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War On Drugs
- Thread starter Michael Scally MD
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The Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy
http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/Projects/IDPP/The-Expert-Group-on-the-Economics-of-Drug-Policy.aspx
The Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy was convened to produce the most thorough independent economic analysis of the current international drug control strategy ever conducted.
It aims to use this analysis to design a successor strategy to the failed global war on drugs. In so doing it will provide the academic underpinnings for a new international paradigm that promotes human security, public health and sustainable development.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/Projects/IDPP/The-Expert-Group-on-the-Economics-of-Drug-Policy.aspx
The Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy was convened to produce the most thorough independent economic analysis of the current international drug control strategy ever conducted.
It aims to use this analysis to design a successor strategy to the failed global war on drugs. In so doing it will provide the academic underpinnings for a new international paradigm that promotes human security, public health and sustainable development.
A Futile War On Drugs That Wastes Money And Wrecks Lives
A futile war on drugs that wastes money and wrecks lives - FT.com
The war on drugs has been a $1tn failure. For more than four decades, governments around the world have pumped huge sums of money into ineffective and repressive anti-drug efforts. These have come at the expense of programmes that actually work such as needle exchanges and substitution therapy. This is not just a waste of money, it is counterproductive.
The London School of Economics has just completed perhaps the most thorough account of the war on drugs done to date. The conclusion, backed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists: it has done more harm than good.
Drug prohibition has created an immense black market, valued by some at $300bn. It shifts the burden of “drug control” on to producer and transit countries such as Afghanistan and Mexico. This approach also fails to grapple with a basic truth: drug markets are highly adaptive. Repress the business in one country and it springs up elsewhere.
Consider Colombia. When its law enforcement agencies made progress cracking down on the country’s cocaine trade, much of the criminal business and the violence that goes with it moved to Mexico. The LSE report estimates that after 2007, Colombia’s interdiction policies accounted for more than 20 per cent of the rise in Mexico’s murder rate.
Bogotá had a lot of mayhem to export. The explosion of the illegal drug market between 1994 and 2008 “explains roughly 25 per cent of the current homicide rate in Colombia. That translate into about 3,800 more homicides per year on average that are associated with illegal drug markets and the war on drugs”, according to the report. This type of violence takes a massive economic toll; corporations relocate, foreign investment dries up, industries decline and citizens flee in search of a better life.
The costs are not limited to producer countries; consumer nations suffer as well.
This is especially so in the US, which has less than 5 per cent of the world’s people but almost 25 per cent of the planet’s incarcerated population. Most are drug and other non-violent offenders for whom drug treatment and other alternatives to incarceration would probably prove cheaper and more effective in reducing recidivism and protecting society. Worldwide, 40 per cent of the 9m people who are incarcerated are behind bars for drug-related offences – and that figure is only likely to rise, as arrests of drug offenders in Asia, Latin America and west Africa are increasing steadily.
Despite the epic scale of human wreckage, services that could save lives and cut down on the costs to society go underfunded, or not funded at all.
For years, my Open Society Foundations have supported harm-reduction programmes such as needle exchanges – a proved, cost-effective way to prevent HIV transmission. One country found that for every $1 invested in needle exchange, $27 is returned in cost savings. That is no small matter, considering the billions of dollars spent treating HIV. We have seen similar returns on investment with supervised drug injection rooms and medication-assisted treatment of opiate addiction. Yet despite these benefits, the US Congress continues to block federal funding for needle exchanges. Several governments around the globe fight to prevent any mention of harm reduction in international forums, lest it clash with the predominant drug war ideology.
Yet change is still possible. In 2016 the UN General Assembly will review the current state of the drug- control system. For too long the UN has worked to enforce a “one-size-fits-all” model around the world, based on a belief that prohibitionist policies alone would solve the global drug problem.
The LSE report, to be released on Wednesday, recommends that governments give top priority to proved public health policies, moving to minimise harm in illicit markets, and mandating “rigorously monitored policy and regulatory experimentation”. I heartily concur.
Governments the world over need to weigh the costs and benefits of their current policies, and be willing to redirect resources towards programmes that work. This will save lives – and save money along the way. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix a broken global framework for coping with the drug crisis. The costs of doing nothing are too great to bear.
A futile war on drugs that wastes money and wrecks lives - FT.com
The war on drugs has been a $1tn failure. For more than four decades, governments around the world have pumped huge sums of money into ineffective and repressive anti-drug efforts. These have come at the expense of programmes that actually work such as needle exchanges and substitution therapy. This is not just a waste of money, it is counterproductive.
The London School of Economics has just completed perhaps the most thorough account of the war on drugs done to date. The conclusion, backed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists: it has done more harm than good.
Drug prohibition has created an immense black market, valued by some at $300bn. It shifts the burden of “drug control” on to producer and transit countries such as Afghanistan and Mexico. This approach also fails to grapple with a basic truth: drug markets are highly adaptive. Repress the business in one country and it springs up elsewhere.
Consider Colombia. When its law enforcement agencies made progress cracking down on the country’s cocaine trade, much of the criminal business and the violence that goes with it moved to Mexico. The LSE report estimates that after 2007, Colombia’s interdiction policies accounted for more than 20 per cent of the rise in Mexico’s murder rate.
Bogotá had a lot of mayhem to export. The explosion of the illegal drug market between 1994 and 2008 “explains roughly 25 per cent of the current homicide rate in Colombia. That translate into about 3,800 more homicides per year on average that are associated with illegal drug markets and the war on drugs”, according to the report. This type of violence takes a massive economic toll; corporations relocate, foreign investment dries up, industries decline and citizens flee in search of a better life.
The costs are not limited to producer countries; consumer nations suffer as well.
This is especially so in the US, which has less than 5 per cent of the world’s people but almost 25 per cent of the planet’s incarcerated population. Most are drug and other non-violent offenders for whom drug treatment and other alternatives to incarceration would probably prove cheaper and more effective in reducing recidivism and protecting society. Worldwide, 40 per cent of the 9m people who are incarcerated are behind bars for drug-related offences – and that figure is only likely to rise, as arrests of drug offenders in Asia, Latin America and west Africa are increasing steadily.
Despite the epic scale of human wreckage, services that could save lives and cut down on the costs to society go underfunded, or not funded at all.
For years, my Open Society Foundations have supported harm-reduction programmes such as needle exchanges – a proved, cost-effective way to prevent HIV transmission. One country found that for every $1 invested in needle exchange, $27 is returned in cost savings. That is no small matter, considering the billions of dollars spent treating HIV. We have seen similar returns on investment with supervised drug injection rooms and medication-assisted treatment of opiate addiction. Yet despite these benefits, the US Congress continues to block federal funding for needle exchanges. Several governments around the globe fight to prevent any mention of harm reduction in international forums, lest it clash with the predominant drug war ideology.
Yet change is still possible. In 2016 the UN General Assembly will review the current state of the drug- control system. For too long the UN has worked to enforce a “one-size-fits-all” model around the world, based on a belief that prohibitionist policies alone would solve the global drug problem.
The LSE report, to be released on Wednesday, recommends that governments give top priority to proved public health policies, moving to minimise harm in illicit markets, and mandating “rigorously monitored policy and regulatory experimentation”. I heartily concur.
Governments the world over need to weigh the costs and benefits of their current policies, and be willing to redirect resources towards programmes that work. This will save lives – and save money along the way. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix a broken global framework for coping with the drug crisis. The costs of doing nothing are too great to bear.
Taking Control: Pathways to Drug Policies that Work. World Leaders Call For Ending Criminalization of Drug Use and Possession and Responsible Legal Regulation of Psychoactive Substances. http://www.gcdpsummary2014.com/#foreword-from-the-chair
A new and improved global drug control regime is needed that better protects the health and safety of individuals and communities around the world.
Harsh measures grounded in repressive ideologies must be replaced by more humane and effective policies shaped by scientific evidence, public health principles and human rights standards.
This is the only way to simultaneously reduce drug-related death, disease and suffering and the violence, crime, corruption and illicit markets associated with ineffective prohibitionist policies.
The fiscal implications of the policies we advocate, it must be stressed, pale in comparison to the direct costs and indirect consequences generated by the current regime.
A new and improved global drug control regime is needed that better protects the health and safety of individuals and communities around the world.
Harsh measures grounded in repressive ideologies must be replaced by more humane and effective policies shaped by scientific evidence, public health principles and human rights standards.
This is the only way to simultaneously reduce drug-related death, disease and suffering and the violence, crime, corruption and illicit markets associated with ineffective prohibitionist policies.
The fiscal implications of the policies we advocate, it must be stressed, pale in comparison to the direct costs and indirect consequences generated by the current regime.
interesting comments by a well respected man. and maybe, great minds think alike. 'some drugs are called medicine', where have I heard that before. also he mentions "witch hunts" 
, and harm reduction. in at 9:00 min is interesting.
, and harm reduction. in at 9:00 min is interesting.
how the drug war blocked research into a promising experimental ptsd therapy: ecstasy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/11/wonkbook-how-the-drug-war-blocked-research-into-a-promising-experimental-ptsd-therapy/?wpisrc=nl-wonkbk&wpmm=1 (www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/11/wonkbook-how-the-drug-war-blocked-research-into-a-promising-experimental-ptsd-therapy/?wpisrc=nl-wonkbk&wpmm=1)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/11/wonkbook-how-the-drug-war-blocked-research-into-a-promising-experimental-ptsd-therapy/?wpisrc=nl-wonkbk&wpmm=1 (www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/11/wonkbook-how-the-drug-war-blocked-research-into-a-promising-experimental-ptsd-therapy/?wpisrc=nl-wonkbk&wpmm=1)
stoneMASON
New Member
Legalize them and tax them...imagine the decrease in the American (and Canadian for that matter) national deficit if that was the case. A very small % would need to be used to create rehabs all over the place which in turn would create jobs In the addictions field which would further help stimulate the economy and take a chunk out of the expenses involved with the over crowded prison system.
How Portugal Brilliantly Ended its War on Drugs
http://www.attn.com/stories/995/portugal-drug-policy
In the 1990s, Portugal was faced with a drug epidemic. General drug use wasn’t any worse than neighboring countries, but rates of problematic drug use were off the charts. A 2001 surveyfound that 0.7 percent of its population had used heroin at least one time, the second highest rate after England and Wales in Europe. So, in 1998, Portugal appointed a special commission of doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and activists to assess the problem and propose policy recommendations. Following eight months of analysis, the commission advised the government to embark on a radically different approach.
Rather than respond as many governments have, with zero-tolerance legislation and an emphasis on law enforcement, the commission suggested the decriminalization of all drugs, coupled with a focus on prevention, education, and harm-reduction. The objective of the new policy was to reintegrate the addict back into the community, rather than isolate them in prisons, the common approach by many governments. Two years later, Portugal’s government passed the commission’s recommendations into law.
Just as important as the specific policies recommended by the commission is an entirely different philosophy. Rather than treating addiction as a crime, it’s treated as a medical condition. João Goulão, Portugal’s top drug official, emphasizes that the goal of the new policy is to fight the disease, not the patients.
http://www.attn.com/stories/995/portugal-drug-policy
In the 1990s, Portugal was faced with a drug epidemic. General drug use wasn’t any worse than neighboring countries, but rates of problematic drug use were off the charts. A 2001 surveyfound that 0.7 percent of its population had used heroin at least one time, the second highest rate after England and Wales in Europe. So, in 1998, Portugal appointed a special commission of doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and activists to assess the problem and propose policy recommendations. Following eight months of analysis, the commission advised the government to embark on a radically different approach.
Rather than respond as many governments have, with zero-tolerance legislation and an emphasis on law enforcement, the commission suggested the decriminalization of all drugs, coupled with a focus on prevention, education, and harm-reduction. The objective of the new policy was to reintegrate the addict back into the community, rather than isolate them in prisons, the common approach by many governments. Two years later, Portugal’s government passed the commission’s recommendations into law.
Just as important as the specific policies recommended by the commission is an entirely different philosophy. Rather than treating addiction as a crime, it’s treated as a medical condition. João Goulão, Portugal’s top drug official, emphasizes that the goal of the new policy is to fight the disease, not the patients.
viking23
New Member
You guys should check out movie "killing the messenger". Its a new movie based on a true story about a reporter that may have cracked one of the biggest stories of corruption in the USA.
The story is unreal and not only was it covered up in 1997 but was the CIA did. write a 400 page summary about the truth but of course that was overshadowed by none other than the Clinton scandal. Really makes me wonder if the scandal wasn't just made as a cover because the timing is impeccable!
Also great thread Dr. Scally
The story is unreal and not only was it covered up in 1997 but was the CIA did. write a 400 page summary about the truth but of course that was overshadowed by none other than the Clinton scandal. Really makes me wonder if the scandal wasn't just made as a cover because the timing is impeccable!
Also great thread Dr. Scally
Very good thread. Here in new jersey our governor has been trying to put more emphasis on drug treatment rather then incarnation for those caught with limited amounts of drugs. Maybe one day in the future a reform or new way of thinking may change the war that just won't seem to end.
Link?
“We were not leveling cities as we did in WWII with bombs, but with prosecution, prison, and punishment,”
[url=http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/07/02/federal-judge-of-17-years-repents-compares-damage-done-by-war-on-drugs-to-destruction-of-world-war-ii/]17 Year Federal Judge Savages 'War On Drugs': "This Is A War I Saw Destroy Lives... Makes No Sense"[/URL]
Michael Krieger
Jul 2, 2015
The “war on drugs” is one of the most irrational, idiotic and destructive public policy failures in American history, and that’s saying a lot. I’ve covered this topic many times at Liberty Blitzkrieg, but nothing spells it out like the repentant words of a former federal judge, who admittedly ruined countless lives for no reason.
From the Atlantic:
Enough is enough. Let’s end this stupidity once and for all.
[url=http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/07/02/federal-judge-of-17-years-repents-compares-damage-done-by-war-on-drugs-to-destruction-of-world-war-ii/]17 Year Federal Judge Savages 'War On Drugs': "This Is A War I Saw Destroy Lives... Makes No Sense"[/URL]
Michael Krieger
Jul 2, 2015
The “war on drugs” is one of the most irrational, idiotic and destructive public policy failures in American history, and that’s saying a lot. I’ve covered this topic many times at Liberty Blitzkrieg, but nothing spells it out like the repentant words of a former federal judge, who admittedly ruined countless lives for no reason.
From the Atlantic:
ASPEN, Colo.—Former Federal Judge Nancy Gertner was appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton in 1994. She presided over trials for 17 years. And Sunday, she stood before a crowd at The Aspen Ideas Festival to denounce most punishments that she imposed.
Among 500 sanctions that she handed down, “80 percent I believe were unfair and disproportionate,” she said. “I left the bench in 2011 to join the Harvard faculty to write about those stories––to write about how it came to pass that I was obliged to sentence people to terms that, frankly, made no sense under any philosophy.”
She went on to savage the War on Drugs at greater length. “This is a war that I saw destroy lives,” she said. “It eliminated a generation of African American men, covered our racism in ostensibly neutral guidelines and mandatory minimums… and created an intergenerational problem––although I wasn’t on the bench long enough to see this, we know that the sons and daughters of the people we sentenced are in trouble, and are in trouble with the criminal justice system.”
She added that the War on Drugs eliminated the political participation of its casualties. “We were not leveling cities as we did in WWII with bombs, but with prosecution, prison, and punishment,” she said, explaining that her life’s work is now focused on trying to reconstruct the lives that she undermined––as a general matter, by advocating for reform, and as a specific project: she is trying to go through the list of all the people she sentenced to see who deserves executive clemency.
Among 500 sanctions that she handed down, “80 percent I believe were unfair and disproportionate,” she said. “I left the bench in 2011 to join the Harvard faculty to write about those stories––to write about how it came to pass that I was obliged to sentence people to terms that, frankly, made no sense under any philosophy.”
She went on to savage the War on Drugs at greater length. “This is a war that I saw destroy lives,” she said. “It eliminated a generation of African American men, covered our racism in ostensibly neutral guidelines and mandatory minimums… and created an intergenerational problem––although I wasn’t on the bench long enough to see this, we know that the sons and daughters of the people we sentenced are in trouble, and are in trouble with the criminal justice system.”
She added that the War on Drugs eliminated the political participation of its casualties. “We were not leveling cities as we did in WWII with bombs, but with prosecution, prison, and punishment,” she said, explaining that her life’s work is now focused on trying to reconstruct the lives that she undermined––as a general matter, by advocating for reform, and as a specific project: she is trying to go through the list of all the people she sentenced to see who deserves executive clemency.
Enough is enough. Let’s end this stupidity once and for all.
I see alot of about this on TV,
I have to say poor mexicans on the border to the US.
Money is making the biggest people and politicans beeing part of the incomer of drugs.
If there is a god, they will have really problems after dying.
The world is and will be sick.
People doing everything for money nowadays. And the more money they have the less morally things they do to make even more money.
I have to say poor mexicans on the border to the US.
Money is making the biggest people and politicans beeing part of the incomer of drugs.
If there is a god, they will have really problems after dying.
The world is and will be sick.
People doing everything for money nowadays. And the more money they have the less morally things they do to make even more money.
Do Adults Have a Privacy Right to Use Drugs?
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/10/adults-privacy-right-use-drugs-brazils-supreme-court-decides/
The past decade has witnessed a remarkable transformation in the global debate over drug policy. As recently as the mid-2000s, drug legalization or even decriminalization was a fringe idea, something almost no politician would get near.
That’s all changed.
That the War on Drugs is a fundamental failure is a widely accepted fact among experts and even policymakers.
Multiple nations no longer treat personal drug usage as a criminal problem but rather as one of public health.
Many of them are actively considering following Portugal’s successful example of decriminalizing all drugs.
The global trend is clearly toward abandoning prohibitionist policies.
The rationale most commonly offered for decriminalization is the utilitarian one, i.e. efficacy: that prosecuting and imprisoning drug users produces more harm than good.
Also frequently invoked is a claim about justice and morality: that it’s morally wrong to criminally punish someone for what amounts to a health problem (addiction).
By contrast, the Supreme Court of Brazil may be on the verge of adopting a much different and more interesting anti-criminalization justification.
The Court is deciding whether the right of privacy, guaranteed by Article 5 of the nation’s constitution (one’s “intimate” and “private life” are “inviolable”), bars the state from punishing adults who decide to consume drugs.
In other words, the Court seems prepared to accept the pure civil libertarian argument against criminalizing drugs: namely, independent of outcomes, the state has no legitimate authority to punish adult citizens for the choices they make in their private sphere, provided that those choices do not result in direct harm to others.
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/10/adults-privacy-right-use-drugs-brazils-supreme-court-decides/
The past decade has witnessed a remarkable transformation in the global debate over drug policy. As recently as the mid-2000s, drug legalization or even decriminalization was a fringe idea, something almost no politician would get near.
That’s all changed.
That the War on Drugs is a fundamental failure is a widely accepted fact among experts and even policymakers.
Multiple nations no longer treat personal drug usage as a criminal problem but rather as one of public health.
Many of them are actively considering following Portugal’s successful example of decriminalizing all drugs.
The global trend is clearly toward abandoning prohibitionist policies.
The rationale most commonly offered for decriminalization is the utilitarian one, i.e. efficacy: that prosecuting and imprisoning drug users produces more harm than good.
Also frequently invoked is a claim about justice and morality: that it’s morally wrong to criminally punish someone for what amounts to a health problem (addiction).
By contrast, the Supreme Court of Brazil may be on the verge of adopting a much different and more interesting anti-criminalization justification.
The Court is deciding whether the right of privacy, guaranteed by Article 5 of the nation’s constitution (one’s “intimate” and “private life” are “inviolable”), bars the state from punishing adults who decide to consume drugs.
In other words, the Court seems prepared to accept the pure civil libertarian argument against criminalizing drugs: namely, independent of outcomes, the state has no legitimate authority to punish adult citizens for the choices they make in their private sphere, provided that those choices do not result in direct harm to others.
6 "party drugs" that may have health benefits.
"magic" mushrooms
"ecstasy"
cocaine
lsd
ketamine
marijuana
livescience.com/41277-health-benefits-illegal-drugs.html
"magic" mushrooms
"ecstasy"
cocaine
lsd
ketamine
marijuana
livescience.com/41277-health-benefits-illegal-drugs.html
Here is the original briefing paper from UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in full:
http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/finally-a-change-in-course-on-drug-policy
http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/finally-a-change-in-course-on-drug-policy
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Yeah, it seems like the rest of the world is getting sick of the United State's shitty policy decisions and it's failed "War on Drugs". What baffles me is how people believe that drug prohibition has seemingly been around forever, yet the oldest drug prohibition-like policy that I believe existed in this country dates back to only 1914 with the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act. Which wasn't even supposed to be a direct prohibition law (which is why it was called a tax act) but was manipulated into one anyway, thanks to the courts. Physicians were persecuted for providing drug maintenance to opium addicts and the courts deemed physicians to be stepping outside of the law by prescribing drugs for maintenance purposes. As a result doctors were tried, convicted, and some incarcerated because they decided to treat drug abusers. However, despite the act condemning purposes of distribution and use (per court ruling); distribution, sale and use of cocaine was still legal for companies and individuals. It seems as if the opium trade (opium dens in particular) were the ones most heavily targeted (probably because the Chinese were the hated immigrants of that time). So the white man thrived while the china man died in the drug trade. Because of zealots in government (who were racists and most likely "religious") who supported drug prohibition, we ended up with this horrendous drug policy that now exists. Within, I guess, only the past 50 years is when the "war on drugs" and drug prohibition really ramped up. Then came "tough on crime" and mass incarceration as a result.
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so, i look in on the site almost daily. i was kind of surprised to see this post "psychedelics: a new medical frontier?" more like a re-emerging one, but anyway. its an easy read and has a decent amount of links to actual studies for anyone interested.
marksdailyapple.com/psychedelics-a-new-medical-frontier/#axzz3umLrpCXk
marksdailyapple.com/psychedelics-a-new-medical-frontier/#axzz3umLrpCXk
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