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.'"

Comments

I wouldn't hold my breath

[The End Of Days]

The war on drugs makes a lot of money for a lot people on both sides of the law.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[shbazjinkens]

The war on drugs makes a lot of money for a lot people on both sides of the law.

As a taxpayer, I disagree.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[Walpurgiss]

You just aren't one of the people on one of the sides that is profiting. Not everyone on both sides of the law could profit, or it would be perpetual money motion.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[jefu]

Hmm. Let's see :

• Drug offenders do community service. The right organizations profit.
• Drug offenders go to jail. The guards unions profit.
• Drug offenders go to jail. The companies that use prison labor (at pennies on the dollar) profit.
• Drug offenders go to trial. The prosecutors profit (promotions etc).
• Drug offenders go to trial. The politicians profit (re-election).
• Drug offenders have assets seized. Police departments profit.
• Drug offenders are arrested. Individual cops profit (promotions etc.)
• Drugs cross the border (and are discovered or not). Border patrol profits.
• Corporations sell equipment to police etc. Corporations, stock owners profit.
• Drug dealers sell drugs. Drug dealers profit.
• Drug dealers go to jail. Drug dealers lose. At least until they get out and get their stashed money and continue the process.
• Drug dealer, cartels spend their money. Lots of people profit.
• Drug dealers, cartels invest/bank/... their money. Banks (etc.) profit.
• Drug cartels sell drugs. Drug cartels profit.
• Drug cartels pay off politicians, law enforcement... Politicians, law enforcement... profit.
• Drug users hide, go to jail... Drug users lose.

More profit than not, I'd say.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[mauthbaux]

But you don't speak about the abyss of drug addiction, the income-sapping expense, the parents of kids that forget parenting while doing drugs, the accidents on the freeway, the madness of things like meth addiction and its incredible debilitating affects on the body.

all of which can also be said of legal drugs such as alcohol.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[Nasajin]

Don't forget the fact that the process of criminalization increases the street value of a drug as it becomes harder to obtain. For example, in my country, most drugs are fairly hard to obtain, and criminal sentences are harsher on drugs than they are on rape or murder, and yet there are many people who are prepared to pay the equivalent of US$160 for ecstacy.

All the criminalization seems to do is increase the incentive for providing expensive, weak, drugs cut with all sorts of bad chemicals to people who are prepared to pay almost any price for them. I've stopped using myself, but I'd say decriminalize just so I can get help from some form of controlled institution for my friends before they O.D. without having to worry about getting them arrested.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[Endymion]

And you don't speak about the fact that banning drugs has not made them go away. All those problems you list are problems we have right now. How, exactly, has throwing people in jail, ruining their lives (even more), funded gangs (through drug-sale profits), and generally walking all over the constitution actually achieved your goal of reducing the harm drugs cause?

Legalizing would not change most of those things, except one important one: the drug cartels (a source of much violence) go out of business overnight.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[postbigbang]

To some extent, yes.

And sugar.

And Diet Coke.

And Krispy Kreme donuts.

You have to draw the line somewhere; I'm not sure it's correctly drawn right now.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[Dun Malg]

I'll agree that there's a profit motive.

But you don't speak about the abyss of drug addiction, the income-sapping expense, the parents of kids that forget parenting while doing drugs, the accidents on the freeway, the madness of things like meth addiction and its incredible debilitating affects on the body.

So it's a good thing we have drug prohibition because without it these things would be rampant? Oh wait....

You have failed to show how things would be worse if you could buy a 'teen of meth for $40 from the Walgreen's vs. being able to buy a 'teen of meth from Joe the Biker at the bar for $80. It's not like prohibition has kept drugs away from people. I know of no one who wants drugs who can't find them.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[afidel]

Repeat after me, drug use is not the same as drug abuse. Heck, our last three presidents have all done drugs and yet it hasn't put an end to their lives or heck even their rise to prominence. Can we please stop acting like all drug users have or are a problem? Also most of the problems with the distribution system go away and the 'problem' goes from being a drain on taxpayers to a source of revenue for the government thus providing a double bonus to ending the stupidest concept the government has ever come up with, the war on (some) drugs.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[Sebilrazen]

Do you seriously think that drug use wouldn't balloon if it was made legal?

I think it would balloon initially and then return to a homeostatic point, once the novelty wore off. There's a reason people say: "Ugh, I can't party like I did in college anymore." The novelty wears off, that's why most Dutch aren't pot heads even though they could be if they so chose.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[cmdr_tofu]

It is true that some individuals profit from the War on Drugs, but the costs are immeasurable. The demand is there, and a black market commodity commands high profits, so like you say, dealers and cartels get large profits. But since their profit is illegal, they cannot put their money in the bank, they cannot call the police. To protect their wealth, they buy guns. There is inter-gang warfare, and the lives of innocents are destroyed in the process.

Those people if they were given the chance to live, to go to school outside of a warzone, would be spending money, going to school (creating jobs for teachers and universities), and contributing to this economy. We haven't even considered the approximately 1 million nonviolent drug offenders that we spend 20k-40k / year to keep imprisoned.

We all know war is profitable for some few and devastating for most. The War on Drugs is no exception. The question is whether or not there are those who have a vested interest in continuing The War, but whether or not we can put a stop to it.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[Niten]

You have to draw the line somewhere; I'm not sure it's correctly drawn right now.

Do you have to draw the line somewhere? Does the government actually have to step in and say, it's all right to put these substances in your body, but not those?

I disagree. I think it is not necessary. More importantly, I think the government has no right to tell us what we are and are not allowed to take into our own bodies.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[kklein]

It'd suck for you, but society shouldn't be designed to placate and protect people with addictive personalities. Either you control yourself or you die. Either is a positive outcome for society.

Not positive for you, however. This is why we hope you can train yourself to do the former.

But if you can't, well... You will go extinct. And that's not a bad thing, in the long run.

I'm sorry, but it's true.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Now I'm not positive about marajuana, but as for Coke, Heroine and Meth; a single use is usually all it takes to become an addict.

This is a widespread belief, but there is absolutely no evidence that it's true. None. Zero.

If you ask any cop, he will tell you that there is no such thing as a casual coke/heroine/meth user, only addicts. Once you do it, you don't stop.

Asking a cop for unbiased information about drugs is like asking Bill Gates for unbiased information about Linux.

Now there are RARE cases of people who only do it a few times, but they are RARE.

[[citation needed]] And I'm talking peer-reviewed medical studies, not DEA or DARE propaganda.

Please don't confuse recreational drugs with brain-rewriting poison.

I think you're the only one doing that here.

Yes it's time.

[Gabrill]

When the majority of the population can be convicted of a crime at one time or another, then it's proveable that the action is not sufficiently damaging to be a crime. Those RIAA bastards are profiting immorally and should be disbarred! Oh wait, we're onto drugs now? In that case, I maintain my statement.

Reconsideration sounds prudent..

[Improv]

Given that alcohol is already legal and is more dangerous than at least the most common recreational drugs, It would make sense to at least legalise other recreational drugs that are on par or less harmful than it (marijuana being the most obvious candidate).

"Hard" drugs like Cocaine should probably remain illegal - it is impossible (or prohibitively difficult, at least) to "use them responsibly" and their health effects are much more marked.

Permitting broad autonomy to people in cases where there is not a clear and strong societal interest otherwise makes sense - broad restrictions on recreational drugs don't have arguments that meet the bar we should be holding up.

(I am not a libertarian, by the way)

Re:Say you legalize everything

[Free the Cowards]

Replace drugs with sugar or fat and ask yourself the same question.

Potato chips create more health care costs than any drug ever has.

Re:Yes and No...

[himurabattousai]

And as a non-drug user, I agree. There are many things that I personally would not do, but I would not ever dare insist that no one else be allowed to do them (obvious exceptions like drunken driving and serial killing not included).

The "war on drugs" is nothing more than a pissing contest of moralities. That, and it is a "cure" far worse than the disease it was meant to counter.

Bad idea for some drugs

[Reality Master 201]

For stuff like antibiotics, allowing random people to decide what they can take when they want has a definite negative effect on the society at large.

It's a big enough problem getting patients to comply with complete antibiotics regimens as it is. Giving everyone the ability to just pop a few for a couple days when they cut themselves or have the flu or whatever is a recipe for massive, widespread increases in resistant bacteria.

Re:Elimitate upselling

[Atiniir]

I don't know where you buy your weed, but anyone I've ever dealt with has never tried to upsell me to hard drugs. Sure, occasionally someone has had something like mushrooms or what have you to offer additionally, but I've never gone to buy some pot and come home with a nice big bag of coke.

I like to believe that a lot of marijuana users, like myself, are mostly uninterested in hard drugs. I agree with your statement that it's not that bad, I've had far worse experiences with alcohol or over the counter medication.

I agree that it should be legalized, because really, if I want to hang out at my house and get high, that is my business and it's not like me doing that is putting the safety of the general populous at risk. I'm not out on the roads driving drunk, I'm not picking fights with people in bars, where is the harm in smoking a bowl or two and playing some video games, or listening to music, or watching a movie? There are far more productive things that the law could be doing for its people than locking up those of us who like to toke up.

Not to mention the additional waves that drug prohibition creates when it bleeds over into drug testing for jobs that really shouldn't require it. This causes people to not only be viewed as criminals for something that is incredibly common and harmless, but it uses the employer and the power of capital as just another long arm of the law.

The time has always been right...

[gillbates]

To discuss the war on drugs.

From a libertarian standpoint, what right does the Government have to tell people what to do with their own body? This debate is as much about the power of government as it is about the morality of drug use.

However, there are some angles to the issue which never seem to be discussed:

• It seems that a certain percentage of the population cannot handle "recreational use" of drugs, and instead become addicts. With certain, very addicting drugs such as heroin and the variants of cocaine, you have a situation where addicts negatively affect the public at large because of the crimes they commit to support their habit. With other drugs, you have the problem that the individual's behavior while on the drugs presents a public safety hazard. And yet others are used to incapacitate people (GHB) or otherwise impair their judgement (alcohol, various others...) so that crimes may be committed against them (rape, robbery, etc...). If the role of government is to protect the general welfare of society, shouldn't it address the problems created by the availability of drugs?
• There seems to be no differentiation between drugs which are relatively benign - such as marijuana - and the harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin. There are some drugs such as alcohol and tobacco which have known detrimental effects and societal costs (cancer, drunk driving, alcoholism) which remain legal in spite of same, and yet marijuana remains illegal.
• The practice of civil forfeiture without corresponding criminal charges is especially troubling, now that it will probably (has?) be applied to other areas of the law, such as copyright infringement.
• The morality of drug use is almost never mentioned. What kind of society do we have when a substantial portion of the public is content not to work to change the world for the better, but rather, seeks only to escape it? Is it really healthy for society as a whole to seek a chemical solution to what usually amounts to a problem of relationships? Does anyone still make distinctions between using drugs to cope with a legitimate physical ailment and using them to cope with the normal problems of life? Is it even a problem if someone uses a substance, or becomes dependent on a substance, to feel normal?
• Is it immoral to sell someone a substance knowing that it will addict them?
• If the libertarian view is correct - that a person's free will is sacrosanct, even to the point where government has no right to intervene - then wouldn't it also be incorrect to impair a person's free will? If such is the case, it would seem that addicting drugs would be rightly illegal, because in their addictive property they interfere with the free will of the user.
• Do I as a parent have a right to prevent someone else from giving drugs to my child? If not, why?
• Do I have a right to live in a neighborhood free of drugs? If a housing association can regulate the height of your lawn and the color of your house for the sake of making the neighborhood presentable, wouldn't they also have the same right to regulate drug use for the same purpose?
• Is feeling good a civil right? Or is the "pursuit of happiness" merely a suggestion? (Perhaps it was the metaphorical "pillow talk" that seduced the early Americans into accepting the Constitution?!)

I think the reason why the opponents of the War on Drugs failed is that they never discussed it in terms that ordinary average Americans could relate. They discussed it in terms of dollars, but federal law enforcement spending is truly minuscule compared to things like social security and defense. They talked about it in terms of prison population, when the average person thought simply, "well, I just won't use drugs and won't go to prison..." Instead, they should have framed the debate in terms of individual rights.

That's what the gay movement did, and look where they are now. It seems that Americans don't want the government to mandate morality, and the gay movement capitalized on that. The reason why the War on Drugs lasted so long was because its opponents never pushed the civil rights aspect of it.

Re:Elimitate upselling

[Atiniir]

Yeah, shrooms are a felony, and having done shrooms, I have no idea why that could ever be the case. Theft and violence are felonies, eating some fungus really shouldn't be.

Most of my friends are very much the type that love smoking weed but are entirely uninterested in heroin or coke. I recently had a very good friend overdose on the former, and while that was entirely horrible, it did give me some perspective on the drug laws in our country. People die of alcohol poisoning. People die from shooting up too much or snorting bad coke. Terrible, horrible things, but I have never once heard anything like, "Yeah, man, they found his body this morning. Guess he just smoked too much weed last night."

Re:SMOKE

[mrsteveman1]

None of that has anything to do with drug use, you are attempting to show causation where there is merely correlation.

But then again I'm sure you didn't read the article, which implies and outright states in some ways, that a lot of the problems associated with drug use are caused by its prohibition.

Re:Elimitate upselling

[Dun Malg]

Like any good salesman, a drug dealer will try to convert a marijuana user to use other drugs that turn a better profit. The good old upsell. Legalising marijuana would break that chain.

Bullshit. You've never bought any drugs at all, have you. Drug dealers aren't like a pharmacy with a big closet full of everything from weed to heroin. Drug dealers generally specialize in one drug, and occasionally get another one now and again. They don't have a product line that facilitates "upsell". Furthermore, I've never met a pot dealer who ever sold any of the so-called "hard drugs". Occasionally, they'd get some acid, or maybe some Ecstasy. No drug dealer has ever tried give me the hard sell on anything. You clearly got your drug education from the DEA and Nancy Reagan.

Re:SMOKE

[RobKow]

Have you ever considered it possible that much of the harm that came to that neighborhood was from the very illegality of the drugs and the black market that prohibition enables rather than from anything inherent in the drugs themselves? Drug addition certainly has a devastating effect on its own, but I argue that prohibition has made the effects worse rather than effectively stopping the trafficking, sale, and consumption of the drugs it seeks to eliminate.

Re:SMOKE

[hairyfeet]

The problem isn't the drugs, it's stupid people. we have stupid people addicted to WoW, we have stupid people addicted to the lotto, I even knew a stupid person in HS that if he couldn't find any other drugs would huff gas or drink cough syrup. Are we going to ban cars and cold medicine too?

The problem is stupid people will find SOMETHING to destroy themselves with no matter what. That doesn't mean that I can't smoke a joint or Gasp! do a little acid like I did in the '80s and not be fine and not go robbing my neighbors or burning down villages. Why? Because I am NOT stupid. Trying to ban stupidity is just destroying this country for no damned reason. You can NOT force a stupid person NOT to throw their life away by overdoing something, no matter how nasty you make the laws. What you CAN do is make it a vicious circle since a drug conviction pretty much leaves many with the career choices of meth lab cook or drug dealer.

It has been going on for 70 something years now and today I can score any drug in under 30 minutes. Does that sound like it is working to you? We need to try something new. If nothing else legalize the pot and tax it. Deity knows with the economy in the shitter we need the money and folks sure have a reason to want to fire one up at the end of the day. But all we are doing now is giving the prison industrial complex buttloads of cash while making a revolving door for the type of criminals we can all pretty much agree need to do the full time like violent career criminals and rapists.

Re:SMOKE

[johnsonav]

Anyone who still thinks that drug-related problems are cured by their prohibition is an idiot.

I think that is equally, if not more, true then the way you put it. Drug abuse is a problem that the people on both sides of the legalization debate wish would just go away. It won't. The abuse of intoxicating substances will be with us until the end of time. Until people realize there is no magic cure-all to the problem of abuse, we won't have a sane drug policy in this country. Prohibition or legalization are answers to an entirely different question, but defiantly not the question of abuse.

Re:SMOKE

[bm_luethke]

I agree - I will also add that there are currently more legal addicts than illegal.

I know of quite a number of people who are addicted to prescription pain medication and have been for years. 15 minutes before "time" for their pill and they get all panicky trying to find the thing (if they do not take it one time they will experience "pain" - I've yet to find a pain pill that works that way). Many of them take the same, and more, pills as so called "drug addicts" that would be put in jail because they do not have a doctors script. I have realities who had knee surgery (torn ACL - a real injury) and 15 years later are on regular high strength drugs. Heck, I have relatives who are trying to "get off" those pills and have been going to a methadone clinic for over two years now (uh huh - they really are wanting to get off).

As far as I can tell is that most of the legal addicts can still function in society despite their addiction - though a number will do things any addict does when the supply starts to stop (say, for instance, a cousins mother decided to quit paying for the methadone clinic and suddenly, in an totally unexplained and unrelated incidence, the exact amount of money needed for the clinic "disappeared" from her purse and he disappears during those same days he used to go - of course those are totally unrelated incidences).

I would also add that the number of people that wanted my fathers higher dosage of hydrocodone given to him after his bypass surgery were an absolute shock to us. Even worse were the people who just picked on up out of his hand when the noted what he had (they had a prescription, but for a lesser does and were "hurting" that day).

As of right now the main thing separating legal vs illegal addicts is the ability to maintain a steady job while addicted or have enough money to fund any doctor out there. The illegals can not control the addiction enough for a part time job and enough to pay the slightly greater cost of the legal market for them.

Re:SMOKE

[antibryce]

a couple years ago I read a story about kids in the midwest getting high by strangling themselves.

Seriously, the human race will always find a way to get high. Always.

Re:SMOKE

[accelleron]

Legalize everything and supply and demand will take care of that problem for you. With a wide choice of alternatives at competitive prices, meth's popularity would dwindle, if only because of the health consequences.

Think about this:

[MsGeek]

How many people drink bathtub gin anymore? Moonshine? Rotgut? When alcohol prohibition was lifted in 1933, people went back to "the good stuff." I guarantee that if certain controlled substances were legal you'd see certain very unsafe and insane substitutes become a whole lot less popular.

Re:SMOKE

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Chris Rock put it best... What about the good side of crack? For $2.99 you could buy yourself a brand new sofa and a stereo system...

Think about that for a second. And watch shows like intervention. Anyone who still thinks that drug-related problems are caused by their prohibition is an idiot.

Speaking of Freedom of Speech, Expression, etc. Are you really Free when you do hard drugs? Or are the drugs the ones in control?

Except those of us who lead successful, even famous, lives and do all kinds of recreational drugs on a regular basis. No addiction, no overdosing, no problem.

It's much more common than you think, we just hide it because we fear the damage to our lives the LAWS will cause. If we speak out and say "Hey, it's no worse than smoking, or drinking!", we'll likely lose our reputations, assets, families, hell even our freedom.

You know at least 5 people who smoke marijuana on a regular basis and you don't even know it.

You know at least 10 people that have tried or have wanted to try a "harder" drug.

The point is, it's hidden all around you already. You live in that world, and you can't deny it and longer. I function just fine doing what I do, because I'm not stupid about it. You will have addicts either way, so you might as well not pay to house me in prison as well, using your tax dollars that could be going to your children's education, or even fixing that annoying pothole in your street.