The "war" on drugs - prohibition

rightondude

After 36 years of fighting the war on drugs:

- drugs are cheaper
- drugs are much more potent
- drugs are far easier to buy

Holy flying shit batman...what an extreme failure of policy.

http://www.pot-tv.net/ram/pottvshowse4290.ram
(needs realplayer)

simpson,ay?

we need to fight DEMAND, not supply...its simple economics. unfortunately, the public doesn't want to hear that, because all they hear is "soft on crime, soft on drugs..."

and improve economic conditions in countries like colombia, so that farmers of coca, etc. have alternatives. a lot of those farmers would like to grow legitimate crops, but the economic situation and the insistence of the US to use fumigation (which besides being highly ineffective, harms legitimate crops) prevents them from doing so.

like you said, highly inefficient program from the spend-happy reagan era.

Laz

Let's not forget the porous border we share with my native Mexico... I'm sure no drugs are coming in through there...

Eliot Rosewater

The "war on drugs" is about the only thing more useless than the "war on terror". Neither can be one with the word "war". However, I believe both can be overcome with education, peace, and love. Locking someone up for a non-violent drug offense makes about as much sense as illegally attacking, occupying, and terrorizing a country under the guise of freedom and democracy.

EvilToasterElf

It's not DEMAND that needs to be fought, it actually fighting the DANGEROUS drugs, not just locking up marijuana offenders because they're plentiful and easy to catch

If you took all the money used to fight pot and put it towards crack, cocaine, meth, and heroine, their wouldn't be a "drug problem" in this country

Eliot Rosewater

EvilToasterElf wrote:

It's not DEMAND that needs to be fought, it actually fighting the DANGEROUS drugs, not just locking up marijuana offenders because they're plentiful and easy to catch

If you took all the money used to fight pot and put it towards crack, cocaine, meth, and heroine, their wouldn't be a "drug problem" in this country

I agree but it also depends on how we used that money. Locking up a drug addict does no good for anyone.

simpson,ay?

EvilToasterElf wrote:

It's not DEMAND that needs to be fought, it actually fighting the DANGEROUS drugs, not just locking up marijuana offenders because they're plentiful and easy to catch

If you took all the money used to fight pot and put it towards crack, cocaine, meth, and heroine, their wouldn't be a "drug problem" in this country

while i agree that we need to stop chasing every teenager with a dimebag, yours is exactly the kind of thinking that has got us nowhere thus far. you can't fight drugs by cracking down on the suppliers. the people making cocaine make ridiculous amounts of money (think cost of making it times 10,000). you have to make the comparative advantage for making drugs less than that. you aren't gonna stop these people, especially in countries that have political leaders either in the drug dealer's pockets or were put there by drug money. you have to kill demand for the drugs.

you decrease demand for cociane, what happens...people stop making it. you decrease supply, what happens...the price goes up, more people start making it. these people two basic options: be poor as shit, or make drugs and have everything you ever wanted. what would you do?

1970RR

simpson,ay? wrote:

while i agree that we need to stop chasing every teenager with a dimebag, yours is exactly the kind of thinking that has got us nowhere thus far. you can't fight drugs by cracking down on the suppliers. the people making cocaine make ridiculous amounts of money (think cost of making it times 10,000). you have to make the comparative advantage for making drugs less than that. you aren't gonna stop these people, especially in countries that have political leaders either in the drug dealer's pockets or were put there by drug money. you have to kill demand for the drugs.

you decrease demand for cociane, what happens...people stop making it. you decrease supply, what happens...the price goes up, more people start making it. these people two basic options: be poor as shit, or make drugs and have everything you ever wanted. what would you do?

The reason suppliers/dealers make ridiculous amounts of money is because the drugs are illegal and unregulated. Society needs to accept that there will always be people who wish to alter their mood via the use of substances and trying to stop this desire only causes more problems. The attempts to "kill" demand do nothing but increase the very problems associated with drug use, particularly crime/violence.

simpson,ay?

1970RR wrote:

The reason suppliers/dealers make ridiculous amounts of money is because the drugs are illegal and unregulated. Society needs to accept that there will always be people who wish to alter their mood via the use of substances and trying to stop this desire only causes more problems. The attempts to "kill" demand do nothing but increase the very problems associated with drug use, particularly crime/violence.

i think maybe you've misunderstood me. by killing demand, i meant helping people with drug problems, anti-drug programs for youth, etc., not sending people to jail for 20 years for using drugs. i think counseling, not punishment, is the answer for drugs. i don't see how these types of programs would increase crime/violence. i agree there will always be people that will want to alter their state of consciousness, but i think if we can decrease demand of drugs, it will help. i think our "war on drugs," particularly in other countries, is only intensifying the problem. it's a problem with so many layers its staggering. the us stance is simply ridiculous. it basically puts drug traffickers in the same category as terrorists, coining the misnomer "narco-terrorists." its a sad problem, with a bleak hope of resolving.

Pacomc79

simpson,ay? wrote:

i think maybe you've misunderstood me. by killing demand, i meant helping people with drug problems, anti-drug programs for youth, etc., not sending people to jail for 20 years for using drugs. i think counseling, not punishment, is the answer for drugs. i don't see how these types of programs would increase crime/violence. i agree there will always be people that will want to alter their state of consciousness, but i think if we can decrease demand of drugs, it will help. i think our "war on drugs," particularly in other countries, is only intensifying the problem. it's a problem with so many layers its staggering. the us stance is simply ridiculous. it basically puts drug traffickers in the same category as terrorists, coining the misnomer "narco-terrorists." its a sad problem, with a bleak hope of resolving.

So essentially you're saying focus on treatment and prevention of addiction as means to combat illicit drug use?

That would certainly seem to be a much more effective use of a lot less money.

Eliot Rosewater

Pacomc79 wrote:

So essentially you're saying focus on treatment and prevention of addiction as means to combat illicit drug use?

That would certainly seem to be a much more effective use of a lot less money.

Exactly....the only way to decrease demand is education. Treatment is clearly needed, but I think prevention by way of education has been all but abandoned. If people understand the scope of what they're getting themselves into with drug abuse, they're much more likely to walk away.

EvilToasterElf

simpson,ay? wrote:

while i agree that we need to stop chasing every teenager with a dimebag, yours is exactly the kind of thinking that has got us nowhere thus far. you can't fight drugs by cracking down on the suppliers. the people making cocaine make ridiculous amounts of money (think cost of making it times 10,000). you have to make the comparative advantage for making drugs less than that. you aren't gonna stop these people, especially in countries that have political leaders either in the drug dealer's pockets or were put there by drug money. you have to kill demand for the drugs.

you decrease demand for cociane, what happens...people stop making it. you decrease supply, what happens...the price goes up, more people start making it. these people two basic options: be poor as shit, or make drugs and have everything you ever wanted. what would you do?

It's actually much simpler than trying to change the policies of foreign countries. You take all the money used to arrest, arraign, and imprison harmless marijuana offenders and apply it to border patrols for hard drugs, and rehabilitation for hard drugs, and hard drug use plummets. It's actually remarkably simple. Also you increase the penalty for hard drugs. Look at Holland, marijuana is legal, but still frowned apon by general society, and their hard drug use is the lowest in Europe. By far.

Eliot Rosewater

EvilToasterElf wrote:

It's actually much simpler than trying to change the policies of foreign countries. You take all the money used to arrest, arraign, and imprison harmless marijuana offenders and apply it to border patrols for hard drugs, and rehabilitation for hard drugs, and hard drug use plummets. It's actually remarkably simple. Also you increase the penalty for hard drugs. Look at Holland, marijuana is legal, but still frowned apon by general society, and their hard drug use is the lowest in Europe. By far.

I agree with you except for the increased penalties for hard drugs. The system needs to be rehabilitative, not punitive. Sure, prison can change someone, but it's clear that it isn't common, especially for drug offenses.

Commy

So the US (under Clinton's administration) gave the Columbian authorities 2 billion to fight the 'drug war'. It included some 50 apache gunships and surveillence equipment and so on...The reason given was that Colombia is the world's leading exporter of Cocaine-which is true. Gripa Columbiana, as they say.

But it just so coincided with a resurgence of a rebel group, supported by the people, called FARC, who have made a strong presence in a certain, high resource area of Colombia, some 20,000 members strong. They've basically been governing southern Colombia for the past forty years....And now the US 'aid' just so happens to coincide with the sudden spread of the FARC control.

Then there are the paramilitaries, often indistiguishable from the Columbian military-often officers serve in both units and work side by side-going around to villages and commiting atrocities...on a massive scale. And the brutality of the attacks are really striking-dropping pregnant women from helicopters into the middle of FARC villages, kidnapping and torturing suspects. They waited for the men to leave a house and came in, decapitated the entire family-grandma, mom, daughters, 2 month old baby, and set the table with the corpses sitting around the table, their heads on their plates, their hands on their heads. They couldn't get the baby's hands to stay put so they nailed them to the skull. This is what the CIA has been supporting in Colombia-this is what the 'drug war' is.

Then you see a Columbian general fly into a Florida airport with 200 kilos of pure cocaine in his cargo hold and you wonder what they're really fighting for...

Then you look at the results of the Rand report-a US sponsored investigation into drug use and prevention-they concluded prevention is the best way to fight drug use...inform people about how shitty drugs are and tell kids why they shouldn't be trying these drugs. Tell them the horror stories, and that will do more to prevent illegal drug use (a minor problem in the United States) then $2 billion in military aid could ever hope to accomplish. So obviously the US has a different agenda when they claim to be fighting a "war on drugs".

Not to mention the US corporations that are selling unique chemicals in large quantities to certain groups in Colombia-used for only one purpose-to make cocaine and so on...

The illegal drug trade is the most profitable industry in the world-hard to believe-beating out arms. You can bet the masters of capitalism have their greedy hands deep in this industry.