Thread: The War on Drugs

This is an inane debate. The problem with the war on drugs (or really attempts to control any black market) is that the penalties weigh harder on the supply than they do on the demand. That drives up the price of drugs, but doesn't affect the fact that the market exists.

We can easily fix the issue of drug use: kill anyone who uses them. If you smoke pot, you die. Coke? Dead. Heroin? Lights out. Eliminate demand and you eliminate the market (see also: HD-DVD sales). As it is now, the penalties associated with drugs are much greater for dealers and traffickers than they are for users. If 6 people go to jail to move a shipment of cocaine, or one of six shipments is intercepted by DEA agents, dealers will just pass along the cost to their buyers. If you eliminate demand for the product, dealing drugs will be far less lucrative and dealers will stop selling in the market. This will also fix a lot of the crime associated with drug trade.

Of course, the death penalty for drug use isn't a reasonable punishment, but keep sliding the penalty up along the scale and you'll see results.

Originally Posted by Atmoscheer

This is an inane debate. The problem with the war on drugs (or really attempts to control any black market) is that the penalties weigh harder on the supply than they do on the demand. That drives up the price of drugs, but doesn't affect the fact that the market exists.

We can easily fix the issue of drug use: kill anyone who uses them. If you smoke pot, you die. Coke? Dead. Heroin? Lights out. Eliminate demand and you eliminate the market (see also: HD-DVD sales). As it is now, the penalties associated with drugs are much greater for dealers and traffickers than they are for users. If 6 people go to jail to move a shipment of cocaine, or one of six shipments is intercepted by DEA agents, dealers will just pass along the cost to their buyers. If you eliminate demand for the product, dealing drugs will be far less lucrative and dealers will stop selling in the market. This will also fix a lot of the crime associated with drug trade.

Of course, the death penalty for drug use isn't a reasonable punishment, but keep sliding the penalty up along the scale and you'll see results.

The problem with that is this question: why is drug use so inherently bad that users should be punished? That makes no sense to me. The extent to which drugs are bad is that they hurt the user. Why punish them for it at all?