The Drug War is fucking idiotic

[Tmaq]

The arguments are similar but not the contexts in which one would want to argue them. A slave may not tell his master that he has no right to own him. That argument is pointless. But a very similar argument, that beating him reduces his throughput, can be much more fruitful.

The state did not 'win,' Vertigo.

The proper discussion is about

1) The benefits of prohibition
2) The costs

The benefit....is zero; kids can buy pot easier than they can buy cigarettes or beer.

The costs are outrageous and pervasive, mostly falling upon complete innocents like kids killed in the drug-crime wars (such criminalization is a direct, predictable, common, and usual result of prohibition per se, as a brief historical survey immediately proves, and as theory predicts; once its illegal to be in that industry at all, there is nothing to stop the most ruthless from running the show, a dynamic first described by the babylonians.)

Now, explain why you think high, arbitrary, violent and immoral costs should be paid in order to earn zero benefits, or admit you are sold; prohibition is a mistake.

-Tom

Read my previous post and extrapolate from it that actually, prohibition has two main benefits:
- a more healthy populace

That is absolutely false, as even a cursory review of the evidence proves instantly.

CF, above, about how prohibition doesn't actually stop people from using, on the one hand.

On the other hand, there is a vast tax-burden required to operate it (and impoverishment does cause more deaths - the opposite of 'more healthy') and outrageous amounts of corollary damage (getting shot also doesn't qualify as 'more healthy') which you've left out of your calculation.

Some individuals, perhaps, will be more healthy, but the vast and undeniably far larger decrease in so many other people's health overwhelms the effect by several orders of magnitude, absolutely ruining your ability to claim that 'the population' in the abstract is generally more healthy as a result of prohibition.

- an alternative to more violent forms of crime for criminals to pursue

What? Criminality isn't genetic - the issue is the incentives, and prohibition creates all sorts of incentives for criminal and immoral behavior, including in law enforcement. Those kinds of side-effects are part of the vast and immoral cost of prohibition.

And if you are in doubt, live in Johannesburg for a while and then tell me that violent career criminals are a smaller price to pay.

"Violent career criminals" would have a vastly foreshortened 'career' without prohibition, which is again, the point about criminality being a behavioral, not genetic, issue.

If you had something more specific in mind that supported your erroneous view, you should have described it.

-Tom

[jc88]

Read my previous post and extrapolate from it that actually, prohibition has two main benefits:
- a more healthy populace
- an alternative to more violent forms of crime for criminals to pursue

And if you are in doubt, live in Johannesburg for a while and then tell me that violent career criminals are a smaller price to pay.

The end.

"Criminals" that sling cannabis are defined that way because of theprohibition. With no prohibition, they are no longer criminals. And the criminal population takes a nosedive. To say that people who deal with cannabis would have to become violent criminals to keep up an income is a stretch. They might just move to other prohibited items, and since your argument is that prohibition keeps people from becoming violent criminals, you might decide that only one prohibited item is all a society needs to keep criminals at bay. I am curious what you think of this, although it is by no means my logic or opinion.

[Brad Reddekopp]

What's bad about prohibition?

It feeds violent street gangs, just as alcohol prohibition increased the power and influence of violent gangs in the U.S. during the 1920s.

It drives the drug trade into the shadows where production, distribution and sales take place out of the public eye, increasing the likelihood that various anti-social activities associated with the drug trade will occur.

It artificially inflates the prices of drugs, making it more likely that addicts will resort to crime to feed their habits.

It is anti-individualistic: control is de facto ownership, therefore government attempts to control what you put into your own body are claims of ownership upon your person. How do you feel about being government property? I'm against it.

1. Street gangs are about money. Drug lords need runners to move their merchandise. Those young drug runners do that job because they need the money. By legalising drugs, those runners would be out of a job. What would they do then? Turn to (more violent) crime, of course. The question is whether there is more violence in the drug trade now than there would be in the ghettos later. I think violence would be more widespread otherwise.

It seems to me that the drug trade is a relatively easy source of money. With that gone, I'd expect that being a member of a street gang would be more difficult and less profitable and, therefore, less popular.

As I understand it, much of the violence associated with street gangs has to do with clashes with other gangs for control of territory. If gang activity becomes less profitable and more difficult and, therefore, less popular, there should be less incentive to enforce territorial claims.

The movies have portrayed gangs as extremely violent organizations but the truth is different. They are providers where the state has failed to provide. The drug trade is serving a social purpose that would have to be served otherwise.

I agree. The same could be said of illegal alcohol trade in the U.S. in the 1920s.

2. Those antisocialites would turn to other crime instead. Drugs are relatively crime free. It doesn't make sense, like in the movies, to harm your supplier or your distributors.

There will always be criminals. I don't claim that ending the "war on drugs" would result in a perfect society.

3. Addicts who resort to crime are more likely to be caught and be helped. Would you rather have endemic crime in the underprivileged youth or crime by addled addicts? As an ex-South African, I can tell you endemic crime is terrible.

I don't know what percentage of property crime is committed by addicts who are maintaining a habit and I don't know how to calculate whether or not what we have is a choice between crime by desperate addicts and crime by the impoverished.

4. This is a rights argument that I think leads nowhere.

It's a philosophical argument rather than a practical one. I understand that you're not interested in the philosophical arguments so perhaps it was a bit silly of me to include it.

[Sparx]

[tism]

The benefit....is zero; kids can buy pot easier than they can buy cigarettes or beer.

The pot is probably a lot better for them, anyway.

[samski]

http://fora.tv/2009/07/30/Marijuana_Economics

[Brad Reddekopp]

However, since you already knew he's a politician, you also already knew about the dishonesty.

Washington and Colorado have voted to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. Not sure yet about Oregon.

Does it matter, though? In his first presidential campaign, Obama promised that the feds would not override state laws regarding marijuana but that was one of the many campaign promises that he did not keep.

What do you think: now that he no longer has to worry about re-election, will he let those states conduct their own drug policy as they see fit or will he run roughshod over them as he has been doing for the past four years?

[Hierophant]

I don't care. I wish I could just go back to my home planet.

[Brad Reddekopp]

Not Kolob, I assume. So, where?

[Hierophant]

I wish I knew. Maybe the same planet the Pleasure Saucers come from. I don't know. I sure as hell know I'm not from THIS planet.

[Brad Reddekopp]

Evolution doesn't necessarily produce optimal solutions but very often settles for that which merely doesn't completely fail*. In this context, failure applies only to the continuation of the population as a whole and says nothing about the happiness or fulfillment of any individual member of any population. Therefore, being significantly dissatisfied doesn't qualify anyone from the category of being "from this planet".

___
*Considering the percentage of species that appeared and then became extinct, evolution isn't even very good at not completely failing.

[Hierophant]

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

[Brad Reddekopp]

And that is what keeps intelligent, observant people semi-sane.

[Hierophant]

Sanity is relative. And I still insist I'm from another planet.

[Brad Reddekopp]

We're all relatives, if you go back far enough. As for being from another planet goes, panspermia is still a viable hypothesis, as far as I know.