Two reads worth your time:Cliffs of Insanity: End The War On Drugs
Denninger: The Drug War - Time To Wake Up?
My take, based on six years in the investigative trenches, courtrooms, and electronically-surveilled airwaves of the drug war?
- Repeal all Federal drug laws aimed at possession and distribution, then disband the DEA;
- In the states, enact "Vermont carry" citizen armament statutes, then decriminalize possession of everything (narcotics, marijuana, hallucinogens, everything) in quantities under or equal to five kilograms;
- For possession of quantities greater than five kilograms, require forfeiture of the goods unless the possessor is authorized by applicable state law;
- Permit distribution pursuant to applicable state laws (which would, of course, vary from state to state) to anyone except minors;
- Retask all existing "drug war" resources to the resulting temporary crime spikes, if any, until equilibrium (i.e, sufficient dead users) is reached (e.g., no more than 36 months);
- Disband legacy "drug war" resources once equilibrium is reached.
Of course, none of these steps will be taken.
Leviathan needs drug laws.
For the children, of course......
UPDATE 2030 EDT 14 SEPTEMBER 2010: Einstein weighs in.
Drunk drivers kill 20,000+ people a year now. Legalizing drugs for "recreational use" I think will up that squared. And how, exactly, are we supposed to compete in worldwide markets, or militarily, with millions doped up all the time? We could be China, circa 1905. The quality, and value of Americans lives will drop precipitously. But you do what you want to do. Harm a member of my family doing your "legal" drugs, and you can count your life in seconds.
ReplyDeleteSean: I'd be with you if the current (past 40 years) course had done anything positive.
ReplyDeleteIt hasn't.
Those people driving doped are doing it now.
Same with the doping people who come to hurt you.
The cocaine market in North America was saturated when I was in the jackboot biz in the first half of the Nineties.
The bad guys literally had no more room for growth.
Meth's bad shit, for sure.
It kills its users.
As will legit people with Vermont carry.
And especially when you add prescription "legal" drugs to the equation, we are already in the place described by this part of your comment:
And how, exactly, are we supposed to compete in worldwide markets, or militarily, with millions doped up all the time? We could be China, circa 1905
We are China, circa 1905.
I like it.
ReplyDeleteMore damage has been done to liberty in the name of drug eradication than any other program out there.
Just a possible spike in crime? No way. If all drugs were legalized, there would be a full-scale war in many countries including ours. Trying to simply shut down a multi-billion dollar business run by people with no compunction about killing and large private armies at their disposal will *not* go over well.
ReplyDeleteDrug gangs will kill over corners that generate $1,000/day. Drug lords will kill anyone who threatens profits. Add in the governments and other powerful interests who would suddenly lose their off-books drug income, and you'll have shooting galleries everywhere.
Any politician putting pen to paper to decriminalize would die - along with his/her family, like as not - before the ink was even dry.
Even then, the drug trade won't be stopped. Stuff like heroin, cocaine, etc., once regulated, will have limitations on how strong it can be. The drug lords will simply offer stronger stuff.
Decriminalization is probably the best long-term solution, but it will not be easy, and the cost will be very, very high.
Used to be, the opium dens were legal and many and confined to one part of town. One was free to go there and spend one's life savings and dream one's life away and happily starve to death.
ReplyDeleteProhibition brought the mob and the imitative street gangs. It never worked. It never will. Will we try something different? Michelle Obama is taking restaurants to task about fat in food people want to buy. I think Bloomberg has recreated trans fat smuggling in NYC.
Sean, your assertion about increases in intoxicated drivers has no basis.
ReplyDeleteDrug abusers, alcohol included, are a set of the population as a whole. Drugs, other than alcohol, are a subset of the whole drug abuser set, there will be no measurable increase in intoxicated drivers at all. If you think there's a shortage of available drugs now, you're extremely naive.
Pete, I'm in 100% agreement with your ideas presented in this post. As a health care professional with lots of contact with those that abuse drugs, more than I care for actually, I've made my own personal study of what the drug war provides America and that is nothing but crime, misery, and a huge expense with nothing of value gained at all.
What's worse, the Drug War increases criminal behavior within state and local police forces. Most of these institutions are addicted to federal funds, another form of corruption.
Before I returned to my native state, I lived in California. I was there when cannabis was approved for medical uses, but there was little to no change in the behavior of the state and local police forces. After years of saying, "cannabis is illegal, if you want us to not arrest you for possession of it, change the law", the law was changed, but the police hated the change and reacted as if it had not changed. Today, while the state and local police forces have reduced their assaults upon the populace in CA, they've turned their resources to supplying intelligence to US government police, so that arrests can continue. I can't speak to any changes resulting from the Obama Junta's public proclamation about drug arrests by the feds, but I have suspicions that not much has changed.
Last, I'd challenge any who support the Drug War to provide the place in the Constitution that permits the US government to prohibit any thing of any kind. To shorten their search, there is no such grant of authority at all. In fact, the US government is charged with encouraging commerce by making commerce regular between the states and foreign lands.
The Drug War has always been unConstitutional, the DEA should meet the same fate as the BATFAE; dissolution with the agents thereof arrested, tried, and jailed or executed as merited by their crimes.
With apologies to Sean, consider the following:
ReplyDelete(A)
"Drunk drivers kill 20,000+ people a year now"
versus
"Guns kill 30,000 people a year"
(B)
"...up that squared"
versus
"Blood will run through the streets with Dodge City-style shootouts over a parking space"
Being an advocate of the written Constitution and a fierce supporter of freedom means exactly that. This includes stuff you might not agree with.
Seeking to condemn/endorse a different set of actions or behaviors than does the crew in DC or the state house makes you just as much a problem as them. The sole benefit is that you don't have access to my tax dollars.
Actual freedom and liberty means legal pot (at the very least), gay "marriage", and several other things that our side usually has a problem with.
You need to choose: if your idea of a Resoration is simply a different set of "do's" and "don'ts", then you're part of the problem, and will end up with a cigarette and a blindfold too.
Again, apologies to Sean: I don't mean to attack you in any way; yours was simply the first comment to object to legalized drugs. There will be more, don't worry: people have difficulties letting go of their sacred cows and thinking through the ramifications of true liberty and freedom.
I agree 100%.This will remove the criminal element entirely and from lifelong experience with many years in Vietnam and the same driving cabs here, driving while stoned on grass is doable, but not stoned on alcohol.
ReplyDeleteThe Progressive Movement has always been obsessed with controlling the behavior of their human livestock. Controlling access to mood altering substances is an important part of that goal. Second only to controlling sex and reproduction.
ReplyDeleteThe drugged war and its persistent support is one major reason I've concluded the "freedom movement" in America will fail. Most people don't really want to be free; they just want a kindly master who will chersh and take care of them and only take too much in taxes from other people. What most people call "freedom" is the equivalent of a dog walking on a leash. Just because your leash is longer than some of the other dogs' doesn't mean you don’t have a master.
it ain't gonna happen....so why bother to talk about it?
ReplyDeleteThe so called War on Drugs is a war on the American people and the freedoms we once enjoyed. Leviathan cannot do with out it.
KPN3%
An aspect of the Drug War many people are unaware of is the growing harrassment and persecution of individuals with chronic pain and their doctors.
ReplyDeleteThis may seem a trivial matter, far removed from the lives of most, but it's not. With the population aging, and the number of service members returning from overseas with combat injuries, if you don't already have a friend or family member with a chronic pain condition, you probably will at some point in your life. You may even develop such a problem yourself.
Modern pain management, using opioid analgesics and other medications, has allowed many people, including your humble correspondent, to live normal lives, remain members of the productive class, and be fully participating members of their families and communities. Without access to these treatments most chronic pain patients, including myself, would be debilitated to the point of being unable to work or function normally, not to mention the horrific suffering we would have to endure.
Unfortunately the DEA has chosen to go after chronic pain patients and the doctors who treat them--probably because they are easy targets for prosecutions over paperwork errors or inadvertant violations of ever-changing and insanely complicated regulations.
If this sounds familiar to those who read this blog, it should; it is the same modus operandi of the ATF, who prefer to attack easy targets like legitimate gun dealers and peaceful gun owners.
The Drug War is a crime against humanity that has caused incalculable destruction. It has also caused massive collateral damage through its pogrom against chronic pain patients and their doctors.
KPN:
ReplyDeleteThe more people who see the futility of the drug war and the .gov's reliance on maintaining that farce, the more legitimacy is bled from the .gov.
The more illegitimate the .gov is seen to be, the more power it will seek, and the more people it will offend - thereby bleeding more legitimacy.
Death of 10,000 cuts a/k/a swarm takedown....sounds a lot more feasible than a frontal attack by what? .0003% of the population?
Not one sane measure will be taken by the current succession of regimes. Learn the lesson of prohibition which INCREASED usage of hard liquors replacing beer as the drink of choice. Like it or not people pretty much will do something just because others tell them no.
ReplyDeleteFor crying out loud every criminal organization depending on the US drug trade would collapse over night, think about that, just like what happened when Prohibition was repealed. Too obvious I know...
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ReplyDeleteGunRights4US said..."More damage has been done to liberty in the name of drug eradication than any other program out there."
ReplyDeleteAgree.
And the "war on terror" is trying to catch up quick!
Supplemental to the Dweeze's comment:
ReplyDeleteI have taken 20 years to go from "summary execution for > 1 ounce of cocaine" to "decriminalize it all and deal with those consequences, which are less than the consequences of continuing the War on (some) Drugs".
It is hard being intellectually honest. I struggle with it every damned day -- especially in thinking through the thirty-year global bloodbath just revving up now.
But we are better than the .gov shitheads who insist on perpetually reinforcing defeat, no matter what.
We must ALWAYS look at ALL of both the costs and the benefits -- immediate and eventual -- of any proposed action, a la Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.
Our superior analysis, resulting rational planning, and willingness to change course whenever necessary is one of the few strategic advantages held by the FreeFor.
Let's not blow it.
"For possession of quantities greater than five kilograms, require forfeiture of the goods unless the possessor is authorized by applicable state law;
ReplyDeletePermit distribution pursuant to applicable state laws"
You don't want to end the war on drugs, not at all. You simply want to raise the lower quantity limits a little, because you're getting bad PR from putting too many Americans in prison. Government legitimacy is slipping, so you calculatedly propose to let the most sympathetic of your victims go free. Then you can continue to vilify manufacturing and distribution as criminal, and do the deadly makework of cops and robbers at taxpayer expense. Meet the new DEA, same as the old DEA.
If your goal was liberty, you would propose immediately laying off every government employee who infringes on the right to keep and bear drugs. You would propose pardons for everyone with any brush with a drug law. When alcohol prohibition ended, there was no temporary crime spike from overdosing on newly cheap booze. There won't be a crime spike if drug prohibition ends. Drug warriors don't prevent crime, they manufacture it by criminalizing consensual behavior. They don't deserve a paycheck, they deserve retribution from the junkies whose lives they've ruined.
The WOD will never end anytime soon, the Cocaine Importation Agency is enjoying its monopoly.
ReplyDeleteC.A.
ReplyDeletegood point on being intellectually honest. It's a very hard thing to accomplish, and as you stated, an ongoing everyday growth.
Also, as we see with Sean, he lost a family member to drugs, so he's operating from a gut level reaction to what he sees as a societal poison.
But the next and hardest step, is to look beyond that and see what makes the drug war what it is. Study will lead you to see that the gov't is behind most of the drug smuggling and the CIA and DEA are a sort of Yin and Yang effect. One works against the other, on paper at least.
So how to take the gov't profit out of drugs? The (multi) billion dollar question.
0321
For those of you who haven't read it"Kiss the boys goodbye" is an eye opener on what happens with POW's and drugs.
I understand where the emotional prohibitionists are coming from, as I've seen people destroyed by drugs.
ReplyDeleteHowever, far more destruction is caused by the prohibition of drugs, and it doesn't take much searching and review of information to understand that.
Gangs, most of America's violence, deaths due to overdoses caused by unmeasurable fineness of the product, the prison industrial complex - these things are the direct result of drugs being illegal and thus completely unregulated and pushed underground.
We already have millions of Americans doped up all the time. However, do we REALLY need to throw young people in jail for dabbling in damn-near-harmless chemicals when they're not bothering or harming other people?
Here's a consequence of the drug war that really bothers me - I can no longer acquire an effective decongestant over the counter to deal with an allergic episode because "one one thousandth of the meth in America is 'cooked' from pseudoephedrine." i.e. the vast, vast majority of it is manufactured by drug cartels, but some people make it from over the counter drugs.
So EVERYONE'S quality of life has to suffer - and we have to spend $175 on a doctor's visit (reduced as I have OK insurance, but still not cheap) - to get a prescription for a $5, limited quantity of a drug that was over the counter until a few years ago.
People only cook up nasty meth because clean drugs with similar effects that DON'T destroy bodies and lives are ILLEGAL. So they get the stuff that is nasty because it's cheap.
Allow people to come to work stoned? Hell no.
Allow people to drive while impaired? Hell no.
Write off damage caused by irresponsible drug use? HELL NO.
Those are all straw-man arguments. We're not retards. People who advocate the end of the drug war are mostly NOT drug users. We just want some SANITY in our society.
My recipe for sanity -
Legalize, decriminalize possession, regulate like any other product. Drug manufacturers are made responsible for the quality of the product and accountable for labeling the purity and dosage guidelines for their products. Third-party labs are available for testing and certification of mainstream products, just like food.
Products outside of the mainstream cited above are like farmer's markets or Chinese herbalist shops, i.e. if you are putting bad product out that is killing people, you will be dealt with by law enforcement.
This would CRUSH gangs. This would also free up gobs of law enforcement personnel who could then go after DANGEROUS criminals rather than pot growers and teenagers who get stoned and go to the movies and laugh too much.
Medical and therapeutic use will be available for the appropriate substances, giving interested people the opportunity to safely use substances in as beneficial a method as possible by businesses that are accountable for the well-being of the users (with appropriate liability waivers and medical and psychological check-ups being an option to limit some kinds of liability). This would create a niche industry that would allow people of age to use drugs they are interested in - or benefit from - rather than what happens now. "Yo dude let's pick some mushrooms and get messed up and walk around."
Studies are being conducted right now of MDMA use in therapeutic settings for veterans suffering from PTSD... and it works. Yeah, better keep it illegal, some kid might take 20 pills of unknown quality at a rave, not drink any water, and pass out. Because they're like the same thing.
While importation is still prohibited, Portugal's government has decriminalized drug use. Drug use has decreased.
ReplyDeleteCA, here is an opportunity for your intellectual honesty to shine. You claim that regulation of drugs, or anything, can be reasonable and good. I claim that regulation can not work as advertised until the following problems are solved or avoided. Could you please address these questions by pointing to historical examples of their solutions?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons Imposing government doesn't solve the tragedy of the commons, because the legislature is just a bigger and more comprehensive commons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_debate In general, central planners cannot be smarter than the marketplace. Six billion heads are better than a few thousand in the District of Communism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle The symbiosis of the legislature, lobbyists, and the bureaucracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture Government sides with the large corporations against the middle class.