Topic: Are we winning the "drug war"? - page 3. (Read 3524 times)

A lot more money through taxable sales would be made if we stopped this war on drugs and sold them with monitoring like alcohol and tobacco

Honestly, this should be self-evident.

Or, as Nick Cage would say,

A war, perpetuating violence?

I disagree with this philosophy. Drugs should be legal, not because it's a waste of money, time, and energy, but because every individual should have sovereign rights on her or his body.

Drug gangs and cartels are propped up, maintained, and removed as needed by People Intelligence Agencies. It is a tool to usurp control from 'We the people'.

There are a few countries who have taken their troops out of the drug war, Peru for one. Drug use statistics remain unchanged, but violent crimes as a result of drug use have dropped sharply. Basically, they have proven that the drug war perpetuates violence.

True - just don't forget that some of the cartels wear blue costumes and collect pensions.

There are lots of theories about policy. They all have a problem though: their premises don't always lead directly to their conclusions. A simple example is economic policies: Karl Marx sounded sincere, but he glossed over the lack of incentive that straight-up socialism provides. (Let's not hijack this thread here; that was only an example and I would rather find another one than debate economics.)

My take on it is that it is best to look at real-world history. Using the above example, we'd look at the U.S.S.R's stunning rise to an indestructible, fair, proletariat-oriented superpower abusive autocracy which killed more people than the Holocaust and led to its eventual collapse.

So now lets look at Prohibition. (With a capital 'P', relating to the amendment to the United States constitution.) Doesn't it sound nice on paper? No more drunken people, no alcohol poisoning, no fetal alcohol syndrome, no drunken fights, clearer decision-making from the general populace, etc. What did Prohibition actually bring? A sharp increase in organized crime, bootleggers, a loss in taxes gained from the legal sale of alcohol, and people drinking denatured alcohol. It was that last point which caused the death of over 100,000 people. Before, people could drink alcohol which was guaranteed to be safe in moderation. (Sort of...) Afterwards, they had no idea.

This applies to drugs as well. Some drugs are inherently dangerous and can kill you in one go. Ironically, 1/3 of people who try inhalants for the first time die, but I can buy inhalants legally with cash at the nearest corner-store shop. Marijuana is heavily debated, but it seems to me that cigarettes are just as dangerous, if not more carcinogenic and filled with stuff. By stuff I mean arsenic. And nicotine. When marijuana is ingested (not smoked), you get no tar, no arsenic, and only a psychological (not a physical) addiction. Chocolate is psychologically addictive.

If marijuana were legalized by the state, you'd get all of this for the low price OF JUST BTC19.95! sorry, I just wish I could be as cool a seller as Billy Mays.
1. Tax money
2. People consuming safe (in the sense that legal tobacco is "safe" -- it's not just parsley and arsenic mixed together by some shady guy with a beard on his foot) marijuana
3. People not going to gangs for their joints
4. Medicinal use without a grey area
5. Hemp growing -- did you know that the United States is the world's largest importer of hemp? Hemp is a mother-effing super-doohicky! Fabrics, rope, food, fuel, AND it's easy to grow sans-pesticides!
6. Other cool stuff like jobs


- It's not just about marijuana, but marijuana makes a good starting point.
- Like I said, look at history. Learn from it. Profit!
- Marijuana wouldn't be a "gateway drug" if it were legal; cigarettes aren't one.
- I am pro-freedom. A guy in another thread said even suicide should be one's own choice. I wonder where the line between morally right (painful terminal illness?) and morally wrong (I need attention, and my girl left me, and I'm 12?) euthanasia is, but that's also offtopic. Marijuana is far from suicide, and I think it and other things should be one's own choice.
- Education is key.

The drug gangs and cartels are clearly winning...

"The more effective prohibition is at raising costs, the greater are drug industry revenues. So, more effective prohibition means that drug sellers have more money to buy guns, pay bribes, fund the dealers, and even research and develop new technologies in drug delivery (like crack cocaine). It’s hard to beat an enemy that gets stronger the more you strike against him or her."
  - http://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2012/04/19/lets-be-blunt-its-time-to-end-the-drug-war/


As well as Governments and other official agencies that use it as an excuse to bring forward all kinds of draconian measures to use against citizens they don't like.  

+1

++1
That's my opinion also. It just seems like the effort is way more destructive to society than drugs ever could be. There is also the total hypocrisy of allowing the drugs lawmakers enjoy while clamping down on what they don't understand. If we really cared to help people we would surely make alcohol and tobacco illegal.

Or we could recognize that we have two drug problems. 1=The medical problem of addiction and abuse. 2=The criminality associated with drug use. We do almost nothing to help drug addicts. We simply arrest them as a punishment for their medical condition. As for the criminality, most of that comes from it's illegal status. People would not be killing each other over drugs if they were legal.

What a waste of needed resources. And who stands to gain? The big drug cartels for one. If we legalized marijuana, for example, the bottom would drop out from the Zetas and the other groups destroying Mexico. They benefit greatly from it's illegal status and their ability to game those laws.

+1

depends what side of 'we' you are on?

Drugs are winning the drug war.

It's a waste of money, time, and energy better spent elsewhere.

Since a few threads lately have gotten off track talking about drug policy i thought I would start a thread for discussing just this topic.
So, are we winning, is it worth fighting, is it even moral to have such a war?