Want to reduce gun violence? Halt the war on drugs..

Its the title of the article not mine. Its an opinion so I didn't post it in the news but it makes some really great points.

Article here

But finally someone said it right? I have been discussing this with friends and relatives for years that the war on drugs is a complete failure. Its actually my belief that the only reason drugs are still illegal is so the government can have both sides under control. They are the ones bringing it in and distributing it. Then they're arresting you for it and collecting more revenue through seizure and fines. I have always wondered why we are not more aggressive with the cartels but the truth is our government is in bed with them.

We should take after Portugal and just legalize all drugs. Thats my 2 cents. What does ATS say?

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

Agreed. Good post.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

Using all capitol letters in a thread title is reserved for mods and admins for special announcements only. That link and info additionally can be found in Ts and Cs, Freshman's and Board forums.*

www.abovetopsecret.com...

*Additionally? Using all caps is considered "SHOUTING"...

Best

MS

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

Because it is not a war, if it was a war on Illegal Drug's then they would do what has to be done, round up the Dealers and importers and put them in prison for the rest of there live's or even shoot them as traitor's poisoning our country's, the whole war on drug's thing was a political stunt perpetuated as a phrase by politician's, indeed the drug's trade even made vast sum's of money for the like's of the CIA.

You can not end something that has never been real, drug dealers are mostly scumbag's, the family's and neighbourhood's that they have ruined litter the western world like rotting corpses and the promise of society was lost partially due to this scourge, how many young live's have been ruined by this, how many mother's have had to sell themselves as prostitutes to creep in order to pay for a fix as they become something so horrible if they were in there right mind they would rather be dead.

So end the war on drug's, except there is no war only victim's and a scam by polticians and bent police while the organised crime takes over entire nation's and ruin's entirely other nation's.

If it was a war there would be a shoot on sight policy for drug dealer's, a mandatory prison and rehabilitation order on first offender drug abusers and no back door's for the rich kid's to find an excuse for there action's.

If it was a war there would be a memorial with the million's upon million's of name's showing the genocide perpetrated by drug's gang's (Including the 1970's-80's CIA) and there would be care for the family's of these victim's at least in the west which there is not.


So how can you end a war that has never existed except out of the mouth's or corrupt politician's.
And
How can you justify ending a fight however pathetic to the family's of those victim's, to the children of woman forced into street prostitution just to pay for a fix.

Legalising drugs will bring more death's and guns will still be available to own.

Guess your right on the Gov having a part to play, probably corrupt cops/officials on a payroll or deal it themselves of duty etc, they will eventually be brought to justice but will never stop the war on drugs.

originally posted by: PraetorianAZ
We should take after Portugal and just decriminalize all drugs. Thats my 2 cents. What does ATS say?

Fixed that for you. There is a BIG difference between the two and while I agree with you about Portugal, you should know the difference here because it will be easier to get people to support decriminalization than it will to support legalization.

a reply to: LABTECH767

If you look at Portugal's example they treat drugs as a mental health issue rather than a criminal issue. This help people addicted to get the help they need to not get into prostitution and other stuff.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: PraetorianAZ
We should take after Portugal and just decriminalize all drugs. Thats my 2 cents. What does ATS say?

Fixed that for you. There is a BIG difference between the two and while I agree with you about Portugal, you should know the difference here because it will be easier to get people to support decriminalization than it will to support legalization.

Yeah but decriminalization is not going to remove the black market for drugs or put drug dealers out of business. Now it just lets them operate more freely. We would have to legalize drugs to turn these drug sealers into legitimate business men and not criminals.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

Want to reduce gun violence? Put guns in the hands of us law abiding citizens.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

no the solution is not to legalize all drugs. Portugal resides in the EU, which has very strict regulations on pharmaceutical drugs. In comparison, the FDA virtually allows a free for all on the American public from Bio-Tech and pharamacorp by not even having to have drugs tested by the FDA before marketing for human consumers. The reports from the companies are good enough as long as they display sound science, and the commercial come with all the warnings of death and side effects worse than the symptoms being treated.

The American population has been brain washed, literally having the chemistry in the brains altered for a few generations now. We can end the war on drugs and still keep drugs illegal. it just means that funding to police for this specific purpose and the prisons for profit industry will hopefully cease or go down.

If Crack, PCP, meth, coc aine, Heroin, MDMA were to become legal in the states, there will be an epidemic of youth overdosing and uptick in random psychotic attacks . The American brain has been subject to a lot more abuse than the European one overall and on average from bio tech and media. The population would become very unstable if PCP was easy to buy in a store, and teenagers will be paying homeless people to buy it for them.

End the war on drugs, yes. It will reduce the incentives for police departments to hype up charges in order to get the Federal money, and likely reduce the amount of people arrested simply to fill for profit prisons. But keep drugs illegal, # that. If anything, we need to increase the restrictions and regulation of the legal drugs too. Opiates based pain meds have hit as hard as heroin and even crack and meth sometimes.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

The war on drugs is a drug dealers best friend. If people are going to kill themselves with drugs you are not going to stop them with a war on drugs. Laws on drugs are an organised crime syndicates best friend.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Send first time users to prison? lol. Most first time users would'nt be hardened criminals. I am sure getting raped by actual criminals will push them onto harder drugs to try and forget the unconsentual sexy time.


I am not sure if you support the above or not but everything else though in your post was sensible.

The war on drugs certainly is a contributing factor but I don't think it really gets to the underlying root cause of gun violence.

There are two types of gun violence. First you have the random nut job mass shootings and then you have the urban violence. The two are unrelated. Mass shootings are rare and for the purpose of discussion should probably be ignored. The daily urban gun violence you see is what most people think of when one says "gun violence" and then makes a connection to drug laws.

If we examine urban gun violence demographics, it becomes quite obvious that the problem is largely confined to poor black neighborhoods and to a lesser degree hispanics.

If we are truly looking for solutions, the question then becomes what is about the black community that makes gun violence so pervasive? It isn't just drug laws. Being in Chicago, a lot of the killings are over stupid sh*t. Someone gets dissed on twitter or facebook. Someone's girlfriend was insulted. Drug culture is always in the background, but it isn't necessary cartel like wars on the street that is really driving the violence.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

For there own good and more importantly the good of society, you do know that the reason that Drug's are being argued to be OK is simply wrong, if you think I know nothing about them then I would also tell you that to my shame I had a drug dealer in the family, my brother and to be fair it only happened because he fell in with the wrong crowd, WE got him jail and it saved him, over here in the UK we used to have this thing called a SHORT SHARP SHOCK he was given a short sentence but shown what his life would be if he continued down that road, it was necessary or my brother would potentially be dead now, or he could have the blood of other's on his hand's as he was in with the big boy's.
One of his FRIEND's whom I had a debate with was totally off his head to say the least but he was bringing that poison in from Africa (Arraning it not actually bringing it himself) and not small time, one story he told about was how the witch doctor sacrificed a human child, a bably holding it by it's feet and sprinkled the kid's blood on the field that they were growing the drug's on in order to appease the spirit's, he was not lying, this was a nutter whom had a gun when Gun's were very rare in the UK back in the late 1980's.
Now you know that do you still think that those drug's are OK and should be Legalized.

Let me explain something to you.

Your brain is an extremely complex piece of organic hardware, it operated CORRECTLY only under certain condition's and when the Chemical balance of your body is correct.

This is called Neurochemistry, it is of course appended to the homeostasis of your body but specific to your brain and central nervous system.

Now putting drug's into that system is like throwing a spanner in the work's, it messes thing's up, do it enough (legalize it) and you get a situation were a person takes drug's so regularly that there body not only acclimatizes to them but become's dependant upon them, this is because your body and brain are fighting to survive the poison and so adjust the other natural chemicals to compensate for the negative condition's that the drug's have caused but taking them away and the brain and nervous sytem then are still trying to compensate but now it is the drug that is missing and they are therefore overcompensating (this is why addict's have to be weened off and cold turkey and litterally kill some of them).

Let me put it this way, YOU have no idea what I know, I have stood against drug's since I Saw what it did to my brother and there is only one thing worse than a dealer and that is someone trying to justify them.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Whats your solution though? They already are illegal and it is'nt working drug rates are rising. The war on drugs is imaginary so stopping it is pointless.

You cant defend a side without a logical reason as to why it benefits us? With drug rates rising and drugs already illegal the current system does;nt work. Sending all drug addicts and users to prison would cost MASSIVE amounts more than it already does. Prison also is a harsh sentence for addicts and users and usually means they are selling themselves in prison for drugs aswell as it being anightmare in a place with convicted rapists, murderers, kidnappers, and generally violent gang cultural places. Rehabs are only effective for those wanting to change.

I will give you one advantage of legal drugs. Addicts could grow/make their own which would heavily reduce crime and also stop them wasting all their money on them so they could atleast eat properly and stop doing # like sucking peoples dicks and selling sex etc..
Disadvantage. The addict would be more likely to overdose if given access to a bigger supply.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

Right seriously PARTIALLY legalizing it does have some benefit's in that you can ensure the source is pure and controlled, the revenue in the supply and demand can go back to the government etc but it is and will remain harmful as like anything else it will be abused by some while other's will moderate themselve's.
I hate the concept of big brother society's but the only way to control that is to track every user and that would cost too much and infringe on what then would be legal activity.

My solution would admittedly only work in country's that can control there borders, in places like Mainland USA though it would be not only impracticable but literally impossible.

Stricter sentences on Dealer and Growers would curb it but never stop it, Supply and Demand comes into play, make something illegal and it becomes more desirable to a small sector of society whom are then also willing to pay more for it, this drives more violent crime so on that point I concede.

But my real solution would be hard education, take the kid's and show them what it does, take them to clinic's full of junky's and show them, take them to autopsy's and scare the hell out of them and if necessary indoctrinate them to know that drug dealers are there enemy's, that they just want to prey upon them.

Change it by taking the same kid's these drug dealers want to make into there customers and instead make these kid's see the dealers for what they are, parasite's.

In most country's though they don't want to spend public money on education and only want to educate the kid's enough so that they become PRODUCTIVE members of society (Wage slaves).

Have you ever considered that the whole thing may be in part deliberate and have high level collusion, that there may be a very real conspiracy at work to shatter social cohesion of the poorest community's by allowing these poison's to flood into them and so keep them divided and under control?.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Sorry man I created a huge post but clicked of the box as I pressed back and it sent me to the previous page. I will give a short summary.

I agree some sort of conspiracy has helped create this drug culture.
Celebrity culture encourages drug use, well known and very popular people that make anything they do look "cool" and the in thing. Whether drugs, violence, perfect figure etc..
George Carlin "...There isnt a war on homelessness though is there? No, You know why? Because there aint no money in it".

But my real solution would be hard education, take the kid's and show them what it does, take them to clinic's full of junky's and show them, take them to autopsy's and scare the hell out of them and if necessary indoctrinate them to know that drug dealers are there enemy's, that they just want to prey upon them.

Herion and other high risk drugs should be abolished. Burn the Poppy fields to the ground. Disgusting affront to society.
Weed, shrooms and generally natural drugs though? Just make them legal, create amazing amounts of new jobs, from growing to harvesting to packaging. Selling, Owning small business' etc... Weed dealers would dissapear overnight and prosecution would be non existent for users so crime cut drastically in those areas within days. I dont know if many people commit crime to fund there weed habits, No more than alcoholics though I am sure. Alcohol is more dangerous than weed and probably relatable to shrooms etc... Legal Alcohol also causes more social problems than legal natural drugs will put together.

A good read from a non smoking havard professor, www.huffingtonpost.com...