Jeff Sessions wants to bring back the War on Drugs.

[Dug]

Rethink what...I never suggested jail is the answer. The answer is stopping the flow of drugs from Mexico. Wall, military, drones, whatever needs to used to achieve that is the answer.

Why did you cite the opioid problem though? The majority of them are coming from our own healthcare system... the "war on drugs" isn't concerned with stopping all of that. They want "hard drugs" and small time shit like pot and ecstasy.

[Deleted]

Nah, we need to do things like Duterte and just execute suspects in the streets.

And as a result his popularity is through the roof. Regular people don't care about what's done to thugs if it means safer streets.

[Deleted]

Really should just make all drugs legal. Natural selection will take its course and the fuck holes using the drugs will all eventually die off. Problem solved.

While I certainly wouldn't shed many tears if all drug users would kill themselves, I'm worried about all the shit and damage they get to do to other people while high on drugs before they eventually die.

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The state some of you envision is simply horrifying.

I wasn't envisioning anything, just stating a fact.

When things get out of hand so badly that only drastic methods can restore order, most people don't really care about the rights of the criminals who are seen as responsible for the situation. That's how Hitler came to power. To prevent such things we should never let the order of the society to deteriorate too much in the first place.

[solinari6]

So what is the solution good sir?

Studies have shown that legalized marijuana reduces opioid overdoses.

[Sneezeburger]

More bad ideas that didn't work the first time around. For better or worse (better), we (usually) don't summarily execute people in this country and we're not going to permanently imprison up every small time drug user who gets caught buying $20 worth of heroin from some guy on the corner. They basically just want to dump billions of dollars into creating another revolving door in and out of prisons/jails that accomplishes absolutely nothing.

MAYBE if this 90s style tough on crime attitude was couple with massive infrastructure spending, so as to get users off the street and allow law-abiding citizens room to breathe and improve their lives with the assistance of state and local governments, that might work. But we all know how likely that is to happen given who's in the white house.

[dextersmith]

The War on Drugs needs to start in Mexico.

[Lynarii]

Drugs are a huge threat to America, really the only threat there is to the US mainland. They do substantial economic damage to the country as a whole, and obviously ruin the lives of the people using them, making them net-negative contributors to society. It just a common sense, logical policy to fight the opioid crisis. America needs able bodied and able minded workers for its economy to go. People who cannot work and who actively suck resources from the economy during treatment are not contributing to a necessarily healthy demography.

Thinking this is a small, isolated problem would be a mistake to today, and an even bigger mistake 5 years from now if nothing is done to stop it.

The problem is that the War on Drugs did very little to successfully fight any of the drug problems the US had, and caused significant other problems as a side-effect of it. Yes, drugs are a huge problem and there needs to be work put in to fixing it. But rather than fall back on policies that have traditionally failed with the idea that maybe this time it'd work if only they double down even harder on them, the US desperately needs to look at other options. There are countries having successes in improving their situation (no country has solved it, and I doubt any will soon admittedly) and those successes need to be learned from and improved upon if the US truly wants to make legitimate headway in tackling a very complex social and economic problem.

[JohnBrown1917]

The War on Drugs needs to start in Mexico.

The US has no authority in Mexico tho.

[Tyrianth]

The US has no authority in Mexico tho.

The War on Drugs is already in full swing in Mexico. It's one of the main contributors to Mexico's issues.

[IIamaKing]

When you can show a policy is objectively a failure and will never work... DOUBLE DOWN on that policy....

[IIamaKing]

Drugs are a huge threat to America, really the only threat there is to the US mainland. They do substantial economic damage to the country as a whole, and obviously ruin the lives of the people using them, making them net-negative contributors to society. It just a common sense, logical policy to fight the opioid crisis. America needs able bodied and able minded workers for its economy to go. People who cannot work and who actively suck resources from the economy during treatment are not contributing to a necessarily healthy demography.

Thinking this is a small, isolated problem would be a mistake to today, and an even bigger mistake 5 years from now if nothing is done to stop it.

I could line up 5 people who are habitual drug (potheads)users who, unless you are over 90K a year, contribute more than you and I could find countless more who all hold down jobs and pay their taxes. GTFO of here with your 1930s brainwashing.

[Sneezeburger]

When you can show a policy is objectively a failure and will never work... DOUBLE DOWN on that policy....

Well one of the things that complicates the issue, at least politically, is that it is an objective fact that crime rates did go down during the war on drugs era, particularly during the early 1990s, when we were still taking a hard line against drug use and mass incarceration was in full swing. There have been a number of proposed reasons for this, but the truth, at least from what I understand, is that nobody really knows precisely what caused it.

Do I think it's due to the war on drugs? Hell no. But it's a little difficult to say with certainty that the war on drugs was an objective failure.

[IIamaKing]

Well one of the things that complicates the issue, at least politically, is that it is an objective fact that crime rates did go down during the war on drugs era, particularly during the early 1990s, when we were still taking a hard line against drug use and mass incarceration was in full swing. There have been a number of proposed reasons for this, but the truth, at least from what I understand, is that nobody really knows precisely what caused it.

Do I think it's due to the war on drugs? Hell no. But it's a little difficult to say with certainty that the war on drugs was an objective failure.

Well that dip has also been attributed to Roe v Wade. Baring that, yeh mass arrests and heavy handed enforcement, likely will result in lower crime rates. DOesnt actually mean you FIXED anything.

How is it not an objective failure? Drugs still flow over our borders like water, there is no less people using drugs, we have donked off billions(trillions?) of dollars with no measurable effect. Prisons full of dealers means fuck all if the industry is unharmed. I mean fuck, the very act of the arrest and seizure has the effect of RAISING the value of other dealers and their product. I used to move refer, and unless it was one of my guys, some of the best news to get was another crew having their shipment seized or being arrested. It meant I was about to have a lot more demand.

[Sneezeburger]

Well that dip has also been attributed to Roe v Wade. Baring that, yeh mass arrests and heavy handed enforcement, likely will result in lower crime rates. DOesnt actually mean you FIXED anything.

How is it not an objective failure? Drugs still flow over our borders like water, there is no less people using drugs, we have donked off billions(trillions?) of dollars with no measurable effect. Prisons full of dealers means fuck all if the industry is unharmed. I mean fuck, the very act of the arrest and seizure has the effect of RAISING the value of other dealers and their product. I used to move refer, and unless it was one of my guys, some of the best news to get was another crew having their shipment seized or being arrested. It meant I was about to have a lot more demand.

Well, if you have a long-term decrease in crime which can be traced, at least in part, to hard line tactics against users and distributors, then the question is whether the costs of said enforcement justify the benefits of that decrease in crime. I would say that they absolutely do not, but if someone attempts to make that case I wouldn't say that they are objectively wrong, like I would if they said, and I'm not trying to start shit here, that more people attended Trump's inauguration than Obama's.

[Zython]

The War on Drugs stopped?

[dextersmith]

The US has no authority in Mexico tho.

Negotiate with their government.

[Macaquerie]

Negotiate with their government.

We already force the Mexican government into all sorts of humiliating concessions to handle problems that we should really be taking responsibility for. American demand is what drives the drug trade, period. But it's more convenient for us to try and contain the problem south of the border, and force the Mexicans to adopt military tactics against the cartels to avoid the turf wars spilling over onto US territory. Of course, all this accomplishes is to make the cartels even more ruthless and bloody, equipping themselves with the latest American-made weaponry (thanks NRA) and the Mexican police simply aren't equipped to deal with that.

It is possible to reduce drug use in society, but this requires completely changing our culture so that kids don't want to be doing drugs, not heavy handed enforcement of draconian laws backed by jackbooted thugs masquerading as peacekeepers. But shifting the culture is a long term strategy, in the meantime we just need to be patient and not try and solve the problem by shooting people.

[Kallisto]

So what is the solution good sir?

Full legalization and taxation of substances and the realisation what someone puts into their own body is NOT the business of the state. That like drink driving laws against using drugs and driving should be made and enforced. That also being on substances should never be an excuse for crimes committed.

Barring that then at least let's use research on what should be banned and what shouldn't. But that would bring the issue of banning Alcohol which tends to be the 3rd to 5th worst drug out there. With only Heroine, crack and crystal meth being worse.

https://cognitivelibertyuk.wordpress...icseflect-fav/

or this chart that got a leading drug researcher fired because he dared bring out evidence say Alcohol and tobacco were worse than cannabis (Labour were trying to repush it to class B)

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...graph2_416.gif

[Louisa Bannon]

The War on Drugs needs to start in Mexico.

Because demand has nothing to do with it?

::rolls eyes::

You know, generally speaking the only real problem with illegal drugs is the expense of them which causes people to commit crimes to stay well supplied. Make them legal and that problem significantly goes away.

Legalize drugs, prostitution, etc and you make any source of illegal income basically nonexistent. You make organized crime and gangs more or less go away or not matter. The fact that these things are illegal is exactly what creates a black market for them and creates an area of market uncertainty. Legalize it all and you can control health concerns, tax it, etc.

Of course, you may need enough social programs to actually help the impoverished improve themselves or they will come for you.

The war on drugs is absolutely warfare against the poor. It may seem racist because it is mainly people of color that are kept down and ghettoized, but it's mainly an economic thing. This perfect storm of shitty living conditions is intended to make people despair and join the armed forces because they have nothing else to which to look forward. Your choices become: minimum wage job (maybe), gangster life, military service.

[JohnBrown1917]

Negotiate with their government.

With Trump in charge?
Good luck.