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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

by 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.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  In theory this is why we have a republic rather than a direct democracy. The people say what they want (e.g. less drug use) and the representatives do the hard work of figuring out how best to achieve that result (e.g. discovering that it's empirically more effective to treat it as a medical and social issue rather than a criminal issue, and enacting laws consistent with that result). But then they don't and we're back to nefarious undertones.
  - toyg 12y ago
    No, that's why you have representative democracy rather than direct democracy. You have a republic rather than a monarchy. In order to establish its leadership, a republic can use representative democracy, direct democracy, fascism, dictatorship, whatever -- as long as it defines the power of the state as flowing from the entirety of its people, rather than from a subset of the population or by a divinity, it's a republic, end of. "Republic" is not a synonym of "representative democracy". I wish I had a penny for every time I had to dispel this awful misconception in constitutional studies that only Americans seem to have.
    - kbutler 12y ago
      Historically and in political science literature, "republic" IS synonymous with "representative democracy". In the 20th century autocratic/oligarchical/fascist states adopted "Republic" to sound democratic, and that use is becoming more common. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/republic http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng... A state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/09/republic-or-representative-democracy.html http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/09/republic-or-repr... we regard the terms “republic” and “representative democracy” as being interchangeable, as does the political science literature. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163158?redirectedFrom=republic#eid http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163158?redirectedFrom=republic... a. A state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; spec. a state without a monarchy. Also: a government, or system of government, of such a state; a period of government of this type.The term is often (esp. in the 18th and 19th centuries) taken to imply a state with a democratic or representative constitution and without a hereditary nobility, but more recently it has also been used of autocratic or dictatorial states not ruled by a monarch. It is now chiefly used to denote any non-monarchical state headed by an elected or appointed president.
beagle3 12y ago
According to the "Pump" movie (not sure what their sources are), at the time cars were designed to run on various vegetable oils and (mostly) ethanol (e.g. the Diesel engine was originally designed to run on Peanut oil), and it was actually a Rockefeller initiative behind the curtains to make sure that there is actually no competition for gasoline. Have not tried to fact-check yet, could be completely wrong - but if it is true, it's certainly an angle to prohibition that I was not aware of.
jcfrei 12y ago
I agree that the criminalization of drug trafficking is largely a hidden subsidy for law enforcement. Keeping an entire police force busy with controlling borders and neighborhoods creates huge spillover effects in the economy - whether it's for the local donut shop, national firearms and communications industry, prisons or even the car industry. But as the previous comment mentioned, this can hardly be a global maximum. Right now the local governments are mostly funding a vast array of blue collar workers (prisoner guards, police officers, fast food worker) rather than a smaller set of white collar workers (chemists and physicians) which would manufacture and administer herion/cocaine/etc to those trapped in a severe addiction. From that point of view the current support for a strong stance against the decriminalization of drugs is neither surprising nor unreasonable for a large portion of society. Although the reasons might be more economical than moral in nature.

by boyaka 12y ago

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.

AnthonyMouse 12y ago
In theory this is why we have a republic rather than a direct democracy. The people say what they want (e.g. less drug use) and the representatives do the hard work of figuring out how best to achieve that result (e.g. discovering that it's empirically more effective to treat it as a medical and social issue rather than a criminal issue, and enacting laws consistent with that result). But then they don't and we're back to nefarious undertones.
- toyg 12y ago
  No, that's why you have representative democracy rather than direct democracy. You have a republic rather than a monarchy. In order to establish its leadership, a republic can use representative democracy, direct democracy, fascism, dictatorship, whatever -- as long as it defines the power of the state as flowing from the entirety of its people, rather than from a subset of the population or by a divinity, it's a republic, end of. "Republic" is not a synonym of "representative democracy". I wish I had a penny for every time I had to dispel this awful misconception in constitutional studies that only Americans seem to have.
  - kbutler 12y ago
    Historically and in political science literature, "republic" IS synonymous with "representative democracy". In the 20th century autocratic/oligarchical/fascist states adopted "Republic" to sound democratic, and that use is becoming more common. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/republic http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng... A state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/09/republic-or-representative-democracy.html http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/09/republic-or-repr... we regard the terms “republic” and “representative democracy” as being interchangeable, as does the political science literature. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163158?redirectedFrom=republic#eid http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163158?redirectedFrom=republic... a. A state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; spec. a state without a monarchy. Also: a government, or system of government, of such a state; a period of government of this type.The term is often (esp. in the 18th and 19th centuries) taken to imply a state with a democratic or representative constitution and without a hereditary nobility, but more recently it has also been used of autocratic or dictatorial states not ruled by a monarch. It is now chiefly used to denote any non-monarchical state headed by an elected or appointed president.

beagle3 12y ago

According to the "Pump" movie (not sure what their sources are), at the time cars were designed to run on various vegetable oils and (mostly) ethanol (e.g. the Diesel engine was originally designed to run on Peanut oil), and it was actually a Rockefeller initiative behind the curtains to make sure that there is actually no competition for gasoline. Have not tried to fact-check yet, could be completely wrong - but if it is true, it's certainly an angle to prohibition that I was not aware of.

jcfrei 12y ago

I agree that the criminalization of drug trafficking is largely a hidden subsidy for law enforcement. Keeping an entire police force busy with controlling borders and neighborhoods creates huge spillover effects in the economy - whether it's for the local donut shop, national firearms and communications industry, prisons or even the car industry. But as the previous comment mentioned, this can hardly be a global maximum. Right now the local governments are mostly funding a vast array of blue collar workers (prisoner guards, police officers, fast food worker) rather than a smaller set of white collar workers (chemists and physicians) which would manufacture and administer herion/cocaine/etc to those trapped in a severe addiction. From that point of view the current support for a strong stance against the decriminalization of drugs is neither surprising nor unreasonable for a large portion of society. Although the reasons might be more economical than moral in nature.