Is the War On Drugs useful?

[Anaamika]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. This could have been in GQ but I'm hoping there will be opposing views since I really don't know the answer.

We have spent kadzillions of dollars on the War On Drugs. It has been going on nearly my whole life, since the Reagan era. Books, movies, plays have been written on the dangers of drugs.

For the purpose of this discussion, I'm going to take the stance that the ultimate goal of War on Drugs is specifically to control or at least lessen the harmful effects on drugs. I realize that right now we (as a country) are focused on stopping all drug use, but that doesn't seem feasible anymore.

In that case, criminalizing drugs definitely doesn't seem like the right answer. We've seen that drug users are marginalized by society because they are criminals. Many of them can't get proper help. We've also seen and heard of many people on this very board that use both legal and illegal drugs and control their intake to their own satisfaction!

So help me out, smart Dopers. The question is:

Is the War on Drugs useful?
If it is, why? What has it accomplished?

Would legalizing drugs be a good alternative? I can't help but think it would, as just as the costs of illegally smuggling drugs would go down, the cost to the buyer would go down, and people might not need as much to resort to crime in order to pay for their drug habit.

If you don't believe in legalizing drugs, do you think we should continue to fight drugs the way we do? Or is there a better way?

This is not a question I am smart enough to answer on my own. Non-Americans, what about you? How does your country deal with the drug problem?

[rfgdxm]

I have little doubt that if all drugs were legalized, that the use of some of them would go up, and so would the number of people harmed by them. The flip side is legalizing drugs would benefit many in the US. There wouldn't be people getting killed in the crossfire of urban drug gangs fighting turf wars. Lower prices would mean less crime by users to fund their habit. And, users and dealers would benefit from not risking going to prison; and of course society as a whole would benefit from not having to pay to keep them in prison.

As for a better way than what we do know, legalizing at least some drugs could be good. Such as just legalizing pot. I'm not sure if many alcohol drinkers switched to smoking pot the would be such a bed thing. Legalizing pot hasn't sent the Netherlands to hell in a handbasket.

[emacknight]

We have spent kadzillions of dollars on the War On Drugs. It has been going on nearly my whole life, since the Reagan era. Books, movies, plays have been written on the dangers of drugs.


That's pretty much it, those kadzillions of dollars employ millions. If drugs are made legal all those jobs would be lost. I'm pretty much convinced that's what it all comes down to.

[Miller]

This is not a question I am smart enough to answer on my own.

I beg to differ:

In that case, criminalizing drugs definitely doesn't seem like the right answer. We've seen that drug users are marginalized by society because they are criminals. Many of them can't get proper help. We've also seen and heard of many people on this very board that use both legal and illegal drugs and control their intake to their own satisfaction!

Seems like you already have a pretty good handle on the situation. The War on Some Drugs is a collossal waste of money. It exacerbates the problem it is trying to solve, it destroys lives every bit as fast and efficiently as addiction only on a far vaster scale, it's causing a gradual but definite erosion of our rights and civil liberties, it's inherently racist, often sexist, and is quite possibly the most nakedly hypocritical government program ever iniated by the United States. It's inexcusable, immoral, and downright evil, and it needs to be stopped.

[glee]

Is the War on Drugs useful?
If it is, why? What has it accomplished?


It depends how you define useful.

If the object is to make the US healthier, or even save lives, then it's a joke.
Nicotine kills huge numbers of people annually and it's not only legal but taxed.

If the object is to use propaganda to get votes, then it does seem to be working.
It's a WAR! No matter that there isn't an 'enemy', or a defined target.
The point is to get US voters thinking that politicians are decisive men and doing something dangerous, yet patriotic.
And best of all - there are no casualties.

Next up:

the WAR on obesity
the WAR on poverty
the WAR on ignorance
the WAR on bad table manners
the WAR on untidy facial hair

[Miller]

You can have my untidy facial hair when you shave it from my cold, dead face.

[glee]

You can have my untidy facial hair when you shave it from my cold, dead face.

Well I said it was a WAR , didn't I?!

[Aeschines]

Until the 20th century, there were no illegal drugs.

Then we had this great experiment, starting with Prohibition, of making the most popular drug illegal. Prohibition did reduce drinking to a degree, but it also set off a crime wave that scared the shit out of everybody, got organized crime on its feet, and, of course, trashed our freedom to enjoy ourselves as we please.

Prohibition and the War on Drugs are born of America's prudishness and Puritanism. Pleasure for pleasure's sake is bad. That's what it comes down to.

Legalize. Tax. Regulate. Let's get back to an American that's really free.

[rfgdxm]

Until the 20th century, there were no illegal drugs.
True. This is a fact often ignored in this argument. Other than some local ordinances, drugs were legal nationally in the US until the early 20th Century. This didn't stop the US from becoming a significant world power in this time frame. No particular reason to think if drugs were legalized in the US, it would result in mass social chaos.

[Nonsuch]

Nixon is president. A sharp spike in crime rates (I believe largely in the DC area) is attributed to a corresponding rise in heroin abuse. Nixon wants the crime rate down, and so forms a drug abuse task force for the purpose of achieving that, by whatever means necessary. The task force yakes a treatment approach, dealing with heroin abuse as a medical problem. They start treatment programs, open walk-in clinics, gett people off the streets and on methadone, and the results are overwhelmingly positive. A similar program is instituted to help returning Viet Nam vets deal with their drug problems, and it too is a success.

Fast forward a decade or so. Carter is in the White House. While people are certainly continuing to use drugs, cocaine is still too expensive for the mass market and the drug "problem" is relatively under control. Then one night, a couple in Atlanta come home to find the remains of a party their son threw, in which they discover amongst the requisite thousands of empty beer cans a few ... gasp ... roaches.

Outraged at the permissive attitude Americans had taken about recreational drug use, the parents join with other like-minded parents to pressure the White House into abandoning its laissez-faire attitude toward marijuana and start cracking down. They are facilitated by the election of Ronald Reagan, whose Cabinet includes many social conservatives who despise the if-it-feels-good ethos of the 60s and are eager to take a hard-line approach. Sentences for cultivating and possessing marijuana start to climb. Law enforcement budgets are stepped up. Researchers are pressured to produce findings that marijuana causes grave physical and mental harm. Everything is going according to plan.

Then the shit hits the fan.

The Colombian cartels have by now created such a sophisticated apparatus for funneling cocaine into the US that the price starts to plummet. Dealers oblige their more demanding customers by selling them pre-freebased cocaine: crack. Cocaine begins turning the inner cities into war zones. Len Bias dies of a cocaine overdose. Public health centers, overwhelmed with crack addicts and overdose cases, beg Washington for aid.

They don't get it, for two reasons: 1) Inner-city blacks by and large did not vote Republican (you do the math there); and more importantly, 2) To the Reagan administration — and particularly to its chief policy advisor on drugs, William Bennett, drug abuse is a moral failing, not a public health problem. To spend federal money rehabilitating people who were too weak to care for themselves properly in the first place would not only be unfair to the American taxpayer, it would be rewarding people for their own failure to "say no." So the money that should have gone to treatment and recovery is instead put into interdiction: more law enforcement, more and better technology, the destruction of poppy fields by the US military, and a wholesale revamp of the criminal justice system: high mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders, lots of new prisons (that remain overcrowded today), and new seizure laws that enable law enforcement agencies to keep the money and swag they confiscate from dealers, which needless to say leads to massive corruption and infighting within and between the agencies charged with combating drug smuggling.

That, in a nutshell, is the War on Drugs, and we are still very much in the middle of it. Most people know the whole thing is a sham that has led to untold corruption, financial waste, and shattered lives, but no one dares to speak against it, knowing he'll immediately be crucified by the opposition as — say it with me now — "soft on drugs." Sadly, that's not going to change any time soon, to the ongoing harm of our society.

[toadspittle]

I had a thought the other day while watching yet another "talk to your kids about drugs" commercial put out by the ONDCP: Why don't we have tons of ads that exhort kids to not commit other crimes? We never see anything about not shoplifting, not getting into gang fights, etc.

[Loopydude]

It's a wonderful propaganda tool. Otherwise, it serves no useful purpose at all.

[II Gyan II]

I've two questions.

1)What do you think, are the _real_ reasons why the WoD is continuing? What do you think the ONDCP chief tells himself regarding the rationale of the WoD?

2)Which drugs, if any, should <b>NOT</b> be legalized, even in a legalization scheme and why?

[Loopydude]

I've two questions.

1)What do you think, are the _real_ reasons why the WoD is continuing? What do you think the ONDCP chief tells himself regarding the rationale of the WoD?

What can you blame sundry societal ills on if drugs aren't illegal? How can you provide pat answers to complex social questions if you can't play the "drugs" card? Why, you're then stuck trying to blame everything on abortion and gay marriage, which would look kinda silly.

2)Which drugs, if any, should <b>NOT</b> be legalized, even in a legalization scheme and why?[/QUOTE] None.

[Netbrian]

That's pretty much it, those kadzillions of dollars employ millions. If drugs are made legal all those jobs would be lost. I'm pretty much convinced that's what it all comes down to.

I'm sure we could find them jobs doing something more productive and beneficial to society with the tax money we just freed up. An example that immediately jumps to mind, for instance, is digging a large hole, and then filling it back up!

[marky33]

It has been going on nearly my whole life, since the Reagan era.
One of the main reasons it won't end any time soon. How can the authorities very well turn around and cease hostilities when so much money and so many lives have been wasted over such a long period of time for absolutely no gain whatsoever? It makes more sense to keep prosecuting the "war" and spend more and more on its justification (just say no-type adverts and the like).
A disgusting waste.

[Anaamika]

Ok everybody, I'm going to think on this and get back to you either later today or tomorrow. But for the moment, it seems that I am right in thinking it's a colossal waste of valuable resources.

emacknight - the Inqusition also employed a lot of people, too. From this it follows logically that just because something puts food in the bellies of many people doesn't mean it's automatically a good thing.


II Gyan II
1) I think one of the reasons WOD is not going away is simply because there has been little to no real education or research without starting with the premise "Drugs are bad, mmkay?" Very few studies have been done specifically with the intention of seeing if recreational drug use is really that bad, or - horror of horrors - not bad at all for some people.

2) Which drugs should be legal or illegal? Well like I said I'm not a user. How am I supposed to know? I suppose that we could make distinctions. For example, I believe that crack can be much more dangerous and lethal than cocaine. But really....

let people choose their own poison.

The only thing I would continue to advocate is an age limit. I don't think I want to see children whose bodies haven't finished developing yet doing hard drugs that could stunt growth! 21 sounds like a perfectly reasonable age to me.

I beg to differ:
Why thank you sir.

I have little doubt that if all drugs were legalized, that the use of some of them would go up, and so would the number of people harmed by them.
You go on to say that legalizing drugs use would have many benefits, and I say that one of the benefits would be that the people who started taking drugs after they were legalized and suffered ill effects...

would get better care since drugs were legal and it wasn't a moral decision.

[rfgdxm]

You go on to say that legalizing drugs use would have many benefits, and I say that one of the benefits would be that the people who started taking drugs after they were legalized and suffered ill effects...

would get better care since drugs were legal and it wasn't a moral decision.
True. It is also possible that under legalization people may tend to gravitate towards safer drugs than the more dangerous ones. With drugs being illegal, traffickers and dealers have an incentive to market drugs like heroin and crack which get people addicted so they keep buying. While non-addictive drugs like LSD have all but disappeared from the streets in the US. Criminalization has as a side effect that the most dangerous ones are the ones it makes the most sense to sell.

[CandidGamera]

I am not opposed to the legalization of drugs for those that are of age. (Let's say 18, like Tobacco, or 21, like Alcohol. Whatever.)

It'd provide a new taxable industry for the U.S., eliminate a lot of expenditure on the War on Drugs effort, etc.

All well and good.

However. I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility, no matter what you're under the influence of. Any bad decisions you make under the influence of an intoxicant - too damn bad. If you sign over controlling interest in your multinational corporation while high on cocaine - Oops. (Unless, of course, someone slipped you the stuff unknowingly - that's a different matter.)

You're choosing to subject yourself to substances that may impair your judgment and that may cause you to become addicted. As long as you, and not society, are prepared to bear the burden of that choice, then that's fine. When society has to bear the burden of your choice - then you've crossed a line. So I'm uncertain whether I would favor free "Rehab" clinics sponsored by taxpayers.

[Anaamika]

However. I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility, no matter what you're under the influence of. Any bad decisions you make under the influence of an intoxicant - too damn bad. If you sign over controlling interest in your multinational corporation while high on cocaine - Oops. (Unless, of course, someone slipped you the stuff unknowingly - that's a different matter.)

You're choosing to subject yourself to substances that may impair your judgment and that may cause you to become addicted. As long as you, and not society, are prepared to bear the burden of that choice, then that's fine. When society has to bear the burden of your choice - then you've crossed a line. So I'm uncertain whether I would favor free "Rehab" clinics sponsored by taxpayers.

You're right. Here's another point that needs to be considered then, if we start thinking that drug use is purely a personal choice then we shouldn't make other people suffer for it as well.

This needs thought.

[ExTank]

Well, from an Orwellian standpoint, the War on Drugs makes perfect sense.

What?

Is my tin-foil-hat on crooked, or something?

Hey, when are we going to get a tin-foil-hat smiley for GD?

[II Gyan II]

In a recent development, it's been confirmed that the human brain naturally (http://wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65053,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4) produces morphine (the psychoactive metabolite of heroin). Corresponding animal study of neural (http://www.nel.edu/Press/Latest_from-the-office.htm#2505) tissue here. This provides good reason as to why some people really take to heroin, they're morphine-deficient and just end up self-medicating.

[PatriotX]

In a recent development, it's been confirmed that the human brain naturally (http://wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65053,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4) produces morphine (the psychoactive metabolite of heroin). Corresponding animal study of neural (http://www.nel.edu/Press/Latest_from-the-office.htm#2505) tissue here. This provides good reason as to why some people really take to heroin, they're morphine-deficient and just end up self-medicating.
I am coffee deficient and self medicate.
What?
It is for medicinal purposes.

[carolynnjulie]

It certainly is useful for those who are making lots of money from it, like attournies, police, prisons, judges, drug dealers, the mafia, etc. Ending the War on Drugs would be a serious problem, putting a lot of policemen and prison employees out of work, and it could even bankrupt the mafia. I dont know what these people, particular the mafia, would do to earn a living if drugs were not illegal.

Probably billions of dollars are being made off of illegal drugs and the war on drugs.

However, if you mean has it reduced drug use? then no. Since drugs have been made illegal, drug usage, and drug related crimes, have greatly increased, not decreased. Prior to the early 1900's, I doubt that the average citizen, school teacher, or policeman, ever gave drugs, available to anyone at a drug store, a second thought.

[saluki_fan]

I think that the war on drugs is a huge waste and failure. Sure I believe that it has saved some people's lives and helped to better our society, but I believe that the money could be better spent elsewhere. For instance let's close up our borders and work even harder at finding a cure for cancer instead of who is smoking some grass or rolling on x. It is my belief that if a person wants to do a specific drug he/she will eventually get their hands on it and try it out. Besides that, I'd rather teach my kids to make their own decisions about drugs and substances, not the government who is clearly only watching out for itself. (i.e. look at all the millions of dollars funding BS companies on the war on drugs). Sorry if this seems cut up and choppy, I am at work so.........................

[II Gyan II]

Eh.. no more replies to my questions above in post #13. Anyone?

[buttonjockey308]

I will give you a frontline example of how much of a waste the "war" on drugs is.

Recently a PO I work with made a traffic stop. That traffic stop yielded a small bag (less than 5 grams) of powder cocaine. That traffic stop used 3 officers, usually assigned to patrol, for 2 hours of searching and paperwork. Doing the math on it, making an average of $25 an hour, the PO's used up $150.00 in taxpayer money to secure a $40.00 bag of powder cocaine. Not a huge waste in comparison to the rest of the government sector, but it gets more interesting.

The PO works the arrestee for information leading to the 'bigger fish' who, thinking he's going to walk on the PCS charge, the arrestee reluctantly gives up.

This sets in motion a chain of events.

3 PO's turn into 7 (2 on overtime) to do a drug buy to establish a pattern.

2 more 40.00 bags of powder cocaine are collected. This time though, the costs go up a bit. 5 PO's at $25.00 an hour, 2 PO's at $37.50 an hour, all for a total of 6 hours. Do the math again: A grand total of $80.00 worth of cocaine, for a total taxpayer contribution of $375.00

Whoops, one of the bags was ground aspirin! Still a felony, (look-a-like substance) but that means that we've pissed away $375.00 on $40.00 worth of cocaine and about seven cents worth of aspirin.

OK. The pattern is established. The search warrant is signed, which took another 2 hours of PO time, another $50.00.

The SWAT team is assembled, and pre-raid surveillance starts. These are slightly higher paid PO's who will spend 2 full 24 hour days watching the house to be raided. So 3 PO's paid $29.00 an hour spend 48 hours surveilling the property at a cost of $4176.00

With all the surveillance done, and the plan drawn up, the raid begins.

17 PO's all paid, on average 27.00 an hour, assemble, plan, and execute the raid.
8 hours of planning, searching and paperwork equal $3672.00

And what was found at the raided house?

Nothing.

So let's analyze it.

First Contact: $150.00
Sting: $375.00
Warrant: $50.00
Surveillance: $4176.00
Actual Raid: $3672.00


The grand total for getting 2 $40.00 bags of powder cocaine off the street?

$8,423.00

And we've not even begun to analyze the costs for lockup, holding, and the courts.

You want to know who's winning the war on drugs?

The drug dealers, that's who. When your competition can outspend you 8000 to 1, and do no damage to your bottom line, THAT my friend, is supply chain management. THAT is why the dealers are winning the war on waste. If the dealers were as regulated and as taxed and as micro-managed as the people that fight against them, drugs would be no more pandemic than alcohol and tobacco, and within seven years*, there would be no national debt*, every one who wanted it could have health care*, and we'd pay far less taxes every year*


*completely a WAG, but it sounds nice, don't it?

[buttonjockey308]

GYAN,

You've read the reasons I think the WoD exists. It's about the money.

I think in any smart legalization schema would include Marijuana and Hasish, smoking opium, and most, if not all, pills.

Here's why.

1. Marijuana is no more harmful than tobacco, in fact, in some cases less, and it has medicinal value.
2. Ditto for Hash.
3. Smoking opium was already legal before the 20th century, and has medicinal value.
4. Pills would be standardized and have to follow the same rules and regualtions of any other drug, so we'd have safer recreational chemicals.

A note on No. 4.

Prescription medicine has, according to some accounts, killed something like 500,000 people a year (this may be bad data, as it's off the top of my head) that's a touch more than street drugs.

I think criminalizing the remainder with outrageous fines would keep people away from it, say $10,000 for heroin possession would probably do it.

[Aeschines]

Prior to the early 1900's, I doubt that the average citizen, school teacher, or policeman, ever gave drugs, available to anyone at a drug store, a second thought.
This is flat-out wrong. Please, people, for once and for all alcohol is just as much a drug as pot or crack. There were millions of alcohol addicts in the 19th century (cite really necessary?). Thousands of men became addicted to narcotics after receiving treatment with morphine during the Civil War, and opium (smoked) was a major recreational drug.

I have also read that laudanum (tincture of opium) was the drug of choice for housewives, who took it for headaches, backaches, menstrual cramps. Great for calming those noisy babies, too! You could buy it in any drug store.

According to this cite (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0857830.html),

[color=blue]By the early 1900s there were an estimated 250,000 [narcotics]addicts in the United States.[/quote]

According to the [url=http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/nation/popclockest.txt]Census Bureau[/quote], the population in 1900 was 76,094,000. That means that about 1 in 304 persons was a dope addict.

[Aeschines]

Oh, brilliant coding there.

[Testy]

This is flat-out wrong. Please, people, for once and for all alcohol is just as much a drug as pot or crack. There were millions of alcohol addicts in the 19th century (cite really necessary?). Thousands of men became addicted to narcotics after receiving treatment with morphine during the Civil War, and opium (smoked) was a major recreational drug.

I have also read that laudanum (tincture of opium) was the drug of choice for housewives, who took it for headaches, backaches, menstrual cramps. Great for calming those noisy babies, too! You could buy it in any drug store.

<SNIP>.

On the laudanum thing; my grandmother, a very proper sort of old lady, told me about that. A popular habit was to pour some over tobacco and wait for the alcohol to evaporate before smoking it. She didn't really come out with dosages or anything but evidently 25 cents worth would keep someone stoned for quite a while.

Regards

Testy

[Testy]

I've heard/been told that the US has more people per-capita locked up than any other country and that a substantial portion of the difference is due to the WoD. Does anyone have some cites on this?

Thanks

Testy

[antechinus]

I've heard/been told that the US has more people per-capita locked up than any other country and that a substantial portion of the difference is due to the WoD. Does anyone have some cites on this?

Thanks

Testy

Why, yes. (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040206.html)

[antechinus]

And a quick google found this. (http://corporatism.tripod.com/federal.htm) Cannot vouch for accuracy.

[Testy]

Why, yes. (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040206.html)
Thanks. I should have known to check here first. I wonder how many of those folks doing time are there because of minor drug offenses. I know, "define minor."

Regards

Testy

[glee]

I've two questions.

1)What do you think, are the _real_ reasons why the WoD is continuing? What do you think the ONDCP chief tells himself regarding the rationale of the WoD?

2)Which drugs, if any, should <b>NOT</b> be legalized, even in a legalization scheme and why?

As I posted, it's solely designed to make the US public think politicians are brave and doing something. :smack:

I expect anyone employed at the top is enjoying his fine salary. :D
It's so nice to have absolutely no need to produce any evidence your job matters.

Plus it's 'unpatriotic' to object to such a fine sounding name. :rolleyes:

Well I'm against drugs that kill. So there goes tobacco and alcohol.
Oh dear. No chance of either.
One provides huge contributions to politicians and the other proved impossible to enforce.

Gosh, this 'War' is really easy to criticise, isn't it?

Further points:

- if the US intercepts a truly massive haul of cocaine, what happens?
The street price goes up, so the dealers still make money. Plus addicts get desperate so you can dilute the drug even further, thus stretching the profits.

- consider wealthy people (like politicians). Do you think they have any trouble getting drugs for themselves? Of course not.
So the US taxpayer pays people to fight a 'War on drugs'. These people pay the drug dealers for drugs. So the US is funding both sides of the 'War'.