
How America can end its war on drugs - jseliger
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11445454/end-war-on-drugs
======
PopsiclePete
America can do lots of things. Doesn't mean it will. The prison-industrial
complex will not allow falling incarceration rates to eat into its profits -
too many executive bonuses depend just the opposite. And not just private
prisons - there bloated police budgets and military gear that will otherwise -
_gasp_ \- go to waste.

And don't get me started on the DA's who must always appear "tough on crime"
to get re-elected by an ever-fearful populace that is convinced that various
boogeymen are planning its demise 24/7/365.

But ultimately, it's about money. Always has been. And this country values
profits above _all_ else. And if a few more thousand innocent people need to
get imprisoned and have their lives destroyed - well, that's a price that we,
as a society, are willing to pay.

As long as WASP-y suburban _white_ America doesn't feel the pinch. As soon as
some unannounced no-knock raid by a SWAT team decked out like it's Fallujah
circa '05 busts in and shoots up a bunch of 18-year-old "all-American" kids,
prom queens and cheer-leaders and judges' daughters and sons and all. Then and
only then will you see a real outcry.

~~~
rayiner
> But ultimately, it's about money. Always has been. And this country values
> profits above all else. And if a few more thousand innocent people need to
> get imprisoned and have their lives destroyed - well, that's a price that
> we, as a society, are willing to pay.

Money didn't create the modern incarceration state. Corrections Corporation of
America had about $55 million in revenue in 1990 and less than $200,000 in
profits:
[http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/76/Corrections-...](http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/76/Corrections-
Corporation-of-America.html):
[http://notunlikeresearch.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f1fb8812970b01...](http://notunlikeresearch.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f1fb8812970b0168e9a56b88970c-pi).
The incarceration rate had been exploding for 10-15 years before that:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#/media/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png).
The rise of CCA (which was a pioneer in the field), actually coincided with an
inflection point where the growth in incarceration rate started _slowing
down._

The incarceration craze of the 1980's and 1990's was a response to a real
spike in violent crime that started in the 1960's:
[http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/wp-
content/uploads/...](http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/Roman_blog1.pdf) (showing violent crime per capita
increasing by more than 4x between 1963 and 1992). And it was fueled by a
conservative backlash against the liberalism of the 1960's and 1970's.

We can argue about whether mass incarceration was the correct response to that
increase in crime. But it's ridiculous to say it arose before of some sort of
profit motive. That argument ignores the data right in front of your face.

~~~
partycoder
Ever heard of the "kids for cash" program? Judges would sentence kids in
exchange for money from the prison industry.

~~~
rayiner
That started in 2000.

------
kafkaesq
But it doesn't want to. It's too central to its overall operating ideology --
specifically, the need to have a steady supply of marginalized groups,
internal and/or external (the exact definition and composition of which may
change over time) to arbitrarily and vindictively punish, in order to
demonstrate the state's omnipotence, and keep the rest of the population not
completely terrorized, but just moderately and optimally terrorized -- pretty
much all the time.

(That, and because a significant portion of the population actually still
genuinely believes in the need for it. The war on drugs is a complex
phenomenon, like any long-ranging civil conflict, with multiple factors behind
both its inception and its continuance).

~~~
kogus
I like how "most people want it" is somehow a secondary reason to a vague
theory of Orwellian mind control. People want it. Therefore it is policy.
Period.

As for why they want it, and the politicians who manipulate their fears... now
that, I think, is real.

~~~
rjbwork
Depends on what exact policies you're talking about really. Marijuana
prohibition especially has been majority-unpopular for a long time, and
legalization majority-popular for anywhere from 4-7 years now, depending on
the polls you use.

Other drugs are definitely more controversial.

~~~
rayiner
Define "long time." Among the general public, it was only 2011-12 when more
people wanted marijuana legal than illegal: [http://www.people-
press.org/2015/04/14/in-debate-over-legali...](http://www.people-
press.org/2015/04/14/in-debate-over-legalizing-marijuana-disagreement-over-
drugs-dangers/4-14-2015_01). That's a very short time in political timescale
(especially in a government with representative rather than direct democracy).

The public opinion on other drugs _is not_ controversial. People broadly agree
they should be illegal: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/drug-
legalization-p...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/drug-legalization-
poll_n_5162357.html).

There is pretty much nothing 75-85% of Americans agree on, other than that
heroin, cocaine, LSD, etc, should be illegal. Well, that and that we should
throw people in prison for life after three felonies:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=_wcyrot2kcUC&pg=PA234&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=_wcyrot2kcUC&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=support+for+three+strikes+laws+time+cnn+1994&source=bl&ots=Fn4jlAS-
Fz&sig=vCJx0crZyYT4MsNgDfE4Z5PTpeI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwje_u3V36rMAhUDaz4KHfVKDo0Q6AEIPDAE#v=onepage&q=support%20for%20three%20strikes%20laws%20time%20cnn%201994&f=false)

~~~
techdragon
Not agreeing or disagreeing with you, just reminding people of an important
relevant point.

It's pretty well proven that a survey can be crafted to guarantee the desired
outcome for whom ever paid for it.

~~~
rayiner
Its a Pew survey (a generally liberal outfit), and shows a change in response
to the same question over time.

------
beat
A serious question... is there _anyone_ reading this who thinks they might
become addicted to heroin or cocaine if the drugs were legalized? Is
illegality the main reason you don't use hard drugs?

More to the point, is there a flaw in the reasoning that legalization would
lead to a significant increase in addiction, or social dysfunction due to drug
use? After all, alcohol is legal and readily available, but most alcohol users
are not alcoholics.

This article offers solutions all based on the assumption that legalization
and ready availability would drive up addiction to dangerous levels. I'm not
at all convinced this is so. I wouldn't start shooting heroin even if it was
socially acceptable and only cost as much as a coffee. Neither would most of
the people I know.

~~~
cninja
No heroin addict thought they might become addicted. That is one of the main
dangers of heroin specifically.

~~~
metaphorm
seriously? do you really believe this? the addictiveness of opiates is pretty
well known. I have trouble accepting that anybody starts using heroin without
knowing they might get addicted.

maybe you meant something like "nobody _intends_ to get addicted". that's a
very different sentence.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Then you aren't living in reality. People all the time think "this won't
happen to me." I think you have a lot to learn about the world; I mean that in
a nice way.

~~~
metaphorm
you trolling me or what? I mean that in a nice way.

------
partycoder
Marijuana was made illegal so the government could raid movements related to
war opposition (e.g: hippies) and ethnical minority rights. They wanted an
excuse to raid them and they found it in marijuana usage.

Then, DEA help comes with infiltrators. Among people sent to combat drugs,
there are spies that carry out a large deal of espionage.

~~~
melling
I believe it was illegal before the 1960s. Do you have any supporting
information?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_the_United_States)

~~~
eldenbishop
Agreed, although I suppose LSD regulation could fit the proposed narative;
"Weed" has been a political target for far longer than hippy culture. This
quote is often attributed to Harry J. Anslinger, the head of the Bureau of
Narcotics as far back as the 1930s.

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes,
Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing,
result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual
relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

~~~
jessaustin
Well! Those seem like valid reasons for marijuana prohibition. Sorry to
question the status quo!

------
ufmace
What seems funny about this is the idea that we can pick a huge, broad policy,
implement it entirely as-is, and leave that be for a while. I don't think
that's likely to work. How it'll actually work is gradual change at multiple
levels, as we're already seeing with the trend of Marijuana legalization.

It's sometimes useful to think in terms of a total broad policy, but we also
need ideas for smaller steps to take that we can actually get through various
congresses. It seems like the political environment might become more amenable
to broader change after considerable small-scale changes and clear changes in
public opinion.

------
tn13
War on drugs is extremely useful for all levels of administration

\- How else can you confiscate private property without charges or conviction
and just share the money among yourself ?

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/25/how-o...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/25/how-
oklahoma-cops-took-53000-from-a-burmese-christian-band-a-church-in-omaha-and-
an-orphanage-in-thailand/)

\- How else can you run a multi-billion dollar prison industrial complex ?

\- How else can you run a surveillance state where state actively encourages
to snitch on fellow citizens ?

\- How else can you create vote banks of Blacks, Latinos and other who need to
feel marginalized and victims ?

------
Ericson2314
The third option seems clearly the best. Too bad there's little appetite for
the distribution of drugs by the state. Either illegality or commercialization
seems to be the American way :(.

~~~
tn13
State getting into business is end of private enterprise. It is not
governments job to run business.

~~~
Ericson2314
Um really? I'm saying there should be either a brutally regulated business or
none at all. The government employees in charge of distributing the drugs
should in no way be incentivized to distribute more.

Markets can only work when the agents (roughly) act in accordance with their
interests. I don't want to pedal the fallacy that all drug consumers are
addicts, but heavy consumers make up a very large and disproportionate portion
of the alcohol (let alone tobacco) industry's sales.

