Is The War On Drugs All About Money?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgEunrhm4Ys

 

IRQ

Well ok - but the video didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

Have you got anything a bit more original to contribute?

For example what do you think needs to be done?

 

Reminds me of the scene from Goodfellas, were they are cooking pasta and bagging coke at the same time.

 

starters get Marijuana of the schedule 1 narcotic list

 

So 1992.

If Trump gets in we'll have The War on Mexicans

 

Nearly six-in-ten Democrats (59%) favor legalizing the use of marijuana, as do 58% of independents. That compares with just 39% of Republicans.

Both parties are ideologically divided over legalizing marijuana. Conservative Republicans oppose legalizing marijuana by roughly two-to-one (65% to 32%); moderate and liberal Republicans are divided (49% favor legalization, 50% are opposed).

Among Democrats, 75% of liberals say the use of marijuana should be legal compared with half (50%) of conservative and moderate Democrats.

http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/14/in-debate-over-legalizing-marijuana-disagreement-over-drugs-dangers/

 

Yes it's mainly about money. Also politicians like to pose as taking the 'moral high ground' - whilst they continue to pour in the booze, and cosy up to their pals in the tobacco companies.

 

^^This and stop the mass incarceration of US citizens for profit. I know ... these things were mentioned in the video, the point of being to present the commentary of some in the field of law enforcement. We all know the war on drugs is a failure, so why continue this failed endeavor?

It must actually be highly effective, just not at its "intended" purpose to reduce the harm of drugs on society. It is putting money in peoples' pockets: the prison industry profits, law enforcement agencies profit, even organized crime profits so whats not to like? It effectively raises the cost, and price of drugs as well, but the demand curve for "drugs" is very inelastic; this is espeially so for highly addictive ones.

@Balbus: I know all of this was touched in the video. This isn't the gun control thread. I'm not a policy advisor, and I'm sure most of us here feel in many ways the same on this issue.

But for one, why not just completely legalize harmless drugs like marijuana on the federal level. More dangerous drugs could be moved to a prescription only category, meaning they cannot be obtained w/o a prescription, however without (usually felony) penalties for personal possession. Theres many drugs in this category, for instance you cant go to the pharmacy and purchase prednisolone without a prescription (at least in the states), but you wont go to jail for having a few tablets either, no matter how they were obtained. The pharmacy just can't sell them to you. We could ban imports and sale of certain drugs .. but I think we've already been doing that and its hardly been effective, acting more like a tax or tariff that generates lots of revenue for the government while harming consumers. I do think the revenue gained is less than the loss of production possibilility, among other things (having a large portion of your human resources in prison isnt a ver efficient allocation of those resources).

However, to me this is a social issue and an ethical one rather than an issue of economics. In any case, its not good policy as it has failed at its "intended" purpose.

 

this is the first time I have ever seen you post in a thread you didn't start.
are you feeling OK?
or have you decided to venture out of your cave and stalk IRQ and troll his threads with the same lame reciting of stats of demanding of ideas.
you need to work on your people skills a bit.
LOL

 

Gas

Then you clearly don’t read that many threads.

Sorry can you explain what you mean, the sentence seems a bit disjointed? Are you saying you dispute the statistics, can you explain why have you alternative information?

 

Anyone trying to attach morality to the issue of drug use/abuse and chemical dependence clearly understands neither ethics, nor the aforementioned issues, which out of the former are all different issues btw; there exist users of currently illicit drugs that are not dependent upon them, as well as users of drugs prescribed for legitimate medical conditions that ARE dependent. It's worth noting that some of these of these medical conditions include chemical dependence, e.g. its perfectly legal to be a methadone addict, but heroin will put you in prison.

And yes, alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs around when used irresponsibly. The only reason its use is accepted is because the use of alcoholic beverages has been ingrained in our culture for virtually forever. When marijuana came around it was associated with Mexicans, crack cocaine are associated with black of lower socio-economic class, methamphetamine the same way, except it is predominantly associated with white "trailer-trash" of again, low socio-economic class. So there is that issue of class, race, and culture.

@ Balbus:

Umm ... I think I already have above, but I guess you have a different metric on what significant contribution is, or maybe it wasn't soon enough for your liking. Have you considered that maybe I'm actually more interested in hearing the contribution of others sometimes rather than talk about myself and what I think. I even liked one of your posts in this thread. If you are going to attack an argument, attack the argument itself, not present ad hominem attacks on a person just because we may have disagreements on other unrelated issues. This often results in the other person seeing little benefit in further arguments as they are not productive. I'm well aware that the threads in politics aren't the best place to make friends However, I think we might actually agree on some things respective of this topic, and just because a person disagrees with one particular claim or argument doesn't necessarily mean they disagree with everything you may possibly present. This thread could take several directions, one of which would be the economics of this issue (why do governments usually set binding price floors, tax certain goods, and effects does that have on that market). The other would be ethics (my primary concern here), or it could just die.

I might argue that if marijuana was legalized on a federal level, it might be expected that we see a dramatic decline in the price of marjuana. In this scenario we would achieve something closer to "perfect competition". In the current state, only some states have legalized marijuana, so the effective "world price" is still the black market price of the prohibition states. It's almost as if producers in the legal states have become exporters as we would expect (and in fact .. they have). Since there are no competitors offering the same product for a lower price, there is no signal for the price to fall by any significant amount. Of course if I remember correctly Balbus, you don't live in the states, so I'm not sure how relevant these issues are over there, things may be a bit different regarding policy, though I believe the economic laws will hold anywhere (though the markets ARE different).

 

From an American perspective no doubt you're right. In the UK we don't have the same ethnic groups or the same associations. Cannabis for example is historically more linked with Black people with Caribbean ancestry. 'Black dope white hope' was a slogan you used to see at one time. For years it was a thing for hippies. Now it's use is more widespread across all sections of society. But there's a similarity in the kinds of drugs taken by people according to their socio-economic position, and I think, education.


By my comments about alcohol and tobacco, I was merely seeking to point to a certain hypocrisy that exists when politicians pronounce on the issue. I'm sure there is as high a proportion of the population here addicted to prescription drugs as in America

One big historical difference though is that we never tried prohibition of alcohol. The British upper class like their tipple, and they'd never go that far. Even so, the UK has a huge problem with alcohol. Far greater than the problems caused by illegal drugs.

 

I would say it is, and agree with everything you have said in this thread IRQ......and I am all for dumping the prisons out of the drug users.....ones who have not hurt anyone but their own selves....that is....who cares? if someone wants to ruin their own lives with drugs...let them...just do not ruin some one else's, is my thinking.....and alcohol is one of the worst drugs that is legal....and i wish marijuana would be legal across the board also.....

I am for replacing these drug users in the prsions with animal cruelty peple and throwing away the key on them, though.

 

One of the latest episodes of vice might interest you since it dealt with this topic. It was discussing the states where weed is legalized and the huge commercial growing companies that are springing up and forcing the cost down. It seems this is already in effect in those states and canada to some degree regardless of world prices. Apparently it's forcing out many of the smaller growers who have been fighting to have weed legalized for years.

 

isn't everything all about $$$$$?

 

IRQ

I’ve been a supporter for legalisation for many years way before I began posting here but here are a couple of things I’ve posted here

Here is something I wrote 9 years ago

Let me get this straight Gravity, your argument seems to be that the left wants to legalise drugs so that they can then ban them?

If so I don’t think you understand the thinking of many of us that are call for a more rational drugs policy.

To me it is more about harm reduction and taking the trade out of the corrupting influence of criminal control.

Opiate addiction (Heroin is actually a brand name from the time when opiates were legal) would be treated as a health issue and not a crime problem. Opiates would not be legally accessible (as some non-addictive drugs would be) but given to addicts through prescription under medical supervision.

And the drugs policy would not stand alone but be part of a wide ranging holistic approach, that would involve other social and economic policies.

**

All drugs can have a detrimental effect on people and society this has to be understood and means found to keep those effects down to a reasonable level.

To me and many other the prohibition on drugs is having a much more detrimental effect on people than would be if drugs were decriminalised or legalised under regulatory control.


Here is post from 7 years ago that sets out what I through back then

“The thinking on the left want a drugs policy that is good for society and the individual. They don’t think probation works but neither do they want drugs to become just another unregulated profit making product in a consumerist market.

They also base their views on personal freedom but they also see drugs from a
social and healthcare standpoint.

Soft drugs would be grown and made under licence and regulated in much the same way as alcohol.

Those addicted to harder drugs would receive them under medical supervision with the goal of stabilising and then getting people off them.

The emphasis would be on education, treatment, and assistance.”

Lefties like me believe that after decriminalisation the drug trade would be taxed and regulated (as alcohol is) and public money would be used to fund healthcare, treatment and education etc.

*

There was something I wrote even further back that I don’t seem to be able to find but basically it was that any legalisation had to be brought in carefully so that it was in the best interests of the wider community rather than letting the gains go to the big corporations.

I proposed that licences would be given out to those already involved in the trade (subject to criminal record, for example convictions for growing, possession or selling ok convictions for violence no ) and that precluded larger businesses for say 10 to 20 years, with accompanying tariffs on imports.

I thought this because without protection the trade would be taken away from groups that needed the money most and go into the pockets of those that didn’t.

Imagine a small time grower having to compete with some international supermarket buying marijuana grown extremely cheaply in say Columbia (if it goes legal in the US a lot of places will follow) and undercutting anything that could be produced domestically in the US and small dealers would have to compete with the likes of Walmart selling bags that you could pick up during your weekly shop.

Exactly what I was talking about.

 

That won't happen and isn't what is going on now. People in America who live in legal MMJ states or where it is already legal recreational use have become used to the nice manicured buds and higher quality then would be gotten from some South American field operation. I imagine not living in America you are not aware of the vast differences now between field grown, mass produced weed and marijuana produced for medical use or by legal growers or of the general attitude concerning it. .
Many of the growers that are becoming big were small time growers that thought ahead. In Ca many of the dispensaries I go to actually just grow their own stock with the help of volunteers, and MMJ has been legal here since 1996.

The biggest financial blockades to legalization come from 3 main sources, the tobacco and alcohol lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby and south American drug cartels.

Concerning other substances, in every study ever done, whenever a person is provided with safe, clean access to the drug they are addicted to, almost without exception they turn their lives around and defeat the addiction. It is the criminalization that creates a lot of the negative consequences of drug use.

 

YES, YES, YES, and YES...Look at the amount of tax money that Colorado added back into their state in the first year....
Hawaii has decided to study the model that the Portuguese used in 2001...That is basically the decriminalization of ALL DRUGS...That is what is needed to control the drug problem...
Is it all about money, on 3-26-2016, the border patrol found a semi-submersible sub near Corpus Christi, Texas with 12,800 pounds of cocaine worth 200 million dollars..IS IT ALL ABOUT MONEY?