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News & ArtsThursday, June 2, 2011
Drugs The War On Drugs
Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 8:17 AM
The Global Commission on Drug Policy released its report this week. Dirty hippies like George Schultz and Kofi Annan declared our five-decade War On Drugs a failure that has had "devastating consequences" for societies, governments, and individuals. The commission called on governments to stop treating drugs users like criminals, to legalize some drugs, to provide more addiction services, and to go after criminal networks, not small producers. The Obama administration's reaction:
"Making drugs more available, as this report suggests, will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe."
Billions of dollars spent, millions of lives ruined, skyrocketing incarceration rates—and illegal drugs are available for purchase in every high school and prison in America. The only way to make drugs "more available" would be to install drug-gushing taps in our bathrooms. It's much harder for minors to get their hands on booze. Why? Because booze—a much more harmful drug than pot—is legal and people who make and sell booze don't want to lose their liquor licenses. People could sell booze illegally, of course, and some people might be willing to buy black-market booze. But almost no one does. People prefer to get their booze from legitimate suppliers and self-interest prompts those suppliers to keep their products out the hands of minors.
And for what it's worth: there wouldn't be an Obama administration to react to this report if the president, back when he was using illegal drugs "frequently," had been swept up by the same criminal justice system he's defending today.
1
Yeah, true, but did you expect the administration to agree, even in part, to legalization when they are starting the re-election race? Not a chance.
4
@1 - no I don't expect Obama's admin to reverse their cowardice. Actually, if you look at the federal response to California's efforts to legalize weed, the democrat feds went out of their way to oppose freedom of choice.
Which is exactly why I will never financially support and occasionally refuse to vote for either major party.
Who would have thought gay marriage would have a better shot at legal recognition than legal weed?
Which is exactly why I will never financially support and occasionally refuse to vote for either major party.
Who would have thought gay marriage would have a better shot at legal recognition than legal weed?
5
Here's a metaphor for the war on drugs: someone who has a problem with obesity declares a "war on fat" and bashes his/her fattest body parts with a hammer instead of addressing the causes of their obesity.
6
How sad a life must be to be soooo desperate to get high and escape from it.....
Danny, a good woman could give you a reason to live.
Danny, a good woman could give you a reason to live.
7
That quote is supposedly via Kerlikowski. I don't blame you for calling it the administration "reaction" but in the face of this report, Gil did respond and that response wasn't reality based. The report isn't something you can rationally argue with and win. But to go down the road that report leads, is to further empower the right wing anti-everything nutcases.
It's going to take time... still.
It's going to take time... still.
9
Its going to take a governmental collapse to end the war on drugs. They will cut social security, medicare, and school funding before cutting a dime from the DEA. Too many backs gettin scratched. What a country! Oh and ill only vote for Obama to keep a Mormon out of the white house. Even then I really want to vote for Ron Paul.
10
If the war on drugs is a complete failure why does the value of a load of coke increase 3-4 fold as soon as it crosses the US Mexico border? If legal restriction on the manufacturing and distribution of hard drugs were relaxed heroin and cocaine would be much cheaper. More people would use them and we would have more junkies and crack heads on our hands. I don't know if the harm that is prevented by drug prohibition is worth all the dead people in Mexico, but let’s not kid ourselves into thinking the War on Drugs doesn't accomplish anything.
11
The 1992 peace accords in El Salvador removed the military from public security. Salvadoran governments have routinely violated this provision, and President Funes has gone the farthest. Now, he announced plans to draft "at risk youth" as strategy to fight the gangs! Keep in mind that that the Zetas are already teaming up with the corrupt armed forces to get grenades and assault weapons. Also keep in mind that this is the perfect training ground for future gang members. Oh, yeah, and it also targets the poor for forced conscription. (Rich kids aren't "at risk," of course.)
12
You couldn't possibly condone any sort of threat to the pharmaceutical industry which is the true source of ever-present, ever-increasing, and unnecessary drug use in this country!
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@10- is the cost truly what's keeping you from doing crack or heroin? Do you really think that's what restrains most or even many people?
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@3 I'm so sorry our mindless zombies will outnumber your mindless zombies, I'm sure you'll win one of these days cheer up
I get that Obama 'can't' wake up tomorrow and say NEEDLE EXCHANGES MANDATORY EVERYWHERE GOVERNMENT MUST SELL ALL DRUGS, but that's not even what this report suggests. What this report suggests is what the scientific community has understood for longer than Obama has been alive, that "governments [should] stop treating drugs users like criminals". The stigma attached to criminals is not that of someone suffering from addiction, yet we're expected to deny people employment and voting rights because they used a substance to unlock different parts of their brains without the written consent of a doctor. If Obama wants to take the EXTREMELY conservative view point that every addicted drug user is the exact same thing as stealing and raping I sure hope he loses reelection. That kind of extremist rhetoric should be reserved for people who don't read words and try to understand what they mean. Either Obama is illiterate, a liar or some combination of the 2. He loses a lot of points for being completely bat shit insane, suggesting we continue to treat drug addicts like we treat scum. We all know the best way to get someone to stop doing heroin is to tell them they're worthless, take away job opportunities and disenfranchise their voice in the public square. They can quit doing heroin right after they're done jumping off the space needle, drug war over.
I get that Obama 'can't' wake up tomorrow and say NEEDLE EXCHANGES MANDATORY EVERYWHERE GOVERNMENT MUST SELL ALL DRUGS, but that's not even what this report suggests. What this report suggests is what the scientific community has understood for longer than Obama has been alive, that "governments [should] stop treating drugs users like criminals". The stigma attached to criminals is not that of someone suffering from addiction, yet we're expected to deny people employment and voting rights because they used a substance to unlock different parts of their brains without the written consent of a doctor. If Obama wants to take the EXTREMELY conservative view point that every addicted drug user is the exact same thing as stealing and raping I sure hope he loses reelection. That kind of extremist rhetoric should be reserved for people who don't read words and try to understand what they mean. Either Obama is illiterate, a liar or some combination of the 2. He loses a lot of points for being completely bat shit insane, suggesting we continue to treat drug addicts like we treat scum. We all know the best way to get someone to stop doing heroin is to tell them they're worthless, take away job opportunities and disenfranchise their voice in the public square. They can quit doing heroin right after they're done jumping off the space needle, drug war over.
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#3 And yet his fraudulence will never measure up to the fraudulence of your Republicans scumbags. I'd rather have a centrist fraud than a rightwing crackpot as president.
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@10 - although I agree with @13 that drug use probably wouldn't go up if legal, so what if it did? If more people started freely using a drug of choice, that is a choice adults should be allowed to make. Just as I wouldn't restrict a McDonalds in an inner city; if people want to eat that crap and get fat, go for it. Its called Freedom (said in my best Mel Gibson voice).
It's not the drugs that make people violent criminals. Its the fact that people are addicted to a substance that, because its illegal, is unaffordable. Crackheads steal your stuff to fund the habit. Which becomes a lot more expensive to fund when, as you correctly pointed out, drug prices go up after a bust. If you made coke more like the price of sugar and less like the price of gold, you would decrease the property crime associated with funding the habit.
It's not the drugs that make people violent criminals. Its the fact that people are addicted to a substance that, because its illegal, is unaffordable. Crackheads steal your stuff to fund the habit. Which becomes a lot more expensive to fund when, as you correctly pointed out, drug prices go up after a bust. If you made coke more like the price of sugar and less like the price of gold, you would decrease the property crime associated with funding the habit.
17
Did he even glance at the report before making this grossly ignorant comment? "Making drugs available" is so completely and totally THE POINT, and will in fact MAKE OUR "COMMUNITIES" HEALTHIER AND SAFER, you obtuse piece of shit.
I wasn't aware it was possible to speak clearly with one's head wedged firmly between one's ass cheeks, but I was wrong.
I wasn't aware it was possible to speak clearly with one's head wedged firmly between one's ass cheeks, but I was wrong.
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@13 Taxes on cigarettes have been shown to cause fewer people to start smoking and to cause smokers not to smoke as much. Why would it be any different for heroin or coke?
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Educating people about drugs and decriminalizing their use won't make drugs any more available than they already are, just like keeping abortions legal does not mean that every woman is going to rush out and get an abortion. Keeping people in the dark about issues that have been affecting humanity since we settled into city-states is not going to make them magically disappear.
If you want to keep drugs illegal, at least go all the way and make them all illegal. Yes, that means taking away people's precious nicotine, alcohol and caffeine. But it's all in the name of keeping our communities safe, amirite?
If you want to keep drugs illegal, at least go all the way and make them all illegal. Yes, that means taking away people's precious nicotine, alcohol and caffeine. But it's all in the name of keeping our communities safe, amirite?
20
Legalize marijuana, decriminalize psychedelics, and dole out additive free coke, heroine, and meth to addicts. You won't even need to bust the dealers, they'll go out of business.
I also recomment heroine for the terminally ill.
I also recomment heroine for the terminally ill.
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@18, this is exactly why drug lords want prohibition to continue. If you believe in taxing products to decrease use, fine, but legalize it and tax it. In the meantime, we know that prohibition is destroying many more lives than the drugs in question.
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@16 It has been my experience that habitual users of hard drugs often become unable to hold down a job or manage their affairs. So long as the government helps poor people worthless junkies are picking my pocket by consuming public services paid for with my taxes.
23
Obama's reaction to this is symbolic of why cynics think the republicans and democrats are the same. This is more bougois thinking typical of anyone with the ability to be even a likely candidate for higher elected office.
For all our hopes that he would be different, this is an area where he is exactly the same as what has come before him.
If he still makes statements like this after he is reelected, I will be even more convinced that I am right about this.
He is almost every bit the panderer that Clinton was.
For all our hopes that he would be different, this is an area where he is exactly the same as what has come before him.
If he still makes statements like this after he is reelected, I will be even more convinced that I am right about this.
He is almost every bit the panderer that Clinton was.
24
It's pretty amazing when you think that our last 3 presidents have consumed illegal drugs, but apparently drugs still need to be illegal.
Obama is far worse than Clinton, because Clinton didn't have nearly as much cover from the rest of the country. Take DOMA for example, 90+ senators voted for DOMA, Clinton had no choice but to sign it. Now however no democratic member of congress supports DOMA, so Obama is pandering gratuitously.
Obama is far worse than Clinton, because Clinton didn't have nearly as much cover from the rest of the country. Take DOMA for example, 90+ senators voted for DOMA, Clinton had no choice but to sign it. Now however no democratic member of congress supports DOMA, so Obama is pandering gratuitously.
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@21 I don't think the legalize it and tax it approach would change things as much as you think. When I was a Customs Officer on the US-Mexico border I used to arrest a lot more people for smuggling untaxed cigarettes than for illegal drugs. The profit margins on smuggled tobacco are comparable to marijuana and the penalties if your caught are less severe. The smuggling routes are controlled by the same cartels that run drugs.
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@16 & 22, this argument is exactly why I propose doling out the more addictive drugs as prescriptions.
First off, it takes customers away from the dealers.
Second, where similar plans have been enacted, rates of new addicts decline, as addicts are more interested in being functional that getting high and partying. They don't share, which means they do not share with first timers.
Prescribing these drugs would have to be done with support services to help addicts find their way back to being responsible citizens, or at least benign. Yes, it can, and has, been done.
Also, the prescriptions would be regulated formulas of consistent strength. Healthier addicts are more functional addicts. How many of addicts health problems come from the additives used to cut the drugs to increase the profit margin? How much of addiction is to the additives vs. the drug itself? How many overdoses are because the addicts do not know the strength or quality of what they are injesting?
First off, it takes customers away from the dealers.
Second, where similar plans have been enacted, rates of new addicts decline, as addicts are more interested in being functional that getting high and partying. They don't share, which means they do not share with first timers.
Prescribing these drugs would have to be done with support services to help addicts find their way back to being responsible citizens, or at least benign. Yes, it can, and has, been done.
Also, the prescriptions would be regulated formulas of consistent strength. Healthier addicts are more functional addicts. How many of addicts health problems come from the additives used to cut the drugs to increase the profit margin? How much of addiction is to the additives vs. the drug itself? How many overdoses are because the addicts do not know the strength or quality of what they are injesting?
27
Thinking back to my experience as a teenager, it was waaaay easier to get my hands on alcohol and cigarettes than it was to obtain illegal drugs. Am I in the minority here?
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@26 I'm no expert but I think they tried that approach in Britain back in the 1970s and it didn't turn out so well.
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@25, the legalize and tax policy would still take down the profits of the drug lords. Maybe it wouldn't eliminate them completely, but it would take them down. Imagine what the profit margin on smuggled cigarretes would be if they were illegal!
30
Ken, they tried it in the late 80's/early 90's in Liverpoole. What they were trying to accomplish was to get addicts to quit being petty thieves and find their way back to work. They had to behave themselves, bassically. And most did. A junkie mother regained custody of her child and became a good mother. A coke addict returned to his sales career.
What they weren't expecting was the disappearance of the dealers on the corner and the decline in new addicts. Unexpected but welcome.
Lets face it Ken, our nations obsession with the drug war has been nothing more than an excuse for many of us to give away our freedoms.
The drug war is ultimately based on nothing but the war between the nonconformist and those who think that people should be whipped into conformity.
It has cost not only users their freedom, but all of us. It has made it acceptable for cops to kick down the doors of people who wind up to be completely innocent.
It has given the police even more reason to look at everyone as a criminal.
It has made every one of us a suspect to our fellow citizens.
What they weren't expecting was the disappearance of the dealers on the corner and the decline in new addicts. Unexpected but welcome.
Lets face it Ken, our nations obsession with the drug war has been nothing more than an excuse for many of us to give away our freedoms.
The drug war is ultimately based on nothing but the war between the nonconformist and those who think that people should be whipped into conformity.
It has cost not only users their freedom, but all of us. It has made it acceptable for cops to kick down the doors of people who wind up to be completely innocent.
It has given the police even more reason to look at everyone as a criminal.
It has made every one of us a suspect to our fellow citizens.
31
You have to look at the statement from the Obama administration in the way they intend it. Legalizing drugs would be a major policy initiative that would dominate a presidential term in the same way as passing health reform did.
Presidents only get so many major policy fights they get to pick. They also are generally prioritized with the number one issue getting most of the effort, the number two getting less than half that, and so on. As I see it the Obama administration has focused 65% on health care, 30% the economy, and 5% gay rights.
There is not political capital to take on another issue that would be as big a fight as drug legalization. That is the kind of issue that a politician needs to run on if he is going make it a center piece issue. All the Obama statement says is that this is not the fight they are going to pick. Any positive statement would be interpreted as them signalling they were getting into this fight, which they clearly can't afford to do.
If you want to be pissed at the Obama administration for something real, be upset that they are not filling open executive branch jobs and not appointing enough judges (and especially not enough young judges). These are real areas where they are doing a terrible job. They are also areas where the people they appoint could actually affect policy in the ways you want without prompting an enormous political fight.
Presidents only get so many major policy fights they get to pick. They also are generally prioritized with the number one issue getting most of the effort, the number two getting less than half that, and so on. As I see it the Obama administration has focused 65% on health care, 30% the economy, and 5% gay rights.
There is not political capital to take on another issue that would be as big a fight as drug legalization. That is the kind of issue that a politician needs to run on if he is going make it a center piece issue. All the Obama statement says is that this is not the fight they are going to pick. Any positive statement would be interpreted as them signalling they were getting into this fight, which they clearly can't afford to do.
If you want to be pissed at the Obama administration for something real, be upset that they are not filling open executive branch jobs and not appointing enough judges (and especially not enough young judges). These are real areas where they are doing a terrible job. They are also areas where the people they appoint could actually affect policy in the ways you want without prompting an enormous political fight.
32
@22 - I have a libertarian streak, so I sympathize. But the feds are already picking your pocket funding this massive drug war. Both locally with prisons and law enforcement and globally via poppy raids and armed support to Columbia, etc. I have no scientific evidence to back it up, but I have to imagine that funding an addict on welfare is cheaper than buying an attack apache helicopter and sending it to South America.
Plus, there is the whole "social safety net is the price of civilized society" but that is dirty hippie shit I will let someone else spout....
Plus, there is the whole "social safety net is the price of civilized society" but that is dirty hippie shit I will let someone else spout....
33
@31 - "You have to look at the statement from the Obama administration in the way they intend it."
What part of the following statement gave me any hope that Obama sees the drug war any differently than Bush?: "Making drugs more available, as this report suggests, will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe."
Just as some gay people refused to support Obama while he was defending don't ask don't tell, I will not support him while he supports idiotic drug policy. As @24 said, Obama supports gay rights when he thinks it will help/won't hurt him politically. Having a president who admitted his illegal drug use and laughs it off: "the point was to get high" while continuing to support incarceration of people for doing the same thing is, by definition, hypocrisy.
Obama is to drugs what Ted Haggard is to homosexuality.
@3 FTW.
What part of the following statement gave me any hope that Obama sees the drug war any differently than Bush?: "Making drugs more available, as this report suggests, will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe."
Just as some gay people refused to support Obama while he was defending don't ask don't tell, I will not support him while he supports idiotic drug policy. As @24 said, Obama supports gay rights when he thinks it will help/won't hurt him politically. Having a president who admitted his illegal drug use and laughs it off: "the point was to get high" while continuing to support incarceration of people for doing the same thing is, by definition, hypocrisy.
Obama is to drugs what Ted Haggard is to homosexuality.
@3 FTW.
34
There is no difference between Democrats and Republicans.
Should we release crack prisoners early?
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has backed the beginnings of a plan to further fix the broken sentencing system. In a new sentencing reduction scheme before the House of Representatives, federal prisoners already sentenced for crack cocaine offenses could be awarded an average sentence reduction of three years. If adopted, this plan would go the rest of the way to ease the baffling sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Over 12,000 prisoners could be effected by this change. In support of the reductions, Holder said, "There is simply no just or logical reason why their punishments should be dramatically more severe than those of other cocaine offenders."
There is no difference between Democrats and Republicans.
35
Oh, snap, they make drug-gushing taps? Are they on Ebay?
"And for what it's worth: there wouldn't be an Obama administration to react to this report if the president, back when he was using illegal drugs "frequently," had been swept up by the same criminal justice system he's defending today."
Oh, DOUBLE-snap!
"And for what it's worth: there wouldn't be an Obama administration to react to this report if the president, back when he was using illegal drugs "frequently," had been swept up by the same criminal justice system he's defending today."
Oh, DOUBLE-snap!
36
"keep"??
"Making drugs more available, as this report suggests, will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe."
"keep"??
38
We are such a weirdly Puritanical society in so many ways - mostly outwardly - and so very libertine (not libertarian) in others - mostly in private. Publicly, it's the third rail of politics for any politician to not be overtly religious, monogamous, straight (with a few very notable exceptions), and abstemious - well, except for alcohol, I have yet to see any political event without at least one shit-faced politician in attendance. And that seems to be what the electorate expects, as any deviation from that is a Scandal!
Yet, in private, that is not the way many, perhaps even most, Americans live. People are polyamorous (or they cheat), they don't go to church all that often for the most part, they certainly aren't out there doing good works, they smoke dope, they snort coke, they manufacture meth - but heaven forfend a political candidate admit to doing anything that you yourself either do now or did frequently in your youth. Scandal!
The reason I say we're privately libertines, but not libertarians, is that it seems to me that most people believe in private liberties for THEMSELVES. Other people should toe the line and behave. Once we get over that weird cognitive dissonance, maybe we can start having adult discussions about things like religious choice, sexual behavior, and use of psychoactive substances without trying to control the behavior of others.
I'm not holding my breath.
Yet, in private, that is not the way many, perhaps even most, Americans live. People are polyamorous (or they cheat), they don't go to church all that often for the most part, they certainly aren't out there doing good works, they smoke dope, they snort coke, they manufacture meth - but heaven forfend a political candidate admit to doing anything that you yourself either do now or did frequently in your youth. Scandal!
The reason I say we're privately libertines, but not libertarians, is that it seems to me that most people believe in private liberties for THEMSELVES. Other people should toe the line and behave. Once we get over that weird cognitive dissonance, maybe we can start having adult discussions about things like religious choice, sexual behavior, and use of psychoactive substances without trying to control the behavior of others.
I'm not holding my breath.
39
@10: EVERYTHING gets significantly more expensive on the north side of the border. That's why people go to Mexican doctors. Are you going to credit the drug war for that, too?
Are you really naive enough to think drug prohibition is because the anti-drug lobby really gives a shit about all the crackheads who will die if they can afford heroin? You're right about one thing, it's wrong to say the drug war doesn't accomplish anything. It's made a lot of people in the prison industry very rich, for instance. Cui bono?
Are you really naive enough to think drug prohibition is because the anti-drug lobby really gives a shit about all the crackheads who will die if they can afford heroin? You're right about one thing, it's wrong to say the drug war doesn't accomplish anything. It's made a lot of people in the prison industry very rich, for instance. Cui bono?
40
Why is the USA so shut down and closed off to questioning ANYTHING re: public policy? Drug liberalization? Non-negotiable. Cut the deficit? Non-negotiable. Gay equality? Non-negotiable. Etc etc etc. Other countries routinely tear up the fucking social contract and institute courageous reforms. America, on the other hand, is sclerotic, hidebound and hyper-regulated. How did "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" become "status quo only -- brought to you by the HypnoToad?"
41
Same shit in Canada. The Harper gov't has been trying to shut down the (very much needed) safe injection site here in Vancouver, not because there's any evidence that suggests it's not working - actually the evidence suggests that it's a good thing for harm reduction and general pubic health - but because they want to appeal to the ignorant old coots who vote for them.
42
Also, if you want to take wind out of the sails of these incredibly sophisticated, wicked, torturing drug cartels south of the border, legalize drugs. What they do is far worse than what free willed individuals choose to ingest
43
@39 Cocaine isn't the only thing that gets imported from Mexico. A truck load of machine parts or mangos or whatever that can come across the border legally doesn't exponentially increase in value as soon as it gets to America the way illegal drugs do.
45
well duh, it's about time, this is obvious blah.blah. Now for the reason it falls on deaf ears.It's more profitable for drugs to be illegal. For the dealers, the drug enforcement agencies, the private prisons etc. There simply is too much money in it to give it up.
If you want to deal with stupid amounts of money go into oil, drugs or porn.
If you want to deal with stupid amounts of money go into oil, drugs or porn.
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