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The Technology of Drug Prohibition
ches_grin writes "Although the GWOT gets all the headlines, technology is proving to be the key factor in the 'war on drugs'. This article and slideshow take a look at the current state-of-the-art for both federal agents and drug traffickers, from greenhouses to Predator drones: 'In the pitched battle surrounding illegal drugs, each side has its advantages. Law enforcement can take advantage of private sector expertise, expensive machines, and, of course, the law. Those who cultivate, manufacture, and smuggle illegal drugs can leverage vast sums of cash, generated by constant demand.'"
"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Evidence of this today in the article summary:
"Those who cultivate, manufacture, and smuggle illegal drugs can leverage vast sums of cash, generated by constant demand."
The war on drugs is a guise to control people and to actively have racial crimes on the books.
What negatively affects me the most about the "war on drugs" is that it essentially makes having mental illness a crime. Many, if not most, people with mental illnesses get addicted to drugs and alcohol because of their mental illness, and trying to quit because of legal reasons with little to no medical attention is next to impossible. Next time you see the wino-street-drunk, odds are he just needs medical attention, but you and the government would prefer him to just be "off the street" and out of our sight. I know one of these guys who happened to get medical help, and he is pretty cool. He used to be a "garden variety street drunk" who would badger people, spit when he talked, and all of that. And today he is better not because of going to jail and being punished, but by being helped.
Yep, and enrich the prison guard unions, like how the California prison guards' union lobbied for the Three Strikes Law to give them more job security.
You were aware that ever-so-noble unions were in on this, right?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
as if government doesn't have "vast sums of cash!"
Hmm, doesn't look much like a tough call to me...
I guess the high schoolers are better informed than I am. In 35 years of stoning I've not run across any harmful effects, except the threat of jail.
You synthesize meth in a pot greenhouse? Huh?
I think the article's writer was stoned to the gills!
Money and control of money. Alcohol takes some equipment and knowledge to make and a way to distribute it to your end user. Marijuana is a weed. Anyone can grow it anywhere so no distribution channel. Which one is easier to control and make money from?
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
Actually, I believe it had more to do with the textile industry than either the beer or tobacco industries...
The thing is that the "war on drugs" has become such a profit driven thing by our government that they cannot legalize it anymore because it would kill their bottom line
No it wouldn't, because they could tax drug sales. The reasoning to legalize them is still you have the RIGHT to do with your body what you want, but that doesn't mean the government still couldn't tax them.
Marijuana is not a gateway drug. If any of them are, it's alcohol.
Actually much of the problem WOULD go away. You know, unconstitutional police power, prison overcrowding, legal system overload, the high cost of keeping officers on the street, the violence by those bringing in illegal drugs, the violence caused by the users trying to get drugs (because since its illegal, they are almost more expensive).
You know, all the problems that prohibition created when it was in effect by giving rise to the mob.
Also, the justice system could focus on more important things, like terrorism (although it would be best if they were a bit more restricted, like before the patiot act).
Netherlands taxation is average for Europe: corporate income tax 29.60%, individual income tax 0-52%, VAT 19%. And the homeless are largely coming from Eastern Europe because begging in the 16th greatest economy in the world (with just 16.3 million people) pays a lot better than it does in Romania.
The experiment with drug politics has turned out to be quite successful. Or at least it showed that controlled sale of marijuana doesn't trigger the end of the world. Other parts of Europe (especially Belgium and Switzerland) have already taken steps into the same direction.
blow your mind already
the most convincing argument i've seen for why it was made illegal in the first place is actually the plastics and paper industry lobbyists, who may well have been responsible for the reefer madness hysteria of the 30's that led to the The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 Hemp being a major competitor to plastic and artifical fibre as well as timber required for paper.
it's a great shame because hemp is really really useful stuff, hard to make it not grow and its fibres can be used for manufacturing all sorts of stuff we use forests and fossil fuels for
of course your standard strain is not that good to smoke as the THC levels are quite mild. (much less buzz than raw tobacco for example, 17th century dutch used to cut valuable tobacco with cheap cannabis sativa)
I think the Carter adminstration was planning on decrminalising it in the 70's, but a potential scandal involving a staff member and cocaine, meant they could afford to be seen to be soft on drugs and the idea was postponed. Then came reagan and just say No... and its been politicaly impossible for any adminstration to stop the war on drugs since.
afterall that would involving admitting the war was lost, something america is a little touchy about
Need I say more? No, but I will.
Decriminalizing drugs will decrease violence:
monies spent on enforcement could be spent elsewhere,
and HIV & hepatitis rates would plummet,
BTW the History channel recently had a great series on the origins of the drug laws in the US tonight. Turns out that the original U.S. laws against cocaine, opium and marijuana were all passed without any scientific or medical support whatsoever. It was a political propaganda campaign supported by Southern politicians and was primarily directed at the repression of blacks and Mexican migrant workers.
The first guy arrested for marijuana possession was a farmer who was raising hemp and tried to get a "marijuana stamp" (the law had just been passed). He got 4 years in prison. The trick was that, to get a stamp you had to show some marijuana, but to possess/sell marijuana you had to have a stamp first. So the Feds started prosecuting people via this Catch-22 mechanism.
Amazing all the damage that has been done to U.S. citizens by the drug laws.
-tndal
(This post is where my signature will make its debut of relevancy)
The pharmaceutical industry would take a huge hit when happy-pills and antinauseals take a falling out due to their replacement. Marijuana is INCREDIBLY good for clinical depression (in my experience). Also, the most "dangerous" thing about marijuana in the eyes of those in power is that the limits on it cannot be strictly defined. How much does it take to impair your driving? Depends on how big you are. How much does it take to overdose? For an average-weight individual, there's a higher chance you'll die from asphyxiation due to the amount of smoke you're inhaling than from THC overdose.
So what's happened since Marijuana's been illegal? Canadian growers have developed a method of growing Marijuana with many times the THC content as is found naturally. Cue Hydro's domination of the college and corporate market.
+5, Truth
And just to toss in another favorite Slashdottery, you have to wonder if Monsanto will be doing something if those coca plants are violating the patent on Round Up resistant plants?
First: Drugs are drugs, and mind altering substances are mind altering substances. They have a common subset, but are not equal. Sugar for instance is a drug too, pepper and most other spices are. Xtasy (and other artificial MDMA) are no drugs in the pure sense of the word ('drug' comes from the same roots as 'dry', meaning natural substances won by drying herbs).
Second: Mind altering substances are not bad per se. Most people like caffeine. There is nothing wrong with Acetylsalicyl acid (Aspirin et.al.) Acetylsalicyl acid basicly is processed, dried willow bark (from latin acetum = vinegar and salica = willow). Many coughing remedies contain Thymian extract. Codeine, another coughing medicine, is an opiate, as cocaine or heroine. Actually heroine was marketed as cold medicine by B.A.S.F. in the beginning, until the addictive potential was too obvious.
The problem is our relationship with those substances. Certain people have a habit of getting addicted to something very easily. There is some evidence, that those people have a strong potential to get addicted to something anyway, it doesn't have to be a mind altering substances. Some get addicted to gambling, other to adrenaline from extreme sports, some get work addicted, some smoke or dring alcohol. There is a tendency to get addicted to something in each of us, and it's the task for us to control this tendency. Some think it can be done by making a difference between 'good addictions' (sports, work) and 'bad addictions' (gambling, mind altering substances). But those differences have a tendency to be inconsequential (alcohol is bad, but not forbidden, smoke is not as bad, but gets outlawed more and more, heroine and derivates are very, very bad and very very forbidden, THC seems to be mostly harmless, but is very, very forbidden, gambling is bad, but it is partly outlawed, partly welcome).
In the end an addiction is some kind of shortcut to satisfaction, and we won't hinder people to take shortcuts. We just have to make sure that people don't take shortcuts to often or make to much damage while taking them.
Oops! HTML formatting :-| Reposted with linefeeds here:
"However: if I'm going to pay for your hospitalization because you abused of drugs, then I get to regulate *something*, I don't know what but if I pay for you I must get something in return."
This is where the taxation comes in... The government can make *stacks* of money from legalization through taxation. Through taxes, the end of the multi-billion dollar drug war (the amount of money spent on fighting drugs annually is quite shocking), coupled with the reduction in harm through education, you'd likely end up paying significantly less in tax.
So you wouldn't have to pay for anything.
"*Oh yeah, I said "subsidize": how do you think the real junkies (you know, the ones without a job or a life) are going to pay for their fix? Right, they will NOT. Guess who'll end up paying."
Heroin addicts, taken out of the criminal environment, can contribute to a workplace and society in just the same manner as anybody else. There is plenty of data from Holland to illustrate this. Believe it or not, junkies are also human beings. Those without jobs and lives often want jobs and lives, but given their situation can obtain neither. Also, not all drugs are as intoxicating as alcohol, and not all addicts are as 'disabled' as alcoholics.
The history of the prohibition of drugs is the history of shitting on blacks and mexicans. As I have repeatedly stated here and in other locations, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 utilized the interstate commerce clause of the constitution in order to allow the federal government to "regulate" the sale of marijuana, which it does by requiring federal tax stamps for the sale of any of the stuff. Of course, actually getting the stamps was not possible.
The point was twofold, and both sides were economical. First, hemp was a threat to the paper and plastic industries. Second, blacks and mexicans were competing with white people for jobs during the depression. The solution? Demonize them so no one will hire them. The plan? Paint them as users of marijuana and then paint marijuana as a dirty drug that caused antisocial behavior. The plan came off swimmingly.
Today, the real issue is all the revenue that creates all those jobs; plus, the more money is moved around, the more of it can be siphoned off into the pocketbooks of the powerful. Well, that and that the government keeps us from boiling over by separating us from one another. They have nothing to fear so much as people getting together and ignoring their differences, which will give them time to gang up on the feds.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Opium?
1700% = x17 factor
"Yes, tiny little countries in Europe have experimented with legalization and government control of some very powerful, addicting drugs - I am not sure that this model would translate well in the US." You must be referring to The Netherlands. They have the highest population density of any country in Europe. When I lived there in 2000 the Dutch population was around 15 million. Not exactly a tiny little country, at least in terms of population. FYI Germany (I believe) is the largest, population-wise, at ~90 million inhabitants according to my Dutch friends. I witnessed first hand the benefits of their legal system, especially concerning police and violence. In the town of Doetinchem where I was living for 4 months, I learned that they only have 4 policeman cruising - D-chem is in the neighborhood of 100,000 residents! There is minimal violence, especially from guns (practically no one owns firearms). And even though cannabis and some of the more dangerous drugs (like heroin) are legalized, I learned that only about 10% (can someone verify?) of the Dutch population uses cannabis. Hardly a hot bed of druggies, even though people are free to use. I would be very suprised if Americans' TRUE usage stats are lower, especially for cannabis use. I was only there a short time, but in those 4 months I became convinced that a similar system would be wonderful for the US, especially in terms of reducing the cost of maintaining huge police forces and the far more vast cost of keeping drug offenders locked up. Of course, that's assuming we also reduce the number of American firearms considerably if we are going to try and match the Dutch method for keeping the peace. Oh yeah, and the herb was WAY better (and cheaper to boot), too! :-)
The US War on Drugs is a sham and the politicians know it. But the constant barrage of absolutist demonization has left no feasible opening to seriously suggest the alternative: legalization.
The UK isn't so bad. Atleast they have had the courage to allow medical marijuana research, which has resulted in the legal Sativex. Cannabis is classified as Class C, resulting in warnings & fine for possession. And very recently, a parliamentary committee lambasted the whole classification system. Even many senior politicians (like David Cameron) and police chiefs have called for considering legalization. The US does have an equivalent movement in LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) with about 5,000 officers, but getting the word out relies on media accomodation, and unlike the UK, the US is not a very tolerant venue.
--posted on behalf of daksya
"I believe that the cost of marijuana if legal would not significantly change. The same for cocaine as well."
Considering that during prohibition alcohol sold for 10 to 20 times it's value when it was legal (and was often of questionable quality), I think drugs would cost significantly less. The fact that they are illegal, and people will still do almost anything to get them, is what deterimines the price. You can't compare prices from years ago to current - they were still as illegal then as they are now. You used to be able to buy cocaine in pharmacies (until the Harrison Tax Act) for literally pennies when it was legal.
"But this one goes to 11!"
How Bush got his millions and another cite.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
It showed that as long as the rats have good living conditions and aren't cramped in tiny little cages, they have no will to use drugs. Even drugs that are highly addictive like morphine. Rats that were in those tiny cages that showed the behavior you mentioned weened themselves off once introduced to better living conditions.
Bullish Machine Tzar
Well, first off...not all drugs are addictive. Second, I think most numbers show that in places where there has been decriminalization, while there might have been an initial spike in users and first time users....these leveled off, and not everyone used drugs.
Think about it now...alcohol, which in some can be addictive..is legal. But, not everyone drinks, and certainly, not everyone is irresponsible with alcohol consumption. Why should it be any different with something say, pot, which hasn't ever been shown to be physically addictive?
"Human beings are sadly not much better then rats. Some of us too will happily do drugs while we rot away. Yes this is freedom, but society as a whole for now has chosen too put restraints on personal freedom. It is the simple thing of suicide being a crime. A truly free society would have no such ban. Yet again, do you totally trust a society that does not mind if say population group X killed itself?"
Well, you know...people can get hooked on anything, there are people out there that gamble too much, I'm sure that there is someone out there that like to knit so much, they let the rest of their life waste away...people will do it with anything. But, why punish those who can handle things in an adult manner just because some people are weak? Ever hear of survival of the fittest? Heck, by saving people from themselves, we may be in fact working against nature, which would have allowed these people to take themselves out of the gene pool.
I think occasionally, the gene pool NEEDS a little chlorine. And as for suicide...what is more personal that your own life? If you are suffering, should you not be allowed to choose what to do with the "1" thing that you truly own in life...your own life? What right do I have to tell you that quantity of life is more important than quality of life?
Go spend some time in the onc ward of your local hospital for awhile...and see if you don't change your mind a little...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Growing weed is a lot more work, it needs light and you need to take care of the water levels all the time
Nonsense. Marijuana grows ALL OVER THE US. It grows in the wild very very easily. The tipoff is in the nickname: weed.
Weeds grow well in adverse conditions. And marijuana is NO exception. In fact, in certain parts of the US, it literally grows on the roads. In fact, I hunt in SW Kansas every year and one of the popular Dove spots is right in the middle of a giant marijuana patch. And there are many of them all along the countryside.
No, growing marijuana is not hard. What's hard is the US Government's job of exterminating all of these plants. That is MUCH harder than growing it and it puts the US Govt in the "exterminator/lawn care" business - which is futile. Case in point: In SW Kansas, they hire private pilots in Cessnas's to check the pipelines that run all over. The DEA has also requested the pilots report any "cultivated" MJ patches and they get money for reporting them.
If you think I am kidding, just drive down I-70 in West Kansas. Pick any road and go North or South about 3-5 miles. If you don't see MJ growing on the side of the road (or near fences), I will be very very surprised. It really is that common and is easily seen/identified.
(sidenote: I have not smoked the MJ that is out there but I suspect it is more of the hemp variety than the kind that gets you high)
Not only that, but nobody has ever died from smoking too much pot. Ever. 20,000 deaths per year or so are blamed on alcohol in the U.S..
While the use of drugs is indeed a personal freedom issue the simple obstacle for me is that I would not exactly like a world were the majority of citizens are doped out.
Sorry fella, you already live in such a society. Unless you live in an Islamic theocracy, that vast majority of the people around you have easy access to mood enhancing drugs and use said drugs regularly. It is called alcohol. You can call it ethyl alcohol if that name makes it sound more like a "real" drug.
Alcohol is as much of a drug as any other drug. In fact, on the scale of drugs, it is probably one of the worst. It is absolutely lethal if you over dose, it is damaging to your body in low doses, it induces aggression in many people, and it destroys sound judgment. The only thing that keeps alcohol related deaths down compared to some drugs is that alcohol is made in a nice clean factory instead of some sketchy drug dealer's basement. If alcohol was made the same way illegal drugs are made (as it was during prohibition) you would find all the same problems that current illegal drug face in terms of purity and safety.
What would happen if the government legalized all drugs? Crime would plummet, police would have significantly more time to pursue real crimes, the prisons would empty, criminal organization would suddenly find that they are completely incapable of funding criminal activities, a handful of South American nation would become significantly more stable, and the number of drug related deaths would plummet. Drugs would be made in sanitary controlled ways by pharmaceutical companies and they would merrily compete to make the best non-addictive drug possible with the fewest side effects.
As to how society would change, other then a dramatic drop in crime and massive budget surpluses from the resulting savings in law enforcement, nothing much would change. People would still take drugs to recreate, they just might throw in some other drugs into the mix besides alcohol and caffeine. You would still get fired if you went to work, and alcoholics / drug addicts would still find themselves fucked when it comes to holding down a job. In other words, very little would change except a dramatic reduction in crime and government spending.