What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

So, there's nothing about not liking the addicts who hassle people on the street?

The point here isn't to argue whether drugs have this affect, or are a symptom rather than a cause, or to argue if the War On Drugs has much success in fighting it.

The point is that this genuinely is the motivation for a lot of people supporting it. Even if you believe they're wrong to do so, you'd be wrong to say that's not why they do.

I think that when arguing for drug liberalization one should acknowledge the validity of the concerns of those who have heartfelt support for drug laws. The point isn't that addiction isn't a problem, it's that criminalization doesn't fix it.

For now, I think the right course of action is to a) decriminalize and dismantle the system, and b) until that happens, don't do drugs at all. It's a corrupt system that you just don't want to be caught up in, ever.

(The most appalling thing to me is the lack of compassion shown to real drug addicts. It's like, "Aha! Your life is a horrible shithole now, but we're gonna make it worse. That'll learn you.")

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

Let the Fire Burn

"Alcohol destroys more lives than any of those drugs: are you saying we should return to the era of prohibition and mafia violence? Should our children die because people can't be responsible? That doesn't sound like small government or liberty to me."

So-called hard drugs are ... well ... they ain't health food.

But presumably I'm writing to an audience of utilitarian thinkers, so it should be trivial to load up the arguments onto a balance beam: for, and against.

We have lived through the against side it. We know exactly what those consequences are, for society. Importantly, criminalization does ZERO to limit demand, and thus, supply. Zero. This is demonstrably true. So, now imagine a world where all of those same people who already choose to abuse drugs to the point where it becomes a severe health and social hazard, except those activities are not illegal anymore.

Yes, you still have the dangers of those people acting irrationally, or even rationally, but just anti-socially, in pursuit of their high. But this happens now, already. With the added negatives of the so-called war on drugs (which in reality is a war on the American people, especially black people), just thrown into the mix.

Like so many others have done, I could write at great length (and so could you, dear reader, most likely; many of you) about this subject. It's completely fucked, in a word.

And I live in Colorado, so if you'd like to hear about what's happened after pot was legal, I can tell you: nada. Zip. Nothing bad. Zero. And that won't ever change, either. Yeah, pot's not cocaine, but believe it or not, doing a few lines of blow doesn't turn a normal human being into a psychopath. Or, if it does, that same person would become just as dangerous after a pint of vodka.

While decriminalizing all drugs is a controversial issue, a conversation on shifting the focus from drugs as a criminal act to a conversation on health effects and what we as a society can do to help those who have become dependent on these substances, as opposed to taking the inhumane approach of locking them up and throwing away the key."

We need a culture that stops people from doing dangerous drugs through cultural techniques, not through police and courts, and that's what the government did with cigarettes. The government realized that criminalizing cigarettes was probably outside of its power, and instead it waged a campaign against the culture of smoking. It painted cigarette smoking as biologically dirty and smokers as inconsiderate or reckless.

I think that cigarette use is no longer popular not because the police have been jailing cigarette smokers, but because it has become a mildly dirty activity. If you use the law to prohibit things, then people won't develop the oral or cultural methods to tell their kids to avoid certain dangers.

"Yes" would be my answer.

I would ask the counter question: what is there to gain from criminalization?

Criminalization doesn't lower usage, it makes it harder on addicts (imprisonment retains them in the drug world), it increases the risk of fatality of the drug, and it increases crime, funneling funds from tax payers to criminals.

Every time I hear a story about drug cartels and their unspeakable violence and immense profits, all I can think of is "how can we be so stupid?". We are creating this problem ourselves, and we don't seem to even realize it.

The only argument for criminalization is the irrational one: it's not a good idea to do drugs -- it doesn't solve anything -- therefore we should make it illegal. Once you actually give the issue thought, the conclusion seems completely obvious to me.

I haven't kept up on his blog writings much, as it's too depressing to be honest.

Which is a shame considering he is such a great writer.

Thankfully, he should be out soon and it doesn't sound like they have broken his spirit one bit.

Chicago is a great example of why cops do this. The leadership of a few major gangs was taken out by the police, and the resulting power struggle basically ignited a street war with death counts similar to the war in Afghsnistan.

So, living in Argentina, a country that in the past few years has chosen the very same path, I can tell you that the expected result is not something like Amsterdam, but something like the favelas, in Brazil. Liberated zones, where criminal organizations grow much much more stronger, organized and richer than what you see today. Crime raises, because drug addicts need money to buy drugs from those gangs. Criminals get much more violent. Wars between gangs get much more open to control more land. And the entire society suffers.

You want something like Amsterdam? OK, chasing drug dealers, but provide a legal, cheaper and with better quality market. Offer and demand will make them go away. But without a legal market, stop enforcing drug laws and I can guarantee you, that things can only get much worse.