Why The War on Drugs Is a Huge Failure

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EXCELLENT video.

I JUST recently discovered kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell - and it is GREAT stuff. I already have learned a few things. Like I didn’t realize the universes expansion was speeding up sooo fast that eventually we won’t be able to see anything past our local cluster.

Here is there video on addiction.

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The phonyass “War on Drugs” will never end. There are too many people on both sides of the law who gain too much wealth and power because of it. Even if there were no drug dealers, the government would find some excuse to go on with it because it gives them a rationalization they can use to trample on civil rights. And there are too many inbred moron voters who will cheer them on because they’ll cheer for anything that has “war” in the title. This country is full of Neanderthal goons who get hard-ons thinking they’re somehow playing a part in a “war”.

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I don’t think that is the reason the average person supports the current drug policy. Drugs ARE bad. They don’t lead to good things often times. I still believe prohibition makes things worse, but their reasoning, though flawed, is more than just “yeehaw, war!”

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I love that channel.

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I think drug prohibition and “yeehaw, war!” are at least on the same spectrum. It’s the tendency to think the solution to a problem is direct aggression towards the source of the problem.

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But the powers that be DON’T direct the aggression to the actual source of the problem.

They direct it towards mere street dealers and users, not the people who are actually benefiting the most from the illegal drug trade.

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I’ll revise:

It’s the tendency to think the solution to a problem is direct aggression towards the source of the problem the nearest thing that looks like it’s to blame.

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I totally agree.

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Eh, but they do attack the upper levels. But the higher levels of organized crime are harder to “catch”. Remember Capone was in prison for taxes, not for killing people. And the US gives millions on money and equipment to countries in South America to combat drug makers.

Though yes, we waste waaaaayyy too much time, money, and resources incarcerating users. I want legalization, but decriminalization would be a step in the right direction.

The “source” of drug abuse - whether that be illegal drugs, booze, or prescription drugs - are social ills that are largely intangible. Though I think attacking poverty would help a lot of people, even well to do people abuse drugs because money alone doesn’t make one happy. Watch that above video I linked to, but it is very interesting the psychological aspects of addiction. I have been on habit forming drugs before, but never felt the urge to abuse them or suffered withdrawal. Though I confess, the thought of morphine does make me grin.

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Yeah, that’s totally a coincidence, I’m sure.

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That’s a huge generalization. Not unlike saying “tools are bad” because I could hurt myself with them. It’s also indiscriminate - which drugs/tools? For whom?

There are countless thousands of drugs, at least. And saying that “the bad ones are bad” makes a tautology. Saying that anything which affects people’s physiology is “bad” sounds like an oversimplification. This could encourage ignorance, where people don’t bother learning what drugs are and how they work because they are classified as being “the same” for ideological purposes.

Sure, it’s also authoritarian, in that it exists explicitly to undermine people’s concept of personal and social responsibility. There are real risks - like with anything - but their campaigns tend to conspicuously avoid addressing those.

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The reason why a methodology like that worked in Switzerland is simply because it is a nation not comprised of puritanical people and archaic thinking.

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Whether the War on [1] Drugs is a failure or a success depending entirely on what its objectives are and have been.

Personally, I subscribe to the Law of Intended Consequences [2]: if an at least somewhat informed entity could reasonably expect [3] that an action would result in some consequence and takes the predicate action, then it is reasonable to infer that the entity intended that consequence.

[1] People who use, might use, look like they might use, look like they might know people who might use, etc.
[2] Not to be confused with the “law of unintended consequences.”
[3] Think, “knew or should have known.”

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Or nearest convenient target, or perhaps the target you wanted an excuse to go after and took the opportunity offered?

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Thanks, Reagan!

Portugal - among other locales - has decriminalized drugs, and emphasized rehabilitation over incarceration. I think that it has been a resounding success, by any measure. Decriminalization could work in the US, too. (But I won’t hold my breath, waiting for that to happen)

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There is one War on Drugs victory: quaaludes are basically not a thing people use anymore.

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Just like the ‘difficulty’ of imposing meaningful fines on banks busted laundering billions in drug money…

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Aye.

How convenient.

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Um… That’s not a ‘victory’ any more than the Black Plague was actually ever “cured.”

The main supply source just petered out.

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