End the war on drugs now! I explain why all drugs should be legal.

in #drugs8 years ago (edited)


1) Introduction

As always, hello to all steemers, steemians, steemos, ... however you want to call steem users :)
The following text deals with the prohibiton of drugs. To be more specific, it explains why prohibition didn't work, doesn't work and never will work. I hope i can convince people that the ongoing war on drugs is a treath to all of us.
I apologize for not being word-perfect in english, i am always trying to improve my english skills.


(me and my lovely wife Roberta)

Before you wonder if i know what i am talking about, let me explain why i write about it. I am not a scientist. I am not a drug counsellor. I am not a drug addict. I am just a normal guy. A normal guy who experimented with psychotropic substances a few years ago. A normal guy who has friends who consumed drugs. A normal guy who read a lot and did a lot research in regard to drugs. I have read great books like "BUZZED" , great analyses like Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis from David Nutt, etc.
I really made an effort, i learned much and want to use this platform to share my knowledge with others.


2) The donut glaze case

The title of a story i found two weeks ago at www.thinkprogress.org says:

Police Arrest Florida Man, Claiming Donut Glaze Was Crystal Meth

The article explains:

Orlando police pulled over a man and arrested him for drug possession. But it turns out that drug was a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

After being pulled over for failing to come to a full stop before driving out of a parking lot, 64-year-old Daniel Rushing told the Orlando Sentinel he was arrested, jailed and strip-searched — all over a few flakes of sugar in his car. Police thought the flakes were crystal methamphetamine.

“I kept telling them, ‘That’s … glaze from a doughnut,” he told the Sentinel. “They tried to say it was crack cocaine at first, then they said, ‘No, it’s meth, crystal meth.’”

But two roadside drug tests came back positive for meth. Rushing, who is white, ended up spending 10 hours in jail and was released on a $2,500 bond. Prosecutors later dropped the case against him after another test determined the flakes were not an illegal drug.

This... is crazy. I use this article here to demonstrate how crazy our society has become. This guy was strip-searched. Strip-searched! What is going on in this country?! Look at what they put this poor guy trough.
I don't really care if it was just donut glaze or crystal meth, crack cocaine or whatever. As i will explain later, everybody should have the right to influence his conciousness however he or she wants. The drug tests came back positive for meth because he used cleaning materials in his car. A standart cleaning product. The war on drugs is so radical, that you have to fear the police, even if you don't have anything to do with drugs. But lets have a look at the history of the war on drugs first.


3) History (till 1971)

Until 1914 Coca was used in health drinks and remedies, morphine was used for different medical purposes, heroine was used tro treat respiratory illness and smoking marijuana was as normal as drinking a beer today for some groups of people.
Then the aggressively enforced Harrison Narcotics act passed, which restricted the manufacture and sale of marijuana , cocaine, morphine and heroine.
From 1930 to 1962, leaded by Harry Anslinger, drugs were increasingly criminalized. web.stanford.edu explains:

The Boggs Act of 1951 drastically increased the penalties for marijuana use. The Narcotics Control Act of 1956 created “the most punitive and repressive anti-narcotics legislation ever adopted by Congress". All discretion to suspend sentences or permit probation was eliminated. Anslinger was critical of judges for being too easy on drug dealers and called for longer minimum sentences. He established a punitive drug policy with a focus on drug law enforcement. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics also used propaganda as a preventative measure. They created myths and horror stories about drugs. Marijuana was blamed for bizarre cases of insanity, murder, and sex crimes. Anslinger said that marijuana caused some people to “fly into a delirious rage and many commit violent crimes (McWilliams, 1990, P. 70).” It is puzzling that Anslinger and the FBN fabricated such tales, while there existed less dramatic, but true horror stories connected to drug abuse. The propaganda of the 1940’s and 1950’s was often so far fetched that people simply didn’t believe the government’s warnings about drugs.

In the 1960’s “hippies” made the consume of marijuana, heroine and hallucinogens like LSD popular. The demand for drugs in America skyrocketed.
In reaction the Narcotics Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966 passed. The act specified that “narcotic addiction” was a mental illness. But drug use, however, was still considered a crime. The act did pave the road for federal expenditures on drug abuse treatment.

In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. He proclaimed, “America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.

Richard M. Nixon, ca. 1935 - 1982 - NARA - 530679.jpg (Richard Nixon)


In June 1971, Nixon addressed Congress and declared, “as long as there is a demand, there will be those willing to take the risks of meeting the demand (Sharp, 1994, p.27).” In this statement he publicly proclaimed that all efforts of interdiction and eradication are destined to fail. Unfortunately, Nixon failed to listen to his own advice. Nixon launched a massive interdiction effort in Mexico. The Drug Enforcement Agency was created in 1973. They initiated Operation Intercept, which pressured Mexico to regulate its marijuana growers. The U S government spent hundreds of millions of dollars closing up the border. Trade between Mexico and the U S came to a virtual standstill. Mass amounts of Mexican crops headed for the U S rotted, while waiting in line at the border. In the end, Nixon achieved his goal of curtailing the supply of Mexican marijuana in America. Columbia, however, was quick to replace Mexico as America’s marijuana supplier.

Later one of Richard Nixon's top advisers and a key figure in the Watergate scandal said the war on drugs was created as a political tool to fight hippies and blacks.

"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."


4) Fact check - how succesful is the war on drugs?

Nixons policy in regard to drugs changed the game, because it lead to much more oppresion of consumers. This policy didn't significantly change in the last 45 years. It is time to have a look at the results.

a) Racism

As Ehrlichman said, the war against drugs should discriminate against minorities. This statistic shows that thats the case till today.

b) Prison population (1/2)

This graphic shows the effect on the prison population. It is clear to see that Nixons drug policy (policies) have lead to a gigantic increase of the prison population.

c) Prison population (2/2)

You can also see that the prison population is much higher in countries where the war on drugs is fought aggressively. USA - We are the #1 ...

d) Money

Imagine what we could do with all this money.

e) Drug consumers

This chart shows that the percentage of people using drugs (exception: alcohol, tobacco, coffeine) sharply increased from 1999 to 2008.

Other articles i read made clear that the same happened continuesly from 1971 to 2015, unfortunately i couldn't find a chart to show that. So the main goal of the war on drugs, to prevent the usage, could not be realized.

It just doesn't work!


5) WHY the war on drugs didn't work, doesn't work and never will work

The idea behind the war on drugs is, that only repression can be used to lower the amount of drug users. Most of the population thinks that if we would legalize drugs, everybody would shoot heroin and sniff cocaine. That is nonsense.

Understand: The legalization of drugs doesn't lead to an icrease of consumers, amount of use or consume rate!

One example for that is Colorado. As you know, marijuana is legal in Colorado since 2012. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) tried to find out, which effects the lagalization of marijuana has in regard to the amount of adolescents smoking it. They created a survey with 17.000 middle and high school students, asking them if they smoked pot in the last 30 days. 2011, before weed was legal in Colorado, 25% of the students admitted that they consumed marijuana in the last 30 days. 2015, after weed has been lagalized, only 21% of students admitted that they used pot.

Dont forget that some students didn't admitt that they smoked pot in 2011 because they had fear because it was illegal. So there is a good chance that the amount of students who smoked marijuana in 2011 was significantly higher than the statistic shows. Which means that the legalization of weed lead waaaaay less pot smokers.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? But how is this possible?!

Let me explain.

The most people have the vision of a horror scenario: Drug-Zombies everywhere if we legalize drugs. Well, let me give you two scenarios.

Scenario #1: Imagine a world, where you can buy any drug you want in a drugstore. The drugstores are not allowed to advertise their drugs. You have to be at least 18 years old to buy drugs. If you want to buy a drug, the apothecary advises you, tells you about the risks, how to use it and who you can call if you have problems with an addiction.

Scenario #2: The possession of the most drugs is illegal. On the streets are dealers. Everybody can buy from them. They don't care if you are 14 or 40 years old. They want to make money, so they have the goal to produce as many drug addicts as possible. Even if you never had something to do with drugs, they will convince you that you need their stuff.

Your childen live in the world that scenario #2 represents. - We have to stop this.

The reason why the most drugs are not legal, is because of companies who bribe our politicans. Weed is one of the best medicament out there. But you can't patent a plant.

Bernie Sanders is a big supporter of the legalization of weed. Unfortunately the most politicians are bought by big pharma. Corrupt politicians - The reason, why facts don't matter.


Let us fight to legalize first marijuana, and then all drugs!


Thanks for reading, if you like it please give me an upvote and follow me. Enjoy the sun :)

#drugs #warondrugs #marijuana

Sort:  

Excellent piece. Very thorough, balanced with insight & references. Keep up the good work! ;-)

Thank you very much :) Feel free to follow me for more :)

Great post - I'm so glad to see another advocate of responsible drug use and a sane drug policy.

There's an organization in the US which is working to reduce mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug "offenders." Here's the website for anyone looking to get involved or find out more info: http://famm.org

Here's hoping we see decriminalization in our lifetimes!

Prohibition of any sort usually fails so there is a strong case for that, but i see just as strong the simple moral case that it is not the governments job to tell you what you can or cannot smoke.

Pretty simple when you get down to it, and goes far beyond smoking and Marijuana. No victim, no crime.

I agree with your conclusions on a personal level.
Second Response... first I wrote an article a few weeks ago on word hijacking. Near the bottom I go over a strong motivational reason for the War on Drugs, that is applied to a lot of other victim-less crimes as well.

I am going to approach this as ASKING some questions, then providing my observations, and hypothesis.

Does the drinking age stop under age people from drinking?
In my personal experience under age people seem to have almost no problem getting alcohol. They also seem to be excited by the fact they are doing something they should not be doing. They have alcohol so they better drink it all while they have the chance. This has been an observation I made as a child of alcoholic parents who became rather anti-alcohol (not at all that way now though I don't personally use it). My answer was never that they should ban or destroy alcohol. I was always more at war with the perception and choice of how it was used. I once gave a speech where we had to link it to something we saw. I was in college and heard two people talking. The conversation basically went like this. "I got so smashed at that party last night I woke up in the bathtub", "cool I wish I was there". In my speech I told people that this basically translated to "I lost total control of myself last night on alcohol, can't remember much else, and woke up uncomfortable in a bathtub", which was admired by the other person and they expressed a little bit of envy. My observations have lead to the personal hypothesis that banning and restricting things can make things more appealing. People like to be able to make choices. They do not like it when other people will not permit them to make their own choices. So, I do believe this IS a factor in the War on Drugs.

If a so-called crime has no victim, is it truly a crime? If so, why?
My honest OPINION is that if there is no victim, then there is no crime. People need to be able to make choices and be responsible for the consequences of their actions. We need to stop viewing PRE-CRIME as a solution. We should not be stopping or arresting people for things that MIGHT happen. We should instead go after them when something happens. If I am stupid and choose to use PCP (aka angel dust) and I don't flip out, so be it. If I choose to jump out of a window and I die. I have already paid the ultimate price, you can't penalize me further. If I harm a person there are already laws in place for assault, and for murder. Use those. If I harm property, or steal something there are already laws in place for property damage, and theft. Use those. I purposefully picked a pretty scary drug for this example.

Should we be banning anything? Does banning work?
I am of the personal opinion that taking choice away from people for what MIGHT happen is not actually my right. People need to be able to make choices, and be responsible for the consequences. I MIGHT trip walking on my side walk, life has dangers. Someone using something banned be it a drug, a book, or a gun MIGHT hurt themselves or someone else. Yet there is danger in simply crossing the street. I do not believe they should be charged with any crime unless there is a victim.

How does the prison system benefit from all of this?

  • Subsidized by government
  • Labor at less than $1/hour from inmates
  • People talk about overseas sweatshops, without realizing we have sweatshops producing ALL kinds of goods, and doing tech jobs as well using inmate prison labor. The same thing we complain about with regards to overseas sweatshops should also be targeted at the prison industrial complex.
  • Huge money, and huge lobbying money applied to our government representatitives
  • I talk about this with more specific personal examples of dealing with this first hand in my WORD HIJACKING blog

You are great man :) The most comments are things like "keep the good work up" or in this case "I don't know much about drugs but cool images man". You write really substantial comments, thank you for that :)
To the topic "Does the drinking age stop under age people from drinking?" - i remember when i was 17 years old, just a few years ago, it was muuuuuuuuch easier for me to get heroin than it was to get vodka. I live in germany where you have to be at least 18 years old to get strong alcohol. So in my case the regulations made it much harder to get strong alcohol.
I just followed you and will read a few posts of you. Espeacially the word hijacking blog post :)

I believe if someone writes a substantial post, and I can give a substantial and meaningful answer I should. Sometimes people say YOU SHOULD WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG instead of replying. Why? and I do have blog posts that touch against some of this, but are different.

As to alcohol. Find an alcoholic who is broke. Give him money to buy alcohol for himself and for you. Done.

Wow, good post great detail. I think i am gone draw my line at marijuana still.

Marijuana use declined among teens in all states, that have legalized medical or non-medical use.

You even used the same .gif I did at the bottom of my post:
https://steemit.com/marijuana/@melek/save-the-weed-save-the-usa-how-legalizing-marijuana-will-fix-all-our-problems

Third post. I live in Colorado. I don't use drugs, alcohol, or nicotine. Yet I am an advocate for legalizing all drugs. If you want a really good case study for this you should check out Portugal. They decriminalized everything more than a decade ago and ALL negative drug related issues have dramatically dropped across the board.

Excellent work. I work for cognitive liberty and to end the war in drugs here in NYC.

In the absence of the drug - leads to one, they take all people. The person ceases to control their consumption. And if you do not fight, then eventually the whole society to become a consumer. The harder you struggle, the less consumers. Besides from drug addict to a normal person fails. The main problem is the mental deterioration. Not just want to work. And for him, someone else needs to work.

@steemitpolitics How did you advertise your post? You have about the same followers and influence level I do. I posted this 17 hours before you, which is a amazingly similar:

https://steemit.com/marijuana/@melek/save-the-weed-save-the-usa-how-legalizing-marijuana-will-fix-all-our-problems

I have been promoting it a bunch and can't get any traction. Maybe my writing just isn't as good as yours. Love the Bernie .gif.

I didn't "advertise" it at all :D Don't give up, i like your post, maybe you just need a bit luck :) Go on making good posts and over time you will be well rewarded :)

Thanks for the encouragement and the upvote, I am a follower.