Convince me it's possible to prohibit drugs.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@badger5149

Random drug testing is an effective method of redcuing drug use. I know plenty of recreational users including myself who have stopped using entirely because of randon drug testing in the workplace.

And, of course, if you’re not worried about political feasibility or police states, you can expand this to regular mandatory drug testing.

This still wouldn’t prevent all drug use. There’s still a “who watches the watchers” problem that people involved in the testing infrastructure would have huge incentives to cheat. But those problems can be minimized with auditing and… well, more police statery. If you make the penalties and the likelihood of getting caught high enough, you’re going to stop everyone with even a little bit of self control and a vaguely rational worldview. Or foment revolution. Could go either way.

Since this is the internet I will note that I do not advocate the above.

[jackdavinci]

@iamthewalrus_3

This still wouldn’t prevent all drug use. There’s still a “who watches the watchers” problem that people involved in the testing infrastructure would have huge incentives to cheat.

That’s a good point. If absolutely everyone is tested, then there will inevitably evolve some sort of way of skirting the law, because there will always be people interested in drugs, and if you involve the entire population in the process, there will be drug users that are part of the system helping to subvert the system.

I have to swing the camera back at the OP again and ask what the point of this thread is. There are a few components of the drug problem:

1. Stop people from using.

2. Minimize harm to users, and to others.

3. Maximize benefits to users, and to others.

4. Integrity, honesty, and truth in the process.

I’m extremely curious as why you are focused so much on number one. It seems to me that the other three are much more important issues.

Yes, you could theoretically prevent 100% of the population from doing anything. Drug illegality prevents a good portion of drug use, but not all. Testing would up the percentage. Enacting a death penalty along with an intense propaganda campaign along with allocating an overwhelming amount of financial resources to the goal would get us very close to 100% compliance, but at what cost? Using a drug is hardly inherently bad in any sense. We have plenty of legal drugs that are tolerated or even advocated. And there is no obvious hard line as to even what constitutes a drug. Anything that is consumed, even as food, affects us chemically. It’s all a matter of degree and form.

But why would you want to? For any particular behavior, depending on the perceived benefits to the individual, there will always be people wanting to ingest things. The only downsides are:

1. harm to the person taking - this is overwhelmingly not a criminal issue. It’s like making suicide illegal. No brainer. Preventing other people from giving the user bad stuff is fine, or helping the user to make informed choices by insuring products are regulated, consistent, pure, and not sold if an obvious danger.

2. harm to others - using certain things can impair one when using a motor vehicle or machinery - it’s fine to regulate that.

3. fear of pleasure - for some reason as a society we fear the things that give us pleasure and seek to make it into a moral issue, when really, we should just educate people and help them mitigate the dangers involved in obviously pleasurable things. (STDs for sex doesn’t make sex bad, it makes sex something which one has to take precautions for, same with any other pleasurable thing with inherent dangers).

4. fear of societal upset - certain drugs change the mindset and can upset one’s notions of the predominant paradigm. I don’t think any safeguards are really needed here as any behaviors or actions to change the current paradigm need to be slow to be integrated, and if they are quick or violent, they will run into already existing laws.

And this does and would cost us everything in terms of honesty, integrity, transparency - people are natural bullshit detectors. You simply cannot enact legislation intended to satisfy your voters that ignores common sense. I mean you can, but then people will ignore it. There’s no point in having the FDA have a hierarchy of drug schedules based on specific criteria, and then skirt those criteria in the name of politics. You lose your integrity, and your ability to effectively educate the public. Likewise, there’s no point in legislating something as a criminal issue which is clearly and overwhelmingly a social issue.

So yes, without a doubt, for a limited period of time, you could “effectively” prohibit drugs. But at an exponential cost, financially, ethically, and otherwise.

So why bother? And why focus on the least important aspect?

[grude]

Is there any evidence at all that a punishment as severe as the death penalty for drug use would have any real effect at all?

[Rodgers01]

Well, Singapore has apparently been pretty successful at prohibiting drug usage.

Link

Singapore has very strict drug laws, and drug trafficking carries a mandatory death penalty — which is also applied to foreigners. Even if you technically haven’t entered Singapore and are merely transiting (i.e. changing flights without the need to clear passport control and customs) while in possession of drugs, you would still be subject to capital punishment. The paranoid might also like to note that in Singapore, it is an offence even to have any drug metabolites in your system, even if they were consumed outside Singapore, and Customs occasionally does spot urine tests at the airport!

I seem to recall a case a few years ago in which an Australian man’s plane refueled in Singapore en route to somewhere else. He was found to have drugs on him, and was given the death penalty. Even the Australian prime minister pleading on his behalf couldn’t stop the execution.

Of course, I bet some people in Singapore are getting high right now. You can’t stamp out any activity completely. But I’ll bet drug usage rates in Singapore are a hell of a lot lower than in most countries.

[Rodgers01]

@Rodgers01

Well, Singapore has apparently been pretty successful at prohibiting drug usage.

Link
I seem to recall a case a few years ago in which an Australian man’s plane refueled in Singapore en route to somewhere else. He was found to have drugs on him, and was given the death penalty. Even the Australian prime minister pleading on his behalf couldn’t stop the execution.

Of course, I bet some people in Singapore are getting high right now. You can’t stamp out any activity completely. But I’ll bet drug usage rates in Singapore are a hell of a lot lower than in most countries.

Of course, Singapore is a little city-state, and the US spans a continent. But if the US (or any other country) wanted to go broke on detection and enforcement, and ruthlessly and quickly execute a ton of people, it could probably substantially lower drug usage rates.

[GreasyJack]

Part of the problem is that drug laws and levels of enforcement are not equal from country to country. I really think that’s a big part of why the US’s draconian drug laws don’t seem to produce very good results. We think of drugs like marijuana and meth as easy to make, but they’re really not easy to make in large quantities in the US without getting caught. The pot and meth used in the US is, contrary to popular belief, mostly imported. The production end of things is by far the hardest to get away with undetected. We can crack down all we want on use, distribution and what production exists in the US, but it won’t have much effect so long as drugs can be made in large quantities abroad and the borders and coasts remain porous.

[Mijin]

I think existing laws are a deterrent to one extent or another – usage of drugs would no doubt increase if they were in every convenience store for $1 a hit.

So it depends what we mean by “possible to prohibit drugs”. If you mean such that no-one, ever, takes a narco again, then clearly no.
If you mean simply reduce the number of takers, then clearly yes.

Otherwise, where are we setting our arbitrary line?

(FTR: I think they should all be legal but regulated)

[Monj]

In my opinion, the only possible prohibition of drugs would be a “self-inflicted” one. What I mean by this is it would come down to people either deciding to use or not to use.

The present consequences are not severe or present enough (as a result of practicality and costs that some other posters have mentioned) to deter most casual users.

What it really comes down to is the perceived risk/reward for the user. For most occasional low dose users, criminal consequences are not enough to deter and so it comes down to other factors, mainly the potential harm the drug has on the user.

In the case of pot, the perceived risks (whether accurate or not) seem not to be enough to deter.

In response to the original question, I don’t think its possible (practically) to prohibit drugs.