The War on Black people / War on drugs satisfies the needs of too many americans who profit and wish to continue the implementation of New Jim Crow. Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy worked, but private prisons, drug treatment centers, police departments, DEA and a host of other entrenched institutions would be laying off 100's of thousands of employees the moment real legalization and treatment initiatives become standard nationwide. Simply put the cure is a profit and job killer and the free market can't have that.

The problem is that people are short-sighted. We HATE spending money on something if it doesn't
a) measurably improve my life in some way or
b) fix an obvious problem.
I'm guilty of this too.

Nice meal out? great!
Holiday? Fantastic!
New bike/snowboard/toy? Awesome!

Even if something breaks, your brain is ok with spending money to fix it.

"Damnit, the element broke in the oven! Ahh well, better go get a replacement"

But getting my car serviced? Ugh, it's running fine!
Intellectually, I know that spending some money now will save me more in the long run, but I am still irrationally annoyed by it.

Drug treatment is the same. If you spend money on drug treatment, crime doesn't get committed. Because crimes aren't being committed people see drug treatment as a waste of money.

Prevention is always harder to see the benefits of than cure.

Plus, it's REALLY easy to blame drug-related crime on drug users. It's easy political points, whereas saying you want to spend tax payer dollars on potential criminals? Admit it, even if you're liberal, reading that sentence triggers some mild outrage in your lizard brain.

*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Tuesday, July 11th, 2017 6:49am PDT - promote requested by eric3579.