It's one of the saddest things of the modern day that the drug war exists

[EruptedCarcassBloat]

Criminalizing drugs just creates drug cartels, it creates violence and deaths. When you criminalize something and make it illegal, you immediately create a black market for that product. There's obviously some things which should remain illegal, like human trafficing. But when it comes to drugs, people aren't actually harming anyone but themselves, and they're going to get drugs through illicit markets or they'd get it if it's illegal. Either way. Criminalizing doesn't make users any less likely to use drugs, it just stigmatizes drug users, who we send to prison simply for being addicted to drugs. These are people who are physically dependent on drugs, and yet we send them to prison simply to punish them for getting addicted to something. 

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, I've been thinking about how stupid the authority figures in our society really are. People make rules to use to govern over people, but they don't really even know what's best for the people they're governing. We should legalize all drugs, stop wasting money on sending people to prison over drugs. Marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, and less addictive than cigarettes, there's no justification that even this is illegal. So you can't even say that all drugs are illegal because they're dangerous. It's a fucking joke, an absolute joke. And it really does seem to give some meaning and power to the statement you always hear from anarchists and marxists "all cops are bastards". It really makes me think so when I see the stupid shit that they'll blindly support. Not that that's the only reason they're bastards. Not to mention, I've heard that in some states you literally spend the amount of money to house a single prisoner as you could have spent giving them a full ride to harvard. It's an absolute joke.

[Aegon]

I had a serious addiction problem that began with legally prescribed stimulants. You're right, legality does not at all imply safety. Fuck, the list of highly addictive and dangerous legal drugs is ridiculous. And in the US the companies advertise down our throat. All the while paying millions to make sure stuff like pot stays illegal. We have a forum member who recently had to take fentanyl. That drug is insanely dangerous and ODing is easy. But it's legal and you get it from your doctor.

I stick to only weed these days.

[EruptedCarcassBloat]

I had a serious addiction problem that began with legally prescribed stimulants. You're right, legality does not at all imply safety. Fuck, the list of highly addictive and dangerous  legal drugs is ridiculous. And in the US the companies advertise down our throat. All the while paying millions to make sure stuff like pot stays illegal. We have a user who recently had to take fentanyl. That drug is insanely dangerous and ODing is easy. But it's legal and you get it from your doctor.

I stick to only weed these days.

You're absolutely right. We have a prescription opiate addiction in this country, yet drug companies spend millions to keep pot illegal? Sickening.

[Crossless2.0]

Of course it's a joke. A bad one.

To find the punchline to the joke, follow the money -- not the money made illegally but the money dumped in the trough that is fed on by an alphabet soup of federal, state, and local entities. However noble the initial impetus behind the drug war might have been (I'm being extremely generous, here), it has long since become a government make-work program, funding who-knows-how-many jobs.

The joke is on us.

[FatAndFaithless]

The clearest condemnation of the War of Drugs is the simple fact that we can't even keep drugs out of the prisons that hold the people that were sentenced for using drugs.

[Crossless2.0]

The clearest condemnation of the War of Drugs is the simple fact that we can't even keep drugs out of the prisons that hold the people that were sentenced for using drugs.

Not to mention the fact that there isn't a person in this country who isn't more than two degrees of separation from a hook up. Even the kindliest, most sheltered grandmother out there knows someone who knows someone.

It's a farce.

[Faith No More]

Another awesome facet of the war on drugs and its heavy sentences is that we have to let rapists and murderers back on the street to make room for those people that got caught with a couple pounds of weed or a kilo of coke.

[Shell B]

I think the problem is that the war has never been on drugs. It's been on people who take drugs. Of course, that's not the only problem. As you mentioned above, over-prescribing opioids is another part of the equation. I just think if we took more responsibility in education and treating people with drug addiction, the problem would be solvable to some degree. As it stands, we can't solve it. We make addicts' lives so much more shit inside the system that the odds they will stop turning to drugs aren't good enough.

[dyresand]

the drug war summed up
Racist drug reform that Reagan and his cronies came out up with.
Still highly unethical the dea in reality is useless and we can get the same illegal drugs
with a prescription and yeah..

Meanwhile the DEA bans Kratom a nonaddictive alternative painkiller that does a better job
the prescription opiods because fuck us the american people.

[Aegon]

the drug war summed up
Racist drug reform that Reagan and his cronies came out up with.
Still highly unethical the dea in reality is useless and we can get the same illegal drugs
with a prescription and yeah..

Meanwhile the DEA bans Kratom a nonaddictive alternative painkiller that does a better job
the prescription opiods because fuck us the american people.

Oh, the War on Drugs started before Reagan's administration but yep, still born out of racism

And good news, Kratom has not been banned...yet. The vote on it has been postponed to December in lieu of the public backlash the DEA got for trying to ban it. I'm inclined to purchase a bit of it before then.