Is the war on drugs really a war against poor people?

[SimpleDon]

The fact that the war on drugs actually leads to increased drug usage and drug addiction is hardly controversial anymore. But that still begs the question why we keep doing it?

Is it really as banal as just plain old racism/contempt for the poor? Whatever groups are the most marginalized will always be the same groups most likely to take to psychoactive drugs. After all, they are the groups who have the most to be emotionally stressed about.

Thoughts on this? or is the real explanation more complicated?

If you look at the fact that jail is the only option for the poor while treatment is an option for everyone else who can afford it then I have to say that it is true that we keep doing it to punish the poor. I don't have any numbers but it is my gut feeling that we pay more to imprison the poor drug users than it would cost to treat them.

But expanding beyond drug use most of the crimes in the US are committed by the poor and the very rich. The obvious solution to the problem of high levels of crime would be to lower the incomes of the very rich and increase the incomes of the poor, forcing anyone into the mostly law abiding middle.

 

[bilby]

Addicts don't need help if addiction isn't all that bad. How much help to people who have a drink every night, or who smoke cigarettes, need?

If you smoke the odds are you'll die of smoking. That sounds like a situation where help is needed.

Do you think that making tobacco illegal would help?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you smoke the odds are you'll die of smoking. That sounds like a situation where help is needed.

Do you think that making tobacco illegal would help?

No, but I think making cigarettes something you can only get with a prescription might help keep kids from getting addicted.

 

[bilby]

Do you think that making tobacco illegal would help?

No, but I think making cigarettes something you can only get with a prescription might help keep kids from getting addicted.

And that would be good, because stopping people from doing dangerous things that they enjoy is always good, right?

Sky-diving should only be possible if you can get a doctor to give you permission to do it.
Playing golf is a major cause of lightning strikes, so obviously golf needs to be prescription only.
Clearly alcohol should only be available to people with a prescription from their doctor.

Prohibition doesn't work; Nor does requiring medical permission for recreation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No, but I think making cigarettes something you can only get with a prescription might help keep kids from getting addicted.

And that would be good, because stopping people from doing dangerous things that they enjoy is always good, right?

Sky-diving should only be possible if you can get a doctor to give you permission to do it.
Playing golf is a major cause of lightning strikes, so obviously golf needs to be prescription only.
Clearly alcohol should only be available to people with a prescription from their doctor.

Prohibition doesn't work; Nor does requiring medical permission for recreation.

Do kids realize what they're getting into when they start smoking?

 

[bilby]

And that would be good, because stopping people from doing dangerous things that they enjoy is always good, right?

Sky-diving should only be possible if you can get a doctor to give you permission to do it.
Playing golf is a major cause of lightning strikes, so obviously golf needs to be prescription only.
Clearly alcohol should only be available to people with a prescription from their doctor.

Prohibition doesn't work; Nor does requiring medical permission for recreation.

Do kids realize what they're getting into when they start smoking?

Maybe they didn't forty years ago, but I can't imagine that there are many who don't now - at least, not in the developed world. It might be different in the USA.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The depression problem is real, particularly for people who havent mitigated previous use with antioxidants.

Impossible to measure or test. Also impossible to do meaningful cohort studies as long as MDMA is illegal. We simply don´t know. Correlation does not imply causation. I saw a study on people who had been sexually molested as children. Victims of sexual abuse, in the study, had exactly the same prevalence of mental unhealth and sexual dysfunction as people who hadn´t been molested. Yet, the victims of sexual abuse blamed their mental issues on the sexual abuse. This sounds similar.

It increases with lifetime neurotoxic damage too.

Allegedly, probably. The fact that MDMA is neurotoxic at absurdly high dosages over stupidly long periods of sustained use proves absolutely nothing about the neurotoxicity of somebody who does it once a month or more seldom. We used to think that THC accumulated in the fatty tissues of the brain. We now know it doesn´t.

The drugs illegality makes it impossible to test on ordinary regular users. The only people who come into a lab are people who have developed serious mental problems after taking it.

Suicide is causaully linked to depression. Causing depression increases suicide attempts. It isn't even under dispute. After my first roll I had no 5htp for about 12-18 hours. The crash set in for about the last 4 hours, before the 5htp started working. Life was hell, and the only thing that helped was the absolute knowledge that it was purely caused by seratonin withdrawal/deficiency. Someone unaware of the aftereffects could easily take such feelings to heart, particularly someone with our any prior experience with depression.

Again: just write it on a warning label and problem solved.

 

[DrZoidberg]

If you look at the fact that jail is the only option for the poor while treatment is an option for everyone else who can afford it then I have to say that it is true that we keep doing it to punish the poor.

Rehab is free in most countries. Even countries with weak health care systems like USA or Iran. It´s not the cost of the rehab treatment that is the problem. It´s the stuff around rehab. Poor people rarely have a possibility to take a couple of months off work. That´s a much harder problem to solve. They also have less access to therapists, who can make them realize that they in fact do have an problem with addiction. Addicts in denial are absurdly common.

I don't have any numbers but it is my gut feeling that we pay more to imprison the poor drug users than it would cost to treat them.

You´re asking the wrong question. The question should be, if the goal is to get people stop using drugs, what is the most cost effective, jail or rehab? Since jail has the opposite effect and rehab sometimes actually works rehab is always preferable regardless of cost. We should send drug addicts to jail if our goal is to have as many drug addicts as possible.

 

[Axulus]

It is partially against poor people but it is also partly a racist thing. Opium became illegal and demonized when Chinese migrants came to the US and used it. Marijuana became demonized as something those Mexicans use. Crack was demonized as something those inner city blacks use. The criminal penalties for crack are far harsher than they are for cocaine, for example.

Where the hypothesis falls apart, I believe, is for psychedelics. They aren't used as often by the poor. They tend to be used by more intellectual, college aged, hippie type people. These individuals don't tend to be predominantly lower class/poor.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Where the hypothesis falls apart, I believe, is for psychedelics. They aren't used as often by the poor. They tend to be used by more intellectual, college aged, hippie type people. These individuals don't tend to be predominantly lower class/poor.

I heard a compelling argument that it is all Timothy Leary´s fault. He basically just used it as a vehicle to bang young hot girls. His research was laughably stupid, and transparent. Basically just a series of drug fueled sex orgies "to see what would happen". LSD was intimately connected to the 60´s counter culture and when that trend died there was zero political will to keep LSD legal.

But there seems to be a trend to fully legalize DMT/Ayahuasca. It gives a short high. Is non-euphoric. Non-addictive. Completely harmless to the brain. Yet gives the user extraordinarily powerful hallucinations. Also of religious significance to all native South American religions. It´s already legal in all of South America as well as Portugal and the Netherlands.

 

[KeepTalking]

And that would be good, because stopping people from doing dangerous things that they enjoy is always good, right?

Sky-diving should only be possible if you can get a doctor to give you permission to do it.
Playing golf is a major cause of lightning strikes, so obviously golf needs to be prescription only.
Clearly alcohol should only be available to people with a prescription from their doctor.

Prohibition doesn't work; Nor does requiring medical permission for recreation.

Do kids realize what they're getting into when they start smoking?

It is already illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to use tobacco. Your point is moot.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Do kids realize what they're getting into when they start smoking?

It is already illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to use tobacco. Your point is moot.

That's not that much of a deterrent.

- - - Updated - - -

Do kids realize what they're getting into when they start smoking?

Maybe they didn't forty years ago, but I can't imagine that there are many who don't now - at least, not in the developed world. It might be different in the USA.

Since almost nobody starts smoking past the teen years I think it's mostly a matter of ignorance/denial.

 

[KeepTalking]

It is already illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to use tobacco. Your point is moot.

That's not that much of a deterrent.

Making something illegal is not much of a deterrent, so you advocate making that same thing more illegal? How absurd.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's not that much of a deterrent.

Making something illegal is not much of a deterrent, so you advocate making that same thing more illegal? How absurd.

Having your name on the pack of cigarettes would be a deterrent to providing them to others. It would also pretty much completely preclude the please-buy-me-a-pack-of-smokes bit.

 

[Jarhyn]

In most places there are little to no laws regulating the purchase of 'e-cigs' and the nicotine liquids they use. It is mostly an oversight of laws referencing 'tobacco' and 'tobacco products' rather than addressing nicotine.

And the thing is, there are a few reasons people pick up nicotine use. I do on rare occasions because it lends a chill, social flavor to get-togethers. It is a mild stimulant and a mood lifter. It's reason enough for me to host hookah parties with friends. To that extent, I started smoking when I was 27.

That said, hookah is out of the price range of poor people, as are e-cigs, and cigarettes are painfully expensive...

 

[bilby]

Making something illegal is not much of a deterrent, so you advocate making that same thing more illegal? How absurd.

Having your name on the pack of cigarettes would be a deterrent to providing them to others. It would also pretty much completely preclude the please-buy-me-a-pack-of-smokes bit.

I take it you have never been a smoker? Or interacted socially with a group of human beings?

Seriously, back when I was a smoker, I learned to roll my own, because being seen in possession of a packet of 20 tailor-mades was like being the only person with a brain in a zombie hoard. Having your name on a packet of cigarettes would do fuck-all to stop every other bastard in the entire factory from making a bee-line for you whenever you took the pack out of your pocket. If 'Sorry mate, it's my last one' doesn't do it, how the fuck would 'look, my name is on the packet' help?

Shit, even writing your name on your lunch doesn't deter some bugger from eating it on your behalf.

Over here, cigarette packets have nothing on them except the name of the brand in small letters, and some huge and gross pictures of diseased body parts with big warnings saying that this is your future if you dare open the pack. All packs must be the same deliberately ugly shade of grey-green. Do you seriously think that putting the purchaser's name on the pack would make them less attractive to kids than they already are?

 

[KeepTalking]

Making something illegal is not much of a deterrent, so you advocate making that same thing more illegal? How absurd.

Having your name on the pack of cigarettes would be a deterrent to providing them to others. It would also pretty much completely preclude the please-buy-me-a-pack-of-smokes bit.

Not at all, it would just make a new black market industry over night. People already sell 'loosies' on the street, and it would not take much to remove your name from the pack, and then resell the pack at a hefty profit. Hell, when I was in the USAF, and was a smoker, I made money selling packs of cigarettes in the dorm, just because some people were too lazy to hike down to the BX. I could pick up a carton for $5, and sell the packs for $1 each. I usually only smoked a pack or two out of the entire carton, and sold the rest.

 

[braces_for_impact]

What we see in places like Switzerland is that addicts can get a script from their doctor and keep using while social services helps them fix what's wrong with their life. Once those issues are addressed, many addicts stop using altogether, on their own. Contrast that with here, if a doctor finds out you're abusing he has to immediately cut you off and refer you for treatment (or face prosecution himself for drug dealing) making it very unlikely the patient will ever ask for help.

We have a culturally reinforced idea of what addiction is like that is a false view. We think that you use drugs, they get their hooks into you, and then you're addicted, but that's simply not the way it works. How many come out of the hospital after long periods of time taking pure heroine (morphine) and are addicted? Not many. We're all familiar with the experiment about the mouse that was put in a cage with water or heroine and left to his own devices. Eventually the mouse kept choosing the drug, losing interest in anything else until it died. The problem though is the experiment, not the drug. These mice were put into a shitty, boring cage. Put them into a nice cage, full of lots of places to go, things to play with, and items to stimulate the mouse, and they hardly touch the drug, much less get addicted, even though it's freely available. (I'm at work and can't link to this experiment, but I can find it later if anyone is interested.) Shitty lives cause addiction. Not drugs.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What we see in places like Switzerland is that addicts can get a script from their doctor and keep using while social services helps them fix what's wrong with their life. Once those issues are addressed, many addicts stop using altogether, on their own. Contrast that with here, if a doctor finds out you're abusing he has to immediately cut you off and refer you for treatment (or face prosecution himself for drug dealing) making it very unlikely the patient will ever ask for help.

Yup, this is how we should address it.