OK, your suggestings for not carrying on the WoSD as we know it?
Good question. And many more questions need to be answered, or at least put in order of priority before we can logically alter how we're waging the war on drugs. Because, as displayed wonderfully by this very thread, it's virtually impossible to achieve consensus as to how to best deal with drug issues. First of all, any movement toward legalization of drugs cannot possibly start without a complete overhaul of the welfare and public assistance programs in this country. This would take years, and be something guaranteed to exacerbate already gridlocked legislation in ineffective state and national legislative bodies.
- Is it hypocritical to even begin dealing with drug issues without changing how we educate our youngsters about alcohol, and perhaps looking to change how we deal with alcohol abuse? It is common knowledge that alcohol (100,000 annual deaths) and tobacco (360,000 annual deaths) far exceed the illegal drugs as sources of death, disease, and dysfunction in the U.S... Prohibition of these is impossible, as we've already learned.
- What's our top priority? Drug use by children?
- What do we do about marijuana? As it may well be a benign enough substance to consider at the least decriminalization, should be simply concentrate first on the harder drugs?
- Is the best plan high taxes and high prices on legal drugs in order to limit availability and use, or does that foster competition by a black market (already well in place)?
- What about public use of drugs versus private use of drugs at home?
- What measures distinguish between drug consumption and drug impairment? When does it become a law enforcement issue (i.e., impaired driving, public intoxication)? Should we treat it the same as alcohol?
- Do we even worry about occasional use, i.e., the weekend or social potsmoker or cokesnorter?
Any number of suggestions have been offered in addition to decriminalization or legalization of drugs. Just one example would be the diversion of some interdiction funds toward treatment programs and traditional law enforcement
Yes, and I mentioned that in post #148:
Obviously, funds should be diverted from some of the current, more esoteric law enforcement efforts (that have shown no benefits or long-term results) into education, treatment and diversion programs.
What it boils down to is, can the government continue to prohibit use of certain illicit substances and, at the same time, respect the value of individual liberty and responsibility? Most of you say no.
Ok, if you're not in favor of the WoD but you don't think legalization is good then what do you recommend? We had far more problems under prohibition than we had after we repealed it, which was essentially legalization. Alcohol abuse was a problem before prohibition, still one during it, and it remains one to this day, so what is the best way to approach it?
I'd bet my next several paychecks that no member of this forum is in favor of additional restrictions on sale and use of alcoholic beverages in this country. But, as I asked:
is it hypocritical to even begin dealing with drug issues without changing how we educate our youngsters about alcohol, and perhaps looking to change how we deal with alcohol abuse? There are essayists out there who claim that our society spends more, on an annual basis, regulating alcohol sales and dealing with the overall effects of alcohol abuse and addiction, than we do fighting the war on drugs.
Yes, I want to deny that cannabis abuse drives those things, or did you get tired of talking about that half of the drug war already?
Publius, let's get past your fixation on the cannabis aspect of the drug scene.
Because I was still kind of hoping you had more than talk when it came to studies about cannabis use in the Netherlands. You said that their levels are not half of ours, but more equal to ours, which would imply that instead of being harmful, cannabis prohibition is merely worthless. I doubt it. I still believe the stats I posted, which show it to be harmful.
First, have you seen Robert MacCoun's article on "American Distortion of Dutch Drug Statistics?" (I'm sure you have.) He points out that (1) comparisons are easy to make in support of either side, even using his own data from his 1997 research paper and (2) comparisons are really pretty useless to try and prove a case either way (due to the way the data can be interpreted). But you really need to refer to MacCoun's 2001 article
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/178/2/123 which is "Evaluating Current Cannabis Regimes" (
British Journal of Psychiatry, RCP, 2001, 178:123-128; he and Peter Reuter draw some interesting conclusions. Finally, most independent researchers point out that it's virtually impossible to compare one nation's legalized market, hence easily measurable usage rates, with another nation's underground, illegal market, thus impossible to accurately determine usage rates.