Senate The War on Drugs

I can't find an open thread devoted to this, so my apologies if there is, just link to me this and I'll make sure this gets locked.

http://www.businessweek.com/article...n-drugs-to-treat-heroin-abuse-as-health-issue

Vermont has just changed their policy on heroin towards a treatment model rather than a punitive model - something i am really happy to see. I think the war on drugs has been mostly a wash in terms of reducing the rates of addiction and improving public health. It has, however, put a ton of people in prison, and enriched a lot of people who are willing to produce, import, and sell drugs, and impoverished a lot of people with treatable addictions.

I guess testing it at the state level is probably the best way to go about this, but eventually, if we see the same results that places like Portugal have seen, I'd love to see a difference in the way we deal with the issue.

 

some of your thoughts put into nifty graph form.

 

Just think how much drug addiction rates would have gone up without all that extra spending, though. I mean, we've only barely managed to keep it in check

 

Treat those who use.

Punish those who deal, supply and import.


At it's simplest form, this obviously ignores many of the nuances in drug management but if you do want to "crackdown" on drugs then you should penalise the dealers and suppliers first and foremost.





Get Heisenberg too.

 

As flattering as it is for you to say "my thoughts", basically I have had no independent or creative thoughts concerning this. I'm basically parroting what I think sounds good.

I think, in general, this is already our approach - but we still probably devote more effort towards users than we should.

 

I believe in the UK we're only just moving away from penalising the users and actually treating them instead, they are still an easy collar which misses the main problem.

 

Didn't you guys have a heroin-assisted treatment program for physicians that Maggie Thatcher ditched because she didn't think the government should be paying for doctors to get high?

 

I have a very vague recollection of such a thing happening yes...

 

I imagine crimes for monetary gain would reduce most as drug use becomes more affordable.

 

There's not necessarily a connection. The drop in crime has been steady and nationwide. Another example is Giuliani taking credit for the drop in NYC's crime rate from picking on homeless and mi-- er, being tougher on crime, despite it being more a part of a larger trend.

That said, I am in favor of legalizing pot and decriminalizing (which is not legalization) personal use of everything else.

 

Success!

 

yeah im pretty sure by capitalist standards that's a roaring success. i mean, the prison-industrial complex is like 1/3 of our economy at this point, right?

 

1/3 of the country with housing, food, and healthcare provided by the government? What's not to like?

 

the constant abuse and purposely inhumane conditions?

 

life expectancy decreasing two years for every year spent in jail?

 

prolonged loss of connection with family and other potentially positive, grounding influences and institutions?

 

Are we talking about prison or communism?

 

i imagine that made a ton of sense in your head. once again i must invite you to please, go on

 

Jokes aren't funny if you have to explain them.

 

clearly you have a lot of hard questions to be asking yourself then

 

Frankly, the most terrifyingly uncaptialistic, illiberal and undemocratic venture I can conceive of is privatised prisons. "America! Ruining everything since 1776 "

 

im probably missing something obvious here but how is it "uncapitalistic" to privatise something? i guess its "illiberal", (although that word isnt really well defined), and its surely "undemocratic", but it'd hardly be the first instance of an undemocratic institution in a capitalist society, lol

 

Agreed. "Capitalist" isn't a synonym for "good." It's a description of one particular economic system with a plethora of disgusting features, this being one of them.