"Japan's advances into China were unlawful as a member of the League of Nations, and the rest of the world did not condone it, though they were so pacifist that they didn't intervene. Embargoes are the only non-militant way to get a nation to do your bidding. If you can't beat 'em, starve 'em haha. Its exactly what the UN has done time and time again over the past half century."

The US policy had a lot to do with Japan's actions in China. I don't deny that, but at the same time we can't continue to portray Japan's response to American actions (which itself were a response to the possibility of the Open Door policy being shut down by Japan) as unprovoked or a "sneak attack". The US wanted war with Japan more than Japan wanted war with the US. Whether this is justified or not is a different story, but the usual narrative about Pearl Harbor relies on a heavy dose of amnesia.

"Has decriminalization of marijuana led to decreased drug violence in California? Nope, it has only increased it. Legalizing drugs is yet another utopian libertarian scheme that is a disaster in practice. "

Exactly. That's why decriminalization is the worst thing you can do. What needs to happen is for drugs to be legalized so that they're on the same level as tobacco and alcohol. Then the price will plummet since legitimate companies will be able to get into the business and the main source of revenue for the cartels will plummet. Illegality is a huge markup on price, since a criminal business had much more risk that has to be passed on to the consumer, as it were. If drugs were legal they'd be cheaper, and there would be a great deal less violence since the cartels and other gangs would not be fighting to control territory to make their truckloads of money. You'd still have the socially poisonous effects of drug use, but without the huge amounts of money being used to fund organized crime.

Ideally, hard drugs would be given out for free to addicts in clinics, with the option of rehab if the people there want it. Here's one instance where I'm totally for the government crowding out private enterprise. It's absolutely a pipe dream, but it would work.


"And anyway, it's hard to provoke a war when crime in US border towns is among the lowest in the country."

Even if that's true, and everything Big Sis says ought to be taken with a pinch of salt, there's still the undeniably awful situation in Mexico. My pledge son's from Monterrey, and has all kinds of stories about how rough it's gotten. All we need is something like a prominent assassination or some other crisis in the Southwest generally to set up the scenario for mission creep in Mexico to set in.

I read the article, by the way.

First of all many drugs, such as crack, are already cheap regardless of legality.

Second of all, the only way drug prices "plummet" by virtue of eliminating the black market is if all restrictions on all drugs are eliminated and no taxes whatsoever are placed on drugs. As soon as any restriction or tax is put on anything, a black market will emerge. You mention tobacco, organized crime activity related to the tobacco trade is thriving despite its legality. A similar phenomenon occurred when opiates were legal, but tariffs were placed on them.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/6/10/nation/20100610110330&sec=nation

So, the question is, is the solution to crime and violence capitulation, in which we allow a free for all in which cheap dangerous drugs are so widely and legally available that they are cheap and therefore do not induce any sort of black market. I think the social consequences of such a policy would be horrific, and while we might discourage black-market crime we would cause massive increases in purchase-related crime and drug-induced crime. Because believe-it-or-not, drug use increases the likelihood that people will engage in violence or robbery.

@Putin - "Because believe-it-or-not, drug use increases the likelihood that people will engage in violence or robbery. "

Citation please? I choose to believe that it is the cost to obtain combined with the *need* to obtain that leads to the robbery, although I will accept that *certain* drugs make one inherently violent, not all drugs do. Cannabis, for instance, is a mellowing drug that does *not* induce paranoia and the violence that results from it. Arguably, alcohol leads to violence (bar fights, domestic violence, etc.) more than any other single drug. Let's do away with beer.

Putin, I think you're just yet to try the right drugs.

@Yonni - very irresponsible of you. First, I would *never* advocate anyone trying any drug, illicit or otherwise. I occasionally smoke a pipe or cigar and have a drink maybe once a month, but besides caffeine, those are the only things I have ever partaken of. And I wouldn't recommend anyone trying those. The caffeine is almost unavoidable, but could be done, and the other two are completely avoidable, so don't even do them.

You can't compare the current scenario with drugs with the current scenario with cigarettes. With drugs every penny goes to a criminal, while with cigarettes is far from that even with the mob and your lovely North Korea running black market smokes. The very existence of a totally legal pot market would be a huge blow to the amount of money made by the cartels. That's why they were against California's imperfect legalization program last election.

As for anything harder, the government should give it out for free in clinics. Addicts who go there would have the option of rehab but it would not be compulsory to keep them from being scared away. A totally free source of drugs would make any kind of illegal trade impossible since nobody's going to pay for something they can get for free. This will also bring down addiction levels since you will not have drug dealers presurring people to get hooked so they get a permanent customer. If somebody wants to walk into a hard drug clinic and ruin their life then let them. At least the prospect of easy, illicit money for poor inner city youths and modern day mafiosi is eliminated.

"Because believe-it-or-not, drug use increases the likelihood that people will engage in violence or robbery."

Again, they do that mostly to pay for their drugs. If the drugs are free they just go to the clinic and pick them up. I realize this will almost certainly never happen, but it would solve the bigger problem at hand here, which is a mammoth amount of money being handed to the cartels and other criminal organization.

Drugs are not inherently bad. They can be dangerous (as can riding a motorcycle or skiing) but can also be very fun and even helpful if used correctly. We need to be taught about responsible drug use. Education, rather than blanket vilification is the correct route imo.

"At least the prospect of easy, illicit money for poor inner city youths... is eliminated."

That might sound quite differently than I meant it. What I mean by that is that the temptation to just sell drugs on the street corner and make easy money that way is eliminated, making getting an education a more compelling argument to present to those kids. Obviously not a full answer to the problem, but it would go a long way.

Prohibition creates crime, not drugs. Drug addiction should be treated as an illness, not a crime. Like alcoholism. It's not like if drugs were legalized there'd be a grandma crack epedemic. Usage would stay about the same, as long as legalization comes with a REAL education campaign (not the fear mongering crap).

@Yonni - Of what *possible* use could heroine or crack be? How could they be helpful?

"Of what *possible* use could heroine or crack be? How could they be helpful?"

They're not helpful. They're monstrous. But by keeping them illegal we're shoveling money into the cartels' pockets. That is the greater social ill.

I agree, invictus. I was responding to Yonni's comments about "responsible drug use" and how drugs can be "helpful". My brain is fucked up enough without adding hardcore chemical alterations to it.

Well, I wouldn't advocate to people to try crack. But you can't use the same blanket language for all drugs.
You can't compare the risks from crack, meth, and IV drugs with say weed, mdma, caffeine, acid, booze, mushrooms, etc.
They're completely different beasts.

I agree with invictus, amazingly.

"They're completely different beasts. "
right. of varying usefullness, harmfullness etc. but why should we let the government pick and choose for use what we're allowed to put in our bodies? Even if they said "you can all do heroin now" I dont think many people would go out and shoot up just because it became legal. Honestly the legalization of drugs would probably decrease drug use. Not to mention cut down on drug related crime. (depending of course)

I completely agree that the government should be regulating what drugs we're allowed to use but that's a whole different can of worms that I didn't want to open.

I've never tried heroin, alas, but if it was legally available i'd probly be dead by the weekend. I'd leave a hell of a good lookin corpse but.

Lets see,

Caffeine
Pros: good for reducing headaches.
Cons: Causes dehydration and kidney stones if over abused (I know cause I suffer from them). Already legal.

MDMA
Pros: Approved for testing for treating PTSD. May be available by prescription for therapeutic use soon enough.
Cons: Liver damage and psychotic breaks (yes, psychotic breaks can occur) from longterm usage and even death from OD.

Alcohol
Pros: Ummmm... Good for getting chicks drunk so you can get laid. Scratch that. Certain beverages have been foudn to be beneficial in regular doses for heart conditions and blood pressure long term (i.e. a glass of red wine a day)
Cons: Domestic violence, liver damage, blackouts, drunken drivers...

Marijuana
Pros: useful for treatment of certain conditions like glaucoma and some painful cancers. Legal in Calidornia and gaining acceptance in many other states for therapeutic purposes.
Cons: one of the better with few if any cons beyond a certain psychologically addicting factor found in most of the soft drugs you listed.

Acid/LSD
Pros: None of real significance (sorry, but altering the way one perceives reality is not a pro in my opinion)
Cons: "Can precipitate strong, temporary changes in an individual's experience of life and reality. Even in low doses, it is a powerful psychoactive that can be significantly affected by experiences, set and setting. Recent experiences, especially strong ones, can have a substantial effect on a trip. Physically or psychologically unsettling events in the days before an LSD trip can blossom into more serious distress and trauma while tripping. It is important to be prepared for the possibility of encountering difficult or frightening mental states." Let's see... Bad trip resulting in jumping off balcony of high rise... Big *Con*!

Mushrooms... See LSD. Very similar but with the added risk of eating the wrong type and dying from poison. Many bought black market are laced with LSD anyhow.

So, those with potentially truly beneficial effects are already legal in some places or being researched for potential pharmaceutical/therapeutical use.

"As for anything harder, the government should give it out for free in clinics."

So the government is going to monopolize all points of production and distribution of hard drugs and eat the costs of drug production and distribution (I'm assuming the government also controls the production of heroin, otherwise where is the government going to get all of this material they are giving away for free). I hope you're also in favor of the government providing free healthcare, housing, and education, or do we just give people the means to make themselves sick and then charge exorbitant prices to get better?

"Again, they do that mostly to pay for their drugs. If the drugs are free they just go to the clinic and pick them up."

Uh no, once again I bring up the example of crack, which is already very cheap. Crack addicts none-the-less are violent, and commit violent acts usually when high on the drug. Many drugs induce people to behave more violently. The idea that people won't or aren't any less inhibited to engage in criminal behavior while high as a kite is beyond incredulous.

"The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse not only asks individuals in American households about their drug and alcohol use, but also asks them about their involvement in acts that could get them in trouble with the police. Provisional data for 1997 shows those illicit drug users were about 16 times more likely than nonusers to report being arrested and booked for larceny or theft; and 9 times more likely to be arrested and booked on an assault charge (Office of National Drug Control Policy, Fact Sheet, 2000).

In examining the State and Federal prison inmates who reported being under the influence of drugs at the time of their offense, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (1997) reports the following:

24.5 percent (24.5%) of Federal and 29 percent (29%) of State prison inmates reported being under the influence of drugs when committing violent offenses.
10.8 percent (10.8%) of Federal and 36.6 percent (36.6%) of State inmates reported being under the influence of drugs while committing property offenses.
25 percent (25%) of Federal and 41.9 percent (41.9%) of inmates reported being under the influence of drugs when committing drug offenses.
24.4 percent (24.4%) of Federal and 22.4 percent (22.4%) of State prison inmates reported being under the influence of drugs when committing weapon offenses."

http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32348#2

"You can't compare the current scenario with drugs with the current scenario with cigarettes. With drugs every penny goes to a criminal, while with cigarettes is far from that even with the mob and your lovely North Korea running black market smokes. The very existence of a totally legal pot market would be a huge blow to the amount of money made by the cartels. That's why they were against California's imperfect legalization program last election."

Many more people smoke than use illicit drugs, and the profits are enormous even if smuggling doesn't account for 100% of cigarette sales (I believe at last count smuggled cigarettes accounted for 7% of all sales). If you legalize drugs as you want to do, drug use will be more prevalent, so drug sales will approach something like cigarette sales. The point is organized crime will still pervade the legalized drug industry, as it does now.

Why would drug use approach cigarette sales? People don't go for a quick acid break during work.

And, Draugnar, you left "fun" off of your list of pros...

@Putin - The relationship you present provides proof of correlation, but not causation. The underlying reason is not presented in the statistics your present, just that the two are inter-related. The "science" fails as these statistics prove only that many criminals used drugs while commiting their crimes, not why they committed the crimes in the first place.

@Yonni - driving my 93 Corvette at 180+ MPH was fun (it was modified a bit). But I always kept it on the track or road course in a controlled environment and would not encourage the opening of public highways to allow everyone to drive their cars at the top speed possible.

When your "fun" turns you into a vegetable and forces me, the taxpayer, to pay for your care as a brain dead isiot for the next 50 or 60 years, I have a right to say "No!" And when your "fun" puts you behind the wheel of a car completely out of control driving the wrong way at 100+ MPH down the highway, killing a group of kids in a school bus, society hads a right to say "No!" and they have this right *before* you take someone else's life. It's called mitigating the damage through proactive prevention.

Driving a car drunk is an example of irresponsible drug use.

I'd say trying mushrooms with a group of your friends in your living room is a good analogy to driving a car in a controlled course. People will always find a way to do stupid shit with fun things. I'm not an advocate for that. That's the importance of education.

p.s. Funny that a conversation about the next U.S. war has turned to the War on Drugs...

Id say that analogy would be false. I went through training under the guidance of professional drivers to learn to handle my Corvette at 180 MPH. I had on a Nomex firesuit with gloves and a helmet and my car was equiped with a fire extinguisher and roll cage. The better analogy would be trying the shrooms in a padded room while wearing a straight jacket or strapped to a table so you can't hurt yourself would be a better analogy. Your anaolgy would be like taking your car out to a dirt road on private property and giving it a spin, whcih is a lot more dangerous than you think. Ask anyone from Kentucky whose had a cousin say "Hey y'all! Watch this!"

I'm not getting how decriminalized marijuana did anything to dent the profits of marijuana cartels, since California already largely produces its own marijuana. If anything it increased their profits and gives them easier access to other American states, as they now have legal dispensaries to distribute their goods to.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/22176508/detail.html

At any rate, dispensaries have become breeding grounds for violent attacks and robberies.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/cartels-linked-to-marijuana-dispensary-killings-20100627-zc37.html

"although police could recall only one other killing at a dispensary"
"no drugs or money appeared to have be taken in the attack at Hollywood Holistic 2"

Your second article provides *very* weak coorelation much less any evidence as to motive. Couldit be the cartels angry over loosing out to the cheaper business model? If that were the case, making it completely legal and over the counter would just eliminate the issue of the cartels because they'd be completely out of business.

As for the idea that the cartels could use the dispensaries to get their product out... California law makes that kind of dispensary illegal anyhow. To sell it in CA, it must be grown in CA. Same thing with Denver. So your assertion that it gives them legal dispensaries for their product is a false assertion. The moment the dispensary starts dispensing Mexican pot, it si no longer a legal dispensary because it is breaking the law.

There is actually an interesting discussion along these lines going on in Canada. There's a supervised injection site in Vancouver that the federal government is trying to shut down.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/05/16/safe-injection-advocates-await-scc.html

There's a mountain of evidence that shows how beneficial Insite has been but anti-drug advocates are pushing to get rid of it.

@Draug - of course it's not a direct analogy. Driving a car is far more dangerous than doing mushrooms. But it works in as far as there is responsible way to enjoy relatively dangerous fun activities and an irresponsible way. If people don't know what to expect and look for in a shrooms trip it is way more likely to be a bad time. A little knowledge makes it a fairly benign activity that, while it may not be fun for everyone, is largely harmless.