The Drug War seems so out of control and Orwellian at this point, that I unfortunately can't think of any way to stop it, as long as the general public thinks that it's somewhere in the range of "overbearing but necessary" to "annoying and probably evil but doesn't really affect me".
I'm excited by the chinks in the armor that have come with marijuana legalization/decriminalization, and I think once that spreads across much of the US, some of the Drug War will have lost its teeth, but I don't imagine it will make a large dent the surveillance industry.
Now that we have built the infrastructure, conceived of parallel construction, etc there will always be a shadowy enemy lurking in our midst that we need to turn it on. Its kinda like having a giant military-industrial complex. You really can't sustain it without war, yet it has its own momentum and seeks to sustain itself, so it makes war more likely.
How successful is the drug war? The recent headlines related to heroin seem to imply that it's been a failure. Before that there was a meth crisis and before that there was likely something else. Is enforcement actually reducing the negative social impacts of substance abuse? It would be interesting to see the ROI for enforcement.
It is very successful in incarcerating a ton of people and providing lots of money for people involved in it. It's worse than useless (like negative net effect) in terms of protecting society and individuals from the harms of drug abuse.
Coincidentally, there's a measure on the Colorado ballot this year (I voted for it), that removes a state constitutional exception to allow slavery for punishment of convicted criminals.
Slavery, in the Colorado and many other state constitutions, is explicitly forbidden. Colorado, at least, allows an exception for convicted criminals.
I can't believe it's 2016 and I find myself having to say "yup, slavery is bad, let's not do that."
It's hard to protect individuals from something that they're actively looking for. How can you fight drugs if there are so many people willing to buy them?
> Start asking why so many people want to alter their subjective realities
Some years ago I read an interesting book on this, called The Pursuit of Oblivion[1]. In addition to providing a fascinating look at historical drug use across different cultures, the book also makes the general argument that the human drive to alter one's consciousness is as natural and inherent as the drives for food, sex, etc.
Lots of things alter your subjective reality: reading (books, news, Reddit), watching TV and movies, imagination, travel, drugs, art, music, meditation, diversity, etc. The reasons for why people seek them out are just as varied. Not sure why chemical substances used moderately and responsibly get a bad rap...
> It's worse than useless (like negative net effect) in terms of protecting society and individuals from the harms of drug abuse.
I wouldn't say that. For generally law-abiding citizens like me, the lack of availability has done wonders to protect me from drugs. At some point or another in my life, I've been tempted to experiment with the legal drugs (alcohol, tobacco, etc.). I've never been tempted to try LSD or cocaine (for example), because there is currently no legal way to obtain it and I definitely don't feel like engaging in risky activities just to try.
Making all drugs legal and accessible will definitely have a negative impact on one portion of the population (curious people like me). A certain percentage of curious but otherwise law-abiding people will destroy their lives once drugs are legalized.
> Making all drugs legal and accessible will definitely have a negative impact on one portion of the population (curious people like me).
You aren't the same sort of curios. I'm the sort that goes to Amsterdam as a vacation spot. I tried out things when I was younger. Drug education? Mine was in the 80's and 90's. I figured it was a bit ... overblown. The only addictions I've truly had were to nicotine and caffeine, both of which I have today. Completely legal too.
The thing is that it was possible for me to combine the anti-drug propaganda, tone it down some, and balance it with what I saw around me. I asked folks questions about stuff. We can educate, control strength and purity, and invest in treatment programs. We can educate on safety like say we do with alcohol. We can invest in much improved public transportation. And so on.
> A certain percentage of curious but otherwise law-abiding people will destroy their lives once drugs are legalized
I actually think the small percentage whose lives get ruined due to drugs will be smaller than the percentage of lives that are ruined and uprooted due to the war on drugs. Folks have lost houses and their children for pot - or lsd, even if they are as responsible as you can be with kids (relative babysitting for example, or they are at their mom/dad's house). Many have went to jail or prison and this is pretty common.
Most folks don't get addicted to drugs - a few have higher addiction rates, and I think we can minimize that with proper education and investment.
Interesting side note: anesthesiology has the highest substance abuse rate of any medical specialty: over 25% will experience abuse at some point in their career.
"Roughly 10 to 14 per cent of all physicians will be substance-dependent over their lifetime, and the incidence in anesthesia providers is 2.5 times higher than other physicians, according to a five-year outcome study from 16 physician health programs in the US."
> At some point or another in my life, I've been tempted to experiment with the legal drugs (alcohol, tobacco, etc.). I've never been tempted to try LSD or cocaine (for example), because there is currently no legal way to obtain it and I definitely don't feel like engaging in risky activities just to try.
There are a lot of assumptions in there - the biggest one is that, in a legal market, drugs which are currently illegal today would still be more dangerous than drugs which already are legal. That's a big assumption, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest the opposite. For example, the success of diacetylmorphine maintenance strongly suggests that it is just as possible to be a regular user of heroin as it is to be a person who drinks regularly in the evenings but otherwise lives a 'normal' life.
On that note, we dramatically overestimate the danger of drugs like cocaine and dramatically underestimate the danger of drugs like alcohol and caffeine. Alcohol, incidentally, is one of the only drugs for which the withdrawal can literally be fatal[0]. (By contrast, while heroin withdrawal can cause dehydration and other problems, as long as those are treated correctly, the direct effects of the withdrawal are non-fatal)[1].
[0] Benzodiazepines can also cause the same effect.
[1] This does not mean that heroin detoxification is easy or should be taken lightly. Lots of things can still go wrong, and it's one of the reason why detox programs exist. But partly due to the legal status of heroin, we ascribe these to the 'danger' of heroin as a drug, all the while ignoring that alcohol detoxification shares all of these same challenges and many more.
methadone gets you just as high as heroin. the only difference is that its made by in a lab pharmaceuticals companies and controlled by the government. and methadone withdrawal is fatal too.
Benzodiazepines are far more addictive than opioids, and while their abuse has declined a bit, a lot of people still abuse xanax and klonopin, and before that valium. that' a lot of doctors directly and indirectly enabling all those addicts.
why hasn't the war on drugs taken on the opioid and benzo manufacturers? it makes me wonder why pharmaceutical companies and their executives aren't locked up like the drug kingpins they are?
My argument is not offensive, you simply chose to be offended.
> If you need to be protected from your lack of self control then to make the rest of the world suffer is depraved.
Yeah, let's get rid of all the guard rails on mountain roads too. Some of us like the adrenaline of getting near the edge and if you need to be protected from your lack of self control, too bad. My desire to ride the edge should trump your desire for guard rails... right?
I love this argument. If you take the drug the proper way, everyone gets high and has a good time, and it'll be a memory, you'll be convinced it's safe, and you'll treasure for a lifetime.
And see, so drugs are good, right? Only such experiences lead to more such experiences, and on and on.
Addiction doesn't stem from initial bad experiences, but exceptionally good ones. You should fear the latter many times more than the former.
> protect me from drugs.
> definitely have a negative impact
What would you forecast the expected effects of you trying LSD or cocaine would be?
A night of amusing delusions? Heightened spiritual awareness? A one-way ticket to pus-oozing blowjobs in bus station parking lots?
Part of the effectiveness of the Drug War has been to implant a binary perspective on the dangers of drugs: uncompromising, guaranteed, full-scale disaster. They manage to re-arrange everyday peoples' notions of cause and effect to make it seem as if the drugs are the problem leading to emotional disaster. This is a convenient scapegoat.
The real situation is the breakdown and loss of faith in the fully industrialized world is causing more people to want to escape than ever, breakdowns in family structure, financial stress, physical stress, loss of freedom and so on. These things can't be fixed easily and despite all of the drug arrests, people are continuously becoming more desperate.
> What would you forecast the expected effects of you trying LSD or cocaine would be?
For me? Probably not much. But who knows, maybe I'll try it the first time, nothing happens. 10 years later I fall on hard times and then I try it again to try and deal with my situation, this time become addicted, and then make my problems an order of magnitude worse.
Right now a percentage of otherwise law-abiding people have had their lives destroyed by the justice system because they got a little too curious about drugs, and still more by all the crime and conflict that's fueled by prohibition and artificially high prices. And another percentage of people overdose or ingest toxic adulterants because the purity of street drugs is unstable and unregulated.
> Right now a percentage of otherwise law-abiding people have had their lives destroyed by the justice system because they got a little too curious about drugs, and still more by all the crime and conflict that's fueled by prohibition and artificially high prices
That's an argument for decriminalization, not legalization.
I wouldn't say that. For generally law-abiding citizens like me, the lack of availability has done wonders to protect me from drugs. At some point or another in my life, I've been tempted to experiment with the legal drugs (alcohol, tobacco, etc.) I've never been tempted to try LSD or cocaine (for example), because there is currently no legal way to obtain it
Is the law really the only thing that keeps you away from harder drugs? Don't you think that it's your own willpower?
Like you, I'm generally law abiding, but thanks to certain friends, I have easy access to a number of illegal drugs - and it's in an relatively safe environment where my chance of getting caught is quite low.
But despite that access, the only drugs I've ever used in my life are alcohol and marijuana (well ok, I'm literally addicted to caffeine). I've never even tried cigarettes.
It's not the law that keeps me away from certain drugs, I just don't want to do them.
I agree in general. Criminalization keeps a substantial population from using drugs.
> people will destroy their lives once drugs are legalized
I don't think this statement is really a good summary of that, though.
The better example is prohibition. I wouldn't say most people who consume alcohol are destroying their lives, but alcohol has a moderate impact on the liver. Regular use increases liver-related disease. And during the prohibition, liver disease went down starkly.
Say we legalize everything. Even if the additional addiction is negligible, any minor to moderate health detriment spread across a larger population (due to legalization) is a big societal cost.
Anyway, I think there is still a decent argument to be made about individual freedom being worth the cost, and a decent argument to be made about a substitution effect (given how bad we already know alcohol to be, a legal drug just needs to be no worse than alcohol).
Apart from anything else it seems very naive to imagine that you have no access to (currently) illegal drugs. Your son / friend / neighbour / university pal / co-worker could probably supply you with many common substances. Asking a friend or relative isn't normally a "risky activity".
Not to agree with yhtl's general line of argument, but right now, I'm not sure that I know anyone I could ask, especially if part of the implied goal is to get it quickly. In college, I knew half a dozen people, and I'm positive that someone among my coworkers has access (and would be discreet), but I have no idea who. Not knowing who to ask is a practical equivalent of having no one that I can ask.
> I've never been tempted to try LSD or cocaine (for example), because there is currently no legal way to obtain it and I definitely don't feel like engaging in risky activities just to try.
Legality aside, if you are able to post on HN right now, you're likely able to go on one of the many tor-enabled drug marketplaces and buy anything you wish with bitcoins.
> How successful is the drug war? ... It would be interesting to see the ROI for enforcement.
As a jobs program it's probably pretty good. Law enforcement jobs. Prison jobs. Court jobs. Political prizes to argue over and differentiate yourself from the other guy.
As a control program it's fantastic. Look at all the traffic stops, civil asset forfeiture and surveillance they get away with.
In terms of growing the state and creating opportunities for large corporations to make billions of dollars while subjugating a population, I'd say it is overwhelmingly successful.
Criminal activty is a great screen for US covert operations
> This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers.
> The Drug War seems so out of control and Orwellian at this point
A friend of mine, a MBA/PHD fellow who happened to give lectures on one of the most prestige US University, as well as working for very prestige Hedge Fund in NYC, is a great example of this.
In 2007 we was pulled over for a missing stop light. The car was his grandmother and he wasn't aware. As the cop approached him from the right side to look into his glove compartment while he was reaching for registration, the cop noticed a pill on the floor. It happened to be some sort of para-morphine tightly controlled drug that his grandmother used for a pain from her cancer.
No amount of explanation was enough for this cop. Even when his grandma showed up at the police station with bottle of same drug to explain.
Shortly after his life got ruined very quickly. Of course both University and his job found out and he was removed from his duties due to "very strict no drug policies". No amount of explanation was enough. He tried to get another job and over 3 years went from looking jobs at Universities to trying for McDonald waiter, but even they did not want to hire "a druggie".
As he had some savings, it wasn't the worst part. But as he got 6 years parole, being mandatory forced to go to some sort of AA meetings where for 45 minutes a week he had to listen stories of people who couldn't hold a cigarette cause that's how much they got their hands stung by needless, was worst of all nightmares. He even got approached by few drug dealers who happen to often visit those premises to try to recruit new members, and was somewhat glad he had some savings set aside, otherwise he might have gone and really start dealing!
Also he couldn't move out of State until the end of his parole (it would be considered violation) and had to check once a week to the local police station and bring updated drug test, even though he had to pay for those tests from his own pocket. If you think you just come to overcrowded NYC police station and drop a piece of paper at some drop box, then you wrong. Those "visits" usually took about 3-6 hours, depending on how busy they were. Sitting in the line in such a place every week for so long has to be nightmare on its own...
Not to end this tragic story too sad, eventually once his parole ended he moved to his uncle to Alaska and find some peace working on a fish farm. But his drug record will remain in the system for at least next 15 years.
This is really a bizarre story. how does someone not know whose car they are driving, how did the pill get out of the bottle and onto to the floor, that too on passengers side. A cop just happened to spot a tiny pill on the floor? how did the university find out about it, do they run criminal records of employees on a regular basis? Why did the judge even convict this person, just a random pill on car floor is enough to convict someone?
He was aware it was his grandmother's car, he wasn't aware the brake light was out.
I don't know if you've seen elderly people take pills, but they often have poor eyesight coupled with poor motor skills so losing a pill or two is not surprising. We put my elderly dad's pills in a daily pill holder (one for morning pills, one for evening pills) because he had trouble counting them out himself. Though if a pill is taken on demand, like a painkiller, leaving them in the bottle may be more sensible.
As for how it ended up on the passenger's side, I would hope that if grandma is on narcotic painkillers that she's taking them while she is a passenger, not driving.
As for wether or not someone can be convicted for even one small pill, yes, it is possible... for example:
In NJ: Possessing any amount of a schedule I, II, III, or IV CDS incurs a fine of up to $35,000, at least three (and up to five) years in prison, or both. Possessing any amount of a Schedule V CDS incurs a fine of up to $15,000, up to 18 months in prison, or both. Using or being under the influence of any CDS not for the purpose of treating a sickness or injury (as legally prescribed by a licensed physician) incurs a fine of up to $500.
One way is by asking -- if the cop said "Did you know that pill was there", and he says "Yeah, grandma is always dropping pills, I was going to pick them up after I got home".
There, proven that he knew they were present and intended take possession.
It's another example of why you should never talk to the police -- it's not going to help you, and may end up hurting you.
I had a tail light out, and had my car taken apart piece by piece because the officer couldn't find the drugs his dog "alerted" to.
The basis of his bringing a dog was simply stereotyping me. In my state there is no probable cause requirement to call in a K-9 unit and have a dog walk around your vehicle. The dog alerted because they are trained to satisfy their handler's suspicions. He didn't find any drugs because there weren't any.
The story sounds bizarre, but it's the policing in our country that is bizarre, not the story.
how does someone not know whose car they are driving...
As others have said, that wasn't the situation, but I can give an example. Say your car breaks down. You borrow a car - maybe it is your friends, but it is in their parents, grandparents, or spouse's name. Maybe you know the owners name, maybe you only know the first name - but you don't actually know their name.
how did the pill get out of the bottle and onto to the floor, that too on passengers side. A cop just happened to spot a tiny pill on the floor
It is easy for a pill to get on the floor. I've had those blister packs spill out medicine and dropped pills out of a medicine container. And yes, cops do spot things on the floor - especially when there is high contrast, as is likely with a white or light pill and dark carpeting. It wouldn't actually matter if it is a pill - it could have been a small piece of crumpled paper that looked like a pill.
how did the university find out about it, do they run criminal records of employees on a regular basis?
Some of them do run criminal records. He probably needed time off work, both for court and the probation check-ins. They aren't really keen on working around a work schedule. He might have been required by probation to let them know. He might have been required to tell the school because of other laws as well. He might have missed work because of the jail time. In addition, arrest records aren't private.
Why did the judge even convict this person, just a random pill on car floor is enough to convict someone?
Yes, that is enough - even if you drug test as clean. It is assumed that the inside of your car is something you have responsibility over. Though sometimes folks can wind up getting out of this sort of thing, many don't and many take plea deals instead of going to court. Percieving a lack of options and an overworked public defender can do that.
I'm very sorry about your friend, and oppose the DEA, but this is probably something your friend told you to save face if he was wealthy, educated and actually convicted.
Edit: there seems to be some confusion in the replies about my point. This isn't an endorsement of drug laws. We who oppose legal injustice need to have an accurate understanding of how these laws work and what is actually likely to happen in order to be taken seriously, and to prioritize our advocacy for legislation and DoJ rules. I don't believe this story is likely to be true, and that helps me to focus on things that actually happen every day.
Your skepticism is not objectively meaningful so i'll offer some of my own useless skepticism. This is probably a belief which helps you sleep at night. I hope you are never forced to confront the reality of our justice system.
I really appreciate that you're writing this out of concern for people. I am quite concerned about our legal system, probably more than most (like many in this thread who are similarly concerned), and work regularly to improve it.
I would consider the story plausible. I have heard stories of elderly ladies being fined for DUI after being given the wrong drug by a malpracticing doctor and causing an accident. The courts are not a forgiving place.
This I do find plausible. The difference is that the DUI did happen, whereas in the cancer medication case, the pill was not actually taken. There is a legal defense in situations like that called automatism that, for various reasons, is rarely used, even in cases like this. Prejudice against elderly drivers may factor as well. You can read more about automatism here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatism_(law)
I am anti-Drug War on Some People Who Use Some Drugs and a unabashed Balko fanboi, but there's a big hole in this story: the basis for an apparent conviction. Didn't he spend any of his savings on a lawyer?
The criminal justice system seems very lenient towards certain kinds of individual when it comes to minor quantities of drug possession. If the pedigree that the OP mentions is even half true, this guy should have had the charges dropped with a half decent lawyer.
And the worst case scenario should have been a pre-trial intervention program, which is basically a lenient probation for a year or two, after which the charges go away and during which no criminal record exists.
On the other hand, driving a car and not knowing it's your grandmother's is likely I make any cop think you're a lying sack of shit and or high on said drugs.
Sadly not much has changed since 2013 and now that we can (hopefully) move past the Trump train wreck and look towards the future via Clinton's policies, it seems to can expect even more of the same from the next president.
Leaked emails shows she sides with law enforcement regarding encryption, publicly she is calling for an "intelligence surge" as a core part of her national security strategy, and in interviews she still strongly stands by her support for the Patriot Act:
The people who will end up getting appointed to the various leadership roles is the other big question. Hillary's advisers contain many hold-overs from the Bush-Cheney era, including ex-DHS lead Michael Chertoff who strongly supported the TSA full body scanners (made by the company he went on to work for), who I hope aren't given big roles.
Regardless, all of those cyber contractors in DC, Maryland and Virginia must be excited that their gilded age was given a 4yr extension and likely a further expansion. Not that they were ever at much risk of losing it - given the majority of the candidates were hawkish from the start of the primaries, the pull of influential thinktanks, and of course the media, with the NYT - in between fawning over Hillary - publishing daily articles citing 'anonymous intelligence sources' supporting various causes.
There's also been almost entirely silence over surveillance policies from the tech industry/community as far as I can tell. Although typically our industry isn't very political or partisan (until things actually go down like SOPA), so this is not entirely atypical.
Note: most of this is regarding military/defense but it seems to spill over into federal drug and criminal investigations. Drug policies are another big elephant in the room.
>it seems to can expect even more of the same from the next president
This is the saddest thing about this election. Everyone is so distracted by the Trump buffoonery that a Generic Politician (tm) is going to take the reins and continue policies we've been bitter about for years. And most will see this as a "good thing" ("At least it's not Trump!")
To be fair, having a professional political class, having politics infested with large amounts of money, and having a two party system make it pretty sure odds that by the time someone gets to the level of "serious presidential contender" that they want to preserve the status-quo in most of these things.
We did get two decent outsider runs this year, and I do wish Bernie Sanders was mopping the floor with Trump, but there are limits to the amount a President can do when the entire process rewards pay-to-play, incremental change, and preserving business-as-usual.
And, to be fair, it's pretty great that it's not Trump.
But yes, it was a horribly sad election. In some ways HRC represents everything that is wrong about politics in the US, and Trump represents everything that is wrong about, well, pretty much everything.
Why are you so upset over Trump? Is it because he is mean to people he doesn't agree with? How do you hold Bernie in a higher esteem? Trump has a far better track record.
Trump gets blame, Hillary gets blame, Dubya gets blame but hello, what about the guy who is in charge for the past 8 years, will he be held accountable?
A lot of people see it as a rare opportunity to ditch the current establishment.
A lot of people know the repercussions of mentioning anything that sounds like affinity toward Trump.
A lot of people know the inefficiencies in the Republican nomination process and the inefficiencies in the Democratic nomination process that promote the dichotomy being presented.
The drug war is not about drugs, never was, and never will be. Only really stupid, foolish idiots think it's about drugs and those people are used to carry out its atrocities (certainly not the first time in history that's happened). I'm tired of mincing words: If one supports the drug war, one supports murder, slavery, hate, and oppression. It's not possible to support the drug war and be a decent, moral human being.
I'd like to take this opportunity to enumerate some of the benefits of legalizing all drugs:
1. Instant 50% reduction in prison population. More than half of all prisoners are there for drug crimes [1]. It costs 20-40k/year to house a prisoner [2]. There are approximately 2.2 million prisoners the US [3]. That equates to an instantaneous savings of $6.6 billion.
2. Elimination of the DEA. Instantaneous savings of $2 billion [3].
3. Massive reduction in crimes that are caused by drugs. E.g. theft, assault, etc. Personally, i'd estimate that as making up the bulk of the other 50% of all crime. Of course, I can't back that up with any data, but it makes logical sense to me that the majority of crime that happens is in one way or another connected to drugs.
4. Drug cartels disappear essentially overnight. Yes, they might switch to kidnapping or extortion or something. But those are not hyperscale businesses. They would evaporate to the point of irrelevance almost immediately.
5. Street gangs disappear or dramatically lose influence. Why fight a turf war if there's no money to be made on the turf? Sure, some will still happen. But they'll be dramatically reduced and the ones that remain will be severely underfunded.
6. Police and the communities they serve will no longer be enemies. Drug use is a victimless crime, and people resent being shaken down and arrested on suspicion of drug dealing and/or using. If drugs were legalized, police would only arrest people who are antagonizing others. This would go an enormous way towards healing the divide between police and citizens.
7. No more impure, uncertain drugs. Things would be labelled correctly and their doses standardized. This should dramatically reduce accidental overdose deaths, and improve the health and wellbeing of addicts by eliminating the nasty stuff their drugs are cut with.
8. Reliable, cheap supply for addicts. Being an addict involves an enormous amount of wasted time and money. It's extraordinarily difficult to hold a job, because just getting the drugs takes lots of time, waiting, and exposure to risk. Now, there are other reasons it's hard to hold a job as an addict, but these are big factors.
9. Massive reduction in social stigma around addiction and drug use. This is a double-edged sword, of course. But I think on balance it'd be a good thing. It would make it easier and less shameful for addicts to seek treatment. Taking it out of the underworld would make families more aware of their member's possibly spiraling problems, and give them an earlier opportunity to do something about it.
10. The way i'd like this to be structured would be that the government would sell these drugs in unmarked shops at essentially their marginal cost of production (which is extremely low). They wouldn't advertise, obviously, and you could implement reasonable age controls by checking ID in a similar way to alcohol. Now, that system is imperfect obviously. But that's ok I think. It's not like kids don't have access to drugs now. Monitoring and maintaining open lines of communication with these people will allow them to be studied and given access to treatment options and help. They can be guided into jobs and offered medical help with detox.
I say all of this as a former heroin addict. It's easy availability would make it somewhat harder for me not to use it. On balance though, it seems extremely clear to me that it's the right thing to do. The synergy of all the policing/crime benefits would be extraordinarily profound. The enormous reduction in crime and improved relationship between police and their communities would make police even more efficient at stopping what remaining crime there is. It would not surprise me in the slightest to see something like a 75-80% reduction in all crime within the first couple of years.
That isn't even to address the benefits to narco-states like Mexico. There it would be truly transformative. Terrorism would lose its largest funding source [5]. Border patrol agents would stop facing well-funded adversaries. The civil war in Colombia would stop. Corruption in government would be reduced to standard corporatism. The list is just endless, and it's not like drugs aren't available now.
What, really, is the marginal harm of making them slightly more available, when weighed against all of this? In my opinion, the drug war and its effects are the greatest ongoing crime against humanity in the world right now.
For the most part, I completely agree with you. I'm supportive of drugs being legalized and sold - even the drugs I wouldn't personally do. I do think your first two points are slightly flawed, however.
1. Instant 50% reduction in prison population. More than half of all prisoners are there for drug crimes [1]. It costs 20-40k/year to house a prisoner [2]. There are approximately 2.2 million prisoners the US [3]. That equates to an instantaneous savings of $6.6 billion.
It will cut new admittance to prisons. Anyone currently serving time would need their sentences pardoned or legislation passed that allows for their released. Over time, still savings.
2. Elimination of the DEA. Instantaneous savings of $2 billion.
We'll still need some enforcement of the controls we put in place, though we can do it through other branches -likely something like a combination of the FDA, USDA, and the ATF. Lesser cost savings, but much better sort of spending.
Furthermore, I'm definitely into having marked shops for some drugs. I think smoke shops/coffee shops (for pot and hash) would be an improvement to the culture and give some alternative to bars. I'm fine with some hallucinogens being sold in a marked shop - and anything else that proves to be about as safe. I'd also make sure anyone working in the shops - either marked or unmarked - had some training or have training levels - basic knowledge for cashier with more advanced knowledge person on premisis at all times.
> We'll still need some enforcement of the controls we put in place, though we can do it through other branches -likely something like a combination of the FDA, USDA, and the ATF. Lesser cost savings, but much better sort of spending.
Under a partial legalization regime, yes. Personally i'm thinking they should all be legalized, though. The drug shops can be self-funding by charging slightly above marginal cost.
> Furthermore, I'm definitely into having marked shops for some drugs. I think smoke shops/coffee shops (for pot and hash) would be an improvement to the culture and give some alternative to bars. I'm fine with some hallucinogens being sold in a marked shop - and anything else that proves to be about as safe. I'd also make sure anyone working in the shops - either marked or unmarked - had some training or have training levels - basic knowledge for cashier with more advanced knowledge person on premisis at all times.
Ya I agree. I'd like to see the 'less harmful' drugs, like marijuana and hallucinogens completely legalized. Like, you can buy them at 711 legalized. For 'harder' stuff like cocaine, meth, heroin, et al, i'd like to see them sold by the unmarked government-run drug shops that don't advertise or try to encourage consumption in any way. That feels like the best balance of interests.
For the first bit - I actually meant with full legalisation in government run shops with that. What you describe - I'm pretty fully in agreement with. Just details.
I mean, they'll have to have ways to verify potency in production. Heroin, if injected, will probably get some oversight like a drug. A infrastructure for the stores - I'd imagine in the states it'd be contracted out to someone private, but that still costs money. Spot tests for potency. USDA would wind up involved in the actual plant base: I don't know who covers imports from other countries where it is also legal. Then you have tax collection, cleanliness standards, and things like that.
Overall, I think it would save a good amount of money - especially when you consider 5-10 years out. The better part is that once it levels out some, the costs seem more are more predictable.
Edit: Accidentally deleted to much on a rewording, and added it back in.
I agree with the entirety of your post, but I'm unsure what can be done practically. Can you recommend an organization that is pushing for your positions? It may take a long time, but similar to marijuana legalization, it's gotta start somewhere.
Why not, once the digital age started, the price of storing records has dropped dramatically. Yea, it was really expensive back in the day, but don't forget how much we paid for phone service back then too.
>Why not, once the digital age started, the price of storing records has dropped dramatically.
How come your default is "why not"? Shouldn't there be a justification for indefinitely storing these types of records? And "might commit a crime in the future" doesn't qualify.
>Shouldn't there be a justification for indefinitely storing these types of records?
As the devils advocate, why should their be?
Also, deleting stuff in the business world is a major pain in the ass. Do we delete it after X years? What if part of that data is involved in a long term lawsuit, how do we only delete the part that is not? Will the information have historical value at some point?
And the big one, the telephone company has worked with our governments for decades sharing this information. The real question is "How long has the .gov been paying the telcos for these records". This is probably why they are stored forever.
Ohh that BS war on drugs again! How come banks get to get away with measly fines for laundering cartel drug money for do long? 100s of billions of dollars per year of drug money flow through the banking system, sure its profitable to pay the fines when you have so much guaranteed cash flow every year. Banks Get caught red handed laundering drug money. Banks don't Get shut down, CEO s don't go to jail?! Wtf? Ohh no messing with banks is hard , let's just wiretap every potential criminal in the country citizens won't do anything to resist this any way. They will just swallow this BS war on drugs story. I'm just a regular citizen I got nothing to hide!
Ironically, even as you protest the war on drugs, you seem to defend its expansion and hardening. There's always people we don't like, and brutality always seems more reasonable if it's against them. That's what got us into the current mess.
Scarface was not too far from the truth. Except these days they don't bring in bags of money through the front door.... Well I take it back. May be in Mexico it it's still the case! Lol
"The Northwest HIDTA has recently utilized Hemisphere to track known Canadian phones roaming in the U.S. on the AT&T network" -- we are really going to have to do something blatant and disrespectful for Canada to finally hate us, aren't we? This seems well outside the scope of the DEA. Monitoring the phones of citizens of other countries can't lead to good/happy things.
What is fishy about this, if anything, is that if it's supposed to be a hit on AT&T there was a much more recent accounting of their troubling shenanigans in facilitating parallel construction just yesterday:
Piece in the Daily Beast says it's not just Drug Agents, but that it's also used by local municipalities and to investigate medicare fraud among others.
However, AT&T’s own documentation—reported here by The Daily Beast for the first time—shows Hemisphere was used far beyond the war on drugs to include everything from investigations of homicide to Medicaid fraud.
Hemisphere isn’t a “partnership” but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company’s massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public.
I have easy solution to really cripple global drug trade. Stop drug money flows = cripple drug flows. If a bank gets caught with drug money laundering - all executives loose bonuses and golden parachutes, their salaries go down to average household salary for that year. Done! Watch them Then really clean up the banking system in a couple of years!
Banks launder drug money. It is a fact. HSBC, BofA, JPM ... all of them are involved.
Fines clearly dont work. We have drug epidemic currently in the united states. What other solutions do you suggest that will stop the drug money flows? I say bend over the banks - but no one of course will do that ;)
The best places for intervention: 1. banks and offshore accounts (full transparency) 2.Transportation via private planes. Make it impossible to move large amounts of money using non transparent mechanisms. Make it impossible to move drugs via private planes. (most large drug shipments are moved via private airplanes).
I'm excited by the chinks in the armor that have come with marijuana legalization/decriminalization, and I think once that spreads across much of the US, some of the Drug War will have lost its teeth, but I don't imagine it will make a large dent the surveillance industry.
Now that we have built the infrastructure, conceived of parallel construction, etc there will always be a shadowy enemy lurking in our midst that we need to turn it on. Its kinda like having a giant military-industrial complex. You really can't sustain it without war, yet it has its own momentum and seeks to sustain itself, so it makes war more likely.