[yznovyak]

> How many do you propose jailing?

How many street shitters do you have? How many people do you have who are shooting heroin publicly on the train station? Starting with those sounds like a nobrainer to me.

> first adopt a contrived definition of what a "drug" is

Sure, my statement would be incorrect if you change the definition of words I'm choosing. But you very well know that in this context I've meant drugs that are defined by the UN as illegal: https://www.unodc.org/documents/scientific/Terminology_and_I...

Sorry, I don't understand how can you claim that drug prohibition doesn't work when you have countries where it in fact it does successfully work. Without resorting to redefining words, how do you explain Japan or Singapore? Is X prohibited in Japan? Yes. Is the prohibition enforced? Yes. How easy would it be to acquire X there? Very very hard. Did the prohibition work in this case? Yes. Substitute X with weed, LSD, or heroin, or your ILLEGAL drug of choice. If the prohibition can't possibly work, how do those academics explain that? Why is that prohibition of alcohol was successful in Kuwait? You'll probably argue with word "successful", but for the sake of argument lets count drunkards on the street or talk about drunk-driving related stats: there are effectively 0 of those. Do I agree with alcohol prohibition? Fuck no. Do I agree with drug prohibition? Fuck no too. Would prohibition always fail? No.

I haven't read the exact books you recommend, but I've read other books on this subject and frankly find their argument lacking. Way too often their authors cherry pick arguments.

One of the books on this topic was David Nutt's "Drugs Without the Hot Air". David Nutt is also proclaimed as world drug expert, but his book is riddled with huge amount of lies by omission. The one egregious example was him citing Kary Mullis (the Nobel laureate for inventing Polymerase Chain Reaction) saying that without LSD he couldn't have invented LSD. What Nutt forgets to mention is that Mullis is fucking lunatic who denies existence of AIDS, denies climate change, believes in astrology, sincerely describes his encounter with glowing green raccoon (The raccoon said: “Good evening, doctor.”). Like yo ... I'm not a doctor, but maybe this has something to do with copious amounts of LSD the guy consumed? If there is even a slight chance that Mullis' mental state was caused by the drugs maybe it was worth mentioning and not just cherry picking praise?

I was able to catch his lie just because I happened to known about Kary Mullis beforehand. So this example shows that David Nutt is, in fact, very biased (duh). What else did he lie about? Why should I trust him with his claims about something else?

[jMyles]

I agree that Kuwait is a much better example. Now, look at what Kuwait (or Bahrain, currently considering similar laws) has had to sacrifice to achieve something more closely resembling general prohibition of psychoactive compounds (although it's note-worthy that opioids are legal in both countries with a prescription; I'll wager that they are widely used as a substitute for "recreational" drugs).

Do you want your country (or mine) to be like Kuwait or Bahrain? If you can agree that that's the sacrifice required to make prohibition "work" - is it worth it?

FWIW, this style of governance is probably not possible in the United States partly because armed resistance is trivial. So it might be a moot point for the purposes of considering the ramifications of genuine enforcement.

It sounds like you and I agree on the capricious enforcement paradigm inherent in US drug policy. What I think that you haven't explored is why it is this way. That's really the heart of the matter.

> I've meant drugs that are defined by the UN as illegal: https://www.unodc.org/documents/scientific/Terminology_and_I....

Yes, and those too are chosen for political purposes, to give the appearance of legitimacy to an argument that doesn't make sense in the real world.

> David Nutt is also proclaimed as world drug expert, but his book is riddled with huge amount of lies by omission.

Indeed. David Nutt is not the kind of "expert" I'm talking about. He is perhaps an expert in some of the "hard science" components of drug use and abuse (although even there, his activities have called his expertise into question). He is not an expert in matters of drug policy and the history of drug policy, as was made all too evident during his short stint in government.

If you want to read or hear convincing material from drug policy experts, look to Ethan Nadelmann, Kevin Zeese, Tom Angell, Irina Alexander, Rick Doblin, Jim Gray, Mike Gray (no relation), Michelle Alexander (no relation), etc. These people have committed their lives to researching the specific societal implications of various drug policies, and I think they make deeply convincing arguments rooted in fact and sound theory.