[tokenadult]

"We called on governments to adopt more humane and effective ways of controlling and regulating drugs. We recommended that the criminalization of drug use should be replaced by a public health approach." So the request here is not to say that everyone should use drugs however they wish without regulation, but rather that use of certain drugs should no longer be subject to criminal penalties. A few years ago, Richard Branson's blog post on drug regulation[1] similarly pointed to reducing criminal penalties without saying that drugs should be entirely unregulated, by looking at the example of Portugal. (How is Portugal doing these days?)

The state I live in in the United States, Minnesota, has a low rate of incarceration in large part because it has a low rate of criminal prosecution of drug offenses, with even the small number of persons convicted of drug offenses being unlikely to do time in prison. But this state has a thriving private industry of drug treatment centers, drawing in people from all over the world who want to become clean, and responses to drug use often include judicially ordered drug treatment. Stopping a war on drugs waged by the police and courts and prisons doesn't have to include giving up on discouraging drug use.

[1] http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/time-to-end-the-war-on...

AFTER EDIT: I'll use the last bit of my edit window to post two more links to news reports about the experience of Portugal. These links are in chronological order, and newer than Richard Branson's blog post.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-01/news/ct-met-po...

[ryanatkn]

"Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-af...

[mgkimsal]

"Stopping a war on drugs waged by the police and courts and prisons doesn't have to include giving up on discouraging drug use."

There's big business in prisons and law enforcement. There's also big business in rehab and pharma. Getting the monied interests to shift their focus from one of incarceration to one of health shouldn't be this hard. We just need to shift dollars from one big industry to another. Perhaps pharma and health companies need bigger lobbying efforts?

[rayiner]

Man the "money" argument for the drug war is so stupid. Private prisons are a small minority of prisons even today, and were very uncommon in the 1980s and 1990s when the drug war really heated up. Blaming monied interests is a cop out here. They are just the opportunists. Its "just say no!" moms and dads, teachers and school officials, that keep the drug war alive.

[pyre]

I would throw in the prison workers' unions as 'monied interests' even if their members are public employees. At least in California, they are a huge lobby, and always push for longer prison sentences in legislation.

[criley2]

Private prisons are a small minority. However, we do pay an ENORMOUS AMOUNT of money to support our INSANE prison population, and a lot of that money does indeed go to private hands through contracting.

The money argument is not stupid. It's big business, even in public prisons.

[nostromo]

Do you know that you can place emphasis on a word on HN by surrounding it in *?

[canvia]

" All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses or manufacturing textiles, shoes and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day."

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/21st_century_chain_gangs/

[crusso]

To be fair it's a complete puritan/authoritarian culture thing. Most of the media avoids tackling the issue as well. If it wouldn't be for John Stossel's show, I doubt that there would be any news program talking about the positive outcome of Portugal and the negative aspects of the drug war itself.

[adventured]

And it perfectly matches up with the numerous other authoritarian aspects of American culture that have arisen over the last few decades.

- Criminalizing anything and everything they can

- SWAT teams abusing and murdering at will, serving warrants with extreme violence

- militarization of police forces

- the espionage state, from the NSA to the FBI

- destruction of justice, through techniques such as parallel construction

- the treatment of all individuals as potential terrorists

- the spread of the TSA and DHS throughout American society, whether it's needed or not, including trial runs of setting up checkpoints on interstates and at sporting events

- military projection by the federal government, war and bombings without any authorization by Congress

- droning, the murder of civilians anywhere and at any time just based on supposedly trying to kill terrorists

- trial balloons for arresting people based on free speech issues, eg saying something on Facebook

- using the espionage act, among other laws, to prosecute leakers and journalists; and or otherwise intimidate journalists, including with illegal spying (tapping the phones of the AP / Fox)

and on and on it goes

[blisterpeanuts]

Not to take away from a valid point, but the McCarthyism of the 1950s was probably equally bad if not worse. And going back further, racial and gender inequality was institutionalized throughout American society. Ask a black man who lived in the 1930s-40s how arbitrarily authoritarian the government was toward him and his neighbors--it was pretty grim. And going back a few decades further, we had slavery, indentured servitude, lynchings, duels and honor killings, etc.

Freedom and equality in America has always been a work in progress, in my estimation.

[Roboprog]

Point taken. It seems like we have been moving backwards since about 1980, though. (Using "Reagan" as the poster child for friendly fascist stupidity, whether or not Gen. Francisco Franco is still valiantly struggling to remain dead)

[CamperBob2]

What's your opinion on the influence wielded by the prison guards' union in California? I'm led to believe it's disproportionately active in crime-and-punishment politics, but haven't seen much solid data.

[chongli]

It's more than just prison owners. What would happen to the DEA? Hell, huge numbers of local police would be unnecessary without the drug war.

[stretchwithme]

And there wouldn't be any justification for seizing people's property before they are even proven guilty, if ever. Not that it ever was justified.

The Netherlands closed prisons after it decriminalized drugs.

Personally, I think this should be decided at the neighborhood level, like many social issues. If people are ok with it where they live, it should be allowed. If they don't want it around their kids, that should be possible as well.

[DerpDerpDerp]

> If they don't want it around their kids, that should be possible as well.

Restricting other people's rights because "THINK OF MY CHILDREN!" is how we got in to a lot of these messes in the first place.

I mean, what if your daughter got high on the marijuanas and dated a Negro? The shame it would bring on the family!

[stretchwithme]

Thee is always some rational for curtailing freedom. For example, some people want to prevent me from lying down on the ground, just because some cars want to use the space to go places.

The line must be drawn somewhere. We all draw it at our own front door for example.

I think the problem is that shared spaces are usually created and governed by coercion rather than by mutual agreement governed by a contract.

When you have a contract with your neighbors, the rules are in the contract. To change it requires mutual agreement. The contract can also end. I think this is a more appropriate arrangement than forcing people to live a certain way.

If your neighborhood wants nudity and crack cocaine and bike only trails instead of car traffic, that should be your business. People that want those things can move to these neighborhoods. And those that don't can avoid them.

This seems like more freedom than we currently allow. Freedom to do and freedom to avoid. Good fences make good neighbors and this just seems like a logical extension of that.

[justinpombrio]

Maybe they could keep us safe instead?

[chongli]

We don't need that many to do that.

[deelowe]

If any...

[betterunix]

"Man the "money" argument for the drug war is so stupid"

Not if you are an alcohol, tobacco, or pharmaceutical company.

[latj]

Rehab and rehab drugs are already built into the prison industrial complex (in the U.S.).

But there is no incentive to "cure" people. A new therapy/drug just needs to appear effective long enough for the industry to come up with the next wave of therapies and drugs.

The real cure for rampant drug use is better schools and a move away from the growing gap between the haves and have nots. Fix that and you'll notice a change in one generation.

And the way to fix those things is by repairing a failed democracy so that public funds can be used for the good of the public instead of funneled into private hands.

And the way to repair a failed democracy is through a healthy media, dissent, active citizens willing to disrupt the status quo.

[spikels]

Glen Greenwald wrote a nice piece on drug decriminalization In Portugal back in 2009.

http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-decriminal...