You seem to be assuming that a war on drugs must make them illegal. It needn't. Instead the war could do whatever is most effective (per dollar spent) at reducing usage. I support rehab for alcoholics, and measures to reduce drunk driving. I don't support the war on drugs in its current form.
> You seem to be assuming that a war on drugs must make them illegal. It needn't. Instead the war could do whatever is most effective (per dollar spent) at reducing usage.
You mean, it could be legalization, taxation, and using taxes to fund intervention, referral, and treatment programs, and not be opposed to legalization at all?
If so, then its obviously not what people supporting legalization are arguing against when they are arguing againt the War on Drugs.
Yes, that's consistent with my top-most comment in this thread, where I describe a different, gentler and constitutional war on drugs.
I wouldn't stop at using the taxes from the sale of hard drugs to reduce their usage. If spending $X against drug usage lead to $2X in net benefits, I'd support spending $X no matter how much higher it was than those taxes.
A key component would be rehab, in which case it might be tough to make the drug legal. Suppose crack is legal and so there's some parent high on crack all day, providing only the most basic of care for the kids. If it takes keeping crack illegal to legally force that parent into rehab, then I'd want crack to stay illegal, but change the consequence to rehab.
> Suppose crack is legal and so there's some parent high on crack all day, providing only the most basic of care for the kids.
If the "most basic care" is adequately meeting the society's minimums, this obviously doesn't justify criminalization.
If it doesn't, then child neglect can be made illegal (hint: it already is), independently of whether it results from drug abuse.
> If it takes keeping crack illegal to legally force that parent into rehab
Compulsory-as-an-alternative-to-prison rehab obviously requires that something be illegal, but it doesn't require that the illegal thing be the drug of abuse. Rehab as a condition of a suspended sentence could conceptually be tied to any crime for which drug abuse was a contributing factor even if the drug was legal (IIRC, this is sometimes done with alcohol in, e.g., the context of DUI, even though alcohol is legal.)
So, the premise here that making the drug illegal might be essential to make compulsory-as-an-alternative-to-prison rehab an available tool is simply false.
> So, the premise here that making the drug illegal might be essential to make compulsory-as-an-alternative-to-prison rehab an available tool is simply false.
I accept that. I support whatever it takes as a minimum to get the person into rehab, even if the minimum bar for parenting is raised so that crack addiction doesn't reach it. If the majority of crack users could be model citizens while high then my mind could be changed.
>Does making meth and crack legal make less crime (violent or robbery) than if their usage was nil?
That's not one of the available options. I mean, looking back at the article, the spoils of this program are incredibly paltry given the enormity of the data set. Criminalization of drugs and Militarization of enforcement groups is not significantly deterring usage because they are so ineffective even with so many resources and so little respect for the civil rights of users and non-users alike. All these programs have been effective at is raising the bar for drug distribution organizations to a point where militarization and violence is necessary for operation.
>Coffee addictions don't lead to more violent crime or robbery, as far as I know.
Perhaps they would if they were criminalized. There's nothing very violent about marijuana use except the militarized distribution chain and criminal enforcement apparatus. If 7-11 could sell it from behind the counter, I expect that you would see marijuana related violent deaths drop precipitously.
But why would it be criminalized? For that to be justified it needs to be a drain on society in some significant way.
I don't support the current flawed war on drugs, especially forfeiture of property and imprisonment for users. I don't support a war on drugs that are essentially victimless, like on marijuana. I support the ideal war on drugs (one based on evidence to show that it does more good than harm).
>But why would it be criminalized? For that to be justified it needs to be a drain on society in some significant way.
Substance bans do not /at all/ have a track record of being grounded in quantifiable measures of societal harm. That is to say, the current substance restriction policies are more or less completely arbitrary. The arbitrariness of current policies gives a natural experiment opportunity to assess the harm of the criminalization policies themselves by comparing the societal impact of substances such as caffeine, tobacco/nicotine, and alcohol with those of marijuana plus the associated negative impacts of marijuana criminalization. At least in the case of marijuana, the cure seems to be significantly worse than the disease.
>I support the ideal war on drugs (one based on evidence to show that it does more good than harm).
I wrote a more generalized comment[1] on the idea of an "ideal war on drugs". The gist is that I think it's a completely fantastical idea. The idea that you can squash a market with inelastic demand is soundly dispelled by all current and historical attempts at doing so. Further, I think that it's harmful that such an idea persists, because it allows for the justification of more and more extreme enforcement measures. Arguments like "If we got rid of meth then society would be significantly improved?" are based on a false premise. This is an outcome that clearly cannot be brought about by the war on drugs, yet such reasoning is continually used as a justification for more and more extreme enforcement measures that have increasingly diminishing returns as well as an increasingly negative impact on broader society as a whole.
> At least in the case of marijuana, the cure seems to be significantly worse than the disease.
Agreed, I'm talking about justifying criminalization in an ideal way, not the current way.
> The idea that you can squash a market with inelastic demand is soundly dispelled by all current and historical attempts at doing so.
The demand comes after the addiction. Remove addiction and the demand is reduced.
> This is an outcome that clearly cannot be brought about by the war on drugs...
That's the current war, not the one based on evidence. What if the evidence showed that a different war could improve society on average and reduce hard drug usage? For example, instead of taking away a user's property and imprisoning them, you give them rehab and (if needed) job skills and actually find them a job, and any other assistance that costs less to provide than the monetary value of the drain on society they'd otherwise be?
>> The idea that you can squash a market with inelastic demand is soundly dispelled by all current and historical attempts at doing so.
> The demand comes after the addiction. Remove addiction and the demand is reduced.
To me the latter statement reads like: "If you can create a perpetual motion machine then energy would be free"
This is the very problem, using impossible potential ends to justify means.
>> This is an outcome that clearly cannot be brought about by the war on drugs...
> That's the current war, not the one based on evidence. What if the evidence showed that a different war could improve society on average and reduce hard drug usage? For example, instead of taking away a user's property and imprisoning them, you give them rehab and (if needed) job skills and actually find them a job, and any other assistance that costs less to provide than the monetary value of the drain on society they'd otherwise be?
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I don't see anything that's at all hinted at a remotely workable solution that would have such an effect. You seem to be assuming that we can somehow overcome all of the imperfections of past policies but do not offer a clear, strong novel mechanism by which that can happen. In the meantime our current policies are enormously destructive, and I see that as the more pressing issue. Really, solving addiction and substance abuse is a problem that is not very closely related to criminalization policies, but it's those criminalization policies that are leading to broad 4th Ammendment violations, police militarization, and unnecessary deaths and incarcerations.
[edited to remove the implication that no solution was offered, but rather that a new solution wasn't offered that could reasonably be expected to end addiction and substance abuse in a significant way]
> You seem to be assuming that we can somehow overcome all of the imperfections of past policies but do not offer a clear, strong novel mechanism by which that can happen.
Actually I think what I propose has nil chance of becoming reality in my lifetime and maybe for centuries in the future, if only because the masses wouldn't support it. That doesn't stop me from supporting the best possible solution to hard drug addiction.
I support ending the current war on drugs almost wholesale, because it's so inefficient and even unconstitutional as you note. But I'd concurrently want to see some movement toward the ideal. I definitely don't buy an argument that nothing better can be done now than ending the war on drugs in its current form. I believe there's always room for improvement even within the confines our current misguided society. Maybe I'm an optimistic pessimist?
> I definitely don't buy an argument that nothing better can be done now than ending the war on drugs in its current form.
This isn't really quite what I'm saying, per se. I would rather say that I think that currently people tend to couple the idea of changing the status quo with the introduction of superior policy. I'm skeptical that significantly superior policy can be achieved, so I would prefer that the two problems be decoupled. We shouldn't be letting blood just because it's the only action that we've come up with to respond to an intractable disease. We should stop the blood letting (pursuit of harmful policies), and then work on actual cures to the difficult problems of addiction and substance abuse thereafter. The harmful policies only serve to give the illusion of addressing the problem, and so actually hamper the search for effective policies. And if we maintain the status quo for lack of a superior alternative, then I fear we'll never see the end of it.
Agreed! That's why I say concurrently, decoupled but ideally in parallel.
> The harmful policies only serve to give the illusion of addressing the problem...
Politicians currently have the incentive to give such illusions rather than true solutions. That's another problem, close to the root cause, that I support fixing.
Apples to oranges, since unlike meth and crack users, the vast majority of those who drink alcohol can hold down a job to pay for it, instead of resort to theft or worse.
Prescription opioid drugs like oxycodone kill more people than meth or crack. And there are a lot of people able to hold down a job and pay for cocaine (see also: wall street). What was your point again?
You would intensify the pursuit of criminal prosecution of people who find themselves addicted to prescription painkillers?
An addiction to morphine is really little different than an addiction to heroin, except society has a greater understanding of addiction to morphine as an illness, not a crime. Treating morphine abusers like we treat heroin users would be devastating to society. It would be a ludicrously senseless step backwards. Your perspective on drug use is absolutely insane.
> You would intensify the pursuit of criminal prosecution of people who find themselves addicted to prescription painkillers?
No, rehab for them and all other people addicted to hard drugs. I'd seek criminal prosecution against the pushers who knew or should've known the drugs hurt much more than they help.
Quote: "Rebecca Riley (April 11, 2002 – December 13, 2006), the daughter of Michael and Carolyn Riley and resident of Hull, Massachusetts, was found dead in her home after prolonged exposure to various medications, her lungs filled with fluid. The medical examiner's office determined the girl died from "intoxication due to the combined effects" of prescription drugs. Police reports state she was taking 750 milligrams a day of Depakote, 200 milligrams a day of Seroquel, and .35 milligrams a day of Clonidine. Rebecca had been taking the drugs since the age of two for bipolar disorder and ADHD, diagnosed by psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji of the Tufts-New England Medical Center."
I really can't imagine violence going up if drug prohibition was ended, even if you don't count the violence committed by public officers enforcing drug laws.
I can imagine that, because a crack or meth user can't hold down a decent job. Whether legal or not they'd tend to have to rob to get the money to stay high. And when legal it's likely more people would get addicted.
Portugual decriminalized drug use and saw decreases in drug-related crime, increased addiction program enrollment, decreased youth use of drugs, decreased drug-related deaths, and decreased HIV infection rates.
That's interesting, I'll definitely research further. It's possible these improvements were because they criminalized it in a sub-optimal way, as the US does. That is, it's possible that an optimal war on hard drugs could lead to even bigger net benefits. Imagine if no users needed fear prosecution; that's one aspect of the war I'd wage.
Now you're assuming both that drug abuse would increase if drug prohibition ended and that drugs wouldn't get drastically cheaper. Both are claims you would need to support, and claims I do not believe.
I don't think it would matter how cheap it is. Even at a dollar a hit a jobless person tends to need to steal to get that dollar, in addition to money for food.
I don't think it's a stretch to believe that legal things become more prevalent than illegal things, especially highly addictive things. Believing that requires no more support than disbelieving that.
I don't see how that's defensible. You seem to be talking only about people with zero money, which is few people even among jobless (even homeless) people. Surely the price of the drug, all else being equal, would strongly correlate to the number of crimes committed to obtain the drug.
> I don't think it's a stretch to believe that legal things become more prevalent than illegal things, especially highly addictive things.
I absolute think that's a stretch to believe, at least for things like drugs in large areas like the USA, where physically preventing their existence altogether is (apparently) not feasible.
By the same logic, the price of food should correlate to the number of crimes committed to obtain it. But far more is spent on food than drugs, and most theft is to buy drugs, so something is different.
The difference is that normal people work at jobs to obtain money for food, but serious drug addicts are incapable of working a regular job and so have to steal to support their drug habit (and for their food as well).
So in fact, crime is proportional to how much drugs interfere with ability to hold a job.
There's a huge segment of "serious drug addicts" in our population that show exactly what crack and meth users would be like if their drugs of choice were legalized: it's called Alcoholics Anonymous. Are you equally concerned about being robbed and beaten by an alcoholic? Their drug of choice has been legal for quite some time.
> Surely the price of the drug, all else being equal, would strongly correlate to the number of crimes committed to obtain the drug.
You have a good point there. If I was wrong and crack and meth became dirt cheap and there was no long associated violent crime and robbery, to no longer support a war on it I'd have to see that its legality lead to no significant drain on society in other ways. That would include parenting, job performance, accidents / injuries, etc.
The level of crime (and particularly, the level of violent and organized crime) surrounding alcohol jumped up sharply with prohibition, and dropped back down with the end of prohibition. I don't see why you'd expect that to be any different for any other drug.
> Even at a dollar a hit a jobless person tends to need to steal to get that dollar, in addition to money for food.
If its legal, a person has less social pressure to not to admit use, and therefore there are less social pressures against them admitting their problem and seeking treatment before being compelled to as a consequence of criminal activity.
Further, when becoming involved with a substance as a user makes you a criminal and violator of societies rules, there is less holding you to observe those rules once you have decided to violate them in the first place.
Do you know a lot of meth users? I've known a few who held down jobs. And then there is every person who takes Adderall. Personally, I've taken Adderall for more than a decade, and found it easier to hold down a job with it than before.
Coffee addictions don't lead to more violent crime or robbery, as far as I know.
You don't know at all, because it's never been illegal. However, there is plenty of evidence that making it illegal would indeed lead to robbery and violence.
Does making meth and crack legal make less crime (violent or robbery) than if their usage was nil? I highly doubt it.