32 points by KincadeHoney 4 days ago | 26 comments
zugi 4 days ago
It's almost as if it was a mistake to spend decades throwing people in jail for using the plant-based drugs... But perusing the document, I see no such admission. In fact, in their section on marijuana they use scare-quotes around "legalize" and "legal", showing they absolutely haven't learned their lesson.
The DEA's War on Americans Who Use Drugs is not just an abject failure, it's directly responsible for much of our nations ills including the decreasing respect for fundamental rights, law and order, and the police.
shadowmanifold 3 days ago
The drug war is empowering the most dangerous organized crime gangs ever created. They could be destroyed overnight by law makers with a pen.
At some point we are going to have to make the decision that dealing with kid's coke and heroin addictions is easier than dealing with thousands of Al Capones that will chop your head off.
We seem incapable of long term planning though so I doubt we will do anything for decades yet. We are like a cancer patient in denial that this cancer is growing and spreading.
potato3732842 3 days ago
Are you talking about the feds or cartel?
salawat 23 hours ago
K0balt 3 days ago
The Iran-contra shenanigans made it clear that political cover could not be relied upon for overtly shady air-America style operations, and a plausibly deniable strategy was needed for our covert influence operations.
By being in charge of the semi-global” war on drugs”, the USA could make sure covert allies were well funded by allowing them relatively unimpeded access to the wildly profitable US illicit drug market.
This was largely accomplished by targeting any competition and ignoring or sometimes even assisting favoured groups. We saw this on blatant and dramatic display with US troops protecting poppy crops in Afghanistan.
The war on the low price of drugs also made for great television, so most people were happy for a while.
Inevitable consequences being what they are, now that the cartels have become powerful enough to supplant the US influence on market conditions, this strategic justification is increasingly weak. Accordingly, international spending has plummeted.
But do not despair, gentlereader. Our adventurism has created shiny new villains for us to combat, so all is not lost. Great television is once again within our reach.
The MIC and Netflix will be well employed in the coming cartel wars and eventual occupation of regions of Mexico. We just have to wait patiently for the cartels to start using autonomous weapons with alarming frequency on us soil, a treat we can reasonably expect to see soon enough.
dyauspitr 4 days ago
BobbyJo 4 days ago
ulrikrasmussen 4 days ago
BobbyJo 3 days ago
jvanderbot 3 days ago
krispyfi 3 days ago
/s
BobbyJo 3 days ago
Also, cheap vodkas are cheaper and more accessible to people who abuse alcohol, not mention far far more palatable. And that's exactly what alcoholics tend toward.
Lots of factors play into which drugs people consume, and prohibition plays a role.
marssaxman 2 days ago
In current times, drinking rates among young people are dropping now that they have access to legal marijuana, which is a good thing from a public-health perspective.
ulrikrasmussen 4 days ago
tyleo 3 days ago
eikenberry 3 days ago
twoWhlsGud 3 days ago
eikenberry 2 days ago
This is even more true of the black market. Legalization will reduce these problems, even with no regulations (which is not the case).
alephnerd 3 days ago
krispyfi 3 days ago
TeaBrain 3 days ago
alephnerd 3 days ago
Yeah no.
Poppy growing used to be endemic in the part of South Asia I'm from and we're still reeling from the impact of opioid abuse along with how it undermined local political institutions.
There's a reason villages are now dealing with it via vigilante justice [0][1]
[0] - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBTcOmQMvee/?igsh=MWcxNGlyY2l...
[1] - https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuZCHhcp_dF/?igsh=MXh0dTB6Nnd...
tempodox 4 days ago
They only care about their own preservation.
sterlind 3 days ago
Good to know the DEA is still as clueless as ever (MDMA is a very mildly psychedelic empathogen with a long history of use and relative safety with a dose of ~100mg. 'N-bomb' refers to the 25x-NBOMe series of extremely strong psychedelics that are active at ~0.75mg, known for intense visuals and overwhelming effects, and a tendency to randomly and abruptly kill people who haven't taken all that much. meth and mescaline are both phenethylamines, that's about all they have in common.)
rampajar 8 hours ago
sbseitz 3 days ago