
Time to end the war on drugs - DanielRibeiro
http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/time-to-end-the-war-on-drugs
======
DanielBMarkham
Great article. I would like to further suggest we end the use of the word
"war" in contexts that do not involve mandatory conscription and the deaths of
large numbers of combatants until one side totally surrenders. (This implies
there is a "side" to be able to surrender.) Politicians have so destroyed the
word "war" that it's impossible to have a reasonable discussion about any use
of violence by the state. Perhaps that was the goal. Don't know.

Drug use is a health-related issue, whether it is a doctor prescribing
medications, a patient taking meds off-label, a person self-medicating, an
addict, or some kind experimentation. All of these situations are much more
personal health concerns than public safety concerns. Yes, addiction is a
terrible tragedy and sometimes danger for the rest of us -- but it's a
personal disaster a long time before it affects any of us. I'd argue that in
the aggregate most addicts suffer a lot more personally than any damage they
inflict on society.

We have a caricatured view of the drug addict -- the unwashed, illiterate,
toothless junkie hiding out in a crack house. Yes, addiction ends up that way
for some, but by and large addicts are middle-class, educated, and live in
houses with their friends or families. Hollywood and moralists have done us a
great disservice by putting these horrible outlier pictures in people's heads
when they think of drug use. Take for instance the word "addict", which like
the word "war" is such a broad term that it doesn't have much meaning on it's
own without further clarification. One side wants you to believe that all drug
use consists of PhDs smoking pot while talking astronomy. The other side wants
you to believe that all drug use ends in addiction and death. People need to
stop with the histrionics.

I support legalization, although I am extremely cautious personally when it
comes to drug _use_. I _might_ support criminalization of dealing hard drugs.
I'd have to think about it a bit. But declaring "war" on our own population is
a pretty idiotic way to spend our social resources if you ask me. Just like
the "war on poverty," the "war on illiteracy," the "war on obesity," and the
"culture war," enough with the wars already.

~~~
macuenca
What you suggest not to call a "war" has killed thousands of people in
countries like Mexico and Colombia[1]. Is this what you mean when you say
"deaths of large numbers of combatants"?

I come from a country that suffers this "war on drugs", I've had members of my
family kidnapped, I've seen people being assassinated in front of me by hit-
men. Some others haven't been that lucky.

I, with you permission, call this a "war".

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War>

~~~
gerggerg
What he is saying is in support of your point. Those gangs are actually at
war. They're fighting over money and control, directly enlisting soldiers and
killing each other. Calling a prohibition "The War on Drugs" is a new speak
tactic that not only takes the public eye off of real problems, but also
waters down the impact the word WAR has.

This produces 2 less that awesome situations:

It is because of the prohibition called "The War on Drugs" that a real war
fueled by drug money is out of control.

Because of the over use of the word, it's now harder to distinguish between
what is a war and what is not a war.

TLDR: You can't have a war on a concept. It logically and literally makes no
sense.

~~~
lukeschlather
The US has been waging what can pretty validly be called a war on drug lords
in Latin America for a few decades. After the fall of the USSR, that's
basically what our military bases in Latin America do. Generally I agree with
macuenca; claiming that it's a war on an abstract principle trivializes the
very real combat between US-backed authorities and local drug lords.

~~~
gerggerg
_"called a war on drug lords in Latin America"_

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Humans fighting humans. That is a war.
The War on Drugs also includes locking up 16 year olds for smoking pot in
their own houses. Calling the general concept of drug control and prohibition
a war generates this very confusion.

 _"claiming that it's a war on an abstract principle trivializes the very real
combat"_

Claiming those 16 year olds are part of the war is what trivializes it. Theres
bloodshed in Latin America? Oh well that's just part of the war on drugs. Got
caught with an ounce on you at a party? Oh thats just part of the war on
drugs.

~~~
armandososa
In Mexico it's called "The War Against Narcotraffic". It makes more sense.

------
subwindow
There seems to be a lot of confusion on this thread about exactly what
Portugal did, and the ramifications for the U.S. in terms of time-frame and
difficulty.

What Portugal did was decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs.
They did not legalize them. There is a huge difference. Decriminalization
essentially means that possession of small amounts of drugs is no longer an
offense that warrants an arrest and jail time. In a decriminalized system an
officer can still stop someone for drugs, but they can only write them a
ticket- similar to speeding, jaywalking or illegal parking.

This makes a _huge_ difference for a number of reasons. First, it's easier to
implement politically because the substances are still illegal. Second, it's
less costly because people caught with small amounts are not caught up in the
justice system for years, and only pay a small fine. Third, it decreases the
adversarial nature of the "war on drugs" because being caught with drugs is no
longer a life-changing event.

Marijuana possession is already decriminalized in many states in the U.S.
(California, Colorado, New York and Oregon off the top of my head). It is
clearly not an impossibility to implement politically, and in fact the trend
in the U.S. is already on its way. An important hurdle is that we do not have
any states that have yet decriminalized "harder" drugs like heroin and
cocaine, but it is simply a matter of time. Pressure on lawmakers in the form
of education, money and votes will in fact work. It just takes time.

~~~
chimeracoder
> California, Colorado, New York and Oregon off the top of my head

All decriminalization is not alike. In New York, for example,
decriminalization is in in name only, because police can easily exploit a
loophole that allows them to charge people with possession of more than an
ounce (criminal) even if they only have a few grams (not criminal). Because of
this, New York City arrests more people (per-capita _and_ in total) than any
other city _in the entire world_. Compare to the Netherlands, which also has
'only' decriminalized marijuana.

~~~
Enthusiastic
In New York, the police will do a stop and frisk, tell people to empty their
pockets, and then charge people with displaying the drug in public when they
obey the order to empty their pockets. Is this the loophole you mean? Or is
your loophole a different one?

~~~
chimeracoder
More or less. There are other variations on how to exploit the same clause in
the law, but basically, marijuana that is 'open to public view or burning' can
be prosecuted as if it is 28+ grams, regardless of the actual amount.

The history behind how New York's marijuana decriminalization and this
loophole came to pass, especially in contrast to the Rockefeller drug laws, is
actually a rather fascinating example of the sheer racial/socioeconomic
hypocrisy within US drug laws.

~~~
seanp2k2
From Ann Arbor, Michigan here, where the STATE law says that possession is
illegal, but locally it's a misdemeanour for non-medical and $25-100 fine.
REF:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_laws_in_Ann_Arbor,_Mi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_laws_in_Ann_Arbor,_Michigan#Michigan_Medical_Marijuana_Act_of_2008)

If it's for medical use and you're all registered as a patient, it's now
technically legal under local and state laws, but illegal under federal law.

TL;DR the laws are a mess and if the FBI catches you, you're still pretty
screwed. We need to work on reforming the laws at a federal level, since that
overrides all lower laws. It'd be at least cool to have the federal law just
refuse to say one way or the other on marijuana, so that states could decide
what is right for them.

~~~
sneak
Does that indeed override the state laws? Many states have laws against things
that are not federally prohibited, and legal in other states that do not
prohibit those things.

I think you may be incorrect.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
States can be more restrictive but they cannot be less restrictive. Thus if
the nation declares that marijuana is illegal a state cannot declare that it
is legal (see the medical marijuana raids in California). And if the nation
declares that alcohol is legal then a state can make it illegal within that
state.

~~~
ams6110
And this is the opposite of what the founders would have wanted, I'd guess.
The constitution mandates that powers not _specifically_ granted to the
federal government are reserved by the states. I'm no constitutional scholar,
but I'm pretty sure the federal authority to regulate drugs was "found" in the
interstate commerce clause as part of the food and drug reforms in the early
1900s. At the time, there were definitely problems but like all big government
intervention the cure itself is now out of control and we now have an agency
(FDA) that has its hands in about 1/4 of the GDP.

~~~
chimeracoder
This is why the first two federal laws targeted at prohibiting drugs didn't
actually do it directly - they did it by way of taxes. The Marihuana Stamp Tax
Act (1937) is the most famous, but it was preceded by another act that
targeted proper narcotics (morphine, etc.). I believe it was the Harisson act,
but I'm not certain.

In any case, the 1937 bill created an impossible-to-satisfy tax structure,
because they knew that a direct prohibition would have been deemed
unconstitutional. Unfortunately, by 1970, everyone had forgotten and the
Controlled Substances Act passed easily.

------
torrenegra
The Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos (also an entrepreneur), recently
called for the legalization of many drugs, including cocaine:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/13/colombia-juan-
sa...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/13/colombia-juan-santos-call-
to-legalise-drugs)

I'm a NYC-based, Colombian entrepreneur. My step-brother died piloting a Black
Hawk helicopter in Colombia that crashed while executing an anti-narcotics
operation. The helicopter was "donated" by the US as part of "Plan Colombia" (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia> ). Plan Colombia is a periodic
subsidy sent by the US to Colombia to help with the war on drugs. The program
is lobbied in part by Sikorsky and Monsanto. The subsidy includes some cash,
but it also comes in the form of helicopters (built by Sikorsky), glyphosate
(banned in the US but used in Colombia to destroy coca plantations), and
weapons.

You can say that the "war on drugs" allowed my brother to realize his dream
(flying a helicopter), but it also killed him.

I may be emotionally charged with the topic and may not exercise good reason
about it, but I've seen enough to realize that the "war on drugs" is just a
big mess that won't be won, no matter what.

~~~
beardicus
Glyphosate == Roundup(TM). This is the most used herbicide in the US...
certainly not banned. Regardless, I agree with your conclusion.

~~~
torrenegra
Thank you for the correction! You are right. I was thinking about the act of
"aerial-spraying of drug producing crops". For Wikipedia: "In many cases the
spraying is carried out by American contractors, such as DynCorp, using planes
and helicopters to spray Roundup on coca plantations. Aerial spraying has been
repeatedly condemned by human rights and environmental activists because of
its affect on human populations and local soil and water systems. In December
2000, Dutch journalist Marjon van Royen found that "because the chemical is
sprayed in Colombia from planes on inhabited areas, there have been consistent
health complaints [in humans]. Burning eyes, dizziness and respiratory
problems being most frequently reported."

~~~
rdl
Is there a Roundup-Ready coca plant?

~~~
scq
Yes. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boliviana_negra>

------
tomwalker
I am a doctor in a Scottish hospital.

For every productive member of society using drugs there must be at least 2 -3
that drain from society

I rarely see anyone use methadone long term and rehabilitate themselves back
to productive members of society. They end up being permanently high. My
opinion is not isolated amongst my colleagues.

Spend a couple of hours in a hospital that provides free health care and see
the devastation caused by all drugs.

Alcohol and smoking cause the largest volume of problems but many of the users
have jobs.

Heroin produces real life zombies!

~~~
da_dude4242
>For every productive member of society using drugs there must be at least 2
-3 that drain from society

On what grounds do you make this claim?

Perhaps for every user that makes it to your hospital there are 2-3 that don't
and are relatively adjusted. Drugs certainly have their hazards but it's
fallacious to extrapolate the big picture from the perspective you are
presenting.

~~~
tomwalker
Also:

Deaths due to overdose of opiates, for example, accounted for 9% of deaths in
young Australian adults under the age of 50 in 1998 and for more than 10% in
several European cities despite the fact that they were used by less than 1%
of adults in any year.

572kg of methadone, which is not the only heroin substitute, is prescribed
each year. The cost of the medical staff, the supervised consumption, security
around it etc is enormous. That is for a population of 5 million people in the
whole of Scotland.

No evidence exists of any sustained heroin shortage or reduction in the number
of heroin users in the UK over the study period. In fact, all indices of the
availability and use of heroin, including deaths due to heroin overdose, rose
steadily during the study period,41 as did the number of heroin dependent
people being treated by methadone maintenance.

<http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c4851.full>

~~~
da_dude4242
>The cost of the medical staff, the supervised consumption, security around it
etc is enormous. That is for a population of 5 million people in the whole of
Scotland.

How does that compare to the cost of running drug enforcement agencies,
prisons, or treating preventable drug related diseases?

------
swombat
Even coming from a respectable industry leader like Richard Branson, this will
almost certainly be ignored.

Here's an interesting question: what _would_ end the war on drugs? Is it
something that can be made to happen by sane, enterprising individuals?

~~~
electromagnetic
Get a company like Monsanto interested in the commercial cultivation of
marijuana and it'll be legal within the day.

~~~
swombat
1) This is not something that "sane, enterprising individuals" can reasonably
achieve.

2) Silver bullet solutions? Yeah, I believe in them. And Santa, too.

~~~
tomjen3
Swombat you have a brand here -- don't throw it away with low quality
comments.

It is not very difficult to convince Monsanto if they can make more money in
some other way -- it may not be something that can be solved by gcc, but when
has raw computer programming talent ever been the deciding factor for a
computer programmer?

~~~
swombat
I don't see it as a low quality comment.

If it's not very difficult to convince Monsanto of this, then please do it
right away, if it has the benefit of ending the war on drugs. If you can't be
bothered to do it yourself, then pray tell us the 5 easy steps to convincing
Monsanto to start exploiting Marijuana and therefore decriminalise all drugs.

Unless you think, as I do, that the above is a fantasy and has no practical
value as a line of action.

~~~
asto
There is a big downside to getting it done by companies like Monsanto (or
tobacco companies as mentioned in another thread below) - Insane public
opposition. Drugs and their users are already perceived to be "morally bad".
Club them with a company that people don't like for similar reasons and you
have a solution that will never see the light of day.

------
davidw
I have the karma to burn to come out and say this should be on another site.
Not only has it already been discussed all over the internet, it's been
discussed here to death, and in any event, yet another drugs debate here isn't
going to accomplish anything.

~~~
dtf
Yeah, it's like SOPA 2.0. Where are my funny cat pictures?

~~~
davidw
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say.

SOPA is extremely relevant to most of us here in our roles as 'hackers' and
startup people.

Drug laws are not directly related in the same way. If people try and argue
that they are, they're playing "7 degrees of hacker news". For instance,
"traffic laws are related to hackers because many hackers drive to work".

Funny cat pictures should not be here either - and aren't. Let's try and keep
politics out of this site, even if individually, most of us are quite
interested in the subject.

------
tokenadult
A friend shared this link on Facebook, and I read through the article. I was
very interested to note that Richard Branson bases much of his argument on the
reduction in drug use in Portugal since the policy change decriminalizing
possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use and referring users to
medical treatment. Is this the societal consensus in other countries? Are most
advocates of ending "the war on drugs" trying to achieve reduced use? Is the
worldwide experience (Branson also refers to the Netherlands and to the
European Union generally) that fewer criminal penalties for drug use results
in consistently lower overall use in the general population? How many drug
legalization campaigns around the world make this the major point of the
campaign, to reduce use of the drugs that are now illegal?

~~~
radicalbyte
The problem is that we're going the other way in The Netherlands right now.

The red light district is being slowly dismantled [1], new draconian laws are
being introduced to shut the coffee shops down (with a Think Of The Children
argument) [2] and foreigners are being banned from using coffee shops [3].

I blame the ageing population: the "boomers" [4] have had their fun, but
they're getting older now and young people getting high only "disturbs" the
peace. They're the biggest voting block, so they get their way (yet again).

So yeah, I don't see the Western world changing any time soon.

[1] [http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-15/netherlands-
stop...](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-15/netherlands-stops-
tourists-buying-marijuana-in-coffee-shops.html)

[2] (sorry I couldn't find an English language version) [http://www.cbs.nl/nl-
NL/menu/themas/onderwijs/publicaties/ar...](http://www.cbs.nl/nl-
NL/menu/themas/onderwijs/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2011/2011-3458-wm.htm)

[3]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8961513/Amsterd...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8961513/Amsterdam-
an-end-to-the-red-light-district.html)

[4] They've even got their own party: <http://50pluspartij.nl/>

------
gerggerg
This is always a fun page to look at when pondering The Land of the Free™

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate)

And keep in mind, much of the prison system is privatized, many of those
inmates work hard labor for far less than minimum wage, they have access to
almost no real rehabilitation programs, and can't vote once they serve their
time.

------
linuxhansl
Never going to happen. The "war on drugs" has not been about drugs for a long
time.

Large parts of law enforcement funding are due to this "war", and whole prison
industry sprung up around this.

Everybody knows that the "war on drugs" is ineffective and will never reach
its stated goal!

Conversely by creating artificial scarcity, the price for drugs are driven up
(because demand is more or less constant) and this guarantees huge profits for
illegal activities providing these drugs.

------
felipe
Former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso made this issue his
"post-presidency" flag. There's an excellent documentary called "Breaking the
Taboo" [1] that follows him examining successful efforts around the world
(including Portugal)

[1] <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1951090/>

~~~
codesuela
I've just looked around and it seems that this was never released in English
and is nowhere to be found.

------
davidmathers
The Cato paper that Branson references was written by salon.com blogger Glenn
Greenwald and is available to read online at Cato's website:
<http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080>

------
tete
Another thing that will at least take a very long time to finally happen. I
don't take drugs, not even legal ones, but it's logical.

Most people seem to start taking drugs, because others do it and simply
because it's cool or rebellious (in fact I smoked for a while in my childhood
because of that). I think most people wouldn't start and get hooked, if it was
legal. To most people it's ugly the first time anyways.

Hmm, when making things illegal leads to consumption then we should maybe make
vegetables and stuff illegal. :D

------
TobiasCassell
If drugs are legalized the United States will be forced to dream up and create
other reasons to keep its military outposts in hundreds of countries. This is
why we maintain a war on drugs. A war that is impossible to win. The United
States will never legalize drugs.

PS I'm with richard Branson, but he is being naive or he is not mentioning
these elements on purpose as a strategy.

Edit; Forgot to mention the United States Prison-Industrial Complex- that is
even more anti-legalize momentum that would have to be addressed.

~~~
melling
What you are saying is absurd and it doesn't help. At this point, I think many
people believe the "war on drugs" is a wasted effort. The best way to make
this case would be to show how the American consumer is destroying lives in
other countries. Americans trying to have a good time are indirectly killing
innocent people in order to get the products they desire into their hands.

~~~
tankenmate
How that idea is going to get through to someone who is somatically and / or
psychologically addicted to drugs is a little difficult to comprehend. In the
same vein of people will fix themselves of drug addiction is a mostly useless
statement. People get into this situation either involuntarily or voluntarily,
but few get out just by platitudes or sheer will power. Most people who put
drug addiction behind them need a cast of people and tools to help, there is
no quick fix. To be effective for anyone but the rich help needs to be
available free at the point of provision. The money saved from reduction in
direct and indirect crime and the increase in production will pay for the
service. In most cases families see the value in reforming a drug addicted
family member, why shouldn't the state? This is an effective method and
motivation to solve the problem; you can reduce the demand of all of the
people some of the time, you can reduce the demand of some of the people all
of the time, but you can't reduce the demand of all the people all of the
time; hence trying to eliminate demand is a non option to fixing the problem.

------
Serentiynow
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono> To whose benefit? People who benefit
from the war on drugs: -The military complex, weapon producers. Terrorist need
drug money to fight wars. Weapon producers need wars to make money.
-Pharmaceutical companies. -Alcohol producers. -Drug-lords/Cartels -Anti drug
agency personnel, cops. -For profit jails. The list goes on...

------
chris123
The "war" on "anything" is a sign that people (usually politicians and the
business interests that support them) are using propaganda techniques to
"shape" (they love that word) public opinion and legislation that will defend
their status quo cash-cow and/or or channel new dollars their way. The "War on
Terror" and "War on Drugs" are the biggies that come to mind.

------
mannicken
The whole war on drugs thing is a hysteria created by certain aspects of drug-
use being artificially blown out of the proportion. Many of the risks
associated with drug use (like overdose or addiction) are actually created by
the legal system.

Here's how it works. If you overdose, and you go to ER you're forced to admit
you did something illegal. Many people would rather die than face a life of
humility that's unfairly associated with being a junkie. Not to mention
overdoses would be less likely if everything was legal and properly labeled.

Same thing with addiction. Removing stigma and legal consequences associated
with being a drug-addict will help many people seek help if they need it. How
many people do you think are too afraid to go the doctor and admit they have
problems, considering drug use is illegal and stigmatized? A lot.

I think it's a matter of creating a minority and punishing the fuck out of
that minority. Being a drug-addict right now is like being gay or black
hundreds of years ago.

Being an addict is not a fucking choice. It's a grueling mental torture
accompanied by physical torture that's relieved with a consumption of a
particular substance.

When you're addicted to opiates and you use, it's not because you want to
rebel against the world. At that point it's about PLEASE STOP THE FUCKING
PAIN. Mental and physical pain, violent diahrrea, puking, being unable to
sleep for days.. basically all your natural painkillers are gone and
everything is pain. All of that can be ceased with a hit.

The fact that anyone thinks it's okay to throw these people in jail sickens
the fuck out of me. And you know what, I don't fucking care. Some of the best
minds used heroin, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain. Wanna throw them
in jail or fuck with them to the point of suicide (as with Cobain)? Go ahead.
"Drug warriors" are like a grown-up version of bullies punching a sick kid.

------
powertower
Without the war on drugs this would happen:

1\. Half the law enforcement, out of the job.

2\. Half the lawyers and the judges, out of the job.

3\. Half the privatized prison system, out of the job.

4\. A few million other jobs that support and/or depend on the above, done
away with.

It's pointless to even try this in the USA... No one is going to be willing to
give up the ongoing and ever-giving spoils of the war on drugs.

~~~
sunchild
Replace "out of the job" with "back on jobs that actually further the best
interests of the public", and your post starts to make sense.

~~~
powertower
All those other in-demand jobs that are available right now, that just can't
meet the supply?

Let see ... there is the $3/hour farm hand shortage going around in a few
states.

Or do you mean all the new jobs that are going to be created, you know, just-
like-that? For which they'll be re-trained, just-like-that? For which they'll
get the same pay/benefits, just-like-that?

~~~
sunchild
The premise of the original post in this thread is fatally flawed – the
livelihood of law enforcement, corrections officers, judges, lawyers, and
everyone else does not depend on putting personal drug users in prison. They
can keep their jobs, and put their talents to use on matters that actually
benefit the public's best interests.

~~~
powertower
You can only transfer so many people into other duties (on the same job)
before you reach a point where people are now just getting paid to sit and do
nothing.

So the real question is how many people are employed by the war-on-drugs, and
how many of them can be re-asigned, and how willing will they be to let this
happen.

------
crozo
The parallels between the current war on drugs and the prohibition in the
early XX century are staggering. Can we learn from that experience? The cost
in USD and lives ruined that the war itself creates is greater than the cost
of taking the profits a way from a few and running educational campaigns so
people can take responsibility of what they do. For those of us living in
countries where the front line of this war is being fought, is clear we are
loosing a war that is not ours, neither worth fighting. But we keep on doing
it because the US "pays" for it. Someday a future generation will look back
and ask themselves how come they didn't realize it was a stupid war? were they
less intelligent in those simpler times? And they will probably be right.

------
swah
I don't understand how a world where making/selling something is a crime but
consuming is not could work.

~~~
darklajid
As far as I'm informed (read: I cannot back this up with legalese), this is
the case in Germany as well, albeit limited to soft stuff/marijuana:

\- You are not allowed to buy it

\- You are not allowed to sell it

\- You can have a small amount of it in your possession, "for personal use"
(declared as a maximum amount per substance, so that 'users' aren't in the
same category as 'dealers' here)

~~~
l0tics
I hope people realize that what Portugal is doing only puts all drugs in a
similar legal category to alcohol during its "prohibition" in the United
States. This solves none of the supply side issues and their current laws are
surely still contributing to a miserable and violent black market.

What we have instead here in the United States (and attempt to force onto
other countries) is a view that all use is abuse, regardless of any reasoning,
even medicinal use. We can't even grow it for research or non-drug uses
because of federal agencies that want to continue this for as long as
possible. Today I can buy marijuana at retail stores here in Michigan. There
is no violence associated with buying it from people who just grew it in their
house and brought it there to sell to me.

------
jcfrei
the fact that the US (and many other countries) still pursue a war on drugs is
to me a display of a fundamental flaw in politics. even though every sane
person has to acknowledge that legalizing drugs in part is more effective than
enforcing more rigid controls, only very few politicians would support such a
motion. mostly because they become victim to a more conservative rhetoric and
thus will be less likely reelected.

~~~
catzaa
> even though every sane person has to acknowledge that legalizing drugs in
> part is more effective than enforcing more rigid controls,

No it is not. Two examples of this are Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.

In both these countries there are zero tolerance for drug users and drug
traffickers and the results show. Smoking Marijuana almost teenagers in Japan
is basically unheard of.

It seems that laws in the USA and Europe are not strict enough to act as a
deterrence. If many of these countries adopted the death penalty or similar
penalties for trafficking, then perhaps something could be done about it.

(Singapore executes drug traffickers. I don't know what legal punishments
there are for traffickers in Japan, but I know the social punishments are
severe. A family will often cut contact with a relative if he is sentenced for
a minor crime. Sports stars, tenured professors and celebrities will loose
their jobs if they had a criminal offence even for something completely
unrelated to their career. Quite different from the attention that washed out
American celebrities get.)

~~~
njs12345
Anecdotally, speaking as someone who knows a number of young people from
Singapore, they certainly smoke weed just as much (perhaps even more) than
people I know from the UK. Have you considered that perhaps a zero tolerance
approach just drives use further underground? I doubt the official figures are
accurate, and it's probably not sensible to compare an authoritarian
dictatorship with liberal Western democracy.

Japan just has a low crime rate across the board, largely for the reason you
mentioned. Again, this probably isn't helpful - inducing a general respect for
the law into a society is a difficult proposition, or every nation in the
world would be doing just that.

------
bitops
For an excellent perspective on the damage the drug war causes
internationally, read "The Politics of Heroin" by Alfred McCoy. It's dense but
illuminating.

~~~
gwern
I tried to summarize McCoy's book on Wikipedia a few years ago
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_South...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia)
and also cover the controversy on publication.

You can find the first edition online if you google; as far as I know, the
second edition (the one I have, which covers Afghanistan as well) is not
online.

------
Zakharov
While I agree with Branson's arguments in general, the statistics he uses to
support them seem very suspicious to me. He appears to be picking and choosing
particular statistics that support his claims while ignoring others. For
example, he talks about low marijuana use after saying that Portugal had a
relatively high rate of use of hard drugs, which to some extent compete with
marijuana for use.

------
dawkins
I live in Spain and I think in Portugal is the same as here. Drug use is not a
crime but it is still an "Administrative Offense". If the police caught's you
with a small amount of drugs, they will confiscate them and usually impose a
fine, about 300€.

------
praptak
I believe that the dominant policy is based on the "it is immoral, so it
should be punished severely and to heck with the collateral damage" reasoning.
It's irrational. Arguments based on reason will not work here. Yes, I'm a
pessimist.

------
valuegram
Couldn't agree more. The only way to "win" the war on drugs is to legalize,
commercialize, and tax the production. It's a simple matter of economics that
as long as demand for these substances is present, there will be producers.

------
johntyree
This is literally copy-paste from Time magazine 2009.

[http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.ht...](http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html)

Excellent work, Dick.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Uh, you might want to look up the word "literally". I don't even find them
terribly similar.

~~~
mekoka
Actually, the part where he details the stats is practically verbatim. There
are some nuances between both articles, but he could have provided a link to
his sources. It always helps to learn more.

Edit: After completing the Times article and rereading R. Branson's, I can
confirm that the general flow is the same. In some parts, he only just
paraphrases or summarizes, but the information is really the same.

~~~
easy_rider
I can actually see quite distinct similarities in the general flow of the
article i.e. the sequence of subjects he touches.

------
ilitirit
My previous comment the last time this was posted:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2725892>

Anyone have any more info?

------
asdkl234890
How many people under the age of baby boomers are for the war on drugs?

Do any of you think we can end the war on drugs before enough of the baby
boomers are... pardon me... dead?

~~~
snowmaker
You might be surprised by how much the current generation of twenty- and
thirty-somethings looks like the baby boomers politically by the time they
reach that age. Getting married, getting older, and having children tends to
change one's political opinions in predictable ways, and this is one of them.

------
mixmastamyk
The time was twenty years ago!

------
TheAmazingIdiot
One has to remember that Portugal did not completely legalize drugs.
Possession of small amounts and usage were legalized.

Dealing is still a big crime there, due to the citizens of Portugal not
wanting to be akin the worlds drug den. The different viewpoint of legalizing
usage was that it is a medical problem, and not a evil crime. Even that said,
Portugal also made their problems less severe by bringing them out in the open
instead of draconian punishments forcing users to hide.

The biggest hurdle for Portugal's idea to work in the USA is that we do not
have any sort of socialized or national healthcare in which to attach a "fund
substance abuse as medical problem" freely as Portugal does already. I can
imagine that issue alone taking 10+ years in Congress, if any action is done
at all.

Note: iPod farted earlier leading only posting the first character of this
post: "O".

~~~
swombat
Hey, sorry I downvoted you when the post was just "O".

The lack of a socialised healthcare system is actually a boon in this case,
since the state is basically getting rid of a large cost (funding the police
work on the war on drugs) without creating another cost (since patients then
have to pay for themselves). Isn't it?

~~~
pedrocarvalho
No, it isn't. In Portugal, the healthcare system is free.

~~~
sneak
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

~~~
pedrocarvalho
By free I mean it's not a direct purchase. I'm perfectly aware that the
healthcare system in my country is payed by my taxes.

------
opendomain
I have a feeling that the people that are promoting the end of the "war" are
casual users or would like to be. Has any REAL experience with Drugs? I have -
my family was ripped apart by drug abuse. Drugs alter your brain - addiction
is VERY powerful. If some drugs were legal, MORE people would become addicted
and crime will go up for people to feed their habits.

~~~
randomdata
_"If some drugs were legal, MORE people would become addicted"_

Here in Canada, the official usage rates for cannabis and tobacco are nearly
the same. The latter being a legal substance. The laws aren't stopping anyone
who is interested in trying the drug. Those who are not interested in trying
it, still won't be interested if the laws change.

