If decriminalization relies on a whole raft of practically infeasible (or very expensive) associated programs to make it work, is it really a viable strategy?
This embeds a lot of assumptions without offering any proof. The programs may or may not be too expensive to be practically feasible, but without supporting evidence there's nothing concrete to talk about.
We tried this cruel inhumane expensive policy for the decades called thew war on drugs and it was one of the worst failures in US history
The US has spent more than a trillion on the War on Drugs, we should use a fraction of that on housing and healthcare, instead of thinking about restarting the trillion dollar war on drugs
So what, we continue empowering our state-sponsored thugs to harass, detain, charge and imprison more and more people for the use of substances we've decided are too bad for them, while we continue selling cigarettes, alcohol, etc. to everyone else?
Decriminalization is the only ethical way to move forwards. For decades now we have abused our own populace and those of other countries to the point of parody in the name of this prohibition, and, shock of shocks, it has failed, just like prohibition did, with the added benefit of we have the documents from the Nixon administration who were quite ready to say, behind closed doors anyway, that the entire point from the start of the war on drugs was openly to fuck with hippies and black people at scale, and that was before the CIA was flooding ghettos across the country with drugs to find/launder money for their operations.
None of this has ever been about the fucking drugs, it has always been yet another cudgel wielded by the state to further it's own ends. IF we decide we need to regulate substances based on actual scientific documented evidence, not puritan sensibilities of sin and vice, then so be it and we can figure that out after the fact. But until then, the entire existing systemic infrastructure for it is frankly, poisoned. It is not fit for the task it is entrusted and should be destroyed.
Prohibition was a massive success where did you get the impression it didn't work? Nothing has ever reduced domestic violence or alcohol related deaths as much. Even after being repealed it fundamentally changed how Americans interact with alcohol; how much people drink is still massively below what is was pre-prohibition.
> Burn it down, and start over.
They did and the whole article is just about how much worse it made everything. Not just visible issues or people complaining about moral issues but OD deaths surged.
> Prohibition was a massive success where did you get the impression it didn't work? Nothing has ever reduced domestic violence or alcohol related deaths as much.
It also more or less created organized crime in the United States, and laid the foundations for every illicit-business-at-scale that would follow it. Of course it reduced alcoholism: alcohol was illegal, and anything made illegal will be necessarily reduced in availability. But it didn't get rid of it, and it made the alcohol that remained far more dangerous:
- The economics of smuggling meant that lighter alcohol like beer and wine were far less profitable to transport than hard liquors like whiskey, bourbon, vodka, and moonshine. SO MUCH moonshine.
- Because the aforementioned products were illegal, there was now zero government oversight involved in their production and distribution, meaning you often had no idea what the fuck you were actually buying and if it was any good, or hell, even safe to consume. Much like the war on drugs, and, if you wanna get REAL political, the fall of Roe v Wade, making it illegal, be it booze, smokes, pot, meth, or abortion doesn't make it not happen: it makes it unsafe.
- Worse still, the legal issues meant that if a particular establishment was selling unsafe liquor, you couldn't do shit about it because, again it's illegal and any report to authorities about the lack of safety put you in legal hot water. This meant the enforcement that did exist was basically down to the aforementioned organized crime rings, who didn't bother with a jury trial, they'd just put you in a hole out in the woods.
And, naturally, no taxes are paid on all this commerce that is very much still happening, and is riskier to the people engaged in it, to suit the puritan sensibilities of a loud minority. Which is probably a big part of why it was no longer the law of the land. And that's all before you consider the fact that it flies directly in the face of all the individual freedom that this country's supposed to be built on in the first place (not that that's usually true, but in such matters, I think we should strive for it.).
The treatment / rehab / injection / addict housing programs (and more) that are required when you decide that having people use drugs isn't something that they believe they will be punished for anymore and no longer exercise some measure of self-caution to avoid falling into. The near-hospital-like facilities and salaries of people you have to pay for to replace that self- or state-policing, and now have to clean up after those who have been given free license to use drugs, and get them back on some productive life track.
As GP was alluding to, all the things that require spending $ on, which people aren't apparently willing to spend after the symbol of voting for decriminalization. Which, if they're a mandatory part of decriminalization, but people never end up paying for, mean that decriminalization isn't actually a viable policy.
I was really hoping that for once we might have a reasoned debate about decriminalisation (or not). I can see we are yet again going down the same route of many people simply relaunching their pro/anti positions.
If you ever despair of politics, this is why; this is politics done badly.
But it doesn't. The troublemakers are a tiny percentage of the population. I guarantee the local cops know every single one of them. But there's no mechanism for diverting them from making trouble so here we are.