Just because we agree that the war on drugs should be abolished doesn’t mean that some of us aren’t mindkilled when they think about the topic.
What are the interesting questions about the war on drugs?
Does is make sense to push for the kind of hyper burocratic rules that the Netherlands has or is it better to push for medical marijuana?
Can you legalise all drugs without harming evidence based medicine? What’s the incentive for biotech companies and big pharma to fund studies that prove clinical effects if they can legally sell the drugs without having to get clearance from the FDA?
Which political forces are responsible for the war on drugs to continue? Why did Fast and Furious play out the way it did? Nobody going to prison for HSBC laundering billons of drug money? Ranbaxy?
How do you convince older people who fear that their kids go on drugs that the war on drugs is bad?
I’d push for finding a way to make rehabilitation cheaper and more effective, rather than focusing on imprisonment/fines, with regards the more addictive drugs (I don’t think of myself as much of a family person, but my father is the only branch of his family not destroyed by drug abuse; even the one almost-rational one cannot find a stable place to stay that is not filled with crackheads, so she stays in trouble even though she has wanted out of it since the beginning. Long story in which I missed a perfect opportunity to save the day.). The trends that marijuana are currently following in the US seem to indicate that most people consider it relatively safe if used as prescribed (For the above reasons, my father’s branch of the family—which is basically the household I live in—has an overwhelmingly negative view on recreational drugs categorically, but my sister still helped with the petition to get medicinal marijuana on the ballot in our state). The above-mentioned addict did once manage to out instrumentally rational my dad while high (he’d spent a lot of time, effort and chemicals scrubbing what she discovered to be the shadow of a fan ornament. Hilarity ensued.); I have no idea what she had been using, but that and other evidence points toward pot (she was putting more effort than usual into staying out of trouble around that time, for parenthood-related reasons).
In this particular case, I suspect what got her jailtime was stealing someone’s wallet and using his checks/credits, which I’m quite certain (1.0-epsilon) was for drug money. The legal implications, here, are that any rehabilitation services would need to be applicable to crimes commonly influenced by addictive substances, if said substances can be reasonably considered a contributing factor. (I might have managed to get into my own place this time last year had a completely unrelated addict not ransacked the place while it was being repaired. He had just gotten out of prison, and now owes restitution that I have no expectation of ever getting. I also expect that the afore-mentioned cousin might have been able to reduce the need for repairs had she been staying there while I was at college, but crack/heroine-related conflicts prevented that. )
TL;DR: I think Marijuana’s doing pretty well in the US. Perhaps a more constructive and less punitive approach to reducing the harm from harder drugs would be worth pursuing? The cousin I mentioned strikes me as being capable enough to improve her socioeconomic status enormously if she could find a non-addict peer group. Beyond most of the rest of the family (who dabble in meth and pot but mostly just overdo cigarettes and alcohol to the point of serious health risk. Except my grandfather, whose health baffles doctors and is predicted to possibly reach 100. That would put him in the 2030s, though there’s this morbid family tradition where the patriarch hangs himself at some point past 80 on a whim. But I digress.).
What exactly are you saying?
“Yes, I’m mindkilled. I hold my political belief based on a few very emotional experiences instead of reading about broad statistics.”
The cousin I mentioned strikes me as being capable enough to improve her socioeconomic status enormously if she could find a non-addict peer group.
That might be true, but besides the point. What kind of government intervention would put her into a non-addict peer group?
Just because we agree that the war on drugs should be abolished doesn’t mean that some of us aren’t mindkilled when they think about the topic.
What are the interesting questions about the war on drugs?
Does is make sense to push for the kind of hyper burocratic rules that the Netherlands has or is it better to push for medical marijuana?
Can you legalise all drugs without harming evidence based medicine? What’s the incentive for biotech companies and big pharma to fund studies that prove clinical effects if they can legally sell the drugs without having to get clearance from the FDA?
Which political forces are responsible for the war on drugs to continue? Why did Fast and Furious play out the way it did? Nobody going to prison for HSBC laundering billons of drug money? Ranbaxy?
How do you convince older people who fear that their kids go on drugs that the war on drugs is bad?
I’d push for finding a way to make rehabilitation cheaper and more effective, rather than focusing on imprisonment/fines, with regards the more addictive drugs (I don’t think of myself as much of a family person, but my father is the only branch of his family not destroyed by drug abuse; even the one almost-rational one cannot find a stable place to stay that is not filled with crackheads, so she stays in trouble even though she has wanted out of it since the beginning. Long story in which I missed a perfect opportunity to save the day.). The trends that marijuana are currently following in the US seem to indicate that most people consider it relatively safe if used as prescribed (For the above reasons, my father’s branch of the family—which is basically the household I live in—has an overwhelmingly negative view on recreational drugs categorically, but my sister still helped with the petition to get medicinal marijuana on the ballot in our state). The above-mentioned addict did once manage to out instrumentally rational my dad while high (he’d spent a lot of time, effort and chemicals scrubbing what she discovered to be the shadow of a fan ornament. Hilarity ensued.); I have no idea what she had been using, but that and other evidence points toward pot (she was putting more effort than usual into staying out of trouble around that time, for parenthood-related reasons).
In this particular case, I suspect what got her jailtime was stealing someone’s wallet and using his checks/credits, which I’m quite certain (1.0-epsilon) was for drug money. The legal implications, here, are that any rehabilitation services would need to be applicable to crimes commonly influenced by addictive substances, if said substances can be reasonably considered a contributing factor. (I might have managed to get into my own place this time last year had a completely unrelated addict not ransacked the place while it was being repaired. He had just gotten out of prison, and now owes restitution that I have no expectation of ever getting. I also expect that the afore-mentioned cousin might have been able to reduce the need for repairs had she been staying there while I was at college, but crack/heroine-related conflicts prevented that. )
TL;DR: I think Marijuana’s doing pretty well in the US. Perhaps a more constructive and less punitive approach to reducing the harm from harder drugs would be worth pursuing? The cousin I mentioned strikes me as being capable enough to improve her socioeconomic status enormously if she could find a non-addict peer group. Beyond most of the rest of the family (who dabble in meth and pot but mostly just overdo cigarettes and alcohol to the point of serious health risk. Except my grandfather, whose health baffles doctors and is predicted to possibly reach 100. That would put him in the 2030s, though there’s this morbid family tradition where the patriarch hangs himself at some point past 80 on a whim. But I digress.).
What exactly are you saying? “Yes, I’m mindkilled. I hold my political belief based on a few very emotional experiences instead of reading about broad statistics.”
That might be true, but besides the point. What kind of government intervention would put her into a non-addict peer group?