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Well last night was full of self-loathing and I almost had a complete meltdown in public this morning, but now, I'm feeling mostly okay so that's good

*hugs*

I'm watching a movie called Traffic right now. It's not exactly pleasant. How accurately does it describe the war on drugs in America? Because if it is accurate, I don't think you guys have a hope in hell of combating it, or at least the most heinous criminal aspects of it, without legalising it and regulating the shit out of it.

I've never seen it, so I can't claim that the movie is accurate, but your assessment most certainly is.  America has taken a completely inefficient, ineffective, and just plain wrong approach to combating drugs.  The war on drugs has been dragging America down for the past 40 years now.

There's no way to remove demand for drugs, so supply will rise to meet it through whatever means necessary except in the face of the most extreme oppression.

And it's not even a war worth fighting. You're telling people what to do with their own bodies, not stopping hitmen or something. If it's legal/regulated you can more readily identify the people who aren't using responsibly and get them the help they need. Instead we throw them in prison, making them feel even more alienated by a society that told them that their desires were immoral because reasons.

Plus the war on drugs has huge racist underovertones. Crack cocaine and coke have a huge sentencing disparity - 1 gram of crack results in the same sentence as 18 grams of coke. They are the same drug, but poorer people, especially black americans, tend to use crack and richer white people tend to use coke. Coke is in much broader use as well, with 12% of adults using compared to 4% with crack. Used to be 100 grams of coke per 1 gram of crack too. 

It's all such a gloriously disgusting losing war against nothing important that does no good and plenty of harm.

I disagree with your initial statement.  You most certainly can decrease demand for drugs. If you meant removing it as in completely, then your statement stands. (Also, I think you meant "opposition", not "oppression".)  The problem is that America has decided to focus most of its efforts at targeting supply, driving the price and profitability of drugs up to meet the unchanged demand.  Additionally, the punishments handed out for drug convictions, as you point out, also tend toward the absurd for their severity and systematic "not-technically-racist-but-in-reality-nothing-but" minimum sentences.

Not five minutes before seeing this thread I watched a great little video about this very issue.  Here it is, for anyone interested. 

Why the War on Drugs Is a Huge Failure

Wintermoot gives Lumenland the desired milkshake.

Wintermoot hopes this doesn't bring all the boys to the yard.[emoji14]

In Soviet Russia, Milkshake brings all the boys into the yard, then they het shot in back of the head!

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No no no, you're saying it wrong.

In Soviet Russia, all the boys bring milkshakes to the yard.

I'm watching a movie called Traffic right now. It's not exactly pleasant. How accurately does it describe the war on drugs in America? Because if it is accurate, I don't think you guys have a hope in hell of combating it, or at least the most heinous criminal aspects of it, without legalising it and regulating the shit out of it.

quite a bit accurate :-/

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I'm watching a movie called Traffic right now. It's not exactly pleasant. How accurately does it describe the war on drugs in America? Because if it is accurate, I don't think you guys have a hope in hell of combating it, or at least the most heinous criminal aspects of it, without legalising it and regulating the shit out of it.

I've never seen it, so I can't claim that the movie is accurate, but your assessment most certainly is.  America has taken a completely inefficient, ineffective, and just plain wrong approach to combating drugs.  The war on drugs has been dragging America down for the past 40 years now.

There's no way to remove demand for drugs, so supply will rise to meet it through whatever means necessary except in the face of the most extreme oppression.

And it's not even a war worth fighting. You're telling people what to do with their own bodies, not stopping hitmen or something. If it's legal/regulated you can more readily identify the people who aren't using responsibly and get them the help they need. Instead we throw them in prison, making them feel even more alienated by a society that told them that their desires were immoral because reasons.

Plus the war on drugs has huge racist underovertones. Crack cocaine and coke have a huge sentencing disparity - 1 gram of crack results in the same sentence as 18 grams of coke. They are the same drug, but poorer people, especially black americans, tend to use crack and richer white people tend to use coke. Coke is in much broader use as well, with 12% of adults using compared to 4% with crack. Used to be 100 grams of coke per 1 gram of crack too. 

It's all such a gloriously disgusting losing war against nothing important that does no good and plenty of harm.

I disagree with your initial statement.  You most certainly can decrease demand for drugs. If you meant removing it as in completely, then your statement stands. (Also, I think you meant "opposition", not "oppression".)  The problem is that America has decided to focus most of its efforts at targeting supply, driving the price and profitability of drugs up to meet the unchanged demand.  Additionally, the punishments handed out for drug convictions, as you point out, also tend toward the absurd for their severity and systematic "not-technically-racist-but-in-reality-nothing-but" minimum sentences.

Not five minutes before seeing this thread I watched a great little video about this very issue.  Here it is, for anyone interested. 

Why the War on Drugs Is a Huge Failure

I think Futurama said it best in their first movie:

"Admiral, will we stop attacking at any point? Or is this one of those phony bologna feel-good wars like the War on Drugs? "

Wait, if I wanna bring boys and girls to my yard to have a rave party, what do I bring? ;-;
Milkshakes and chocolate ?

I disagree with your initial statement.  You most certainly can decrease demand for drugs. If you meant removing it as in completely, then your statement stands. (Also, I think you meant "opposition", not "oppression".)  The problem is that America has decided to focus most of its efforts at targeting supply, driving the price and profitability of drugs up to meet the unchanged demand.  Additionally, the punishments handed out for drug convictions, as you point out, also tend toward the absurd for their severity and systematic "not-technically-racist-but-in-reality-nothing-but" minimum sentences.

I misspoke a bit. What I meant to imply was that nothing we're doing currently reduces demand for drugs. Even that isn't strictly true, only mostly. We mostly attack supply.

Wait, if I wanna bring boys and girls to my yard to have a rave party, what do I bring? ;-;
Milkshakes and chocolate ?

yes

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Yay! ^o^
Everyone gets to come to my party

Just bought 80 Days, a game based off the story by Jules Verne. A damn good experience that I would heartily recommend.

For the first time in forever... I met my deadlines(by 9 mins), am up to date on all work and can actually got to sleep. Did the universe just do something nice for me >.>

For the first time in forever... I met my deadlines(by 9 mins), am up to date on all work and can actually got to sleep. Did the universe just do something nice for me >.>

For the first time in forever, your work ethic will come to light.
For the first time in forever, you'll be sleeping through the night!

* Evelynx twirls

I love that movie too much. And I used to hate those types of movies. It kinda blindsided me.

I feel the melody slowly washing away at the fatigue and weariness inside me. I feel so...peacefully content and chill, like I'm fine with just existing, doing nothing, not even thinking, just listening to the song while my psyche repairs itself. The quietness in my mind is a relaxing change from the norm...I wonder if this experience would repeat if I tried tomorrow night?

Yeah, the only way to combat drug use in the United States (besides creating a virus that attacks specific plants and release this bioweapon globally, being not entirely sure what the consequences are) is hard work educating the populace about the problems with short-term thinking. Sure it might make you feel good for a  defined period of time. The problem is just after that, there are so many side effects and consequences. I mean, it's taken the United States nearly one hundred years now to curb smoking. It's going to take a while with drugs, too.

And while I personally vehemently oppose legalisation of drugs, I will concede that decriminalisation of specific drugs might be more successful at curbing drug use than our current guns-blazing emotional strategy...