Visualizing the Ongoing Drug War | Hacker News Reader

Visualizing the Ongoing Drug War

tryplainjane.com

40 pointsdumbfoundded31 comments

This is a neat visualization, I wonder if this is more persuasive than written numbers of users and money. I just think it should use some sort of chunking to avoid breaking the page flow.

On another note, I’m from Germany and here there is absolutely no motion from the government towards legalization. Instead they double down on their failed and regressive prohibition, while still being mostly ignorant towards the dangers of alcohol. This is odd, since not only do more and more countries in the EU decriminalize or legalize weed/drugs but they do so successfully with regards to users, protection of youth and taxes (where it applies). At least the US is moving in the right direction with regards to weed, albeit slowly.

I think this (and others) pokes holes in the theory that drug laws are predominantly about racism, or predominantly because of U.S. pressure. (It's doubly true for countries that are abject enemies of the U.S., which also generally have strict drug laws.)

Maybe it's pretty simple: the actual majority of the population is in favor of these laws (at least in some countries).

I just don't see a conspiracy here.

I think there's probably a substantial difference for harsh laws on drugs depending on the drug - ex. I would bet most people believe that heroin or meth should be illegal, but far fewer people would think that about marijuana. Pew study (link below) says 2/3rds of Americans think pot should be legal

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/14/americans-s...

What about the __thousands__ of actual drugs that exist, on a wide spectrum of potential harm in-between marijuana and meth/heroin? Trying to legislate this in some kind of fair manner is not a simple issue at all.

If you just decriminalize everything for personal use... you still have a black market, you still ruin people's lives for being involved in the black market, and you still have a drug war.

Maybe they're not ignorant but the alcohol companies have a much stronger lobbying arm and more connections/acceptance with the audience of lawmakers who are the key decision makers on this than cannabis smokers/companies do?

And taxes. Booze is a good revenue stream for the Gov. And in regulated US states. It's why both booze and weed got "essential" business status in those places.

Where the weed industry is getting more lobbying, well, the effects on laws are clear (that is the lobbying is working to change laws to help (some) of the pot business.

Yes exactly (although it's a little bit like stealing from yourself but I don't exactly understand how these budgets work - most countries spend quite a lot on treating alcoholics or the damage from lost productivity, accidents, etc. that erodes the tax base and probably lose money in the end)

Also if you want good data on costs, effects, and lobbying efforts about the alcohol industry Movendi has good resources (a note- their bias is definitely towards higher taxes and strong laws limiting alcohol use so be aware)

https://movendi.ngo/

One of the reasons alcohol sellers got essential business status is because suddenly stopping drinking alcohol can kill people who are dependent drinkers.

no that is not why

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/yes-liquor...

> In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, access to alcohol will likely become limited due to social-distancing measures mandated by government officials. Some of these necessary public health strategies—shelter-in-place and closing of non-essential businesses—may in turn cause people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) to find themselves in unsafe scenarios. Forward thinking about how to reduce harms to people with AUD is critical. Untreated AUD is often managed with daily alcohol use, necessary to stave off cravings and withdrawal.

When I say ignorant I mean in legislation. Just now Germany's drug safety representative presented a new campaign to keep teenagers from smoking weed (roughly translated "toking is uncool"). I'm not aware that there's a similar campaign to keep kids away from alcohol (or adults for that matter). Although it's by far the most deadly drug.

European countries generally set and/or change their policy based on science, not public "opinion" or pressure.

There is no hard evidence that smoking weed doesn't have a disproportional impact on mental health(particularly youth/young adult).

I wish they hadn't chosen colour schemes that seem intended to bias the reading. In the first infographic, white characters are very low-contrast while brown characters stand out. In the other, both seem to be about equal in terms of contrast.

That said, I'm not sure how to get this kind of presentation right, since the "white" population is not the same size as the "black" or "brown" population. They say a black person is almost four times as likely to be arrested for drug offenses as a white person. While I think their graphic seems a bit manipulative, at the same time it doesn't seem to capture the real awfulness of the situation. Non-Hispanic whites are something like 60% of the US population, while black people account for 13%, so just showing drug arrests by skin colour paints a very rosy picture of the actual situation.

My suggestion, normalize contrasts and weight the number of characters by demographics. It'd be pretty shocking and would avoid this odd whiff of dishonesty.

The first graphic is racially biased according to the arrest rates. The second graphic simply is based on overall population demographics.

My intention was to be able to visually see the difference between consumers and arrests.

I tried to click the links towards the bottom for eg Norml but the animation populating more ppl in jail kept moving the links around so I closed the tab. This was on iOS Safari

Same for me, I tried to click on the animation to pause it but to no avail.

Good feedback, I'll add something for that.

Tried reading on mobile (iOS) and gave up because I had to keep scrolling to keep up with the animation pushing the text down.

How many people here, ACTUALLY think cannabis is "completely not harmful" ?

I'm all about making your own choices and i've tried most drugs on the planet, probably more than you dear reader, and totally assume the potential risks. but still most people I know who do cannabis regularly either:

- Have scary memory problems.

- Have autodestructive or at least exagerated "passive" tendencies toward improving in any way you want to define it.

- Have similar friends who definetely drag them down and not up.

I literally know NO ONE i would admire that do it. And please don't say Elon Musk who's the most famously unbalanced CEO on the planet.

I don't understand the push of legal cannabis because i don't want my children to think it's risk-free to do it. The danger of drugs is always the frequencies you do them. Hopefully it stays contained to the US.

I think most people would say that it is less harmful than other drugs which we already accept as a society. The other argument would be that the costs of keeping it illegal are much higher than the benefits. These both seem like good arguments for legalization even if you accept that usage has risks for some people.

This is an anti cigaret argument, not pro cannabis.

Im not sure the money argument is really a matter on wether we want our children to think its legal and ok.

Cannabis certainly has negative side effects but these pale in comparison to the effects of prohibition.

From a physical standpoint, the negative effects of cannabis are far less severe than smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol.

We should put the money used for policing into community building and health services so people feel less inclined to use drugs of any kind.

> From a physical standpoint, the negative effects of cannabis are far less severe than smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol.

Thats an argument against cigaret, not pro cannabis.

Yes for the money but still do we reeeealy want it legal ?

Absolutely. The only benefit of illegality is imprisonment. It does not reduce consumption. The only way to reduce consumption is by treating it as a health and community problem. Not a crime.

The benefit of illegality isbthat a majority of people dont think its ok and thus dont do it. With your argument you legalizr everything.

With your argument, we should live in a criminalized nanny state. Ice cream is pretty bad for you. Heart disease kills way more people than any drug. Maybe we should make it illegal to be fat.

Or in a sane world, we treat health problems like health problems.

You still need to put a line otherwise yeah sure lets legalize heroin. Also your argument doesnt hold because theres not one unique cause of heart disease. And yeah tbh i would say everyone know being bat is b1d.

Your replies seem to indicate that criminalization and harsher penalties for drug use decrease rates of use. In fact, there are many studies that indicate the opposite - it is the case that decriminalization does not tend to increase rates of marijuana usage. Where decriminalization has been followed by increased marijuana usage, we can see states with harsher penalties experience greater increases.

If you believe that marijuana use is an absolute bad, and you want to decrease people's use of marijuana, you should do so from a place of knowledge and data. Seek out interventions that actually decrease drug usage. Don't cling to a demonstrably ineffective intervention (harsh legal penalties) just because it feels good, especially if that intervention is expensive and harmful to individuals.

Ninja edit for link to review of decriminalization studies: https://norml.org/aboutmarijuana/item/marijuana-decriminaliz...

I support the decriminalization of all drugs from both a libertarian and humanitarian perspective. That being said, the numbers geek inside of me always hates how out of context statistics usually are.

For instance, how do these rates compare to other drugs or other crimes? How do you determine whether or not there is similar drug usage across populations? (The answer is to claim that an equal number of people who have used at least once in the past year implies equal usage over the past year. Another frustrating use of numbers.)

But none of this really matters. Its a no-brainer. The war on drugs doesn't work. The real problem in my opinion is that people who don't use drugs usually have no reason to do anything about it. Decriminalize everything.

I tried to keep these numbers within the context of cannabis. The 663K arrests in 2018 refer to cannabis only related arrests. The ACLU mentions how cannabis use is approximately equivalent between white and black people: https://norml.org/marijuana/fact-sheets/item/racial-disparit...

Frequency is a hard one and can be muddled a bit. There isn't great data on the frequency or quality of usage of racial differences.

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