
Eleven countries studied, one inescapable conclusion – the drug laws don’t work - evo_9
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/30/drug-laws-international-study-tough-policy-use-problem
======
mheiler
Making drugs legally available in pharmacies would lead to: (1) organised
crime looses a large chunk of its business, (2) no need for dealers to
advertise to new users, they won't get the business anyways, (3) drugs would
have medical-grade quality control and likely be cheaper than on the black
market, (4) drugs can be taxed and this money can go into prevention and
medical care, (5) users are less likely to need to commit crimes to support
their habit, (6) resources in law enforcement get freed for other things.

The ethical question is if drug use would go up and thus a legalise-drugs
policy would be guilty of leading people down a bad and potentially deadly
path. If the article is right that won't be so.

~~~
DanBC
Organised crime would target the legal-drug supply chain. Counterfeit
medication making its way into legitimate supplies is already a problem.

When you tax something you create a space for the illicit market. See the UK
for one example where very many cigarettes are counterfeit. And criminal gangs
don't just sell real but untaxed product; they produce counterfeit product
which can be more dangerous than the actual product.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
sussex-16786358](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-16786358)

(I am strongly in favour of decriminalising all drugs)

~~~
waterhouse
I think there's already a problem with low-quality, impure product being sold
on the street w.r.t. illegal drugs. If the drugs were legalized, people would
at least have the alternative of buying them legally from a large drug store
with a reputation to protect. I imagine the problem you describe would not get
_worse_ under legalization.

(Found one source on street drug purity:
[http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/faqs/faqpages/how-
pure...](http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/faqs/faqpages/how-pure-are-
street-drugs))

~~~
DanBC
That's a great point: I would much rather buy 5% amphetamine 95% sugar from a
licensed seller than whatever the hell I'm getting on the street. While
contamination with rat poison is mostly a myth contamination can produce nasty
results.

Anthrax in injecting heroin users: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-
glasgow-west-18981196](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-
west-18981196)

Glass microbeads in cannabis:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/638...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/6386311.stm)

~~~
lostcolony
It's more than that though. Not just licensing, but motive to self-regulate.

You don't buy "(Cartel X) branded (drug of choice)", so there is no reputation
to protect by it; if one batch is bad, meh, no big deal.

Whereas if it's available at a drugstore...CVS and Walgreens compete, and have
reputations to maintain. Any contamination not only would have federal
implications, but also would have direct economic ones, such that they are
incentivized to self-police. To ensure their entire supply line is coming from
reputable sources, is randomly tested for contaminants, and anything that
slips through leads to a recall. Otherwise, they face a loss of business to
the competitor.

------
noonespecial
I suspect they work just fine, its what they are actually supposed to do that
most people are unclear on.

I'm not quite tin hat enough to think that they were actually _created_ for
these purposes, but I do think they've stabilized on a sub-optimal local
maximum where the general populace is complacent because they feel like
"something was done" about those awful (counterculture) drugs and they laws
themselves have become broadly useful to the political class for all sorts of
reasons that have nothing at all to do with the reality of drug use on the
street. So here we sit. It will take substantial political force to budge off
this local maximum point.

~~~
boyaka
I've been having similar thoughts about the purposes behind the prohibition
being misunderstood. There are many effects that the war on drugs is having,
and the people that are executing the process are more aware than any of us
what those effects are. As a clueless civilian, I have been attempting to come
up with some completely conjectural ideas about what those might be:

\- Strengthen law enforcement through constant practice, and provide revenue
to supporting companies

\- Siphon money from one industry (drug trade) to help support the government
and therefore support other industries that it feels are more beneficial to
society

\- Stigmatize unproductive habits, conditioning society to more
productive/controlled behavior, incarcerating individuals who resist to make
the society seem more productive overall

I'm sure there are many intentions that are well known that might overlap with
what I'm suggesting, but I think the main point is that the war on drugs is
not for the purpose that most people assume: to eliminate drugs from society.
I think in a lot of ways it intentionally has the opposite effect. Also I
think if society would have tolerated alcohol prohibition that the government
would have been happy to keep that going as well for similar reasons.

~~~
rayiner
> Also I think if society would have tolerated alcohol prohibition that the
> government would have been happy to keep that going as well for similar
> reasons.

See my comment here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542155](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542155).
In fact, at the time prohibition was proposed, alcohol taxes made up fully 1/3
of federal revenue. The money and moneyed interests were aligned against
prohibition, not for it.

I think a lot of people look for ways to get around the fact that when you
give people self-determination as a group, they might vote for things you
don't like with no nefarious undertones in play. The simplest explanation is
this one: I don't vote, my mom does. There are more puritanical people who
simply don't want to live in a society that condones drug use than the
opposite. It's just like how when people in arab countries got the opportunity
to vote, they voted-in conservative Islamic governments. Sure they are
opportunists taking advantage of those tendencies, but at the end of the day,
you have to grapple with the real fact that people have ideas about what their
societies should look like, and democracy means that they get to carry those
ideas into fruition.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
In theory this is why we have a republic rather than a direct democracy. The
people say what they want (e.g. less drug use) and the representatives do the
hard work of figuring out how best to achieve that result (e.g. discovering
that it's empirically more effective to treat it as a medical and social issue
rather than a criminal issue, and enacting laws consistent with that result).

But then they don't and we're back to nefarious undertones.

~~~
toyg
No, that's why you have _representative_ democracy rather than _direct_
democracy.

You have a _republic_ rather than a _monarchy_. In order to establish its
leadership, a republic can use representative democracy, direct democracy,
fascism, dictatorship, whatever -- as long as it defines the power of the
state as flowing from the entirety of its people, rather than from a subset of
the population or by a divinity, it's a republic, end of. "Republic" is _not_
a synonym of "representative democracy".

I wish I had a penny for every time I had to dispel this awful misconception
in constitutional studies that only Americans seem to have.

~~~
kbutler
Historically and in political science literature, "republic" IS synonymous
with "representative democracy". In the 20th century
autocratic/oligarchical/fascist states adopted "Republic" to sound democratic,
and that use is becoming more common.

[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/republic)

A state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected
representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a
monarch.

[http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/09/republic-or-
repr...](http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/09/republic-or-
representative-democracy.html)

we regard the terms “republic” and “representative democracy” as being
interchangeable, as does the political science literature.

[http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163158?redirectedFrom=republic...](http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163158?redirectedFrom=republic#eid)
a. A state in which power rests with the people or their representatives;
spec. a state without a monarchy. Also: a government, or system of government,
of such a state; a period of government of this type.The term is often (esp.
in the 18th and 19th centuries) taken to imply a state with a democratic or
representative constitution and without a hereditary nobility, but more
recently it has also been used of autocratic or dictatorial states not ruled
by a monarch. It is now chiefly used to denote any non-monarchical state
headed by an elected or appointed president.

~~~
toyg
Note how all those definitions are _not_ antithetical to _direct_ democracy,
which is the concept I was objecting to and something that only Americans keep
repeating -- note how the only source you link with a whiff of support for
such dichotomy is American and explicitly covers only _" the American
republic"_ (and basically says "yeah we know the terminology is imprecise, but
whatever"...).

The word "republic" was coined by Romans, whose political system was a mixture
of direct, representative, and oligarchic rules:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_elements_of_Roman_R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_elements_of_Roman_Republic)
Were they not living in a "republic", despite inventing the name itself?

"Representative democracy" and "republic" have often been used as synonyms _to
indicate the absence of monarchical or divine intervention in the choice of
leaders_ , not to _exclude direct intervention by the people_ , which is
something only Americans say it does not belong in a republic, for whatever
reason.

------
click170
Drug laws aren't supposed to stop people from using drugs, and that hasn't
been the goal for a while now.

The goal is to give them a reason to request military-grade toys, and to give
them a "reason" to use said military toys despite not being in a war zone.
Their thinking (perhaps correctly) is that if they don't use it, they'll lose
it.

And this is before we consider lobbying of the for-profit prisons who are
literally trying to have innocent people thrown in jail. (0)

(0) [http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/02/22/judge-found-guilty-in-
ca...](http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/02/22/judge-found-guilty-in-cash-for-
kids-case-mother-of-child-not-pleased/)

Edit: Corrected the link, my mistake.

~~~
jiggy2011
FWIW this article is about the UK where we don't usually have these issues.

------
rayiner
There's a really good mini-series on PBS called "Prohibition" that gave me a
totally new perspective on the Drug War:
[http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition](http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition).

The ban of alcohol in the United States was actually a triumph of democracy
over moneyed interests and the government. At the time, alcohol manufacturers
had tremendous political power, and excise taxes on alcohol made up about 1/3
of federal revenue. What made prohibition pass legislatures around the country
was a concerted effort by devoted constituencies: Christians and women.
Indeed, one of the primary drivers of women's suffrage in the United States
was prohibition--alcohol was seen by many leading suffragists as being at the
root of social ills like domestic violence.

One of the most interesting charts I've seen with regards to the modern drug
war is this one: [http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-
supports...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports-
legalizing-marijuana). My recollection of childhood, of school assemblies with
adults shrieking "Just Say No!" wasn't wrong. When I was a kid in the early
1990's, the popular position was in favor of keeping marijuana illegal by an
almost 80-20 margin. This is a country that couldn't agree on anything (in
1992, they voted for Bill Clinton over George Bush by a 43-37 margin), yet
they almost all agreed that marijuana (we're not even talking about harder
drugs) should be illegal.

~~~
gizmo686
I wouldn't call prohibition a triumph of democracy; just a different kind of
failure mode for democracy. There was a relative minority of the population
that wanted prohibition and were able to form a very effective "lobbying"
effort, otherwise known as destroy any candidate who was against prohibition
in the primaries. It is the same type of thing we see today in issues such as
gun control, where we have massive popular support for one side of the issue
(increased background checks), but it is still politically dangerous to pursue
it because of a powerful lobby.

~~~
pessimizer
>It is the same type of thing we see today in issues such as gun control,
where we have massive popular support for one side of the issue (increased
background checks)

I don't think that this is true. I'd have to see some sort of evidence because
my impression is that about half of people are for/against stricter gun laws,
and that this is sharply divided over red/blue, urban/suburban-rural lines.

I actually think that the NRA covers up a lot of support for increased
liberalization of gun laws, because the advocacy from the gun lobby seems
largely driven by racist dog whistling.

~~~
lostcolony
IT's a bit weird. On the one hand, general feeling for 'gun control' has
gotten less popular (and < 50% feel we 'need stricter gun control' \-
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/23/s...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/23/six-
facts-about-guns-violence-and-gun-control/)), on the other hand, 90% of
Americans think we need expanded background checks (
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
fix/wp/2013/04/03/90...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
fix/wp/2013/04/03/90-percent-of-americans-want-expanded-background-checks-on-
guns-why-isnt-this-a-political-slam-dunk/) ).

What's absolutely bizarre to me, though, is how many people seem to treat
expanded background checks as a -major issue- when it comes to voting. As in,
I've seen threads where people have said "OMG, this Democrat wants to require
background checks when private gun owners sell to other private gun owners!
Thank God all the polls are favoring the Republican!" Nevermind the economy,
civil rights, etc, we have to be able to legally sell guns to each other
without the government knowing about it!

~~~
hga
One big problem with "expanded background checks" is the gaping distance from
that seemingly innocent phrase and what's actually proposed, and in the recent
case of Colorado, imposed.

These are "flypaper laws", clearly designed to zap innocent gun owners as well
as what they're ostensibly supposed to do, which in practice turns out to be
nearly zilch, preventing temporary transfers, AKA lending your gun, at gun
ranges, while hunting, etc. It's telling that back when there Colorado has
some serious flooding, the authorities felt compelled to promise that they
wouldn't prosecute people who temporary placed their guns with friends or
relatives on higher ground.

It's a _major_ , in your face issue, never mind those of us who know our 20th
Century history and are therefore rather allergic to "the government knowing
about it". Or the implication that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) is
not a _fundamental_ civil right.

------
jpmcglone
I wish Singapore was part of the study. I think generally, drug laws do not
'work' (by work I mean, it doesn't stop people from doing drugs and in many
ways it probably gets them into situations to commit crimes not related to
drugs), but I'm curious how much the study would have been thrown off by
Singapore's results.

~~~
jsnk
I think Singapore honestly remains as a serious anomaly to political science.
Defacto one party government with extremely illiberal policies and yet the
people are happier, more educated and more well off than many other countries
that have liberal democracies. What's further more surprising is that it
remains very multiethnic and yet the people get along with others just fine
unlike other parts of the world.

~~~
jpatokal
Actually, a rather prominent study a while back found that Singapore is the
least happy wealthy country on the planet, losing out to eg. Iraq, Haiti,
Afghanistan, and Syria.

[http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/world/asia/singapore-
least...](http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/world/asia/singapore-least-happy/)

Singapore is also multiethnic, but it's quite resolutely not a melting pot.
The heavy hand of the government is keeping a lid on a _lot_ of tensions, not
all of them obvious to the casual observer (Singapore-born Chinese vs mainland
Chinese, etc).

Last and not least, Singapore's wealth distribution is extremely unequal. It
scores well on raw GDP per capita etc, but the poorer parts of society compete
directly with foreign labor working in slave-like conditions(+), and thus work
extremely hard for paltry salaries.

(+) Quite literally, especially in the case of maids: it's not uncommon for
them to be on duty 24/7/365, not allowed means of communication and physically
locked inside the home when their masters are away.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
I remember a HN thread, Singapore was described as being described as sterile
and without a lot of culture. Probably a good place to work, but to live? Not
so much.

------
54hgfhjhg
How does this even make sense? Japan has a "zero tolerance policy" on drugs
and one of the lowest drug related death rates in the world (extremely lower
than decriminalized Portugal).

[http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug-
use/b...](http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug-use/by-
country/)

And guess what? Singapore has even tougher drug laws than Japan and a lower
drug related death rate than Japan. What am I missing here?

~~~
josu
Japan could just be an outlier.

~~~
54hgfhjhg
Not exactly. There's also Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Malaysia, China
(all countries with extremely strict drug laws and far lower drug related
death rates than Portugal)

~~~
smoe
According to this list, Colombia has fewer drug related deaths than any of the
countries you mentioned, Sierra Leone about the same as Japan and the
Netherlands is below Saudi Arabia.

I can't find the source of this list or any comparable ranking. But except for
some countries, this lists seems completely random to me or is using not
comparable numbers from each countries in/official statistics

------
camelite
It might be true they don't work but do we really want the likes of Big
Heroin, Big Cocaine and Big Marijuana like we have Big Tobacco? That would be
a disaster. I think it would have to be totally government run to avoid that
extreme danger. I wouldn't even want it to be possible for the government to
get any tax revenue from it. Perhaps all the profits could go to an addiction
prevention charity. Probably politically impossible though.

~~~
sferoze
You might not have to worry about "Big Marijuana", as it seems much easier to
grow your own Marijuana then it is to make your own cigarettes. There would be
so much competition between big and small companies who are selling it. The
following article was written in 2011 but I still think it makes an
interesting point about the business of growing and selling marijuana vs
tobacco.

"Why is marijuana banned and cigarettes legal? There are two reasons. They are
the same two reasons why marijuana will never be legalized. Money and
horticulture.

Approximately 20% of the population smokes, just over 40 million adults. That
is tens of millions of dollars a day in local, state, and federal taxes.

The government has a captured cash cow in cigarette smokers. People cannot
just grow tobacco and manufacture their own cigarettes. Tobacco is a land,
labor, and time intensive crop. After it is harvested it must be cured, aged,
and dried in a specific manner.

It would take a good sized plot of land, a lot of work, and about a year and a
half for you to produce a few cartons of cigarettes. You need more than one
plot of land as tobacco depletes soil and the crop must be rotated, or you
must invest in expensive fertilizer and nutrient mixes. You cannot easily or
economically grow tobacco to make cigarettes for personal consumption.

Marijuana, on the other hand, can be cultivated anyplace. You can grow enough
in pots to continually supply you and your friends. If you have enough space
you can turn it into a cash crop. All you need are seeds or plantings, and in
a short time you can fly higher than a kite. Anyone, anyplace can grow
marijuana. And they do.

The government cannot control, regulate, or easily tax pot. This is why
marijuana will never be legalized. There is no way to make it a commercially
viable and profitable product and no way to effectively tax it."

Read more:
[http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/middle-c...](http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/middle-
class-guy/2011/oct/8/cigarettes-versus-marijuana/#ixzz3Hp9T5TTy) Follow us:
@wtcommunities on Twitter

~~~
maxerickson
The tobacco taxes aren't that huge a source of revenue:

[http://taxfoundation.org/blog/monday-map-tobacco-tax-
revenue...](http://taxfoundation.org/blog/monday-map-tobacco-tax-revenue-
percentage-total-state-local-tax-revenue)

Significant, but not huge. Federal seems to be around 0.6% (the way I rounded,
should be somewhere close to but lower than that).

~~~
mrweasel
0.6% is still a lot of money. I'm not sure who the US does it's budgets, but
in other countries the politicians are fighting over perhaps 1 - 5% of the
actual budget, the rest is fixed. The Danish government has a budget of around
1 trillion Danish kroner, but the actual negotiations in parliament only
revolves around 5 - 10 billion.

Missing 0.6% pretty much removes the entire bargaining platform.

~~~
maxerickson
Yeah, it's a lot, but it's low enough that I wouldn't expect taxation to be a
primary issue in the policy debate over marijuana.

~~~
sferoze
There is just no interest in making it legal because it is a cash crop that
anyone can grow and benefit from.

There is more to marijuana then it being a recreational drug. It is also a
very valuable material that can be used in a variety of other products. Search
hemp products on google and you will find a variety of uses.

The fact that we have outlawed hemp in human society is insanity but it makes
sense in the context of big business and competition. Do some research on what
is takes to grow cotton vs growing hemp.

"The "fabric of our lives" needs approximately twice as much territory as hemp
per ton of finished textile, the land-use miser of the bunch. Further
complicating matters is the inverse relationship between chemical use and land
requirements." \- [1]

Hemp is a plant that is so valuable for its use in products, and it is really
easy for anyone to grow. It's a weed, its grows like crazy! Doesn't sound very
profitable from a big business perspective does it?

[1] -
[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_l...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2011/04/high_on_environmentalism.html)

~~~
maxerickson
At least if you ever have to eat your hat, it will be made out of a strong and
durable natural fiber.

~~~
sferoze
I am pretty confused about your comment, care to explain?

~~~
maxerickson
I was riffing on an idiom and your apparent interest in hemp.

The use of the idiom in this situation would be something like "If industrial
hemp production is allowed in the United States, I'll eat my hat.", meaning
that you don't think it will ever happen.

So I was joking that if it did become legal, because of your appreciation for
the material, at least the hat you would have to eat would be made out of
hemp.

~~~
sferoze
That is not what I think.

If there is enough public pressure and people start demanding that hemp
production be legal, the laws will change.

As long as a large percentage of the population is fine with hemp being
illegal it stands no chance. Most people really don't know what they are
missing out on, its not just a drug, it is a very valuable plant that has
documented use in human society for thousands of years.

------
cnp
I believe the very very first step is to move certain drugs out of Schedule I
and into proper categories that are consistent with science, thereby freeing
doctors and researchers to study --and subsequently, destigmatize-- proper
medicinal use. MDMA holds great potential in treating PTSD; Psychedelics with
addiction and depression, and so on. Once this step is made I feel a proper,
less fear-based discussion can be had regarding the dangers of recreational
use and abuse.

~~~
rhizome
As a matter of fact, the scheduling of cannabis is under the gun right now:

[http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2014/10/30/tables-
turne...](http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2014/10/30/tables-turned-
government-prosecutors-forced-to-defend-pot-prohibition-in-federal-court-
thursday/)

Some good history in there. Note the circular benefit to law enforcement:
Schedule I prevents testing for medicinal qualities, so the government gets to
try arguing that it can't be a medicine because it's not FDA approved. These
people are the glue that hold the gears of progress together.

~~~
cnp
Exactly. Once medicinal qualities can be explored further the "Reefer Madness"
that the country has endured for the past fifty years can be toned down. By
understanding what we consume we are effectively reducing fear, and by
reducing fear, undue harsh penalties can be understood to be what they are --
an overreaction. Its only a matter of time, but I feel for those millions who
have been jailed, and continue to be jailed, during the debate.

------
JabavuAdams
Is it that the drug laws don't work, or like so many things, that people don't
understand the incentive structures?

They're obviously working for many groups. They only don't work if we take the
goal of the drug war at face value.

------
lifeisstillgood
I am genuinely interested in knowing how we go from here to there. Alcohol for
example after prohibition - what was the transition from illegal to legal
like. Did more people drink suddenly? What organisations sprang up to legally
manufacture and distribute? Where the mafia still involved?

Saying "decriminalise" is all good - but if at any point in the supply chain
we dip into the underground market we shall not escape the violence and
control of crime. So are there plans for movin from prohibition to open
market?

~~~
drdeca
One idea that I have not thought through well, and don't know what the
consequences would be, would be

to instead of possession of sale of the drugs being illegal, making it so
that, for some collection of other crimes, if the crime was committed in a way
related to the drug, the penalty for the crime would be greater.

The idea I was thinking is that this would create a disincentive to have the
crimes and the drugs related, and might cut down on "drug crime" more than
just removing the ban on the drugs?

I believe I've seen some say that even where a drug is legalize, there still
remains a black market for that drug in that situation in order to avoid taxes
on that drug. If tax avoidance had a greater fine if caught if money from (non
medicinal) drugs was involved, would that perhaps discourage sellers from not
paying taxes on the income, and as a result reducing the black market type
stuff?

I don't know. I am not saying that I support this idea, its just an idea I
thought was interesting.

I don't know what one would reasonably/realistically expect the results to be.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what results would result from such a law?

~~~
aidos
Countries, like Portugal have had a lot of success with just changing the
issue from a criminal issue to a health issue with regard to possession. If
you're caught with quantities that imply you're dealing you still end up in
trouble.

I'd imagine that if you allowed sanctioned selling of drugs you'd create a
fair market and crime around it would quickly vanish. Unfortunately we live in
a world where we may never see an experiment like that come to fruition.

------
obviouslygreen
Inescapable? Sure, if you ignore sample size. There aren't enough countries
_period_ , and I don't think they're all similar enough in meaningful ways,
for any subset to be considered a representative sample for just about
anything.

I don't know enough about the debate to form an educated opinion one way or
the other, I just can't stand hyperbole like this, especially when the
underlying assumptions are so fundamentally flawed.

 _Edit: And over all of eight months. Wow, yeah, now I 'm convinced..._

------
nraynaud
I'm wondering: did we measure thievery law against drug law?

Do law against theft work better than laws against drug, and would there be a
call for repeal if that was not the case? I'm ok with changing the laws on
drugs if it's good for society, but I want an honest assessment, not pure
advocacy (and well, I don't smoke pot, but I drink beer, and I understand that
people who smoke pot have a right to freedom as much as me).

------
spacemanmatt
The American prohibition is working exactly as intended.

------
sigzero
"Portugal decriminalised drugs. Results? Use by teens doubled in a decade with
nearly a fifth of 15 and 16-year-olds using drugs."

Laws might not work but there has to be some kind of strict control mechanism
in place.

------
miguelrochefort
Laws don't work.

