Vhehn. I found this study on the internet. I was really surprised by the findings. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/67 The Netherlands Compared With The United States 1. The Netherlands follows a policy of separating the market for illicit drugs. Cannabis is primarily purchased through coffee shops. Coffee shops offer no or few possibilities for purchasing illicit drugs other than cannabis. Thus The Netherlands achieve a separation of the soft drug market from the hard drugs market - and separation of the 'acceptable risk' drug user from the 'unacceptable risk' drug user. Source: Abraham, Manja D., University of Amsterdam, Centre for Drug Research, Places of Drug Purchase in The Netherlands (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, September 1999), pp. 1-5. 2. Comparing Important Drug and Violence Indicators Social Indicator Comparison Year USA Netherlands Lifetime prevalence of marijuana use (ages 12+) 2001 36.9% 1 17.0% 2 Past month prevalence of marijuana use (ages 12+) 2001 5.4% 1 3.0% 2 Lifetime prevalence of heroin use (ages 12+) 2001 1.4% 1 0.4% 2 Incarceration Rate per 100,000 population 2002 701 3 100 4 Per capita spending on criminal justice system (in Euros) 1998 â¬379 5 â¬223 5 Homicide rate per 100,000 population Average 1999-2001 5.56 6 1.51 6 Source: 1: US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse: Volume I. Summary of National Findings (Washington, DC: HHS, August 2002), p. 109, Table H.1. 2: Trimbos Institute, "Report to the EMCDDA by the Reitox National Focal Point, The Netherlands Drug Situation 2002" (Lisboa, Portugal: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Nov. 2002), p. 28, Table 2.1. 3: Walmsley, Roy, "World Prison Population List (fifth edition) (London, England: Research, Development and Statistics Directorate of the Home Office), Dec. 2003, p. 3, Table 2. 4: Walmsley, Roy, "World Prison Population List (fifth edition) (London, England: Research, Development and Statistics Directorate of the Home Office), Dec. 2003, p. 5, Table 4. 5: van Dijk, Frans & Jaap de Waard, "Legal infrastructure of the Netherlands in international perspective: Crime control" (Netherlands: Ministry of Justice, June 2000), p. 9, Table S.13. 6: Barclay, Gordon, Cynthia Tavares, Sally Kenny, Arsalaan Siddique & Emma Wilby, "International comparisons of criminal justice statistics 2001," Issue 12/03 (London, England: Home Office Research, Development & Statistics Directorate, October 2003), p. 10, Table 1.1. 3. "There were 2.4 drug-related deaths per million inhabitants in the Netherlands in 1995. In France this figure was 9.5, in Germany 20, in Sweden 23.5 and in Spain 27.1. According to the 1995 report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon, the Dutch figures are the lowest in Europe. The Dutch AIDS prevention programme was equally successful. Europe-wide, an average of 39.2% of AIDS victims are intravenous drug-users. In the Netherlands, this percentage is as low as 10.5%." Source: Netherlands Ministry of Justice, Fact Sheet: Dutch Drugs Policy, (Utrecht: Trimbos Institute, Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, 1999), from the Netherlands Justice Ministry website at http://www.minjust.nl:8080/a_beleid/fact/cfact7.htm. 4. "The number of problem opiate/crack users seems to have remained relatively stable in the past ten years (3.1 per 1000 people aged 15-64 years). In the past decade, local field studies among traditional groups of problem opiate users have shown a strong in-crease in the co-use of crack cocaine, a reduction in injecting drug use, and an increase in psychiatric and somatic comorbidity." Source: Trimbos Institute, "Drug Situation 2006 The Netherlands by the Reitox National Focal Point: Report to the EMCDDA" (Utrecht, Netherlands: Trimbos-Instuut, 2007), p. 9. 5. "Cannabis use among young people has also increased in most Western European countries and in the US. The rate of (cannabis) use among young people in the US is much higher than in the Netherlands, and Great Britain and Ireland also have relatively larger numbers of school students who use cannabis." Source: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Drug Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report September 1997-September 1999, (The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, November 1999), p. 7. 6. "The figures for cannabis use among the general population reveal the same pictures. The Netherlands does not differ greatly from other European countries. In contrast, a comparison with the US shows a striking difference in this area: 32.9% of Americans aged 12 and above have experience with cannabis and 5.1% have used in the past month. These figures are twice as high as those in the Netherlands." Source: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Drug Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report September 1997-September 1999, (The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, November 1999), pp. 7-8. 7. "The prevalence figures for cocaine use in the Netherlands do not differ greatly from those for other European countries. However, the discrepancy with the United States is very large. The percentage of the general population who have used cocaine at some point is 10.5% in the US, five times higher than in the Netherlands. The percentage who have used cocaine in the past month is 0.7% in the US, compared with 0.2% in the Netherlands.*" Source: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Drug Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report September 1997-September 1999, (The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, November 1999), p. 6. The report notes "*The figures quoted in this paragraph for drug use in the US are taken from the National Household Survey 1997, SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, Washington, DC". 8. "The National Youth Health Surveys (in 1988, 1992, 1996, 1999) among pupils (12-18 years) showed that the increase in cannabis use since 1988 stabilised between 1996 and 1999 (De Zwart et al. 2000). According to the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study, this trend continued in 2001 (Ter Bogt et al. 2003). Use of other drugs showed a similar trend or slightly drecreased (LTP of ecstasy and amphetamine)." Source: Trimbos Institute, "Report to the EMCDDA by the Reitox National Focal Point, The Netherlands Drug Situation 2003" (Lisboa, Portugal: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Dec. 2003), p. 19.
How many people have died while talking or texting on cellphones while driving? Perhaps it is tmie to ban cellphones as well. There is a major difference between responsible use of drugs and alcohol and reckless idiots, who decide to go out and put other peoples lives in jeopardy. Just as there is a major difference between responsible cellphone use and reckless idiots. The drug or alcohol is not the cause of the accident, the cause of the accident is the irresponsible person, how many people high who are high or drunk have ever killed a person in a car accident when they choose to be responsible and take a cab? Just like with anything in life it is dumb irresponsible people who cause the problem, the same could be said for guns, and countless other things. Why not ban knives? Those could be used to kill people as well in an irresponsible persons hands. If you really want to stop people from drinking and driving then you should look to punish people harsher for the driving part, not the drug part. Like you said more checkstops would be a good idea i think and far less costly than the war on drugs. The way i see it people should be free to do basically whatever they want to themselves, but that freedom should end the second it involves hurting (financially, or physically) another person besides yourself.
District 9- The most politically meaningful film to come out since 'V For Vendetta', a film that precisely encapsulates why "there's something wrong with human nature". (Don't bother reading this post until you've seen the movie- It just won't make any sense to you.) The parallels between 'District 9' and how people treat foreign immigrants and other ethnic minorities have already been drawn by every film reviewer and his mother... but on top of that, I also see strong similarities between District 9 and the war on drug users: Prawns/Junkies- The oppressed and segregated minority, nearly all of chaotic-neutral alignment. Can be destructive and poorly behaved at times- perhaps in part due to the harsh treatment we receive from the rest of society. All we really want to do is collect as much of 'the fluid'/our drug of choice as we can, and use it to 'go home'/feel content in our own skin. Prohibition enforcement thug, type A- This is the brutal bald MNU (D.E.A.) colonel, and many of the other MNU troops shown in the film. As far as they're concerned, government oppression of prawns doesn't go far <i>enough</i>. If left to their own devices, they'd probably just massacre every one of us prawns without batting an eye. Prohibition enforcement thug, type B- This is Wikus, the protagonist. Good at following orders/rounding up harmless drug users and putting us in camps without any moral qualms about doing so. However, this type of prohibition enforcement goon isn't a true sadist. He'd never commit 'excessive' brutality against prawns/junkies, and would even request that his fellow 'type A' prohibition thugs refrain from doing so in his presence. Nigerian gangsters- These are the South American and other drug cartel bosses who deal with us prawns/junkies in order to make a profit off our misery. Now, sufficient exposure of one's body to 'the fluid'/prohibited drugs can turn any person- even a prohibition enforcement thug- into one of us prawns/junkies. When a relatively enlightened prohibition thug like Wikus undergoes this transformation, strong empathies for the plight of those on the other side are suddenly developed, and he quickly realizes that his former 'friends' are in fact anything but. What would have happened to the psychology and ideology of one of the 'type A' (sadistic/brutal) prohibition enforcement thugs, had he been exposed to 'the fluid' instead of Wikus? District 9 doesn't tell us that, but we can look no further than Rush Limbaugh for the answer. He wouldn't switch sides, but rather he'd do everything he can to deny to himself and everyone else that he's actually 'turned prawn'. That's when he even bothers to discuss the issue at all, which is not often. He prefers to avoid the topic entirely, unlike before he became one of us... when he'd go out of his way to advocate even harsher measures of oppression against us. ~RM, a bit sharper than the average prawn.
rm you still see yourself as the victim. let me ask you a question. if you had a young daughter would you want the authorities to make every attemt to stop those who would get her hooked on hard drugs or yould you argue for her right to take any drug she could be talked into trying?
"Nothing is worth doing pointlessly" - Marcus Aurelius We see worldwide that authorities making every attempt doesn't stop drug abuse at all. Hell, you can even get drugs (and rape/sex slavery) in jail! The war on drugs doesn't achieve its aims, so even if those aims are worthwhile, it's not worth doing because it fails to work. We get none of the upside of a drug free society, and all the downside of criminalising addicts and enriching psycopathic gangsters, corrupting police and the legal system etc. Regarding your "addicts are dangerous" point, again you attack a straw man. Endangering and harming others is *already illegal*. Driving high or wired is illegal, just like driving drunk. Being drunk and disordely is illegal. But drunk driving being illegal does not mean being drunk harmlessly is illegal. Equally, being high should not be illegal so long as being so does not make you harm or endanger others. An alcoholc or short tempered man may start fights when drunk; another may act more responsibly when drunk. The law punishes A for harming people, and leaves B alone for not harming anyone. The law does not kidnap and incarcerate responsible Mr B for the crimes of irresponsible Mr A when drink is involved, so why should it be different if it's weed, ecstasy, LSD, speed, coke, or even heroin involved? If drugs cause some users to become criminal and not others, why not punish those who commit crimes/harm, and not criminalise those who take the drug without harming others? Also remember it's not either or, you can have a middle ground. E.g. Mandatory treatment programs instead of 20 year jail terms; usage legal but large scale dealing illegal outside government supply; 'pushing' could remain a crime; consumption restricted to private property, or even certain zoned tolerance areas away from respectable suburbs/schools etc. Purchase could require a 1 hour counselling session - making it boring is far more likely to stop it than the glamour of illegality. Prohibition has demonstrably not stopped drug addiction. Anything that totally fails to achieve it's stated goals is pointless, and nothing is worth doing pointlessly, thus prohibition is not worth doing even if you agree that drug free society would be better off. That's not all though - it also has many horrible consequences. It has ruined the lives of many people who harmed no one. It doesn't effectively treat or cure addicts of their problem. It wastes huge police and legal resources away from violent crime. It enriches violent sociopaths and corrupts law enforcement. It misses huge tax revenues that legalistion would bring. Many addicts die due to dirty merhandise. If any other policy had no hope of achieving its ends, and had huge negative consequences, what arguments would there be to support it? So, what arguments are there to support prohibition?
Because it is unconstitutional to have one set of laws for one set of people and not another, although mercifully the "system" allows for it to be adaptable enough so that your circumstance can be used as a defense, e.g., you get a lighter sentence because you are found insane. But you get arrested just the same as a sane person for the same crime. The enforcement system is completely blind to compassion. It is binary. It is the legal system that then tries to compromise and allows for compassion.
A very interesting question. Friends have invited me to go "whoring" with them. I always politely decline. All I would see is someones' daughter that fell on hard times. I would try to rescue them. In the few times that I have been to strip clubs, I end up making out with them only. They are probably high fiving themselves, "well I just made $300 for kissing this guy for a half an hour" I saw one of these mail order brides recently at one of my favorite restaurants. She is eastern european, absolutely gorgeous. She is married to some guy and you can tell that she is miserable, to the point where she is clearly depressed. It sickens me. I wish I could marry all of them, bring them out of misery and set them free. I have heard of countless stories of kids being shown how animals are treated so that we can eat. A large portion of them become vegans when they realize they are part of it, to the point that they would vomit on the sight of beef on their plate ever again. You see, it all comes down to your own capacity for compassion. The law imo, in it's then thousand year history of wisdom, tries to normalize that for all of us.