Observation about the 'war on drugs' and the various other prohibitions we've had - what are your thoughts?

Question

So, once upon a time, pursuant to what I can no longer remember, I read some 19th century diatribes against gin and the like. OK, shortly thereafter I read Prohibition era diatribes against beer. And (all this within two weeks) finally modern diatribes against drugs.
They were all EXACTLY THE SAME. Beer, gin, drugs, they all blamed all the vices of the culture of poverty on drugs, and claimed that if only the gin, beer, drugs, whatever, were 'gone', the peasants/poor people/lower classes would be just like everyone else.
Don't you think that most people are poor because of their own deficiencies, not because of chemicals? Chemicals are a symptom, not a cause. Prohibition didn't change anything, repealing it didn't either.
Does the war on chemicals accomplish anything? No. Well, nothing positive. It did create the modern organized crime industry and its billions of dollars in profits and tens of thousands of murders annually (fortunately mostly of Mexicans, who don't count, rather than Americans, who do...) Sure as hell didn't reduce use.
We're spending billions of dollars on this pointless moral crusade. And it doesn't even make sense. OK, it's bad to use drugs. But it isn't better to be a drug addict AND a convicted criminal.
Who is this war supposed to be helping? We're making war on people whose main crime is to harm themselves, and we will conduct this by inflicting harm on them. It seems off to go after the addicts, rather than the producers - if we have to go

Answer 1

Most likely the people using the drugs are the ones committing crimes so therefore busting drug users reduces crime

Answer 2

Although the target substances have changed over the centuries, the one consistent phenomenon is that they are always decried by people who have never had occasion to use or "enjoy" them themselves. For example, the war against tobacco has been waged by the Boomers, to whom cigarettes were never as attractive as pot. The Boomers parents', who fought WW ll, were provided with cigarettes by Uncle Sam. Roosevelt and the King and Queen of England smoked them, Churchill smoked cigars and Stalin smoked a pipe. I'm not saying that the use of ANY addictive substance (including caffeine) is a good thing, but mankind the world over has always used them and looked with disfavor at those who get their kicks by means different from their own.

Answer 3

after anyone at all.

Answer 4

"Despite four US drug wars fought at a cost of nearly $150 billion, world illicit opium supply grew fivefold from 1,200 tons in 1971 to 6,100 tons 1999. Similarly, during 15 years of US biateral eradication in the Andes, coca leaf production doubled to 600,000 tons in 1999. After holding steady at 100 prisoners per 100,000 population for over half a century, the US incarceration rate, driven by mandatory drug sentencing, soared from 138 in 1980 to 702 in 2002--creating, in effect a doomsday machine that continues to fill prisons without limit or logic. At the start of the twenty-first century, the United States was fighting a global drug war by creating the world's largest prison population and defoliating mountain farms in Asia and the Andes." - The Politics of Heroin pg. 20

There's also some good statistics on the usage decreases and how those transformed into crime syndicates and have actually propelled usage upward but I'll have to sit down and create a list out of those statistics and haven't done so yet.

Prohibition Statistics

• Prison Population (BBC 2006)

-United States: 2,193,798 (overall population 313,900,000)

-China: 1,548,498 (overall population 1,344,130,000)

-Russia: 874,161

-Brazil: 371,482

• Alcohol Prohibition (MSNBC)

A) Arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct up 41%

B) Homicides, Assaults, and batteries up 13%

C) Number of Federal convicts up 561%

D) Federal Prison Population up 366%

E) Total spending on penal institutions up 1,000%

Host "We have the same exact kind of enormous jumps in incarceration, crime, and prison expenditure under this current pot prohibition."

• Each year the United States spends 350 billion dollars on the war on drugs.

• On any given day in the United States 1 in 9 African American males between the ages of 20 and 34 is incarcerated.

• Mexico declares war on drug cartels in December of 2006 (BBC)

A) 2006: 270 drug related deaths

B) 2009: 16,337 drug related deaths

This is when the Mexican Government stopped releasing these figures.

• Judge Jim Gray (Reason TV)

- Stated In 1990 we were only half as successful in prosecuting homicides as we were in 1980 due to the Reagan administration ratcheting up the drug war. This due to prosecutorial resources being devoted to drug related "offenses".

- In Holland marijuana use is legal for everyone 16 and older. Coffee shops include marijuana. The minister of health recently held a press conference in which he stated that marijuana use within his country was half that of the United States both for adults and teenagers. He claimed that they had succeeded in making pot "boring".

• Drug offenders in prisons and jails have increased 1,100% since 1980. Nearly 6 in 10 persons in prison for a drug offense have no history of violence or high-level drug selling activity (November Coalition)

• According to the UN, drug prohibition has seen increases in the use of opiates, cocaine and marijuana to the effect of

-Opiates 34%

-Cocaine 27%

-Marijuana 8.5% (Worldwide presumably. CNN)

• According to DEA: (Google Tech Talks)

- 4 million drug users in 1965 (2% of overall population)

-112 million drug users in 2003 (46% of overall population)

• Wholesale cocaine costs 60% less / Heroin costs 70% less (Google Tech Talks)

• Heroin overdose rate: (Google Tech Talks)

- 1979 = 28 deaths per 100,000 users

- 2003 = 141 deaths per 100,000 users

• Approximately $30,000 per year per inmate

• 39 Million drug arrests under drug prohibition

• 1914 = 1.3% addicted to drugs/ 2002 = 1.3% addicted to drugs (Google Tech Talks)

• % of crimes resolved by arrest or other means (Google tech talks)

- 1965: Murders 91%

- 2006: Murders 60.7%, Forcible rape 40.9%, Robbery 25.2%, Aggravated Assault 54.0%, Burglary 12.6%, Larceny-theft 17.4%, Motor vehicle theft 12.6%

• “Since 1965 marijuana arrests climbed from a mere 2 per hour to 100 per hour in 2008” (FBI/ Jim Marrs Trillion Dollar Conspiracy)

• Decriminalized Drugs

1. Netherlands 1976

2. Portugal 2001

3. Mexico 2009

4. Argentina 2009

• Marijuana use by tenth graders in Netherlands: 28% / Marijuana use by tenth graders in the United States 41% (Google Tech Talks)

• Marijuana use: U.S. lifetime prevalence = 37% / Netherlands = 17% (Google Tech Talks)

• Heroin Use: U.S. lifetime prevalence = 1.4% / Netherlands = 0.4% (Google Tech Talks)

• After decriminalization, Portugal drug use by ages 13-15 decreased by 25%/ 16-19 decreased by 22%

- Heroin overdose deaths decreased by 52%

- HIV infections reported by drug users decreased by 71% (Google Tech Talks)

• Netherlands homicide rate per 100,000 population: 1.5/ U.S. homicide rate per 100,00 population 5.6 (Google Tech Talks)

• United States imprisons more of its' own population than any country in the history of the world. (TV Show "QI")



BBC Prison Statistics: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm

Cited videos can be found in following playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL970FD94A018B8275



"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law for nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase in crime in this country is closely connected with this."

-Albert Einstein



"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

- Abraham Lincoln

For information as to why drugs are illegal see my answer here: https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20140105024131AA1kW4Z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQit8wnYpiU (All videos combined into one)