| Pages:
1
2
3
4 |
Bajaboy
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4375
Registered: 10-9-2003
Location: Bahia Asuncion, BCS, Mexico
Member Is Offline
|
|
How to stop the drug wars (From the Economist)
I've not been one to believe in the merits of legalization but this article makes some valid points beyond what I've heard or read before.
Zac
Failed states and failed policies
How to stop the drug wars
Mar 5th 2009
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_i...
Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution
A HUNDRED years ago a group of foreign diplomats gathered in Shanghai for the first-ever international effort to ban trade in a narcotic drug. On
February 26th 1909 they agreed to set up the International Opium Commission—just a few decades after Britain had fought a war with China to assert its
right to peddle the stuff. Many other bans of mood-altering drugs have followed. In 1998 the UN General Assembly committed member countries to
achieving a “drug-free world” and to “eliminating or significantly reducing” the production of opium, cocaine and cannabis by 2008.
That is the kind of promise politicians love to make. It assuages the sense of moral panic that has been the handmaiden of prohibition for a century.
It is intended to reassure the parents of teenagers across the world. Yet it is a hugely irresponsible promise, because it cannot be fulfilled.
Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many
will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world
even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That
is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.
“Least bad” does not mean good. Legalisation, though clearly better for producer countries, would bring (different) risks to consumer countries. As we
outline below, many vulnerable drug-takers would suffer. But in our view, more would gain.
The evidence of failure
Nowadays the UN Office on Drugs and Crime no longer talks about a drug-free world. Its boast is that the drug market has “stabilised”, meaning that
more than 200m people, or almost 5% of the world’s adult population, still take illegal drugs—roughly the same proportion as a decade ago. (Like most
purported drug facts, this one is just an educated guess: evidential rigour is another casualty of illegality.) The production of cocaine and opium is
probably about the same as it was a decade ago; that of cannabis is higher. Consumption of cocaine has declined gradually in the United States from
its peak in the early 1980s, but the path is uneven (it remains higher than in the mid-1990s), and it is rising in many places, including Europe.
This is not for want of effort. The United States alone spends some $40 billion each year on trying to eliminate the supply of drugs. It arrests 1.5m
of its citizens each year for drug offences, locking up half a million of them; tougher drug laws are the main reason why one in five black American
men spend some time behind bars. In the developing world blood is being shed at an astonishing rate. In Mexico more than 800 policemen and soldiers
have been killed since December 2006 (and the annual overall death toll is running at over 6,000). This week yet another leader of a troubled
drug-ridden country—Guinea Bissau—was assassinated.
Yet prohibition itself vitiates the efforts of the drug warriors. The price of an illegal substance is determined more by the cost of distribution
than of production. Take cocaine: the mark-up between coca field and consumer is more than a hundredfold. Even if dumping weedkiller on the crops of
peasant farmers quadruples the local price of coca leaves, this tends to have little impact on the street price, which is set mainly by the risk of
getting cocaine into Europe or the United States.
Nowadays the drug warriors claim to seize close to half of all the cocaine that is produced. The street price in the United States does seem to have
risen, and the purity seems to have fallen, over the past year. But it is not clear that drug demand drops when prices rise. On the other hand, there
is plenty of evidence that the drug business quickly adapts to market disruption. At best, effective repression merely forces it to shift production
sites. Thus opium has moved from Turkey and Thailand to Myanmar and southern Afghanistan, where it undermines the West’s efforts to defeat the
Taliban.
Al Capone, but on a global scale
Indeed, far from reducing crime, prohibition has fostered gangsterism on a scale that the world has never seen before. According to the UN’s perhaps
inflated estimate, the illegal drug industry is worth some $320 billion a year. In the West it makes criminals of otherwise law-abiding citizens (the
current American president could easily have ended up in prison for his youthful experiments with “blow”). It also makes drugs more dangerous: addicts
buy heavily adulterated cocaine and heroin; many use dirty needles to inject themselves, spreading HIV; the wretches who succumb to “crack” or “meth”
are outside the law, with only their pushers to “treat” them. But it is countries in the emerging world that pay most of the price. Even a relatively
developed democracy such as Mexico now finds itself in a life-or-death struggle against gangsters. American officials, including a former drug tsar,
have publicly worried about having a “narco state” as their neighbour.
The failure of the drug war has led a few of its braver generals, especially from Europe and Latin America, to suggest shifting the focus from locking
up people to public health and “harm reduction” (such as encouraging addicts to use clean needles). This approach would put more emphasis on public
education and the treatment of addicts, and less on the harassment of peasants who grow coca and the punishment of consumers of “soft” drugs for
personal use. That would be a step in the right direction. But it is unlikely to be adequately funded, and it does nothing to take organised crime out
of the picture.
Legalisation would not only drive away the gangsters; it would transform drugs from a law-and-order problem into a public-health problem, which is how
they ought to be treated. Governments would tax and regulate the drug trade, and use the funds raised (and the billions saved on law-enforcement) to
educate the public about the risks of drug-taking and to treat addiction. The sale of drugs to minors should remain banned. Different drugs would
command different levels of taxation and regulation. This system would be fiddly and imperfect, requiring constant monitoring and hard-to-measure
trade-offs. Post-tax prices should be set at a level that would strike a balance between damping down use on the one hand, and discouraging a black
market and the desperate acts of theft and prostitution to which addicts now resort to feed their habits.
Selling even this flawed system to people in producer countries, where organised crime is the central political issue, is fairly easy. The tough part
comes in the consumer countries, where addiction is the main political battle. Plenty of American parents might accept that legalisation would be the
right answer for the people of Latin America, Asia and Africa; they might even see its usefulness in the fight against terrorism. But their immediate
fear would be for their own children.
That fear is based in large part on the presumption that more people would take drugs under a legal regime. That presumption may be wrong. There is no
correlation between the harshness of drug laws and the incidence of drug-taking: citizens living under tough regimes (notably America but also
Britain) take more drugs, not fewer. Embarrassed drug warriors blame this on alleged cultural differences, but even in fairly similar countries tough
rules make little difference to the number of addicts: harsh Sweden and more liberal Norway have precisely the same addiction rates. Legalisation
might reduce both supply (pushers by definition push) and demand (part of that dangerous thrill would go). Nobody knows for certain. But it is hard to
argue that sales of any product that is made cheaper, safer and more widely available would fall. Any honest proponent of legalisation would be wise
to assume that drug-taking as a whole would rise.
There are two main reasons for arguing that prohibition should be scrapped all the same. The first is one of liberal principle. Although some illegal
drugs are extremely dangerous to some people, most are not especially harmful. (Tobacco is more addictive than virtually all of them.) Most consumers
of illegal drugs, including cocaine and even heroin, take them only occasionally. They do so because they derive enjoyment from them (as they do from
whisky or a Marlboro Light). It is not the state’s job to stop them from doing so.
What about addiction? That is partly covered by this first argument, as the harm involved is primarily visited upon the user. But addiction can also
inflict misery on the families and especially the children of any addict, and involves wider social costs. That is why discouraging and treating
addiction should be the priority for drug policy. Hence the second argument: legalisation offers the opportunity to deal with addiction properly.
By providing honest information about the health risks of different drugs, and pricing them accordingly, governments could steer consumers towards the
least harmful ones. Prohibition has failed to prevent the proliferation of designer drugs, dreamed up in laboratories. Legalisation might encourage
legitimate drug companies to try to improve the stuff that people take. The resources gained from tax and saved on repression would allow governments
to guarantee treatment to addicts—a way of making legalisation more politically palatable. The success of developed countries in stopping people
smoking tobacco, which is similarly subject to tax and regulation, provides grounds for hope.
A calculated gamble, or another century of failure?
This newspaper first argued for legalisation 20 years ago (see article). Reviewing the evidence again (see article), prohibition seems even more
harmful, especially for the poor and weak of the world. Legalisation would not drive gangsters completely out of drugs; as with alcohol and
cigarettes, there would be taxes to avoid and rules to subvert. Nor would it automatically cure failed states like Afghanistan. Our solution is a
messy one; but a century of manifest failure argues for trying it.
|
|
|
DENNIS
Platinum Nomad
Posts: 29510
Registered: 9-2-2006
Location: Punta Banda
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by Bajaboy
Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution
|
This only shows the lack of creative thought put to this problem. If it's to be controled, those who need to be controled have to have reason to
believe their future will come to an end if apprehended in the commision of a crime involved with drugs. What's left of their miserable lives will be
spent in prison on a pick'n shovel job building freeways.
Pick..Pick...Shovel...Shovel...then, they die of old age. Bye Bye. So much for the garbage who have bathed our countrys in havoc.
They have to understand that their behavior will be their end.
If this isn't the solution, we're screwed. We are theirs. It's over for us.
Is that what you want?
Who has a better solution. Let's hear it.
|
|
|
fishbuck
Banned
Posts: 5318
Registered: 8-31-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
Somehow, I don't think Guzman is going to go for this plan. In fact my guess is he will spend a considerible amount of his 1 billion dollars to defeat
it.
"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." J. A. Shedd.
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. – Albert Einstein
"Life's a Beach... and then you Fly!" Fishbuck
|
|
|
Iflyfish
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3747
Registered: 10-17-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
Bajaboy.
I am impressed that you would reconsider your opinion based upon information and then share your insight with us.
Thank you.
It is again clear to me that if you start with the wrong premise you will inevitably reach the wrong conclusion. We have been working with the wrong
premise for a very long time. The article says it well.
One definition of insanity is to keep doing over and over that which does not work.
The first beer is on me when we meet.
Iflyfish
|
|
|
Dave
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6005
Registered: 11-5-2002
Member Is Offline
|
|
What wrong premise?
| Quote: | Originally posted by Iflyfish
It is again clear to me that if you start with the wrong premise you will inevitably reach the wrong conclusion. We have been working with the wrong
premise for a very long time. The article says it well.
|
That prohibition can work?
Without being the least bit creative I guarantee that I could design policies that would effectively prohibit drug use... Even among
hardcore addicts. In the 1940's the U.S. won a war against fascism. Don't insult my intelligence telling me we can't win against drugs. We have the
means...We lack the will.
|
|
|
bajalou
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4459
Registered: 3-11-2004
Location: South of the broder
Member Is Offline
|
|
Prohibition has never worked against anything.
We killed millions of fascists - do you plan on killing the 20+% of the US population that uses drugs?
No Bad Days
\"Never argue with an idiot. People watching may not be able to tell the difference\"
\"The trouble with doing nothing is - how do I know when I\'m done?\"
Nomad Baja Interactive map
And in the San Felipe area - check out Valle Chico area |
|
|
Dave
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6005
Registered: 11-5-2002
Member Is Offline
|
|
Worked, didn't it?
| Quote: | Originally posted by bajalou
We killed millions of fascists |
|
|
|
Iflyfish
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3747
Registered: 10-17-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
"That prohibition can work?"
Yup, that's the premise. They recently found a bundle of marijuana that was being carried by a man some 2,500 years ago.
Marijuana is the largest cash crop in California right now. Who do you think is consuming all that guage? It is not being used to stuff mattresses. Is
the current approach working? Will doing more work. What sort of state would be left if we escalate what we are now doing? A police state?
bajalou:
There are some who say we have just lived through a period of fascism in the USofA and the use of drugs only increased. It is not a lack of
committment or resources being thrown at this problem that is keeping the use up.
Is this THE MOST IMPORTANT problem we are dealing with now? Or is our fear making us become reactive?
Iflyfish
|
|
|
Iflyfish
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3747
Registered: 10-17-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
Yup Dave, lets kill millions of Mexicans and Norte Americans in an attempt to stomp out this immoral behavior. Like killing for peace it seems to me.
Lets go after people who have affairs. These immoral people ruin families and destroy the lives of children. Lets do it like they do in the Middle
East, stone the women and garret or shoot the men. Much more harm is done by divorce than by people smoking marijuana. Over 50% of marriages are
ending in divorce and the impact on those involved is life long.
Iflyfish
Ifyfish
|
|
|
Sharksbaja
Elite Nomad
Posts: 5814
Registered: 9-7-2004
Location: Newport, Mulege B.C.S.
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: | Dave said:
It worked didn't it
|
I guess corporal punishment is a good thang to some. Yes you can kill people who don't conform to your ideology if you have the power to do
so.
Now, isn't that the thousand dollar question; what ideology is correct and less harmful to society.
Of all the people here I would not have guessed you would make a statement like that. You are Jewish aren't you?
DON\'T SQUINT! Give yer eyes a break!
Try holding down [control] key and toggle the [+ and -] keys
Viva Mulege!
Nomads\' Sunsets
|
|
|
Frantic1
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: 3-1-2009
Location: Washington State
Member Is Offline
|
|
Drug users will find drugs. If they can't find their drug of choice, they will use something else. It makes so much more sense to take it out of the
hands of the cartels and druglords and put it under government control, then sell it in the liquor stores or pharmacies and tax the heck out of it.
The cost of the war on drugs would go down, the tax revenue would go up, and the federal deficit would disappear. The cost of incarceration of drug
users would be deflected to treatment programs. I just don't see the loser in this equation.
Seattle's ex police chief Gil Kerlikowske has been names Obama's drug czar. He made possession and use of MJ the lowest priority for the Seattle PD
when I lived there. His progressive views on the use of certain drugs is likely to influence US drug policy toward at least decriminalization if not
legalization. Decriminalization would not take the cartels out of the equation, nor would it provide tax revenue. I think the best option is
complete legalization.
The "War on Drugs" has been an obvious failure, costing taxpayers a fortune. We would all be safer if it were under government control rather than a
highly lucrative source of revenue for the cartels.
Frantic1
\"Ships were not meant for harbors.\"
|
|
|
Bajahowodd
Elite Nomad
Posts: 9274
Registered: 12-15-2008
Location: Disneyland Adjacent and anywhere in Baja
Member Is Offline
|
|
I must admit that I am pleasantly surprised that there are so many conservative thinkers on this forum who are, at the very least, open-minded with
respect to the drug issue. Personally, I believe that the legalization, control and taxation of marijuana, will not only produce enormous revenues for
the government, and will force the cartels to seek other employment. But, despite all the rhetoric about gateway drug, if marijuana was legally
available, it would actually diminish the use of cocaine and meth. The ugly truth is that during the Nixon administration, marijuana was classified as
a drug more dangerous than cocaine and meth, only because the Nixon folks were striking back at the so-called hippie movement that was adamantly
against the Vietnam war. The pariah classification of pot was just plain political. Nixon hated the anti-war movement that was greatly supported by
the young, mostly college students, who were somehow painted with the broad brush as being, (shudder), hippies.
|
|
|
ckiefer
Nomad
Posts: 258
Registered: 12-12-2007
Location: LaJolla
Member Is Offline
|
|
So, for those who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana, I ask: Are you also opposed to the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes?
I'm talking about for those with terminal illnesses?Those who can no longer, because of their illness/disease, work, drive a car, etc. If you're
still saying yes, do you have a terminal illness or know anyone who has? Would you deny your neighbor (providing you actually like your neighbor),
the pleasure of enjoying what life they may have left because your view point of marijuana is clouded with erroneous propaganda? At the very least
these individuals should be allowed to live out their lives in peace, and if mind altering substances are needed, allow them that small pleasure.
Allow those individuals to grow their own stash, (I think most do anyway), but make that legal. Legalization is a win win in my opinion and I look
forward to the day this happens.
Alcohol too is mind altering but it is legal and taxed. What the hell??? So that martini holds more class than a joint, or a brownie? Everyone
likes brownies, no? Oh, and that Starbucks ice coffee....that's the new meth!
Marijuana should be legal to those 21 and over and controlled in the same manner as alcohol. But not "taxed like hell". Let California deal with the
marijuana issue, and generate some much needed revenue! BUT Home Grown, not imports!
I have deliberately left out any references to smoking tobacco, as marijuana has such diverse delivery methods.
signed: me, another flower child...... 
|
|
|
k-rico
Super Nomad
Posts: 2079
Registered: 7-10-2008
Location: Playas de Tijuana
Member Is Offline
|
|
Some anti-legalization arguments:
http://www.sarnia.com/GROUPS/ANTIDRUG/argument/myths.html
I think it's true that this and other similar discussions wouldn't be happening if not for the recent dramatic increase in violence between the
cartels themselves and between the cartels and the cops. What started all of this horror? It's like some President somewhere decided to go to war. I
wish they would stop doing that.
I wonder what the criminals would do if in fact legalization put them out of the drug business. Would they become law abiding citizens?
I've heard that 400,000 people in Mexico put food in their stomachs, roofs over their heads, and clothes on their backs via the drug trade. I'm not
saying that makes it OK, but it is a significant problem.
The amount of narco money flowing into Mexico annually is in the billions. If California lawmakers can change long standing criminal laws for
apparently no reason other than to derive tax revenues, maybe Calderon should stop his war because, "hey, Mexico needs the money".
|
|
|
Bajahowodd
Elite Nomad
Posts: 9274
Registered: 12-15-2008
Location: Disneyland Adjacent and anywhere in Baja
Member Is Offline
|
|
k-rico- the link that you posted is to an article written by a member of the Family Research Council, which is a Fundamentalist Christian conservative
think tank. I would have expected nothing less from the conclusions drawn in the article given their mission and their audience. Plus the article is
14 years old. However, I do thank you for posting it because open dialogue is a necessary fundamental to our democracy.
|
|
|
Bajahowodd
Elite Nomad
Posts: 9274
Registered: 12-15-2008
Location: Disneyland Adjacent and anywhere in Baja
Member Is Offline
|
|
On a separate note, not meriting a new thread, because it really doesn't apply to Baja, but still relevant to much of the discussion on this thread:
Is it always about the money? Many folks have noted that there could be tremendous revenue savings by relieving law enforcement of the burden of
chasing after marijuana and increased tax revenues by the control of sales.
I do not seek to open a debate pro or con on the underlying issue, as it is hotly contested by sincere people. However, there is an article in today's
paper quoting the New Mexico Attorney General as suggesting they do away with the death penalty. The case from which this derives involves the
legislature's failure to fund the defense for the accused. Taken in context with many studies that show it is far less expensive to incarcerate
someone for life than to fund the long appeals process. Again. Not looking to debate the issue. Was struck by the similar financial considerations as
made in the pot legalization argument.
|
|
|
DianaT
Select Nomad
Posts: 10020
Registered: 12-17-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
Good article---thanks for posting it Zac. It makes some very good arguments in favor of legalization----
It should have never been made illegal in the first place, IMHO.
Diane
|
|
|
Dave
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6005
Registered: 11-5-2002
Member Is Offline
|
|
WTF?
| Quote: | Originally posted by Sharksbaja
Of all the people here I would not have guessed you would make a statement like that. You are Jewish aren't you? |
Why would you consider my respect for and demand that others respect the law to run contrary to my religious beliefs? Jews were among the first people
who codified law. It's ingrained in our DNA. Why do you think there are so many Jewish lawyers? 
|
|
|
Iflyfish
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3747
Registered: 10-17-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
Dave,
There are so many Jewish Lawyers because their families survived the extermination strategies of governments that saw them as immoral and beneath
human dignity. He was making an analogy between the two groups, marijuana users who are demonized and imprisoned by the state and Jewish people who
were demonized and exterminated by the state.
Draconian measures like escalation of the "War on Drugs" ends in casualties, some innocent.
No offence intended, just couldn't pass that one up.
I am not surprised to find Conservatives who support ending this "War on Drugs". These people are the W.F. Buckley/B. Goldwater Conservatives who
believe that the government has no place legislating morality or what we do in the privacy of our own homes. The problem is that a small, very radical
element hijacked their party and moved their base away from their fundamental position of limiting government. The political continuum is a circle not
a line as most believe with Conservatives on one end and Liberals on the other. It is actually a circle with Libertarians and Liberals sharing common
beliefs in freedom from government interferance in what people do in their bedrooms and what they eat, smoke or drink. I hope that the Republicans
return to their roots and requdiate the element that hijacked their party and their credibility.
Iflyfish
|
|
|
DENNIS
Platinum Nomad
Posts: 29510
Registered: 9-2-2006
Location: Punta Banda
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by Dave
Why do you think there are so many Jewish lawyers? |
And Rabbis...or is that just a coincidence.
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2
3
4 |
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
