Should the authorities admit defeat in the war on drugs?

Post Reply New Topic

You're not seeing the big picture. So the prison budget is less than spent on drugs? That's great! But what about drug treatment centers that already exists? What about police officers getting cool AR-15s and APCs to go on drug raids? What about more cops in general. What about probation officers? What about judges? What about prosecutors? What about labs that get paid by the state to do all the probation/court drug tests?

That's a lot of too big to fail, no?

Pumping drugs into a city to destabilize it so you can get increased police presence/virtual martial law, it's great for business, great for building a crisis for the government to take over and "help." The government gave Rick Ross crack to sell. The government uses drug money to fund things it can't put on the books in Congress.

I would hazard a guess that whatever our governments spent on the drug issue, whether it is prison, labs, court costs, police costs etc. I reckon it is only a fraction of the amount of money made in the drug industry.

If we legalized that money would shift into our economies. It would also give economies to struggling countries near the equator.

I think the war on drugs is just another mechanism our government use to keep us afraid and feeling like we need them in charge to look after us. Plus they don't want people feeling good.

I'm not sure if people addicted to heroin, crack or meth feel the same way?

Defeat in it's stated goals but it was never about eradicating drug use or the drug trade, 100% about money. Where do you think the CIA gets money for its black ops? Iran Contra is just a drop in the bucket. Do you think we're just building bridges in Afghanistan?

Around here they do a poltics of "illegal legalization of small amounts". So police normally doesnt specially go after small users of Marihuana. Typical weekendsmokers, or people caring for one or two plants in the wood or having a single potplant at home. At music festivals, they control the public areas, where press is and the music stages are, but ignore small users on tent places. Also small sharings amongs friends is mostly tolerated, as long as you dont f**k up with them out of other causes. So that unprofessional "from now and then smoking and growing" is unofficially tolerated, because of it causing no social problems, and because of going after it, would block our lawsystems with thousend of little "found with 2g Marihuana" sues, and judges would ask the police if they think, they dont have better stuff to do. (A friend of mine has a father at the police, so we know that they get told not to block the judges with tons of little weekendsmokers, that are causing no problems. ^^) But what they do care for is, if you try to do that professional, to earn money. So if you do homegrowing in big style or even farmers that have complete plantages. Little amounts for festivities now and then - tolerated. Huge amounts for everyday use - Not tolerated. Driving around stoned - as well not tolerated, get yourself a bike. ^^ Try to sell that to pupils or around a school, better get some dogfood for uninvited guests with noisy dogs within the next 24 hours. ^^

I think its ok that way. Its an unwritten "You dont cause problems and go to work, and smoke some stuff from now and then but dont overdo it. In exchange for you causing others no problems, we cause you no problems."

Because of that we dont have really great discussions about liberating marihuana. From now and then when there are new elections it is mentioned, but because of the system being ok the way it is, people dont really care that much about that topic. When its about hard drugs, I am against tolerating those. Giving that in therapies under medical surveillance to drug addicted - Yes. But being sold open to anyone - absolutely not. Everyone I knew that started into using other stuff then marihuana got "lost" sooner or later, in the way that they are not the persons anymore they have been. Sadly they are now much unhappier persons, whyever this drugs seem to take your joy in life. Two even died. So nope, I dont want that kind of stuff ever legalized. If a system creates so many drug addicted, that it cant be controlled anymore in any way, I´d rather think whats wrong about the system, that causes the drug problem to be that bad.

They should sign articles of surrender to Drugs... agree to cease hostilities.

Once drugs stop being illegal they don't cost anything anymore. Illegal drugs don't really cost anything more to make than legal drugs. A pound of weed could go for like $2 or something uncontrolled, it's easier to grow than a pound of tobacco, and a pound of tobacco is, what, $8-10 at the store for handrolling? If you're a drug dealer now, you can make millions off what'd sell in an uncontrolled (but legal) market for like $1000 or so. Nobody would really care to deal drugs if they were legal, as nobody'd make much money from it. You'd go from drug kingpin driving a Mercedes to guy selling random herbs he grows in his yard on ebay to make an extra few hundred bucks a month at most. Even in a case where everyone was terribly horribly addicted to drugs and people NEEDED drugs and they were legal, pot or opium poppies aren't any harder to grow than coffee.

So yeah, no money in drugs unless they're illegal. You could tax them I guess, but even then, like with alcohol, people made moonshine for tax evading. So it'd be the same deal with legal but taxed drugs, mind you that's a much smaller social problem than having a "war" going on in your country (or other people's, like Mexico) but yeah.

EDIT:
Also, money is not the factor. It's jobs. Politicians want jobs. In your hypothetical plan where somehow drugs make lots of money, lots of jobs for people get eliminated, and also more jobs cannot be created in those sectors. It'd be especially bad to eliminate those jobs in our present economy as, to put it simply, government jobs are the only jobs around now besides burger flippers and Walmart workers.
http://www.thedailycall.org/?p=47428

For home grown weed there really is no sensible argument against it, if all the people who want to smoke are allowed to grow their own, market gone.

As for other recreational drug use in the UK, synthetic research drugs are rapidly replacing poor quality illegal drugs. New strains are being created faster than they can be outlawed. Manufacture is in the far east and pharmaceutical quality, imported in bulk, legal to sell and cheap too.

This type of drug use is bypassing the dealers, people buy direct over the internet as the substances are not illegal.

Once they are picked up and banned, the formula is tweaked slightly and the cycle starts again. Between 50 and 70 new drugs are being marketed in this country every year, starting in 2003 and is growing every since. There is no defence to this.

These type of drug use is limited to recreational users, and does not replace heroin, crack or meth for those who chose this life. They will still perform as a gateway to addiction of classic hard drug use for a number of those who start of as weekend users, but those people would have likely chosen this route anyway.

I don't agree that drugs would become cheap and easily cultivated if they were legal. Sure, some people with green fingers will grow weed or opium but how will cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamines etc be produced? Will people start building their own labs?

And if the consumer had the choice to grow their own or buy it in a nice package from the shop most would choose the shop for reliability.

Plus if they were legal the supply chain would still exist and value added at each stage. Not to mention a huge amount of VAT for the government.

I think an even more efficient war on drugs would be to simply work on fixing the culture. Move society in a direction that people feel less of a need to escape or run from their lives, similarly we're in an absolute spiritual famine/drought and so many people who were like me in my early 20's turned to the pharmakeia family to find themselves because simply put nothing that they were getting at church, mosque, or synagogue could lead them to the transcendental experiences that they craved, even needed.

Robdemanc - I'm not arguing against legalisation, just stating the current situation and how the near future will probably pan out unless there is a significant change in government policy. AKA "War on Drugs"

With regard to growing weed, the easy availability of growing equipment allows anyone to start their own small scale, cupboard under the stairs, grow room. Producing a crop every 6 weeks from 2 or 3 plants would keep any hard core toker fully supplied. Packaging and highly taxing it would be fine for many but compare it with the cigarette smuggling that occurs in an aim to smoke cheaply and you will have a lot of people going for the DIY option.

The cheap party drugs I'm talking about are here in the UK now. This started in 2003 with mephedrone (Meow Meow), commonly sold as Plant Food at the time, now banned. As soon as mephedrone was banned it was immediately replaced with methylone. Both these drugs are from the amphetamine/MDMA family. The growing popularity of ketamine as a recreational drug was also a catalyst, seen in the large scale adoption from a veterinary drug before it was criminalised.

This new market opened up as consumers were unhappy with drug quality. Dealers were selling cocaine cut to 10% purity, usually even less and often bulked out with dental analgesics, same numbing sensation but no high. Ecstasy pills contained little or no MDMA.

A person can spend £100 pounds on 2 grams of ineffective cocaine (active ingredient < 0.2g) or buy 10 grams of a drug that has similar effects, is 100% pure and possession is not illegal. The importers and distributors are running fully legal, tax paying businesses, the legal loophole they exploit is that these drugs are sold as "Not for human consumption."
Why risk creating dangerous illicit labs and long prison sentences when you can buy something similar shipped from China that has gone through Customs?

As I said before these are not a replacement drug for habitual users of heroin or crack. Addicts will buy whatever is available regardless of quality. The issue is that the products are so freely available, and has seen an increase in users at a younger age, that they may encourage more people to become addicted to traditional hard drugs which do destroy lives.

There are numerous sites on the internet without any attempts to cover what they are selling, you can search yourself if you are interested. Coincidentally there was a program called "Legally High" on Channel 4 last night, might be worth a look too.

Last edited by neilson_wheels on 09 Aug 2013, 9:02 am, edited 6 times in total.

I agree with your idea, although I do not see the same answer. A lot of people feel that there is a massive void in their lives, Working a cubicle job in a service industry does not really fire many synapses. I'm afraid I feel the national management is stuck in their own rut and a fix is even less likely than admitting defeat.

They should admit defeat since it is a pretty obvious fact that the "war on drugs" is an utter failure, but admitting defeat is not the strong point of governments

The corporate world seems to be what people notice first, however it seems to jump out just as much when one looks at people who have a lot more time off. There's a general listlessness whether a person is working in a cubicle all day or whether they're out on leave. It seems then again like chronic boredom is something of younger generations who haven't figured out the ropes of life yet, albeit it seems like it takes longer these days for anyone to figure out the ropes because no one's going to offer much in the way of sound advice regarding how to live. When so many guys in my generation and within five years are playing Call of Duty all day and living like they're 22 or 23, the girls are single and complaining about the dirth of men, it seems like there's even more a dirth of direction and edification of the individual and a dirth of respect for role, for life stages, etc..

I get that we felt heavily weighted and oppressed when cultural tautology was beating down any nail that stuck out a like a giant hammer but I also think we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Seems like with everything though culture wants to run to the opposite extrema when it breaks free of something it didn't want just to collect all the pros and cons to see that the that the grass is largely the same color on the other side and figure out how they'll work out some sort of synthesis between the two poles. I've heard a lot about the late gen Y and early....what...millenials?...looking at their older siblings who are teen parents working minimum wage jobs, penning checks or not paying child support at all and thinking 'Pfff....I'm not ending up like that'. I'm not sure how strong of a swing back to center we'll see or how quick or gradual that will happen but it seems like humanity has a general desire to find balance and most thinking people tend to be formatively shaped by early impressions of antipathy toward excess of one type or another.

As our economy ramps down, as we export all our jobs on our side of the pond to India, China, Oceana, etc. we'll also have to get real about our spending habits. The whole 'If you don't own your own house your a loser' thing will have to go. It was laughable to see guys and girls who graduated college/university and, on tautology, buy homes and then what...an engaged couple then has to figure out which house to sell? IMHO the 'Smiths vs. Jones' Darwinism has no future - if there's any silver lining of our future economic slide to mediocrity it's that.

The drug treatment centres will continue to exist, in fact I imagine more would open.

There's no reason why the same amount couldn't be spent on policing. Police just wouldn't have to concern themselves with drugs, and could focus on more serious crimes instead. There would also probably be a black market in knockoff drugs that would open up, which would be something else that needed policing.

There will still need to be drug tests. For example, if people are as willing to take (currently illegal) recreational drugs as they are with alcohol, then a lot more DUIs will need processing. It could be a rule that prisoners need to be clean.

So that leaves... lawyers and judges. It's not like there's an excess of them, is it? Courts can focus on other issues, and as a result, the costs of legal action could come down.

Firstly, ^apologies^, when reading your previous post I either misread it, misinterpreted it, or possibly both. It's an issue of mine that I try to keep in check but sometimes it gets away from me.

I spent many years in an emotional wilderness myself, using various products to fill the void with varying results. I feel the giant proverbial hammer was applied quite liberally to myself, although I seem to have a very hard head and would prefer to bend in half rather than be driven down.

I have worked within the engineering industry when just out of school but never in a corporate environment. It is not a position that I could operate in. More recently I have spent some time working with teenagers with behavioural issues, a lot of what I saw, I could recognise in myself and this is also where I first learned about AS.

Education continues to be dumbed down rather than demanding that students exert themselves. So much now is style over substance, and the option to produce things physically is further removed as technological development continues. Waging war is now seen, more than ever, as a commercial venture. Will credit be continually extended until a child's life is signed over at birth to cover the parents debts?

I believe that there are so many better options available in the way of life choices than those that are the current standards. I live surrounded by large housing estates, seeing the guys growing up around here, I have to say the prognosis is not good.