Drug prohibition has failed. What's next?

Рет қаралды 6,283

Жыл бұрын

What comes in the wake of a failed war on drugs that is too expensive, unjust, counterproductive and deadly depends upon the lessons we learn from that failure and the policy experiments in legalization that have already taken place.
This video essay from Zach Weissmueller draws on a 2-hour live conversation with Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, and Reason's Nick Gillespie, which is available here: • Legalize All Drugs. NOW.
Referenced sources:
Gallup: Americans’ views on legalizing marijuana news.gallup.com/poll/323582/s...
Washington Post: How Obama’s Spending Plan Would Change the Drug War www.washingtonpost.com/news/w...
White House: Federal Drug Control Funding Priorities www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content...
CDC: Drug-involved overdose deaths 1999-2021 nida.nih.gov/research-topics/...
NIH: Opioid Addiction Numbers - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics: 30-day drug use in the U.S. - drugabusestatistics.org/
Yale: What the needles said. medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-m...
Excerpt from Yale study: reduced HIV infections by 1/3
Does the evidence support supervised injection sites? www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Excerpt from above study: Decrease in deaths, hospital calls, HIV
CBC: Supervised consumption sites “A System of Chaos” - www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...
Alberta government study on supervised injection sites: open.alberta.ca/dataset/dfd35...
Harm Reduction Journal: Scrutinizing the Alberta study on supervised consumption sites - harmreductionjournal.biomedce...
Excerpt from above study: didn’t adequately measure police activity
Oregon Live: Oregon’s Drug Decriminalization Sends Fewer than 1% to Treatment - www.oregonlive.com/health/202...
Excerpt from report: ODs increased, addiction programs underfunded
Drug deaths in Portugal and EU: transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-...
Prisoners sentenced
HIV rates
Pierre Anderson for the Swedish Drug Policy Centre: Decriminalization of Drugs. What Can We Learn from Portugal? (2020) narkotikapolitisktcenter.se/w...
From portugal report: use and possession are prohibited
Portugal report: consequence for being caught
Harper’s: Legalize it All by Dan Baum - harpers.org/archive/2016/04/l...
Edward Markey (D-MA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) Modernizing Opioid Treament Access Act - www.markey.senate.gov/news/pr...

Пікірлер: 207

@ErichRaeder Жыл бұрын

'Legalization' needs to ensure people are not punished for possessing, cultivating and manufacturing, these need to be cited clearly in any legislation once prohibition has ended

@danaaronmusic Жыл бұрын

Sad that bodily autonomy isn't a sufficient argument for many Americans.

@antiprohibit

Decriminalization without a safe supply is irresponsible.

@michaellowe3665 Жыл бұрын

CA should think of their drug policies like their firearms policies. If they are going to allow drugs to be traded openly in public, they should allow the same for firearms. Or, they can move both into stores and off the street. How is this so difficult for them?

@freesk8 Жыл бұрын

The prohibition of alcohol made things worse in the '20's. And making drugs illegal today is also making things worse. Let's leave the problem to churches, non-profit orgs, and private individuals. That works better to reduce the magnitude of the problem.

@myplane150 Жыл бұрын

The biggest issue I see with legalizing to the point of legal sales is that the Gov't (local and Fed) would tax the crap out of the sales to the point where it would not be financially rewarding to the sellers. The black market would just take over the majority of sales. This is what is happening right now in California with Marijuana. The growers and dispensaries are getting taxed so much that more than two-thirds of all MJ is now sold in the grey market due to high dispensary prices.

@gordonjohnson1775 Жыл бұрын

An end to reduction of criminal charges for serious crimes to "simple possession" must be part of this discussion.

@Yodie208 Жыл бұрын

Drug prohibition will never end. There is too much money being made. from the CIA funding its black budget, the lawyers, police unions, the medical industry, privatized prisons, corporations, hedge funds, Banking, rehab facilities, and even the funeral industry. always remember, It has always been and always will be "Profits over People"

@whyjnot420 Жыл бұрын

For 25 years now I have been telling people that while harm elimination can be a nice ideal (e.g. a car with enough safety features to handle anything shy of incoming artillery fire), in many many different context. Harm mitigation/reduction is what we all do in reality for all of these things. E.g. we put features in cars that do (or are supposed to) a pretty good job of making it so people don't die in car accidents.

@invertedreality4473

Decriminalization is a half measure that's been a disaster. We need full LEGALIZATION, REGULATION, AND TAXATION. Decriminalization maintains the black market and does nothing for education and quality control.

@scarlet79225 Жыл бұрын

Prohibition should've never happened. It's the root cause of every problem related noted in this clip. Sadly, I think they'll just keep going with it no matter how many people die 😪

@MeRia035 Жыл бұрын

Thank you!❤

@ljwhitmire200 Жыл бұрын

And there is the key problem, "...small amounts for personal use." The Feds and most states have reduced the amount required to qualify for distribution so low that just about anyone with more than a bit will be charged with trafficking,. That's the other part of the equation that needs to be addressed. Forget decriminalization: just legalize everything. It can't be worse than the clusterscrew we have now. The War on Drugs has always been a War on Poor People. It was never about drugs, it was about oppression.

@michaelfielding7723 Жыл бұрын

Sounds like advocating for smaller government by creating larger government. If drugs are legalized, then the government shouldn't be in the business of subsidizing their use. If someone commits a crime while in drugs, the drugs should not be used as a mitigating factor. For example, killing someone while drunk, high, or stoned should be treated the same as shooting a gun randomly in a populated space.

@robertnewshutz1081 Жыл бұрын

Drug prohibition is bad public policy considering the general welfare, but if your goal was to disrupt lower class and minority communities, then drug prohibition has "worked".

@bigbone1369 Жыл бұрын

Appeal the Control Substance Act including all of it's drug scheduling. It's Unconstitutional. The federal government has no authority to prohibit anything. Why did they have a Constitutional Ammendment to prohibit alcohol?

@juliablack6619 Жыл бұрын

Legalize medicine first. As of now beside paying for meds, you need to pay doctors and convince them you're ill enough, be polite to the point of kissing their ass, when most of the time you barely have energy to go to hospital in the first place, and ONLY THEN you can purchase something that can actually help you

@Sue-ec6un Жыл бұрын

Well, gee, maybe being honest and teaching the kids what the real dangers are. Instead of lying about it all the time. No, smoking pot is not gonna turn you into a drug addicted monster, but yes, smoking crack or taking fentynal might. As we also should be honest with our kids about the dangers of alcohol, if you have an built in addiction problem, your first drink might be the one that gets you, so make good decisions...instead, we keep kids in the dark and feed them bullshit so they feel like they have to find out for themselves. The government should stay the hell out of all of our lives, because in the end, their only job is to hurt us.

@aaronraycove9517 Жыл бұрын

Treat all these drugs like we do with alcohol and cigarettes. Drug use might go up in the short term, but with proper warnings and more importantly a social aversion to them will eventually reduce their negative impacts on lives.

@RobertLanden1 Жыл бұрын

What would happen if "we" legalized drugs? What would happen if they stopped threatening peaceful people with violence to force them to obey and pay like slaves? If you need permission to be free then you're not free