The war on drugs

[mookiemookie]

Sounds interesting, and not simply because I already agree with its premise. You can be sure if the government declares "War" on a nebulous concept (drugs, poverty, hunger, etc), we're in for wasted time and money and no real progress made on the issue at all.

I'm happy to see that decriminalization of marijuana is beginning to take a foothold in this country. I'm not a user anymore, so I don't have a dog in that hunt (aside from my tax dollars) but the idea of "reefer madness" is so archaic and outdated as to be laughable.

I think in my lifetime we may see minor drug offenses turn into something akin to a speeding ticket. I believe our society will be better for it.

[CaptainHaplo]

For once, I agree with Mookie on the whole governmental "war on ________" is a waste.

To that end, lets end the war on poverty. Stop "fighting" against it with welfare.

[Wolferz]

The governments war on drugs is and has always been a pathetic excuse to incarcerate people into what has become a for profit prison system and it's cottage industries within the walls that need slave labor to fill the workforce.
When you get ten years for two joints something just ain't right.
Then there's a darker side to the whole mess. A side that I doubt the documentary even mentions. Legal drug dealers called big Pharma and a shadow government within the legitimate one, controlled by the worst drug pushers on the planet. Skull and Bones.
The old guard is finally beginning to wane and be replaced by those with more open minds.

[Armistead]

Yep, it's amazing our last 3 presidents admit to drug use, they win the highest office in the world, why millions doing the same go to jail.

[Skybird]

what stunned me was the link between ethnic minorities becoming a competitor on the job market, and tackling them by not discriminating them - formally - for being that ethnicity, what would have translated into unhidden racist arguments, but by criminalising them by criminalising previously legal consummation of typical drugs. To get rid of Chinese workers, smoking Opium was criminalised. To get rid of Mexicans, smoking cannabis was criminalised and called Marihuana. To get rid of Blacks, cocains negative effect was blown beyond proportion by raising a hysteria over "crack". The weight of the empirical links and evidences stunned me, I did not know that it all was SO MUCH pushed off balance.

reminds a bit of how beer producers demonised a threatening rival to their profits when it emerged - the "green fairy", absynth. Even the original unfiltered drink never was that great a health danger to the public, as the horror stories implied and that got started by beer producers when they had already lost 15 percent of their market to the producers of this new drink.

Frightening path the US society has embarked on. The monetarian business model of changed police rules of operation, due to declaring a policy of war on drugs, only detoriates things.

The problems are so very much homemade. Haplo, you shoot not far enough - wellfare is not the root of this evil, but the simple fact that at various points of US industrial history masses of employees suddenly were not needed anymore and thus threatened the privileged majority of workers still having jobs, which corresponded with skin coloer very much. See that film in full. There are some things to see and learn that you will not like to hear about - nevertheless are true.

[Armistead]

I haven't watched it, but seen some close. I dont think they get rid of job competition by criminalising previously legal drugs. All races get arrested for drugs. I think the bigger problem was discrimination that led to poverty which cause more crime and drug use.

I know some black leaders complain pot remains illegal, because the black man would get rich selling it, which is silly. It becomes legal, white corporate America would find a way to get the market and get rich off it.

Anyway, the prision system has become a profit system over these minor drug offenses.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Armistead

I haven't watched it, but seen some close. I dont think they get rid of job competition by criminalising previously legal drugs. All races get arrested for drugs.

Think again. Somewhere in the film they count that up to 90% of a certain drug mentioned got consumed by whites, but at that time almost 90% of all drug addicts and traders arrested in relation with that drug were blacks.

As I said, the film makes it clear that what seems to be obvious and self-offering to reason - is not reasonable and obvious at all. There are some serious things going terribly wrong. Politicians calling for even more law and order and draconic penalties just makes it worse - but they accept that since such populistic slogans get them elected.

Watch that film. For me, it is just interesting. For you, assuming you are living in America, it becomes or already is an issue of vital self-interest. Somebody in that film says at the end that the war on drugs compares to a holocaust running in slow motion. After having seen all the film I understood the truth in that apparently rhetoric phrase. And when judges, policemen and prison staff voice their criticism and resignation that openly as in that film, then this should make every American think about his own fate, where I am just listening in for reasons of curiosity. The fallout from the distorted system no longer just raisn down on the ethnic minority groups. It now has started to rain down on the white mainstream as well.