"Malum Prohibitum"

[hanelyp]

williatw, are you being deliberately obtuse? The peak opium use rate in China is before draconian countermeasures were employed. After the situation settled down with the new enforcement there were comparatively few addicts or dealers to be executed. Also, draconian measures aren't needed to keep drug abuse at levels society can survive if enforcement starts early on the curve and remains consistent.

Calling anything less than 100% eradication a failure of prohibition is unrealistic. There are any number of criminal offenses prohibited by law that people still commit, even kidnapping and murder which can receive a life sentence. But because of penalties far fewer people commit those offenses, keeping them at a rate society can survive. As D said, a cost benefit measure must be made of what an incremental improvement would cost vs. the benefit.

paperburn1 suggests removing protections and letting natural selection take effect. Removing welfare benefits for active drug abusers would help disincentive drug abuse.

[williatw]

williatw, are you being deliberately obtuse? The peak opium use rate in China is before draconian countermeasures were employed. After the situation settled down with the new enforcement there were comparatively few addicts or dealers to be executed. Also, draconian measures aren't needed to keep drug abuse at levels society can survive if enforcement starts early on the curve and remains consistent.
Calling anything less than 100% eradication a failure of prohibition is unrealistic. There are any number of criminal offenses prohibited by law that people still commit, even kidnapping and murder which can receive a life sentence. But because of penalties far fewer people commit those offenses, keeping them at a rate society can survive. As D said, a cost benefit measure must be made of what an incremental improvement would cost vs. the benefit.

I am not being obtuse I never said anything less than 100% success is a failure, "D" may have implied that's what I said, not the case. I said the cost (monetary and otherwise) was prohibitive of our current WOD, exceeding any benefit. I am saying if you say WOD is a success simply because we avoided China's fate that is a false comparison. No WOD from Nixon in 1973 doesn't equal us being like China during the worst of the opium addiction/wars by now. The data simply doesn't support that, even assuming that nothing other than Nixon's path (WOD) was a possible response, and that is by no means true. The drug that was the primary focus of Nixon's WOD, pot, is many times more potent, cheaper than ever, and available to a population that 50% have at least tried once, and is available on demand to whomever wants it. Difficult to see that result as a success.

[Diogenes]

I am not being obtuse I never said anything less than 100% success is a failure, "D" may have implied that's what I said, not the case. I said the cost (monetary and otherwise) was prohibitive of our current WOD, exceeding any benefit. I am saying if you say WOD is a success simply because we avoided China's fate that is a false comparison. No WOD from Nixon in 1973 doesn't equal us being like China during the worst of the opium addiction/wars by now. The data simply doesn't support that, even assuming that nothing other than Nixon's path (WOD) was a possible response, and that is by no means true. The drug that was the primary focus of Nixon's WOD, pot, is many times more potent, cheaper than ever, and available to a population that 50% have at least tried once, and is available on demand to whomever wants it. Difficult to see that result as a success.

That's because most people (including law enforcement) now recognize that pot isn't all that great of a threat. It might have been Nixon's primary target, but it has long since ceased to be the primary target for the war on drugs.

At this point I would have to say that the primary targets are likely meth and cocaine.

As for the cost? About that you have a point. The cost has ballooned as fast as other government programs, but the entire government is out of control on that score, not just the drug interdiction part of it.

Now whether it is "exceeding any benefit" is a different question. The value of preventing addiction to 50% of our population ought to be pretty enormous.

[ladajo]

William,
Your 2% is incorrect. And use is on the rise, IMO due to the successes by the pro-drug & pot lobbies. They are increasingly effective in painting a picture that pot is okay for you. Too bad it is a lie. But hey, sales are up! Yeah!

In 2011, an estimated 22.5 million Americans aged 12 or older—or 8.7 percent of the population—had used an illicit drug or abused a psychotherapeutic medication (such as a pain reliever, stimulant, or tranquilizer) in the past month. This is up from 8.3 percent in 2002. The increase mostly reflects a recent rise in the use of marijuana, the most commonly used illicit drug.

and

In 2012, an estimated 23.9 million Americans aged 12 or older were current (past month) illicit drug users, meaning they had used an illicit drug during the month prior to the survey interview. This estimate represents 9.2 percent of the population aged 12 or older. Illicit drugs include marijuana/hashish, cocaine (including crack), heroin, hallucinogens, inhalants, or prescription-type psychotherapeutics (pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives) used nonmedically. - See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Drug_Us ... 9A0fp.dpuf

[GIThruster]

No WOD from Nixon in 1973 doesn't equal us being like China during the worst of the opium addiction/wars by now. The data simply doesn't support that, even assuming that nothing other than Nixon's path (WOD) was a possible response, and that is by no means true.

Some of the contention here is that you keep bringing up prohibition and WOD without knowing what WOD is. It did not start in '73 but in '71, and at the same time Nixon popularized the term, he pushed for efforts for prevention and rehabilitation. The numbers people generally use when they talk about the cost of WOD are not the numbers for incarceration only. They include the vast amounts spent on prevention and rehab. Now what are you arguing against and for? On the one hand, you argue WOD is too expensive. So does that mean you don't think we should enforce the law or that we should change it? And does it mean you think we should cut off the HUGE funds for treatment, be it rehab or prevention?

Given the statistics that illicit drug use costs the country more than $582 BILLION dollars a year, any argument to cut funds for prevention and rehab seems to me hopelessly out of touch, and decriminalization will double the cost of the programs. Remember, it may be now that idiots are popularizing drugs that make people lazy and crazy, that 50% will try grass, but less than 10% become users because they don't want to be involved in criminal activity. If you decriminalize cannabis, you should expect the numbers of users and abusers to skyrocket. THAT is the crux of the issue.

[ladajo]

If you decriminalize cannabis, you should expect the numbers of users and abusers to skyrocket. THAT is the crux of the issue.

Yup.

And you also have to consider the impact on the numbers of users for other drugs. They will also assuredly go up as well.

It is an exponential error that may be committed. One that may not be recoverable in any realistic sense.

Selfishness is the root of all evil I think. I do recognize however that for one who uses, they are not thinking for themself anymore, that ability goes out the window with addictiveness. The drug is thinking for them. And that drug is a purity of selfishness.

[williatw]

Given the statistics that illicit drug use costs the country more than $582 BILLION dollars a year, any argument to cut funds for prevention and rehab seems to me hopelessly out of touch, and decriminalization will double the cost of the programs. Remember, it may be now that idiots are popularizing drugs that make people lazy and crazy, that 50% will try grass, but less than 10% become users because they don't want to be involved in criminal activity. If you decriminalize cannabis, you should expect the numbers of users and abusers to skyrocket. THAT is the crux of the issue.

This reminds me a bit of the Christmas ceasefire in WWI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

By cost GIThruster I meant other costs as well as merely financial. And obviously the effort of drug treatment & prevention would/should continue even if the WOD ended. I have repeatedly said that drug abuse/addiction are medical problems that should be treated as such. The cost I am more concerned with is that of human lives of upwards a million mostly young minority men arrested per year and a large fraction of those incarcerated, abused, brutalized. Their lives scarred forever, labeled as convicted felons, little chance of gainful employment. Or the cost of 50,000 dead Mexicans, or the cost in money (and lives) of the WOD in Columbia as well as Latin America as a whole. All that to have about 50% try pot anyway, and a very small percentage go on to be habitual users, based on your supposition that simply by the fact of its illegality, users and abusers don't "skyrocket". The only thing that has actually sky rocked is the THC content of pot, on the order of 18X since the WOD commenced. Sure the 50K dead Mexicans and uncounted thousands of dead other Latinos, to say nothing of countless thousands of men ass-raped in jail, would agree it was well worth the cost. It is easy to believe the cost vs benefit is worth it when the worse costs are borne by those other than yourself that you don't particulary empathize with.

Selfishness is the root of all evil I think. I do recognize however that for one who uses, they are not thinking for themself anymore, that ability goes out the window with addictiveness. The drug is thinking for them. And that drug is a purity of selfishness.

Most of the increasing majority of your fellow citizenry who want to end the WOD are motivated not by any selfish desire to use drugs, but because they want to end the harm (and expense) to society and democratic institutions they see in continuing it. I look forward to seeing how your supposedly altruistic desire to continue the WOD fares once it (the WOD) increasingly enters full swing into its next logical phase: Civil asset Forfeiture. Along with the other cost of the "altruistic" WOD is the exponential increase in government abusing and seizing our property on the least pretext with little due process.

[williatw]

William,
Your 2% is incorrect. And use is on the rise, IMO due to the successes by the pro-drug & pot lobbies. They are increasingly effective in painting a picture that pot is okay for you. Too bad it is a lie. But hey, sales are up! Yeah!

Actually it was Diogenes's 2% estimate that I was using, not mine. Referring to a rough percentage of chronic users of hard drugs I believe. However using your figures, 23.9(total users)-18.9(pot users) = 5.0 million. 5.0/259.8 = 1.9% of adults over 12 chronic hard drug users, pretty close to "D"'s off the cuff estimate.

[ladajo]

So we should normalize what we are talking about regarding the numbers.

For instance, about 50% of folks say they have tried pot in their lifetime. Almost 10% of folks say they have used pot within the last month (accepted indicator of continued use). Thus, Pot is expected to give about a 20% continued usage rate. And yes, I think we can agree that Pot is by far the most used drug in the US.

I still do not see where you can explain how usage will not go up if pot is legalized nationally. And, I do not see where you have argued how that will not in turn cause all drug usage to follow in train. My argument is based in addictive tendancies. I say and have posted evidence many times here over several years of back and forth with Mike Simon showing addiction and mechanisms for seeking more potent drugs to get high as tolerance increases along with addiction.

It is a death spiral. At best, you get signficantly more no-loads on government hand-outs so they can float along high. At worst you get an addiction epidemic whose costs and damage to society would be essentially impossible to measure.

I do not profess to have a better answer, other than going to war at the sources and killing them off. But that would not be nice.

I do believe that Simon and others patently support legalizing all drugs. And that would be a disaster given the social handout nation we have spent so much effort building. A zombie apocalypse in the making were it to be. Max Brooks has it nailed in my opinion.

[williatw]

So we should normalize what we are talking about regarding the numbers.

For instance, about 50% of folks say they have tried pot in their lifetime. Almost 10% of folks say they have used pot within the last month (accepted indicator of continued use). Thus, Pot is expected to give about a 20% continued usage rate. And yes, I think we can agree that Pot is by far the most used drug in the US.
I still do not see where you can explain how usage will not go up if pot is legalized nationally. And, I do not see where you have argued how that will not in turn cause all drug usage to follow in train. My argument is based in addictive tendancies. I say and have posted evidence many times here over several years of back and forth with Mike Simon showing addiction and mechanisms for seeking more potent drugs to get high as tolerance increases along with addiction.

So you concede that roughly 50% use pot over a life time of which a small percentage become chronic users. This is in spite of upwards of 800K people being arrested and or incarcerated for mostly possession of mostly pot. Most drugs destroyed/interdicted are pot, yet it is almost 20X as potent and cheaper than when the WOD started. Most people sitting in jail now are for possession of narcotics (mostly pot), this has been going on for four decades, no end in sight. No clear evidence that the WOD has had the slightest influence on people's behavior pot wise, (accept for the aforementioned 20X increase in potency), accept your supposition that more would try if it were legalized; nonetheless we should continue on the chance that it is holding the line against drug Armageddon. Of course if it were legalized it is very likely that would lead to regulations on THC content to a more modest level...say closer to the 0.74% it was in 1974, probably the level it had been for forever, until the dubious wisdom of the WOD.

[GIThruster]

I have repeatedly said that drug abuse/addiction are medical problems that should be treated as such. The cost I am more concerned with is that of human lives of upwards a million mostly young minority men arrested per year and a large fraction of those incarcerated, abused, brutalized. Their lives scarred forever, labeled as convicted felons, little chance of gainful employment.

You're pretending criminals have no responsibility for their criminal behavior. It's important to recognize we don't incarcerate cannabis users in the US. It's those earning a living selling that go to prison, and even that has become infrequent. Whining about the lives damaged by law enforcement is just idiotic. Each and every one of these people you profess to be concerned with (have you ever met even one?) chose to line his pockets by selling drugs. I don't feel sorry for them when they get caught.

Just FYI, these poor downtrodden men you're so concerned with, are the prime demographic for those who purpotrate violence on others, especially young black men. Drug dealers almost ALL carry illegal weapons, along with their drugs and cash. It is not because they use they go to prison. It's because they use, and sell, and carry illegal weapons, and kill each other that they go to prison.

[williatw]

You're pretending criminals have no responsibility for their criminal behavior. It's important to recognize we don't incarcerate cannabis users in the US. It's those earning a living selling that go to prison, and even that has become infrequent. Whining about the lives damaged by law enforcement is just idiotic. Each and every one of these people you profess to be concerned with (have you ever met even one?) chose to line his pockets by selling drugs. I don't feel sorry for them when they get caught.

You are free to believe if you want that minority youth caught with pot aren't incarcerated. You including parole violations in your estimate? My understanding is what most people get arrested and convicted for is possession of narcotics, mostly pot or perhaps attempting to buy such. Trafficking is usually defined by having above a certain quantity, not typically being actually caught selling.

Just FYI, these poor downtrodden men you're so concerned with, are the prime demographic for those who perpetrate violence on others, especially young black men. Drug dealers almost ALL carry illegal weapons, along with their drugs and cash. It is not because they use they go to prison. It's because they use, and sell, and carry illegal weapons, and kill each other that they go to prison.

Then arrest and convict them of carrying (or using) weapons, or assault or theft. I have no sympathy for or problem with someone going to jail for robbery, assault, rape, murder, carrying illegal weapons etc., find by me. Furthermore the illegal nature of drug trafficking all but guarantees violence. After all there isn't exactly a legal frame work they can use to arbitrate disputes peacefully, so issues very often are satisfied by violence, just like bootleggers during prohibition. The difference is that in the case of prohibition, people were able to see that the reason for the violence was prohibition. Now of course if pot sellers were licensed by the state, with regulations etc. (no paraquat and/or other contaminaton; and THC content, for instance, a nearly 20X increase in potency in 40yrs maybe has something to do with those psychotic episodes you like to mention), most of the drug trafficking related street gang violence would very probably disappear. After Prohibition was lifted, the violent crime rate (especially homicide) declined dramatically in the U.S.

[ladajo]

So you concede that roughly 50% use pot over a life time of which a small percentage become chronic users.

Yes, I agree that current stats show about 50% of total population trying pot once in their lifetime. I have posted this many times in the past years.

I also said that about 10% of total population keep using pot.

That means that of the 100% of folks who try pot, it gets the attention (addiction/need) of 20% for repeated use. So if you try pot, it is 1 in 5 that you will keep doing it.

That is by no means a "small percentage".

What is your theory about why the other 50% of the population never try it?

What is your theory on why it is limited to 20% of those who do that get hooked?

One theory is that its legal status helps keep it in check.

One bogus theory is that it is not addictive and folks can quit whenever they want. You know, just like cigarettes were for years.

Another theory to consider is the "Gateway Effect". That says that Pot is an entry drug, and that a decent percentage of pot users go on to use stronger drugs and mixers.

I can show you easily the mixer part for pot users. It is one of the most popular drugs to mix with as it is perceived as "safe". Of course there are a number of dead teens and twenty somethings that learned otherwise (once).

[GIThruster]

So if you try pot, it is 1 in 5 that you will keep doing it.

Assuming its not made legal. Once it loses all social sanction against, near 100% will try it and the number that stick with it could become anything.

That's what we need, an hallucinogen in everyone's system, that makes them habitually irresponsible. An entire society of parasites.

[GIThruster]

Furthermore the illegal nature of drug trafficking all but guarantees violence.

Then why are you defending it? You do realize that when cannabis is decriminalized another drug just takes its place? There's along line of drugs waiting for the public.

Too, I don't think you've looked at the numbers for the "war on drugs". The Feds spend $25B on enforcement, and $9B on intervention, treatment and rehab.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/the-nat ... highlights

However, the vast majority of the funds spent on rehab and treatment are State funds.

Now contrast these numbers with the number I gave the link for above that says illicit drug use costs the nation $582B/year. Obviously, the problem is much bigger than you think, and the solution is certainly not more Libertarian ways.

And again just saying, this is why sensible people never become Libertarians, because although everyone likes saying they sympathize with Libertarian ideals, no one with any common sense thinks decriminalizing drugs and prostitution will lead to a happier, healthier society.