The War On Drugs™ Is A Colossal Failure

[iamwhatiseem]

Weed is far less addictive and dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes.

Alcohol-related deaths are the third leading cause of preventable deaths in the US.

Smoking is number one.

High blood pressure (obesity) is number two.

And yet we don't criminalize that kind of self-harm. Nor do we refuse spending gobs of money treating them.

I don't agree.
There are too many REALLY strong variants out there that pushes some pot into damn near hallucinogenic.
There are pot strains that make it impossible to drive a car for instance. As proven by videos. Once a person gets to the 40 Nanograms mark... they start royally fucking up on driving test. Even ones who smoke pot everyday.
Mostly, when it comes to driving, alcohol is more impaired than pot. No argument. But today's purer strains are pushing the envelope.

 

[g5000]

I don't agree.
There are too many REALLY strong variants out there that pushes some pot into damn near hallucinogenic.
There are pot strains that make it impossible to drive a car for instance. As proven by videos. Once a person gets to the 40 Nanograms mark... they start royally fucking up on driving test. Even ones who smoke pot everyday.
Mostly, when it comes to driving, alcohol is more impaired than pot. No argument. But today's purer strains are pushing the envelope.

There are also legal "designer drugs" made to get around the drug laws which are incredibly harmful.

You can go to a smoke shop and get them. They have little signs which say "Not For Human Consumption" to get around any liability.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

There are also legal "designer drugs" made to get around the drug laws which are incredibly harmful.

You can go to a smoke shop and get them. They have little signs which say "Not For Human Consumption" to get around any liability.

The War on drugs has no doubt been a royal disaster. Costing $Billions and ruining countless lives.
Having said that, I don't know the answer. Or why there is such high drug use today. Is it due to technology depriving people of social interaction and other healthy basic human psychological needs?
The fucking meth problem here is an epidemic. Many of the same people getting arrested over and over. Meth labs closed down - which stops nothing because 3 more crop up.
There is a societal/cultural problem here.

 

[g5000]

The War on drugs has no doubt been a royal disaster. Costing $Billions and ruining countless lives.
Having said that, I don't know the answer. Or why there is such high drug use today. Is it due to technology depriving people of social interaction and other healthy basic human psychological needs?
The fucking meth problem here is an epidemic. Many of the same people getting arrested over and over. Meth labs closed down - which stops nothing because 3 more crop up.
There is a societal/cultural problem here.

The problem is very serious. We criminalize the drug user, then send them to prison. After that, they are forever ostracized from society and thus become more likely to return to the same behaviors.

To support their habit, an addict has to commit property crimes to obtain the money to support their addiction.

We don't send fat bastards to prison. We don't send smokers to jail. We don't send heavy drinkers to jail unless they drive drunk or abuse their children. Even then, they aren't forever ostracized from society.

We need to turn away from a "war" and toward harm reduction.

Imagine what would happen to the crime rate if we could get addicts clean and sober.

 

[BlindBoo]

I don't agree.
There are too many REALLY strong variants out there that pushes some pot into damn near hallucinogenic.
There are pot strains that make it impossible to drive a car for instance. As proven by videos. Once a person gets to the 40 Nanograms mark... they start royally fucking up on driving test. Even ones who smoke pot everyday.
Mostly, when it comes to driving, alcohol is more impaired than pot. No argument. But today's purer strains are pushing the envelope.

They have breed strains that produce larger amount of Kief, the precursor to Hash. It doesn't make the THC stronger, it just means you can smoke less. However, it's the edibles can deliver concentrations that can impair even the most heaviest of smokers.

 

[Devils_Advocate]

Anyone who has spent any time on this forum can see Americans are addicted to being right, even if there are no facts to support their beliefs.

President Richard Nixon coined the phrase "War on Drugs" in 1971, but the war has actually been waged for about a century now. And it has been a disaster.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

All the War on Drugs has achieved is the creation of the world's worst per capita prison population and an enormously rich and powerful criminal drug cartel industry.

The World Prison Brief’s data estimates the U.S. incarceration rate at 639 inmates per 100,000 people as of 2018, or 13% higher than the rate of the next-closest country, El Salvador (564 inmates per 100,000 people).

America’s incarceration rate falls to lowest level since 1995

The nationwide incarceration rate is 810 prison or jail inmates for every 100,000 adult residents ages 18 and older.

www.pewresearch.org

We should have learned our lessons from the alcohol Prohibition era, but we didn't.

It's time to start looking at alternative ideas to this problem.

Should we decriminalize all drugs? Should we start looking seriously at putting more effort into harm reduction programs?

What we have been doing is clearly not working.

War on Drugs and War on Poverty have been a major waste of taxpayer dollars that the money could have been used to do something else with.

Let me be clear you ain’t winning any war like War on Drugs because humanity need it drugs and let be clear being addicts has been going on since Adam and Eve time when Steve would come over to smoke a little Herb with Adam and Eve, so let try something different and end revolving door for our Prison Complex once and for all…

 

[Woodznutz]

Anyone who has spent any time on this forum can see Americans are addicted to being right, even if there are no facts to support their beliefs.

President Richard Nixon coined the phrase "War on Drugs" in 1971, but the war has actually been waged for about a century now. And it has been a disaster.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

All the War on Drugs has achieved is the creation of the world's worst per capita prison population and an enormously rich and powerful criminal drug cartel industry.

The World Prison Brief’s data estimates the U.S. incarceration rate at 639 inmates per 100,000 people as of 2018, or 13% higher than the rate of the next-closest country, El Salvador (564 inmates per 100,000 people).

America’s incarceration rate falls to lowest level since 1995

The nationwide incarceration rate is 810 prison or jail inmates for every 100,000 adult residents ages 18 and older.

www.pewresearch.org

We should have learned our lessons from the alcohol Prohibition era, but we didn't.

It's time to start looking at alternative ideas to this problem.

Should we decriminalize all drugs? Should we start looking seriously at putting more effort into harm reduction programs?

What we have been doing is clearly not working.

Nixon left the 'war' up to those who would profit by it without winning it (which would kill the golden goose). We know how to win it today but have chosen not to.