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Time To Discuss Drug Prohibition?
gplus writes "December 5th was the 75th anniversary of the end of alcohol prohibition in the US. The Wall Street Journal has an op-ed which argues that now may be the time to discuss our war on drugs and the drug prohibition currently in place. The article argues that the harm caused by the banned substance must be balanced against the harms caused by the prohibition. As to why Americans in 1933 finally voted to end prohibition, while we barely even discuss it: 'Most Americans in 1933 could recall a time before prohibition, which tempered their fears. But few Americans now can recall the decades when the illicit drugs of today were sold and consumed legally. If they could, a post-prohibition future might prove less alarming.'"
Wisconsin had a lower drinking age than Illinois had, and the result was large numbers of teen driving fatalities as people cross the border to drink. We don't need the same situation happening with marijuana, so we need major changes to be on a national level. Medicinal marijuana can probably be decided by states, but fully legalized use has to be a federal decision.
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When Obama takes office, I think that makes 3 US presidents in a row that have (at least off the record, but perhaps on tape) admitted to using or been caught using illegal recreational drugs. It does seem to make the laws hard to defend morally.
Think Deeply.
The gov't would only stand to benefit from lifting of some prohibition
Not exactly. Government benefits tremendously from any war, including war on its own citizens. The Drug War brings power to government as a whole, and funnels bribe money to government employees at all levels. It's terrible for the country, but great for a lot of scumbags with power.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Hard" drugs like Cocaine should probably remain illegal
It's important to legalize it all, and the reason has nothing to do with how safe any given drug is.
Using things like cocaine "safely" may be possible, but it's certainly outside what I'd expect of most of the population. The idea when you ban something, though, is that it will have a desired effect. In this case: less people using the drug (and therefor a safer/etc society). The many decades of prohibition has shown us otherwise. Drug use still happens, and will likely always happen. Trying to ban something and hoping people will magically stop using it is not just logically wrong, there's now many years of empirical evidence that shows that it's the wrong approach.
The particulars of any given drug are not relevant - banning them has not reduced their use in any significant amount.
So the question comes down to this: "Who do you want meeting the supply, when the demand is fairly constant?" That's a simple econ question, and there are three major answers: Private Industry, Public (.gov) Programs, or Illegal (violent) Black Markets.
Right now, we, as a society, are choosing the black market supply. We are handing large profits to violent gangs, providing very profitable opportunities for corruption, etc. Is this really the answer we want to choose? As a free-market loving American, I usually advocate the Private Industry solution, but really, either public or private solutions are significantly better than handing that market to gangs.
As a pure economic side note: even with the worst drugs, it's much better to take the standard taxes involved with them and divert that to useful things like healthcare for people that want to get off drugs and such. We could trivially fund most of those programs with how much basic tax income we'd make off drugs, and that's just talking basic things like sales tax.
On a note specific to the cocaine/etc you mention: I'd rather the addict be able to buy inexpensive and clean drugs, in a way they could fund from a McJob, than have them turn to crime to try and fund their habit. The fact that you don't see large amounts of violent crime to fund tobacco habits is evidence of this. /the only way to really stop drugs is to target demand, with tools like Good Education, not laws banning them
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anybody who sells ... to a minor.
That's a good point, and a strong reason to legalize it all. Street drug dealers don't ask for ID, but a well-regulated place like a liquor store does. It's far easier for a kid to get illegal drugs right now than it is for them to get liquor, and that really needs to change.
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The government makes BILLIONS on the WOD, the get it from the taxpayers and they get it from confiscations. They've now taken to farming out some of their duties to private prisons and other private services. Those private companies hire the politicians as spokes mouths and PR pukes and pay them millions.
The only loser is society as a whole as the cancer of high taxation, putative laws and centralized power take their toll.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
don't forget those Chinese immigrants getting high in their opium dens--as opposed to upstanding white folks who only use opium & alcohol (always a smart combination) tinctures.
really, i have yet to see any empirical evidence to back up the idea that before drug prohibition we had more drug-caused social issues than today. in fact, all the studies i've read about seem to point to the exact opposite. consider these points:
you don't have to be a drug-users or even like drug users to be against drug prohibition. it serves everyone's best interest for the government to adopt a sane/rational drug policy.
Without doing research, my guess is ...
Well the 18th Amend was passed in 1919, before the New Deal. Back then the Commerce Clause (the part of the Con' saying the Feds have the right to regulate interstate commerce) was interpreted pretty narrowly. If your business stayed within state lines, the Feds had to butt out.
Then FDR came along. FDR didn't give a damn about the Constitution and forced the Supreme Court to change their view on the Commerce Clause (FDR threatened to pack the court). Otherwise all this New Deal stuff (wage controls, price controls, etc.) would (and did) fail the Constitutionality test.
From then on, the Commerce Clause has been broadly interpreted to control ANYTHING that remotely touches on the idea of interstate commerce. Whether or not your individual action is inter-state, if the industry it would be placed in is interstate (and what isn't?), it is fair game.
So, I would assume the issue is what Democrats like to call the "Living Constitution" meaning that the Constitution doesn't mean what it meant when it was written/ratified, but what 5 Justices think it means today (president be damned). Like Lewis Carroll's Humpty-Dumpty, words mean only what he says they mean.
Conservatives refer to these people as "Activist Judges", and in stead believe that the way to change the Constitution is via Amendments (last one passed during Clinton). In short, the Constitution is a social contract and means what it meant when written/ratified.
In addition, states/cities can't make their own drug policy because the Fed has tied grants ($$$) to the enforcement of the drug laws (via the Con's Tax & Spend power). So, if the states don't play along, their budget crashes.
BTW, The Commerce Clause is why US motorways are referred to as Interstates. Aiding Interstate Commerce gave the Feds the power to set up the system of roads, versus state highways.
"The Consumer Union's Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs", 1972, Consumer's Union
I usually detest peoples' hyped up assertions such as the title of this post, but in this case I think it's almost subdued in comparison to the facts of the matter.
Due in large part to the contents of this book, marijuana was almost legalized ... during the *Nixon* administration. Yes, that's when us long hairs were making a lot of noise about many things, including drugs. But we had very little power then. It wasn't us who was attempting to change the law.
Reading this book is like finding out that the tin foil hat crowd was right all along. This story is a conspiracy theory that happens to be true. This book provides the evidence, with references. It is an even handed historical recounting. It's hard for some people to believe it's even handed because the conclusion and its supporting evidence are so drastically lop sided.
The summary is that the war on drug users started as and continues to be conducted for the economic benefit of the drug manufacturers and sellers that can guarantee sufficient tax income to the government. And more recently for the direct benefit of the government since they can now seize any property belonging to anyone they care to arrest.
I was a substance abuse counselor for 3.5 years, and addiction remained one of my main interests through my PhD and beyond. The worst bodily harm comes from two drugs that are both legal: tobacco and alcohol. The worst withdrawals come from these two, plus another legal drug (or class thereof), benzodiazapines (valium family). I would rather a person use any drug, legal or illegal, other than these 3. Withdrawal from tobacco won't kill you, but the other two can.
The bottom line is the URL for the book. If you care about this subject, no matter what side of any part of the argument, you really should read this book in order to learn how things came to be the way they are. It is one of the best, but certainly not the only, example of psyops (psychological operations) perpetrated by the US government on its own citizens. That's not hyperbole -- I studied that subject too.
It's available in its entirety at: http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/LIBRARY/studies/cu/cumenu.htm
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
While you're right that antibiotics shouldn't be used when not necessary, focusing on human use of antibiotics isn't that productive. More than 70% of antibiotics are used in animal feed. Most cows in feedlots are fed massive amounts of antibiotics so that they don't die from being fed food they weren't evolved to digest. A very quick way to massively reduce the amount of needless antibiotics used in the US is to regulate the beef industry.
Because they didn't have Wickard vs Filburn in 1920. Nowdays the federal government can ban any material they wish under the guise of interstate commerce. Which hasn't been all bad, it also enabled the fed to pass things like environmental regulation and some labor laws. Still..
Repeat after me, some people are very susceptible to drug addiction after being users. Not all, but enough that one has to consider the consequences.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
It wasn't just a "drink" at the time, and wasn't particularly popular by modern standards... Sodas were considered a form of medicine, and used as such. Note names like Pepsi, derived from peptic. It's only today that we look at their mass-market appeal and misunderstand their origins.
Chewing coca leaves is worlds away from doing cocaine.
Also, I would recommend some reading material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud#Cocaine
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first off, i never said IV heroin use was the same as ingesting opium orally. however, since you've brought it up, it should be noted that whether you smoke, insufflate, or ingest orally, the pharmacological mechanism of an opioid is the same. certain opiates like morphine and diacetylmorphine (heroin) are not suited to oral ingestion as they have very low oral bioavailability (somewhere around 10%, i think), but others like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and codeine do have high oral bioavailability.
really, aside from the initial rush (which lasts for 2-3 minutes max), injecting morphine/heroin/oxycodone/fentanyl feels exactly the same as if you ate it. however, it's more economical to inject morphine and heroin. and in my personal experience, most of the pill poppers who think that they're being smart by avoiding needles but have $200/day habits are not any better off than the heroin addicts with $200/day habits. of course, with IV use there are certain hygienic precautions you need to take. re-using needles and sharing needles are always bad. but aside from that, a lot of doctors who are closet IV morphine addicts are no worse off than pill poppers.
in regards to Benjamin Franklin, i wasn't being disingenuous, but thanks for the accusation anyway. if you look up Poor Richard's Almanac (here's a digital copy) you'll find lots of references to laudanum (opium & alcohol tincture), including as an ingredient to all sorts of home-made remedies as well as, interestingly enough, a bill or invoice sent to the Franklin estate including charges for "opium pills" and laudanum--and quite a lot of it. so perhaps he did use it recreationally or perhaps he didn't. but it's clear that Franklin was a regular user of opium at least as early as 1769 (the date of that bill), and was a proponent of opium use.
and if you want more sources that support Benjamin Franklin being a regular opium user:
[...] cocaine, LSD, or heroin, because of the strength of the addiction of those drugs [...] than less-or-non-addictive drugs (like pot, alcohol, cigarettes, etc).
Your categories are rather flawed there. Nicotine is far more addictive than LSD, marijuana, or alcohol, and arguably more so than cocaine and heroin. LSD is less addictive than any of the others (well, basically tied with marijuana). Alcohol is not particularly addictive in modest quantity, but if consumed in large quantities is quite strongly addictive -- in fact, it's the only drug on your lists where the withdrawl can kill you.
The current legal status of various substances has little or nothing to do with how harmful or addicting they are.
I used to live in Holland, more specifically in the Amsterdam area.
In there you're free to buy and smoke pot if you want (coffeeshops are widespread in Amsterdam) and there are some projects going on that provide the drugs to hard-drug users.
I noticed two things:
- In Amsterdam, it's mostly the foreigners that go to the coffeeshops. Most dutch people either don't smoke the stuff with any regularity or are not doing it in the open, even though marijuana is widely available and you're not shunned by society for smoking it.
- Of all the big cities I've been in or lived in, Amsterdam is the place with the fewest (visible) junkies on it's streets.
The impression from my time in Holland and in other countries is that:
- Making drugs illegal and restricted just increases their appeal to certain people (a bit like luxury items are inherently more appealing when their supply is restricted). Making them easily available means that they are common and not especially cool in any way: mostly people try it once and think "so what's the big deal?".
- When consuming drugs is illegal then those that need help cannot get it. Many addicts (drug addicts or otherwise) will seek help (or they're friends or family will seek help for them) to break the addiction if they think they will not be thrown in jail and can succeed.