
What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs? - samsolomon
http://www.citylab.com/crime/2014/05/what-if-us-cities-just-stopped-participating-in-the-war-on-drugs/370878/
======
sharkweek
The Economist wrote a near perfect editorial about the war on drugs a few
years back:

[http://www.economist.com/node/13237193](http://www.economist.com/node/13237193)
(you might need to Google "The economist failed states and failed policies" to
read the article)

Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been
taking a public heath issue and turning it into a crime and punishment issue.

I highly recommend anyone curious about the history of the war on drugs, and
the major problems it has created, watch "The House I Live In" \-- arguably
one of the best documentaries I have ever seen -

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125653/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125653/)

~~~
chongli
_Regarding drug policy, the biggest misstep of the past 40 years has been
taking a public heath issue_

It's never been a public health issue for its major proponents. The war on
drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the militarization of police
forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial complex.

~~~
Natsu
> The war on drugs has always been about racism, corruption, the
> militarization of police forces, civil forfeiture and the prison-industrial
> complex.

So, there's nothing about not liking the addicts who hassle people on the
street?

~~~
unclebucknasty
Maybe we should start a war on homelessness.

~~~
serf
perhaps if we (the US) would stop branding all our endeavors with battle
phrasing, we'd stop being so apt to do battle.

How about we try to fix homelessness? It's surely a problem, I don't know if
it's a battle, adversary, or fight. A struggle, perhaps, but can one call a
struggle a war? I don't personally believe so.

~~~
unclebucknasty
I agree. My comment was pure sarcasm.

------
rayiner
I really hope that in the next few decades we see a deescalation of the drug
war. But I think many people overestimate how far along we are in terms of the
general public's attitude.

It was only last year that majority of those polled supported legalizing
marijuana: [http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-
supports...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports-
legalizing-marijuana). At the time of the last dot-com bust (2001), it was
60-40 against legalization. Since actual voters skew older and more
conservative, it's totally unsurprising that it has only been in the last few
years that legalization efforts have gained traction.

Yet legalization of marijuana is just the first step, and one that's easy to
take for middle class voters, whose kids may use marijuana or who may use it
themselves. It'll still be a long, uphill battle to convince these voters that
it'll be better to disengage from the drug war completely. A lot of the people
involved in drug distribution are not sympathetic figures to the general
public: uneducated, often minorities, and usually with long criminal records.
The idea that disengaging from the drug war will mean "going soft" on these
people will be a powerful one.

~~~
sillysaurus3
When this topic of marijuana legalization comes up, it seems like most
conservative news agencies ask the loaded question, "Does this mean you're in
favor of decriminalizing hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and meth?"

I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer?

~~~
joel_perl_prog
Simple. The answer is "yes."

So-called hard drugs are ... well ... they ain't health food.

But presumably I'm writing to an audience of utilitarian thinkers, so it
should be trivial to load up the arguments onto a balance beam: for, and
against.

We have lived through the against side it. We know exactly what those
consequences are, for society. Importantly, criminalization does ZERO to limit
demand, and thus, supply. Zero. This is demonstrably true. So, now imagine a
world where all of those same people who already choose to abuse drugs to the
point where it becomes a severe health and social hazard, except those
activities are not illegal anymore.

Yes, you still have the dangers of those people acting irrationally, or even
rationally, but just anti-socially, in pursuit of their high. But this happens
now, already. With the added negatives of the so-called war on drugs (which in
reality is a war on the American people, especially black people), just thrown
into the mix.

Like so many others have done, I could write at great length (and so could
you, dear reader, most likely; many of you) about this subject. It's
completely fucked, in a word.

And I live in Colorado, so if you'd like to hear about what's happened after
pot was legal, I can tell you: nada. Zip. Nothing bad. Zero. And that won't
ever change, either. Yeah, pot's not cocaine, but believe it or not, doing a
few lines of blow doesn't turn a normal human being into a psychopath. Or, if
it does, that same person would become just as dangerous after a pint of
vodka.

~~~
aianus
One thing I've always wondered: what would street dealers do if they couldn't
make money selling crack anymore? I somehow doubt they'd give up and get a job
at McDonald's.

Legalizing drugs might therefore lead to an increase in robberies, muggings,
kidnappings, sex trafficking, etc as these former dealers need to find new
ways to support themselves. Thoughts?

~~~
joel_perl_prog
Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol
prohibition was dropped? Exactly. There's a sort of twinge of classism (or
even racism) in your comment, by the way.

The assumption that people who participate in a normal capitalist marketplace
are inherently criminals is just silly. They do what they do because it's a
bustling marketplace. Period.

~~~
aianus
I don't know, what did the low level bootleggers and enforcers do after
prohibition ended? If I was one, I'd have moved on to similar work in
narcotics and prostitution.

People choose to risk jail time and physical harm to make mediocre money as a
street dealer because they have no better options. Most of them don't even
have high school diplomas, what else are they going to do? If we don't do
anything other than eliminate the black market for drugs their next best
option is still going to be some sort of crime.

~~~
joel_perl_prog
Sure. But you assume there's a permanent class of criminals whose only
interest is crime. The principle interest in the drug game is money. It's a
business.

What I'm saying is, there's not a "fixed amount of crime," which you imply;
you basically say it's like squeezing a balloon. The amount of air doesn't
change, it just gets displaced a little bit.

What we need is a sociologist (or someone who has otherwise done the reading)
to come in with studies and numbers. I'm sort of working outward from my
reference, Pinker's The Better Angels Of Our Nature, and suggesting that
crime, too, overall crime, is dropping. And would drop even more if the laws
were written correctly. In other words, there's not a fixed number of
criminals, nor a fixed amount of crime.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
You can talk about studies and all that and that's fine but I think this is
horribly naive. The world is not a pop sociology book.

~~~
joel_perl_prog
That's exactly why it's so important to decriminalize (or outright legalize).
Because the theory behind criminalization simply doesn't work. It is you who
are naive, sir. Please see my other comments above. I explain this. I hope I
explain this. What didn't I convey?

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Oh, no I'm not naive. You think some Pinker book shows that complete
legalization would result in people involved in the drug becoming upstanding
members of society. You talk of "criminals" as some kind of theoretical agent.

~~~
joel_perl_prog
I can see that were not going to connect here. And I shouldn't have called you
naive. I should have said your position is naive.

But is it really such a stretch to expect alignment between swiftly declining
rates of violence and declining rates of all anti-social behavior.

Keep in mind, doing drugs, just recreationally doing drugs, minding ones own
business IS NOT A CRIME (or shouldn't be) and isn't anti-social (or doesn't
have to be, and isn't for most casual users). Think: casual alcohol drinkers.
As most are. Are there alcoholics? Of course. But that does nothing to
diminish my case. It was never expected that all crime would vanish (or
perhaps...you expect that?).

------
us0r
The jury is out and this is a lost cause. Unfortunately it is all about money.
This is a massive business. The budget just keeps growing. 2015 drug budget:

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/about-
co...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/about-
content/fy_2015_budget_highlights_-_final.pdf)

Of course they make it nearly impossible to figure out a real number of how
much is going contractors but since the DEA is supposed to be about only drugs
they had a $2,242M FY13 budget. Total contract actions in FY13:
$513,659,660.69.

Largest recipient? A scandal plagued private security contractor. Meanwhile in
an effort to curb spending House Republicans cut the syringe program in 2011.
Needle sharing is 1/3 of all AIDS cases (354,000). Even if you don't want to
change drug policy that is just simply a horrible idea.

Forbes article on the horror that happened in Portugal:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-
af...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-
decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/)

As more State's legalize eventually Washington will need to do something. I
have a feeling we will end up with decriminalization which is going to keep
the murders, theft and other problems around.

In the meantime Michele Leonhart should be fired, arrested and charged. The
NSA running around wild on the Internet is one thing but the DEA using that to
build phony cases and investigations is an entirely different animal.

------
sirdogealot
The same thing that would happen to any country or state that decided to stop
participating in the war on drugs.

They would be sanctioned and heckled by other city governments.

They may even have their drug enforcement programs carried out by other
governments, like when Canada sat back for years while Marc Emery sold
Marijuana seeds worldwide.

The DEA basically coughed and the RCMP had Emery arrested on the spot and
extradited to the U.S.A. to face charges in a country he was not even a
resident of.[0]

I am sure there was a bit more to it than that. The USA probably insinuated
some very strong consequences for Canada if they didn't turn him over. But
that's entirely speculation.

Marc Emery aka "the prince of pot" remains incarcerated in the U.S.A. to this
day.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Emery#2005_arrest_and_extr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Emery#2005_arrest_and_extradition_proceedings)

~~~
dobbsbob
I live a block away from Emery's store. There's a seed store still there that
is doing exactly what Emery was doing (selling pot seeds to Americans) yet
they haven't been busted. This is probably because it's owner didn't give a
million dollars to NORML in the US to fight prohibition of Marijuana.

Emery also writes a federal prison blog, interesting insight into how foreign
prisoners are treated in the US, like the time he spent at D.Ray Fed prison
where it's entirely made up of foreigners. No racism/forced segregation based
on skin color, no homogeneous gangs of all one ethnicity, they all live
together in dorms without any of the problems he saw in other fed prisons like
Seatac where some guy threatened him because he was playing dominos with a
black inmate and that was "not allowed".

~~~
sirdogealot
Very interesting. I was not aware that there are "foreigner only prisons". I
wonder why they exist?

I haven't kept up on his blog writings much, as it's too depressing to be
honest.

Which is a shame considering he is such a great writer.

Thankfully, he should be out soon and it doesn't sound like they have broken
his spirit one bit.

~~~
a3n
> I was not aware that there are "foreigner only prisons". I wonder why they
> exist?

Probably to avoid the complaints from foreign embassies over mistreatment of
their citizens.

Too bad we don't have a US embassy here in the US to complain about
mistreatment of US citizens in US prisons.

------
SoftwareMaven
The point about grants brings up what I consider to be one of the Federal
government's most pernicious behaviors: micro-managing local government
through the use of grants and other funds (see also education and school
nutrition).

~~~
dmfdmf
Cutting off Federal Highway funds has been the threat of choice to coerce
states to toe the line on Federal priorities and policies.

------
Thriptic
Excuse my ignorance, but is it legitimate for subordinate entities in a
federalist system to simply not fund enforcement of policies they don't agree
with? For example, would it be possible to have a vice squad with a budget of
1 dollar, effectively preventing enforcement of drug-related crime?

~~~
declan
Yes, it is a legitimate policy choice. In general, FedGov has sharply limited
constitutional authority to force the states to carry out its wishes in the
case of enforcing federal criminal laws. The precedent that comes to mind is
Printz v. US, where SCOTUS struck down a FedGov law requiring that local
police check the backgrounds of Americans who wanted to buy a firearm through
a licensed dealer.

And obviously in the case of marijuana legalization, states like Colorado are
already engaging in quasi-nullification: they're thumbing their nose at FedGov
despite a federal law saying that mere possession of pot is a crime.

This is why FedGov tries to tie its mandates on states to funding, like speed
limits and drinking ages. Remember Real ID was not a direct mandate on the
states but a carrot-and-stick approach to nationalized drivers licenses (or,
you could argue, a uniform national ID).

------
cwisecarver
Doesn't this just come down to capitalism? If there is a demand someone will
find a way to supply it. We could have the government select the suppliers
through law enforcement, weeding out the criminals that can't find a way to
evade them, or we could license dealers, tax their profits and use that money
for schools, treatment, and whatever else (Colorado).

People who have a physical or mental addiction will find a way to get their
high. That's what we've learned from the WoD. It's water dripping on a stone,
from both sides, distribution and consumption.

Tax-paying citizens, not making any judgements, should get back their
investment on the fail that is the WoD.

The government and the taxpayers could easily make as much money through
taxing drug dealers profits as they've ever made getting handouts from the
prison and big-pharma lobby.

------
acd
This war was lost when the criminals started using Narco subs
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-
submarine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine) and that they started
to use horizontal digging [http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/mexican-cartels-
are-using-f...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/mexican-cartels-are-using-
firetruck-sized-drillers-to-make-drug-pipelines)

------
Spooky23
A: Those cities would develop more obvious/visible crime problems as the drug
traffickers fought amoungst themselves unabated. The police forces would take
a big hit due to the loss of seizure revenue, which means less overtime and
poorer coverage.

I think the "war on drugs" is a joke, but local action isn't going to be very
effective, because the locality will bear the brunt of the negative effects.

~~~
llllllllllll
There's quite a bit of evidence that the exact opposite is true, that violence
increases with stronger police enforcement, due to the destabilization of
established trafficking lines and the resulting struggle to fill the void.

Here's a study done on the Marijuana trade in Denmark:

[http://euc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/10/147737081246...](http://euc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/10/1477370812467568.abstract)

Mexico is an even better example. Minimum 60,000 dead after Felipe Calderon
dramatically increased resistance against the cartels.

------
justizin
they would have to lay off massive amounts of their police forces, which have
over the past couple decades come to rely on federal drug war funding for
significant portions of their payroll.

i'm ok with that, but are the rest of you?

------
DonGateley
One problem with this is the number of thugs in city and town police forces.
They aren't going to give up their bully franchises easily.

------
GauntletWizard
Then organized crime would run the streets, as the combative pressure keeping
these operations small would removed. Gangs would spring up like weeds, get
absorbed into syndicates, and wield large amounts of power over ghettos and
other blighted areas without regular sweeps to keep them in line.

~~~
toyg
Choose your own semi-ironic response now:

☐ "Which totally doesn't happen now. Oh wait..."

☐ "Yeah, Amsterdam is completely run by gangs. Oh wait..."

☐ "Yeah, gangs would get richer and expand as price of drugs plummets and they
get commoditised. Oh wait..."

Edit: downvotes? I was trying to summarise the inevitable counterpoints.

~~~
pyre
Well, one could argue that (in the short term) there would be _more_ violence
as the current power balance is disrupted and gangs search to expand into
other areas to generate their money...

~~~
Renaud
But the whole point is that the money not spent in the war on drugs would then
be re-directed to control other criminal activities. I'd rather gangs go into
white-collar crime than violent crimes.

The Mafia, Yakuza and the Hong Kong triads have in large measure done away
from street crime and moved to more economic-oriented crimes such as buying
legitimate companies and fiddling with their accounts to illegally import and
sell goods, avoid taxes, peddle in corruption, gambling, ...

