How I would combat the drug problem if I were President

[brycejones]

So, I was thinking.

Couldn't stop laughing after this one.

Seriously though, what you're proposing is a harsher form of what we already have that has proven completely ineffective. Its doubling down on failed policies and expecting them to work.

 

[Pipeline 1010]

http://mic.com/articles/110344/14-y...riminalized-all-drugs-here-s-what-s-happening

So, Portugal decriminalized all drugs and:

1) Drug usage is down
2) HIV infections have tanked
3) Peoples futures are no longer being taken away with criminal records and jail time
4) Drug related deaths have tanked

Who in their right mind sees this and still says we need to keep fighting or even increase the war on drugs?

 

[shira]

I'd legalize minor drugs then in my second term I'd turn asshole and start arresting drug buyers in huge numbers. Cut down on demand thus remove some of the profits.

I'd legalize most drugs (all except those inherently very dangerouse), have the government produce them (or import them from other-government sources) to ensure purity, and sell them at cost + 20% tax to anyone who wants them; to be used only in private (not while using dangerous machinery or driving a car).

The tax would be used to fund detox programs - free to anyone who wanted to get off drugs.

The multiple aims would be to put the black market in drugs out of business, get rid of any incentive to steal things to fund a drug habit, reduce prison populations, stop destroying people's lives unnecessarily, save tens of billions of dollars each year, get rid of a major source of corruption in the criminal-justice system, and allow cops to focus on more important crime.

And if you argue that "But, but, but, but there will be more addicts!" Too bad.

 

[MagickMan]

Wipe all but the IV drug laws, tax the newly-legal drugs heavily, use money for drug education and rehab. No illicit market, no drug crime.

 

[Sonikku]

So, I was thinking.

lol, stick to killing T-800's.

So, Portugal decriminalized all drugs and:

1) Drug usage is down
2) HIV infections have tanked
3) Peoples futures are no longer being taken away with criminal records and jail time
4) Drug related deaths have tanked

Who in their right mind sees this and still says we need to keep fighting or even increase the war on drugs?

The people getting richer off of it.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

good to know you will NEVER ever be president, slightly depressing you are allowed to vote.
you're a moron johnny.

 

[Toastedlightly]

Wipe all but the IV drug laws, tax the newly-legal drugs heavily, use money for drug education and rehab. No illicit market, no drug crime.

I don't understand why people want to tax them heavily. That will just drive the drugs back underground (similar to cigarettes and alcohol being smuggled around)

 

[MagickMan]

I don't understand why people want to tax them heavily. That will just drive the drugs back underground (similar to cigarettes and alcohol being smuggled around)

Even at a 100% tax over manufacturing cost, it would be less than half the price people are paying on the street. ie. Crack is very cheap to make and has a 200% markup every time it changes hands (while at the same time being cut in potency).

 

[sm625]

So, I was thinking. I've been a member of a number of forums and have always argued about the drug problem that plagues the United States. The United States is the number one ranking country in the world that consumes illicit drugs. Something needs to be done. My stance is a hard stance, and it is as follows:

If you are a pusher and convicted in a court of law, you will serve a mandatory minimum twenty five years to life in a federal prison.

If you are a user and convicted in a court of law, you will serve a mandatory minimum of 5 years in a federal prison with the option of taking drug rehabilitation. If that offender decides to take drug rehabilitation, and upon completion, their sentence will be reduced by three years with time served added for rehabilitation.

And you would be left wondering why, after 10 or 20 years of this you still have a country with a massive drug problem, most likely even bigger than it is now. With those kinds of mandatory sentences, you would have even more broken families leading to even more drug use. And again with that kind of prison time you have that much more exposure to drug culture, leading to increases in repeat offenses. You would have increased gang activity to prevent incarceration and enforcement. It would be yet one more giant step towards the hellpit that you and your ilk want this country to become. You people just do not get it. Malicious stupidity. This is far more dangerous than the average drug user. In a country that already imprisons more people than any country in the world, your brilliant genius frickin solution is to build more prisons. The god damn stupidity.

"My stance is a hard stance, hur hur hur hue hue"... repeated 1000 times in the derpiest voice possible. You people disgust me. i am sick beyond words of how you people have flushed this country and even now you're too damn stupid to realize it.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I don't understand why people want to tax them heavily. That will just drive the drugs back underground (similar to cigarettes and alcohol being smuggled around)

Prices are artificially inflated now because of the relative scarcity and the risks associated with selling an illegal product. If drugs were legalized and put on a production line like cigarettes or beer, the overall cost of production would decrease exponentially and drive down prices to consumers. You could easily implement a tax on these lower prices and still keep drugs cheaper than they currently are. You just need to make sure the tax makes sense and keeps prices below the underground price.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

The OP is a troll and an imbecile and his idea isn't worth rebutting as it's so appallingly stupid that he might as well argue we should ship everyone with the letters "D", "R", "U", or "G" in their name to colonies on the moon as a precautionary measure. Prison sentences haven't done squat to help our drug problem, so let's double down on that failed experiment! Fucking idiotic.

 

[WelshBloke]

I've been a member of a number of forums and have always argued about the drug problem that plagues the United States. The United States is the number one ranking country in the world that consumes illicit drugs.

Coincidence that you're also the number one consumer of licit drugs?

You spend huge amounts of advertising money convincing people to medicate themselves up to the eyeballs for everything then act all surprised when people do that.

 

[alien42]

the real drug epidemic in this country, by a long shot, is legally prescribed. so as president, how would you combat that problem?

 

[Ausm]

Newt Gingrich wanted death penalty for drug sellers. Congress wanted nothing to do with that proposal.

He should have proposed it for fornicators....:biggrin:

 

[TechBoyJK]

So, I was thinking. I've been a member of a number of forums and have always argued about the drug problem that plagues the United States. The United States is the number one ranking country in the world that consumes illicit drugs. Something needs to be done. My stance is a hard stance, and it is as follows:

If you are a pusher and convicted in a court of law, you will serve a mandatory minimum twenty five years to life in a federal prison.

If you are a user and convicted in a court of law, you will serve a mandatory minimum of 5 years in a federal prison with the option of taking drug rehabilitation. If that offender decides to take drug rehabilitation, and upon completion, their sentence will be reduced by three years with time served added for rehabilitation.

I would also allow free government payed rehabilitation to anyone that wants it up to three times in their life.

Combined with a "Great Southern Border Wall," FLIR looking over head drones on the border and actually enforcing Customs laws I think the drug problem could be dealt a significant blow. No one wants to serve 25 to life for selling drugs.

So I'm open to constructive criticism and ideas. Lets say you?

Well, going along with that, I'm ok with it as long as you include alcohol and tobacco products.

You ready to serve 5 years for smoking a cigarette?

No?

Oh, that's right.

It's because your ideas are shit.

 

[Attic]

1) End Drug War and decriminalize drugs
2) Take money available from ending drug war and shit your pants
3) Spend that money on awesome shit and opportunities for young people to engage in



Do this same 3step for a lot of other US.gov self congratulatory BS programs and policies.

 

[DrDoug]

So, I was thinking. I've been a member of a number of forums and have always argued about the drug problem that plagues the United States. The United States is the number one ranking country in the world that consumes illicit drugs. Something needs to be done. My stance is a hard stance, and it is as follows:

If you are a pusher and convicted in a court of law, you will serve a mandatory minimum twenty five years to life in a federal prison.

If you are a user and convicted in a court of law, you will serve a mandatory minimum of 5 years in a federal prison with the option of taking drug rehabilitation. If that offender decides to take drug rehabilitation, and upon completion, their sentence will be reduced by three years with time served added for rehabilitation.

I would also allow free government payed rehabilitation to anyone that wants it up to three times in their life.

Combined with a "Great Southern Border Wall," FLIR looking over head drones on the border and actually enforcing Customs laws I think the drug problem could be dealt a significant blow. No one wants to serve 25 to life for selling drugs.

So I'm open to constructive criticism and ideas. Lets say you?

I say that I'm going to knock off a huge dab in honor of you being an absolute nobody.

Drugs are bad, leave them for me. :awe:

 

[CitizenKain]

How do they handle drugs in SE Asia? Oh that's right. The death penalty. Get caught with drugs in places like Thailand, and you could easily be looking at death or 100 years in prison. And prison in Thailand makes America's prisons look like spas. Just a few years aga, authorities in Thailand were rounding up dope peddlers, taking them to the woods, and shooting them in their backs.

That's how you deal with drugs and drug pushers. No mercy.

Why would we want our country to be more like that shithole?

I never understand why people look at more totalitarian countries and go "Man, I wish we were like them."

 

[blankslate]

Who in their right mind sees this and still says we need to keep fighting or even increase the war on drugs?

Companies that make money on the war on drugs... those who do drug testing, sell equipment to fight the "war on drugs", ones who make money from private prisons. Etc. Etc.


...

 

[Indus]

25 years of free food and board in jail isn't free. It only costs like $60,000 a year.

Instead if you're really convinced on harsh, 1 bullet to the head is much cheaper like China with selling drugs.

I personally would totally make drugs legal..

 

[flexy]

Not wanting to reply to OP itself, what a stupid idea to propose that harsher sentencing would "combat the drug problem", seriously...no words about so much stupidity.

As for my opinion in general...mind you I am not taking drugs, not even MJ...but I think it's not ok that that there are still countries where someone can go in jail for, say, some weed...while in the same country I could go in a liquor store and buy Vodka or whatever and literally drink myself into a delirium/death? Doesn't make any fricking sense!

I am all for legalization (not just "decriminalization") for some drugs because it's indeed everyone's decision what they want to do with their body and mind.

But (very important!) I am also for better EDUCATION about the use of drugs and their effects, without the "enthusiasm" and ridiculous glorification that is going on right now in some states.

* "MEDICAL" marijuana my a$$, people using words like "medicine" and justifying the recreational (!!) use of marijuana, in other words: For getting high whatever under the guise of using some type of miracle medicine...while we all know that the number of people who use MJ for "medical purposes" might be very small, MOST people do NOT take MJ for "medical purpose", you know it, I know it. Stop the lies already!

* The glorification goes so far that I've seen people seriously stating it's ok to drive while being high....due to the absurd and hideous ways how MJ is portrayed as a "medicine" or "so healthy because it's all natural" whatever.

This is why I say "more education" what drugs are and their effects, NOT senseless glorification like right now.

 

[John Connor]

What about alcohol? Not a problem since it's legal?

There's rehab for that too. But we can argue semantics of alcohol v. illicit drugs all day. You can't compare a heroin addict, crack head, coke head to a drink.

 

[John Connor]

Well, going along with that, I'm ok with it as long as you include alcohol and tobacco products.

You ready to serve 5 years for smoking a cigarette?

No?

Oh, that's right.

It's because your ideas are shit.

I didn't know a cigarette makes you high.

 

[TechBoyJK]

I didn't know a cigarette makes you high.

Oh.. sorry. Didn't realize that.

Check out this site I found.

It's called google.com.

Check it out and learn about cigarettes because if you're a smoker calling for drug users to spend time in jail, you should be aware that you'll be the first in line for a cell.

 

[TechBoyJK]

There's rehab for that too. But we can argue semantics of alcohol v. illicit drugs all day. You can't compare a heroin addict, crack head, coke head to a drink.

Yes you can.

I can take a single oxy pill and get a nice buzz without OD'ing or becoming a junkie just the same way I can take a shot and get a nice buzz without OD'ding or becoming an alcoholic. I can do a line of coke and get a nice buzz without OD'ing or becoming a coke head. I can smoke a bowl of crack and not become a crack head.

All in all, the risk of addiction and OD is about the same for alcohol as it is heroin, coke, and crack. If anything, the only thing allowing an argument to be made that suggests alcohol is safer is due to it being legal and regulated, where as you never now what your line of coke is cut with. If cocaine was regulated and produced with the same standards and labels as aspirin, there'd be far fewer OD's and deaths.

If you're going to try and draw a line between alcohol, heroin and cocaine, you should at least know what you're talking about.

Do you not realize alcohol is one of the world's most dangerous drugs? Oh I forgot, you're just trolling and already know alcohol and cigs are the worst.

I don't see tobacco users (like yourself) as any less of a junkie than a coke head or crack head.