Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: astor on April 24, 2013, 06:34 pm
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Apparently this was published recently.
While they aren't talking about decriminalizing drugs, the rhetoric is starkly different from the Reagan years. I have hope for the future.
Site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/drugpolicyreform (obviously access over Tor)
PDF of full policy: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ndcs_2013.pdf (open in VM if you don't trust it)
Drug Policy 101
While law enforcement will always play a vital role in protecting our communities from drug-related crime and violence, we simply cannot incarcerate our way out of the drug problem. Put simply, an enforcement-centric “war on drugs” approach to drug policy is counterproductive, inefficient, and costly. At the other extreme, drug legalization also runs counter to a public health and safety approach to drug policy. The more Americans use drugs, the higher the health, safety, productivity, and criminal justice costs we all have to bear.
The Administration's 21st century drug policy plan provides an evidence based alternative to these approaches. Here's how it works.
Emphasizing prevention over incarceration. Preventing drug use before it begins— particularly among young people— is the most cost-effective way to reduce drug use and its consequences. In fact, recent research has concluded that every dollar invested in school-based substance use prevention programs has the potential to save up to $18 in costs related to substance use disorders.
That's why the President's plan promotes the expansion of national and community-based programs—such as the Drug Free Communities Support Program—that reach young people in schools, on college campuses, and in the workplace with tailored information designed to help them make healthy decisions about their future. But prevention alone isn't enough.
Training health care professionals to intervene early before addiction develops. Early detection and treatment of a substance use problem by a doctor, nurse, or other health care professional is much more effective and less costly than dealing with the consequences of addiction or criminal justice involvement later on. Therefore, the Administration's plan works to expand programs that train health care professionals to identify and treat problematic drug use before the condition becomes chronic. By supporting programs like Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment, we can promote healthy lifestyles, prevent addictive disorders from taking hold, and reduce the number of people entering the criminal justice system. For too many, however, drug use has progressed to the point of a disorder and requires treatment.
Expanding access to treatment. Today, about 22 million Americans need treatment for a substance use disorder, and yet only 2 million—about 1-in-10—actually receive the treatment they need. This is unacceptable. Research shows that addiction is a disease from which people can recover. In fact, success rates for treating addictive disorders are roughly on par with recovery rates for other chronic diseases such as diabetes, asthma, and hypertension.
Recognizing this, the Obama Administration has taken unprecedented action to expand access to treatment for millions of Americans. Through the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies will be required to cover treatment for addiction just as they would cover any other chronic disease. We estimate that with the Affordable Care Act, 62.5 million people will receive expanded substance abuse benefits by 2020, with 32.1 million gaining those benefits for the first time. To support this expansion, the President's FY 2014 Budget includes an increase of $1.4 billion for treatment over the FY 2012 amount, the largest such request for treatment funding in decades.
Taking a "smart on crime" approach to drug enforcement. Drugs and crime are often linked, which is why addressing serious drug related crime and violence will always be a vital component of our plan to protect public health and safety in America. But at the end of the day, we cannot arrest our way out of the drug problem. The Obama Administration has made clear we will not focus limited Federal drug enforcement resources on individual drug users. Instead, our drug policy emphasizes the expansion of innovative "smart on crime" strategies proven to help break the cycle of drug use, crime, arrest, and incarceration.
Our plan calls for substantial reforms to the Nation's criminal justice system to lower incarceration rates and reduce recidivism while protecting public safety: Reforms like the expansion of specialized courts that divert non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prison. Reforms like smart diversion programs that identify first time offenders who have a substance use disorder and provide community health services instead of a jail cell or arrest record. Reforms like reentry programs, which help guide former offenders back into society, support their recovery from addiction, and help them avoid a return to the criminal justice system.
Giving a voice to Americans in recovery. Millions of Americans successfully make the journey from addiction to recovery. Yet too often, these Americans face barriers to maintaining their sobriety, including a lack of access to housing, employment, or even getting a driver's license or student loan.
In support of the roughly 23 million Americans in recovery today, the President's plan seeks to eliminate legislative and regulatory barriers facing Americans who have made the successful journey from addiction to sobriety. As part of this effort, the Obama Administration has, for the first time, established a Recovery Branch at the Office of National Drug Control Policy to support Americans in recovery and help lift the stigma associated with addiction.
This is what a 21st century approach to drug policy looks like.
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This does seem like a step forward. But then, that is only if it actually gets properly implemented...
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OH YEA I'M IN!!! Hopefully it gets approved....
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One of the problems I see with this strategy is the focus on "early education". We've had programs like DARE for 30 years and I believe studies have shown that people who go through the DARE program are as likely to do drugs as people who don't. The powers that be need to realize that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all, like the Portugal model (well, they still force people into treatment if they get caught with drugs in Portugal, but that's less than what most countries do).
Since it is empirically known from 30 years of data that education programs are pretty much useless, this looks like more money being thrown away so that politicians can say they are doing *something* to combat drugs (and at least useless education isn't as disastrous as mass incarceration of the populace).
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@ astor "and at least useless education isn't as disastrous as mass incarceration of the populace)."
Exactly, we all meet up in rehab, oh no wait it's ed u ca tion, cool. lol
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One of the problems I see with this strategy is the focus on "early education". We've had programs like DARE for 30 years and I believe studies have shown that people who go through the DARE program are as likely to do drugs as people who don't. The powers that be need to realize that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all, like the Portugal model (well, they still force people into treatment if they get caught with drugs in Portugal, but that's less than what most countries do).
Since it is empirically known from 30 years of data that education programs are pretty much useless, this looks like more money being thrown away so that politicians can say they are doing *something* to combat drugs (and at least useless education isn't as disastrous as mass incarceration of the populace).
I'm not sure I experienced the DARE program, definitely never heard of it.
My drug ed experience mostly consisted of "Drugs are bad, look at this picture of what happens to you when you do drugs! BAD!" and little to no education on their effects or safety. I think that is basically what most drug ed programs are...they just do their best to scare you without teaching anything.
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Yea his new policy is to raid some more San Diego dispensaries..
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The reason drug education classes have historically been a failure is that they aren't really educational at all. Instead of saying "Stay away from drugs", which is obviously only going to tempt kids and ensure that they never take you seriously; they ought to be saying "Do what you are going to do, but here is how to be safe about it".
But that would actually make sense, and this is the US government we are talking about so that is never going to happen.
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My drug ed experience mostly consisted of "Drugs are bad, look at this picture of what happens to you when you do drugs! BAD!" and little to no education on their effects or safety. I think that is basically what most drug ed programs are...they just do their best to scare you without teaching anything.
I was schooled on pictures of Swiss cheese brains of ecstasy users... and since I went to a fairly progressive school in some regards (they gave us condoms as part of sex ed), I actually believed that claptrap about ecstasy. Only in the last year did I read the studies myself and realize that ecstasy (or at least, actual MDMA) is one of the least harmful substances.
But tell me, Mr President, what happened to the promise of "Change"? This is just a continuation of standard, moderate politics... Move along, nothing to see here. Let's go to Seattle...
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This is to be expected and is nothing to be very excited about. It is merely changing who profits from our enslavement, to the friends of liberals (rehabilitation facilities, drug counselors, etc) rather than the friends of conservatives (prison industry). You need to understand what they are really saying, and look past the deceitful way in which it is presented. Instead of a small time drug offender going to jail for a few months, they may instead go to an in patient "treatment facility" for a few months. Instead of sitting in a cell being bored for the duration of their incarceration, they will instead be sitting in a group holding area being intensely bombarded with the same boring propaganda as always. For the smallest offenders nothing really new will happen. Instead of being arrested, sent to court and then put on probation and forced to pay for it, they will be arrested, sent to court and then sentenced to take a bunch of out patient "treatment" (propaganda) courses that they need to pay for. They will be forced to fund the social scientist propaganda regurgitation machines that tend to be very traditional statist-liberals, and supporters of the democrat political party. For dealers nothing will change, they will still be sent to prison, but they may be sent to prisons that have a focus on "treatment" (ie: propaganda taught by liberal social scientists) rather than on traditional simple holding of prisoners.
It is nothing surprising at all. Conservatives claim that we are heathens and criminals, and then they enslave us for the profit of their friends in the prison industry, claiming to be helping protect society from immoral criminals. Liberals claim that we are sick, and then they enslave us for the profit of their friends in social sciences, claiming to be helping to treat us. Only a small percentage of the people who go to drug treatment programs do so willingly, and a large percentage of them do not really have drug abuse problems. Remember, as far as the government is concerned, any recreational drug use is equal to drug abuse. You need to understand the weasel words that they use to really understand what they are saying, if you mirror image and assume that you are both coming from the same page, you will only cheer as our masters change hands. I will cheer when the slaves are freed, I do not care so much who is currently profiting off of our enslavement, or if the slave traders claim they are helping society by enslaving us or helping us by enslaving us.
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The Silk Road is what a 21st century approach to drug policy looks like.
Remember, even if everything you want happens in America, it's still the case that the rest of the world's population is stuck with the same bullshit. As the cypherpunk doctrine states, the best route to change is to circumvent the state, not to challenge it directly or try and persuade it. kmfkewm's interpretation is cynical but completely accurate. Drug consumption is being pathologized either way you look at it. People should be free to consume drugs, but they should also accept the consequences of their actions. People fuck up all the time, everybody does it, and they pay for their actions with a wide variety of consequences in regards to their health, finances, social relations. I don't see fat people doing community service for eating too much.
Having said all that, I believe there should be more opt-in systems for people with poor impulse control, whatever the particular issue is: gambling, drugs including alcohol, watching x-factor. Call it a soft authoritarianism hybrid with libertarianism. People intuitively know most of the time when they've gone too far, and it'd be good if there was some kind of boot camp where people could go to deal with their neurosis. It would be coercion, but opt-in, paid for by themselves, if they don't have any money or capital they could always perform indentured labor. It might sound desperate, but some people are desperate to change. It's better than the last stop being prison or dead. A kind of adult 'military school' if you will.
Rehabilitation centers already exist, but frankly the public ones often have no incentive other than the milk of human kindness to help people get on their feet, we've already heard a few horror stories on SR about them. A twenty year tax bump on future earnings should incentive corporations to genuinely put people through the paces as best they can. I would fear a huge liberal program of government funded centers would do the same for rehabilitation as their programs for housing for the poor. It sounds like a good idea, but it's generally a disaster and it puts private sector competition out of business or prevents other more extreme (but opt-in) future options being explored.
This way, those who are responsible drug consumers live free without anxiety or fear, and those who need help actually get it. The key thing is getting the opt-in bit to work. If it becomes coercive instead of choice, it could just become yet another nightmare.
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Exactly, we all meet up in rehab, oh no wait it's ed u ca tion, cool. lol
So rehab is going to be like a Silk Road reunion? Cool. Can we wear nametags with out username on them?
Hello
my name is
Jack N Hoff
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Actually, this makes me think of a different aspect of "drug education" which is greatly underestimated today...
Sex education in high schools (in the USA at least) used to teach "abstinence-only". This didn't work well because teens who chose to fuck around didn't know how to do so without spreading diseases and spawning babies left and right. Nowadays, the curricula teach abstinence, but also teach about protection, birth control pills, etc, since teens will be teens and they at least need to know how to be safe teens.
In a similar sense, REAL drug education would be teaching people, if they go ahead and choose to use, to evaluate their choices. Teens need to learn about sites like Erowid, not just crap-filled clearnet "SWIMming" pools of misinformation. They need to learn also about bad combinations, things like alcohol and pretty much anything, driving and pretty much anything, etc... Then maybe, maybe just maybe, the future generations will engage in more responsible drug use and it'll encourage governments to tax rather than ban.
Ahhh, me and my wishful thinking... I should get a vendor account and wholesale it worldwide.
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Then maybe, maybe just maybe, the future generations will engage in more responsible drug use and it'll encourage governments to tax rather than ban.
Ahhh, me and my wishful thinking... I should get a vendor account and wholesale it worldwide.
That won't work either. Taxing I mean. The weed legalization people think it solves all their problems, mainly the price will be a lot cheaper. But it won't because vice taxes are enormous on everything else. That is why there is a vast illegal gambling and tobacco trade on the black market in the USA, and both of those are completely legal in one form or another. The markup on counterfeit cigarettes is often on par with that of cocaine and heroin. I did some research once and found that the markup on tobacco is in certain cases about 50% of the markup on heroin from Afghanistan to mainstreet USA. You'd be an unusual person to have the right connections all along the route, but the point stands.
Taxing will introduce some benefits, more quality control and standardization (although I would argue we are about to enter the Factory age of industrialization for illegal drugs shortly thanks to darknet services), but the price will be sky high.
To be blunt, running to the government will earn you a bloody mouth. Not from me, from them. See, you'll have good people in the government who want to help you make a better world. But it's like a bait and switch operation! Then you got the rentseekers who want positions of money and money without toiling for it, and they'll squeeze you like a tube of toothpaste, using your societal position and political pressure until your means of production becomes effectively theirs in all but name. The latter are the real operators within the government. Basically they are modern day bandits but without the candor.
There are solutions to the Drug War, but none of them are as simple as legalization or criminalization. Frankly without government intervention we'd have solved many, but not all, of the problems by now. I think the Silk Road and its competitors are a large part of the solution, but it's not a panacea either and it shall also take a long time.
To some people blaming the government for drug gang shoot outs and cartels sounds mad. It's not. Look at the government's housing projects for the poor. They single handily created a veritable 3rd world culture in a western country with that. The US government is funding the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. Some of your tax dollars are going towards guns and money laundering schemes for an enterprise that regularly separates people from their heads (albeit they are still the less violent of the Mexican cartels, so it's not 100% dumb, just 90% dumb). I mean to me this sounds almost like a surreal kind of conspiracy theory, except that it's front page news in the mainstream media.
Seems to me that if the US gov can give guns to the Sinaloa people, they ought to cut us a break as well, since we haven't killed anybody to date. In this world, that makes us practically eligible for sainthood.
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Hell I almost prefer the conservative approach of sending people to jail for drug charges versus the liberal approach of sending people to in patient rehab. In patient rehab is like prison but even worse because it is a reeducation prison. Instead of playing cards all day passing the time, you will be subjected to a bombardment of bullshit at all times. First of all you should realize that the number one so called "medicine" used by these so called "addiction specialists" to so called "cure" so called "addiction" is a whopping dose of The Holy Bible. No joke. NA / AA methodology is very commonly used. So pretty much you will be arrested with some marijuana and thanks to good old Obama fighting for us you will not go to prison, but instead you will go to a so called "treatment center" which looks suspiciously like a prison, and has locks, and CCTV, and guards, etc. During your several month stay, in which you will be treated of your "marijuana addiction" (which means you used marijuana once in your life), you will take several classes every day.
Your first class will probably consist of "drug education" in which you learn all about how marijuana puts holes in your brain, is highly addictive and leads to all sorts of crime. After learning The Truth About Drugs (tm), you will probably then go to a self help group! After starting off with the serenity prayer, you will be told that you are completely helpless at stopping your marijuana use, despite all of the horrible things it has done to you (like get you sent to the not-a-prison locked down "treatment center"). But there is good news! You see, Jesus loves you just as much as he hates drugs, and if you turn your life over to him he can totally help you get over your marijuana addiction! After ending this class with the Lords Prayer, you will probably go to your next class of the day, Moral Thinking (tm). Here you may role play various things, such as calling the police when you see people using drugs (because after all, their marijuana use might end up with someone dead, if they drive while high, do you really want to take that risk?!). Your next class might be Positive Behavior Learning (TM). Here you might brainstorm fun things you can do besides be a hopeless marijuana junkie, maybe you can exercise instead (or better yet go to church!). Next you might go to a lecture, and hear about how every drug user who you *think* is your friend is really just using you, a total negative influence on you, and you should totally never communicate with them again when you are released because they are just demon marijuana addicts who are going to push the devils herb on you. The truth is, you don't have any friends at all! Maybe you should brainstorm some ways to make new friends when you are released, a good suggestion is by meeting people at Church! Finally you will end up at Snitch On Everybody Class (TM), where you will be encouraged to report on the progress of everybody else, and let the Guards (who love you almost as much as Jesus does!) know if anyone has been saying anything that indicates they might use again when they are released! That is a big no no!
Do you disagree with anything that they say to you? WRONG. They are "Addiction Specialists" (tm) and went to school to get a fucking degree you stupid junkie! You better agree with them, or they are going to tell the judge that you are still a hopeless addict and then you might fail rehab and go to jail after all! So put on a smile, say you have found the Good Lord, drugs ruined your life and you didn't even know it (probably because you were too high to see!), and pretend like you have taken a big gulp of the kool aid. Make sure to never let on that you think it is a crock of shit, or else one of the group members who has seen the light will "help you" in Snitch On Everybody Class (TM).
You will go through this for about as long as you would have spent in jail playing cards! Thanks Liberals, you guys are so unlike the mean old conservatives, you really care about people!
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I've lost almost all faith in anything just about anyone says, including Obama and his administration. Fuck it; let's just destroy the planet already and be done with it. The vast majority of us are repulsive little things who don't value or possess empathy or sympathy... I just don't understand how someone can be in politics, look at this world, and not stand up in the middle of every gathering to scream "what the fuck are you all doing, can't you see these people's lives are being destroyed?"
Why is it that so very many care so very little about others? I should have gone into politics... this just can't be allowed to continue. Better is better, obviously, but it isn't the same as good enough. How did all this moral zealotry even begin...
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Do you disagree with anything that they say to you? WRONG. They are "Addiction Specialists" (tm) and went to school to get a fucking degree you stupid junkie! You better agree with them, or they are going to tell the judge that you are still a hopeless addict and then you might fail rehab and go to jail after all! So put on a smile, say you have found the Good Lord, drugs ruined your life and you didn't even know it (probably because you were too high to see!), and pretend like you have taken a big gulp of the kool aid. Make sure to never let on that you think it is a crock of shit, or else one of the group members who has seen the light will "help you" in Snitch On Everybody Class (TM).
Better make double sure I never get caught, there is no way I would be able to just lie down and pretend to accept everything they say...goes against everything in my most basic nature to do that.
That right there is probably more incentive for me to be careful than the threat of jail ever was.
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There is absolutely nothing hopeful in that article. You must read between the lines. They are advocating an even larger drug probation system, with absolutely no change to the incarceration rate.
it's all smoke mirrors with obama.. more money wasted on their garbage rehab programs used to feed the government pigs.