[metadatabad]

It's extremely unsettling that my tax dollars go to waste like this to essentially ruin someone's life. The people now have records and all the unnecessary paperwork to go along with it.

The furthest I would be willing to compromise with this regime (won't call them a proper government) is to allow them to tax our substances. It's better than what they are getting as it is, because all they are doing right now is locking poor, innocent people up.

Prohibition and criminalization of mere substances never has, and will never work for us. Everyone I know who wishes to take drugs does so without as much as a single thought to the law.

[notional]

But this feeds to prison industrial complex and having private prisons in your district is a good way to raise campaign funds from those lobbies. It's in the (certain) lawmakers interests to keep the war on drugs going so they don't lose their own dealer.

[kryogen1c]

> But this feeds to prison industrial complex

i wish people would stop saying this. it draws attention to wealth and corporatism, which is not in any way the problem.

for-profit prisons are a solution to an _already existing_ problem, which is the government and it's legal system generating record numbers of prisoners.

the war on drugs has caused more harm and destruction in america, mexico, and south american drug countries than everything short of the bloodiest wars in history. the scope is staggering. TWOD has racist roots, it widened the schism between police and policed, it entrenched generational poverty in poor neighborhoods by destroying families for non-violent crimes, exploded the prison population, set back the medicinal research of THC and psychedelics, aided and abetted the homelessness problem, and surely more.

the elevator pitch to fixing BLM issues is ending the war on drugs.

EDIT: oh lets not forget no-knock warrants or civil asset forfeiture.

[DenisM]

Re civil forfeiture, I dunno if you saw this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbs_v._Indiana

[kryogen1c]

oh i hadnt seen this, thanks.

what a prime example of how totally fucked the war on drugs is. $225 in drugs, permanently seized his brand new $40k vehicle. has trouble getting a job due to his record, has to borrow a neighbors car once he does.

thank fucking god we can at least put a ceiling on what cops can take from you. this decision is great, but im not sure it makes sense for cops to have to have a means to fine people via asset seizure.

i have a suspicion that at some point in the future, all extra-judicial and extra-legislative asset seizures will be determined excessive.

[dllthomas]

Calling civil asset forfeiture "extra-judicial" seems inaccurate - there is still a court involved, right? It's just civil rather than criminal, so there's a weaker standard of proof (preponderance of evidence, instead of beyond reasonable doubt).

This comment shouldn't be construed as support for civil asset forfeiture, I'm just trying to clarify terminology.