Talk:War on drugs/Archive 1

Redirected

This page was just a redirect to Talk:Prohibition (drugs). That was confusing. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced paragraph

This paragraph pretty much reads like original research; it uses material from sources like [1], but then draws independent conclusions. It's also fairly POV:

One important way of analyzing a policy of drug prohibition is to test whether the decrease in the social costs of drug abuse outweighs the cost of prohibition itself. US Government Agencies do not always make helpful contributions to this analysis. For example, the ONDCP estimated that the cost of drug abuse in 2000 was over $160 billion (1.6% of GDP); but they included losses in productivity due to incarceration, crime, drug-related illness, and other reasons accounting for over two-thirds of that amount. Were the drugs in question to be legalized and taxed, many of those costs would disappear, and a legal trade in these substances would develop, as happened at the end of the Prohibition era. Costs to society would depend largely on any change in the popularity of these drugs, the proportion of abusers, and whether there would be a change in the criminal behavior of drug users. The ONDCP analysis also failed to take into account the effect of the reduced revenue that would accrue to organized crime in a regulated, de-criminalized drug economy.

-GTBacchus^(talk) 01:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

GTBacchus, I was one of the people who worked on that paragraph (though I didn't introduce it and User:Slashme changed it substantially). Having visited the page in the hope of finding a footnote reference for the cost of drug prohibition, I was struck by the fact that the ONDCP report merrily conflated the social costs of drug abuse and the social cost of the war on drug abuse. Drug policy isn't my area of expertise, so I don't know if this kind of disinformation is common, but if it is, the wikipedia article could do well to illustrate it. I realise that objective description of this subject is often going to look POV. Any suggestions? -- pde 09:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

This kind of disinformation is all too common from ONDCP, NIDA, etc. Much of the paragraph is sound, but Were the drugs in question to be legalized and taxed, many of those costs would disappear, and a legal trade in these substances would develop is conjectural OR, if also common sense. It would be easy to fix by making it an observation, The report did not consider whether, were the drugs in question to be legalized and taxed, many of those costs would disappear, and a legal trade in these substances would develop. -SM 08:17, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to chime in late, but it isn't OR to believe that the cost to incarcerate drug offenders would disappear if drugs were legal. No research is necessary for that. It might be restated that their "cost of drug use" figure was composed mostly of costs that were caused by the war on drugs, not the drug use itself. Robert Rapplean 17:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Misleading First Sentence?

The first sentence of this article reads: "The War on Drugs is an initiative undertaken in the United States to carry out an "all-out offensive" (as President Nixon described it) against the non-medical use of certain prohibited drugs." (emphasis added)

Question: Since the Federal government has pursued cases regarding *medical* uses of prohibited drugs, even when used by residents of a state that has expressly legalized said medical use (see Gonzalez v. Raich), should we not therefore strike out the "non-medical" qualifier in this opening paragraph? I hesitate to do so personally until someone is given the chance to explain why that distinction is made here. Perhaps it could be further clarified in some way. I am concerned that it may cause some readers to mistakenly believe that the Federal government does not pursue cases concerning the non-economic, non-recreational, consumption of drugs for purely medical purposes. This is the impression that I got from reading it, and it certainly is not true.

A more accurate and neutral description of this Federal policy, it seems to me, would be to eliminate this phrase. Again, I await a reply before editing it myself.

--SamAdams^(talk) 3:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, good point. Maybe it would be better phrased as ...an "all out offensive" (as President Nixon described it) against the prohibited use of certain drugs.

That would cover medical marijuana, which is a prohibited drug (federally speaking), and also the non-medical use of perscription drugs like valium or ritalin. Otherwise, just removing the term "non-medical" would make it sound like they don't distinguish different types of use for any drug, which isn't true either. I guess it's the fed's contention that there is no legitimate medical use of marijuana, but that's certainly POV, and not for Wikipedia to imply.

By the way, you're certainly welcome to make edits like this without soliciting comment first; check out WP:BOLD. The worst thing that happens is someone reverts your change and then we end up having this very same conversation. In fact, I'm gonna be bold right now, and change that sentence. Thanks for noticing that error. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Reports

Some interesting repots, on the U.S.'s war on drugs. All cannabis specific however.

Zath42 04:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Now let's get some discussion of those numbers into the article :). -- pde 10:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Request

Page for Charles Bowden? I don't know how solid his work is, which is why I came here. There doesn't seem to be anything on it. I could not see how to place a sensible request via the front-end wikipedia mechanism, but feel free to move this request to another place. Abu Amaal 05:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite

This article is in need of some serious work. There is little coherent orginization, it just seems there are random factoids dispersed throughout. It needs to be shortened, put into chronilogical order and generally made to be more cohesive. Harley peters 23:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I clarified a couple of sentences and added sources for the U.S. govt's complicity in the drug trade. I removed the first sentece of that paragraph because it mentioned "corruption" of American officials. Corruption implies an official's attmept to personally gain, which as far as I know was not the primary motive for the drug smuggling operation. Also, it was a wishy-washy sentence that had very little content aside from the misleading "corruption" charge. --NYCJosh 22:46, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

NPOV notice

This whole thing is little more than an argument against the War on Drugs. I came here to see how the pro-WOD position is justified, and there's not even a hint that anyone really tries to. --♥ «Charles A. L.» 18:06, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I think its difficult to find people who would be interested in editing a free encyclopaedia and pro-WOD. - FrancisTyers 18:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Still, we should be able to find the arguments somewhere and report on them. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

It's possible that these arguments don't feature in the article because they really don't stand up when looked at from a NPOV. That being said, the article should still mention them. The article should also be split into sub headings and have more sources provided. --Apyule 14:38, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm still waiting to see a single pro-WOD arguement that makes any kind of sense... so, if you can find it Charles, please don't hesitate to post it... --Boszko2 18:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm also still looking for support for the geocentric view of the universe on the Solar System article. The fact that both things are bullshit may explain their general absence.

My point exactly... --Boszko2 20:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Many of the arguments for the war on drugs are presented in Arguments for and against drug prohibition. They are actually pretty numerous, and it would probably help this article if they were presented and effectively disputed. For instance, the original reason for illegalizing marijuana was because it promoted violence, caused brain damage, and encouraged crime. Over time these reasons have been demostrated to be false. The first has been disproven via many, many studies. The second was created by a study which force-fed marijuana smoke into monkeys until they suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. The third was created by multiple court cases which an expert witness told the jury that he took two puffs on a joint and turned into a bat, creating a temporary insanity plea.

The current reason for it is to "protect the children", although an analysis of the supply and demand math behind it readily demonstrates that the drug war is actually making drugs more available to children, not less. Math, however, is difficult to understand, whereas fear is readily graspable by anyone.

The issue is that fear may be irrational and nonsensibile, but you can't deny that it's real. An encyclopedia exists to describe the real, and these fears fall into that category. They should be explained as irrational and effectively debunked, but they should still be described, otherwise those with those fears are going to assume that you're just ignoring the other side. Robert Rapplean 17:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly not a fan of the WoD. But one should probably consider that it is something that every country, that I know of, is participating in. Even in the most politically mild liberal democracies it is only the case that users with small amounts of street drugs don't face serious punnishments. And even that is illegal. Marijuana never was legalized in the Netherlands, for example. And in say Sweden or France users are not tolerated, as in the US. And in authoritarian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia 500g of marijuana caries a manditory execution. So it appears that many of the would be arguments in favor of the Wod are in the majority world opinion. So I agree with the above comments that this article is currently overly slanted to the "con" position.

Pretty much every country in the world also participates in some form of freedom of speech violations. This is a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum or, as your mother put it, "if everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you, too?" Reasons for persuing drug illegalization vary. For most people it's a belief in prohibitionism, which is the philosophy that people will stop doing something enjoyable if you make it illegal. It's a very attractive idea which has failed consistently throughout history. It has its roots in every major religion, and has been pushed by every significant government since the creation of government. Maybe one day we can grow as a society past the need for such things, but I don't see it happening any time soon. In the mean time we need to call attention to the specific failings that result from it. The War on Drugs is probably the biggest one going on right now. Robert Rapplean 18:53, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

External links

There are way too many external links. I took a shot at trimming them, but it needs more. Wikipedia is not a link farm. Links should only be added if they have valuable information that does not belong in the article itself and if they are not trying to sell something. If the information in the link does belong it the article, it should be re-written (to avoid copyright issues) and added to the article. In general, articles should have very few links, because very few links fit these criteria. The idea is that we want our articles to be the best possible source of information on a topic, not a short article followed by a long list of links to other articles-- one might as well just google the subject and read the first dozen sites if we are going to assemble long external link lists.

I'll try to get back to this at some point but it would be nice... -- Mwanner | Talk 23:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

how much does it cost?

The war on drugs cost to the tax payer is significant, and the article does not adress this gradual increase in cost. --Procrastinating@^talk2me 09:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

http://sentencingproject.org/pdfs/waronmarijuana.pdf covers the cost...

Stop Wasting Your Money

This so called War on drugs is more like a political stunt to get money thrown their way. It's like the government said "Hey, Look what we can do!" and then they smile and demand Money! This War on Drugs is a very serious waste of money! Maybe better said, it's an arduously non-optimum prescription for the enhancement of the well fare of the U.S. I want to look at the big picture here, Earth. So, we have this real war going on with us involved right now, in Iraq and the middle east etc. I personally hate the idea of terrorism 1000 times more than I hate the idea of druggies. Yes, I see it very very simply. Stop with all your statistic bull that conflicts with these other statistics etc. Get real! First of all, Marijuana, this so called drug is so harmless it's boring. Look at the objective picture, marijuana has never been a direct cause of death. Also, just because some extreme criminals choose to smoke out before their crime does Not mean it's the marijuana!! Trust me, criminals are going to do what they do no matter what they're on. You gotta understand that they don't understand, understand? Stop wasting money on penalizing people for any kind of marijuana use. Legalize it! And then we'll have more money for something more serious, like Home Land Security. There's something called a global threat right now, wake up, sober up, something's happening (and do not give me you conspiracy bull that sounds really cool and dramatic and dark especially when you all high with your friends, "i'm telling you man, George Bush is the anti christ! he bombed the twin towers" You guys are Bored!!! Wake up!!! Marijuana makes you boring!! Put it out son. I'll tell you who isn't bored, because they believe they have a mission from their God, it's those little punk bitches who think than anyone who is Not islamic, should Die Right Now!!! I've heard it, I’ve seen them say it. And the Koran backs that up (i think the koran says that somewhere, i could be wrong but that's not important) The islamic extreme is the most massively threatening thing I've ever heard of. This, I would have to say, surpasses Hitler. Hitler was just one really really persuasive Fool. The islamic extremists are a consciousness/religion/lifestyle/evil planetary force!!! It's almost like a bad cartoon! This is how incredibly stupid these people are! They’ve obviously never heard of chillaxen "Hey man, not everybody's going to think like you. Get over it. Don't waste your time."Dre.velation2012 04:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, thank you for sharing?Minidoxigirli 15:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I dont know about that rant after you said legalize it, but I believe that could be profitable. If the government legalized marijuana they could legalize it enough to control its production and dristribution. So the government grows marijuana on a large scale very cheaply, they roll it like cigarettes. 20 joints to a pack, they could tax that and still people would pay up to $15.00 per pack, reasonably. Then all the profit is coming in for our government. Also, since the price for marijuana is so cheap, the whole underground would fall out. No one would risk growing it illegally and no one would be able to sell it. That whole area of crime is completely gone. --Anonymous 2 October, 2006

When Nixon's War on Drugs Began

Nixon's war on drugs began in 1969 with Operation Intercept - http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/CU59.html

http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1960/intercept/Default.htm

(Unsigned remarks)

Is the above intended to say that there was no effort to stop drug smuggling or drug use prior to "Operation Intercept"? Or is it intended to say that this is when the term "War on Drugs" came into use? (Actually, I scanned the above two links and did not find term in either one of them.) —Wookipedian 19:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Positive Effects?

For as badly run as this "war" has been, there must be at least a couple positive effects of it. Maybe those should be included, as it reads very POV currently.Minidoxigirli 15:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Minidoxigirli. You would think that it's actually helping SOMETHING, wouldn't you? Here's a quick description of how it's supposed to work. The main philosophy of the drug war is one of interdiction. You block the flow of traffic, and the supply should drop, making the price rise. If the price raises enough, people will stop buying it. If fewer people in general use it, then fewer kids will be using it. Theoretically, people who don't use drugs make better citizens, therefore interdiction = better world.

Here's the way it REALLY works. Interdiction definitely caused an increase in price. Marijuana is now about 20 times as expensive to purchase as tobacco. What they haven't done is decrease the demand. The number of users of marijuana has stayed steady over the past 40 years, and has risen from a small problem with Mexican immigrants and jazz singers from when it was illegalized. Since 1970, cocaine use has tripled. Amphetamine and ecstasy use have had similar gains. This effect was also seen during alcohol prohibition. In 1918 there were about 800 bars in New York City, but in 1933 there were roughly 20,000 speakeasies. Drug prohibition doesn't discourage people from using drugs, it popularizes them and romanticizes them.

The effect on our children is even worse due to uneven enforcement of laws. The laws of supply and demand insist that the flow of drugs from producer to consumer WILL travel by some path. We enforce interdiction by threatening jail time and property seizure, and induce fear by convincing you that everyone around you might tell on you. Our children don't own property worth mentioning. They have the juvenile court system and natural belief in immortality to protect them from incarceration. You can't convince them that the fourteen year old they've known since they were eight is actually a narcotics agent. This means that the forces we use to resist the flow of drugs are weakest in those under age 18. As a result, the majority of our drugs are distributed by minors. Last I checked 89% of our children graduate high school having tried some illegal drug or another.

So we can definitely rule out the idea of the drug war being effective at its stated goals. There are some good effects. It's increased employment in the drug enforcement field. It's provided jobs for construction workers who build jails and the people who guard the prisoners. Since these things are all paid for by the taxpayers, though, one main's gain is another one's loss, and the price we pay is horrible by comparison.

Robert Rapplean 18:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality Dispute

I dispute neutrality and would like to add a NPOV tag. This article is clearly propagandistic.

For the sake of neutrality and minimal "encyclopedicity" I propose the addition of the following elemental description of the title, at the very beginning of the article:

War on Drugs is a propaganda or rhetorical term used by some American military or paramilitary (such as police) respresentatives and politicians to refer to several military or paramilitary operations justified by the current Prohibition. As Noam Chomsky pointed out, the term takes the rhetoric figure called synecdoche, properly refering to a "war" on certain drugs, and more properly to several armed aggressions to suspected producers, traders and/or users of those. Drcaldev 18:12, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Noam Chomsky should be referenced on every Wikipedia page.

In what way is it propaganistic? How can this be corrected?134.10.2.125 03:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Added information on relation with American classism

Drcaldev 18:33, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you cite the opposition figures, please? bikeable (talk) 06:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you? I´m looking for some and haven´t found them yet! I´ve seen the classist bias, and even a racist bias I hadn´t considered, are undisputed in American statistics. If you are black you have like tenfold more possibilities than a white to go to jail for drugs. Just as if you were poor! So being black and poor makes an American an easy target for military aggressions and torture of confinement!! Look up for example Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System by Jerome G. Miller.

I´ve found in Venezuela, the sociologist Rosa del Olmo (Prohibition or Domestication? Drug policies in Latin America) denounces and demonstrates statistically a sexist bias against women, in prosecution against drugs!!! Drcaldev 22:00, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

An effort towards more neutral language

I have no doubt that everything that the bulk of information in this article is accurate. Unfortunate, the language in which its presented is somewhat inflamatory, and as such is difficult for anyone without all the facts to want to read. If they don't read it, then they will never have the facts. With this in mind, I'm going to propose a few changes in wording, starting with the beginning sentence.

The War on Drugs is an initiative undertaken by the United States to carry out an "all-out offensive" (as President Nixon described it) against the use of certain legally controlled drugs.

I'd like to suggest this be adjusted to:

The War on Drugs is an initiative undertaken by the United States and other participating countries in an attempt to limit the availability of a selection biologically active substances to the general public. This initiative is responsible for a set of laws and policies that are intended to discourage the creation, transporation, and distribution of these substances.

I'm going to change the opening paragraph to this one, and would like to hear discussion on it.

I would also like to start a discussion on terminology. I noticed that you use "legally controlled drugs", "illicit substances", "illicit mind-altering substances", and probably a few more. "Illicit" and "legally controlled" are inaccurate terms to use because they play into the mindset of "it's illegal, therefore it must be wrong", which is what's causing this problem in the first place. Obviously, though, we can't go in with the "chemicals without major corporate sponsorship" approach, so I'd like to hear a few ideas of how we can solidly refer to them. Robert Rapplean 22:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the effects section

There have been a lot of good edits to this article in the past week, and I think that we have a decent chance of turning it into something extremely professional. I've been trying to better differentiate the pieces that need to be extremely factual from those that need to provide lots of citations in order to be acceptable. In that vein, I've separated the "history" from the "effects". In the first section, we can put the list of milestones that got us where we are today. In the second section we can analyze the justifications for it and provide strong statistical evidence about how well it did or didn't meet those justifications. Does this work for you? Robert Rapplean 22:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Revert

reverted due to vandalism 142.161.185.76 01:45, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello, 142.161.185.76. It isn't necessary to log every reversion due to vandalism in the discussion page. The history keeps excellent track of these kinds of things for us. Also, they're incredibly common, and this kind of reversion would quickly overwhelm the regular commentary if we noted it every time. Also, would you be kind enough to log in when you do this? Cheers, Robert Rapplean 19:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggest requesting partial protection

This page seems to be subject to a lot of drive-by vandalism, requiring considerably more reverts than actual contributions. Partial protection prevents people who aren't logged in, and accounts less than five days old from editing it. Would anybody be opposed to requesting it for this page? I'll let this query soak for responses for a few days. Robert Rapplean 19:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Efficacy vs Effeciency

I have reverted edits by User:OniShikio. My reasoning is thus: Efficacy applies to medicine, social policy, etc., and is "power or capacity to produce a desired effect". Whereas Effeciency is a term from phyics, and is "the ratio of the energy delivered by a machine to the energy supplied for its operation". While both can denote "how well a system is working", I believe "efficacy" is more correct here. --Bhuston 21:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding point and counterpoint

I've noticed that we've crept into "critizism, counter-criticism, and criticism of the counter-criticism". There already exists a page for Arguments for and against drug prohibition. We don't need to import that entire argument into this page. Instead it should be summarized here.

I'm going to take a shot at the philosophy for drug prohibition, but it will likely look rather NPOV, since there is no factual information to support it. Robert Rapplean 19:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Mythobeast edits

I just reverted this:

===Negative effectiveness===

The net results of the war on drugs is an increase in drug use, plus social costs that far exceed the damage that the drugs themselves could do. The blockade on proper dosage information and quality guarantees results in an increase in the number of people who misuse, overuse, abuse, and overdose on drugs. The damage to life quality caused by legal action exceeds the damage to life quality caused by drug abuse. The cost of enforcement and imprisonment exceeds the medical costs of our drug problems. Imprisonment results in a higher incidence of continued use over treatment.

While I happen to feel this is probably correct, this is in encyclopedia, not a blog, thus assertions like this need to be sourced (and become much stronger in the process). Also another "effectiveness" section is unnecessary. Please make additions to the "efficacy" section. -- Bill Huston ^(talk) 23:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

WombatOnslaught's 2 cents

I added a "Costs" section because money is the one area that everyone has feeling in, the pocketbook. I also added the fact that "The War on Drugs" is only a name, and represents drug control. My wording may not be precise and the point may be further illucidated upon but this is an important point to make from the begining, I did not add it because I do not know how to and remain NPOV but this "war" in not on drugs, but on the users of such drugs. It is widely accepted as a disease, yet we imprison people for having it. Also the use of drugs in the psychedelic ,or entheogen, family is religious in many culters and this makes the war on drugs a war on a religious level contrary to the Bill of Rights. I am very much subjective when it comes to this issue and so I do not feel I can be POV at when it comes to this point and so will leave it for someone else, though I sugest researching Yopo, Ayahuasca, Peyote, Marijuana & Rastafarianism, and the experiments of Timothy Leary at a church in with most of the subjects reported having a religious experience while "high" on LSD which were confirmed by a group which confirms such things. This may be a point made in the "Arguments For & Against "The War on Drugs", but is most definitely belongs in the "War on Drugs" article, under effects, as "The War on Drugs" and made illegal many tribal religions, Rastafarianism, and psychedelic sentiments of a religious nature talked about by people such as Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Terrence McKenna, Herman Hesse, Robert Anton Wilson, Aleister Crowley, and many others. If such is not done by a less subjective person I will attempt a NPOV piece under the "Effects" section.

Hi, Wombat. You can't specifically target religion, but it is possible to identify the WoD as an outcropping of the culture war. In order to establish one culture as "superior" to another culture, it is common to attempt to outlaw the practices and ideas performed by the other culture. Religion is just the institution most commonly associated with this kind of abuse. In the middle ages, laws existed that allowed jailing and killing of women who set a broom outside their door, because this was a way of advertising for women who practiced herbal medicine, which was in opposition to the beliefs of the church. People readily fall for such things, as is evidenced by our current mythology about witches. Some groups in the US are currently working hard to make the teaching of evolution and actions associated with homosexuality illegal for the same reasons. This is, however, quite PoV and wouldn't last more than a week on this page. Robert Rapplean 23:42, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

COPS

If you ever watched COPS you know the reason drugs are illegal--to circumvent people's civil rights. As soon as they smell a little pot or think you look high they can search you and do pretty much whatever they want. If drugs were legal they'd never bust half of the people driving around with guns and stolen cars. 12.41.40.20 19:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure driving around with guns isn't illega... Brandonm2 20:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Reference misinterpreted

Article states under "United States domestic policy," that, "In 1994, it was reported that the War on Drugs incarcerates 20 million Americans a year." That's not true (obviously)...actually about 1 million are arrested, but the 20 million number refers to the estimated number of Americans who use drugs, and are thus made into criminals by the drug laws.

How best to correct this?

Chuao 12:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Chuao. You are correct, as the next sentence in the statement supports. I've went ahead and made this edit. Robert Rapplean 23:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)