Are we winning the war on drugs???

Question

The Atlantic Monthly | July/August 2007
The Agenda
The World In Numbers
Snow Fall
Attacking cocaine at its source was meant to drive up prices, yet U.S. street dealers are selling it for less than ever.
by Ken Dermota
If the four-year slog in Iraq seems endless, consider this: The “war on drugs,” begun by Richard Nixon, escalated under Ronald Reagan, and continued by every president since, is now in its 37th year. In this long struggle, the past few months have been especially fruitful. In March, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a freighter off Panama laden with 20 tons of cocaine, in the largest maritime bust ever. That was followed in April by Colombian authorities’ seizure of a 15-ton cache most likely awaiting shipment to Mexico.
Of course, the good news is soured by the fact that cocaine production remains robust enough to allow shipment in 20-ton batches. The Coast Guard would need to repeat its recent haul about every two weeks to intercept all the cococaine that Colombia sends north, and there’s no guarantee traffickers wouldn’t just ship more to make up for the losses, as they have always done.

Answer 1

We're three for three in lost causes. The war on drugs, the war on poverty and the global war on terror. I would include Iraq but that's a conflict and occupation, not a war. As long as people have existed they have wanted to change their everyday perception of reality. Alcohol is legal and the number one drug of abuse in this country, but if I smoke a joint, I'm a criminal. De-criminalize or legalize and let Americans make their own choices like our constitution says we have the right to do.

Answer 2

There are three factors to pricing:
1. Demand. If fewer people are buying drugs, people will have to unload their drugs at a lower price.

2. Pricing. Even if the demand was high, drug cartels and drug dealers will unload at a lower price to undercut the other guys. This is known as "dumping" and applies with any business. You can even sell a product at a loss in order to force others out of the business and then you jack up the price. There are a lot of illegal stuff to go around, so with everyone undercutting everyone else, the price drops.

3. Supply. This is often cited as the U.S. losing the war on drugs. People will grow and ship drugs even when there is no buyer, just the assumption that there is a buyer. Does all the drugs made get used? Probably not nearly as much as being sent. Some gets confiscated, some gets used, but most gets stored.

Answer 3

The answer is NO! The reason is that you cannot win a war by simply refusing to alter your tactics.

See if you agree with the following points -
1) Some people in each generation will try drugs dispite any and all educational programmes about the dangers.
2) Some of these people will get addicted.
3) Once addicted, they will do whatever it takes to obtain the drugs.
4) There will be people willing to supply drugs no matter what the legal deterrents (prison, even death).
5) Some of these people will succeed in smuggling the drugs.

Does this not mean that a simple prohibition can never work ?

Prohibitions have never achieved the target of the lawmakers who set them up. The best example (clearest) of this is Americas prohibition on drink that led to organised crime having incredible monetary resources and power by the time prohibition was ended.

There is only one way to win the war on drugs and that is to remove the financial incentive to supply the illegal trade.
Because the drug trade is kept profitable only by current addicts, there are 2 ways to remove the incentive.
The first is to remove the addicts (either inhuman or too expensive), but the second is to provide legal and controlled access to current addicts.

The benefits of the second option are huge, the single drawback is that it is polictically 'brave'.

In the UK the Lib-Dems are considering this option and as the father of 2 young sons, they will have my support if they do. I want this stuff unavailable to infect the next generation.

What would be the point of trying to smuggle, distribute or sell drugs when as soon as someone becomes addicted they can access legal supplies - on condition they supply information on dealers ?

Those policitians who cannot change insist on claiming that people who disagree with their tactics are 'soft on drugs/crime'.
I think the more appropriate charge is that they are themselves 'soft on drug barons'.

We don't need to fight harder - just smarter.

Answer 4

The real war on drugs can only be won by changing the minds of the people who use them to create less demand. Many in our society are lonely because their upbringings entailed more human interraction than we have today. The drugs seem to make it more comfortable to not communicate and just be around people and not have any answers to any questions have to be answered or asked. Our society seems to run on a handful of individuals paid to provide services and goods, many people just on a welfare ride and seemingly without any purpose except to report for duty and collect a paycheck. More and more less vital services are being performend by the masses. People that don't feel needed, feel anxiety from the detox of the crisis they witnessed in younger years or were told about and spend more time worrying about whether things will be ok in the future and can douse that seemingly quite effectively with the drugs. Until we can replace that mentality with some coexistance that makes each persons response desireable and requested and required in a graceful manner, drugs will be the anxiety quencher. I remember being very active as a child with other humans, not sega master or nintendo, machines etc. We need more of that today.

Answer 5

NO, because while we are trying to tell people in other countries they can't grow plants to produce narcotics, they are joining narco-terrorist groups, that end up costing even more money and lives.
The only purposes the drug wars serve, is:
1) a trillion dollar income for the federal government
2) increased cash flow through the economy
3) making anyone who buys anything flagged as related to drug use or manufacture, a suspect that can be raided for suspicion at any time.
4) to drive up the street price, so drug dealers can make more money that university graduates.

The only way to win the war on drugs, is to make them less available. the only way to do that is to make sure they have no value for drug dealers. This can be achieved in several ways:
1) decriminalize, regulate heavily and tax
2)full blown decriminalization, but restrict retail sales,
all the while educating children at an earlier age about what drugs really do, rather than lying to them liek they have done for decades.

Answer 6

no, its a war that the government wants to lose. if they won, the jails would not be full, which is a big money maker for them. the us sells the chemical that turns the leaves into cocain to columbia to this day. you bust a dealer, there will be 20 more to take his place, and our government knows this. the only way to control it at all is to legalize it. it sounds impressive that they confiscated that much, but just like the death of a soldier in afgahnistan, it means nothing in the overall picture. they will never change. theres too much money involved. you could compare the government to the mafia, the only difference is the mafia cares about their own.

Answer 7

Check out Rep. Maxine Waters on the subject. She knows the details and reported them several years ago. When you understand who is supplying the drugs you will know why it has only grown into a worse problem with very little enforcement.
The drug business is huge business estimated to be in the area of $800,000,000,000 a year. The money is being laundered through large corporations that are exempt from the money exchange laws.

Answer 8

like with any vice, the american public will continue to do what the american public has always done. find a way to do it, no ifs ands or buts. america would win the war on drugs if they legalized any and all cotrolled substances, placed high taxes on the sale of said substances. what is redbull? what is a cup of coffee with three expresso shots? stimulants!! all of them! no real big difference to me, except for all the bad press illegal drugs have gotten throughout the years for being illegal. people are always gonna find a way to fill the supply when there is indeed a demand. always! do we go to work drunk? do prohibit the sale of certain substances to children. it could work! just like the war on organized crime back in the early 20th century for bootleggin. ban the ban on any vice and the war would eventually dissapate to nothing. we would however have a whole new set of problems to deal with, buts thats a whole new story. the answer to your question is no, we are losing and we will always lose when we go against human nature, it is in fact our nature to do the things we are told not to do.

Answer 9

what war?
I have to laugh. Few care about the use of drugs in this country. Every once in a while, we'll hear about a 'bust' somewhere....a couple of million or more stuffed in a friggen fridge somewhere.
In reality, there is no war on drugs.
Fact is, we're not even sure if some of our own leaders/representative aren't on the stuff themselves...
No. I don't use..but it's rather obvious that people use whatever drug they want nowadays.

Answer 10

Nope, same with the war on poverty, and while I support the war on POverty I still question the logic of the war on drugs especially after our national experience with Prohibition, some people neber learn I guess