[LordKano]

How do you explain the rampant cocaine drug wars in New York and Miami in the 1980s that killed far more Americans than they do today?

Easy, the War on Drugs began in the early 70s.

The murders and general lawlessness that you reference from the 80s are a direct result of the War on Drugs.

[rayiner]

Only nominally. Funding for the actual execution of the drug war didn't ramp up until the 1980's, and imprisonment for drug offenses was flat until the early 1980's.[1] Conversely, the surge in crime started in the late 1960's, and was already much higher than before by the time the drug war got rolling.

[1] https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/michaela/pages/70/atta...

[lfjmfkekdk]

The crack epidemic had its origins in the 1970s and became widespread in the 1980s[1]. Crack was finally targeted in 1986 with laws that heavily punished crack dealers. This happened after crack became widespread throughout major American cities.[2]

"The murders and general lawlessness that you reference from the 80s are a direct result of the War on Drugs."

Where were the "murders and general lawlessness" in other countries that had even more expansive Wars on Drugs, like Singapore or Taiwan? America's War on Drugs is relatively mild compared to these countries that sentence drug traffickers to death.

[1] http://www.crack-facts.org/historyofcrack.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_epidemic#History

[facetube]

Executing people for nonviolent drug offences is barbaric. Under no circumstances should atrocities like that be held up as an example for others.

[gohrt]

Those countries didn't have their own government propping up the drug trade in order to generate illicit funding for illegal wars and to criminalize and imprison poor black people. USA did.

> these countries that sentence drug traffickers to death.

USA put small-time addicted drug users, in long jail terms. But only if they use crack, the "poor/black people" variant of cocaine, not the (expensive) white-powder variant of cocaine that rich/white people used.