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This is one of many indirect yet significant costs of the War on Drugs. The only way to address this is to legalize, tax, and regulate drugs.
by pstuart 3y ago
This is one of many indirect yet significant costs of the War on Drugs. The only way to address this is to legalize, tax, and regulate drugs.
- phendrenad2 3y agoCounterpoint: Legalization allows the cartels to hide "in plain sight" because people will assume that the operation is legal.
- soligern 3y agoMost drugs. This is definitely not going to work with heroin and methamphetamines.
- HlessClaudesman 3y agoWhy not? Why wouldn't moving to a harm reduction model for all drugs be a win for everyone except the prison industrial complex?
- throw_m239339 3y ago> Why not? Why wouldn't moving to a harm reduction model for all drugs be a win for everyone except the prison industrial complex? Legalizing all recreational drugs isn't "harm reduction", it's creating a bigger drug addiction pandemic. Successful Harm reduction models like in Portugal have legalized no recreational drugs.
- hutzlibu 3y ago"it's creating a bigger drug addiction pandemic." And why? Those who want drugs, can get (any) drugs today, just with bad quality and the dark sides of crime involved. Who do stuff like adding other drugs that have a higher addiction potential. If you legalize it, all the dark sides of cartels and co vanishes and you can spend all the police money on education and therapy to fight the actual bad sides of drugs. And preventing the reasons for people to do (hard) drugs in the first place.
- soligern 3y agoThose who want drugs can’t really get any drugs today. If I wanted to get meth I would have to talk to quite a few people at my local bar before I found someone to sell it. That’s a significant enough deterrent to me trying it that first time. If you want a true analog take a look at Afghanistan where something like 20-30% of the population may be users. Or Native American reservations where banning alcohol has drastic reductions in crime and domestic abuse rates. Or Singapore that essentially has no junkies.
- throw_m239339 3y agoAgain there is no need to legalize anything to do harm reduction, as demonstrated by Portugal.
- hutzlibu 3y agoAs far as I know, Portugal has a pretty strong hard drug problem and they also have lots of drug smuggle. (But not necessarily more than other countries). So I see a need to do further harm reduction.
- throw_m239339 3y ago> So I see a need to do further harm reduction. Harm reduction is a series of publicly funded social and rehabilitation/substitution programs that has absolutely nothing to do with legalizing any sort of drugs. Legalization is an entire different question, just don't try to make "harm reduction" yet another buzzword for legalization.
- hutzlibu 3y agoSo you don't debate that there are junkies? Currently junkies need the dealers to get their supplies. So they have to support crime, to meet their needs. And they get bad quality with usually extra poisenous additives. Legalizing would immmediately reduce or remove those 2 harms. But I agree that we should not stop there, but rather help them stop being junkies at all, with various help programms. I just happen to think it is easier to reach people in legal ways, than criminalize them. But you seem to disagree here?
- rpastuszak 3y agoDecriminalisation and seeing drug use as a medical problem rather than stigmatising it seems to work. (Portugal is an example of this approach, generally considered a success)
- throw_m239339 3y ago> Decriminalisation and seeing drug use as a medical problem rather than stigmatising it seems to work. But Portugal hasn't legalized, taxed anything. (illegal) Recreational drugs are still illegal. There is no need to legalize any drug to do harm reduction. Not even Cannabis is legal in Portugal.
- vasco 3y agoExcept growing it for big pharma. Normal people cannot, but Tilray can grow however much they want in the Alentejo region.
- slushh 3y agoI have read somewhere that heroin is the better methadone. There are people on pain killers for years. Why shouldn't people be able to live with heroin?
- rpastuszak 3y agoDecriminalising all drugs and treating drug addiction as a medical problem has worked well in Portugal.
- rightbyte 3y agoIt is not legal to sell drugs there though. It is not really decriminalized.
- throw4way23451 3y agoCorrect, but decriminalisation != legalisation.
- rtuulik 3y agoUsing drugs is decriminalised.
- vhlhvjcov 3y agoWhy not? People can be functional heroin addicts (same as functional alcoholics). Not that it’s a good or desirable thing. Most heroin overdoses come from cut drugs, or from using at similar level after a break, often caused by prison stints. Both direct consequences of them being illegal.
- WeylandYutani 3y agoHow many functional heroin addicts are there? Even rock stars either eventually kick the habit or die in a hotel room.
- atdrummond 3y agoHarm reduction in the Vancouver/SF model is a failure. Estonia (with fentanyl) and Switzerland (with heroin) only worked because over time the state became the only source of these drugs. They rooted out most dealers and sources of the drugs. As long as it is available on the streets cheaply, people will defect and return to illicit purchasing. Estonia and Switzerland have basically eliminated new illicit opioid users from the population. In much of the US, suggesting this is a positive aim is tantamount to “hating” addicts.
- pstuart 3y agoYour examples are of a national nature (and much smaller/heterogeneous populations). When you have hot spots like Portland and SF they become drug tourist locations. Let the people have their drugs. Try to minimize consumption and abuse (and profit motive), and treat such abuse as a health issue, not a criminal one. That is the only sensible and humane way. Easier said than done, of course. At the risk of redundancy, I want to include that proper discussion of the subject requires an understanding of the origins and intentions of these laws. The current system fails in every way except in satisfying those original intentions (hint: not benign).
- vhlhvjcov 3y agoAre drugs legalized, taxed, and regulated in Vancouver/SF? If no, it’s a straw man argument.
- atdrummond 3y agoFor the first and third, yes. I can walk into a pharmacy as a non-resident and within 24 hours be approved for emergency safe supply hydromorphone (dilaudid). You also have the DULF distributing medicinal grade heroin with the tacit support of local government.
- api 3y agoI agree that opiates require a more comprehensive approach than just legalizing, but I wonder if the astronomical cost of housing in those cities contributes to making it hard to really get people off the streets and out of the system. There is a serious opioid problem in the rural Midwest and Appalachia but most users there are housed because housing is affordable. Many also have roots like family in the area. Makes treatment way easier if people are safe and off the street already. How do you get off the street when, at least in SF, the poverty line is upwards of $100k/year? You could leave but that’s a big leap for someone battling addiction with no resources and a very small world. Don’t know.. it just seems like other places in the world have decriminalized to better effect and something else is wrong in West Coast cities. The cost of housing seems like one possibility. Edit: could also be cultural. I know Vancouver has a deeply rooted opiate culture. Just go listen to some 90s industrial from that place. Every song is about smack or trying to kick smack or being back on smack. Good music though. There’s a whole thing about heroin and good music. Too bad it’s so addictive and toxic.
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 3y ago>The only way to address this is to legalize, tax, and regulate drugs. This is just kicking the can down the road. The cartels won't vanish into thin air if you do this.
- resolutebat 3y agoThey will as long as the regulated legal product is safer and cheaper. Or do you still buy bootleg liquor from speakeasies run by the Chicago mob?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- flakeoil 3y agoThe only solution is to have less people use drugs so that there is less money to be made selling drugs. The best way to have less people use drugs is probably to make it illegal to use and buy drugs.
- rasz 3y agoor provide unlimited free hard drugs and wait for the problem to solve itself
- pstuart 3y agoWe've already determined that it's okay to sell highly addictive and lethal drugs (tobacco and alcohol). Now it's a matter of being consistent about it. The best way to to have people use less drugs is to have them live happy lives that they don't feel compelled to escape.
- hn666 3y agoThe only solution to have less people drinking alcohol so that there is less money to be made selling alcohol. The best way to have less people drinking alcohol is probably to make it illegal to use and buy alcohol.
- ilovetux 3y ago> The best way to have less people use drugs is probably to make it illegal to use and buy drugs. I think we have proven this to be incorrect. In fact, making it illegal to use and buy drugs has the effect of locking people into a counter-culture and making it a major life decision to use drugs instead of a daily decision like it should be. If I want to take time off of work to waste a day of my life doing drugs for fun and pick up where I left off the next day, that shouldn't be a life destroying decision.
- criddell 3y agoWhat do you mean by address this? Avocado’s are legal yet there’s still a lot of cartel interference in the Mexican avocado business.
- dilap 3y agoThe cartels would still exist; they'd continue to make money, selling untaxed drugs, & via kidnappings and extorsions, & the numerous other ways that can be found to make money if you are willing to break the law and do bad things. The solution to cartels is a strong and effective state. Think Singapore, or what Bukele is doing in El Salvador now, or NYC vs the mob.
- pstuart 3y agoWell the genie has been let out of the bottle so undoing that damage will be a long slog. But that doesn't change the fact that the the laws are flawed and don't make things better. If you do the research, you'll find that drug prohibition has been based on the oppression of minorities and "undesirables", and that only in that regard has it been an overwhelming success.
- EduardoBautista 3y agoViolence has gone way up ever since the US legalized marijuana. Not saying it’s the cause but, having lived in Mexico from 2011 to 2022, it annoys me that people believe that by legalizing drugs the cartels will start earning money legally. Now I live in the UAE. Drugs are very illegal and violent crime is practically non-existent.
- lazyant 3y ago> Violence has gone way up ever since the US legalized marijuana. BIG citation needed (and the US at the federal level has not legalized marijuana, I guess you mean some states) https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-...
- EduardoBautista 3y agoI am referring to Mexico.
- xtracto 3y agoRight, I used to think legalisation was the answer for Mexico's violence. But in reality things keep getting out of control here. People get violent because they can. There's no accountability. We need am army from outside to come and squash all the major violent criminals (cartels with grenade launchers and ak47s). We need a ruthless justice system like the Arab ones that cuts people hands and puts criminal dogs to sleep. People that live outside of Mexico dont get it.. in here, the police is part of the criminals, judges are bought by crime, the politicians and rich people give money and space to the criminals. It's a real cesspool. And I say this as some who was born here in Mexico, all my family is here, and have lived here for a long time.
- xtracto 3y agoDo you know what are the cartels controlling and profiting from now? AVOCADOS. And those are very legal here in Mexico and I believe also in the USA. Legalisation solves certain problems. But doesn't make bad/broken beasts suddenly good.
- IMTDb 3y agoIsn’t oxycondin regalulated, taxed and everything ? If that is what victory looks like, I am not sure I wanna win.