The War on Drugs: Can it be won? If so, how?

Great Debates
21

The “War on Drugs” was a just a warm up for the “War on Terrorism”.

No-one involved in drug legislation and enforcement seriously believes that they are fighting a war that is in anyway winnable. In order to “win” they would have to achieve:

  • removal of all raw materials required to make any type of drug, including naturally occurring plants.
  • a complete turn around in human behaviour and physiology.
  • a guarantee of happiness, fufillment and prosperity for all.

None of this is going to happen, ever. As long as we refuse to face up to this fact the social problems of drugs (which are on the whole are entirely seperate from the medical problems) will always be with us. Legalisation would address, in a single stroke, most of these social problems, leaving the way clear to tackle the medical. Granted, other social problems would undoubtedly arise, but can anyone seriously suggest they’d be worse than the ones we have?

But the question is whether government really want this. I sometimes suspect not. The “War on Drugs” gives a ready excuse for a lot of police action, keeps a fair percentage of the population in chains to an expensive addiction rather than causing trouble of any other kind and gives the rest of the population something to get worked up about rather than concerning themselves with subtler, but more fundamental, problems in society. Governments can justify just about anything by saying it will tackle drug trade and save the children.

Our only hope is that the “War On Terrorism” proves to be more effective a peg for Governments to hang legislation on than the “War On Drugs”. Not much of a choice.

22

You would have thought that we learned something from prohibition.

23

sezyou, Mockingbird, and especially Futile Gesture beat me to what I was going to say.

Oh, and I’ve read The Underground Empire, also. I highly recommend it, but I took the opposite message you seem to have from it, JiggstheCapo. It’s quite clear from the book that as long as human beings are who they are, there will always be a supplier for their need.

The “War on Drugs” is completely stupid and all sensible people recognize that it needs to be stopped immediately. Unfortunately, we seem to have a shortage of sensible people these days, so ending the war is something of a pipe dream. Heh.

24

-Make ALL drugs legal for anyone over 21
-Designate certain stores where drugs can be sold
-Forbid the use of drugs in public places like restaurants or at work
-Tax the shit out of them.

Futile Gesture - The diference between the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terrorism” is that 40% of Americans aren’t terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists.

Just the same, I don’t like the “War on…” jingoism. It’s not a “war” on terrorism or drugs. War’s generally have a start, end loser and winner. How do we know that we “won” the war on drugs? How do we know we lost? They should say “we are going to institute policies that will reduce terrorism/drug use/poverty/etc” but I guess that’s not as catchy.

25

The way I look at it is this… it’s a flaw in the human DNA that we have the capacity to enjoy drugs. Most of us, across the globe, are affected by the same drugs in exactly the same way - and this obviously is a function of the physiology which exists within our brains.

My attitude is that given that most of realise that drugs can be dreadfully debilitating, and given that most of us realise that life is just plain harder if you choose a lifestyle with debilitating aspects to it, then if somebody wants to take drugs and make things harder for themselves - fine, go ahead buddy. That’s just simply less competition for me in life.

That being said, I don’t have a problem with putting together the social infrastructures necessary to cope with legalised drug use. It’s still cheaper than trying to enforce prohibition. And if the state were to sell drugs through pharmacies etc, then it would simply become another source of taxable consolidated revenue. And the drug lords of this world would be out of business. And toxitiy levels could be clinically maintained so that users wouldn’t get hit with extra strong batches etc.

It seems to me that we have to change our righteous knee jerk attitudes to drug use from one of “puritan virtuousness” to one of “enlightened acceptance”. My point is this… I know enough about the drug scene to know that it isn’t MY scene… but that the nature of the human condition is such that for some people, by statistical odds alone, the drug scene will inevitably become THEIR scene.

Anything we can do to reduce the attendant crime, and black market laundered money etc which goes along with the drug scene is a good thing in my opinion. As it stands at the moment, the efforts to enforce prohibition merely create an environment where money is going into black market circles - and all of the research in the world indicates that every economy on Earth suffers when there is black market activity on the prowl.

26

I think the only way you could win the W.O.D. would be to require a large portion of the citizens who advocate it to assist the government in detecting and reporting illegal drug use. In other words, you’d have a significant portion of the civilian population spying on a significant minority and turning them in to the police.

I don’t think we want to go there.

27

Excessive taxation is prohibition lite. There comes a point where the black market becomes a problem. Keep taxes below the point where smuggling becomes lucrative. (This also applies to tobacco and alcohol.)

Revenue lost and enforcement costs eat up any benefit or revenue gain of excessive taxes.

28

Here’s another wrinkle…

The government makes far too much money. The war on drugs, when it was at its’ most voracious (in the late 70’s to early 80’s), was a cottage industry for select law enforcement agencies, especially on the federal level. Today, that cottage industry has turned into a full blown (pardon the pun) cash smorgasboard for every law enforcement agency from Mayberry to the NYPD.

Drug seizures are on the rise all over, the police department I work for has seized three cars in the last year and a half; a Corvette, an Impala SS, and a Camaro. (which means that drug users like GM products? Can you imagine the Ads?) Two of which have been sold, one we still have, in all cases the drugs found were obviously personal use amounts, (meaning 15 grams or better in single packages for cocaine and 30 grams or better for marijuana), yet still felony amounts in Illinois. What this means, I believe, is that there is far too much money to be had from the enforcement, therefore, regardless of supply and demand laws, those fighting the war on drugs, will not allow the war to be either won or lost.

To do so means a loss of revenue, to lose revenue means a loss of power, a loss of power means people have control over themselves, and we all know how dangerous a free-thinking populace can be.

–What Would Scooby Doo?

Which begs the question, why?

29

Of course.

My point is, if the U.S. wanted to be serious about it, there’s a lot of stuff they could do to fight the “war,” but it could never be totally won. Do you remember the part in The Underground Empire where Mills talks about the LSD market at the time being almost completely destroyed because of Centac-10?

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/tue/tue2.htm

There’s a link. It’s somewhere toward the bottom. Centac’s efficiency was amazing.

Anyway, I agree with the majority, but like I said before, if the U.S. government was serious about this “war,” they’d be doing a hell of a lot more.

30

The War on Drugs has been going on now for 90 years, and I dont see where we are better off.

I dont see where we have less adicts, less pushers, less school kids taking drugs than back in 1912 when all drugs were legal.

My daddy told me about the times when drugs were legal when he was young, and he said back then that there was no problem with drugs when he was in school, no drive by shootings, no gang wars, no payolla, no crooked cops, no shyster attorneys, etc.

All I see is a lot of cops having a lot of jobs, a lot of attorneys, judges, prison guards, and court people making lots of money, and the mafia getting rich!

Those who support this 90 year old war, please tell the rest of us when you are going to win it. Be specific with your date.

31

Ok, and lets say you do give us a date when the War on Drugs will be won, lets say you tell us it will be February 2004. What happens if there are still people taking drugs in March?
Can I get a refund on all of my tax money that was spent over the last 90 years? Will you and others who supported the War on Drugs directly repay us taxpayers who paid for your folly with your own money? Will you be willing to put your money into a trust, so we know we can get repaid if your war on drugs is not won by March 2004?

32

I say that we declare the war on drugs won. That the war on drugs has increased publicity about drug dangers and that now people have the knowlege and education to use drugs and still not harm society. That society now has the knowlege to to allow drugs and still protect itself.

33

ooohh, I do hope not! LOL! well, keep the hard stuff off the streets…

34

2 ways that the “war on drugs” can be won as I see it:

1 legalize it, this way corporations would control it.

or

2 Use bio-warfare against the plants that the drugs are derived from.

35

I think that has already been started, on a small scale. I also think it is a horrible idea. It’s called the rule of intended consequences.

36

The best thing to do would be to legalize everything.
The BIG roadblock in fighting drugs is the fact that the drug trade is so HUGELY profitable. I read recently that China executed a couple of DOZEN drug dealers. Well, glad they cleared up their drug problem. They won’t be seeing drug deals in China now — LOL. Also, the drug money allows activities such as bribery and creating economies that are approaching those of small countries. Didn’t one of the drug cartels try to buy or build a submarine a year or 2 ago? How can the Coast Guard possibly stop that kind of drug trade? Wasn’t a tunnel between Mexico and the USA recently discovered that was the equivalent of a civil engineering project?
Let’s face it, when the death penalty can’t stop it, then the rewards must be phenomenal.

37

The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. A prime example of this is our failure to learn anything from the utter failure of prohibition.

38

Jacob Hornberger: “If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.”

Sir Keith Morris (former British Ambassador to Colombia): “The war on drugs cannot be won because it is a war on human nature. History shows that no society ever existed which was 'drug-free’.”

US District Judge James C. Paine (addressing the Federal Bar Association in Miami, November, 1991): “Trying to wage war on 23 million Americans who are obviously very committed to certain recreational activities is not going to be any more successful than Prohibition was.”

Lester Grinspoon (Harvard medical professor; author of Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine): “I began to study marijuana in 1967… I had not yet learned that there is something very special about illicit drugs. If they don’t always make the drug user behave irrationally, they certainly cause many non-users to behave that way.”

Unitarian Universalist Association statement on drug policy: “Drug use, drug abuse, and drug addiction are distinct from one another. Using a drug does not necessarily mean abusing the drug, much less addiction to it. Drug abuse issues are essentially matters for medical attention. We do not believe that drug use should be considered criminal behavior.”

William F. Buckley: “Marijuana has never kicked down anyone’s door in the middle of the night.”

Justice Robert H. Jackson: “It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”

Ludwig von Mises (1927): “For if the majority of citizens is, in principle, conceded the right to impose its way of life upon a minority, it is impossible to stop at prohibitions against indulgence in alcohol, morphine, cocaine, and similar poisons. Why should not what is valid for these poisons be valid also for nicotine, caffeine, and the like? Why should not the state generally prescribe which foods may be indulged in and which must be avoided because they are injurious? …We see that as soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual’s mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest detail. The personal freedom of the individual is abrogated. He becomes a slave of the community, bound to obey the dictates of the majority.”

39

90 years and counting. You have spent lots of my tax dollars, taken a lot of my privacy, and made the mafia rich. All drugs were legal until the early 1900’s.

Are we better off now? Are there less drug users, are less children using drugs now? Are there less drive-by shootings and drug gang wars?

The only thing the drug war has accomplished is making drug pushers a viable profession, increasing the drug use by making a profit in in, and making police on the take and criminals very wealthy.

The drug war cannot be won, else we would have seen some progress, any progress over the past 90 years, and we havent.

Anyone who thinks the drug war can be won, then tell the rest of us on what date it will be won.

40

I think one problem is that many Americans are sure that, however bad our drug problems are, the problems would be substantially worse if drugs were legalized or decrimalized. They’re convinced that the laws against drugs are somehow acting to “keep them in check”.

Right. Prohibition did a fine job of keeping alcohol problems in check, didn’t it? I guess the problem is that too few people understand that it did no such thing. Rather, it created new and worse problems that existed neither before nor after Prohibition. Just as, today, our real drug problems are a result, not of the drugs themselves, but of the war on drugs.