Is the war on drugs in the US enabled greatly by citizens?

Unfortuneatly, I think that if there are drugs available, people are likely to use them. Humans are naturally susceptible to addiction and pleasure, and drugs are both. But I do agree with you, if people make a conscience decision and refuse drugs, the drug supply would decline. However, there’s a subculture now that advocates drug use and believes they’re not bad and that using them is cool, and I think until it subsides (people are only entertained something they’re forbidden for so long) it’s not likely that the supply OR demand will decrease.

maybe we should use this addiction for good…too bad we can get more people addicted to science…how about you get your drugs for every A you get in school… or instead of medals… you get a bag of weed for heroism… good deeds would skyrocket

The lack of demand would take most of the money out of the business and the criminals would move elsewhere.

But how do you create a lack of demand?

The war on drugs is a fallacy! To blame demand for the problem is not really examining the culture we live in. We are advertised on a daily basis that drugs are the answer, everyone on this planet is adicted to drugs of one kind or another. Don’t believe me go warm up your coffee, or how about some more processed sugar, no none of that, your a health nut. Okay how bout those endorphins you push your body to discharge, drugs drugs drugs.

This whole “war” has allowed one business to thrive thats for sure. The prison systems which we (taxpayers) pay the states $35,000 per year to house a criminal.

It’s wrong to think about it as a demand for drugs. It’s a demand for pleasure – essentially, to get high. This will manifest itself in whatever way is available….and if it’s not available then one will be invented. Take away all the illegal drugs right now and you’ll almost certainly see an uptick in drinking and huffing/abuse of prescriptions.

People aren’t funding the drug cartels. The government is.

I’m with @thekoukoureport on this, more or less. The War on (Some) Drugs is nonsense. We each have our chosen ‘drug’, whether it’s the fats and sodium in processed foods, the caffeine in tea, coffee and most soft drinks (soda), the sugars in candy and other processed foods (and soft drinks), tobacco, alcohol, ‘legal’ drugs taken for various almost-medicinal purposes (mood enhancers in particular) ... or so-called illegal ‘street’ drugs.

And many of those drugs were legal at one time. Most of the worst drugs, such as methamphetimines, CAT and other highs, such as glue, paint and other inhalant ‘sniffing’ were developed because far less harmful drugs (in particular, marijuana) have been vilified so much. If we were to compare the actual harm done by a comparison of marijuana to almost any of the drugs in my first paragraph, including sugar, caffeine, tobacco and alcohol, we’d probably find that marijuana is the least harmful of any of those (except maybe caffeine, and even then you’d have to prove it to me).

The worst thing that I ever did when I smoked marijuana—and I did a lot of that, and I inhaled deeply (the way you’re supposed to)—was that I overate. Since I overate before I even tried pot, and have overeaten for most of the 35 years since I gave it up, I hardly credit the drug with that effect.

No, the War on (Some) Drugs is a total political manipulation, fabricated to enable more police and prosecutorial power over otherwise ordinary citizens, and a way for politicians to campaign for election because they will “protect” us from “those involved in the drug culture”. What utter tripe. They made the “drug culture” that they now pretend to want to save us from. This is the oldest trick in the politicians’ bag of tricks: invent a bogeyman that only they can “protect” us from.

^^^^^^^ Interesting answer ! GA I wanna keep reading it.

The war on drugs is enabled by the government being dumbasses and not understanding that they practically wouldn’t HAVE a war on drugs if they’d legalize marijuana. Drug dealers are what make the war on drugs exist. If they were available without the dealers, then this “war” wouldn’t be a problem.

The failure of the so-called war on drugs is entirely the fault of the end user, yes.

@CyanoticWasp
We each have our chosen ‘drug’, whether it’s the fats and sodium in processed foods, the caffeine in tea, coffee and most soft drinks (soda), the sugars in candy and other processed foods (and soft drinks), tobacco, alcohol, ‘legal’ drugs taken for various almost-medicinal purposes (mood enhancers in particular) ... or so-called illegal ‘street’ drugs. Yeah but you can eat ½ of a cup of sugar and to most it won’t do much (tummy ache maybe), it won’t stop you from operating your car properly or taking care of your baby but can it really be said that if you took ½ cup of cocaine, heroin, Propophol, or LSD if it didn’t kill you it would surely leave a person inebriated to the point noone would allow them to drive their car or watch their children. Drug cartels won’t push sugar, salt, coffee, etc because there is no profit in it maybe because you can get the stuff by way of what you eat and whatever high or buzz it gives it only does for some people, many are not effected. Street drugs most often affect 98.9% of those who take it. I think that is a big difference.

Funny you didn’t mention Marijuanna in the above rant. Why cause NOONE has ever OD’d on Marijuanna before. Go check the Emergency room records in CA anyone die from Marijuanna poisoning. Kids in college die every year from alcohol poisoning. Oxcy Codone (synthetic Heroine) is the most commonly abused drug in the country. It is given by prescription only so how could that be abused, I don’t understand.

Most of the people locked up are poor, minority, users who have 1)lost their chance to vote thereby representing a voice in the Lower class and 2) makes thirty five thousand dollars a year in federal money for the state that houses that user. How many steroid users are in jail. Christ you can even lie to Congess about that.

The selective war on drugs has done nothing more that create a class of people who can no longer participate in our system because they couldn’t afford a prescription.

@Hypocrisy_Central don’t be ridiculous. If you took a ½ cup of bleach that would probably kill you, too, and gasoline almost certainly would. Should they be outlawed on that basis? And for a diabetic to take a half-cup of sugar could be potentially fatal.

No, things don’t need to be outlawed just because they are potentially harmful; it would be nice if we could recognize that most adults are capable of living and acting more or less responsibly, and tailor our laws to them, instead of thinking that we can legislate stupidity and recklessness out of existence by passing more laws, hiring more cops and building more prisons. It has never worked, but we seem to have this idea that “we just haven’t tried hard enough.” We certainly have.

@thekoukoureport brings up a significant point that I forget about a lot – when people are convicted of a felony, they lose their right to vote. When we consider what effect this might have on the community, it’s amazing. One-third of black men will, at one point in their life, serve time on a felony charges. This reduces the ability of African Americans to participate in the democratic process in any significant way, particularly when it comes to drug laws. Therefore, representatives have less and less reason to address their concerns.

@iamthemob disenfranchisement for felons and other convicted criminals in the US is not automatic, by the way. It’s a state-by-state thing:

I’ve excerpted the first paragraph from Human Rights Watch—The Sentencing Project. The highlighting is mine.

The expansion of suffrage to all sectors of the population is one of the United States’ most important political triumphs. Once the privilege of wealthy white men, the vote is now a basic right held as well by the poor and working classes, racial minorities, women and young adults. Today, all mentally competent adults have the right to vote with only one exception: convicted criminal offenders. In forty-six states and the District of Columbia, criminal disenfranchisement laws deny the vote to all convicted adults in prison. Thirty-two states also disenfranchise felons on parole; twenty-nine disenfranchise those on probation. And, due to laws that may be unique in the world, in fourteen states even ex-offenders who have fully served their sentences remain barred for life from voting.

@CyanoticWasp – true, but that just fleshes out the issue, it doesn’t reduce the concern. It still doesn’t change the fact that, as the sentencing project also mentions: “The racial impact of disenfranchisement laws is particularly egregious. Thirteen percent of African American men—1.4 million—are disenfranchised, representing just over one-third (36 percent) of the total disenfranchised population. In two states, our data show that almost one in three black men is disenfranchised. In eight states, one in four black men is disenfranchised. If current trends continue, the rate of disenfranchisement for black men could reach 40 percent in the states that disenfranchise ex-offenders.” (emphasis mine)