5 ms·

> The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations. Japan is largely

• 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.
    • masklinn 6y ago
      How many did basically at the behest of the US? The US very much lead the crusade on drugs criminalisation after WWII.
      • disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        All of them, it's part of the founding UN treaties, as far as I know.
        • retrac 6y ago
          The People's Republic of China has maintained its draconian anti-drug stance since before the international drug conventions of the 60s and 70s. I would concur much of the puritanism and authoritarianism around the world about drugs originates from the US, but hardly all of it.
      • refurb 6y ago
        They were actually agreed upon by the UN. It didn’t take the US to convince other countries to make drugs illegal.
  • rayiner 6y ago
    Sweden has harsh drug laws too. So does China. The point is that there are other reasons people favor drug laws, since many homogenous countries have them too.
    • shmel 6y ago
      China also has concentration camps. Just saying...
    • heavyset_go 6y ago
      And yet the literal tons of fentanyl and fentanyl derivatives that are swamping black markets in the US and killing thousands are almost exclusively manufactured in China and shipped to the US.
    • Der_Einzige 6y ago
      I'd take 10 years in a swedish prison over 3 months in a US prison...
      • jahaja 6y ago
        "Harsh" is very relative. I would be very surprised to see anyone caught using drugs for the first time, or even the 3rd time, not just getting a fine unless they're in possession of a larger quantity. The maximum sentence is 3 years, which I would assume would require a substantial criminal record.
• devenblake 6y ago
  The purpose of existing drug laws in America is to give police the means to harass minorities though. See: https://archive.attn.com/stories/1503/war-on-drugs-real-reason https://archive.attn.com/stories/1503/war-on-drugs-real-reas... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/real-reasons-marijuana-is-banned_b_9210248 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/real-reasons-marijuana-is-ban... http://www.history.com/news/why-the-u-s-made-marijuana-illegal http://www.history.com/news/why-the-u-s-made-marijuana-illeg... https://www.salon.com/2015/07/02/the_real_reason_marijuana_is_illegal_in_the_united_states_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2015/07/02/the_real_reason_marijuana_i... (though this one pretty much reiterates the attn article).
  • bluedino 6y ago
    So what’s the purpose of them in Japan?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • scrose 6y ago
      Japan is a different country, with different cultures, values and history. Answering ‘whataboutism’ type of questions almost always leads to an endless loop of accomplishing nothing. What about Russia? What about China? Etc... There is no value in these questions when they have no relation to the original statement being made.
    • Ericson2314 6y ago
      It's unclear what purpose they serve in Japan. That doesn't make it less clear in the US.
    • grawprog 6y ago
      Most of them were instated after the US occupation of Japan post-world war 2. At the time they served the purpose of asserting America's control over Japan. What purpose they serve there now, who knows?
    • x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
• brodo 6y ago
  > Japan is largely homogenous While that's true I always like to remind people of the Ainu people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people). They are an example of a suppressed (largely extinct) ethnic group in Japan. Basically Japan's native Americans. Aside from that, drug prohibition has always been used to h arras people on a basis of their class background. The working and caring classes always take the main toll in prohibition.