6 ms·

What exactly does it mean to win the war on drugs? When does the madness stop?

infotainment 2y ago
No junkies on the streets might be a good baseline criterion. Ideally you'd want a world where it was effectively impossible to buy drugs without proper authorization. Singapore has managed it, though being much much smaller helps a lot there.
- mordae 2y ago
  Wait, no junkies on the streets has other solutions. Such as affordable housing, education at any age, mental healthcare...
- telmo 2y ago
  Singapore has not managed it by being a "much smaller state", it managed it by being a highly repressive and authoritarian state. Myself, I prefer the junkies on the streets. I actually grew up in another relatively small state that had a huge heroin problem in the 80s: Portugal. Portugal solved it by decriminalizing drugs and by making treatment modalities available for the people who needed help, namely methadone. This worked spectacularly well. By the way, if you want to make it "impossible to buy drugs without proper authorization", I imagine you will want to include one of the most dangerous hard drugs there is: alcohol. We all know how well that worked the last time it was tried...
  - _t9ow 2y ago
    > authoritarian Thank you for using this term instead of calling Singapore a dictatorship (as many others are wont to do). It's a much more accurate description of Singapore's style of governance.
- drewdevault 2y ago
  Singapore has the death penalty for drug offenses.
  - infotainment 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - lolololpll 2y ago
    The end result of imposing a restrictive Code of Conduct onto their society. Something that certain people could learn from in their futile attempts to control others, wouldn't you agree?
- bheadmaster 2y ago
  And what side-effects do you think that making it "effectively impossible to buy drugs" will have on society? I'm genuinely interested in your opinion on this.
  - spurgu 2y ago
    He clearly doesn't mind police states.
- piva00 2y ago
  Singapore hasn't managed it, even in a ridiculously small land area with extremely aggressive laws against drugs they are seeing an increase in usage by youth. It simply does not work to fight it aggressively. Junkies on the street can be managed but probably not eradicated in the next few decades, the issues the USA sees with drugs are extreme, and the root cause is usually much deeper than the drugs themselves. A lot of other developed countries have managed to help their drug addicted homeless population, the USA seems to be on a downward spiral on that front for decades... Attacking the surface of the problem is a game of whack-a-mole, a Sisyphean task that won't ever come close to solving the actual problem.
  - infotainment 2y ago
    That’s fair, and I agree that a multi-pronged solution is probably the best one. You need programs to address the root causes (homelessness, poverty) as well as aggressive enforcement of drug laws. I’d argue the two are not necessarily at odds, and actually would complement one another.
    - piva00 2y ago
      > I’d argue the two are not necessarily at odds, and actually would complement one another. How would that work in reality though? Aggressively enforcing drug laws push people to the margins (being arrested, having a felony charge, etc.), living on the margins of society is a major factor into pushing people into despair, despair fuels drug addiction. Aggressive enforcement of drug laws is not compatible with an empathetic approach to drug abuse, it also creates many consequences which could've been unforeseen when introduced but we all live in the world of such consequences. Removing freedoms in name of pushing anti-drug laws, for what ends specifically? What are we trying to achieve by being tough on drugs in the end?
  - seoulmetro 2y ago
    Singapore hasn't managed its war on drugs? Lol what? Of course they have. They have managed their wars on a lot of things. Affordable housing, immigration, congestion, cultural division. Drugs was probably the easiest ones to manage.. It does work. It works extremely well. Extremely well. The problem is that if you don't actually want to win the war, it works poorly. As is evident in the US and many other first world nations. No, fixing the problems that just letting it run rampant is whack a mole. You're spraying for cockroaches when you find them rather than fumigating the house. It's okay, most people from leading countries of the world think their situation is the best and they need compassion for all the amazingly negative aspects of drug use. Junkies, aggression, organised crime involvement, etc. The truth is that your governments don't want to fix the problem and it's obviously snowballed out of their control. It's easier to lay down and admit defeat than actually tackle the problem when it's this far gone. Good thing places like Singapore never let it get to that point. They've won the war on drugs. It's not even a contest which is better, the drug free environment is way better. You just have to experience both to realise.
- refurb 2y ago
  Singapore routinely busts smuggling of multi-kilograms of heroin which is a large amount for such a small country. They also have several thousand in drug rehab/prison right now. They haven’t solved it by any means. They did successfully drive it out of the public eye though.
  - defrost 2y ago
    Alternatively it's a tiny amount for the crossroads of East and West with posssibly the greatest volume | weight shipping throughputs globally.
- dns_snek 2y ago
  > Ideally you'd want a world where it was effectively impossible to buy drugs without proper authorization Does this ideal world include classification of alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and high-sugar food products as drugs? What does "proper authorization" look like?
- spurgu 2y ago
  That sounds like your ideal. Mine would be when there is no authority that says which plants or substances I can put in my body. I don't want/need an authority to enforce "what's best for me".
- seoulmetro 2y ago
  Korea, Japan, China, Singapore. It seems to be a thing that is well managed in countries that actually control their populations in some form, whether by immigration or strong laws. It's amazing too. It's weird how many people are for drugs when such environments exist.
seoulmetro 2y ago
The madness stops when you win the war? What do you mean what does it mean to win the war? What do you think the war is? It means you eliminate the abuse and criminal behaviours of drugs. This is easiest done by eliminating drugs themselves as a societal problem. Obviously it's impossible to eliminate every single instance, but it's quite easy to eliminate virtually all negatives to society.
- bheadmaster 2y ago
  > It means you eliminate the abuse and criminal behaviours of drugs. > Obviously it's impossible to eliminate every single instance Exactly. So when does it end? What target needs to be reached for the war on drugs to stop? > it's quite easy to eliminate virtually all negatives to society. Then why has nobody done it?
  - seoulmetro 2y ago
    It ends when you eliminate nearly all. The same way when does anything end? When you reach the level that is what you can feasibly resemble as "the end". So in this case, drug-free. >What target needs to be reached for the war on drugs to stop? You need to eliminate the negatives that society has to deal with related to illicit drug use? It's not that hard. When is a newly built house finished? >Then why has nobody done it? Huh? Many countries have done it. Why many others haven't is because they don't want to.. Drug usage is a problem for the lower rungs of society, not the government or higher ups. The government must want to improve the life of their citizens at the cost of themselves. Like most objectively good government decisions.
    - bheadmaster 2y ago
      > The same way when does anything end? When you reach the level that is what you can feasibly resemble as "the end". So in this case, drug-free. You seem to be unaware that you're cyclically defining "the end" to be "when it's over". War generally ends when the other side capitulates, or when both sides run out of resources and come to a peace agreement. In war on drugs, there's no "other side", there's just an invisible black market that you can get more and more visible by introducing more and more survaillence.

No junkies on the streets might be a good baseline criterion. Ideally you'd want a world where it was effectively impossible to buy drugs without proper authorization. Singapore has managed it, though being much much smaller helps a lot there.

mordae 2y ago
Wait, no junkies on the streets has other solutions. Such as affordable housing, education at any age, mental healthcare...
telmo 2y ago
Singapore has not managed it by being a "much smaller state", it managed it by being a highly repressive and authoritarian state. Myself, I prefer the junkies on the streets. I actually grew up in another relatively small state that had a huge heroin problem in the 80s: Portugal. Portugal solved it by decriminalizing drugs and by making treatment modalities available for the people who needed help, namely methadone. This worked spectacularly well. By the way, if you want to make it "impossible to buy drugs without proper authorization", I imagine you will want to include one of the most dangerous hard drugs there is: alcohol. We all know how well that worked the last time it was tried...
- _t9ow 2y ago
  > authoritarian Thank you for using this term instead of calling Singapore a dictatorship (as many others are wont to do). It's a much more accurate description of Singapore's style of governance.
drewdevault 2y ago
Singapore has the death penalty for drug offenses.
- infotainment 2y ago
  [flagged]
- lolololpll 2y ago
  The end result of imposing a restrictive Code of Conduct onto their society. Something that certain people could learn from in their futile attempts to control others, wouldn't you agree?
bheadmaster 2y ago
And what side-effects do you think that making it "effectively impossible to buy drugs" will have on society? I'm genuinely interested in your opinion on this.
- spurgu 2y ago
  He clearly doesn't mind police states.
piva00 2y ago
Singapore hasn't managed it, even in a ridiculously small land area with extremely aggressive laws against drugs they are seeing an increase in usage by youth. It simply does not work to fight it aggressively. Junkies on the street can be managed but probably not eradicated in the next few decades, the issues the USA sees with drugs are extreme, and the root cause is usually much deeper than the drugs themselves. A lot of other developed countries have managed to help their drug addicted homeless population, the USA seems to be on a downward spiral on that front for decades... Attacking the surface of the problem is a game of whack-a-mole, a Sisyphean task that won't ever come close to solving the actual problem.
- infotainment 2y ago
  That’s fair, and I agree that a multi-pronged solution is probably the best one. You need programs to address the root causes (homelessness, poverty) as well as aggressive enforcement of drug laws. I’d argue the two are not necessarily at odds, and actually would complement one another.
  - piva00 2y ago
    > I’d argue the two are not necessarily at odds, and actually would complement one another. How would that work in reality though? Aggressively enforcing drug laws push people to the margins (being arrested, having a felony charge, etc.), living on the margins of society is a major factor into pushing people into despair, despair fuels drug addiction. Aggressive enforcement of drug laws is not compatible with an empathetic approach to drug abuse, it also creates many consequences which could've been unforeseen when introduced but we all live in the world of such consequences. Removing freedoms in name of pushing anti-drug laws, for what ends specifically? What are we trying to achieve by being tough on drugs in the end?
- seoulmetro 2y ago
  Singapore hasn't managed its war on drugs? Lol what? Of course they have. They have managed their wars on a lot of things. Affordable housing, immigration, congestion, cultural division. Drugs was probably the easiest ones to manage.. It does work. It works extremely well. Extremely well. The problem is that if you don't actually want to win the war, it works poorly. As is evident in the US and many other first world nations. No, fixing the problems that just letting it run rampant is whack a mole. You're spraying for cockroaches when you find them rather than fumigating the house. It's okay, most people from leading countries of the world think their situation is the best and they need compassion for all the amazingly negative aspects of drug use. Junkies, aggression, organised crime involvement, etc. The truth is that your governments don't want to fix the problem and it's obviously snowballed out of their control. It's easier to lay down and admit defeat than actually tackle the problem when it's this far gone. Good thing places like Singapore never let it get to that point. They've won the war on drugs. It's not even a contest which is better, the drug free environment is way better. You just have to experience both to realise.
refurb 2y ago
Singapore routinely busts smuggling of multi-kilograms of heroin which is a large amount for such a small country. They also have several thousand in drug rehab/prison right now. They haven’t solved it by any means. They did successfully drive it out of the public eye though.
- defrost 2y ago
  Alternatively it's a tiny amount for the crossroads of East and West with posssibly the greatest volume | weight shipping throughputs globally.
dns_snek 2y ago
> Ideally you'd want a world where it was effectively impossible to buy drugs without proper authorization Does this ideal world include classification of alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and high-sugar food products as drugs? What does "proper authorization" look like?
spurgu 2y ago
That sounds like your ideal. Mine would be when there is no authority that says which plants or substances I can put in my body. I don't want/need an authority to enforce "what's best for me".
seoulmetro 2y ago
Korea, Japan, China, Singapore. It seems to be a thing that is well managed in countries that actually control their populations in some form, whether by immigration or strong laws. It's amazing too. It's weird how many people are for drugs when such environments exist.

seoulmetro 2y ago

The madness stops when you win the war? What do you mean what does it mean to win the war? What do you think the war is? It means you eliminate the abuse and criminal behaviours of drugs. This is easiest done by eliminating drugs themselves as a societal problem. Obviously it's impossible to eliminate every single instance, but it's quite easy to eliminate virtually all negatives to society.

bheadmaster 2y ago
> It means you eliminate the abuse and criminal behaviours of drugs. > Obviously it's impossible to eliminate every single instance Exactly. So when does it end? What target needs to be reached for the war on drugs to stop? > it's quite easy to eliminate virtually all negatives to society. Then why has nobody done it?
- seoulmetro 2y ago
  It ends when you eliminate nearly all. The same way when does anything end? When you reach the level that is what you can feasibly resemble as "the end". So in this case, drug-free. >What target needs to be reached for the war on drugs to stop? You need to eliminate the negatives that society has to deal with related to illicit drug use? It's not that hard. When is a newly built house finished? >Then why has nobody done it? Huh? Many countries have done it. Why many others haven't is because they don't want to.. Drug usage is a problem for the lower rungs of society, not the government or higher ups. The government must want to improve the life of their citizens at the cost of themselves. Like most objectively good government decisions.
  - bheadmaster 2y ago
    > The same way when does anything end? When you reach the level that is what you can feasibly resemble as "the end". So in this case, drug-free. You seem to be unaware that you're cyclically defining "the end" to be "when it's over". War generally ends when the other side capitulates, or when both sides run out of resources and come to a peace agreement. In war on drugs, there's no "other side", there's just an invisible black market that you can get more and more visible by introducing more and more survaillence.