8 ms·

This has been my position for a while on so called "vices". Prohibition is ineffective and often does more harm than good, but allowing companies to advertise t

This has been my position for a while on so called "vices". Prohibition is ineffective and often does more harm than good, but allowing companies to advertise these products to young people and those who are susceptible to abuse is a net negative for society. Worst of all are government run lotteries. A state run lottery may be preferable to one run by organized crime, but running millions of dollars worth of ads with product tie-ins (Harley Davidson, car companies, cruises, etc.) all while claiming to "support education" is outrageous.

PKop 5y ago
>Prohibition is ineffective and often does more harm than good I don't believe this is true, though it is often parroted as so. Effectiveness of prohibition is determined in large part on severity of punishments. It is imperfect, and will always be. But it can absolutely work to minimize the behavior being targeted.
- thebean11 5y ago
  > Effectiveness of prohibition is determined in large part on severity of punishments. The punishments for drugs are pretty severe in much of the US (multiple years in prison). Are you advocating for even harsher punishments than that?
  - lacksconfidence 5y ago
    Not OP, and not advocating it, but I suspect with respect to drugs the problem isn't the amount of punishment. It's the liklihood of punishment. Imagine a dystopia where everyone takes a drug test every day, and if someone fails they go to jail. It seems likely drug use would plummet due to enforcement (and special ways to get around it would spring up for the select few).
  - PKop 5y ago
    Well, yes I am. But is that relevant to the question at hand: if the punishments were more severe, would they decrease drug selling/use? How about if we banned Narcan, do you think that would affect the total number of opiate addicts long term? What if we cut off the hands of drug dealers? Or applied the death penalty to drug dealers? What if we rounded up all the addicts that commit so many crimes in cities today, and degrade the quality of life with tent cities strewn everywhere, and threw them all into the ocean...do you think that would decrease drug use? Of course it would. What I'm pushing back against is the absurd claim that the problem is intractable in terms of "decreasing some behavior through disincentivization", which isn't true.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      Yes I think cutting off arms would discourage drug use to some extent, but I think the price is too high. At some point a policy like that creates more suffering than it prevents. From your example on throwing people into the ocean, it sounds like you agree that a tradeoff exist here. Unless you actually think killing drug users is a good solution to reduce drug use? The question was never whether it was possible to curb drug use with the legal system (that seems like a straw man), but whether the cure is worse than the disease, or whether an alternative cure might be better.
      - PKop 5y ago
        >was never Not true and there are many in this thread and elsewhere for years on the internet saying exactly this. Thank you for conceding my point against the ridiculous argument that "prohibition is ineffective"... that no it is, it's only a matter of degree of punishment, which is what I said. >more suffering than it prevents This only matters in some utilitarian conception where all net suffering or utility or whatever is created equal. No, I think drug dealers suffering is not the same as suffering of normal people wanting to live their lives in a productive and healthy way for their community. But this is what politics is for, conflict over interests, values, worldviews, and societal preferences. It's also what all of criminal law deals with: justice for crimes isn't viewed the same as suffering of law abiding people or victims. >a tradeoff exist here Like the tradeoff exists for the death penalty of murders in that justice for that crime requires "harm" to be inflicted on the perpetrator, yes. But this isn't that profound of a concept.
        thebean11 5y ago
        > Thank you for conceding my point against the ridiculous argument that "prohibition is ineffective" It depends what you mean by effective and ineffective. Nuking San Fransisco would prevent tons of drug use, but is not an effective way of solving society's ills. > This only matters in some utilitarian conception where all net suffering or utility or whatever is created equal. Drug laws not only hurt drug users, but further criminalize nonviolent users who commit more crimes, fund organized crime (here and especially in other countries), cost billions of dollars to society in court systems, prisons, police officers, and lost productivity. If your solution to that is literally kill people without a trial for drug use then some of those clearly wouldn't apply, but that's honestly a pretty sick worldview. I'm not sure if you're younger or maybe lived a more sheltered life and weren't exposed to drug users or similar groups of people, but you might change your tune if you knew someone affected by it (whether they were a user or the parent/child/spouse/friend). I wonder what you think of other countries which have much lower rates of drug abuse yet don't impose punishments as harsh as the US?
- airstrike 5y ago
  Prohibition and its enforcement aren’t a zero cost affair, not to mention second-order effects
- throwawaynay 5y ago
  Drug dealers are routinely executed in countries where the death penalty exist for drugs, it doesn't seem to stop them. People were sentenced to 20years in prison for a joint in the US, that didn't stop most people from trying it. And you really can't deny the "do more harm than good" part. "don't take a very small risk for your health or we will hang you" doesn't exactly seem like harm reduction.
  - jeffreyrogers 5y ago
    Seems like it is much harder to get drugs in Singapore than in Seattle. Prohibition might not be absolute, but it seems effective at reducing the number of people using drugs. Is that a good or bad policy goal, and is it worth the costs? That a political question, but the answer to that is separate from whether prohibition works or not.
    - throwawaynay 5y ago
      >That a political question That's not political, it's science, statistics, facts. Prohibition = more overdoses, more violence, more untreated addiction, younger users, richer criminals, more abuse from the police, more corruption, less incentive to educate yourself/learn a trade when you come from a poor area, more likely to be BORN addicted to drugs because your mom was terrified of getting help before/when she was pregnant, more likely to get aids, more likely to have your life completely and permanently ruined. This whole debate can end in one word: Portugal. There is no debate really, only ignorance. And btw it's not hard to get drugs in any city. I don't know a place on earth where you can't get drugs in an hour or two, besides rural areas.
      - robrenaud 5y ago
        It's unclear that the numbers are in your favor. As far as I can tell, as of 2018, the US had 600 opiate users per 100k, Portugal had 250, and Singapore had 30. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/10/portugal-opioid https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/10/portugal-opioid https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/singapore-is-winning-the-war-on-drugs-heres-how/2018/03/11/b8c25278-22e9-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/singapore-is-winning...
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  Prohibition aides and cultivates an underworld which operates outside the bounds of legality. Rather put a high tax, like tobacco products, do the state can make a boatload of money from vices rather than enriching the criminal underworld and indirectly funding illegal guns, sex trade, rackets etc... Anecdotally, my own country banned alcohol and cigarette sales during the first lockdown. The black market rose from nowhere and made a filthy amount of money. You can guess whether or not the violent crime rate has increased of decreased.
babypuncher 5y ago
State lotteries are a means to shift tax burden from the wealthy to the poor. Every time one is implemented to "support education", it is always followed by a tax break for the upper class, resulting in a net 0 increase in school budgets.
- bregma 5y ago
  State lotteries are just a tax on the stupid.
  - margalabargala 5y ago
    People like to say this because it's a nice sound-bite that lets people feel like they themselves are not among the stupid. It ignores the reality that poverty is a causative agent for lacking the appropriate math skill to recognize that playing the lottery is not a good financial choice, and self-perpetuates that poverty.
    - nsxwolf 5y ago
      Most people buy lotto tickets so they can spend a few minutes in blissful daydream before they come crashing back down to their financial reality. It's like a very cheap drug. It makes them feel good, so it serves a purpose. Feeling good is good.
      - lapetitejort 5y ago
        Having read horror stories of people winning the lottery, I can't even daydream about being rich. I would much rather be an average wage-earner than have my life be destroyed by money.
        mythrwy 5y ago
        Unlike you I'd be willing to take my chances with life destruction in this case. (mostly because I think it would avoid many of the life destroying parts)

PKop 5y ago

>Prohibition is ineffective and often does more harm than good I don't believe this is true, though it is often parroted as so. Effectiveness of prohibition is determined in large part on severity of punishments. It is imperfect, and will always be. But it can absolutely work to minimize the behavior being targeted.

thebean11 5y ago
> Effectiveness of prohibition is determined in large part on severity of punishments. The punishments for drugs are pretty severe in much of the US (multiple years in prison). Are you advocating for even harsher punishments than that?
- lacksconfidence 5y ago
  Not OP, and not advocating it, but I suspect with respect to drugs the problem isn't the amount of punishment. It's the liklihood of punishment. Imagine a dystopia where everyone takes a drug test every day, and if someone fails they go to jail. It seems likely drug use would plummet due to enforcement (and special ways to get around it would spring up for the select few).
- PKop 5y ago
  Well, yes I am. But is that relevant to the question at hand: if the punishments were more severe, would they decrease drug selling/use? How about if we banned Narcan, do you think that would affect the total number of opiate addicts long term? What if we cut off the hands of drug dealers? Or applied the death penalty to drug dealers? What if we rounded up all the addicts that commit so many crimes in cities today, and degrade the quality of life with tent cities strewn everywhere, and threw them all into the ocean...do you think that would decrease drug use? Of course it would. What I'm pushing back against is the absurd claim that the problem is intractable in terms of "decreasing some behavior through disincentivization", which isn't true.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    Yes I think cutting off arms would discourage drug use to some extent, but I think the price is too high. At some point a policy like that creates more suffering than it prevents. From your example on throwing people into the ocean, it sounds like you agree that a tradeoff exist here. Unless you actually think killing drug users is a good solution to reduce drug use? The question was never whether it was possible to curb drug use with the legal system (that seems like a straw man), but whether the cure is worse than the disease, or whether an alternative cure might be better.
    - PKop 5y ago
      >was never Not true and there are many in this thread and elsewhere for years on the internet saying exactly this. Thank you for conceding my point against the ridiculous argument that "prohibition is ineffective"... that no it is, it's only a matter of degree of punishment, which is what I said. >more suffering than it prevents This only matters in some utilitarian conception where all net suffering or utility or whatever is created equal. No, I think drug dealers suffering is not the same as suffering of normal people wanting to live their lives in a productive and healthy way for their community. But this is what politics is for, conflict over interests, values, worldviews, and societal preferences. It's also what all of criminal law deals with: justice for crimes isn't viewed the same as suffering of law abiding people or victims. >a tradeoff exist here Like the tradeoff exists for the death penalty of murders in that justice for that crime requires "harm" to be inflicted on the perpetrator, yes. But this isn't that profound of a concept.
      - thebean11 5y ago
        > Thank you for conceding my point against the ridiculous argument that "prohibition is ineffective" It depends what you mean by effective and ineffective. Nuking San Fransisco would prevent tons of drug use, but is not an effective way of solving society's ills. > This only matters in some utilitarian conception where all net suffering or utility or whatever is created equal. Drug laws not only hurt drug users, but further criminalize nonviolent users who commit more crimes, fund organized crime (here and especially in other countries), cost billions of dollars to society in court systems, prisons, police officers, and lost productivity. If your solution to that is literally kill people without a trial for drug use then some of those clearly wouldn't apply, but that's honestly a pretty sick worldview. I'm not sure if you're younger or maybe lived a more sheltered life and weren't exposed to drug users or similar groups of people, but you might change your tune if you knew someone affected by it (whether they were a user or the parent/child/spouse/friend). I wonder what you think of other countries which have much lower rates of drug abuse yet don't impose punishments as harsh as the US?
airstrike 5y ago
Prohibition and its enforcement aren’t a zero cost affair, not to mention second-order effects
throwawaynay 5y ago
Drug dealers are routinely executed in countries where the death penalty exist for drugs, it doesn't seem to stop them. People were sentenced to 20years in prison for a joint in the US, that didn't stop most people from trying it. And you really can't deny the "do more harm than good" part. "don't take a very small risk for your health or we will hang you" doesn't exactly seem like harm reduction.
- jeffreyrogers 5y ago
  Seems like it is much harder to get drugs in Singapore than in Seattle. Prohibition might not be absolute, but it seems effective at reducing the number of people using drugs. Is that a good or bad policy goal, and is it worth the costs? That a political question, but the answer to that is separate from whether prohibition works or not.
  - throwawaynay 5y ago
    >That a political question That's not political, it's science, statistics, facts. Prohibition = more overdoses, more violence, more untreated addiction, younger users, richer criminals, more abuse from the police, more corruption, less incentive to educate yourself/learn a trade when you come from a poor area, more likely to be BORN addicted to drugs because your mom was terrified of getting help before/when she was pregnant, more likely to get aids, more likely to have your life completely and permanently ruined. This whole debate can end in one word: Portugal. There is no debate really, only ignorance. And btw it's not hard to get drugs in any city. I don't know a place on earth where you can't get drugs in an hour or two, besides rural areas.
    - robrenaud 5y ago
      It's unclear that the numbers are in your favor. As far as I can tell, as of 2018, the US had 600 opiate users per 100k, Portugal had 250, and Singapore had 30. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/10/portugal-opioid https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/10/portugal-opioid https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/singapore-is-winning-the-war-on-drugs-heres-how/2018/03/11/b8c25278-22e9-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/singapore-is-winning...
vagrantJin 5y ago
Prohibition aides and cultivates an underworld which operates outside the bounds of legality. Rather put a high tax, like tobacco products, do the state can make a boatload of money from vices rather than enriching the criminal underworld and indirectly funding illegal guns, sex trade, rackets etc... Anecdotally, my own country banned alcohol and cigarette sales during the first lockdown. The black market rose from nowhere and made a filthy amount of money. You can guess whether or not the violent crime rate has increased of decreased.

babypuncher 5y ago

State lotteries are a means to shift tax burden from the wealthy to the poor. Every time one is implemented to "support education", it is always followed by a tax break for the upper class, resulting in a net 0 increase in school budgets.

bregma 5y ago
State lotteries are just a tax on the stupid.
- margalabargala 5y ago
  People like to say this because it's a nice sound-bite that lets people feel like they themselves are not among the stupid. It ignores the reality that poverty is a causative agent for lacking the appropriate math skill to recognize that playing the lottery is not a good financial choice, and self-perpetuates that poverty.
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    Most people buy lotto tickets so they can spend a few minutes in blissful daydream before they come crashing back down to their financial reality. It's like a very cheap drug. It makes them feel good, so it serves a purpose. Feeling good is good.
    - lapetitejort 5y ago
      Having read horror stories of people winning the lottery, I can't even daydream about being rich. I would much rather be an average wage-earner than have my life be destroyed by money.
      - mythrwy 5y ago
        Unlike you I'd be willing to take my chances with life destruction in this case. (mostly because I think it would avoid many of the life destroying parts)