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What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

165 points by samsolomon 12y ago

GauntletWizard 12y ago
Then organized crime would run the streets, as the combative pressure keeping these operations small would removed. Gangs would spring up like weeds, get absorbed into syndicates, and wield large amounts of power over ghettos and other blighted areas without regular sweeps to keep them in line.
- zyxley 12y ago
  How did you get from "less or no prosecution of drug crimes" to "the police will stop enforcing law entirely, turning the inner city into a Plisskenian hellhole"?
  - Natsu 12y ago
    Honestly, I think gangs would lose power as legal outlets took hold, but we'd have more widespread addiction problems and more trouble with jobless addicts stealing for their next fix.
    - woah 12y ago
      If we decriminalized it entirely, addicts wouldn't steal for their next fix because it would be cheap.
- toyg 12y ago
  Choose your own semi-ironic response now: ☐ "Which totally doesn't happen now. Oh wait..." ☐ "Yeah, Amsterdam is completely run by gangs. Oh wait..." ☐ "Yeah, gangs would get richer and expand as price of drugs plummets and they get commoditised. Oh wait..." Edit: downvotes? I was trying to summarise the inevitable counterpoints.
  - pyre 12y ago
    Well, one could argue that (in the short term) there would be more violence as the current power balance is disrupted and gangs search to expand into other areas to generate their money...
    - Renaud 12y ago
      But the whole point is that the money not spent in the war on drugs would then be re-directed to control other criminal activities. I'd rather gangs go into white-collar crime than violent crimes. The Mafia, Yakuza and the Hong Kong triads have in large measure done away from street crime and moved to more economic-oriented crimes such as buying legitimate companies and fiddling with their accounts to illegally import and sell goods, avoid taxes, peddle in corruption, gambling, ...
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    Usually there is a balance of power dynamic going on. The police know who the drug folks are, and basically let them be to some extent as long as they don't cross the line. Chicago is a great example of why cops do this. The leadership of a few major gangs was taken out by the police, and the resulting power struggle basically ignited a street war with death counts similar to the war in Afghsnistan.
  - molmalo 12y ago
    I think you are very wrong, and your ironic responses don't apply, because there is a major problem with the approach shown in the article. The problem is that they are not legalizing drugs, and providing a legal and regulated market that replaces the illegal, criminalized, drug-lords managed and violent market. They are just putting less energy and resources to enforce drug laws. So, living in Argentina, a country that in the past few years has chosen the very same path, I can tell you that the expected result is not something like Amsterdam, but something like the favelas, in Brazil. Liberated zones, where criminal organizations grow much much more stronger, organized and richer than what you see today. Crime raises, because drug addicts need money to buy drugs from those gangs. Criminals get much more violent. Wars between gangs get much more open to control more land. And the entire society suffers. You want something like Amsterdam? OK, chasing drug dealers, but provide a legal, cheaper and with better quality market. Offer and demand will make them go away. But without a legal market, stop enforcing drug laws and I can guarantee you, that things can only get much worse.
- badsock 12y ago
  Do you have any examples of where your theory has become reality? Because there are several examples of the opposite happening (e.g. overall less crime in Portugal).
- angersock 12y ago
  Yeah, I'll bet my money on Bayer, Merck, and Pfizer, thank you very much.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
    One might think it odd that Big Pharma doesn't do more to legalise drugs, then you realise they already have legal sales and distribution channels.
    - c23gooey 12y ago
      In the case of marijuana legalisation - Big Pharma has spent millions researching and developing drugs for medical conditions that marijuana is able to treat just as effectively. They make and will continue to make a lot more money keeping things they way they are, rather than letting Ma and Pa Kettle grow their own medicine.
- honestcoyote 12y ago
  I realized the drug war was a farce when I was a teenager watching the evening news with my parents. They ran a story about arresting a Colombian drug lord and raiding his mansion. Immediately following was a commercial break which featured August Busch talking about some charity his brewery was sponsoring. And it hit me: one drug lord gets a small army sent after him and another drug lord is allowed to operate openly and even accepted as an upstanding member of the community. What is the difference between the two? Of course the key difference is: when the drug is legal, it's far more profitable and easier to run above board, even with the burden of taxes and regulations. Why run a complicated network of smugglers and violent enforcers, running the risk of extended jail time, when you can just maintain a distribution network and pay for advertising? I'm sure Pablo Escobar would have gladly given up his thuggish ways in exchange for decent shelf placement in retail establishments and ads featuring "Escobar's Finest Blend. Don't settle for imitations!"
  - TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
    I like asking bottle shop attendants "What's like being a drug dealer?"
  - deciplex 12y ago
    Agree except for the last part. Pablo Escobar brought a different set of skills to the table running his empire than would be required of someone running a legitimate business trafficking in the same goods. With legalization, the Pablo Escobars of the go into the business of stocking store shelves and picking up trash - they do not become CEOs of successful companies. Other people do that instead.
rayiner 12y ago
I really hope that in the next few decades we see a deescalation of the drug war. But I think many people overestimate how far along we are in terms of the general public's attitude. It was only last year that majority of those polled supported legalizing marijuana: http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports-legalizing-marijuana http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports.... At the time of the last dot-com bust (2001), it was 60-40 against legalization. Since actual voters skew older and more conservative, it's totally unsurprising that it has only been in the last few years that legalization efforts have gained traction. Yet legalization of marijuana is just the first step, and one that's easy to take for middle class voters, whose kids may use marijuana or who may use it themselves. It'll still be a long, uphill battle to convince these voters that it'll be better to disengage from the drug war completely. A lot of the people involved in drug distribution are not sympathetic figures to the general public: uneducated, often minorities, and usually with long criminal records. The idea that disengaging from the drug war will mean "going soft" on these people will be a powerful one.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  When this topic of marijuana legalization comes up, it seems like most conservative news agencies ask the loaded question, "Does this mean you're in favor of decriminalizing hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and meth?" I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer?
  - DerpDerpDerp 12y ago
    With more loaded questions: "Alcohol destroys more lives than any of those drugs: are you saying we should return to the era of prohibition and mafia violence? Should our children die because people can't be responsible? That doesn't sound like small government or liberty to me."
  - joel_perl_prog 12y ago
    Simple. The answer is "yes." So-called hard drugs are ... well ... they ain't health food. But presumably I'm writing to an audience of utilitarian thinkers, so it should be trivial to load up the arguments onto a balance beam: for, and against. We have lived through the against side it. We know exactly what those consequences are, for society. Importantly, criminalization does ZERO to limit demand, and thus, supply. Zero. This is demonstrably true. So, now imagine a world where all of those same people who already choose to abuse drugs to the point where it becomes a severe health and social hazard, except those activities are not illegal anymore. Yes, you still have the dangers of those people acting irrationally, or even rationally, but just anti-socially, in pursuit of their high. But this happens now, already. With the added negatives of the so-called war on drugs (which in reality is a war on the American people, especially black people), just thrown into the mix. Like so many others have done, I could write at great length (and so could you, dear reader, most likely; many of you) about this subject. It's completely fucked, in a word. And I live in Colorado, so if you'd like to hear about what's happened after pot was legal, I can tell you: nada. Zip. Nothing bad. Zero. And that won't ever change, either. Yeah, pot's not cocaine, but believe it or not, doing a few lines of blow doesn't turn a normal human being into a psychopath. Or, if it does, that same person would become just as dangerous after a pint of vodka.
sharkweek 12y ago
The Economist wrote a near perfect editorial about the war on drugs a few years back: http://www.economist.com/node/13237193 http://www.economist.com/node/13237193 (you might need to Google "The economist failed states and failed policies" to read the article) Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue and turning it into a crime and punishment issue. I highly recommend anyone curious about the history of the war on drugs, and the major problems it has created, watch "The House I Live In" -- arguably one of the best documentaries I have ever seen - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125653/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125653/
- sksk 12y ago
  Gang Leader For A Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes To The Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudhir_Venkatesh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudhir_Venkatesh) is a great read as well.
- tdaltonc 12y ago
  I feel like the economist does this every few years.
- chongli 12y ago
  Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue It's never been a public health issue for its major proponents. The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex.
  - Bahamut 12y ago
    I always thought it was more about religion and politics than those.
    - declan 12y ago
      I think <chongil> has it right. In the case of religion, you're confusing a transparent and rarely-invoked justification with the actual reasons for the WoD. In the case of politics, you're confusing the mechanism for prohibition with the actual reasons.
SoftwareMaven 12y ago
The point about grants brings up what I consider to be one of the Federal government's most pernicious behaviors: micro-managing local government through the use of grants and other funds (see also education and school nutrition).
- dmfdmf 12y ago
  Cutting off Federal Highway funds has been the threat of choice to coerce states to toe the line on Federal priorities and policies.
Thriptic 12y ago
Excuse my ignorance, but is it legitimate for subordinate entities in a federalist system to simply not fund enforcement of policies they don't agree with? For example, would it be possible to have a vice squad with a budget of 1 dollar, effectively preventing enforcement of drug-related crime?
- declan 12y ago
  Yes, it is a legitimate policy choice. In general, FedGov has sharply limited constitutional authority to force the states to carry out its wishes in the case of enforcing federal criminal laws. The precedent that comes to mind is Printz v. US, where SCOTUS struck down a FedGov law requiring that local police check the backgrounds of Americans who wanted to buy a firearm through a licensed dealer. And obviously in the case of marijuana legalization, states like Colorado are already engaging in quasi-nullification: they're thumbing their nose at FedGov despite a federal law saying that mere possession of pot is a crime. This is why FedGov tries to tie its mandates on states to funding, like speed limits and drinking ages. Remember Real ID was not a direct mandate on the states but a carrot-and-stick approach to nationalized drivers licenses (or, you could argue, a uniform national ID).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
sirdogealot 12y ago
The same thing that would happen to any country or state that decided to stop participating in the war on drugs. They would be sanctioned and heckled by other city governments. They may even have their drug enforcement programs carried out by other governments, like when Canada sat back for years while Marc Emery sold Marijuana seeds worldwide. The DEA basically coughed and the RCMP had Emery arrested on the spot and extradited to the U.S.A. to face charges in a country he was not even a resident of.[0] I am sure there was a bit more to it than that. The USA probably insinuated some very strong consequences for Canada if they didn't turn him over. But that's entirely speculation. Marc Emery aka "the prince of pot" remains incarcerated in the U.S.A. to this day. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Emery#2005_arrest_and_extradition_proceedings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Emery#2005_arrest_and_extr...
- dobbsbob 12y ago
  I live a block away from Emery's store. There's a seed store still there that is doing exactly what Emery was doing (selling pot seeds to Americans) yet they haven't been busted. This is probably because it's owner didn't give a million dollars to NORML in the US to fight prohibition of Marijuana. Emery also writes a federal prison blog, interesting insight into how foreign prisoners are treated in the US, like the time he spent at D.Ray Fed prison where it's entirely made up of foreigners. No racism/forced segregation based on skin color, no homogeneous gangs of all one ethnicity, they all live together in dorms without any of the problems he saw in other fed prisons like Seatac where some guy threatened him because he was playing dominos with a black inmate and that was "not allowed".
  - sirdogealot 12y ago
    Very interesting. I was not aware that there are "foreigner only prisons". I wonder why they exist? I haven't kept up on his blog writings much, as it's too depressing to be honest. Which is a shame considering he is such a great writer. Thankfully, he should be out soon and it doesn't sound like they have broken his spirit one bit.
    - 12y ago
us0r 12y ago
The jury is out and this is a lost cause. Unfortunately it is all about money. This is a massive business. The budget just keeps growing. 2015 drug budget: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/about-content/fy_2015_budget_highlights_-_final.pdf http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/about-co... Of course they make it nearly impossible to figure out a real number of how much is going contractors but since the DEA is supposed to be about only drugs they had a $2,242M FY13 budget. Total contract actions in FY13: $513,659,660.69. Largest recipient? A scandal plagued private security contractor. Meanwhile in an effort to curb spending House Republicans cut the syringe program in 2011. Needle sharing is 1/3 of all AIDS cases (354,000). Even if you don't want to change drug policy that is just simply a horrible idea. Forbes article on the horror that happened in Portugal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-af... As more State's legalize eventually Washington will need to do something. I have a feeling we will end up with decriminalization which is going to keep the murders, theft and other problems around. In the meantime Michele Leonhart should be fired, arrested and charged. The NSA running around wild on the Internet is one thing but the DEA using that to build phony cases and investigations is an entirely different animal.
Spooky23 12y ago
A: Those cities would develop more obvious/visible crime problems as the drug traffickers fought amoungst themselves unabated. The police forces would take a big hit due to the loss of seizure revenue, which means less overtime and poorer coverage. I think the "war on drugs" is a joke, but local action isn't going to be very effective, because the locality will bear the brunt of the negative effects.
- acdha 12y ago
  The proposal was decriminalizing drug offenses, not murder or assault. It'd arguably be better for those cities if the local police were able to persue crimes which take time to investigate rather than chasing drug possession charges to satisfy quotas and they'd be able to develop a better relationship (i.e. tips) with communities which currently associate the police with unconstitutional intrusions on their daily lives.
- llllllllllll 12y ago
  There's quite a bit of evidence that the exact opposite is true, that violence increases with stronger police enforcement, due to the destabilization of established trafficking lines and the resulting struggle to fill the void. Here's a study done on the Marijuana trade in Denmark: http://euc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/10/1477370812467568.abstract http://euc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/10/147737081246... Mexico is an even better example. Minimum 60,000 dead after Felipe Calderon dramatically increased resistance against the cartels.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cwisecarver 12y ago
Doesn't this just come down to capitalism? If there is a demand someone will find a way to supply it. We could have the government select the suppliers through law enforcement, weeding out the criminals that can't find a way to evade them, or we could license dealers, tax their profits and use that money for schools, treatment, and whatever else (Colorado). People who have a physical or mental addiction will find a way to get their high. That's what we've learned from the WoD. It's water dripping on a stone, from both sides, distribution and consumption. Tax-paying citizens, not making any judgements, should get back their investment on the fail that is the WoD. The government and the taxpayers could easily make as much money through taxing drug dealers profits as they've ever made getting handouts from the prison and big-pharma lobby.
justizin 12y ago
they would have to lay off massive amounts of their police forces, which have over the past couple decades come to rely on federal drug war funding for significant portions of their payroll. i'm ok with that, but are the rest of you?
DonGateley 12y ago
One problem with this is the number of thugs in city and town police forces. They aren't going to give up their bully franchises easily.
acd 12y ago
This war was lost when the criminals started using Narco subs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine and that they started to use horizontal digging http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/mexican-cartels-are-using-firetruck-sized-drillers-to-make-drug-pipelines http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/mexican-cartels-are-using-f...

165 points by samsolomon 12y ago

Then organized crime would run the streets, as the combative pressure keeping these operations small would removed. Gangs would spring up like weeds, get absorbed into syndicates, and wield large amounts of power over ghettos and other blighted areas without regular sweeps to keep them in line.

zyxley 12y ago
How did you get from "less or no prosecution of drug crimes" to "the police will stop enforcing law entirely, turning the inner city into a Plisskenian hellhole"?
- Natsu 12y ago
  Honestly, I think gangs would lose power as legal outlets took hold, but we'd have more widespread addiction problems and more trouble with jobless addicts stealing for their next fix.
  - woah 12y ago
    If we decriminalized it entirely, addicts wouldn't steal for their next fix because it would be cheap.
toyg 12y ago
Choose your own semi-ironic response now: ☐ "Which totally doesn't happen now. Oh wait..." ☐ "Yeah, Amsterdam is completely run by gangs. Oh wait..." ☐ "Yeah, gangs would get richer and expand as price of drugs plummets and they get commoditised. Oh wait..." Edit: downvotes? I was trying to summarise the inevitable counterpoints.
- pyre 12y ago
  Well, one could argue that (in the short term) there would be more violence as the current power balance is disrupted and gangs search to expand into other areas to generate their money...
  - Renaud 12y ago
    But the whole point is that the money not spent in the war on drugs would then be re-directed to control other criminal activities. I'd rather gangs go into white-collar crime than violent crimes. The Mafia, Yakuza and the Hong Kong triads have in large measure done away from street crime and moved to more economic-oriented crimes such as buying legitimate companies and fiddling with their accounts to illegally import and sell goods, avoid taxes, peddle in corruption, gambling, ...
- Spooky23 12y ago
  Usually there is a balance of power dynamic going on. The police know who the drug folks are, and basically let them be to some extent as long as they don't cross the line. Chicago is a great example of why cops do this. The leadership of a few major gangs was taken out by the police, and the resulting power struggle basically ignited a street war with death counts similar to the war in Afghsnistan.
- molmalo 12y ago
  I think you are very wrong, and your ironic responses don't apply, because there is a major problem with the approach shown in the article. The problem is that they are not legalizing drugs, and providing a legal and regulated market that replaces the illegal, criminalized, drug-lords managed and violent market. They are just putting less energy and resources to enforce drug laws. So, living in Argentina, a country that in the past few years has chosen the very same path, I can tell you that the expected result is not something like Amsterdam, but something like the favelas, in Brazil. Liberated zones, where criminal organizations grow much much more stronger, organized and richer than what you see today. Crime raises, because drug addicts need money to buy drugs from those gangs. Criminals get much more violent. Wars between gangs get much more open to control more land. And the entire society suffers. You want something like Amsterdam? OK, chasing drug dealers, but provide a legal, cheaper and with better quality market. Offer and demand will make them go away. But without a legal market, stop enforcing drug laws and I can guarantee you, that things can only get much worse.
badsock 12y ago
Do you have any examples of where your theory has become reality? Because there are several examples of the opposite happening (e.g. overall less crime in Portugal).
angersock 12y ago
Yeah, I'll bet my money on Bayer, Merck, and Pfizer, thank you very much.
- TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
  One might think it odd that Big Pharma doesn't do more to legalise drugs, then you realise they already have legal sales and distribution channels.
  - c23gooey 12y ago
    In the case of marijuana legalisation - Big Pharma has spent millions researching and developing drugs for medical conditions that marijuana is able to treat just as effectively. They make and will continue to make a lot more money keeping things they way they are, rather than letting Ma and Pa Kettle grow their own medicine.
honestcoyote 12y ago
I realized the drug war was a farce when I was a teenager watching the evening news with my parents. They ran a story about arresting a Colombian drug lord and raiding his mansion. Immediately following was a commercial break which featured August Busch talking about some charity his brewery was sponsoring. And it hit me: one drug lord gets a small army sent after him and another drug lord is allowed to operate openly and even accepted as an upstanding member of the community. What is the difference between the two? Of course the key difference is: when the drug is legal, it's far more profitable and easier to run above board, even with the burden of taxes and regulations. Why run a complicated network of smugglers and violent enforcers, running the risk of extended jail time, when you can just maintain a distribution network and pay for advertising? I'm sure Pablo Escobar would have gladly given up his thuggish ways in exchange for decent shelf placement in retail establishments and ads featuring "Escobar's Finest Blend. Don't settle for imitations!"
- TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
  I like asking bottle shop attendants "What's like being a drug dealer?"
- deciplex 12y ago
  Agree except for the last part. Pablo Escobar brought a different set of skills to the table running his empire than would be required of someone running a legitimate business trafficking in the same goods. With legalization, the Pablo Escobars of the go into the business of stocking store shelves and picking up trash - they do not become CEOs of successful companies. Other people do that instead.

rayiner 12y ago

I really hope that in the next few decades we see a deescalation of the drug war. But I think many people overestimate how far along we are in terms of the general public's attitude. It was only last year that majority of those polled supported legalizing marijuana: http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports-legalizing-marijuana http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports.... At the time of the last dot-com bust (2001), it was 60-40 against legalization. Since actual voters skew older and more conservative, it's totally unsurprising that it has only been in the last few years that legalization efforts have gained traction. Yet legalization of marijuana is just the first step, and one that's easy to take for middle class voters, whose kids may use marijuana or who may use it themselves. It'll still be a long, uphill battle to convince these voters that it'll be better to disengage from the drug war completely. A lot of the people involved in drug distribution are not sympathetic figures to the general public: uneducated, often minorities, and usually with long criminal records. The idea that disengaging from the drug war will mean "going soft" on these people will be a powerful one.

sillysaurus3 12y ago
When this topic of marijuana legalization comes up, it seems like most conservative news agencies ask the loaded question, "Does this mean you're in favor of decriminalizing hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and meth?" I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer?
- DerpDerpDerp 12y ago
  With more loaded questions: "Alcohol destroys more lives than any of those drugs: are you saying we should return to the era of prohibition and mafia violence? Should our children die because people can't be responsible? That doesn't sound like small government or liberty to me."
- joel_perl_prog 12y ago
  Simple. The answer is "yes." So-called hard drugs are ... well ... they ain't health food. But presumably I'm writing to an audience of utilitarian thinkers, so it should be trivial to load up the arguments onto a balance beam: for, and against. We have lived through the against side it. We know exactly what those consequences are, for society. Importantly, criminalization does ZERO to limit demand, and thus, supply. Zero. This is demonstrably true. So, now imagine a world where all of those same people who already choose to abuse drugs to the point where it becomes a severe health and social hazard, except those activities are not illegal anymore. Yes, you still have the dangers of those people acting irrationally, or even rationally, but just anti-socially, in pursuit of their high. But this happens now, already. With the added negatives of the so-called war on drugs (which in reality is a war on the American people, especially black people), just thrown into the mix. Like so many others have done, I could write at great length (and so could you, dear reader, most likely; many of you) about this subject. It's completely fucked, in a word. And I live in Colorado, so if you'd like to hear about what's happened after pot was legal, I can tell you: nada. Zip. Nothing bad. Zero. And that won't ever change, either. Yeah, pot's not cocaine, but believe it or not, doing a few lines of blow doesn't turn a normal human being into a psychopath. Or, if it does, that same person would become just as dangerous after a pint of vodka.

sharkweek 12y ago

The Economist wrote a near perfect editorial about the war on drugs a few years back: http://www.economist.com/node/13237193 http://www.economist.com/node/13237193 (you might need to Google "The economist failed states and failed policies" to read the article) Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue and turning it into a crime and punishment issue. I highly recommend anyone curious about the history of the war on drugs, and the major problems it has created, watch "The House I Live In" -- arguably one of the best documentaries I have ever seen - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125653/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125653/

sksk 12y ago
Gang Leader For A Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes To The Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudhir_Venkatesh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudhir_Venkatesh) is a great read as well.
tdaltonc 12y ago
I feel like the economist does this every few years.
chongli 12y ago
Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been taking a public heath issue It's never been a public health issue for its major proponents. The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex.
- Bahamut 12y ago
  I always thought it was more about religion and politics than those.
  - declan 12y ago
    I think <chongil> has it right. In the case of religion, you're confusing a transparent and rarely-invoked justification with the actual reasons for the WoD. In the case of politics, you're confusing the mechanism for prohibition with the actual reasons.

SoftwareMaven 12y ago

The point about grants brings up what I consider to be one of the Federal government's most pernicious behaviors: micro-managing local government through the use of grants and other funds (see also education and school nutrition).

dmfdmf 12y ago
Cutting off Federal Highway funds has been the threat of choice to coerce states to toe the line on Federal priorities and policies.

Thriptic 12y ago

Excuse my ignorance, but is it legitimate for subordinate entities in a federalist system to simply not fund enforcement of policies they don't agree with? For example, would it be possible to have a vice squad with a budget of 1 dollar, effectively preventing enforcement of drug-related crime?

declan 12y ago
Yes, it is a legitimate policy choice. In general, FedGov has sharply limited constitutional authority to force the states to carry out its wishes in the case of enforcing federal criminal laws. The precedent that comes to mind is Printz v. US, where SCOTUS struck down a FedGov law requiring that local police check the backgrounds of Americans who wanted to buy a firearm through a licensed dealer. And obviously in the case of marijuana legalization, states like Colorado are already engaging in quasi-nullification: they're thumbing their nose at FedGov despite a federal law saying that mere possession of pot is a crime. This is why FedGov tries to tie its mandates on states to funding, like speed limits and drinking ages. Remember Real ID was not a direct mandate on the states but a carrot-and-stick approach to nationalized drivers licenses (or, you could argue, a uniform national ID).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

sirdogealot 12y ago

The same thing that would happen to any country or state that decided to stop participating in the war on drugs. They would be sanctioned and heckled by other city governments. They may even have their drug enforcement programs carried out by other governments, like when Canada sat back for years while Marc Emery sold Marijuana seeds worldwide. The DEA basically coughed and the RCMP had Emery arrested on the spot and extradited to the U.S.A. to face charges in a country he was not even a resident of.[0] I am sure there was a bit more to it than that. The USA probably insinuated some very strong consequences for Canada if they didn't turn him over. But that's entirely speculation. Marc Emery aka "the prince of pot" remains incarcerated in the U.S.A. to this day. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Emery#2005_arrest_and_extradition_proceedings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Emery#2005_arrest_and_extr...

dobbsbob 12y ago
I live a block away from Emery's store. There's a seed store still there that is doing exactly what Emery was doing (selling pot seeds to Americans) yet they haven't been busted. This is probably because it's owner didn't give a million dollars to NORML in the US to fight prohibition of Marijuana. Emery also writes a federal prison blog, interesting insight into how foreign prisoners are treated in the US, like the time he spent at D.Ray Fed prison where it's entirely made up of foreigners. No racism/forced segregation based on skin color, no homogeneous gangs of all one ethnicity, they all live together in dorms without any of the problems he saw in other fed prisons like Seatac where some guy threatened him because he was playing dominos with a black inmate and that was "not allowed".
- sirdogealot 12y ago
  Very interesting. I was not aware that there are "foreigner only prisons". I wonder why they exist? I haven't kept up on his blog writings much, as it's too depressing to be honest. Which is a shame considering he is such a great writer. Thankfully, he should be out soon and it doesn't sound like they have broken his spirit one bit.
  - 12y ago

us0r 12y ago

The jury is out and this is a lost cause. Unfortunately it is all about money. This is a massive business. The budget just keeps growing. 2015 drug budget: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/about-content/fy_2015_budget_highlights_-_final.pdf http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/about-co... Of course they make it nearly impossible to figure out a real number of how much is going contractors but since the DEA is supposed to be about only drugs they had a $2,242M FY13 budget. Total contract actions in FY13: $513,659,660.69. Largest recipient? A scandal plagued private security contractor. Meanwhile in an effort to curb spending House Republicans cut the syringe program in 2011. Needle sharing is 1/3 of all AIDS cases (354,000). Even if you don't want to change drug policy that is just simply a horrible idea. Forbes article on the horror that happened in Portugal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-af... As more State's legalize eventually Washington will need to do something. I have a feeling we will end up with decriminalization which is going to keep the murders, theft and other problems around. In the meantime Michele Leonhart should be fired, arrested and charged. The NSA running around wild on the Internet is one thing but the DEA using that to build phony cases and investigations is an entirely different animal.

Spooky23 12y ago

A: Those cities would develop more obvious/visible crime problems as the drug traffickers fought amoungst themselves unabated. The police forces would take a big hit due to the loss of seizure revenue, which means less overtime and poorer coverage. I think the "war on drugs" is a joke, but local action isn't going to be very effective, because the locality will bear the brunt of the negative effects.

acdha 12y ago
The proposal was decriminalizing drug offenses, not murder or assault. It'd arguably be better for those cities if the local police were able to persue crimes which take time to investigate rather than chasing drug possession charges to satisfy quotas and they'd be able to develop a better relationship (i.e. tips) with communities which currently associate the police with unconstitutional intrusions on their daily lives.
llllllllllll 12y ago
There's quite a bit of evidence that the exact opposite is true, that violence increases with stronger police enforcement, due to the destabilization of established trafficking lines and the resulting struggle to fill the void. Here's a study done on the Marijuana trade in Denmark: http://euc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/10/1477370812467568.abstract http://euc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/10/147737081246... Mexico is an even better example. Minimum 60,000 dead after Felipe Calderon dramatically increased resistance against the cartels.

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cwisecarver 12y ago

Doesn't this just come down to capitalism? If there is a demand someone will find a way to supply it. We could have the government select the suppliers through law enforcement, weeding out the criminals that can't find a way to evade them, or we could license dealers, tax their profits and use that money for schools, treatment, and whatever else (Colorado). People who have a physical or mental addiction will find a way to get their high. That's what we've learned from the WoD. It's water dripping on a stone, from both sides, distribution and consumption. Tax-paying citizens, not making any judgements, should get back their investment on the fail that is the WoD. The government and the taxpayers could easily make as much money through taxing drug dealers profits as they've ever made getting handouts from the prison and big-pharma lobby.

justizin 12y ago

they would have to lay off massive amounts of their police forces, which have over the past couple decades come to rely on federal drug war funding for significant portions of their payroll. i'm ok with that, but are the rest of you?

DonGateley 12y ago

One problem with this is the number of thugs in city and town police forces. They aren't going to give up their bully franchises easily.

acd 12y ago

This war was lost when the criminals started using Narco subs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine and that they started to use horizontal digging http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/mexican-cartels-are-using-firetruck-sized-drillers-to-make-drug-pipelines http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/mexican-cartels-are-using-f...