Happy 100th Anniversary, War on Drugs!

[mrjarrell]

I firmly believe that, even if you could prove to Americans that treatment is more effective at reducing drug dependency than prison, and at a much reduced cost to taxpayers (I don't know if that's true, I'm just postulating here), we still wouldn't implement it because darnit, it's just not right.

Treatment over jail works, every single time. How do we know this? We can look at Portugal and their drug decriminalisation and see what 10 years have wrought. Out of control drug use? Nope. Rise in drug use? Nope. All the yammering of the drug warriors is for naught. A real world example puts them in their place. We could also look at what Great Britain was doing before Ronny Raygun amped up the drug war and talked Maggy Thatcher into joining his failure. They basically decriminalised heroin, made it easier to get and use under supervision with an eye to treatment. Their heroin addict numbers plummeted and people were kicking the monkey. Then the US did as it usually does and screwed up a program that worked. Addiction went back up and criminality rose. The drug war's a failure and the warriors and their supporters just can't face reality.

Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal - Forbes

 

[phylodog]

I'm fine with that as long as those receiving the treatment pay for it (they don't in Portugal). Otherwise, things can stay the way they are as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Destro]

Treatment over jail works, every single time. How do we know this? We can look at Portugal and their drug decriminalisation and see what 10 years have wrought. Out of control drug use? Nope. Rise in drug use? Nope. All the yammering of the drug warriors is for naught. A real world example puts them in their place. We could also look at what Great Britain was doing before Ronny Raygun amped up the drug war and talked Maggy Thatcher into joining his failure. They basically decriminalised heroin, made it easier to get and use under supervision with an eye to treatment. Their heroin addict numbers plummeted and people were kicking the monkey. Then the US did as it usually does and screwed up a program that worked. Addiction went back up and criminality rose. The drug war's a failure and the warriors and their supporters just can't face reality.

Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal - Forbes

You can also reduce the criminal murder rate by legalizing murder...once it's legalized, the numbers of arrests for murder are sure to drop sharply

 

[steveh_131]

You can also reduce the criminal murder rate by legalizing murder...once it's legalized, the numbers of arrests for murder are sure to drop sharply

Did you read the post you're responding to? You didn't, did you. You can be honest.

 

[mrjarrell]

Did you read the post you're responding to? You didn't, did you. You can be honest.

Of course he didn't. He went straight to Reductio ad absurdum, as his sort usually do. Arguing the facts, in the face of 10 years of results, is beyond him. He's too vested in it.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Of course he didn't. He went straight to Reductio ad absurdum, as his sort usually do. Arguing the facts, in the face of 10 years of results, is beyond him. He's too vested in it.

At Christmas, my little brother said "You'll never convince me that I descended from an ape".

I just smiled and said "Have you tried mom's cheesecake, it's great".

 

[GIJEW]

I'm not a fan of the "war on drugs" because it's become a trojan horse for para-military, police-state behavior, which an equal threat to freedom. On the other hand I don't buy the premise that drug abuse is a 'victimless crime', and I don't accept the idea that if it was all legalized that the narco cartels would be out of business and we'd all live happily ever after.
There are drugs like pot, that can be used in moderation and the .gov ought to just stay out of the way. Drugs like meth,crack, etc turn the abusers into unemployable addicts (hard&fast) who end up mugging, stealing to fund their next fix. As for the cartels, if left unbothered, they'd simply expand or consolidate their business and we might have even more of their drug wars being fought in our streets. Those aren't acceptable alternatives unless your definition of freedom is just anarchy. The answer is more complicated than simply legalizing everything.
As for treatment of addicts, what is the rate of recidivism? IIRC, in britain, they basically ended up having addicts coming to the .gov to get their dose of methadone. That kept crime down since the junkies didn't have to 'work' to get their fix, but how many actually got 'clean'? Like everything else in that socialist state, the 'solution' certainly didn't keep the public from having to pay for other people's choices. The dutch changed their minds about just legalizing anything&everything.
FWIW when the communists took power in china, they solved their drug problem with force and without funding rehab--but they're left-wing fascists who don't worry about civil rights or excessive punishment

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

FWIW when the communists took power in china, they solved their drug problem with force and without funding rehab--

And that's just one of the reasons that the folks I know from China say it's the greatest place on earth.