Other - Vietnam Solution for the Drug war

[xctico]

The Vietnam Solution for Drug Victory
By Mark Thornton
Posted on 3/7/2007


Lou Dobbs declares that there is only one option in the war on drugs — victory. I agree.

The real question is how to achieve this victory. The two things we know for certain are that we will never eliminate drug abuse and addiction and we will never make any real progress towards reducing drug abuse and addiction by government.

All the rest of the problems with "drugs" are directly the result of the war on drugs — government prohibition. Drug-related crimes, drug gangs, overcrowded prisons, a poisoned judicial system, and political corruption are all the result of drug prohibition, not drugs themselves.

Look at the problems in drug-producing areas of the world such as Mexico, South America, the Middle East and Afghanistan. What would these nations be like absent our drug war? We know very well that the drug war and illegal drug money is helping to undermine local institutions, spread dangerous ideologies, and fuel anti-Americanism. The same applies to the inner city ghettos.

Most importantly, Americans are dying from illegal drugs at rising and alarming rates. These deaths are also the result of the drug war because government prohibition makes drugs more potent, more impure, more dangerous, more addictive, and more deadly.

People who sell illegal drugs want their products to be as concentrated as possible in order to avoid detection from law enforcement. They are not trying to kill their customers, but in black markets sellers are not held accountable by law or competition. If McDonald's sold a hamburger that killed one customer it would affect its sales around the globe and they would be prosecuted and sued for millions of dollars. The same is true for all businesses in the free market.

The solution is to end prohibition and all government involvement with drugs in the same way we left Vietnam. No prohibition, no law enforcement, no government distribution centers, no regulation, no controls, just abandon government drug control like we abandoned Vietnam — completely and in disgrace for what we had done. Vietnam was a complete basket case when we left and has improved a great deal in many ways, including abandoning communist economics and allowing some freedom of religion.

Drug legalization will also lead to improvements because sellers will be legally liable for selling drugs that harm their customers by causing overdoses and death, or to minors. Before prohibition, Bayer sold heroin and Coca Cola sold cocaine and nobody died as a result from overdose. Marijuana is still safer than alcohol, tobacco, and most FDA-approved prescription drugs, even though it has greatly increased in potency under prohibition.

Sellers will also not be shooting guns at their competitors. Drug gangs will lose their source of funding. There will be plenty of space in prison for real criminals. The corruption and bribery that infects our entire law enforcement and legal system will be purged.

Of course we must do more to help those who abuse or who might potentially abuse drugs. As individuals we must be prepared to help our friends, family, and coworkers. As a nation we must also be prepared with "tough love." To that end we should eliminate the so-called social safety net that allows individuals to abuse drugs and pass the cost onto society.


Programs such as welfare, unemployment insurance, and government-provided healthcare and insurance all most go. The job market provides a great incentive to not abuse drugs. Drug abusers get lower paying jobs, fewer promotions, and are fired at a much higher rate than those who do not abuse drugs. By providing welfare and unemployment insurance we unwittingly encourage drug abuse and bad behavior by creating what is called a moral hazard because we as a nation bail out people for their bad behavior.

Government subsidized health care must also go. Mandates that require hospitals and emergency rooms to take on all customers whether they can pay or not is a grand inducement to bad behavior with drugs. There were nearly 20,000 drug overdoses in 2004 and most of them ended up in hospitals unable to pay for their treatment. Think of all the drug gang violence that ends up sending un-paying customers to emergency rooms all over the country night after night. Subsidizing drug abuse and ruining our health care system is not the right approach.

Victory will be achieved when we all realize that the drug war prohibition is just another Vietnam — a morally reprehensible and intellectually dishonest crusade of self delusion. It cannot end too soon.

[Nagognog2]

Unfortunately - the above makes sense. The actual crime being prosecuted is the alteration of one's consciousness. And those who rail loudest to a continuation of prohibiting altering consiousness also rail against any form of consciousness that is not identical to the maintanence of thought/mind that allows their continued existence in the ways they desire.

Here's the scary part: If the War On Drugs ever were won - through a vaccine against various drugs, the execution of all people with drugs, or so forth - they would not yet be satisfied. They would then demand an implant placed inside the brains of all people that could only be removed by the order of a court - that they owned. It would drown out your thoughts with the Party Line accompanied by a drum-beat. "Rented-A-Tent! Rented-A-Tent! Rented-A-Rented-A-Rented-A-Tent"...I Love the Leader! The Leader Knows All! I Love Halliburton! Halliburton Loves All! "Rented-A-Rented-A Tent!"

[xctico]

shhh... big brother is watching.

[FrankenChrist]

A bit too extreme methinks. Putting healthcare on the line because of the drug war?
Also, I'd like to be treated if urgently needed without going through the hassle of getting a credit rating.

[xctico]

Originally Posted by FrankenChrist

A bit too extreme methinks. Putting healthcare on the line because of the drug war?
Also, I'd like to be treated if urgently needed without going through the hassle of getting a credit rating.

If you are going to give people the freedom to choose, you have to let them deal with the consecuences of their choices...

[FrankenChrist]

Originally Posted by xctico

The Vietnam Solution for Drug Victory
By Mark Thornton
Posted on 3/7/2007

Drug legalization will also lead to improvements because sellers will be legally liable for selling drugs that harm their customers by causing overdoses and death, or to minors. Before prohibition, Bayer sold heroin and Coca Cola sold cocaine and nobody died as a result from overdose. Marijuana is still safer than alcohol, tobacco, and most FDA-approved prescription drugs,

Just to point out what I do agree with.^^

even though it has greatly increased in potency under prohibition.

I'm not sure about that. If it did, it should be good for people, since you need to smoke less of it.
It's also a fact blown out of proportion by prohibitionists.

Drug abusers get lower paying jobs, fewer promotions, and are fired at a much higher rate than those who do not abuse drugs.

What I do fear for is is corporations becoming the drug nazis instead of the government, even more so.
People have reportedly been fired for smoking tobacco at home.

Now, I wish it wasn't true but many drug users indeed are unproductive, get fired a lot, etc (I see it because I work at a temp agency for the moment.). Too bad you don't hear about good productive examples of society with drug habits. [sometimes I wish for a massive coming-out and subsequent normalization in the collective mind ]

I do wonder about the good, productive ones that got fired after a random drug test. That's a damn shame.

And what about the double morale? Drug tests don't seem to apply to CEO's with coke habits...

By the way, I'm not your ideological enemy. Around these parts I'm probably one of the most libertarian-leaning people you'll meet.

[xctico]

regarding the potency... in the case of cannabis, there are new breeds, out of BC... that are much more potent than usual cannabis, there are also breeds from mexico that are able to withstand winter...
In the case of heroin, the behaviour of the price has been similar to that of microchips, potency has gone up and price has gone down exponentially

the inflated prices create an incredibly strong incentive for the market to improve it's products... however we'll never know if such improvements would have taken place if the products where still legal, and therefore traded in a free market structure.




about the corporations... there's more money in playing Pablo Escobar than in playing the drug Fuhrer... and corporations tend to go where the money is...

In several fields, like graphic design, architecture, music, plastic arts, performance arts, literature and even in trading... the hard thing is finding someone who isn't on some kind of drug(s)...



good effort... this war like most wars is a war about freedom. It's amazing how many nobel price economists oppose this war, and yet how little have they done to end it.

[IkBenDeMan]

So the solution to help people is to let them do drugs, but not give them healthcare? Ironic....

[enquirewithin]

People who sell illegal drugs want their products to be as concentrated as possible in order to avoid detection from law enforcement. They are not trying to kill their customers, but in black markets sellers are not held accountable by law or competition. If McDonald's sold a hamburger that killed one customer it would affect its sales around the globe and they would be prosecuted and sued for millions of dollars. The same is true for all businesses in the free market.

Not quite true! The big pharmaceutical companies sell drugs which kill people and harm them mentally and physically everyday. Even tylenol/ paracetamol kills. But they can get away with it.

The same goes for tobacco companies and breweries.

[sunyata]

If drug-users should be denied tratment for drug-related problems I think we should also deny those career-pursuing drones who end up burnt out and depressed because they work too much the same treatment. After all, they brought it on themselves as well.

[stoneinfocus]

There shouldn´t be a question about healthcare anyway, if medics would strictly hold on to not serve any instance, but only helping medically wherever possible.

There then can not be a more or less important or cost issues, in fact, every hiv-newinfection due to criminalized drug-use is more costly and dangerous to the whole society than anything else.

I totally disaggre of drug-users, or "abusers" as they´re called here, being less productive.
You can get mobbed and fired because someone simply says you´re a dope-dealer or pot-smoker -you didnt even have to get to know these accusés, but will be fired, for nothing, jsut because some narrow-minded moron´s think, that you might have the wrong attitude in their eyes.

It´s the same, like "tolerating" blacks but ensuring they won´t get the same chances, for the sake of the generally approved predjudice.

It´s the same as saying gays are mentally or othrewise ill and shouldn´t get the respect and acceptance -you tolerate them, but at the same time, treat them like some infectious dirt-bag, advisisng to a "better" attitude or lifestyle? -same thing with drug-users.

Oh, and what about pro-sports? Worldrekords and the hardest, most dedicated working and competing men ever and all on drugs.

[xctico]

Originally Posted by co-incidence

I totally disaggre of drug-users, or "abusers" as they´re called here, being less productive.
You can get mobbed and fired because someone simply says you´re a dope-dealer or pot-smoker -you didnt even have to get to know these accusés, but will be fired, for nothing, jsut because some narrow-minded moron´s think, that you might have the wrong attitude in their eyes.

I can't agree with you 100%... the occassional drug user has no problem being productive. But when a drug habit starts getting out of hand it will affect productivity, same as a booze habit or a gambling habit.

[zera]

Originally Posted by FrankenChrist

I do wonder about the good, productive ones that got fired after a random drug test. That's a damn shame.

And what about the double morale? Drug tests don't seem to apply to CEO's with coke habits...

In a competitive market (which pretty almost every labor market in America is) the wage level will rise or fall to the marginal productivity level of the worker. If indeed companies are unfairly discriminating against drug users, ie denying them jobs when they're just as productive as their counterparts, then we would expect that eventually competitors would come into the market to hire all these depressed wage drug users and outcompete the non-drug hiring companies, until eventually wages get bid up to the same level as non-drug users. If the situation is such that drug users statistically are worse off, but tend to fall into two groups, fuck-ups and responsible users, there is economic incentive to seperate the two groups and hire the depressed wage responsible users, until their wage equals their marginal cost minus the cost of identification. This might explain why drug testing is found at entry and low-level jobs more so than at the professional level, someone with an estabilished work background already has a tract record, so even if he is a drug user you can quickly estabilish if he's responsible or not from his resume and history. Someone getting their first job at a fast food joint might not be so easy to tell whether he's responsible or not. Though after working there for a while his performance should speak to itself, so why I can see pre-employement drug testing continue I can't really see random drug testing continuing in an effecient market.

Without the drug war I think the productivity gap will shrink between drug and non-drug users, I imagine much of the lost productivity is due to sickness associated with bad product, days lost due to legal issues, motivation lost due to harassment by society, etc. Also most of the testing pushed in the United States is pushed for by the government under its Federal Workplace Testing program, which require certain companies doing business with the government to test and/or subsidize companies. There are other government bodies that require testing, for example casino licensing boards. Then finally there are government rules that relieve firms of liability if they can prove their workers were under the influence, hence the post-incidence drug tests.

I'd imagine in a post-legalization world that drug tests would pretty much cease to exist, except maybe with the exception of pre-employement screening for entry level jobs. Even then this is more of a test for addicts than for drug users as its mainly testing whether you have the ability to be abstinent for the period leading up to the exam (I doubt marijuana would continue to be tested for without the NIDA test regulations, as serious marijuana problems are rare).

[xctico]

an efficient job market... I'm afraid we are even further from that one than we are from a comprehensive drug policy.

In order for the job market to be efficient there can't be any restrictions to the mobility of labor... so it will only exist in theory until the US-Mexico border isn't anything more than a toll boot.

[zera]

Originally Posted by xctico

an efficient job market... I'm afraid we are even further from that one than we are from a comprehensive drug policy.

In order for the job market to be efficient there can't be any restrictions to the mobility of labor... so it will only exist in theory until the US-Mexico border isn't anything more than a toll boot.

True, but a restriction on immigration restricts labor supply, not labor demand. For employers to set up a burden on employees where the marginal costs to the employee exceeds the marginal benefit to the employer (like a restriction on people who use drugs responsibly) employers would need to have some sort of monopoly power in the labor market. I can't think of a single labor market in the United States where an employer has a monopoly on that labor market. The only possible thing that springs to mind that could meet this criteria are markets where there is some union or professional organization that restricts entry into the field.

[xctico]

That's where minimum wages come in. Companies aren't allowed to hire the marginal workers at the market wage, since they have to pay a minimum, which leads to them to hire only those that can certainly and without reasonable doubt create an income equal to the minimum wage; not to the marginal cost of their employment as it would be in an efficient market. Unions and other barriers of entry will only worsen this situation.

Now on regard to the border... It will create a reduction in the job demand, since companies will just go south taking their jobs with them [outsourcing]... leaving the job supply unsatisfied. In an efficient market, they'll just work for less until salaries at both sides of the border become so similar that the companies no longer have an incentive to go south. However, that's where minimum wages and unions kick in... they create unemployment [which is a great thing when you need to gather an army of "volunteers" to fight you a war...]

The market always finds ways to get around any obstacle....

in the long run, everything falls to equilibrium, but in the long run we're all dead.

[stoneinfocus]

Originally Posted by xctico

I can't agree with you 100%... the occassional drug user has no problem being productive. But when a drug habit starts getting out of hand it will affect productivity, same as a booze habit or a gambling habit.

But that´s in no way the cause of drug-use, it´s a social problem a personal problem, that the individual is trying to solve by mostly inadaequat and ineefective means of drug-use, although it might help even by exacerbating problems to become recogized and then eradicated.

I was most productive, when I knew what to do in my life while doing drugs, I was the most unproductive, when I didn´t know what to , was mobbed for nothing and meanwhile and later on doing drugs, I was good in pro sports, but didn´t succeed while being sober for years, but being mobbed by my family, I was hit by a car, after a murder thread, and came back to pro-sports stronger than before, imn only 5 moths with growth hormone and testo, because I finally had the money and internet to get it, and was then deported to a mental health clinic, for brainwashing and destroying, what supposed to be the top of 6 year elite-sports and intense training for it, because my parents said I was a violent criminal & terrorizing them, and without any signs nor prove of mistreatement, this was reason enough to destroy my life and health, my image completely.I believe it was fun for all invovled, because this happened so easly in minutes without me being aggeressive or uncooperative in any way.

You see, the drug´s aren´t the excuse for social deficits, in no case are they the reason for a defecite and could be well used to strenghhen social behaviour, self-resposibility by an liberal togetherness and love.

I do belive, that we could live a lot more productively in the right way, in a more human way and not for the sake of the riches and powers, and getting fucked by them, if we all would use drugs and knew about it, gave the liberty to make mistakes-call it experiments, in the first place, to be much stronger knowledgable and a better human and society in the end.

If we want to win, there has to be no foul compromising and stopping in thinking things through to the very end, accepting all the consequences that are really involved.