If it's decriminalized, we shouldn't have to worry about the shady drug dealing customers trying to come in our favorite clubs finding the dancers who've made a little or a lot of money so that they can take their attention away from us mongers who're trying to have fun with them. :c
I don't smoke pot and never will. But in reality, the affect of MJ aren't much different than alcohol. So should we spend considerable resources prosecuting people for this. Probably not.
But when it comes to heroin, cocaine, or anything of the like, I think the legal enforcements need to be increased. I would significally increase the punishment for dealers. Make the consequences of getting caught dealing so severe that no one would dare do it. Why not hold a dealer responsible for an addicts death ? Dealing to children should have a punishment of life in prison.
I believe all drugs should be legalized for adults. The war on drugs has been a total failure, just like the prohibition of alcohol. De-criminalize drug use and regulate the sale so that people get safe, clean doses. The new laws on marijuana in many states shows what can be done.
They are actually a lot different. Alcohol is way more "intoxicating" than weed. It's also a lot more harmful to your body. Weed is tame compared to alcohol. Drink all day and you'll throw it up, have a hangover, or maybe die. Smoke weed all day and you'll end up simply relaxed or just nap the rest of the day. Seriously.
As far as legalizing the "bad" drugs, aka hard drugs or whatever you want to call them, you must first think about decriminalization. I don't people who get addicted to a hardcore substance should face prison time for simple possession. That's crazy. I think with decriminalizing, you can make things like needle exchange programs actually possible. Intravenous drug use notoriously leads to blood borne infections like HIV and Hep C. With decriminalization, we could save lives. I wish enough money were spent on allocating resources for easy access to drug rehabs, and lesser amount of laws that target the addcits as criminals. It's insane.
I agree with Jackslash regarding the failure of the war on drugs.
I think there’s a huge jump from legalizing hard drugs - and the legalization of alcohol. But - sadly - there are similarities to nicotine use and addiction. If you use cigarettes as intended - they will kill you. With hard drugs - the same outcome is possible.
With coke - I’m sure there are casual users. However - with crystal meth and heroin - I’m not sure there are casual users - who use it and don’t develop a dependency. So, legalizing certain drugs seems to provide little societal benefit.
I don’t think addicts should be criminals, but I don’t know the answers.
Putting pot, alcohol and tobacco in even remotely close neighborhoods to heroin, meth or crack is simply ridiculous.
Very few people actually go to prison for possession. The ones that do either plead down from more serious drug charges or have extensive criminal histories. Would I like to see Joe the Crack Addict in treatment vs prison? Of course I would, but that changes when Joe robs somebody with a knife so he can go buy more drugs.
Polls show that most people agree that pot should be legalized - however there are certain political groups that don't want to see this happen:
1) The private prison lobby - keeps prisons full with a lot of easy to manage, non-violent prisoners
2) The alcohol and tobacco industries - cuts into their market
3) Evangelical types who think that pot is evil, even though they drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes
4) Law enforcement - who reaps monitary benefits from pot and money seizures as well as finding an easy way to target "undesirables"
5) The drug cartelsand street dealers who reap huge profits by selling on the black market
As they say "follow the money".
Nina you are dead on accurate. I’m 54 smoke pot just about everyday and only have a drink or two I’m occasion. I earn six figures and smoking pot never interferes with my work or other responsibilities. When I was younger I drank more often and it absolutely interfered with my ability to function. When I was in my 30’s one of my best friends died from alcohol poisoning. Stick to the 420. Much safer. As far as harder drugs go you’ll never stop it but it makes more sense to allocating resources for treatment over law enforcement and criminalization. Addiction is the problem. Let’s treat it.
There is the logical idea regarding addiction as a disease - then there is the bizarre web of laws that will cripple any real logic. So there won’t be any useful effort to move to treatment - and away from criminal prosecution - any time soon.
Whether something is dangerous or not should have nothing to do with its legality. You are all adults. You can decide what you want to put into your own bodies. This applies to pot, alcohol, tobacco, heroin, Percocet, or a bullet. It's your life: you should be able to do whatever you want with it. What can be gained by treating adults like children?
Several people here have said that the War on Drugs has failed. Well, what if it had "succeeded"? Would that make it a good policy? If someone is lonely, bored, depressed, in pain, can't sleep, wants to die, or just wants to have fun, why should the government stop them from taking a drug?
Some other quick points:
- If a person commits a crime while he's on drugs, is that somehow worse than committing a crime while sober? Shouldn't the action matter more than his frame of mind at the time?
- So far as I know, there is no such thing as a commercially popular drug that a) turns people into unstoppable criminals and b) results in instant addiction.
- 90% of prisons in America are owned and operated by the government. They are NOT private. Plus, lobbying by private prison companies is dwarfed by lobbying by prison guard unions.
"Very few people actually go to prison for possession. The ones that do either plead down from more serious drug charges or have extensive criminal histories."
Yes, they do. Almost have of all people in federal prisons are there for a drug related offense. Sure, some may have been for intention to distribute, but if you look at people serving sentences from county jails to state and federal prisons, a lot of people are their for drug possession.
Possession of heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, meth, illegal prescription naroctics, etc are all felonies. You can be senteced to prison for a felony, obviously. Your options to plead down to a lower charge are difficult; if anything you'd just plead guilty to the charge and be put on probation. Drug addcits probably aren't the most reliable probationees, so they're likely to abscond and have warrants. They're also very likely to become repeat offenders which increases the likelihood of them ending in prison or at least jail, and of course, becoming a felon.
Places with needle exchange programs have reported an 80% drop in HIV infection. So there are good reasons to decriminalize.
I don't think we're doing ourselves any favors by claiming that most people are in jail for possession. Besides, even if every drug offender in jail was a dealer, and even if all the users were free, the Drug War would still be an immoral and pointless exercise:
Yes, a little under half of federal prisoners are in there for drug charges. BUT, of those the vast majority (over 95%) are in for trafficking and manufacturing. Again, very few people go to jail simply for possession.
At the state level the percentage of people in for any drug charge is significantly lower, I want to say around 15%.
"Again, very few people go to jail simply for possession."
That is simply untrue.
There are people I know of who have gone to county jail for simple possession of marijuana.
And people also end up in jail for other things drug-related. Even if their crime isn't drug-related, most people on probation have to submit to drug tests. If they fail those, probation revoked and it's off to prison or jail they go.
Going to jail for possession is such an issue that people are racially profiled, officers are given quotas (etc) in order to pull people over and search them. They will go to jail for possession even for weed. If they're already on probation or parole they risk having a hold on their bond so they can't get out. In this case, they will get sentenced for a probation or parole violation. This happened to my ex. He already had felonies, and had already been to prison and completed parole and wound up on probation for possession (after going to jail for 6 months for it), and when he violated his probation he was sentenced to 2-15 years in prison. He is currently in prison.
My former best friend's mom was put on felony probation years back because she was caught with crack on her. She had an addiction. She is a felon now, although she is harmless. Her dad is a heroin addict, decades of clean time but he's a felon because of it. He is a good guy. My sister's boyfriend was a heroin addict, he is a felon now due to drug-related crimes. So many hardcore addicts I know/knew of are now felons. Addiction results in criminality, even if it's just a possession charge. It can turn someone into a felon. It is already classified as a disease, it should be treated as such, not with handcuffs.
I've helped represent clients who were given felony charges for possession of controlled substances. Got one case thrown out via suppression of evidence, and the young man would have most likely gone to prison or at least 6 months in jail. He would've also become a felon, and he's my age. His life could've been ruined then. He is a big black guy. From personal experience, big black guys are like a cop's wet dream. So is an addict. If cops know a person is an addict, they know that person is an easy target for an arrest.
Personally, I think the statistics in the article I posted are accurate, and that the notion that prisons are overflowing to capacity with non-violent drug users is probably an exaggeration. But here's a hypothetical question for you:
If every person arrested for drugs was a rich or middle-income well-educated professional white man, who's over the age of, let's say 40... and if the penalty for drug use was, let's say, a $100 fine and rehab... and if every person who actually ends up in prison for drugs was a dealer, not a user... would this satisfy you? Would you then support the War on Drugs? Speaking for myself, I would still be totally against it. The War on Drugs is wrong, but not just because it's racist and not just because it results in some non-violent people going to jail.
"3) Evangelical types who think that pot is evil, even though they drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes"
As far as I have ever been able to see, drugs and alcohol, and also tobacco and psychiatric medications are quite closely coupled to the Born Again Christian movement.
There used to be a really old movie called “Reefer Madness”. I saw it years ago but I think the premise was that if you try weed, you’ll chop peoples heads off. Something like that. I’m thinking that the whole idea of scaring people off weed didn’t work so well. Not that there is any point to my post but, hey, this is TUSCL and I just remembered that hilarious movie.
Well jester what I'm saying is true. How many drug arrests are for weed? More than any other "illegal" drug? Thought so! I'm glad you enjoyed my anecdotes though. :) As interesting as they were, hopefully you also read the statistics I've shared. As far as more dangerous drugs are concerned, I think an 80% decrease in HIV infection is a good indicator that decriminalization has benefits. Odd that you glossed over that one.
Yes, Hunstman, that movie was hilarious. I watched it in class once (college) so we could have an idea of the propaganda that led to its criminalization. We watched an informative documentary, followed by Reefer Madness. It was insane. And in the actual fact-based documentary, we learned about Anslinger and all the crazy stuff he said to deter people from smoking and to encourage lawmakers to outlaw it. "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men," and "smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."
The federal interest in banning cannabis was right around the time of that movie in the 1930s. I’m not sure which came first.
Nina, you’re right, there was some awful stuff in there. I think the movie would be worth watching now just to take a look back on our culture and history of thought about certain things.
But I also think we should all head to the theater and do a tuscl screening some time when we have a thread that’s getting too intense. Preferably when everyone that gets high or snapped up has indulged. I think everyone would either be laughing or crying so hard that whatever it was that was bothering us would probably fade away. Reefer Madness was so corny, so bad and so over the top that it’s just a jaw dropper to watch.
Here's a grim stat: every year, 1.25 million citizens are arrested for possession of drugs for personal use (Drug Policy Alliance). Currently, 1 in 5 people of the 2.3 million people incarcerated are there for a non violent drug offenses (Prison Policy Initiative). Our 50 year "war on drugs" is a failure.
Worse yet, you don't necessarily have to be incarcerated to have a marijuana bust screw up your life. In many states, possession of weed is a felony. If you get caught with joint, you will need to lawyer up, work out a deal with the prosecutor and hope that the charge will get expunged. If not, you will forever have to check the "Yes" box on the employment app or the NCIS when asked, "have you ever been charged or convicted of a felony?" That's harsh.
I guess Nina glossed over what I wrote because I said nothing about decriminalization. I simply addressed the ludicrous notion that we're frequently locking up addicts in prison for simple possession. The numbers don't lie.
For the record I think 80% is wonderful but as you noted that's about needles: having them legally available for purchase and allowing for regular and permanent exchanges, not decriminalization.
"For the record I think 80% is wonderful but as you noted that's about needles: having them legally available for purchase and allowing for regular and permanent exchanges, not decriminalization."
What? Some states have laws against selling syringes. Some let people buy syringes, but regulate how many are allowed to be bought with a prescription. And intravenous drug users are still arrested for being found with "paraphernalia" (example: loose syringes). That is why programs that help with access to needles result in a lowered rate of bloodbourne infections. A lesser amount of users/addicts share needles. Sharing needles spreads disease.
And yes, people are arrested and given felons (with or without jail or prison sentences) for simple possession. Marijuana is a misdemeanor in most states I know of, but possession of harder drugs equates to a felony. People could lose jobs, professional licenses, and be precluded from getting certain jobs because the War on Drugs criminalizes addcits, makes their circumstances more dangerous, infringes upon civil liberties, and costs this country tens of billions of dollars per year.
How did they become addicts? Were they forced to take drugs the first time they tried it? Or did they not realize that they were dangerous, which if that is the case they should be locked up for stupidity.
1) People don't get locked up for stupidity. A perfect example is the fact that you are not incarcerated.
2) No one forces people to eat unhealthy diets and acquire adult onset diabetes. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated. People aren't forced to smoke cigarettes and get lung cancer. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated. I also fail to see why it is even a relevant issue.
People who get lung cancer from smoking and people who get diabetes after not curbing their unhealthy diet when so advised have noone to blame for their condition but themselves. The same for drug addicts.
It's good to start from the premise that the Drug War is a bad thing that hurts people, ruins lives, and treats adults like children. But when you start talking about the addicts as though they're just victims of forces beyond their control who had no choice in the matter... or when you talk about addiction as a disease that requires treatment... well, I think you're going to lose the support of a lot of people who might otherwise be on your side.
Nowadays, when someone talks about "treatment" or about treating something like a public health problem, what people hear is "the government should pay for it." For example, I'm all for legalizing drugs and especially legalizing syringes... but I'm not comfortable with the government paying for a needle exchange program.
If the government doesn't put money into public health problems, prevention and treatment, then the problems will get worse.
We can't substitute Libertarian nonsense for results.
I have heard that right now Colorado has the worst teenage smoking problem. Don't know why Colorado would be different from any other state, but it could be that they don't have much in terms of a publicly funded prevention program.
This is anecdotal, but here in CA, at least among the affluent teens, we seem to have finally broken the back of the most difficult of smoking problems. The teen rate seems to have really dropped.
39 comments
So we do need to do at least some careful decriminalization.
But, I still am opposed to drugs and I do not consider them to ever be good.
SJG
I don't smoke pot and never will. But in reality, the affect of MJ aren't much different than alcohol. So should we spend considerable resources prosecuting people for this. Probably not.
But when it comes to heroin, cocaine, or anything of the like, I think the legal enforcements need to be increased. I would significally increase the punishment for dealers. Make the consequences of getting caught dealing so severe that no one would dare do it. Why not hold a dealer responsible for an addicts death ? Dealing to children should have a punishment of life in prison.
They are actually a lot different. Alcohol is way more "intoxicating" than weed. It's also a lot more harmful to your body. Weed is tame compared to alcohol. Drink all day and you'll throw it up, have a hangover, or maybe die. Smoke weed all day and you'll end up simply relaxed or just nap the rest of the day. Seriously.
As far as legalizing the "bad" drugs, aka hard drugs or whatever you want to call them, you must first think about decriminalization. I don't people who get addicted to a hardcore substance should face prison time for simple possession. That's crazy. I think with decriminalizing, you can make things like needle exchange programs actually possible. Intravenous drug use notoriously leads to blood borne infections like HIV and Hep C. With decriminalization, we could save lives. I wish enough money were spent on allocating resources for easy access to drug rehabs, and lesser amount of laws that target the addcits as criminals. It's insane.
I think there’s a huge jump from legalizing hard drugs - and the legalization of alcohol. But - sadly - there are similarities to nicotine use and addiction. If you use cigarettes as intended - they will kill you. With hard drugs - the same outcome is possible.
With coke - I’m sure there are casual users. However - with crystal meth and heroin - I’m not sure there are casual users - who use it and don’t develop a dependency. So, legalizing certain drugs seems to provide little societal benefit.
I don’t think addicts should be criminals, but I don’t know the answers.
Very few people actually go to prison for possession. The ones that do either plead down from more serious drug charges or have extensive criminal histories. Would I like to see Joe the Crack Addict in treatment vs prison? Of course I would, but that changes when Joe robs somebody with a knife so he can go buy more drugs.
1) The private prison lobby - keeps prisons full with a lot of easy to manage, non-violent prisoners
2) The alcohol and tobacco industries - cuts into their market
3) Evangelical types who think that pot is evil, even though they drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes
4) Law enforcement - who reaps monitary benefits from pot and money seizures as well as finding an easy way to target "undesirables"
5) The drug cartelsand street dealers who reap huge profits by selling on the black market
As they say "follow the money".
Several people here have said that the War on Drugs has failed. Well, what if it had "succeeded"? Would that make it a good policy? If someone is lonely, bored, depressed, in pain, can't sleep, wants to die, or just wants to have fun, why should the government stop them from taking a drug?
Some other quick points:
- If a person commits a crime while he's on drugs, is that somehow worse than committing a crime while sober? Shouldn't the action matter more than his frame of mind at the time?
- So far as I know, there is no such thing as a commercially popular drug that a) turns people into unstoppable criminals and b) results in instant addiction.
- 90% of prisons in America are owned and operated by the government. They are NOT private. Plus, lobbying by private prison companies is dwarfed by lobbying by prison guard unions.
Yes, they do. Almost have of all people in federal prisons are there for a drug related offense. Sure, some may have been for intention to distribute, but if you look at people serving sentences from county jails to state and federal prisons, a lot of people are their for drug possession.
Possession of heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, meth, illegal prescription naroctics, etc are all felonies. You can be senteced to prison for a felony, obviously. Your options to plead down to a lower charge are difficult; if anything you'd just plead guilty to the charge and be put on probation. Drug addcits probably aren't the most reliable probationees, so they're likely to abscond and have warrants. They're also very likely to become repeat offenders which increases the likelihood of them ending in prison or at least jail, and of course, becoming a felon.
Places with needle exchange programs have reported an 80% drop in HIV infection. So there are good reasons to decriminalize.
Sorry for any other typos I didn't catch.
Hunstman, I agree. I know why it was (propaganda, mostly) but it's absolutely insane.
Jsully63, very well put.
I'm gonna go smoke some weed.
I don't think we're doing ourselves any favors by claiming that most people are in jail for possession. Besides, even if every drug offender in jail was a dealer, and even if all the users were free, the Drug War would still be an immoral and pointless exercise:
https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/12/expla…
At the state level the percentage of people in for any drug charge is significantly lower, I want to say around 15%.
That is simply untrue.
There are people I know of who have gone to county jail for simple possession of marijuana.
And people also end up in jail for other things drug-related. Even if their crime isn't drug-related, most people on probation have to submit to drug tests. If they fail those, probation revoked and it's off to prison or jail they go.
Dude, don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say that. I said half of people are in fed prisons for dug-related crimes, which is true.
My former best friend's mom was put on felony probation years back because she was caught with crack on her. She had an addiction. She is a felon now, although she is harmless. Her dad is a heroin addict, decades of clean time but he's a felon because of it. He is a good guy. My sister's boyfriend was a heroin addict, he is a felon now due to drug-related crimes. So many hardcore addicts I know/knew of are now felons. Addiction results in criminality, even if it's just a possession charge. It can turn someone into a felon. It is already classified as a disease, it should be treated as such, not with handcuffs.
I've helped represent clients who were given felony charges for possession of controlled substances. Got one case thrown out via suppression of evidence, and the young man would have most likely gone to prison or at least 6 months in jail. He would've also become a felon, and he's my age. His life could've been ruined then. He is a big black guy. From personal experience, big black guys are like a cop's wet dream. So is an addict. If cops know a person is an addict, they know that person is an easy target for an arrest.
Personally, I think the statistics in the article I posted are accurate, and that the notion that prisons are overflowing to capacity with non-violent drug users is probably an exaggeration. But here's a hypothetical question for you:
If every person arrested for drugs was a rich or middle-income well-educated professional white man, who's over the age of, let's say 40... and if the penalty for drug use was, let's say, a $100 fine and rehab... and if every person who actually ends up in prison for drugs was a dealer, not a user... would this satisfy you? Would you then support the War on Drugs? Speaking for myself, I would still be totally against it. The War on Drugs is wrong, but not just because it's racist and not just because it results in some non-violent people going to jail.
As far as I have ever been able to see, drugs and alcohol, and also tobacco and psychiatric medications are quite closely coupled to the Born Again Christian movement.
SJG
Of course I do not go along with that movie.
I don't think criminalization is the way to deal with it, but I still don't think marijuana or other drugs are good things to have around.
SJG
Yes, Hunstman, that movie was hilarious. I watched it in class once (college) so we could have an idea of the propaganda that led to its criminalization. We watched an informative documentary, followed by Reefer Madness. It was insane. And in the actual fact-based documentary, we learned about Anslinger and all the crazy stuff he said to deter people from smoking and to encourage lawmakers to outlaw it. "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men," and "smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."
Nina, you’re right, there was some awful stuff in there. I think the movie would be worth watching now just to take a look back on our culture and history of thought about certain things.
But I also think we should all head to the theater and do a tuscl screening some time when we have a thread that’s getting too intense. Preferably when everyone that gets high or snapped up has indulged. I think everyone would either be laughing or crying so hard that whatever it was that was bothering us would probably fade away. Reefer Madness was so corny, so bad and so over the top that it’s just a jaw dropper to watch.
Worse yet, you don't necessarily have to be incarcerated to have a marijuana bust screw up your life. In many states, possession of weed is a felony. If you get caught with joint, you will need to lawyer up, work out a deal with the prosecutor and hope that the charge will get expunged. If not, you will forever have to check the "Yes" box on the employment app or the NCIS when asked, "have you ever been charged or convicted of a felony?" That's harsh.
For the record I think 80% is wonderful but as you noted that's about needles: having them legally available for purchase and allowing for regular and permanent exchanges, not decriminalization.
"For the record I think 80% is wonderful but as you noted that's about needles: having them legally available for purchase and allowing for regular and permanent exchanges, not decriminalization."
What? Some states have laws against selling syringes. Some let people buy syringes, but regulate how many are allowed to be bought with a prescription. And intravenous drug users are still arrested for being found with "paraphernalia" (example: loose syringes). That is why programs that help with access to needles result in a lowered rate of bloodbourne infections. A lesser amount of users/addicts share needles. Sharing needles spreads disease.
And yes, people are arrested and given felons (with or without jail or prison sentences) for simple possession. Marijuana is a misdemeanor in most states I know of, but possession of harder drugs equates to a felony. People could lose jobs, professional licenses, and be precluded from getting certain jobs because the War on Drugs criminalizes addcits, makes their circumstances more dangerous, infringes upon civil liberties, and costs this country tens of billions of dollars per year.
2) No one forces people to eat unhealthy diets and acquire adult onset diabetes. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated. People aren't forced to smoke cigarettes and get lung cancer. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated. I also fail to see why it is even a relevant issue.
Nowadays, when someone talks about "treatment" or about treating something like a public health problem, what people hear is "the government should pay for it." For example, I'm all for legalizing drugs and especially legalizing syringes... but I'm not comfortable with the government paying for a needle exchange program.
We can't substitute Libertarian nonsense for results.
I have heard that right now Colorado has the worst teenage smoking problem. Don't know why Colorado would be different from any other state, but it could be that they don't have much in terms of a publicly funded prevention program.
This is anecdotal, but here in CA, at least among the affluent teens, we seem to have finally broken the back of the most difficult of smoking problems. The teen rate seems to have really dropped.
SJG