salaries, benefits and pensions, and the majority of arrests in this area are for marijuana possession.
      - idoh 6y ago
        PBA = police officers’ union (for those like me who didn’t know)
      - wombatmobile 6y ago
        But does it necessarily follow that law enforcement budgets will be cut if weed is legalised? Ideally, how might the budget be reconfigured constructively with the same dollar amount to make a better community?
        pessimizer 6y ago
- kibwen 6y ago
  > If you had asked me a few years ago if I thought this was what the general American populous thought I'd have said no because, of all of the politicians who advocated for legalization of drugs, very very few got elected. Compare this with the legalization of gay marriage. As late as the mid-2000s it was considered (national-level) political suicide to publicly support gay marriage. Even plenty of politicians that might otherwise have supported gay marriage refused to comment on it for fear of their seats (this happens all the time for plenty of other issues as well; e.g. how many obviously-fake churchgoers there are among politicians who hope to avoid the ire of religious voters). Once a few politicians put their necks on the line and demonstrated that it wasn't impossible to seek election while sympathizing with homosexuality, that served as the activation energy for a lot of pent-up endorsements. So it's been with the decriminalization of marijuana.
  - gravypod 6y ago
    This is a very interesting comparison that I had never thought of. When I started paying attention to politics in high school gay marriage was legalized (if still stigmatized) and I haven't heard many politicians (outside of old recordings) arguing against it.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      From the GOP party platform for 2016 & 2020: > Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in this platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states. We oppose government discrimination against businesses or entities which decline to sell items or services to individuals for activities that go against their religious views about such activities. https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2 https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2 > Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was a “judicial Putsch” — full of “silly extravagances” — that reduced “the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Storey to the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie.” In Obergefell, five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court twisted the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment beyond recognition. To echo Scalia, we dissent. We, therefore, support the appointment of justices and judges who respect the constitutional limits on their power and respect the authority of the states to decide such fundamental social questions. https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4 https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4
- Izkata 6y ago
  > of all of the politicians who advocated for legalization of drugs, very very few got elected. It has long been my opinion that if people voted on individual issues instead of representatives, this would be a very different country because no politician's views match the majority of the populace. So people have to pick best-of-the-worst, a politician whose views match a handful of the issues they care about, which creates a mess overall.
  - bnralt 6y ago
    I don't think many vote based on issues. A lot of the time, people seem to choose the candidate/community around the candidate first, then support whatever issues go with it. Even when people say they're really excited about particular policies, if you talk with them for a bit there's usually very little depth or understanding there.
  - tomatocracy 6y ago
    Yes. This is the way that the public choice theory of government explains the success of special interest groups - an issue may have a majority of voters against it but if a small minority care enough about it to change their votes over it (whereas the majority who disagree are unlikely to do so because they don’t care enough about it), it can make sense for politicians to offer strong support to unpopular special interest positions. I suppose there’s a sort of deranged case where every issue a politician supports falls into this category though it’s probably not the norm.
- simonh 6y ago
  I suspect it’s not just about what people think, it’s also about how strongly they feel about it, for it to override other factors when voting. I suspect that a lot of people who on balance support legalisation, don’t feel so strongly about it that they won’t vote for someone that opposes it. Conversely I think a lot of people who oppose legalisation feel about it strongly enough that they just won’t vote for someone who supports it. Politicians are probably well aware of this.
- satya71 6y ago
  The difference is primaries vs general election. Politicians take their political positions based on primaries, since that’s the gating, and often, the deciding event for their election.
- rapind 6y ago
  The reasoning behind Reagan era war on drugs is incredibly complicated but mostly horse shit. The appearance of doing something actionable/hard lining, voter suppression, shady money, international politics, religion, misguided beliefs, big pharma, etc. No doubt there are some real debatable concerns under all the B.S. but they aren’t the “real” why behind it.
- hourislate 6y ago
  The only data Politicians use is campaign donation data. When you have several different industries that rely on a steady flow of meat into the grinder (Prison, Police Unions, Lawyers, Probation Officers/Administrative, etc) and they give generous support and campaign donations , well you know why it has taken so long to end this useless "War on Drugs". Millions of Tax dollars were spent incarcerating people for having a $20 of drugs on them. It is beyond fucking insane destroying the life of a 18 year old over a joint or sending someone away for life (3 strikes and your out) for a few dollars of weed. I don't use but I don't want to see a single penny of my tax dollars spent on destroying the lives of users. Unfortunately in my State (TX), the Industries I mentioned above are the ones making decisions for the Politicians and not the voters. The only way to fix this is to legalize it all and treat the folks who require help.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not born yet, it was absolutely devastating. At least the equivalent of today's opioid crisis if not worse. Entire neighborhoods just fell apart. Politicians and voters freaked out and demanded harsh new drug laws and penalties. Lobbiest support from those who benefited helped perpetuate this, but it got started at the time with widespread public support.
    - Judgmentality 6y ago
      I really hate to sidetrack this discussion with an obvious political rant, but it's important to remember the CIA was intimately involved in creating the crack epidemic in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...
      - ArnoVW 6y ago
        I was intrigued so I read the page. "the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported." "Webb's series led to three federal investigations, all of which concluded there was no evidence of conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. .. sounds to me like it was investigated and nothing turned up?
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  It's a lot harder for law enforcement and DAs to claim they are "Tough on Crime" when arrests are down significantly because they can only issue a citation for possession. Likewise, it's difficult to justify increasing prison/ jail budgets when they aren't packed with minor drug offenders.
- legulere 6y ago
  Voters opinions are not a black and white thing. People might be in favor of something but still vote for you even if you aren’t. Especially in a two party system politicians have to optimize for not losing your voters. If 80% of your voters are for legalization and 20% against it but you would loose 15% of your voters if you would take it into your political platform, the you simply won’t do it.
  - koboll 6y ago
    Certain stances also carry more political risk than others. For example, if you openly want to make small changes to social welfare programs that make them more sustainable -- the kind of changes that would be a part of negotiations on any social welfare reform bill anyway -- you'll get crushed by ads saying you want to destroy social welfare. It's the same with drug policy. On an individual level, most voters would probably understand drug policy liberalization if you sat down with them and showed them data around how it affects use, recidivism, et cetera. But if you vocalize support for it, you'll be risking your opponent taking a soundbyte and turning it into an ad for how you're soft on crime and you want to let dangerous criminals out of prison. So unless you have a lot of politicians in safe seats, or voters have had a lot of time to learn the nuance around these issues, it's a risky undertaking.
- dec0dedab0de 6y ago
  I'm from NJ and most people Ive spoken to about it over the last 25 years have shared the general sentiment that weed should legal, and that drug addicts are ill and are already punishing themselves enough. Including people from different backgrounds that agreed nothing else. Though as someone else commented, it was very different in the 80s and early 90s, but that could also just be how i remember it because I was a child and noone had the internet.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  The media is the message. A referendum, sortition or representative process elected by one method or another... they'll often yield pretty different vote counts. Democratically, we think of these mechanisms as ways of discovering the "will of the people." Really, they are decision making mechanisms.
- jariel 6y ago
  " legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized." Weed is not crack. Conscientious voters are not on the front lines of seeing the problems that drugs cause, just the opposite, are probably more likely to know people who go to Burning Man occasionally and who don't have a problem with a little bit of this or that now and again. I live in a neighbourhood with homeless people and can indeed assure you that 'drugs' are a massive social, health and criminal problem, it's really a pain to have to remind people of that. Crack, Meth and Opioids/Fentanyl in particular are fairly corrosive, the legalization of them would result immediately in a non-significant chunk of the population becoming adversely affecting, causing a health crises somewhere on par with a pandemic. Opioids are already a massive problem, huge source of addiction and they are quite a controlled substance. In Canada, they don't prescribe 10 or 15 or a small bottle - often they will give you literally only two or three pills max - because they are so excessively addictive. It's shocking to have to get people to look beyond their own safe neighbourhood to remind them of out ugly it really is and can be out there. Weed is not a problem and possibly not Mushrooms (although it will take some weird regulation because it's literally poison) - but almost everything else is off the table. America is literally in an opioid crisis, and it's disturbing the same people in the 'pro mask' camp seem to want to discount actual science of addiction, overdose etc. when it comes to a 'problem' that interferes with their 'recreation'. So we 'like' the CDC, right? Scientists? Public health? Esp. during a pandemic? I do! Have a look at their data. [1] Also, from the Lancet [2] We wear masks partly to 'not propagate' an actual disease - some forms of drug addiction are the same thing a social disease that is communicated by the actions we take. It's not a big deal to 'wear a mask' and it's not a big deal to 'not do crack'. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths/drug-overdose-death-rate-increase-2013-2017.html https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths/drug-overd... [2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32113-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
  - therealx 6y ago
    I think the argument to that is, these things exist despite the ban on them, therefore the only people benefiting from the existing system are the supply side catels. If you disagree, to me, it's eseentially say that it's good that people are forced into treatment when they cant afford the drugs anymore, but that doesn't feel like a good way to push positive change.
- yeetman21 6y ago
  being immoral and wrong does not mean it should or should not be criminalized
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  I would argue no politician ever made it legal in the beginning. Afaik, all the states that legalized it did so through initiatives(ca, ak, or, wa, co), and then forced the changes on the state by voting for them. I think the other states are getting on board because of the incredible new found tax revenue, and the stats showing crime didn't go up in those states. More states would certainly have legal pot by now, if they could decide who gets to get rich from it (ie: who gets the golden tickets to grow and sell). NY is a great example of how the politics of where the wealth will go has turned the process into a quagmire.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  > Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I'm not aware of any data on this specifically with regard to drug control policy, but there is research from 2013 which reveals that American politicians vastly overestimate how conservative American voters are on multiple key issues. See e.g.: Primary source: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/miller-stokes/08_MillerStokes_BroockmanSkovron.pdf https://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/miller-stokes/08_MillerStoke... Popular media reporting: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/study-congress-overestimates-the-publics-conservatism.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/study-congress-overe... Further analysis: https://theprogressivecynic.com/2014/05/02/is-the-usa-center-right-an-issue-by-issue-breakdown/ https://theprogressivecynic.com/2014/05/02/is-the-usa-center...
- TheOperator 6y ago
  Looking at political decisions as being as simple as just going with yea/nay opinion polls is overly simplistic. Those polls don't distinguish between voters who really care about an issue and hardly care about an issue. They don't distinguish between undecided voters and card carrying party members. Plus you also have to account for the almost obligatory attack by the opposition that somebody legalizing drugs is involved with them and/or obsessed with trivial matters.
bjt2n3904 6y ago
> Cannabis has been rebranded as a wellness panacea. Mushrooms and MDMA are making headlines as therapy tools, not party fuel. Man, these guys are late to the party. Alcohol works great for treating symptoms of stress, too! Can't be stressed, anxious, or depressed if I'm blitzed out of my mind!
- jagged-chisel 6y ago
  Too much generalization. Alcohol makes lots of folks so frickin' depressed... (edit: sure, fine, drink enough and you don't even know the world exist...)
  - lr4444lr 6y ago
    Alcohol is serotonergic. Yeah, it has other negative side effects, but actual FDA approved antidepressants are also convincingly shown to increase suicide ideation in some cases, and it's actively monitored by psychiatrists. The point I think is that the therapy rebranding is not a license for recreational excess, and shouldn't be invoked as a trojan horse to that end.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      I think we should stop licensing for recreational excess. If people are free to do what they like for recreation (without breaking non-drug laws), the research can proceed separately without the moralizing.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > Alcohol works great for treating symptoms of stress Yes? This is how it can work. If you can’t have some wine without cleaning out the village, it might be a sign of alcoholism.
  - bjt2n3904 6y ago
    It's one thing to acknowledge that alcohol has an affect on stress. But that isn't what this is happening. It would be another thing entirely to REBRAND alcohol as a "therapy tool". FFS.
ericmay 6y ago
I've mentioned this elsewhere, and I say this believing that substance abuse is a public health problem and not a criminal one, but: I'm not sure it's the best idea to give a bunch of people stuck living a lonely life in the suburbs, addicted to social media, and have to pay for their own healthcare, an easier path to hard drugs like heroin. There is no doubt in my mind that decriminalization will make these types of drugs easier to obtain.
- hedora 6y ago
  They could already access hard drugs. The law provides a lot of additional funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, which could actually help people in those situations. Decriminalization has worked extremely well elsewhere (it dramatically reduced substance abuse problems); hopefully it will in the US as well.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    Yea but you can also say criminalization has worked extremely well. Singapore for example. What I worry about here is another instance of treating symptoms instead of causes. Why do people feel like they need to use drugs like heroin? > The law provides a lot of additional funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, which could actually help people in those situations. So if I want healthcare I should get addicted to meth? I'm being flippant here but this goes back to the earlier point about paying for your own healthcare here in this equation.
    - zests 6y ago
      How has criminalization worked in the United States?
      - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
        The question seems simple, but the answer is complex depending on who you ask. There are populations that benefited greatly from criminalization of various substances ( say, for profit prison stocks treated as reit stocks ).
supernova87a 6y ago
I'm not sure why people aren't being just a little more cautious about ballot measures like in Oregon where even heroin and such hard drugs are now decriminalized. This deserves a little more consideration about the unintended side effects of this policy, don't you think? I look at the massive illegal drug manufacturing interests (countries, cartels) who spend vast sums on getting illegal drugs to our shores. It cannot just be a pure good thing that we make this ok now, can it? I think we will be finding out the negative unintended consequences of these policies in the years to come. edit: yeah, real courteous and open-minded, to be downvoting an otherwise legitimate opinion for discussion, isn't it?
- Sargos 6y ago
  You're right, it should have been full legalization so that only regulated producers make the drugs which makes them much safer for the populace and hurts and possibly shuts down the violent cartels. The problem is that it needs to be done in steps or some people who are afraid of change will get too worried that society is going to crumble and so they fight to keep the violence in place.
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  What do you want to discuss? People have natural urge to use drugs and there is nothing you can do about it apart from trying to educate and ensure drugs are as safe as possible. Banning drugs is an idea of the same sort like banning music or sex for pleasure. Cartels make money on drug supply, because there is mostly no one else people can buy drugs from.
  - supernova87a 6y ago
    I agree that the war on drugs was a failure. But is your position that whatever people want to do, you should not try to prevent it? What are your positions on applying that logic to carbon emissions, letting people work for less than minimum wage, companies putting out products that people buy willingly but are non-repairable? Should government step out of those areas too? People want to do all those things.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
quattrofan 6y ago
Sigh. Going to be years before that happens in the UK, the Tories are still stuck in the past and listen to the Daily Mail.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  I was surprised to learn from some research I did that the UK is often more strict on drugs than the US.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    Copyright too. It’s still illegal to rip a CD in the UK, for example.
- brodo 6y ago
  Same here in Germany. But everything eventually get handed down from the US to everywhere else due to cultural imperialism. A good thing in this case...
jimbob45 6y ago
Isn’t Seattle in shambles because they no longer arrest drug users? I know that this stuff seems like a good idea when it’s theoretical and it doesn’t happen near you but when it’s your neighbor doing heroin and the police won’t do anything about it, you start to wish that drug use wasn’t so normalized. I used to live in Salem. Used to be extremely crime-free with very few homeless. Now, they line the streets of downtown and no one goes there anymore. If we’re leaving drug users on the street too now, the only consequence of this policy will be more white flight. Shame, too, because Salem used to be a hidden gem of the Pacific NW.
- jaggednad 6y ago
  What business is it of yours if your neighbor is doing heroin? We could get people off the streets if we gave them treatment. A drug addicts are sick; Locking them in jail shouldn’t be the answer
  - wow_why 6y ago
    Homeless are the symptoms, not the disease
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      The disease is kleptocracy, not drug addiction.
  - jimbob45 6y ago
    Easy to say when it’s not your neighbor. Come back to me when you’re letting your daughter walk home from school past the junkie house.
    - nine_k 6y ago
      If junkies get their fix, it's literally the only thing they care about. It's them not being able to support their habit with a day job what makes them reckless and dangerous. If junkies receive their fix from medical authorities, along with a treatment helping them to quit, they even have a hope to become in-addicted again. Of course, arresting or maybe outright killing a junkie would instantly remove any threat to the neighbors. It just requires stopping to see the junkie as a human in need of help and start seeing the junkie as a violent criminal or even non-human. I wonder if such an approach is sort of dangerous for the society's mental health.
o_class_star 6y ago
The problem we have on the Left is that even though 65% of the American population prefers our ideas (when stripped of D/R labels) they don't really like us. We're not very good at branding, and we've let Capital convince half the country that it's actually a "liberal elite" that is holding them down. We need to get better at getting our actual message out there. The recent victory is a start, but if it were down to ideas rather than personality politics (and, you know, other stuff the other side uses) we'd be up by 20 points in every state.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  The Democratic Party (its representatives and organization, not its voters) is not pro-drug legalization, and when in power has prosecuted the war on drugs aggressively. It's very odd to refer to drug legalization as "our ideas," yet still 1) associate them with the Democratic Party, which does not agree with them, and 2) refer to the election of a Democratic POTUS who has said that he doesn't support drug legalization as a "victory."
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  This is clearly the democrats biggest problem. Biden just lost Florida largely because Trump falsely called him a socialist. Democrats are absolute losers when it comes to successfully getting people to understand their message.
  - o_class_star 6y ago
    "Socialism" may be a word we need to retire, not because it's an invalid concept, but because it means different things to different people. Democratic socialists largely want a saner version of a market economy, where power resides with labor and government aggressively combats capital's worst tendencies, but they aren't calling for old-style command economies like the USSR, Communist China, or Castro's Cuba. AOC is a fantastically talented politician with a lot of good ideas, but I think she needs to replace the word socialism with something that has less baggage. This is the general disadvantage socialism has relative to capitalism in terms of appealing to others. Socialism and communism have more than a hundred years of history, including a lot of mistakes we've had to learn from. Capitalism has no memory and therefore on its own terms has no history.
matthewmorgan 6y ago
How about an apology to the rest of the world for starting and persecuting this 'war'?
- neolog 6y ago
  Which person should apologize?
- umvi 6y ago
  Any country without drugs fully legalized contributes to this war
jjd33 6y ago
I think all drugs legal or not currently (including Alcohol, even beer etc. And Cigarettes) should only be sold in pharmacies and all should require a proof of IQ test as kind of a driving license.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  After all no one with a high IQ has ever got addicted to drugs?
karmakaze 6y ago
Whenever you see the phrase "War on ...", remember that there is often an entire industry built upon it which is only interested in self-preservation. The industry doesn't want X to go away, but rather perceive it as being a large looming threat worth all the spending.
fatjokes 6y ago
They didn't reject it. They just sided with drugs and drugs won. Long live drugs!
newbie789 6y ago
I very much hope that this experiment has a positive outcome. I don't pretend to know what the best way to handle this issue is, but it certainly seems to me that increasing incarceration has not had a desirable outcome for American society. After all, in many cases it's possible to procure heroin or methamphetamine in jail or prison. So the carceral system could in theory be seen as simply moving people around without addressing the issue of drug use, using public funds.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
This is really good news. I'm so glad to see it. I'm really impressed with how this article not only cites Portugal's success but emphasizes that their success grows out of more than mere decriminalization of drugs. It's a necessary but insufficient step towards doing what Portugal has done. This is one of the most hopeful things I have read in a long time.
bArray 6y ago
I still think it's important that more is done to combat the drug epidemic - imprisoning everybody is clearly not the answer, but allowing the epidemic to get worse isn't either. > And as the overdose crisis continues, it is ever more > apparent to a growing swath of the country that > threatening to jail drug users doesn’t reduce drug-related > death rates or help families struggling to save their > loved ones. Instead, it disproportionately hurts Black > communities. These drug infected communities still have serious problems, the Black community for example is far from out of the woods. Drug addiction needs to be recognized as a disease. Given how much the US has been willing to spend on their war on drugs, I think they could better spend this money giving free help. (Hell, it could even be the start to a free healthcare program.)

532 points by nnx 6y ago

stevend3 6y ago

wow

stevend3 6y ago
haha

gravypod 6y ago

Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I would have assumed that a majority of these states - and my home state of NJ - would be very anti-drug but these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. If you had asked me a few years ago if I thought this was what the general American populous thought I'd have said no because, of all of the politicians who advocated for legalization of drugs, very very few got elected. Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
> Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances. The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  Well, and taxes, too, as has been the case with distilling alcohol since before marijuana became an issue. The government gets pissed if they don't get their cut. Way more fires would be caused by illicit stills blowing up if it was actually about safety.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Taxes are a red herring. You can grow tax free in every legal state. Enough to have pounds a year.
- gravypod 6y ago
  I'm not so sure if that's the only thing people voted for when they wanted to be hard on drugs. As you can see in this comment thread (on an extremely left-leaning site) we have some people who think drug use is immoral. One of the sister comments says "I believe it's wrong". Definitely some section of the population wanted to use this as a way to bully minorities but another section of the population was convinced "drugs are bad". Either way if "hard on drugs" was a dog whistle to signal "hard on minorities" then politicians may realize saying "hard on drugs" will actually hurt their voter base far more than they realized. Maybe that will put an end to this kind of signalling/abuse.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    I think drug use is immoral, especially in a society with a welfare system. (That’s the basis for anti-drug attitudes in places like Sweden.) I’m against harsh drug laws because I think they’re create a lot of problems in criminal justice and are abused against Black communities.
    - kmonsen 6y ago
      I’m curious why you think that is so, and why is for example alcohol and cigarettes (or even sugar) included as drugs? Certainly many medical drugs should be included. There is a reason people use all of these and for example marijuana is not really more dangerous.
    - gravypod 6y ago
      What is your opinion of Alcohol, lower grade stimulates (Caffeine), and pre-processed unnatural addictive substances (pure sugar)? If you are on welfare should you be prohibited from drinking alcohol? What about eating low nutritional value fast foods? Obesity and alcoholism is far more rampant than most drugs used in the war on drugs. In America ~40% of our population was obese in 2016 [0], ~25% of people drank >5 drinks in 1 day over the past year [1], >50% of America drinks coffee daily and of that group 50% report "severe head aches" that last 2 to 5 days when attempting to stop. Meanwhile cannabis usage is around ~12% of the population [3] and I've not been able to find unrefuted studies of it's negative effects while for obesity, alcoholism, and caffeine there's some compelling work out there linking these to interesting population statics. It's medicine so it's not actually science or iron clad but from a risk & pervasiveness perspective do you think introducing legislation on these substances is warranted? [0] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2018/021.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2018/021.pdf [1] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm [2] - https://healthresearchfunding.org/shocking-caffeine-addiction-statistics/ https://healthresearchfunding.org/shocking-caffeine-addictio... [3] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/284135/percentage-americans-smoke-marijuana.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/284135/percentage-americans-smo...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - ggggtez 6y ago
    Just because the USA uses the war on drugs to harass people by skin color doesn't mean you need to assume that is the only reason possible. The USA tends to think of all white people at the same, but europeans don't. In europe, remember that the "lower class" could still be visually "white", but just from a different ethnic background. (Turks, for example).
- miles 6y ago
  > The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations. Japan is largely homogenous and has very harsh drug penalties: Japan drug law among world’s toughest, personal possession attracts five-year jail https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/japan-drug-law-among-worlds-toughest-personal-possession-attracts-5-year-jail/articleshow/69121499.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-b... Why Japan Is So Strict About Drugs https://kotaku.com/why-japan-is-so-strict-about-drugs-1833286755 https://kotaku.com/why-japan-is-so-strict-about-drugs-183328... Drug Laws in Japan: You'd Better Have a Prescription https://www.tofugu.com/japan/drug-laws-in-japan/ https://www.tofugu.com/japan/drug-laws-in-japan/
  - loeg 6y ago
    GP's comment can of course be read more correctly as "the purpose of existing drug laws (in the US), ..."
    - refurb 6y ago
      Canada had very harsh drug laws too (at least for hard drugs). And so did much of Europe. Did all those countries also create those laws to harass certain populations?
      - rjknight 6y ago
        In many cases yes: European attitudes towards the lower classes are often similar to (though not as extreme as) racist attitudes in the US.
        tpxl 6y ago
        Lots of European countries (and probably the rest of the world) also copy US laws for no apparent reason. More or less everyone I know has tried drugs (MJ, magic mushrooms, LSD) or does them on a regular basis, but I don't know anyone who's ever been arrested over it. What I'm saying is there doesn't seem to be (much) of a stigma against drugs, neither with the population, nor with the cops. Nevertheless, MJ is illegal, and the protests for legalization started soon after the ones in the US.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  No it isn't. The purpose is to provide a source of labor for for-profit prisons, to legally extort money from an activity or activities that largely harm no one, and to provide something for the police to actively do. If police were to enforce what most people consider the "important" laws, their death rate would go through the roof, because they'd be actively chasing after large criminal gangs. They want the low-hanging fruit of an 18 year old who's dealing a little pot, they don't want to have to go after the crime syndicate that will kill them and their family.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations. I've heard it argued that this is the purpose of traffic laws as well. A lot of enforcement is based on officer discretion which is IMO a moral trap.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Red light cameras seem to be hated because they catch everybody impartially.
mmm_grayons 6y ago
> these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. It's worth remembering that these aren't the same. People can vote for legalization while believing that recreational drug use is immoral. I believe it's wrong but support all drug legalization because I believe it's the job of the state to stop aggression, not to enforce morality.
inglor_cz 6y ago
Even people who think that MJ is immoral or wrong may be against outright ban. It is not purpose of criminal justice to enforce virtue or morality per se, unless one believes in very strict interpretation of their religion (even religious police powers in Saudi Arabia were recently watered down). Victimless crimes will always wake some kind of unease in free-minded people. P.S.: Politicians may not always act on wishes of silent majority. If the minority is strong and aggressive enough, they will be tempted to yield. Same dynamics as on Twitter, in principle; that is why ballot initiatives, where individual voters cannot be intimidated into voting in a certain way, are so important to democracy.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Agree. I'm a fan of decriminalizing all of it, even though I believe things like meth and heroin to be highly destructive. Negative legal consequences do very little to stop it. I'd rather the money go to something more productive.
  - Master_Odin 6y ago
    Portugal is one of the hallmarks here where decriminalizing the drugs, and then spending the money on outreach, safe needle programs, and recovery centers have helped them not just with drug addiction problems they had, but also in lowering the knock-on effects of not having these things (like HIV and Hep C from dirty needles). Like a lot of areas of life, a softer more compassionate touch yields far better results than putting people into prison and throwing away the key.
downrightmike 6y ago
The war on drugs was started as a way to target people of color by Nixon. Before then, MJ was around and used, it is a plant and good pain killer that you can grow yourself. And Nixon stated that is why he was doing it in the White House tapes. For 50 years the WoD was used to justify invading other countries and setting up coups and all that has lead to our current issue with powerful militarized Narco gangs and all the people trying to get asylum in the US. So the GOP created a war to go after people of color and now are using terrible results of their actions to further justify why the GOP should stay in power. And the ignorant voters who don't study any history eat that up. What has happened is that enough people have seen through the rhetoric and failed policies and see that the laws have to change to support the evidence.
- freedomben 6y ago
  I completely agree with you. But, some advice, if you want to have a chance at changing somebody's mind, leave out the attack on the GOP. You trigger emotional thinking and defensiveness when you do that.
  - d2v 6y ago
    Yeah. Worth noting that the Democrats helped make things significantly worse with the crime bill as well. Nixon and Regan got the ball rolling, but the Clinton admin doubled down on all of it.
    - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
      That's because the Overton window was being dragged rightward in the wake of Reagan.
- zdragnar 6y ago
  > The war on drugs was started as a way to target people of color by Nixon So was Planned Parenthood. Instead of endlessly prosecuting the past, which can never change, let's look at today and tomorrow instead. Or, if you prefer, we could look at the exact opposite approach- the Opium wars were fought to force China to allow the sale and consumption of opium, the extensive use of which was practically epidemic. As such, it could also be argued that legalizing drugs is an attack in minorities who are disproportionately poor and thus prone to consumption- a return to the days when inner cities were ravaged by crack. Things are way more complex than just pointing at simplified versions of history and banging on the race drum.
vmception 6y ago
people don't agree with locking up the consumers.
chiefalchemist 6y ago
> Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances. Lots to unpack here. As a general rule, politicians will say or do whatever furthers their agenda (i.e., reelection). Hard stance on X are generally a reflection of appeal in the market. Moral of the story: Few politicians have the wherewithal to lead, most reflect (in a focus group driven sort of way). I'm not so sure it's that most ppl are against drug laws. It's that the laws aren't working. They're not delivering on what was promised. It's yet another case - consciously or not - where the public is realizing that you can't cure a problem by attacking a symptom. If there's a hope it's that more politicians step up, lean in, and lead. "Wait a minute, that's not a solving a problem, that's only a symptom." When we hear that often then we'll know the paradigm has changed. As it is, one change (e.g., drug laws) is not a trend.
- gravypod 6y ago
  > As a general rule, politicians will say or do whatever furthers their agenda ... Few politicians have the wherewithal to lead, most reflect (in a focus group driven sort of way). We just saw a focus group questionnaire given to the entire population and, from my position, there was a significant difference from the data being used to drive the political candidate's general propaganda and the reality of what our population (in NJ) want. Will elected officials ignore this information (sticking to data from internally run focus groups) or will they change their behavior because of this wide spread pattern in voting? > I'm not so sure it's that most ppl are against drug laws. It's that the laws aren't working. They're not delivering on what was promised. I've spoken to some people around where I live (coworkers, at stores, etc) in NJ and brought up the ballot. More than half of the people I've spoken to were excited to be able to get good weed legally and on Tinder in my age range a majority of the profiles are "420 friendly". This is obviously all anecdotal but it would be really cool to see some sentiment analysis by region because I think a lot of people just want access to pot. Someone on the research side of Tinder could probably make a heat map and predict (from 420 friendly profiles) where the next vote to legalize pot will be. Might be a great way to preemptively buy up farm land, set it up for growers, and sell land/equipment to people after votes when people want to buy in.
Shivetya 6y ago
Well, no. What it tells us is the people are leaning one way and politicians on both sides aren't. Mainly because for the most part with the war on drugs the politicians are listening to the police and sheriff unions which in some states have incredible political power. For what its worth, the voters of the US also rejected giving politicians more tax powers, prevented the reinstatement of preferential college admissions, and of course clamped down on politicians selectively deciding who is a contractor and who is not. A big win all around for the voters and a rebuff to politicians - where they were allowed to vote. Some states either don't allow it or make it too hard to get anything out there.
heavyset_go 6y ago
> Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances. I'd love to see this, but I doubt it. I've sat in on court sessions, and towns and cities pull in a lot of revenue through low-level drug offenses, and cops spend a significant amount of their time investigating and arresting kids for drug offenses. The criminalization of drugs, especially low-level offenses, are revenue generators for municipalities, and jobs programs for law enforcement. There is a lot of money, and plenty of high-paying jobs with full pensions, that are kept afloat by the criminalization of drugs.
- michaelcampbell 6y ago
  > There is a lot of money, and plenty of high-paying jobs with full pensions, that are kept afloat by the criminalization of drugs. This is the heart of it.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    There's a reason that my local PBA is losing their minds over the potential for drugs like marijuana becoming legal, and it isn't because marijuana is harmful. It's because 60% of the town's budget goes to funding law enforcement salaries, benefits and pensions, and the majority of arrests in this area are for marijuana possession.
    - idoh 6y ago
      PBA = police officers’ union (for those like me who didn’t know)
    - wombatmobile 6y ago
      But does it necessarily follow that law enforcement budgets will be cut if weed is legalised? Ideally, how might the budget be reconfigured constructively with the same dollar amount to make a better community?
      - pessimizer 6y ago
kibwen 6y ago
> If you had asked me a few years ago if I thought this was what the general American populous thought I'd have said no because, of all of the politicians who advocated for legalization of drugs, very very few got elected. Compare this with the legalization of gay marriage. As late as the mid-2000s it was considered (national-level) political suicide to publicly support gay marriage. Even plenty of politicians that might otherwise have supported gay marriage refused to comment on it for fear of their seats (this happens all the time for plenty of other issues as well; e.g. how many obviously-fake churchgoers there are among politicians who hope to avoid the ire of religious voters). Once a few politicians put their necks on the line and demonstrated that it wasn't impossible to seek election while sympathizing with homosexuality, that served as the activation energy for a lot of pent-up endorsements. So it's been with the decriminalization of marijuana.
- gravypod 6y ago
  This is a very interesting comparison that I had never thought of. When I started paying attention to politics in high school gay marriage was legalized (if still stigmatized) and I haven't heard many politicians (outside of old recordings) arguing against it.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    From the GOP party platform for 2016 & 2020: > Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in this platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states. We oppose government discrimination against businesses or entities which decline to sell items or services to individuals for activities that go against their religious views about such activities. https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2 https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2 > Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was a “judicial Putsch” — full of “silly extravagances” — that reduced “the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Storey to the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie.” In Obergefell, five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court twisted the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment beyond recognition. To echo Scalia, we dissent. We, therefore, support the appointment of justices and judges who respect the constitutional limits on their power and respect the authority of the states to decide such fundamental social questions. https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4 https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4
Izkata 6y ago
> of all of the politicians who advocated for legalization of drugs, very very few got elected. It has long been my opinion that if people voted on individual issues instead of representatives, this would be a very different country because no politician's views match the majority of the populace. So people have to pick best-of-the-worst, a politician whose views match a handful of the issues they care about, which creates a mess overall.
- bnralt 6y ago
  I don't think many vote based on issues. A lot of the time, people seem to choose the candidate/community around the candidate first, then support whatever issues go with it. Even when people say they're really excited about particular policies, if you talk with them for a bit there's usually very little depth or understanding there.
- tomatocracy 6y ago
  Yes. This is the way that the public choice theory of government explains the success of special interest groups - an issue may have a majority of voters against it but if a small minority care enough about it to change their votes over it (whereas the majority who disagree are unlikely to do so because they don’t care enough about it), it can make sense for politicians to offer strong support to unpopular special interest positions. I suppose there’s a sort of deranged case where every issue a politician supports falls into this category though it’s probably not the norm.
simonh 6y ago
I suspect it’s not just about what people think, it’s also about how strongly they feel about it, for it to override other factors when voting. I suspect that a lot of people who on balance support legalisation, don’t feel so strongly about it that they won’t vote for someone that opposes it. Conversely I think a lot of people who oppose legalisation feel about it strongly enough that they just won’t vote for someone who supports it. Politicians are probably well aware of this.
satya71 6y ago
The difference is primaries vs general election. Politicians take their political positions based on primaries, since that’s the gating, and often, the deciding event for their election.
rapind 6y ago
The reasoning behind Reagan era war on drugs is incredibly complicated but mostly horse shit. The appearance of doing something actionable/hard lining, voter suppression, shady money, international politics, religion, misguided beliefs, big pharma, etc. No doubt there are some real debatable concerns under all the B.S. but they aren’t the “real” why behind it.
hourislate 6y ago
The only data Politicians use is campaign donation data. When you have several different industries that rely on a steady flow of meat into the grinder (Prison, Police Unions, Lawyers, Probation Officers/Administrative, etc) and they give generous support and campaign donations , well you know why it has taken so long to end this useless "War on Drugs". Millions of Tax dollars were spent incarcerating people for having a $20 of drugs on them. It is beyond fucking insane destroying the life of a 18 year old over a joint or sending someone away for life (3 strikes and your out) for a few dollars of weed. I don't use but I don't want to see a single penny of my tax dollars spent on destroying the lives of users. Unfortunately in my State (TX), the Industries I mentioned above are the ones making decisions for the Politicians and not the voters. The only way to fix this is to legalize it all and treat the folks who require help.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not born yet, it was absolutely devastating. At least the equivalent of today's opioid crisis if not worse. Entire neighborhoods just fell apart. Politicians and voters freaked out and demanded harsh new drug laws and penalties. Lobbiest support from those who benefited helped perpetuate this, but it got started at the time with widespread public support.
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    I really hate to sidetrack this discussion with an obvious political rant, but it's important to remember the CIA was intimately involved in creating the crack epidemic in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...
    - ArnoVW 6y ago
      I was intrigued so I read the page. "the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported." "Webb's series led to three federal investigations, all of which concluded there was no evidence of conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. .. sounds to me like it was investigated and nothing turned up?
ogre_codes 6y ago
It's a lot harder for law enforcement and DAs to claim they are "Tough on Crime" when arrests are down significantly because they can only issue a citation for possession. Likewise, it's difficult to justify increasing prison/ jail budgets when they aren't packed with minor drug offenders.
legulere 6y ago
Voters opinions are not a black and white thing. People might be in favor of something but still vote for you even if you aren’t. Especially in a two party system politicians have to optimize for not losing your voters. If 80% of your voters are for legalization and 20% against it but you would loose 15% of your voters if you would take it into your political platform, the you simply won’t do it.
- koboll 6y ago
  Certain stances also carry more political risk than others. For example, if you openly want to make small changes to social welfare programs that make them more sustainable -- the kind of changes that would be a part of negotiations on any social welfare reform bill anyway -- you'll get crushed by ads saying you want to destroy social welfare. It's the same with drug policy. On an individual level, most voters would probably understand drug policy liberalization if you sat down with them and showed them data around how it affects use, recidivism, et cetera. But if you vocalize support for it, you'll be risking your opponent taking a soundbyte and turning it into an ad for how you're soft on crime and you want to let dangerous criminals out of prison. So unless you have a lot of politicians in safe seats, or voters have had a lot of time to learn the nuance around these issues, it's a risky undertaking.
dec0dedab0de 6y ago
I'm from NJ and most people Ive spoken to about it over the last 25 years have shared the general sentiment that weed should legal, and that drug addicts are ill and are already punishing themselves enough. Including people from different backgrounds that agreed nothing else. Though as someone else commented, it was very different in the 80s and early 90s, but that could also just be how i remember it because I was a child and noone had the internet.
dalbasal 6y ago
The media is the message. A referendum, sortition or representative process elected by one method or another... they'll often yield pretty different vote counts. Democratically, we think of these mechanisms as ways of discovering the "will of the people." Really, they are decision making mechanisms.
jariel 6y ago
" legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized." Weed is not crack. Conscientious voters are not on the front lines of seeing the problems that drugs cause, just the opposite, are probably more likely to know people who go to Burning Man occasionally and who don't have a problem with a little bit of this or that now and again. I live in a neighbourhood with homeless people and can indeed assure you that 'drugs' are a massive social, health and criminal problem, it's really a pain to have to remind people of that. Crack, Meth and Opioids/Fentanyl in particular are fairly corrosive, the legalization of them would result immediately in a non-significant chunk of the population becoming adversely affecting, causing a health crises somewhere on par with a pandemic. Opioids are already a massive problem, huge source of addiction and they are quite a controlled substance. In Canada, they don't prescribe 10 or 15 or a small bottle - often they will give you literally only two or three pills max - because they are so excessively addictive. It's shocking to have to get people to look beyond their own safe neighbourhood to remind them of out ugly it really is and can be out there. Weed is not a problem and possibly not Mushrooms (although it will take some weird regulation because it's literally poison) - but almost everything else is off the table. America is literally in an opioid crisis, and it's disturbing the same people in the 'pro mask' camp seem to want to discount actual science of addiction, overdose etc. when it comes to a 'problem' that interferes with their 'recreation'. So we 'like' the CDC, right? Scientists? Public health? Esp. during a pandemic? I do! Have a look at their data. [1] Also, from the Lancet [2] We wear masks partly to 'not propagate' an actual disease - some forms of drug addiction are the same thing a social disease that is communicated by the actions we take. It's not a big deal to 'wear a mask' and it's not a big deal to 'not do crack'. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths/drug-overdose-death-rate-increase-2013-2017.html https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths/drug-overd... [2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32113-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- therealx 6y ago
  I think the argument to that is, these things exist despite the ban on them, therefore the only people benefiting from the existing system are the supply side catels. If you disagree, to me, it's eseentially say that it's good that people are forced into treatment when they cant afford the drugs anymore, but that doesn't feel like a good way to push positive change.
yeetman21 6y ago
being immoral and wrong does not mean it should or should not be criminalized
mtnGoat 6y ago
I would argue no politician ever made it legal in the beginning. Afaik, all the states that legalized it did so through initiatives(ca, ak, or, wa, co), and then forced the changes on the state by voting for them. I think the other states are getting on board because of the incredible new found tax revenue, and the stats showing crime didn't go up in those states. More states would certainly have legal pot by now, if they could decide who gets to get rich from it (ie: who gets the golden tickets to grow and sell). NY is a great example of how the politics of where the wealth will go has turned the process into a quagmire.
bleepblorp 6y ago
> Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I'm not aware of any data on this specifically with regard to drug control policy, but there is research from 2013 which reveals that American politicians vastly overestimate how conservative American voters are on multiple key issues. See e.g.: Primary source: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/miller-stokes/08_MillerStokes_BroockmanSkovron.pdf https://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/miller-stokes/08_MillerStoke... Popular media reporting: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/study-congress-overestimates-the-publics-conservatism.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/study-congress-overe... Further analysis: https://theprogressivecynic.com/2014/05/02/is-the-usa-center-right-an-issue-by-issue-breakdown/ https://theprogressivecynic.com/2014/05/02/is-the-usa-center...
TheOperator 6y ago
Looking at political decisions as being as simple as just going with yea/nay opinion polls is overly simplistic. Those polls don't distinguish between voters who really care about an issue and hardly care about an issue. They don't distinguish between undecided voters and card carrying party members. Plus you also have to account for the almost obligatory attack by the opposition that somebody legalizing drugs is involved with them and/or obsessed with trivial matters.

bjt2n3904 6y ago

> Cannabis has been rebranded as a wellness panacea. Mushrooms and MDMA are making headlines as therapy tools, not party fuel. Man, these guys are late to the party. Alcohol works great for treating symptoms of stress, too! Can't be stressed, anxious, or depressed if I'm blitzed out of my mind!

jagged-chisel 6y ago
Too much generalization. Alcohol makes lots of folks so frickin' depressed... (edit: sure, fine, drink enough and you don't even know the world exist...)
- lr4444lr 6y ago
  Alcohol is serotonergic. Yeah, it has other negative side effects, but actual FDA approved antidepressants are also convincingly shown to increase suicide ideation in some cases, and it's actively monitored by psychiatrists. The point I think is that the therapy rebranding is not a license for recreational excess, and shouldn't be invoked as a trojan horse to that end.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    I think we should stop licensing for recreational excess. If people are free to do what they like for recreation (without breaking non-drug laws), the research can proceed separately without the moralizing.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Alcohol works great for treating symptoms of stress Yes? This is how it can work. If you can’t have some wine without cleaning out the village, it might be a sign of alcoholism.
- bjt2n3904 6y ago
  It's one thing to acknowledge that alcohol has an affect on stress. But that isn't what this is happening. It would be another thing entirely to REBRAND alcohol as a "therapy tool". FFS.

ericmay 6y ago

I've mentioned this elsewhere, and I say this believing that substance abuse is a public health problem and not a criminal one, but: I'm not sure it's the best idea to give a bunch of people stuck living a lonely life in the suburbs, addicted to social media, and have to pay for their own healthcare, an easier path to hard drugs like heroin. There is no doubt in my mind that decriminalization will make these types of drugs easier to obtain.

hedora 6y ago
They could already access hard drugs. The law provides a lot of additional funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, which could actually help people in those situations. Decriminalization has worked extremely well elsewhere (it dramatically reduced substance abuse problems); hopefully it will in the US as well.
- ericmay 6y ago
  Yea but you can also say criminalization has worked extremely well. Singapore for example. What I worry about here is another instance of treating symptoms instead of causes. Why do people feel like they need to use drugs like heroin? > The law provides a lot of additional funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, which could actually help people in those situations. So if I want healthcare I should get addicted to meth? I'm being flippant here but this goes back to the earlier point about paying for your own healthcare here in this equation.
  - zests 6y ago
    How has criminalization worked in the United States?
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      The question seems simple, but the answer is complex depending on who you ask. There are populations that benefited greatly from criminalization of various substances ( say, for profit prison stocks treated as reit stocks ).

supernova87a 6y ago

I'm not sure why people aren't being just a little more cautious about ballot measures like in Oregon where even heroin and such hard drugs are now decriminalized. This deserves a little more consideration about the unintended side effects of this policy, don't you think? I look at the massive illegal drug manufacturing interests (countries, cartels) who spend vast sums on getting illegal drugs to our shores. It cannot just be a pure good thing that we make this ok now, can it? I think we will be finding out the negative unintended consequences of these policies in the years to come. edit: yeah, real courteous and open-minded, to be downvoting an otherwise legitimate opinion for discussion, isn't it?

Sargos 6y ago
You're right, it should have been full legalization so that only regulated producers make the drugs which makes them much safer for the populace and hurts and possibly shuts down the violent cartels. The problem is that it needs to be done in steps or some people who are afraid of change will get too worried that society is going to crumble and so they fight to keep the violence in place.
intricatedetail 6y ago
What do you want to discuss? People have natural urge to use drugs and there is nothing you can do about it apart from trying to educate and ensure drugs are as safe as possible. Banning drugs is an idea of the same sort like banning music or sex for pleasure. Cartels make money on drug supply, because there is mostly no one else people can buy drugs from.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  I agree that the war on drugs was a failure. But is your position that whatever people want to do, you should not try to prevent it? What are your positions on applying that logic to carbon emissions, letting people work for less than minimum wage, companies putting out products that people buy willingly but are non-repairable? Should government step out of those areas too? People want to do all those things.

deleted 6y ago

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quattrofan 6y ago

Sigh. Going to be years before that happens in the UK, the Tories are still stuck in the past and listen to the Daily Mail.

the_only_law 6y ago
I was surprised to learn from some research I did that the UK is often more strict on drugs than the US.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  Copyright too. It’s still illegal to rip a CD in the UK, for example.
brodo 6y ago
Same here in Germany. But everything eventually get handed down from the US to everywhere else due to cultural imperialism. A good thing in this case...

jimbob45 6y ago

Isn’t Seattle in shambles because they no longer arrest drug users? I know that this stuff seems like a good idea when it’s theoretical and it doesn’t happen near you but when it’s your neighbor doing heroin and the police won’t do anything about it, you start to wish that drug use wasn’t so normalized. I used to live in Salem. Used to be extremely crime-free with very few homeless. Now, they line the streets of downtown and no one goes there anymore. If we’re leaving drug users on the street too now, the only consequence of this policy will be more white flight. Shame, too, because Salem used to be a hidden gem of the Pacific NW.

jaggednad 6y ago
What business is it of yours if your neighbor is doing heroin? We could get people off the streets if we gave them treatment. A drug addicts are sick; Locking them in jail shouldn’t be the answer
- wow_why 6y ago
  Homeless are the symptoms, not the disease
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    The disease is kleptocracy, not drug addiction.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  Easy to say when it’s not your neighbor. Come back to me when you’re letting your daughter walk home from school past the junkie house.
  - nine_k 6y ago
    If junkies get their fix, it's literally the only thing they care about. It's them not being able to support their habit with a day job what makes them reckless and dangerous. If junkies receive their fix from medical authorities, along with a treatment helping them to quit, they even have a hope to become in-addicted again. Of course, arresting or maybe outright killing a junkie would instantly remove any threat to the neighbors. It just requires stopping to see the junkie as a human in need of help and start seeing the junkie as a violent criminal or even non-human. I wonder if such an approach is sort of dangerous for the society's mental health.

o_class_star 6y ago

The problem we have on the Left is that even though 65% of the American population prefers our ideas (when stripped of D/R labels) they don't really like us. We're not very good at branding, and we've let Capital convince half the country that it's actually a "liberal elite" that is holding them down. We need to get better at getting our actual message out there. The recent victory is a start, but if it were down to ideas rather than personality politics (and, you know, other stuff the other side uses) we'd be up by 20 points in every state.

pessimizer 6y ago
The Democratic Party (its representatives and organization, not its voters) is not pro-drug legalization, and when in power has prosecuted the war on drugs aggressively. It's very odd to refer to drug legalization as "our ideas," yet still 1) associate them with the Democratic Party, which does not agree with them, and 2) refer to the election of a Democratic POTUS who has said that he doesn't support drug legalization as a "victory."
colinmhayes 6y ago
This is clearly the democrats biggest problem. Biden just lost Florida largely because Trump falsely called him a socialist. Democrats are absolute losers when it comes to successfully getting people to understand their message.
- o_class_star 6y ago
  "Socialism" may be a word we need to retire, not because it's an invalid concept, but because it means different things to different people. Democratic socialists largely want a saner version of a market economy, where power resides with labor and government aggressively combats capital's worst tendencies, but they aren't calling for old-style command economies like the USSR, Communist China, or Castro's Cuba. AOC is a fantastically talented politician with a lot of good ideas, but I think she needs to replace the word socialism with something that has less baggage. This is the general disadvantage socialism has relative to capitalism in terms of appealing to others. Socialism and communism have more than a hundred years of history, including a lot of mistakes we've had to learn from. Capitalism has no memory and therefore on its own terms has no history.

matthewmorgan 6y ago

How about an apology to the rest of the world for starting and persecuting this 'war'?

neolog 6y ago
Which person should apologize?
umvi 6y ago
Any country without drugs fully legalized contributes to this war

jjd33 6y ago

I think all drugs legal or not currently (including Alcohol, even beer etc. And Cigarettes) should only be sold in pharmacies and all should require a proof of IQ test as kind of a driving license.

mhh__ 6y ago
After all no one with a high IQ has ever got addicted to drugs?

karmakaze 6y ago

Whenever you see the phrase "War on ...", remember that there is often an entire industry built upon it which is only interested in self-preservation. The industry doesn't want X to go away, but rather perceive it as being a large looming threat worth all the spending.

fatjokes 6y ago

They didn't reject it. They just sided with drugs and drugs won. Long live drugs!

newbie789 6y ago

I very much hope that this experiment has a positive outcome. I don't pretend to know what the best way to handle this issue is, but it certainly seems to me that increasing incarceration has not had a desirable outcome for American society. After all, in many cases it's possible to procure heroin or methamphetamine in jail or prison. So the carceral system could in theory be seen as simply moving people around without addressing the issue of drug use, using public funds.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

This is really good news. I'm so glad to see it. I'm really impressed with how this article not only cites Portugal's success but emphasizes that their success grows out of more than mere decriminalization of drugs. It's a necessary but insufficient step towards doing what Portugal has done. This is one of the most hopeful things I have read in a long time.

bArray 6y ago

I still think it's important that more is done to combat the drug epidemic - imprisoning everybody is clearly not the answer, but allowing the epidemic to get worse isn't either. > And as the overdose crisis continues, it is ever more > apparent to a growing swath of the country that > threatening to jail drug users doesn’t reduce drug-related > death rates or help families struggling to save their > loved ones. Instead, it disproportionately hurts Black > communities. These drug infected communities still have serious problems, the Black community for example is far from out of the woods. Drug addiction needs to be recognized as a disease. Given how much the US has been willing to spend on their war on drugs, I think they could better spend this money giving free help. (Hell, it could even be the start to a free healthcare program.)