
The war on drugs is a broken business model - jwdunne
http://www.virgin.com/unite/leadership-and-advocacy/the-war-on-drugs-is-a-broken-business-model
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MarcusBrutus
We should really stop calling it "war on drugs". It's really the "war on what
people are allowed to consume, for their own sake" and so is on par with the
"war on raw milk" and who knows maybe the "war on fat" or the "war on meat" in
a few years. I'm not even a smoker but if somebody wants to consume/ingest all
kinds of substances I don't lay any claims to his digestive track or blood
stream and it's really his business to destroy himself if he so wishes, at any
rate he pleases. In fact it might even be good "for the environment" since
drug addicts are unlikely to have many kids and they usually have shorter life
spans thus leaving a smaller carbon footprint on our precious Gaia. Clearly
the society should not subsidize their medical treatment either and if they
kill while hallucinating or steal to pay for their fix, being a drug-addict
should not be treated as extenuating circumstances. Personal responsibility
cuts both ways.

~~~
rayiner
The reductionism isn't warranted. There are a group of people who liken drug
use to drinking raw milk. I'm sorry, have you ever been to a town devastated
by raw milk consumption? Do you see many kids born with birth defects because
of raw milk consumption? Do you see raw milk addicts stealing to feed their
raw milk habit?

I agree that we should end the drug war, but comments like yours are blindly
one sided. Drug use isn't just high functioning professional recreational
users. Its also people who poison their kids making meth at home, and people
who coerce addicted women into prostitution using the promise of the next hit.
Criminalization may be the wrong solution to it, but that doesn't mean its not
a real social problem.

~~~
betterunix
"Its also people who poison their kids making meth at home"

This particular problem is immediately solved by legalizing recreational
methamphetamine. Pharmaceutical companies make methamphetamine too, and their
production processes are well-regulated, produce drugs without hazardous
adulterants, and do not put children in danger.

I agree with you otherwise, that the social problems caused by recreational
drug abuse will not just go away if drugs are legalized. Quite a few of those
problems, however, are unique to black market drugs. People would not be
throwing garbage bags full of chemical byproducts onto the side of a highway
if they could just produce the drugs legally. Likewise with opiates: you would
not see "Krokodil" or any of the other botched attempts to replace heroin if
recreational opiates were legal and accessible. Likewise with the numerous
"gray area" attempts to replace marijuana. These are artificial problems with
an easy solution; the rest of the social problems associated with drug abuse
can and should be addressed without prohibition.

~~~
mistercow
>Pharmaceutical companies make methamphetamine too, and their production
processes are well-regulated, produce drugs without hazardous adulterants, and
do not put children in danger.

Also, one of the reasons that making meth (and several other drugs) illegally
is so dangerous and error prone is that all of the easy precursors are
carefully regulated and tracked by the government.

It's kind of like how outlawing abortion wouldn't actually stop people from
getting abortions; it would just make them way more dangerous.

~~~
lostlogin
The efforts big pharma makes to continue selling precursor drugs suggests big
pharma actually love the current situation. They block laws which would help
make cooking considerably harder. For all the war-on-drugs rhetoric, the laws
are actually quite weak when it comes to blocking the availability of
precursor compounds. Stopping the trade would lower profits. This is bad as
far as the companies are concerned.
[http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/meth-
pseudoephedri...](http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/meth-
pseudoephedrine-big-pharma-lobby?page=2)

------
harryf
Problem is: if you have a job in the DEA or your business in running prisons,
you probably don't view the war on drugs as a broken business model at all.
You'd even go so far as to hire lobbyists to keep it going...

~~~
Gormo
Same holds true if you're a drug lord. Why would you want legalized
competition from well-capitalized above-board businesses?

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vaadu
Good luck fighting this. The drug war has become a racket.

It puts power into the hands of the government. Governments do not give up
power unless a court or foreign army forces them to.

The private prison industry is going to fight any drug law changes that put a
crimp in their wallet.

And police departments are not going want to give up freebies that come with
civil forfeiture.

~~~
dllthomas
Courts are part of governments.

~~~
jMyles
Traditionally, this is not always true. Courts have often been a check on
governments rather than an institution of them. In common law (or "case law")
republican jurisdictions, courts are supposed to act to restrain government to
acts permitted by law.

------
phaemon
Everybody knows the "war on drugs" is nonsense. It's finding someone who has
both the ability and the courage to change it that's proving difficult.

~~~
emiliobumachar
A lot of people are quite clueless about it being nonsense, enough to make
taking a stance against it unpalatable for politicians.

~~~
chimeracoder
On the other hand, even when people are clueless about it being nonsense, it's
hard to find politicians who are willing to support it.

Take, for example, the (successful) 2008 initiative to decriminalize marijuana
in Massachusetts. Nearly every town in the state voted in favor of it, often
by a wide margin (it won with 65% support statewide)[0].

Yet, my own then-congresswoman, a Democrat in a very safe district, couldn't
be bothered to vocalize her support for it (in fact, in a response to an open
letter from a constituent, she _still_ clung to the ludicrous belief that
marijuana contains no medicinal value, despite the copious evidence to the
contrary included in that very letter).

Sadly, she's not alone in failing to represent her constituents' views on the
issue of drug policy. For whatever reason, drug policy is the issue where the
disparity between politicians' views and their constituents' views is the
greatest and lasts the longest, far more so than any other issue I can think
of.

[0]
[http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/election_results/ma...](http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/election_results/ma_question2/)

~~~
dr_doom
You are completely correct. Even in Texas the majority of the citizens support
legalizing medical and recreational marijuana[0] but no politician will ever
bring it up.

[http://txcann.com/2013/10/08/texans-support-marijuana-
medica...](http://txcann.com/2013/10/08/texans-support-marijuana-medical-
recreational/)

------
joshuaheard
I came for an analysis of what the war on drugs business model is and why it
is failing, but all I got was a press release for Sir Richard Branson
attending some government conference.

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Lucy_karpova
There used to be an anti-alcohol war, alcohol was banned and has everybody
stopped using it? No way! So what's the point in "war on drugs"? Putting the
word "drugs" to as many posts possible? Making it more appealing and popular?

------
Theodores
Maybe we should get McAfee to go back out to Belize and finish his work on
some ultimate drug. Imagine something that gave the highs that
heroin/cocaine/meth/whatever users seek, always giving as good a high as the
first time and not ruining the user's body. If this 'soma' was really that
good at hitting the spot for those that crave then there would be no need to
dabble with anything else.

By analogy, the 'high grade' weed is always preferable to the 'squidgy black
resin' cannabis that our grandparents used to smoke. There is no longer a
market for the less effective stuff even if it is sold at a considerable
discount.

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mariaGeorgiou
I agree that the war on drugs should indeed not called a war and instead of
strictly forbeeding all drugs it should instead put realistic boundaries given
our society allowing and accepting some types of them! I also believe that
limits and boundaries are useful in any society because having no lines does
not only affect the one single person who is a heavily drug addict, but it is
also affecting the entire society, thus having them completely uncontrollable
is as bad as forbeeding it completely ! A state with out a police will be a
joungle x

------
avty
It succeeded in plunging Mexico into a bloody civil war.

------
001sky
ON a side note: How many font's cant you put on a web page?

------
innino
"Senator Whitehouse shed some optimism with the audience"

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bayesianhorse
Politics isn't just about "business models". The war on drugs is certainly
bad. But I still believe there are drugs that should be prohibited. Especially
Heroin and Methamphetamine, and underage consumption of many others should be
severely regulated.

There is no way Heroin or Meth can be "used recreationally" without causing
self-destructive harm and affecting all of society.

~~~
phaemon
The argument is not: "These drugs are safe, therefore they should be legal."

The argument is: "These drugs are unsafe, therefore they should be legal
because making them illegal makes things even worse."

~~~
bayesianhorse
A black market around heroin and meth will be really small as soon as better
and less harmful drugs are cheaper.

Society can hardly intervene in every individual's self destruction. But it
cannot allow drugs which are not useful for anything BUT self destruction.

~~~
betterunix
Methamphetamine is useful for non-self-destructive activities, which is why it
is legal by prescription. Medical methamphetamine is used to treat narcolepsy
and ADHD. On top of that, pharmaceutical methamphetamine is much safer, even
at recreational doses, than black market drugs _because the production process
is well regulated_.

~~~
TheLegace
Well actually there is a world of difference between Methamphetamine and
Amphetamine (Adderall). They are in the same family like MDMA but the addition
of a methyl group makes Methamphetamine a neurotoxin. "Methamphetamine is a
potent neurotoxin, shown to cause dopaminergic degeneration."[1] So they
although they share same traits, their hazardous effects are no where close to
each other.

This is why drugs are complicated and different. Blanketing all "drugs" as bad
while drinking Coffee, Whisky and Aspirin is just hypocritcal and dangerous.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Pharmacology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Pharmacology)

~~~
samatman
This is not actually true. Both amphetamine and methamphetamine are
neurotoxic: methamphetamine is both more potent and less neurotoxic per
'dose'.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22289608](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22289608)

Also, as an anecdote, I have received d-amphetamine by prescription and have
taken Desoxyn about five times. They're not that different, Desoxyn is
subjectively 'cleaner'.

I stick to caffeine though, and roughly half a Modafinil every two weeks.
Amphetamine is just not my friend. Your mileage may vary.

