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Pick Your Poison, The Cycle Remains
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Drugs?
Yeah, one of my personal favorites:
In 1994, John Ehrlichman, the Watergate co-conspirator, unlocked for me one of the great mysteries of modern American history: How did the United States entangle itself in a policy of drug prohibition that has yielded so much misery and so few good results? I’d tracked Ehrlichman, who had been Nixon’s domestic-policy adviser, to an engineering firm in Atlanta, where he was working on minority recruitment.
At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? 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. 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.”
I must have looked shocked. Ehrlichman just shrugged. Then he looked at his watch, handed me a signed copy of his steamy spy novel, The Company, and led me to the door.
Complete article @ http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana. decriminalize the harder drugs, and move from a pattern of incarceration to treatment and harm reduction. you’ll neuter the cartel’s cash flow, improve the well being of your citizens, and make assloads of tax revenue.
Yes to everything you’ve said. Even more infuriating: If we didn’t tax the legalized/decriminalized drugs, it would still be cheaper to provide treatment for addicts than the criminalization/enforcement path we are on now.
Damn, I hadn’t heard that. Thats insane. I’m all about fiscal responsibility. If you look at the trillions that have been spent on the 45 year long drug war, the untold numbers of lives lost and families fractured, i don’t get how you could possibly support continued prohibition
In 2007, it was estimated that the cost to society of drug abuse was $193 billion (National Drug Intelligence Center [NDIC], 2011), a substantial portion of which—$113 billion—is associated with drug related crime, including criminal justice system costs and costs borne by victims of crime. The cost of treating drug abuse (including health costs, hospitalizations, and government specialty treatment) was estimated to be $14.6 billion, a fraction of these overall societal costs (NDIC, 2011).
Complete article @ https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-abuse-treatment-criminal-justice-populations/providing-drug-abuse-treatment-to-offenders-worth-f
Tangential to the riddle of steel is the lovechild of fear and naïveté.
alcohol in the early 1900’s?
I like it, the continuum of prohibitive. Nicely done.
Unfortunately, given the current circumstances, the word “some” needs to be added before “Public” – and strike-out “to make public safe”, replace with “to make them feel safe in furthering their agenda”.
It’s the politicians who don’t feel safe, not us. Even with an obvious antagonist, they see average Americans as the threat. In the words of our commander in chief’s right hand man – “Never let a good crisis go to waste”.
Amen to that!
It doesn’t matter what is prohibited, so long as it provides a justification for domestic warfare against undesirables and the flood of funding that comes with it.
Steps 1 and 2 should be repeated in several cycles, since usually first prohibition doesn’t help to prevent something, supposedly linked to X, and demand for more strict prohibition grows.
It never works, that’s the point. Prohibitions only empower organized crime and government as well as create a new class of criminals.
So decriminalize all crime? Brilliant!
No, just stop making laws against victimless crimes. The litmus test of whether or not a law is just comes down to: “Does the activity directly and negatively affect someone else’s life, health, safety, or personal property?”
If not, then it’s none of the government’s business.
After the “police use harsher tactics” we need a “public decry militarization of police” step.
That’s more of an after-effect than a step in the process…but still a very valid point.
Clarification, it’s a valid point in that it would feature heavily in the discussion of police tactics vs. violent crime.
I fully support the police having access to weapons and equipment of military grade. The average LEO is likely to encounter serious firepower these days, even during what used to be considered “routine” service calls. Plate carriers, OpsCore helmets and M4-type patrol weapons are not unreasonable, especially considering recent events and other threats (actual or implied) faced in today’s environment. Sure, don’t do radar enforcement in SWAT gear… but by all means officers deserve an absolute fighting chance on the streets.
If the anti-police dipshits had their way, first responders would be rolling up on some kevlar’d buffoon firing an illegally-modified AK47 looking like Barney Fife, in soft uniforms and carrying .38 revolvers… and even then they’d still decry the use of deadly force.
There is nothing like seeing the faces of soldiers that have to beg borrow and steal to get gear watching cops on the 5 o’clock news looking for some addict loser in their new Opscores. I want police to have the gear (and more importantly training) they need. The Obscure comment just struck a cord with me. If SOCOM personnel are having trouble finding them, SWAT needs to wait.
and to avoid telling the personal story
http://www.stripes.com/news/lacking-basic-gear-special-operators-stuck-buying-their-own-equipment-1.396109
Just legalize all the dope, guns, and whores and get it over with
Wash, rinse, repeat. Nothing has surprised me more than the “legalization” of marihuana in the western states and potentially the whole US because of the negative ecomomic impact on Mexico and the subsequent increase in illegal immigration. But this Administration’s ebrace of illegal immigrants changed my perspective.
pardon?
Flow chart ‘Day Dreamy’ at best. The reality is you can’t afford to this naive with the safety of the public.
You can watch Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman explain the damage the drug war does here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLsCC0LZxkY
X = murder, rape, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, theft, assault, drunk driving, extortion, destruction of property, trespassing?
X = human trafficking, forced prostitution, slavery, child abuse and endangerment, money laundering
You are missing the mark completely. X is a Victim-less crime or inanimate object…
“X” is meant to be substance or object, not an act. I thought that was pretty obvious.
Some people are statists, some aren’t.
Its also worth noting that when alcohol was prohibited, most bootleggers probably weren’t armed, or at least not heavily. I would also argue that the majority of drug dealers are not normally armed either (though many are, admittedly). However, if you prohibit guns…how many illegal gun dealers will be armed? I’d venture to say 100 f***ing percent.
Needs a new term inserted into the center of the feedback loop.
“Harassment, bodily harm or death of non-combatant undesirable population segments is considered acceptable collateral damage.”