7 ms·

I suspect they work just fine, its what they are actually supposed to do that most people are unclear on. I'm not quite tin hat enough to think that they were

I suspect they work just fine, its what they are actually supposed to do that most people are unclear on. I'm not quite tin hat enough to think that they were actually created for these purposes, but I do think they've stabilized on a sub-optimal local maximum where the general populace is complacent because they feel like "something was done" about those awful (counterculture) drugs and they laws themselves have become broadly useful to the political class for all sorts of reasons that have nothing at all to do with the reality of drug use on the street. So here we sit. It will take substantial political force to budge off this local maximum point.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 12y ago
Exactly: article: there is no direct link between being “tough on drugs” and tackling the problem. Well, what problem is that? If we define the problem as "property crime and collateral violence", then those tough-on-drugs laws directly cause the problem, beyond the shadow of any doubt. That is the problem that anyone reasonable cares about, not what "immoral" things other people are doing to their bodies.
- zo1 12y ago
  It's only a problem so long as it's framed with the question of "should, and can the state fix X". If, however, you state it in state-free terms such as "is there anything wrong with an individual stranger potentially harming his/herself?" then the answer is pretty obvious. It's much harder to justify things against an individual without the state. E.g. "Those bums down the street repeatedly use drugs, and I think that will lead to them damaging my property / harming me. I'll go ahead and hire some security guards to prevent them from taking drugs, or beating them up if we find out they have drugs on them." Disclaimer: I'm an anarcho-capitalist.
boyaka 12y ago
I've been having similar thoughts about the purposes behind the prohibition being misunderstood. There are many effects that the war on drugs is having, and the people that are executing the process are more aware than any of us what those effects are. As a clueless civilian, I have been attempting to come up with some completely conjectural ideas about what those might be: - Strengthen law enforcement through constant practice, and provide revenue to supporting companies - Siphon money from one industry (drug trade) to help support the government and therefore support other industries that it feels are more beneficial to society - Stigmatize unproductive habits, conditioning society to more productive/controlled behavior, incarcerating individuals who resist to make the society seem more productive overall I'm sure there are many intentions that are well known that might overlap with what I'm suggesting, but I think the main point is that the war on drugs is not for the purpose that most people assume: to eliminate drugs from society. I think in a lot of ways it intentionally has the opposite effect. Also I think if society would have tolerated alcohol prohibition that the government would have been happy to keep that going as well for similar reasons.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > Also I think if society would have tolerated alcohol prohibition that the government would have been happy to keep that going as well for similar reasons. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542155. In fact, at the time prohibition was proposed, alcohol taxes made up fully 1/3 of federal revenue. The money and moneyed interests were aligned against prohibition, not for it. I think a lot of people look for ways to get around the fact that when you give people self-determination as a group, they might vote for things you don't like with no nefarious undertones in play. The simplest explanation is this one: I don't vote, my mom does. There are more puritanical people who simply don't want to live in a society that condones drug use than the opposite. It's just like how when people in arab countries got the opportunity to vote, they voted-in conservative Islamic governments. Sure they are opportunists taking advantage of those tendencies, but at the end of the day, you have to grapple with the real fact that people have ideas about what their societies should look like, and democracy means that they get to carry those ideas into fruition.
001sky 12y ago
In ths US, drugs are basically the opiate of the masses. In particular, minorities. The drug laws are basically the rich white people saying: heads I win, tails you lose. As such, nothing will change. Nobody runs faster from a school with minority over-represenatation faster than a (white, affluent) liberal in an expensive zip-code.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Drugs are not opiates, opiates are drugs.
  - JetSpiegel 12y ago
    The parent was quoting Marx, come on!
- adventured 12y ago
  I think you're clearly wrong. The 'war on drugs' is coming to an end right now. It's almost universally recognized as a failure. The majority of Americans have decided it needs to end, and as such it is ending. Obama has ordered his DOJ to stand down. The momentum that is already underway cannot be stopped. At this point it's merely a matter of the time it takes for every state to tumble into line, one after another. And as the US is moving rapidly toward that, the rest of the world is as well, and that lock-step will make sure there can be no reversal. So the US goes, the rest of the world will quickly follow, since it was the US war on drugs that was largely responsible for pushing the existing drug criminalization system globally. Every conservative I know these days supports either legalization or decriminalization, having come to the understanding that the approach that has been used for 40 years does not work. You can celebrate. It's an early, but great victory for justice and liberty.
  - 001sky 12y ago
    No, i'm clearly reading the data. You're simply speculating. The drugs laws are widely used as pretexts for minority supression. The issue being discussed is the broader sociological function of the drugs laws: namely, to keep the elites in power, to elevate the value of their real-estate, and to provide a weak negotiating position for the under-priveledged in the labour market. The same people that want to run away from the kids of black people are the same as those that want to throw the parents in jail (for petty drug offences and trivial parole violations). http://www.businessinsider.com/kent-brewster-analyzes-atherton-police-blotter-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/kent-brewster-analyzes-athert... http://paloaltofreepress.com/living-in-palo-alto-while-black/ http://paloaltofreepress.com/living-in-palo-alto-while-black... http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_11034532?source=rss http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_110345... Today, African-Americans are also more likely to spend time in prison for drug related offenses than their white counterparts. According to the Sentencing Project, African-Americans make up 12% of the nation’s drug users, but represent 34% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 45% of those in state prison for such offense as of 2005. Of course, there's plenty of white collar drug abuse running rampant in high-rent neigborhoods. To wit: http://dealbreaker.com/2014/10/jefferies-exec-sage-kelly-employs-unorthodox-approach-for-landing-clients/ http://dealbreaker.com/2014/10/jefferies-exec-sage-kelly-emp... Clearly there is a demand for low-level discretionary powers that can serve the social-sorting priorities of those with wealth and power. The drug laws fill those roles today, and whether we like it or not, there seems to be "a demand" that they serve for some people well beyond their "literal" or statuatory meaning.
baddox 12y ago
> I'm not quite tin hat enough to think that they were actually created for these purposes There doesn't have to be just one purpose. I think a lot of supposedly progressive legislation comes out of a union between genuine well-intended progressives and the special interest groups which will benefit from the actual version of the progressive legislation that ends up getting passed.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

kazinator 12y ago

Exactly: article: there is no direct link between being “tough on drugs” and tackling the problem. Well, what problem is that? If we define the problem as "property crime and collateral violence", then those tough-on-drugs laws directly cause the problem, beyond the shadow of any doubt. That is the problem that anyone reasonable cares about, not what "immoral" things other people are doing to their bodies.

zo1 12y ago
It's only a problem so long as it's framed with the question of "should, and can the state fix X". If, however, you state it in state-free terms such as "is there anything wrong with an individual stranger potentially harming his/herself?" then the answer is pretty obvious. It's much harder to justify things against an individual without the state. E.g. "Those bums down the street repeatedly use drugs, and I think that will lead to them damaging my property / harming me. I'll go ahead and hire some security guards to prevent them from taking drugs, or beating them up if we find out they have drugs on them." Disclaimer: I'm an anarcho-capitalist.

boyaka 12y ago

I've been having similar thoughts about the purposes behind the prohibition being misunderstood. There are many effects that the war on drugs is having, and the people that are executing the process are more aware than any of us what those effects are. As a clueless civilian, I have been attempting to come up with some completely conjectural ideas about what those might be: - Strengthen law enforcement through constant practice, and provide revenue to supporting companies - Siphon money from one industry (drug trade) to help support the government and therefore support other industries that it feels are more beneficial to society - Stigmatize unproductive habits, conditioning society to more productive/controlled behavior, incarcerating individuals who resist to make the society seem more productive overall I'm sure there are many intentions that are well known that might overlap with what I'm suggesting, but I think the main point is that the war on drugs is not for the purpose that most people assume: to eliminate drugs from society. I think in a lot of ways it intentionally has the opposite effect. Also I think if society would have tolerated alcohol prohibition that the government would have been happy to keep that going as well for similar reasons.

rayiner 12y ago
> Also I think if society would have tolerated alcohol prohibition that the government would have been happy to keep that going as well for similar reasons. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542155. In fact, at the time prohibition was proposed, alcohol taxes made up fully 1/3 of federal revenue. The money and moneyed interests were aligned against prohibition, not for it. I think a lot of people look for ways to get around the fact that when you give people self-determination as a group, they might vote for things you don't like with no nefarious undertones in play. The simplest explanation is this one: I don't vote, my mom does. There are more puritanical people who simply don't want to live in a society that condones drug use than the opposite. It's just like how when people in arab countries got the opportunity to vote, they voted-in conservative Islamic governments. Sure they are opportunists taking advantage of those tendencies, but at the end of the day, you have to grapple with the real fact that people have ideas about what their societies should look like, and democracy means that they get to carry those ideas into fruition.

001sky 12y ago

In ths US, drugs are basically the opiate of the masses. In particular, minorities. The drug laws are basically the rich white people saying: heads I win, tails you lose. As such, nothing will change. Nobody runs faster from a school with minority over-represenatation faster than a (white, affluent) liberal in an expensive zip-code.

jacquesm 12y ago
Drugs are not opiates, opiates are drugs.
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  The parent was quoting Marx, come on!
adventured 12y ago
I think you're clearly wrong. The 'war on drugs' is coming to an end right now. It's almost universally recognized as a failure. The majority of Americans have decided it needs to end, and as such it is ending. Obama has ordered his DOJ to stand down. The momentum that is already underway cannot be stopped. At this point it's merely a matter of the time it takes for every state to tumble into line, one after another. And as the US is moving rapidly toward that, the rest of the world is as well, and that lock-step will make sure there can be no reversal. So the US goes, the rest of the world will quickly follow, since it was the US war on drugs that was largely responsible for pushing the existing drug criminalization system globally. Every conservative I know these days supports either legalization or decriminalization, having come to the understanding that the approach that has been used for 40 years does not work. You can celebrate. It's an early, but great victory for justice and liberty.
- 001sky 12y ago
  No, i'm clearly reading the data. You're simply speculating. The drugs laws are widely used as pretexts for minority supression. The issue being discussed is the broader sociological function of the drugs laws: namely, to keep the elites in power, to elevate the value of their real-estate, and to provide a weak negotiating position for the under-priveledged in the labour market. The same people that want to run away from the kids of black people are the same as those that want to throw the parents in jail (for petty drug offences and trivial parole violations). http://www.businessinsider.com/kent-brewster-analyzes-atherton-police-blotter-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/kent-brewster-analyzes-athert... http://paloaltofreepress.com/living-in-palo-alto-while-black/ http://paloaltofreepress.com/living-in-palo-alto-while-black... http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_11034532?source=rss http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_110345... Today, African-Americans are also more likely to spend time in prison for drug related offenses than their white counterparts. According to the Sentencing Project, African-Americans make up 12% of the nation’s drug users, but represent 34% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 45% of those in state prison for such offense as of 2005. Of course, there's plenty of white collar drug abuse running rampant in high-rent neigborhoods. To wit: http://dealbreaker.com/2014/10/jefferies-exec-sage-kelly-employs-unorthodox-approach-for-landing-clients/ http://dealbreaker.com/2014/10/jefferies-exec-sage-kelly-emp... Clearly there is a demand for low-level discretionary powers that can serve the social-sorting priorities of those with wealth and power. The drug laws fill those roles today, and whether we like it or not, there seems to be "a demand" that they serve for some people well beyond their "literal" or statuatory meaning.

baddox 12y ago

> I'm not quite tin hat enough to think that they were actually created for these purposes There doesn't have to be just one purpose. I think a lot of supposedly progressive legislation comes out of a union between genuine well-intended progressives and the special interest groups which will benefit from the actual version of the progressive legislation that ends up getting passed.