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Assuming this is a good faith question I'll broaden the scope a little. I think the spectrum we're working on here is basically: "society is more important than

Assuming this is a good faith question I'll broaden the scope a little. I think the spectrum we're working on here is basically: "society is more important than the individual" and "the individual is more important than society", or more concretely: "society exists to serve the individual" and "the individual exists to serve society". I'd like to avoid debating the extremes, but I think the example of "I'm not willing to put up with a San Francisco level of sanitation, public drug use, and petty crime in lieu of executing users of drugs, including marijuana" is a pretty extreme position. I think it's clear that marijuana doesn't pose the same societal risk as other illegal (in the US) drugs like cocaine, meth, and opiates, or even other legal drugs like alcohol and nicotine, so I don't think using it merits execution: the most severe penalty we impose. Maybe the weed thing is a red herring, so I'll include users of drugs that do pose a significant societal risk. It's well established that drug use is a pathology and addiction is a disease, and that severe penalties have had little effect in discouraging use. US drug policy has failed its (facial) goals of: - reduce economic dependence of foreign countries on drug production - reduce domestic drug consumption - reduce drug violence (The starkest example of 3 has been the unrelenting violence in Chicagoland, which conservatives attribute to a failure of liberal governance, but which is a clear failing of national US drug and gun policy.) Or, put another way, I would hope that if a US administration learned that in 2024 a drug would be released on the market that would have all the effects that the War on Drugs has had (overdose deaths, mass incarceration and surveillance via parole, violence in foreign countries, the HIV epidemic, domestic gang violence) we would act with some urgency to suppress it, but we're actively supporting it to the tune of ~$47B a year. I think the policy position you're advocating is to ramp up the War on Drugs, your evidence is that execution for even minor drug offenses stops drug use as shown in Singapore. This is a pretty common conservative position: if we executed drug dealers--and maybe even drug users--we'd solve the drug problem in the US. The problem is we're soft. My belief here is that would lead to the execution of many, many Black people and children. Lots of kids use drugs! I did and my friends did. Lots of gangs use kids in the drug trade. There's huge overlap between users and sellers of drugs. I and my friends also did this. This is a hard problem, I don't think the US is a society that will tolerate executing kids, but you will absolutely see gangs pressing children even more into service with these policies (just like they do with other vulnerable groups like women and immigrants). So from my point of view, the War on Drugs has failed and not because it didn't go far enough, but because its core conceit was flawed: laws are not effective deterrents. Conservatives really want to think they are, but they are not. They don't even work on educated perpetrators of white collar crime who usually don't even need the money, they certainly don't work on the people in the organized drug trade. Conversely, we've seen success in treatment programs. It's certainly not perfect and there's more work to do, but Portugal is a pretty good example of where this has worked (Oregon is an example where it hasn't, but I think they're starting to rethink how they're getting people into treatment--currently it's entirely voluntary and that dynamic is inadequate). So to come full circle to our society vs. individual here. I think your position is "we must sacrifice individuals who fall prey to drugs and thus become a drag on society for the good of society." My position is "society must help individuals who've fallen prey to drugs so they don't become a drag on society." This is because following your position to its conclusion likely means ratcheting up the War on Drugs--a policy that has failed expensively and beyond doubt--and following my position to its conclusion pursues treatment and decriminalization, an approach that's shown success at least sometimes. I also believe there are fundamental human rights issues when it comes to incarceration (especially given the rates of violence in the US carceral system) and execution, and it's hard for me to accept that drug use merits either of those punishments.

rayiner 3y ago
> So from my point of view, the War on Drugs has failed and not because it didn't go far enough, but because its core conceit was flawed: laws are not effective deterrents. Conservatives really want to think they are, but they are not. Laws can be effective deterrents, when they serve to reinforce social norms. Singapore, China, etc., execute drug dealers to reinforce the social norm that drug use and trafficking are so bad that they warrant the death penalty. That social norm, in turn, prevents drug use and drug dealing. A street dealer might not be worried about getting caught by the state (the law might not have a deterrent effect in that sense) but they do worry about becoming socially ostracized. When laws and social norms are combined like that, you can reduce drug use. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-.... In the U.S., people lose almost 7 healthy years of life on average to drug use. In my home country of Bangladesh (which executes drug dealers) it's under 0.8. The problem with American conservatives is that they're compromised by libertarianism. They'll pass the law, but they won't fight for the culture. So you end up with a situation where there is a "drug war" on the books, but where the culture is glorifying drug use and drug dealing. In that situation, the law cannot work, because the social norm is not there. It's not enough to just execute drug dealers. You must become a culture that executes drug dealers.
- camgunz 3y ago
  > In the U.S., people lose almost 7 healthy years of life on average to drug use. In my home country of Bangladesh (which executes drug dealers) it's under 0.8. There's so much ambiguity here. While Japan has a staunchly anti-drug culture and severe legal and social penalties for drug use, they don't execute drug users or dealers, and they have a lower DALY of 0.6. By your argument it should be higher. Singapore's is way higher at 1.1. If Japan was considering an execution policy, you could argue against it by saying "it seems like if you execute drug dealers, DALYs increase, and potentially even double". It's also important to note that this dataset also considers alcohol use, and Bangladesh is a dry country for Muslims (AFAIK). That's a pretty big skew. > You must become a culture that executes drug dealers. Again I don't think the data show that this would be effective, but also this isn't responsive to my point: you'll kill a lot of people, disproportionately kids, women, immigrants, minorities, and poor people. Americans assume that drug laws and task forces are geared towards dismantling drug operations, but this is entirely false. The vast majority of people picked up for drug offenses are very low level. We're not arresting and incarcerating criminal masterminds, we're getting people who are coerced one way or another into pushing drugs. It's also worth saying this is pretty dangerous work on its own! Many people in the drug trade assume they'll die "on the job". It strains credulity to think that the threat of execution would really factor into their decision making here. Finally, a War on Drugs approach doesn't even work in Singapore. Here are some samples from their 2021 report [0] (emphasis mine): - the proportion of new drug abusers arrested remained high at 34% - the proportion of new drug abusers arrested who were under 30 years old remained significant at 60% - In 2021, CNB arrested 2,724 drug abusers - CNB made significant drug seizures in 2021. The drugs seized in 2021 were estimated to have a street value of about S$18.16 million. There was a 31% increase in seizures of heroin to 95.45kg in 2021, from 72.70kg in 2020. Cannabis seizures saw a 144% increase to 105.18kg in 2021, from 43.10kg in 2020. Seizures of crystalline methamphetamine (more commonly known as ‘Ice’) saw a 3% increase to 48.11kg in 2021, from 46.81kg in 2020. I don't want to give a false impression, these aren't huge numbers, but they're pretty big for a country who says, "Singapore is winning the war on drugs" [1]. But we should also note that Singapore doesn't really execute that many people for drug-related offenses, it's < 50 over the last 10 years [2]. But if we ratio that to the population of the US, it's something like 3,000 executions a year. That would be a huge increase in the number of executions in the US annually, which is ~20/year. A 15,000% increase in executions is... well I guess it depends on your point of view. Another comparison is that it would be a 9/11 in executions every year. And you can't say these numbers would go down! Singapore's had this policy since the early 70s. Actually I think what would happen is our numbers in the US wouldn't ratio to Singapore's after ~50 years of this policy, they'd ratio to when it started which--while I can't find a source--I assume was way, way higher. --- I think the truth here is that, like most things, the US is just a super weird outlier. The site you linked shows drug use in the US that's basically off the charts. If our reluctance to punish drug dealers is the cause, you'd expect the Nordic countries to have a way worse problem, but they don't. Hell you'd expect heavy drug-producing countries to have a way worse problem, but they also don't. I just don't see any evidence that harsher penalties for dealing drugs will improve the situation, on the other hand I have every reason to think it will be yet another horror visited upon the most vulnerable Americans by our carceral system. [0]: https://www.cnb.gov.sg/docs/default-source/drug-situation-report-documents/cnb-annual-statistics-2021.pdf https://www.cnb.gov.sg/docs/default-source/drug-situation-re... [1]: 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... [2]: https://data.gov.sg/dataset/judicial-executions https://data.gov.sg/dataset/judicial-executions Edit: miscalculated; the US has 60x the population of Singapore, not 6x.

rayiner 3y ago

> So from my point of view, the War on Drugs has failed and not because it didn't go far enough, but because its core conceit was flawed: laws are not effective deterrents. Conservatives really want to think they are, but they are not. Laws can be effective deterrents, when they serve to reinforce social norms. Singapore, China, etc., execute drug dealers to reinforce the social norm that drug use and trafficking are so bad that they warrant the death penalty. That social norm, in turn, prevents drug use and drug dealing. A street dealer might not be worried about getting caught by the state (the law might not have a deterrent effect in that sense) but they do worry about becoming socially ostracized. When laws and social norms are combined like that, you can reduce drug use. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-.... In the U.S., people lose almost 7 healthy years of life on average to drug use. In my home country of Bangladesh (which executes drug dealers) it's under 0.8. The problem with American conservatives is that they're compromised by libertarianism. They'll pass the law, but they won't fight for the culture. So you end up with a situation where there is a "drug war" on the books, but where the culture is glorifying drug use and drug dealing. In that situation, the law cannot work, because the social norm is not there. It's not enough to just execute drug dealers. You must become a culture that executes drug dealers.

camgunz 3y ago
> In the U.S., people lose almost 7 healthy years of life on average to drug use. In my home country of Bangladesh (which executes drug dealers) it's under 0.8. There's so much ambiguity here. While Japan has a staunchly anti-drug culture and severe legal and social penalties for drug use, they don't execute drug users or dealers, and they have a lower DALY of 0.6. By your argument it should be higher. Singapore's is way higher at 1.1. If Japan was considering an execution policy, you could argue against it by saying "it seems like if you execute drug dealers, DALYs increase, and potentially even double". It's also important to note that this dataset also considers alcohol use, and Bangladesh is a dry country for Muslims (AFAIK). That's a pretty big skew. > You must become a culture that executes drug dealers. Again I don't think the data show that this would be effective, but also this isn't responsive to my point: you'll kill a lot of people, disproportionately kids, women, immigrants, minorities, and poor people. Americans assume that drug laws and task forces are geared towards dismantling drug operations, but this is entirely false. The vast majority of people picked up for drug offenses are very low level. We're not arresting and incarcerating criminal masterminds, we're getting people who are coerced one way or another into pushing drugs. It's also worth saying this is pretty dangerous work on its own! Many people in the drug trade assume they'll die "on the job". It strains credulity to think that the threat of execution would really factor into their decision making here. Finally, a War on Drugs approach doesn't even work in Singapore. Here are some samples from their 2021 report [0] (emphasis mine): - the proportion of new drug abusers arrested remained high at 34% - the proportion of new drug abusers arrested who were under 30 years old remained significant at 60% - In 2021, CNB arrested 2,724 drug abusers - CNB made significant drug seizures in 2021. The drugs seized in 2021 were estimated to have a street value of about S$18.16 million. There was a 31% increase in seizures of heroin to 95.45kg in 2021, from 72.70kg in 2020. Cannabis seizures saw a 144% increase to 105.18kg in 2021, from 43.10kg in 2020. Seizures of crystalline methamphetamine (more commonly known as ‘Ice’) saw a 3% increase to 48.11kg in 2021, from 46.81kg in 2020. I don't want to give a false impression, these aren't huge numbers, but they're pretty big for a country who says, "Singapore is winning the war on drugs" [1]. But we should also note that Singapore doesn't really execute that many people for drug-related offenses, it's < 50 over the last 10 years [2]. But if we ratio that to the population of the US, it's something like 3,000 executions a year. That would be a huge increase in the number of executions in the US annually, which is ~20/year. A 15,000% increase in executions is... well I guess it depends on your point of view. Another comparison is that it would be a 9/11 in executions every year. And you can't say these numbers would go down! Singapore's had this policy since the early 70s. Actually I think what would happen is our numbers in the US wouldn't ratio to Singapore's after ~50 years of this policy, they'd ratio to when it started which--while I can't find a source--I assume was way, way higher. --- I think the truth here is that, like most things, the US is just a super weird outlier. The site you linked shows drug use in the US that's basically off the charts. If our reluctance to punish drug dealers is the cause, you'd expect the Nordic countries to have a way worse problem, but they don't. Hell you'd expect heavy drug-producing countries to have a way worse problem, but they also don't. I just don't see any evidence that harsher penalties for dealing drugs will improve the situation, on the other hand I have every reason to think it will be yet another horror visited upon the most vulnerable Americans by our carceral system. [0]: https://www.cnb.gov.sg/docs/default-source/drug-situation-report-documents/cnb-annual-statistics-2021.pdf https://www.cnb.gov.sg/docs/default-source/drug-situation-re... [1]: 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... [2]: https://data.gov.sg/dataset/judicial-executions https://data.gov.sg/dataset/judicial-executions Edit: miscalculated; the US has 60x the population of Singapore, not 6x.