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The "war on drugs" is a bumper sticker slogan, it means different things to different people. For many people it means going after smugglers and big dealers. It would be political suicide for a politician to go soft on either of those things. For other people, war on drugs = war on users, but I think that mindset is diminishing although politicians are still loathe to hand out maintenance drugs like methadone; it is viewed by many as another form of welfare and you know how contentious that debate is.
I think most people and politicians are in favor of more rehab but that does not have great results, people tend to cycle in and out of rehab.
From experience with close family members who got sucked into drug lives, I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all solution. Some people need counseling, some people need drug maintenance, some people need job skills, some users are hard core and need to be in jail.
I tend to think we would get further if we executed any and all dealers.
I knew quite a few dealers back in the days I was using, ALL of them only started dealing, to support their own habit, majority of the low level dealers are just addicts themselves.
I only knew one person that sold, that did not use, and he was a mid level guy, he only sold in bulk, would not sell to the users.
I think the best way to go about changing the public opinion on this, is to start making people see, that supporting the drug war, and drug laws...equates to supporting the drug cartels, if you are pro-drug war, you are basically on the same side as the cartels, they would be out of business if the drug war ended or many drugs were legalized, tough drug laws benefit them greatly.
I knew quite a few dealers back in the days I was using, ALL of them only started dealing, to support their own habit, majority of the low level dealers are just addicts themselves.
So what? Why does being a user give you a free pass to be a dealer? By dealing you are enabling others to get hooked. If you don't want to face the death penalty, don't deal. Go on maintenance.
So what? Why does being a user give you a free pass to be a dealer? By dealing you are enabling others to get hooked. If you don't want to face the death penalty, don't deal. Go on maintenance.
The real focus should be on HOW ALL these dealers (across the entire country) are consistently able to keep selling drugs! Drugs just keep flowing in like clockwork and reaching their destination.
We hear about huge drug busts at the border and in other places all the time, but that never seems to trickle down to drug shortages or sudden major reductions in drug dealing or activity in cities and states??!! During the umpteen years I was using daily, THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE TIME WHEN DEALERS WERE OUT OR EVEN LOW IN SUPPLY!!!!!!
If the dealers have no drugs to sell, addicts would be out of luck, no point in stealing or robbing, when your dealer has NOTHING to sell!!
Whether we should legalize drugs or not is independent of problems in South American countries. Even if we had no drugs, they would still have problems. Look at their history.
In this country I think we should legalize use but deny benefits to users. My tax dollars shouldn't fund your use. Instead of criminalizing use, we should punish behavior while using heavily. Car wreck? Treble damages. So forth. Basically I don't care if you burn your brain out; just protect society from you.
The real focus should be on HOW ALL these dealers (across the entire country) are consistently able to keep selling drugs! Drugs just keep flowing in like clockwork and reaching their destination.
We hear about huge drug busts at the border and in other places all the time, but that never seems to trickle down to drug shortages or sudden major reductions in drug dealing or activity in cities and states??!! During the umpteen years I was using daily, THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE TIME WHEN DEALERS WERE OUT OR EVEN LOW IN SUPPLY!!!!!!
If the dealers have no drugs to sell, addicts would be out of luck, no point in stealing or robbing, when your dealer has NOTHING to sell!!
What I have suggested before is fence off a corner of Texas and anyone who wants to use drugs goes in the drug reservation and can use with impunity. But no children are allowed and men must get a vasectomy and women get their tubes tied. Any drugs confiscated elsewhere in the US are thrown over the fence for the users in the rez. They can have their own little economy and police themselves. But they don't get Narcan. If someone wants to leave, must be clean for 60 days and then they can leave.
It is inhumane and nobody would go for it, but realistically it is very hard to try to accommodate drug users in society without criminalizing them. Driving cars, raising children, going to work are all things people who are high should not be doing, yet they are. They are endangering other people. I am not in favor of criminalizing drug users but I am definitely in favor of containing and controlling the damage they can cause to the rest of us.
It is very hard or impossible to eliminate the desire for drugs. The only solution we have left is to cut the pipeline, which is dealers and smugglers. We don't have any control over the source when it is a foreign country.
I knew quite a few dealers back in the days I was using, ALL of them only started dealing, to support their own habit, majority of the low level dealers are just addicts themselves.
I only knew one person that sold, that did not use, and he was a mid level guy, he only sold in bulk, would not sell to the users.
I think the best way to go about changing the public opinion on this, is to start making people see, that supporting the drug war, and drug laws...equates to supporting the drug cartels, if you are pro-drug war, you are basically on the same side as the cartels, they would be out of business if the drug war ended or many drugs were legalized, tough drug laws benefit them greatly.
What I have suggested before is fence off a corner of Texas and anyone who wants to use drugs goes in the drug reservation and can use with impunity. But no children are allowed and men must get a vasectomy and women get their tubes tied. Any drugs confiscated elsewhere in the US are thrown over the fence for the users in the rez. They can have their own little economy and police themselves. But they don't get Narcan. If someone wants to leave, must be clean for 60 days and then they can leave.
It is inhumane and nobody would go for it, but realistically it is very hard to try to accommodate drug users in society without criminalizing them. Driving cars, raising children, going to work are all things people who are high should not be doing, yet they are. They are endangering other people. I am not in favor of criminalizing drug users but I am definitely in favor of containing and controlling the damage they can cause to the rest of us.
It is very hard or impossible to eliminate the desire for drugs. The only solution we have left is to cut the pipeline, which is dealers and smugglers. We don't have any control over the source when it is a foreign country.
You are wrong about that...if this drug problem is SO extremely bad, as they are making it out to be, considering all the lives taken or destroyed, all the related crime and violence, the drain on social services, children loosing their parents to drugs, etc etc. this is truly a national emergency and use of military AGAINST the source is certainly justified, even if its in a foreign country...
We had no qualms sending military to a foreign country after 9-11 happened...to target the source, whats different here?
You are wrong about that...if this drug problem is SO extremely bad, as they are making it out to be, considering all the lives taken or destroyed, all the related crime and violence, the drain on social services, children loosing their parents to drugs, etc etc. this is truly a national emergency and use of military AGAINST the source is certainly justified, even if its in a foreign country...
We had no qualms sending military to a foreign country after 9-11 happened...to target the source, whats different here?
The difference is -- The War On Drugs Does Not Work! I guess you just don't get that. Are you going to target allies too? We get plenty of illicit drugs from our allies.
We are the richest country in the world. We have been for many decades. That means that if we want something, we can get it. That is especially true for drugs. They are easy to smuggle into a free and rich country.
We will NEVER "cut off the pipeline". As soon as one gets cut, another one takes up the slack. It has been that way for 50 years! It isn't collusion with cartels; it is that money talks.
Unless you want to take away freedom. If you want to destroy all freedom and privacy in this country, then maybe you could win The War. I hope that is not what you are advocating.
Look around. There are MUCH better alternatives out there. Just sayin'...
We have never truly had a drug war. If we did we never would have had an opioid epidemic or entire communities shattered by meth. We need to try a real war...similar to what the Philippines is doing. Declare drug addicts as enemies of the state and have our military hunt them down. Eventually those drug cartels will have no customers to sell to.
Better to hunt down people like you - super nanny staters, who thinks that the mind and body of the individual, belong to some kind of ape herd collective. You don't belong in the West - go to North Korea, or your precious Philippines.
Any soldier that hunts down people for doing drugs, deserves to be hanging by the neck from the nearest tree.
The United Nations' drug strategy of the past 10 years has been a failure, according to a major report by the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), which has called for a major rethinking of global policy on illegal narcotics.
The report claims that UN efforts to eliminate the illegal drug market by 2019 through a "war on drugs" approach has had scant effect on global supply while having negative effects on health, human rights, security and development.
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