The problem with these kinds of articles is that they make the assumption that governmental drug fighting efforts are sincere. They probably aren't that sincere to their original intent now. Like most other government agencies, they start out with some presumption of sincerity, but then the old case of "the means becomes the ends" sets in. Reminds me of what Tom Wolfe meant when the lawyer character in Bonfire of the Vanities labelled the line of criminals waiting at the back of the courthouse as "chow."
The DEA will probably never go away, because it keeps people employed for one thing, and helps large pharmaceutical companies keep small pharm companies (makers of class II, III drugs with expired patents) from building a legitimate enough business that would help these smaller companies spend money on new drug research. Keeping drugs illegal is good business; it has less to do with discouraging illicit drug use.
The problem with these kinds of articles is that they make the assumption that governmental drug fighting efforts are sincere. They probably aren't that sincere to their original intent now.
I don't quite understand your usage of the word "sincere". As an ER nurse that's worked in the ghetto of Chicago, I have worked alongside many law enforcement officers. The thinking that hard drugs (cocaine, heroine, crack, meth) are bad and should be off the streets is a sincere and fairly universal belief. The majority of the efforts that I've seen first hand in getting these drugs off the streets are well intentioned and sincere albeit ineffective and futile.
The DEA will probably never go away, because it keeps people employed for one thing, and helps large pharmaceutical companies keep small pharm companies (makers of class II, III drugs with expired patents) from building a legitimate enough business that would help these smaller companies spend money on new drug research. Keeping drugs illegal is good business; it has less to do with discouraging illicit drug use.
Wow, that's a really cynical point of view, and sounds very conspiratorial.
Mind you, I would have little problems with legalization of many drugs that are strictly controlled now. I've administered cocaine and very strong morphine derivatives to patients for years. I've also lost track of how many people's lives I've helped save from heroine OD's. People make choices to kill themselves with alcohol. They can also choose to kill themselves with cocaine as far as I'm concerned. If cocaine were as cheap and abundant as alcohol, there wouldn't be as much crime as far as I'm concerned.
But the idea that Big Pharma is in collusion with the DEA to keep certain classes of drugs is silly as far as I'm concerned. A much simpler explanation is that a large percentage of the population thinks that these substances are evil or too dangerous to be freely available.
You find quite of bit of support for legalizing marijuana on the Coasts, but even among the drug legalization crowd, I haven't really heard too many people suggesting that morphine/heroine derivatives like Vicodin and Oxycontin, or stimulants like cocaine be sold freely like alcohol or nicotine. I don't believe that our society is ready to accept that.
Honestly I think the whole reason for the "war on drugs" is to justify domestic surveillance and wire tapping.
You make a valid point that it also has become it's own end, but I also think it's much easier to have strong and assertive domestic law enforcement when you can justify it by claiming they are "fighting the war on drugs".
You know, I can't help but be reminded of the movie Layer Cake ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375912/ ), where the main character, a drug dealer kingpin, points out that drugs will be legal some day, and that people like him are just ahead of the curve as far as making a business out of giving people the drugs they want.
Thinking of it from this angle, if drugs were to indeed be legalised (as in, like cigarettes - not just decriminalised), the possibilities for innovation, product development, etc, would be pretty enormous. You want to build a product that people just keep coming back to? Here it is.
Sure, eventually, this market would become like food or, at best, cigarettes - with smaller margins, and not much innovation. But it would take a while, I imagine, and in the meantime, there would be a lot of potential innovations, experimentations, etc.
If you take cigarettes into account, notice how much processing and additives companies add to a standard cigarette and how much engineering goes into growing the actual tobacco plant. If drugs were legalized, all that would be rolled into the `drug market'.
I don't do anything, but I still think the current drug policy is extremely sub-optimal. What worries me though, is when corporations get the green card to manufacture drugs like pot, all that untested engineering, preservatives and additives that are intended to make it more effective make their way into what people consume. If you think about it, mostly all current drug production is as 'organic' as it gets (as far as I know at least).
No joke, I watched that movie (for the second time) tonight. It's a must-see. Easily the most "beautiful" crime movie I've ever seen. Every shot is just so aesthetically pleasing, yet you never lose touch with the danger and nastiness of the situations in the film.
My advice would be to stop referring to it with the loaded term "war" and start thinking about dealing with it in the fine grained way a problem with this many aspects requires. Using "war" for drugs both dilutes the term when applied to real horrible armed conflict and turns what should be a measured response to a sociological problem into a comic book farce with swat teams armed like soldiers busting in on teenagers at parties.
Most of the problems come from the comical binary approach currently applied that treats pot the same as PCP.
That's why I had such a big problem with the "war on terror". It came across as political spin. And implied that America was the superhero saving the world from the evil terrorists, instead of just reacting to a perceived threat.
This article is very well-written, well-thought-out, and interesting to hackers. (Do any hackers really want to live somewhere where the government tells you what you can and can't eat?)
So while it might appeal to Reddit for the "legalize weed" angle, it appeals to us for the points it brings up, and its explanation thereof.
Agreed. The only thing novel here is that it's The Economist saying it. Which means that HN has gotten to the point where people are only upvoting as a way to encourage others to read articles expressing viewpoints they agree with.
Nah, I downmodded you because you used the "I'll probably get downmodded for this" line.
Also, this is a fine article -- it's well-written and makes some points that are novel (to me, at least). The fact that it's espousing one of the stances that redditors tend to blindly support is irrelevant.
The thing that irks me most about discussions on the internet like this regarding the illegal drug trade, is that this is just "intellectual" conversation to most. People are dying and families are being destroyed. Blame the system, argue that it's broken, or whatever, but don't even consider taking individual responsibility, which would start with saying no.
I have spent a decent amount of time in and around the drug community and one thing I've noticed is that many drug dealers are actually very bright and talented individuals. Were it a legal product, they would be entrepreneurs. There are many aspects of accounting, logistics, and supply chain management that go into being a continually successful purveyor of recreational drugs. It's a fickle industry - made significantly worse by the fear of legal repercussion.
Unfortunately, things being how they are, some are forced to continue this risky lifestyle because legitimate jobs are getting harder and harder to come by and "weed dealer" doesn't really look that good on paper.
Now I'm not saying dealers are these savants backed into a corner by an oppressive government, but the organization of drug trade is actually deeply interesting, if only because it is illegal.
As long as as an employer, I could test my employees for drug use, and as long as as a patient, I can be assured that my doctor is not a crack addict, and as long as as a driver and a pedestrian, I can be somehow assured that no one is driving or crossing the street while intoxicated, I'm for the legalization.
The article doesn't go far enough! Governments should take the confiscated drugs they seize and give the stuff to addicts for free, with counselling to try and kick the habit. Think about it - devalue the product to the point the illegal importers can't make a profit at worst and not able to pay their suppliers at best and the illegal trade will fade away. Also, if addicts can get it for free, then there is less incentive to commit other crimes to fund the habit.
Legalization though probably not the ideal solution, makes sense. There are some decent examples out there today: ala. Amsterdam. Steven Levitt's book Freakonomics, does a great job of illustrating the elemental business like structures behind the crack-cocain outfits in Chicago; sprinkle in a bit of legitimate legal leeway and you have the potential of creating a regulated industry that pays taxes. The economy is in the gutter; every bit helps?
This is an academic view of the problems. The reality is different in each region, even in each block.
After Soviet Union was collapsing, we've got this so-called free market (free from a regulation of the goverment). First, we got unlimited supply of the low-quality alcohol, after some failed attempts of the soviet goverment to combat drunkness.
The result? Almost 1/5 of population were died in 10 years with direct or indirect involvement of alcohol consumption. The cases of the mental degradation and illness were never counted. But the next generations afrer looking at their animal-like fathers and mothers, at least trying to avoid the booze.
The heroine problem is almost the same, but more brutal and fast-going. After you saw several tens of the lethal cases you will try to stop, and even with some success.
I think (as a person who actually did it) that the most effective solution is the natural one - when you saw the results, you, sooner or later, will try to figure out the cause.
And what people or goverment can do is to show the results to the youths, to educate them, because they just trying to imitate an adults - in our case - tired and hopeless creatures, who become happy (actually just relaxed) for very short periods of time with booze and sigarettes.
And be sure, there never was a problem to get any stuff among a low-income and uneducated. And never will.
This would probably work for about 1 month. After everyone finished reeling in horror from the senseless murders of many of their families and loved ones, some subset of the people would quickly realize that all the competition had just been eliminated from the drug market, rendering it extremely profitable and lucrative. Time to stop whatever they were doing to start producing and selling drugs instead.
There are indeed places where drug dealing or use is punishable with death.
These places still have pervasive drug use -- in fact, greater use than places without such penalties.
How much more severe can you be? Seems like immediate death doesn't deter drug use. Does that idea still make sense to you? Or perhaps in all of those places it just hasn't been done correctly yet?
Prohibition (which took a constitutional amendment, btw) had zero effect on alcohol use -- it actually probably encouraged it and the organized crime that came with it. We're still cleaning that mess up.
Anything you put into your body changes the way your body and brain operate -- including tap water. So everything is a drug. It's just a matter of degree. I remember hearing about kids in the 60s who smoked pot laughing about their parents who were way more hooked on valium. In fact, misuse of legal drugs is much more pervasive than illegal drug use. We live in a society where you pop a pill for everything.
Nope -- shooting folks doesn't make much sense: unless you just don't like people and want to get rid of a few. I'm a libertarian and opposed to constraints on what government tells me I can do with my own body, but I wouldn't want crack being sold out of vending machines either. It's a tough subject, and part of the problem is that people need to acknowledge that it's tough. Only through socialization and education can we have an intelligent discussion about where the limits are -- just like we did with alcohol. Quick fixes aren't going to work.
While you're at it, why not shoot all the people who skip the bus fare? Also enforce proper adherence to schedules under the same technique. The buses, trains and planes will finally run on time, can you imagine that?
Really? Are you saying that the student who screws up and decides to experiment with drugs deserves to die?
And what about all of the addicts whose drug use correlates with other serious problems? There is a strong correlation between serious mental illness like schizophrenia and drug use. And what about all the veterans? Over a quarter of soldiers in combat teams are at risk for developing PTSD. And around have of people with PTSD abuse drugs. I can't ethically support the death penalty for someone who risked their life in the army and whose only crime is abusing drugs.
Sure, every drug addict made a choice to use drugs. But I can't say that I would have not abused drugs if I was born with some serious mental illness or had gone through some traumatic event.
This would have the effect of encouraging legalization of some drugs. In some sense, the worst situation is where things are illegal but widely tolerated and practiced. This gives authorities a lot of scope for locking up people they don't like.
Currently, middle-class taxpayers who smoke pot don't worry much about getting busted, because it's fairly rare to end up in jail. But if they saw serious consequences, they'd lobby for legalization of all but a few hard drugs.
Such strong feelings about something that doesn't matter that much!
Your body makes chemicals -- these regulate your mood, control your feelings, and so on. Plants also make similar chemicals. You can consume these plants to make up for chemicals that your body doesn't make. That's what drug use is.
I don't see why there's any reason to murder someone else over this. Drugs don't really cause any of society's ills, you can commit crimes and be generally worthless without any help from "illicit" substances.
Also, why do we have such arbitrary lines drawn for what is OK and what should get you killed? Why is it OK to take Tylenol, alcohol, and caffeine, but not marijuana? (Incidentally, marijuana has never caused me ill effects, but non-prescription pain killers have. All drugs have risks, even "legal" ones!)
Anyway, if you have actual answers to these questions, I would really like to hear them.
The worst thing about drugs is drug-related violence. Cocaine and heroin are quite bad for the body, but most of the harm they do comes from their illegal status and the crime surrounding them.
Even addiction's not as terrible as it's made out to be. There are a number of drug addicts who've had productive lives. Drug addiction can be horrible, but most users don't become addicts, and not all addicts become useless, parasitic human beings. There's a wide spectrum.
Your "solution" is absurd: you're proposing that, in response to a small amount of violence, the government should respond with an absurd and unnecessary large amount of violence? I'm going to call "troll".
[Edit 1]: Naturally, this policy would be continued in the future. If anybody is ever found to be knowingly in possession of illegal drugs, they are shot.
[+] [-] jksmith|17 years ago|reply
The DEA will probably never go away, because it keeps people employed for one thing, and helps large pharmaceutical companies keep small pharm companies (makers of class II, III drugs with expired patents) from building a legitimate enough business that would help these smaller companies spend money on new drug research. Keeping drugs illegal is good business; it has less to do with discouraging illicit drug use.
[+] [-] iamelgringo|17 years ago|reply
I don't quite understand your usage of the word "sincere". As an ER nurse that's worked in the ghetto of Chicago, I have worked alongside many law enforcement officers. The thinking that hard drugs (cocaine, heroine, crack, meth) are bad and should be off the streets is a sincere and fairly universal belief. The majority of the efforts that I've seen first hand in getting these drugs off the streets are well intentioned and sincere albeit ineffective and futile.
The DEA will probably never go away, because it keeps people employed for one thing, and helps large pharmaceutical companies keep small pharm companies (makers of class II, III drugs with expired patents) from building a legitimate enough business that would help these smaller companies spend money on new drug research. Keeping drugs illegal is good business; it has less to do with discouraging illicit drug use.
Wow, that's a really cynical point of view, and sounds very conspiratorial.
Mind you, I would have little problems with legalization of many drugs that are strictly controlled now. I've administered cocaine and very strong morphine derivatives to patients for years. I've also lost track of how many people's lives I've helped save from heroine OD's. People make choices to kill themselves with alcohol. They can also choose to kill themselves with cocaine as far as I'm concerned. If cocaine were as cheap and abundant as alcohol, there wouldn't be as much crime as far as I'm concerned.
But the idea that Big Pharma is in collusion with the DEA to keep certain classes of drugs is silly as far as I'm concerned. A much simpler explanation is that a large percentage of the population thinks that these substances are evil or too dangerous to be freely available.
You find quite of bit of support for legalizing marijuana on the Coasts, but even among the drug legalization crowd, I haven't really heard too many people suggesting that morphine/heroine derivatives like Vicodin and Oxycontin, or stimulants like cocaine be sold freely like alcohol or nicotine. I don't believe that our society is ready to accept that.
[+] [-] Xichekolas|17 years ago|reply
You make a valid point that it also has become it's own end, but I also think it's much easier to have strong and assertive domestic law enforcement when you can justify it by claiming they are "fighting the war on drugs".
[+] [-] Andys|17 years ago|reply
They both have pretty similar effects including fairly strong addiction.
[+] [-] swombat|17 years ago|reply
You know, I can't help but be reminded of the movie Layer Cake ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375912/ ), where the main character, a drug dealer kingpin, points out that drugs will be legal some day, and that people like him are just ahead of the curve as far as making a business out of giving people the drugs they want.
Thinking of it from this angle, if drugs were to indeed be legalised (as in, like cigarettes - not just decriminalised), the possibilities for innovation, product development, etc, would be pretty enormous. You want to build a product that people just keep coming back to? Here it is.
Sure, eventually, this market would become like food or, at best, cigarettes - with smaller margins, and not much innovation. But it would take a while, I imagine, and in the meantime, there would be a lot of potential innovations, experimentations, etc.
Just a thought...
[+] [-] yan|17 years ago|reply
If you take cigarettes into account, notice how much processing and additives companies add to a standard cigarette and how much engineering goes into growing the actual tobacco plant. If drugs were legalized, all that would be rolled into the `drug market'.
I don't do anything, but I still think the current drug policy is extremely sub-optimal. What worries me though, is when corporations get the green card to manufacture drugs like pot, all that untested engineering, preservatives and additives that are intended to make it more effective make their way into what people consume. If you think about it, mostly all current drug production is as 'organic' as it gets (as far as I know at least).
[+] [-] gcheong|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noonespecial|17 years ago|reply
Most of the problems come from the comical binary approach currently applied that treats pot the same as PCP.
[+] [-] chris11|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drothlis|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] critic|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|17 years ago|reply
So while it might appeal to Reddit for the "legalize weed" angle, it appeals to us for the points it brings up, and its explanation thereof.
[+] [-] Alex3917|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trominos|17 years ago|reply
Also, this is a fine article -- it's well-written and makes some points that are novel (to me, at least). The fact that it's espousing one of the stances that redditors tend to blindly support is irrelevant.
[+] [-] jfornear|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amohr|17 years ago|reply
Just my .02
[+] [-] critic|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moe|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Skizz|17 years ago|reply
Skizz
[+] [-] nav|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c00p3r|17 years ago|reply
After Soviet Union was collapsing, we've got this so-called free market (free from a regulation of the goverment). First, we got unlimited supply of the low-quality alcohol, after some failed attempts of the soviet goverment to combat drunkness.
The result? Almost 1/5 of population were died in 10 years with direct or indirect involvement of alcohol consumption. The cases of the mental degradation and illness were never counted. But the next generations afrer looking at their animal-like fathers and mothers, at least trying to avoid the booze.
The heroine problem is almost the same, but more brutal and fast-going. After you saw several tens of the lethal cases you will try to stop, and even with some success.
I think (as a person who actually did it) that the most effective solution is the natural one - when you saw the results, you, sooner or later, will try to figure out the cause.
And what people or goverment can do is to show the results to the youths, to educate them, because they just trying to imitate an adults - in our case - tired and hopeless creatures, who become happy (actually just relaxed) for very short periods of time with booze and sigarettes.
And be sure, there never was a problem to get any stuff among a low-income and uneducated. And never will.
[+] [-] newt0311|17 years ago|reply
Then line up all the drug users and shoot them.
Problem solved.
(I am being serious.)
[+] [-] mcslee|17 years ago|reply
(Were you really being serious?)
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|17 years ago|reply
These places still have pervasive drug use -- in fact, greater use than places without such penalties.
How much more severe can you be? Seems like immediate death doesn't deter drug use. Does that idea still make sense to you? Or perhaps in all of those places it just hasn't been done correctly yet?
Prohibition (which took a constitutional amendment, btw) had zero effect on alcohol use -- it actually probably encouraged it and the organized crime that came with it. We're still cleaning that mess up.
Anything you put into your body changes the way your body and brain operate -- including tap water. So everything is a drug. It's just a matter of degree. I remember hearing about kids in the 60s who smoked pot laughing about their parents who were way more hooked on valium. In fact, misuse of legal drugs is much more pervasive than illegal drug use. We live in a society where you pop a pill for everything.
Nope -- shooting folks doesn't make much sense: unless you just don't like people and want to get rid of a few. I'm a libertarian and opposed to constraints on what government tells me I can do with my own body, but I wouldn't want crack being sold out of vending machines either. It's a tough subject, and part of the problem is that people need to acknowledge that it's tough. Only through socialization and education can we have an intelligent discussion about where the limits are -- just like we did with alcohol. Quick fixes aren't going to work.
[+] [-] DenisM|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swombat|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris11|17 years ago|reply
And what about all of the addicts whose drug use correlates with other serious problems? There is a strong correlation between serious mental illness like schizophrenia and drug use. And what about all the veterans? Over a quarter of soldiers in combat teams are at risk for developing PTSD. And around have of people with PTSD abuse drugs. I can't ethically support the death penalty for someone who risked their life in the army and whose only crime is abusing drugs.
Sure, every drug addict made a choice to use drugs. But I can't say that I would have not abused drugs if I was born with some serious mental illness or had gone through some traumatic event.
PTSD/Drug use stats in veterans:http://www.veteransforamerica.org/2007/11/29/hidden-wounds-l...
[+] [-] tlb|17 years ago|reply
Currently, middle-class taxpayers who smoke pot don't worry much about getting busted, because it's fairly rare to end up in jail. But if they saw serious consequences, they'd lobby for legalization of all but a few hard drugs.
[+] [-] alecst|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcromartie|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|17 years ago|reply
Your body makes chemicals -- these regulate your mood, control your feelings, and so on. Plants also make similar chemicals. You can consume these plants to make up for chemicals that your body doesn't make. That's what drug use is.
I don't see why there's any reason to murder someone else over this. Drugs don't really cause any of society's ills, you can commit crimes and be generally worthless without any help from "illicit" substances.
Also, why do we have such arbitrary lines drawn for what is OK and what should get you killed? Why is it OK to take Tylenol, alcohol, and caffeine, but not marijuana? (Incidentally, marijuana has never caused me ill effects, but non-prescription pain killers have. All drugs have risks, even "legal" ones!)
Anyway, if you have actual answers to these questions, I would really like to hear them.
[+] [-] dgordon|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moe|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|17 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] time_management|17 years ago|reply
Even addiction's not as terrible as it's made out to be. There are a number of drug addicts who've had productive lives. Drug addiction can be horrible, but most users don't become addicts, and not all addicts become useless, parasitic human beings. There's a wide spectrum.
Your "solution" is absurd: you're proposing that, in response to a small amount of violence, the government should respond with an absurd and unnecessary large amount of violence? I'm going to call "troll".
[+] [-] newt0311|17 years ago|reply