6 ms·

I have a problem with a war on marijuana, or violating the Constitution during the war on drugs. But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crac

• pstuart 13y ago
  No, no, no. Making them illegal makes more violent crime. Let me put you in rehab for your coffee addiction or beer habit, ok?
  • whyleyc 13y ago
    Except people don't violently mug strangers in broad daylight to get their next caffeine hit ... unless you haven't scored a coffee for a long time :)
    • PavlovsCat 13y ago
      That's because caffeine is legal and therefore dirt cheap.
      • whyleyc 13y ago
        No, it's because as a stimulant it has a combination of relatively low addictive properties and is easy to withdraw from when compared to more "hardcore" substances [1] [1] http://www.drugsense.org/tfy/addictvn.htm http://www.drugsense.org/tfy/addictvn.htm
        • jlgreco 13y ago
          All of those things, except "stimulant" technically, can be said of pot too. Hell, caffeine is physically addictive (not to even get into the lifestyles you can build around it that lead to less 'medical' forms of addiction...) while pot is not. You ever caffeine withdrawal? Yeah, during that week-long vacation last year when you stopped going to Starbucks every morning. Most of us have gone through that; it is a bitch and lasts longer than most hangovers. You ever get pot withdrawal? Yeah, me neither. Whatever, lets say for the sake of argument that pot and caffeine are on par with each other despite the obvious discrepancies. It is undeniable that pot prohibition is harmful to society; why would caffeine prohibition not be?
          • dllthomas 13y ago
            I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing for continued criminalization of marijuana.
            • jlgreco 13y ago
              I know, that is why I used marijuana as my example. @whyleyc is asserting that drug "hardness", not drug prohibition, is the cause of the societal harm associated with drugs. I am pointing out that we see similar harm with marijuana, which everyone here accepts as not "hard", but which is prohibited. It therefore stands to reason that if prohibition can cause harm to society with a "non-hard" drug like marijuana, it would cause harm to society with a "non-hard" drug like caffeine.
              • dllthomas 13y ago
                But this doesn't demonstrate that it doesn't prevent greater harm with a "hard" drug, which was the point at issue as I read things.
                • jlgreco 13y ago
                  Well, if I wanted to argue that point I would just point out that I am pretty sure drunk fathers kept on beating their children during the 1920s. I mean, that is the sort of shit that spawned the temperance movement, but when prohibition came into effect, did the temperance movement actually see the sort of social change that they anticipated? I doubt that the 1920s were some sort of utopia for battered children and spouses...
                  • dllthomas 13y ago
                    My understanding is that overall consumption of alcohol did decline slightly under prohibition, so "drunk fathers kept on beating their children during the 1920s" needs a citation - and, in particular, that they kept doing so at the same rate. The problem with prohibition wasn't that it did no good in any way ever - the problem was that the harm overwhelmingly outweighed the good. Likewise with the current war on drugs.
        • baddox 13y ago
          How about nicotine? Granted, there have probably been people who steal cigarettes are steal other things to buy cigarettes, but I think it's a much smaller problem than with illegal drugs.
          • jlgreco 13y ago
            If COPS is representative of real life, there are plenty of people willing to rob convenience stores of cigarettes. I have little doubt that this would turn much uglier if nicotine was banned.
            • dragonwriter 13y ago
              > If COPS is representative of real life Its not. Its representative of what its producers think will appeal to its target market.
              • jlgreco 13y ago
                Of course. In reality 50% of all corner store robberies don't end with the shop owner beating the crooks ass with a broom. ;)
          • shawn-furyan 13y ago
            I've worked in an in an institution where cigarettes were prohibited for certain patients and not for others. Cigarette theft was very, very common.
      • genwin 13y ago
        If crack was dirt cheap, people would still rob to get the money for it, because they couldn't hold down a decent job while using it.
        • chimeracoder 13y ago
          That's simply not true. I don't have any stats for crack cocaine, but look up the effectiveness of diacetylmorphine maintenance programs in Switzerland and the UK - these are government-run programs in which heroin users are given access to pure, unadulterated heroin so that they can have steady day jobs. Spoiler: These programs have been proven time and again to be effective in reducing crime. Crack cocaine is biochemically identical to powder cocaine (the main difference is the means of ingestion, not the chemical compound). And I can assure you that many cocaine users hold very steady, very high-paying jobs (in certain industries more than others).
          • genwin 13y ago
            If the percentage of crack users who could both hold a steady job to pay for their addiction and also not significantly drag down those around them was > 90% (e.g. workplace accidents, parenting), then I could support ending the war on crack.
        • ahoy 13y ago
          People hold down professional, successful, white-collar careers for YEARS while doing cocaine. If it was legal why would anyone do crack?
          • baddox 13y ago
            If it was legal, it would probably be vastly safer to acquire and use recreationally, so even if the amount of use stayed the same, the actual negative effects would probably decrease.
        • PavlovsCat 13y ago
          There are many factors that go into this, sure. One of them is the drug itself, and since I am not familiar with crack (thank god), I would consider alcohol a good example. It's legal, "dirt cheap", and can utterly destroy lives with a completeness few drugs seem to be able to match. Everybody knows what alcohol can do, yet it still happens a lot (to put it mildly). So yes, making stuff legal and having information instead of disinformation is not a magical solution. But that doesn't mean illegality and misinformation cannot make things even worse. Legality does affect price and safety, I think it's very hard to deny this or show otherwise (feel free to try). If a dealer sells rat poison instead of Ecstasy, it's not like the buyers can go to the cops about it, for example... and I'm not saying Ecstasy if safe no matter how it's used, I'm saying rat poison is harmful in all cases. And dealers are operating in the underground anyway, so they have little reason to care about adding on top of that. I'm not sure about "gateway drugs", but I am pretty sure about "gateway criminality" being a real thing, and it also applies to addicts, not just dealers.
    • danielsju6 13y ago
      Sounds like you need to read-up on the prohibition and what making alcohol illegal did to our country.
      • genwin 13y ago
        It's a question of what does more harm than good. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol can still be sober at work. Whereas a crack addict will tend to be high all day, unable to work, thus needing to rob to feed their addiction.
        • __alexs 13y ago
          Crack is unusually addictive but many people maintain casual cocaine habits for years on end. Both of these drugs have the same classification, and the same penalties in most of the world. Crack is also particularly bad for your health outside of just being extremely addictive. If it wasn't a Class A drug people would rapidly end up in treatment for it anyway. Ultimately there's hardly any actual science involved in the War on Drugs, just as there wasn't during prohibition.
          • genwin 13y ago
            There should be evidence heavily involved in a war on drugs, on a drug by drug basis, for sure. I'd estimate the totality of the drag on society, even parenting, in determining the resources to apply to reduce the usage of that drug.
        • baddox 13y ago
          You're making a big assumption: that the war on drugs, even if it cost no money and ruined no lives on its own, in any way lowers the number of people addicted to hard drugs and the amount of violence related to hard drugs. While I don't have any specific data, it seems pretty obvious to me that it only increases both.
          • genwin 13y ago
            I do make the assumption that a war on drugs can lower the number of people addicted to hard drugs, and from there the amount of violence related to it. But that assumption includes the way I would handle it, like forcing users to be in rehab before prison is considered.
  • genwin 13y ago
    Coffee addictions don't lead to more violent crime or robbery, as far as I know. Does making meth and crack legal make less crime (violent or robbery) than if their usage was nil? I highly doubt it.
    • CamperBob2 13y ago
      The same questions were once asked about alcohol. Did you get your answers then?
      • genwin 13y ago
        Apples to oranges, since unlike meth and crack users, the vast majority of those who drink alcohol can hold down a job to pay for it, instead of resort to theft or worse.
        • warfangle 13y ago
          Prescription opioid drugs like oxycodone kill more people than meth or crack. And there are a lot of people able to hold down a job and pay for cocaine (see also: wall street). What was your point again?
          • genwin 13y ago
            I'd include a lot of legal drugs in my war on drugs!
            • jlgreco 13y ago
              You would intensify the pursuit of criminal prosecution of people who find themselves addicted to prescription painkillers? An addiction to morphine is really little different than an addiction to heroin, except society has a greater understanding of addiction to morphine as an illness, not a crime. Treating morphine abusers like we treat heroin users would be devastating to society. It would be a ludicrously senseless step backwards. Your perspective on drug use is absolutely insane.
• tsotha 13y ago
  >But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crack or other drugs that increase the odds that I'll be a victim of violent crime or robbery. Why do you assume this? Do you think people so inclined have any trouble getting "meth or crack or other drugs"? Prohibition only raises the price, and I could make the argument that just means addicts have to rob people more often before they start having medical problems.
  • baddox 13y ago
    Prohibition does more than just raise price. It also increases the incentive for dealers to get people addicted to drugs. It also immediately makes anyone involved a criminal, so there can be little conflict resolution outside of direct violence. It also prevents enterprises which desire to stay legal from getting involved in the production and distribution of drugs, which leads to more dangerous (and probably less enjoyable) drugs.
• baddox 13y ago
  Would you be okay with a war on drugs funded only by the people who, like yourself, desire a war on drugs?
  • genwin 13y ago
    No, things that benefit society at large should be funded by society at large. I support a war on drugs only when it's constitutional and benefits society, doing more good than harm including its cost.
    • baddox 13y ago
      I'd like to see the argument that the war on drugs does more good than harm, even ignoring the financial cost. When considering the financial cost, I find it hard to imagine any remotely reasonable argument that it's beneficial to society.
• dragonwriter 13y ago
  > But otherwise I don't have a problem with a war on meth or crack or other drugs that increase the odds that I'll be a victim of violent crime or robbery. Why do you think that the war being fought on those drugs isn't reducing the risk of you being a victim of violent crime or robbery? Or do you just assume that the existence of those drugs create a risk which justifies the war, even if the war makes that risk even greater?
• Gormo 13y ago
  > I have a problem with ... violating the Constitution during the war on drugs But what's the constitutional justification for having any war on drugs in the first place? Alcohol prohibition took a constitutional amendment, and that's been repealed.