5 ms·

"I don't want or need your approval for what I put in my body." I agree. However, I shouldn't have to clean up the mess. IE: rocketing health care costs and

"I don't want or need your approval for what I put in my body." I agree. However, I shouldn't have to clean up the mess. IE: rocketing health care costs and social programs that come out of my tax dollars.

slavak 13y ago
The costs already come out of your tax dollars. Or did you think the massive anti-drug enforcement efforts and booming prison population are free?
daveid 13y ago
Well, would you rather those same tax dollars are spent on something that doesn't work with people not getting treatment, or on treatment for those same people that is likely to work?
Nursie 13y ago
So you'd rather spend your money on prisons, militarised drug police, DARE propaganda etc? You could fund some pretty sweet social programs and healthcare if you took back the DEA budget...
- mseebach 13y ago
  The DEA budget is less that $10 per US citizen. I'm all for saving that money, but it won't even buy the stationary for a "sweet social program".
  - Nursie 13y ago
    $10 per US citizen is over 3 billion dollars. I'm pretty sure you could do something useful with 3 billion dollars. Hell, there are 10,000 employees at the DEA, in the most simplistic case you could replace them with drug rehab folks and that's a couple of hundred extra per state. That's enough to have an impact. (-edit-- yeah ok, I may have overestimated the budget of the DEA, but 3 billion is not to be sniffed at, and the DEA is really only the tip of the iceberg)
    - diydsp 13y ago
      Your estimate is not far off at all. [1] Interestingly, 2013 was the first year EVER in which its budget and staffing were REDUCED. [1]http://www.justice.gov/dea/about/history/staffing.shtml http://www.justice.gov/dea/about/history/staffing.shtml
  - deelowe 13y ago
    What's the total cost though? I read somewhere that the cost to keep an inmate in prison is like $40k a year and a good majority of the inmate population is in there due to drug related offenses. And what about the intangibles like the impact the drug war has had on minority and low income populations? I'm with everyone else here. This really is a lesser of two evils situation and letting a few people get high and possibly ruin their lives is much better than the situation we have today with the US having the highest incarceration rate in the world.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      > I'm with everyone else here. Because I'm not? Or are you just knee-jerk assuming that because I dare to raise any comment at all, I'm opposed to the general idea? Don't assume that ending the war on drugs will free up some large, discrete sum of money that you can go and promise away on "sweet social programs". The money saved (of which there will be plenty) is in hundreds, even thousands, of small pools across all levels of government, all of which are perpetually money-starved, and it will be gone like dew on a summer morning before you'll get anywhere near it.
      - Nursie 13y ago
        >> The money saved (of which there will be plenty) is in hundreds, even thousands, of small pools across all levels of government, all of which are perpetually money-starved, and it will be gone like dew on a summer morning before you'll get anywhere near it. Naive response - well excellent, by the sounds of it we've just freed up a whole bunch of funds in all sorts of areas for all sorts of other important stuff. More cynical response - government waste and perpetual hunger for more cash is a constant and something else we should be fighting anyway. Either way, I'm of the opinion that even if all the money disappeared off into a vacuum, the WoD is counterproductive. Even if we kept paying the DEA to just hang around and scratch its collective butt all day, we'd be making a positive change to society by stopping all action in the pointless 'war'.
      - deelowe 13y ago
        > Because I'm not? Or are you just knee-jerk assuming that because I dare to raise any comment at all, I'm opposed to the general idea? No where in my comment did I offer any judgement against you or your character. You're the one making assumptions. > Don't assume that ending the war on drugs will free up some large, discrete sum of money that you can go and promise away on "sweet social programs". The money saved (of which there will be plenty) is in hundreds, even thousands, of small pools across all levels of government, all of which are perpetually money-starved, and it will be gone like dew on a summer morning before you'll get anywhere near it. I assume nothing beyond the fact that the current system is massively expensive and demonstrably a net negative on society. My opinion is simply that the current system is worse than doing nothing at all and my philosophy is always for there to be less government intervention in people's lives than more. Therefore, my preference is that we end the war on drugs as I believe this is a better situation than we are in today.
  - auntienomen 13y ago
    As others have pointed out, $3B is not a small amount of money. Also, most of the money spent in the drug war doesn't go through the DEA. For example, DEA doesn"t run prisons. It costs about $50000 to keep someone in prison. We have about 3 million prisoners in the US. Suppose only 10% of them are in prison for drug offenses. That's about $15 billion/year. Pencils out to $50/year for each US citizen. So about $200/year per taxpayer. Think a little and you won't have trouble finding other sources of waste. Wasted police time. Lost productivity of the imprisoned. Truancy among children with missing fathers. Personally, I'd rather give the $200 to a harm reduction program.
    - pantalaimon 13y ago
      > Suppose only 10% of them are in prison for drug offenses. actually it's 50%. http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp

slavak 13y ago

The costs already come out of your tax dollars. Or did you think the massive anti-drug enforcement efforts and booming prison population are free?

daveid 13y ago

Well, would you rather those same tax dollars are spent on something that doesn't work with people not getting treatment, or on treatment for those same people that is likely to work?

Nursie 13y ago

So you'd rather spend your money on prisons, militarised drug police, DARE propaganda etc? You could fund some pretty sweet social programs and healthcare if you took back the DEA budget...

mseebach 13y ago
The DEA budget is less that $10 per US citizen. I'm all for saving that money, but it won't even buy the stationary for a "sweet social program".
- Nursie 13y ago
  $10 per US citizen is over 3 billion dollars. I'm pretty sure you could do something useful with 3 billion dollars. Hell, there are 10,000 employees at the DEA, in the most simplistic case you could replace them with drug rehab folks and that's a couple of hundred extra per state. That's enough to have an impact. (-edit-- yeah ok, I may have overestimated the budget of the DEA, but 3 billion is not to be sniffed at, and the DEA is really only the tip of the iceberg)
  - diydsp 13y ago
    Your estimate is not far off at all. [1] Interestingly, 2013 was the first year EVER in which its budget and staffing were REDUCED. [1]http://www.justice.gov/dea/about/history/staffing.shtml http://www.justice.gov/dea/about/history/staffing.shtml
- deelowe 13y ago
  What's the total cost though? I read somewhere that the cost to keep an inmate in prison is like $40k a year and a good majority of the inmate population is in there due to drug related offenses. And what about the intangibles like the impact the drug war has had on minority and low income populations? I'm with everyone else here. This really is a lesser of two evils situation and letting a few people get high and possibly ruin their lives is much better than the situation we have today with the US having the highest incarceration rate in the world.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    > I'm with everyone else here. Because I'm not? Or are you just knee-jerk assuming that because I dare to raise any comment at all, I'm opposed to the general idea? Don't assume that ending the war on drugs will free up some large, discrete sum of money that you can go and promise away on "sweet social programs". The money saved (of which there will be plenty) is in hundreds, even thousands, of small pools across all levels of government, all of which are perpetually money-starved, and it will be gone like dew on a summer morning before you'll get anywhere near it.
    - Nursie 13y ago
      >> The money saved (of which there will be plenty) is in hundreds, even thousands, of small pools across all levels of government, all of which are perpetually money-starved, and it will be gone like dew on a summer morning before you'll get anywhere near it. Naive response - well excellent, by the sounds of it we've just freed up a whole bunch of funds in all sorts of areas for all sorts of other important stuff. More cynical response - government waste and perpetual hunger for more cash is a constant and something else we should be fighting anyway. Either way, I'm of the opinion that even if all the money disappeared off into a vacuum, the WoD is counterproductive. Even if we kept paying the DEA to just hang around and scratch its collective butt all day, we'd be making a positive change to society by stopping all action in the pointless 'war'.
    - deelowe 13y ago
      > Because I'm not? Or are you just knee-jerk assuming that because I dare to raise any comment at all, I'm opposed to the general idea? No where in my comment did I offer any judgement against you or your character. You're the one making assumptions. > Don't assume that ending the war on drugs will free up some large, discrete sum of money that you can go and promise away on "sweet social programs". The money saved (of which there will be plenty) is in hundreds, even thousands, of small pools across all levels of government, all of which are perpetually money-starved, and it will be gone like dew on a summer morning before you'll get anywhere near it. I assume nothing beyond the fact that the current system is massively expensive and demonstrably a net negative on society. My opinion is simply that the current system is worse than doing nothing at all and my philosophy is always for there to be less government intervention in people's lives than more. Therefore, my preference is that we end the war on drugs as I believe this is a better situation than we are in today.
- auntienomen 13y ago
  As others have pointed out, $3B is not a small amount of money. Also, most of the money spent in the drug war doesn't go through the DEA. For example, DEA doesn"t run prisons. It costs about $50000 to keep someone in prison. We have about 3 million prisoners in the US. Suppose only 10% of them are in prison for drug offenses. That's about $15 billion/year. Pencils out to $50/year for each US citizen. So about $200/year per taxpayer. Think a little and you won't have trouble finding other sources of waste. Wasted police time. Lost productivity of the imprisoned. Truancy among children with missing fathers. Personally, I'd rather give the $200 to a harm reduction program.
  - pantalaimon 13y ago
    > Suppose only 10% of them are in prison for drug offenses. actually it's 50%. http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp