Parents: Watch out for Salvia!!!

[Jason Rees]

So here's your dilemma. Do you make it illegal to use it if you don't make X amount of money per month? Make it legal only if you have a job? A large number of companies have rules forbidding employment of drug users. So when they fire these people, do you think they'll simply stop using the stuff?

You can't make it legal for some and illegal for others. And there's no such thing as 'responsible' cocaine users. The stuff's illegal. Kinda like saying a drunk driver's 'responsible' so long as he doesn't get in an accident.

[TSDguy]

People are responsible at anything as long as they don't infringe on others rights. If I am ever put on a jury regarding drug use, I will exercise my right to not uphold those laws and refuse to convict anyone of anything drug related.

I seriously doubt you've never broken a law. I know Bill does and he insists he's a responsible driver, although I disagree.

[Bill Glasheen]

Since the early 1970s the prison and jail population in the United States has increased at an unprecedented rate. The more than 500% rise in the number of people incarcerated in the nation’s prisons and jails has resulted in a total of 2.2 million people behind bars.

This growth has been accompanied by an increasingly disproportionate racial
composition, with particularly high rates of incarceration for African
Americans...

Others have already commented some. I'll comment more.

I do have first hand information on these kinds of statistics. I could refer you to five papers I published on burn injuries, that showed a dramatically disproportionately high risk of burns for African Americans. Does this mean that fire discriminates? Not at all. In my studies, race was used as a proxy for the real underlying drivers.

• As was stated above, socioeconomic status is a major driver. It is a matter of fact that a disproportionate number of African Americans live in urban environments where "nurture" can lead to a life of crime.
• The characterization of incarceration as somehow "racist" (explicitly or implied) is misinformed. In addition to socioeconomic status, a disproportionate number of African American men grow up in homes without a father. Unfortunately LBJ's "War on Poverty" had an unintended consequence - the breakup of the African American family unit. The economic incentive was there for fathers not to stay at home, and mothers to draw on welfare. That works fine until junior becomes a teenager. Trust me on this one - a male teenager in a home without a father is a male at very high risk of incarceration. I know for a fact that my wife wouldn't be able to handle my boys without me.

Also... the dramatic rise in incarceration was caused by two separate drivers

• Demographics. Males ages 18 to 30 are the group at highest probability of being incarcerated. It's a testosterone thing. When the population bulges in that age band, incarceration rates go up.
• Mandatory sentencing. Many states grew weary of recidivism and lenient judges. Forcing the hand with mandatory punishments for specific crimes - right or wrong - drives up the numbers in prison.

C'mon Bill, you are capable of much better stuff.....

I'm sure you don't really think, as this implies that we are shipping in the talent that fills the prisons of this country.. Right?

In short, it's selection bias. One cannot make a valid statistical comparison without randomization, or some equivalent. We are hardly a random selection of folks from other countries, and we certainly don't look like we all came from the same family.

Even within this country, you will note differences in racial, socioeconomic, and ethnic mixes. Those who came across the pond are different than those who chose to stay in the Old Country. Even William Penn started a colony from individuals in debtor's prison. Those who moved west in the gold rush are different from those who stayed on the east coast. Those who come up north from Mexico are different from those who stayed. Those who were captured and sold as slaves from Africa are different than those who were doing the capturing.

Now... Mix all those groups together. Oops... They don't quite. We are a heterogenous society in many, many ways.

It is the enigma of the U.S.

Now... Throw in a little "land of opportunity" (NOT entitlement) and freedom. No socialist Nanny State here. You have the choice to work hard and achieve. You also have the choice to live life unwisely, and end up afoul of the law. We have more CHOICES here. Not all choices are good.

I'd rather have the choices. That in my book is freedom.

It is what it is.

- Bill

[IJ]

"Cocaine is not the problem here, the person is the problem. I don't support gun regulation but I do support making shooting random people in the face illegal."

As we all know, that's already illegal. The question is, what approach to the drug problem is going to minimize the problems drugs cause, given that they ARE harmful, they DO result in harm beyond the users AND the war on drugs is a joke. People can still get their stuff without too much work and there's a murderous black market that's causing its own problems. Here in San Diego it's no surprise whatsoever to hear that another policeman in Tijauna was murdered along with his young children and wife for fighting the drug trade. Money is the ultimate motivator sadly.

"People willing to murder for drugs are going to murder regardless of anything I do."

Right... I got sidetracked there. Back to the person shot in the face: will harsh penalties for the perp (if caught), or the knowledge that she died for the principle of deregulation, make her less dead? Not really. Will people get shot over drug money at some rate in any scenario? Sure! Does that mean we shouldn't figure out which one is best rather than throw up our hands??

"No, legalizing drugs like cocaine is an experiment doomed to failure. I scoff at the idea of making common plants illegal, but cocaine and other narcotics like it have an established record."

I'm confused... do we ban the next common plant that develops a record? Is pot a common plant? And why does legalizing cocaine doom us to failure? The war on drugs has already failed: despite billions of dollars, many lives, and incarcerations and seizures, availability is good, prices are down, purity has gone up (I'm not speaking to the exact now of the market, but I know these things have happened during the drug war). So people who really want drugs get them. Does this mean that their having them legally and with restrictions is going to make things worse? Especially after we take all the money spent on fighting the drug war and put it to use on treatment and prevention?

"Go deal with people on meth, crack, or regular cocaine on a regular basis, then tell me you want to make the stuff legal. Deal with their families and their victims. Drug abuse isn't a victimless crime."

I'm 100% sold on the idea that drug abuse is bad. I worked two shifts at a prison this last week and met heroin addicts, alcohol addicts, meth addicts and a cocaine abuser. Also run into a fair number of them at my main worksite. Thing is, those people ARE using right now; illegality hasn't helped. Just because something is bad doesn't mean trying to ban it is going to reduce its harm.

San Diego used to have a street racing problem--with fatalities. After the city created a legal venue for racing, with safety precautions, deaths went way down. Alcohol and cigarettes are the other great examples: do we say their immense harm justifies their banning? We know already that the "experiment that fails" is actually prohibition. That's why I support the legality of these drugs (with education, taxes, and restriction) even though with all the hoopla about illegal drugs, what I see 5-10x as much death and destruction from every day at work is from alcohol and tobacco. The challenger is heroin and some meth abuse, but not from the drugs--the needles and the HIV / AIDS / Hep C they've spread have loaded up plenty 'o hospital beds as well. What might needle exchange have accomplished?

[fivedragons]

Cocaine and heroin abuse are and have been illegal for a really long time. Right now, if I wanted to, I could buy heroin or cocaine. So could anyone else. As a matter of fact, right now there are people across the country and all over the world engaging in illicit drug use. It's been happening for centuries beyond measure. There are different species of wild animals who have been discovered to use mind altering substances in times of stress.

You know during prohibition the people who profited were the bootleggers and smugglers. JFK probably wouldn't have been elected president if it weren't for prohibition.

Ever heard of Joseph Kennedy?

The only people who benefit from criminalization are the people who have the means to control distribution and pricing.

Follow the money.

Ever wonder why marijuana was criminalized in the first place? It happened quite recently. No reason for it. Sorry. How many people have spent time in cages because of laws that have no basis in reality.

Follow the money.

Ever wonder how all that excellent cocaine and heroin manages to find it's way to the streets of America?

Follow the money.

I imagine if you have a WAR ON DRUGS, you have a pretty good way of controlling the distribution and pricing of "illegal" (read: immoral, evil, not like us) substances.

Just think of all the people who would be hurt by decriminalization.

No one wants to lose control of pricing and distribution of a cash cow. Better start a WAR ON DRUGS.

[fivedragons]

So, lets look at the Iran-Contra thing. Happened in the eighties, lots of people on "trial".

Sell arms to Iran. Use the money to fund terrorists in Central America.

What comes from down there?

What happened in America in the eighties?

Besides the WAR ON DRUGS.

[Laird2]

With freedom comes responsibility. If you can't behave responsibly, you lose your freedom. No citizen is entitled to freedom if (s)he can't abide by the rule of law.

I don't buy the criticism of the U.S. from any country that doesn't have the same ethnic diversity and collection of those fleeing from other countries and governments.

No one is criticising your nation Bill. Ian claimed the land of the free. I just pointed out you not a poster nation for freedom .

Bill are you claiming that Americans are 7 times as irresponsible as Canadians, Europeans, Austrialians etc.?

The price of freedom?

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

Yeah it's a poem it's been bronzed and is hung in the liberty museum.

How ever your nation does not have an open door immigration policy does it. It's not the melting pot claimed.

Europe haves much more diversity on a cultural scale and on an ethnic scale . Their melting pot is not based on everyone becoming white christians. Bottom line I can not believe that the USA is so poor at processing immigrants that they incarsarate at a higher rate than those other poster nations for freedom, Russian and South Africa. Actually your at a higher rate than both of these gental nations. Your certainly letting a wee bit of chaff into your nation acording to what you are telling me Bill.

With that invitation, you're going to get some chafe mixed in with the wheat. It is what it is. Personally I'd rather have the ethnic and social diversity we have, and I'll accept the risk for picking up a few bad apples along the way. Life is so much more interesting that way. There's no pressing need to travel the world when most cultures are represented right within our own shores. And no other country has the same volume of creative juices flowing from the salad bowl of minds and ways of thinking.

- Bill

No one is criticising your nation Bill. Ian claimed the land of the free. I just pointed out you not a poster nation for freedom .

Bill are you claiming that Americans are 7 times as irresponsible as Canadians, Europeans, Austrialians etc.?

The price of freedom? These nations if given your population base would have around 315,000 in the penal system not 2.2 million.

You sugest irresponsible immigants. I sugest the war on drugs. Canada probably has a more diverse culture and allows for a much more diverse influx of people than america. But don't take my word for it look up the demographics .

[Laird2]

Laird:

This growth has been accompanied by an increasingly disproportionate racial composition, with particularly high rates of incarceration for African Americans, who now constitute 900,000 of the total 2.2 million incarcerated population.

The disproportionate composition has more to do with urban populations than race. More African-Americans live in bad neighborhoods and continue the cycle. Economic disparity can't be resolved until urban cultures reverse their self-destructive habits. Replace African-American populations with Caucasions, Latinos, etc, etc, and it will not change anything except the makeup of prison populations.

The exponential increase in the use of incarceration has had modest success at best in producing public safety,1 while contributing to family disruption and the weakening of informal social controls in many African American communities.

What kind of family would be maintained by the person who would otherwise be in jail? I don't know if you've noticed, but these guys aren't model father figures.

Good post Jason, I agree, poor folks will always do the time not many rich folks inside. Poor folks also do most of the fighting and dying in wars.

I'm not really concerned if almost half the prisoners in the system are drawn from 12 % of the population, I'm more interested in why americans are put in the big house at 7 times the rate of other nations.

Bill spun off a bunch of BS about being a melting pot for the worlds effluence, but thats BS,most of the nations with lower rates of imprisonment per capita also have much more generous imigration standards than the USA.

Has it always been this way, or is it the war on drugs?

I just don't understand why you have so many people in the system.

[IJ]

The idea that the people beyond the war on drugs fight it because they benefit from controlling the availability and pricing of the drugs is a bit much. First, there isn't a shred of proof. Second, that degree of conspiracy isn't necessary. People stand to benefit in much less convoluted, nefarious ways by making their politics appear to be tough on drugs. People don't think about the complexities of substance control while watching a 15 second commerical about their representative. Drugs bad therefore fight drugs is good enough, and that political posturing is enough of an explanation; we don't need a massive conspiracy, or aliens involved. See Occam's razor...

The idea that the degree of freedom a country permits can be measured by its percent inmate population is also a bit much. What if two countries with the same prohibitions and violation rates had different enforcement systems? If the cops can't catch the crooks that doesn't make the citizens freer. And what is more or less free about a country where murder is sentanced to 5 or 50 years? The better way to measure freedom in a country is what citizens are allowed to do among the activities that don't impinge on others. Other than not being able to legally use drugs, which I don't want to do, there isn't a whole lot america has denied me (a breakthrough came not long ago when laws purposelessly, hatefully, nastilly interfering with my private consensual sexual life (and everyone else's) were struck down). Just what is it that I'm missing?

PS: america is not pressuring everyone to become white and christian; we do have a huge, rather disproportionate evangelical fundamentalist middle, but we have a proud tradition of religious freedom and of course no one is pressuring people to become white, whether or not racism still exists. Seriously, the only race swapping I've seen is Michael Jackson black to white and now Robert Downey Jr is white to black in what appears to be a potential worst movie of the year. While it's probably impossible to be a nonChristian president, that's a popularity contest and is different from any pressure on individuals.

[JimHawkins]

The idea that the people beyond the war on drugs fight it because they benefit from controlling the availability and pricing of the drugs is a bit much.

I assume you meant 'people behind'?

If so you'd have to specify whom "the people behind" are.. Then you might have a better chance at determining a motive.

The War On Drugs ensures that the "drug problem" remains a static fixture in our society.

Whom/what really benefits keeping the status quo? Follow the money, the power and the control.

The list is short but telling..

Yet we know even the CIA uses illicit drugs in all sorts of nefarious ways to further its compartmentalized ends..

Via decriminalization and control the government could make tons of money taxing legalized sales. More than enough money to pay for vast rehab programs--that could begin to help addicts recover. But this isn't about logic, as even here--we see many arguments completely avoid it.

TWOD/policies and substances are tools that serve a purpose, as is. It's not really about trying to tackle the issue, otherwise things would change. If you rock the boat the rats will fall off--and right now they're steering. But it's all for a good cause..

[Bill Glasheen]

Whom/what really benefits keeping the status quo? Follow the money, the power and the control.

***

Via decriminalization and control the government could make tons of money taxing legalized sales. More than enough money to pay for vast rehab programs--that could begin to help addicts recover. But this isn't about logic, as even here--we see many arguments completely avoid it.

TWOD/policies and substances are tools that serve a purpose, as is. It's not really about trying to tackle the issue, otherwise things would change. If you rock the boat the rats will fall off--and right now they're steering. But it's all for a good cause..

Whenever I see programs that purport to do "good" by taxing vice, red flags are raised in my brain.

Indeed, it continues to be about the money. When the government taxes tobacco out the yin yang, then the government becomes addicted to tobacco. Sure, everyone (including my friend Ian) talks about how it reduces consumption. Unfortunately government never met a tax it didn't like. Incentives are there to make sure that tobacco continues to be grown. Economists are brought in to make estimates on the supply/demand elasticity, and a "right sized" tax to maximize revenue. After all, those taxes are funding all those good "prevention" programs, right? And what government can avoid the temptation of robbing Peter to pay Paul? Now if tobacco production falls, we have to cut out that school lunch program or that highway improvement program, or... or... Before you know it, perverse incentives abound.

Remember me railing against the stupid program here in Virginia that "taxed" speeding drivers to pay for a highway fund? That lasted ... oh ... about half a year before the citizens revolted. And good on them!

<sigh>

It's never that simple.

- Bill

[Jason Rees]

Laird:

Has it always been this way, or is it the war on drugs?

I just don't understand why you have so many people in the system.

Because the social network is falling apart at the seams. People don't know how to deal with one another, much less themselves, and there are more and more of us. People used to be guided and kept in check by at least social laws. Those who fell out were fewer between. Nowadays we have a society that allows this:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... to_sf.html

In the face of that, how do you tell people to behave? But that's just my opinion.

[Jason Rees]

Ian, I'm not convinced the War on Drugs is working. Nor am I convinced that things will get better if the War on Drugs is cancelled. I don't really have any answers. Drug rehabilitation is shaky, and criminals on drugs make everyone around them have a bad day. On the other hand, I agree with you that people are using the wrong measuring stick for freedom. If China's prison population is smaller, even percentage-wise, than the U.S., it's because they execute 'criminals' on a dime, and charge the family for the cost of the bullet. I guess to some that's the ultimate freedom, but it leaves me shivering.

Jim, FiveDragons, etc... You guys seem to latch on to every conspiracy theory out there. I'm not buying that the CIA and shadowy government organizations are behind everything. Life's just too messy, you know what I mean?

I agree with both Laird and Bill on a lot of things. Right now, unfortunately, I'm too occupied to congeal something coherent from that disparity.

[IJ]

Jim writes:

"If so you'd have to specify whom "the people behind" are.. Then you might have a better chance at determining a motive. The War On Drugs ensures that the "drug problem" remains a static fixture in our society."

The war on drugs KINDA ensures this problem persists in our society, but only because fighting an unwinnable war means a long engagement. Rolling over to total legalization OR to controlled legalization will ensure that the "drug problem" remains a static fixture. ANY approach ensures it will remain a fixture because they're problematic and entincing. Whatcha gonna do? I don't think we can fault any potential solution for not ending the issue for all time, as that is totally impossible.

Bill writes that giving government a stake in drugs means they are addicted to them, presumably bad because that prevents eradication. Of course, we already know we can't outlaw tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs and expect them to go away. They will remain, along with the problems of their black markets. It's not as if we'd be eliminating tobacco if the government didn't get a share. Other than the taint of getting money from drugs, what is the problem? Can we... plan our intervention such that the government is not permitted to take any steps to maximize their take, such as requiring that all the proceeds go into treatment and prevention and that taxes are set to just barely prevent the black market? I just haven't seen anything convincing me that government involvement would prolong or fail to minimize drug use. Bill?

I share Jason's uncertainty about the best approach. But I think it's time to do the experiment and see if controlled legalization works, because unrestricted access despite a ban sure isn't doing anything except generating a war.

I may be misreading the link about prostitution in San Fran. The wording of the law appears to me to forbid the funding of prosecution of PROSTITUTES (of any age), rather than the funding of prosecution of PIMPS, especially PIMPS of KIDS. And I would rather see the city helping rather than charging a 12-14 year old (0r 14-18, or 18+) prostitute. I kinda like the measure and find it in line with one of my prior ideas for drugs: at least stop prosecuting users and focus on charging peddlers. Money diverted from busting users and prostitutes that's spent on pushers and abusive > other pimps would be an improvement in my mind.

[JimHawkins]

The war on drugs KINDA ensures this problem persists in our society, but only because fighting an unwinnable war means a long engagement.

Well fighting a 'war' that cannot be won means an infinite engagement, if the end of the war is dependent on winning it.

Rolling over to total legalization OR to controlled legalization will ensure that the "drug problem" remains a static fixture. ANY approach ensures it will remain a fixture because they're problematic and entincing.

Doesn't this depend on what we mean by "drug problem"? If we view all the ugly aspects mentioned here as parts of the "drug problem" then I don't see all aspects remaining fixed if the approach is changed. I'm sure there are plenty of contrasting approaches used in other countries that we could use to measure variations in success, from various standpoints.

No problem is unsolvable, in varying degrees.. No set of conditions exist in a vacuum. When/if the root causes of these problems are minimized we'll see vast changes/vast reductions in the "drug problem"...