Basically, the War on Drugs has been won!

...by the drugs.

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Is the War on Drugs an extension of the philosophy of "Supply-Side Economics?"

Deciding if the War on Drugs is a failure depends on how you measure success.

If the intention of the War on Drugs was to increase incarceration rates, strengthen gangs, destabilize society (especially the among the poor) increase fear, and waste tax-payer money, then it has been very successful indeed.

Under the War on Drugs, a large amount of wealth has been concentrated among a few individuals at the top of large gangs and cartels, while the drugs themselves have trickled down to be consumed by masses, and the "war-laws" used to jail the poor.

Under the same period after Supply-Side Reaganomics, we've seen concentration of power not only among organized crime/drug-cartels, but also among other industries as well, including media, banking, telecommunications, and many others.

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Much like crack, it's an easy way to keep US prisons full of poor black folk who rely on overworked public defenders after getting busted holding...

And while it's illegal, various law enforcement agencies get to inflate their budgets to deal with the war on drugs.

All comes down to money.

It's just so fucking amazing that they've doubled down on "until we figure out what's going on" as a yardstick for policy, I goddamn love it. All policies should be phrased like this - "the war on drugs will continue, until somebody is able to tell me what the deal is!" "No stem cell research until somebody straightens out what's with all the confusion!" "Our troops will stay in Afghanistan until we know what it is we're doing!"

America's problem is not guns, it's the awful social situation that rampant capitalism and consumerism has landed it in. Same as drugs aren't the reason why large communities of black people are stuck in the same cycle of drugs/gangs/violence/death. It's not because of the drugs, or the people themselves, it is because they are pretty much abandoned by society.

Guns are just a means to an end, and an easy one at that. They are an easy answer when you want to cause violence to someone else, or yourself.

The fact that so many people want to cause violence to others or themselves is what needs to be looked at.

I've visited many parts of the US and the people have generally struck me as friendly and polite to a fault. People will just strike up a conversation with you as if you were a long lost relative. I've had people sit with me on a public bus well past their stop just to make sure I got off at the right place. At it's heart, it's a great country. But the flip side is that currently, it's built on basic inequity and inequality. I was in LA when Katrina hit, and watching what happened was freaking unreal for me as a person who lives in an area prone to cyclones. When we get hit, the entire community bands together and takes care of each other. When New Orleans got hit, it was post apocalypse dog eat dog.

Getting rid of guns in the US won't stop inequality, it won't stop senseless accidents and it won't stop violence. The UK has had strict regulations on guns for years and *surprise* has a very high rate of knife crime. Australia introduced tough gun legislation after the massacre at Port Arthur massacre, but we didn't really have serious violence problems before that so while people claim that bans on semi-autos etc "worked", it's very hard to quantify going from "very little gun violence" to "very little gun violence" as much of a shift... It's a core difference in the social fabric of countries.

People who completely focus on banning the gun are neglecting to look at the bigger picture, and are often doing so deliberately because the bigger picture is far harder to solve. Same as the war on drugs. Regulate guns, sure, enforce safety and bring in high penalties for misuse or allowing your weapon to be misused. But banning them won't fix anything.

I don't really mind the video, thinking twice before owning a firearm is a good thing. But I think it misses the point.

*related http://videosift.com/video/everything-about-the-drug-war-and-addiction-is-wrong
*related http://videosift.com/video/Real-Time-with-Bill-Maher-Johann-Hari-on-The-War-on-Drugs

everything about the drug war and addiction is wrong has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

Real Time with Bill Maher: Johann Hari on The War on Drugs has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

This kind of attitude is depressing. It's none of your business what someone does in their spare time when no one else is affected by it. There are functioning alcoholics turning up for work pissed, flying planes, driving buses, teaching children. But no, let's go after the guy who sits in his bedroom playing music with a joint. Let's prevent him from having a life, even if he is self medicating a mental illness. It serves him right - if he's got an illness, he shouldn't be using naturally occurring medicine like our ancestors have for thousands upon thousands of years, no! He should be paying hundreds of pounds to a big pharma company for a pill that they invented a few years ago.

The premise behind drugs testing people is based on many things i disagree with:
1) the spectacular failure of the war of drugs - not only has drug use increased in the timeframe, but it has ruined probably millions of lives, needlessly turning ordinary, hard working people into criminals for no good reason other than "we like this plant, but we don't like this plant, and now neither may you"
2) the origin of the war on drugs - which iirc from a well sourced and produced video on here recently was instigated by a vindictive racist who wanted to go criminalise things that were seen as "black people" pastimes
3) the bias of the war on drugs - where drugs associated with the poor and underprivileged are relentlessly pursued to the detriment of functioning happy families across the world, but drugs associated with rich white folk such as those boardroom jockeys who snort coke in the office bathroom, nah, give them an easy time
4) the american prison business - which demands a steady supply of low cost, low maintenance, low rights workers who have no choice in the matter
5) the spreading of disinformation through formal education/popular media, and lack of actual knowledge or experience of drugs - which has led to a generation of people who now firmly believe that the moment you inhale a particle of THC (or "inject 1 marijuana" to the uninitiated), your brain turns into a fried egg, and you immediately begin stealing, cheating, and peddling dangerous items to children

Some of the brightest and best humans were influenced and inspired by drugs. If i wrote a list of people that i had the greatest respect for and who i considered to have made a positive influence on the world, half of them would almost certainly be drugs users; and i mean scientists, writers and artists. Your philosophy is a detriment to society, but thankfully as the decades pass, there are less and less with that philosophy. I loathe being blunt, but there is nothing worse than someone who feels the need to dictate to others what they should and shouldn't do on the basis of what they personally do or don't approve of.

We might get about 90 years on this planet with a bit of luck - why the hell do the minority spend so much time trying to dictate to the majority what they do with that time? And why do the majority let them? What sort of control fetish is it that inclines people to want to do that?

This guy's life has been fucking ruined by your adopted philosophy towards drugs, and you offer to help him as long as he bends to your will? How magnanimous of you to stoop to gutter level to help a mere drug-addled cretin... I think he'd tell you to stick your job, he's overqualified to work under you.

The sad thing, people like her are educated in colleges that slavery is exclusive to white people, racism is exclusive to white people, and all white people are racist.

Stop 1: This ended in 1962 per her comments. So in the time since, over half a CENTURY, people who were affected have not been able to make it out of their situation. This includes their children and grandchildren, all kept down by 'the man'.

Stop 2: Let's totally ignore the facts that the government subsidizes schools in poor districts and in many states there is a robin hood clause for school funds. Again, in the half century plus time period, there have been no changes to the system that were supposed to improve it. Let's also ignore that ALL of our schools that are not private tend to be having lower education quality. Additionally, let's ignore completely the numerous grants and special loans that are given to people of non-white and non-male status. This includes the special restrictions in place that specifically force schools to give spots in contested classes to minorities.

Stop 3: True, regrettably. You can't stop people from making assumptions.

Stop 4: Yes, but this isn't due to color, it's due to the war on drugs. Yes, crack sentences were harder because it was of epidemic proportions and the effects of crack are wildly different from regular cocaine. Rethink our war on drugs and we could easily solve this disparity.

Stop 5: True, but this goes to the heart of another issue, the failure of our police force.

Stop 6: Same as stop 5.

I've never tried pot. But even I recognize that that is one hell of a good, sensible, and logical argument FOR legalization and/or decriminalization and ending the "war on drugs".

That's all well and good, but the fact of the matter is, all cops uphold laws, many of which are simply unjust. For example, almost anything to do with the "war on drugs" makes criminals out of nonviolent offenders, ruining families, destroying lives. Cops also follow protocols that give them license to do what would land a civilian in jail, like shooting dogs at their discretion (the endless YouTube videos of this happening is nauseating). So, the profession itself involves doing things that, while "legal," are unethical and dangerous to the public.

Whatever good they may do -- bringing justice for victims and such -- is a separate issue from the not-so-good they do, like pursuing an immoral "war on drugs" that damages way too many innocent victims, destroys far too many lives, to be justified as "good." However good of a person someone is, the reality is that cops have a job that involves things like arresting and/or shooting people for victimless crimes.

The "accident" that happened in the situation in this article, for example (in which a police officer attempted to shoot a family's dog, but missed, thus killing a woman in front of her 4 year old child, instead) would never have happened if cops didn't have crazy protocols like shooting dogs at whim.

If any civilian had taken a shot at a neighbor's dog and killed the neighbor instead, however, no one would be dismissing it as an "accident." Why, then, should cops get a free pass on such things by simply claiming that their immoral and indefensible activity is "by the book?"

(Of course, the purpose of this comment is not to be hurtful to anyone. But to serve as a wake up call that police services in this country have been getting out of control, just like the rest of the state apparatus.)