Comment by mey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mey | Hacker News Reader

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Here is my understanding on why decriminalization of drugs is beneficial.

First, legitimate competition from suppliers would drive down costs, forcing high risk/high reward illegal operations from other countries out of the market. How can a Mexican drug cartel compete against grand-ma and her backyard?

Secondly, what is the violent side of drug activitey? Again my understanding is that it's mostly revolved around protecting/hiding illegal production, and moving the drugs to a dealer. If you eliminate that supply chain, that vector of violent activity would be cut off.

Thirdly, why do people use drugs. I see three distinct reasons, recreational, escapism, addiction. The first two can easily lead to the third. The second two could be helped/resolved through rehabilitation programs, or solving the cause to need of escapism. (8-14% unemployment can't be helping). The first case, there isn't much a reason to have otherwise productive members of society be in jail.

I don't believe that drugs are marked as illegal because of fear from pharmacy companies, or from paper/cotton companies. I believe it is that same reaction as prohibition, blue collar laws. Bad stuff can happen, bad stuff does happen, and government officials wish to prevent that from happening, on the immediate time line, without generally considering that the long term effects can be disastrous.

One additional thing. As part of decriminalization and in addition to rehabilitation programs, the government should be watching new recreational drugs entering the market, and doing studies to determine the health risks / benefits of these fringe drugs. I seems that like sniffing glue, kids seem to assume that just because a drug has not been classified as an illegal substance, it somehow isn't dangerous, when the case is really that the government is rather slow to address anything of relevance in a timely fashion. (Except steroid abuse in MLB, and communists)

First, legitimate competition from suppliers would drive down costs, forcing high risk/high reward illegal operations from other countries out of the market. How can a Mexican drug cartel compete against grand-ma and her backyard?

Secondly, what is the violent side of drug activitey? Again my understanding is that it's mostly revolved around protecting/hiding illegal production, and moving the drugs to a dealer. If you eliminate that supply chain, that vector of violent activity would be cut off.

You've got this all mixed up. The violence is the competition. Drug violence is rarely about cartels vs cops -- more often it's cartels vs cartels and dealers vs dealers.

Well, that's perhaps true but the broader point still stands. Legalised drugs companies don't tend to have the same violent tendencies. Glaxo-Smithkline don't tend to have violent gun battles with Bayer over who gets to supply prescription meds to a 'hood.

Also, although that may be the violence most prominent in the US, there's plenty of police/army vs. drug cartel violent crime in other countries.

edit: typo.

I don't disagree that legalization would reduce violence. Part of it probably comes from the fact that since what they're doing (on a large scale) is massively illegal, so using violence to compete isn't much of a leap.

A huge part of it is by sheer nature of the black market, traditional dispute resolution is out of the question.

You can't go to a lawyer and say, "This dude backed out on his deal, cheating me out of $10,000 of grass."

So the only method left for many grey/black market areas is physical retaliation.

Outlaw a market, and only outlaws (and their own twisted senses of justice and retribution) will thrive in the market.

Cigarettes are legal, yet there are still criminal gangs making their living out of smuggling and selling cigarettes. Unless drugs are sold without restriction and without tax there will still be a market for illegal drugs. Sure the market will be smaller and less profitable, but that might just make the gangs more violent in defending their turf as they need a larger market share to keep their current profit levels.

> Drug violence is rarely about cartels vs cops -- more often it's cartels vs cartels and dealers vs dealers.

Precisely the point: If the cartels come to intimidate grandma, she calls the police, because her operation is legal and the intimidation is not. The police, because her operation is legal, then go after the cartel and shut them down.

Additionally, contract laws and theft/burglary laws and so on work in grandma's favor, because the legal system is at least potentially on the side of her legal operation. This alone greatly reduces the need for violence.

The police...then go after the cartel and shut them down.

Hah, if it were that easy we wouldn't still be in this 'War on Drugs'.

No, the critical difference is that as things currently stand none of the people involved in the drug trade have any reason to cooperate with the authorities. And really, once alcohol was legalized look at how quickly the mob violence around it disappeared.

Right. Prohibition created the Mafia - before Prohibition they were a bunch of petty Italian thugs, but America's real desire for alcohol made them rich and powerful. Prohibition never works. You'd think a bunch of free marketeers like American conservatives would get that.

For another take on the how prohibitions don't solve anything, take a look at alcoholism in Native American reservations with an alcohol prohibition.

Some of the current drugs out there need to stay illegal. Not because they get you high, but because they are toxic.

I do believe, if some form of decriminalization happens, we really need to up the penalty for crimes committed while under the influence. Maybe assume premeditation. I should point out I believe the same thing about alcohol. Killing someone while drunk should be considered premeditated.

A lot of things people ingest are toxic, the trick I feel is making that well known and public knowledge, not necessarily illegal. For example, the surgeon generals warning on the pack of a cigarette, or the chemical warnings on a bottle of bleach, I feel are a better way to approach the problem.

Part of my attitude comes from growing up in New Hampshire. For example, if you are a consenting adult, and you are only harming yourself, then that is your prerogative. Why you don't need to wear a seatbelt if you are over 18, or a motorcycle helmet. The risk you are taking on is not against other people, like drunk driving, but mostly only to your own health.

Now an effective part of that comes down to knowledge, but certain ideas can be ingrained in a society over time. Like put on a seatbelt or be thrown through the windshield like a crash test dummy.

"A lot of things people ingest are toxic, the trick I feel is making that well known and public knowledge, not necessarily illegal. For example, the surgeon generals warning on the pack of a cigarette, or the chemical warnings on a bottle of bleach, I feel are a better way to approach the problem."

This still won't stop people from trying to sue companies that try to sell them something that knowingly harms them. Hell, even fast food restaurant chains have been sued in the US for making someone fat.

My problem is that the same people that want drugs legalized then want the tax payers to pay for an addict to get clean.

Most people aren't born addicted to drugs. You have to make the decision to start taking drugs. I have no problem allowing anyone to have the freedom to put whatever the hell the want into their body as long as it doesn't affect other people. This includes leaching off of the government.

This may seem harsh. But if you take the risk you also need to be prepared for the consequences (good or bad).

And if you make it illegal, aren't you paying to enforce that law, and put an offender in jail?

I personally don't buy the cost argument. You do have a point that America is litigation happy, not really sure how to solve that. :)

If someone is in a traffic accident and ends up with severe physical or mental disabilities because they didn't take basic safety precautions (wearing a helmet or seatbelt), costs are incurred by the rest of society.

Then create a cost for not wearing a helmet. Raise the insurance rates to account for the extra costs. Or give appropriate insurance discounts for wearing a helmet. If you are caught without a helmet and don't have the "helmet-free" insurance, then you get fined, your insurer can drop your policy, and/or your insurance skyrockets.

> Killing someone while drunk should be considered premeditated.

I agree.

> Some of the current drugs out there need to stay illegal. Not because they get you high, but because they are toxic.

OK, I'll replace 'toxic' with 'potentially more addictive and dangerous than weed, alcohol, and nicotine' (Tobacco is damned addictive but it doesn't seem to cause antisocial behaviors.), because otherwise what you said makes no damned sense.

Go back to the late 1800s: People could buy cocaine and opium over-the-counter at drugstores. Laudanum (also called tincture of opium), a common patent medicine, was made from 10% opium and 1% morphine dissolved in alcohol. This, too, was available over-the-counter. America was prosperous, growing, and certainly not universally addicted to drugs.

So, why do you think going back to that regime would be dangerous? What evidence do you have that contradicts my historical analysis?

I was actually talking about the chemical mixes that are actually toxic / poison that are being brewed in trailers in the rural areas or kitchens in apartment complexes. I wasn't writing about addictiveness.

I wasn't contradicting your historical analysis.

> I was actually talking about the chemical mixes that are actually toxic / poison that are being brewed in trailers in the rural areas or kitchens in apartment complexes. I wasn't writing about addictiveness.

Right. Well, legalization will help that as it is, in fact, illegal for a legitimate company to sell some unknown poison when it is claiming to sell drugs of a given composition and purity. Also, meth labs as we now know them will become economically impossible if it's possible to get meth legally: They are the perfect, absolutely perfect example of the kind of high-risk/high-reward behavior that is only worthwhile if you have gigantic margins subsidized by the DEA and local police.

Killing someone while drunk should be considered premeditated.

This is crazy talk. In some cases it might be true, but the idea of applying such a broad judgment on an entire class of crimes would be a huge injustice.

Severity of punishment is not a good way to reduce the incidence of crime. Do you think someone who's judgment is so impaired that they're ready to drive while drunk is really going to stop and think, hey this is extra illegal, maybe I shouldn't do it? They're already putting their own lives in severe danger, so I doubt it.

The solution is better education, not increased punishment.

If you can't make clear judgement while drunk, such as not driving, then maybe you shouldn't be getting drunk in the first place. Driving is a privilege you kill someone while drunk and you should NEVER be allowed to drive again.

Right, and I believe that educating people about the real risks involved with drunk driving will prevent more of those deaths than punishing people who have already demonstrated the poor judgment in doing that in the first place.

I fully agree with permanently barring someone from driving after they kill someone while drunk driving, but tacking on 'pre-meditated' to the original crime is nonsense.

Why is it nonsense? The person made the decision to drink and drive. Someone is dead or injured and the person causing the pain needs to be punished.

Education doesn't really get us there, people know it is bad and do it anyway. Look at the repeat stats on DUI, suspended licenses don't deter as much as people wished.

Pre-meditation has a specific legal meaning that really doesn't apply to typical drunk driving. Something more along the lines of what you're talking about is the Felony murder rule:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule

Unfortunately drunk driving is a misdemeanor and doesn't qualify.

Just to clarify, by nonsense I'm referring specifically to the idea of arbitrarily applying legal terms to situations where they aren't valid for punitive purposes. I disagree with harsher punishment as a crime deterrent, but I don't think harsher punishment itself is 'nonsense'.

The solution is better education, not increased punishment.

Without commenting on the question of a person's criminal liability for drunk driving...

How do you think education will help? Do you really think that today, in 2010, there is anybody who hasn't spent at least an aggregate 24 hours hearing the "don't drink and drive" message?

It seems to me that too often, people attempt to address problems with a knee-jerk "we need more education". But at least here in the USA, I've got to believe that we've all heard the messages about drunk driving, your brain on drugs, AIDS, domestic abuse, etc., ad nauseam. What more education do you want?

There is a difference between being informed and being educated. Someone who has lost a friend or family member due to drunk driving is more educated about the risks than someone who has been informed about the risks from seeing the ubiquitous TV commercials.

I'm not sure exactly how to best go about educating people, or I would be out doing it.

Increasing punishment for drunk driving (combined with lower limits and more random roadside testing) might make people think twice about risking it.

Coming from Sweden where we have relatively high punishments and low legal limits, I was shocked about how cavalier most people I met in the States where about getting in their car after a nights drinking. If you want to lower drunk driving relates deaths you have to change peoples attitudes towards drinking and driving.

Killing someone while drunk should be considered premeditated.

Are you suggesting that in 100% of the cases where killing someone (and I assume this includes manslaughter) is premeditated?

Because if you are not, then it should not be considered premeditated. That's dishonest. Simply give the judge some additional window to affect sentencing for a set of crimes committed while intoxicated.

If you want to punish something more strongly because doing so would lead to beneficial behavior from citizens, then by all means do so. But call it what it is, don't hijack other unrelated factors for your own means.

I really don't think its "dishonest". No, I am not say 100% cases of killing someone are premeditated. Accidents happen. Bad things go wrong in worse ways.

That being said, I believe if you knowing impair your ability to make judgements and then kill or injure someone, you made a conscious decision.

Now, if you frame this in some "mandatory minimum" debate, I am definitely not going there. I still believe judges need their leeway, but prosecutors need to charge the crime as something more than a simple "he was drinking and an accident happened".

What makes you think they don't?

I have a good friend who was smart enough not to get into the drunk guy's car (leaving a fraternity party) and followed on his own. Thus, he was the first person on the scene after the accident. He wound up being a witness against the driver in a homicide trial.

So at least in the State of New York, you can be tried for manslaughter when your drunk driving results in someone's death.

Depends on the state. Some have stricter laws, but I have seen enough cases of repeats and lax state laws.

It won't be beneficial for Mexico. If the US decriminalizes, the cartels will lose revenue streams and will commit more kidnappings to maintain their livelihood. The state will descend further into chaos.

So, if we continue to support the gang's revenue stream, then they will wax wealthy and powerful and continue murdering with impunity. If we eliminate the gangs' revenue stream, they will commit more kidnappings, murder, and further chaos.

Apparently, Mexico is screwed either way. Let's at least screw Mexico in a way which might help someone else.

But without that firehose of ready cash, the cartels will die an unlamented death in short order. The same applies to Colombia. We need to decriminalize.

No, that's not how it works. In Mexico the cartels are more resilient than the state.

Then nothing we do will make any difference, and clearly the fact that we might make the cartels kidnap more is not an argument against decriminalization.

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