View Full Version : Mexican Drug Lord Officially Thanks American Lawmakers for Keeping Drugs Illegal
ForTehNguyen
03-24-12, 15:21
obvious cat proves the obvious. Older article but relevance is there
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/mexican-drug-lord-officia_b_179596.html
Mexican Drug Lord Officially Thanks American Lawmakers for Keeping Drugs Illegal
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera reported head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes' yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, today officially thanked United States politicians for making sure that drugs remain illegal. According to one of his closest confidants, he said, "I couldn't have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you."
According to sources in the Mexican government, President Calderon is begging American officials to, in the words of reggae great Peter Tosh, legalize it. "Oh yeah," said an official close to the Mexican president, "Felipe is going crazy. He's screaming at everybody who comes in, 'Why don't they make this ***** legal already! You're killing me here!' Look, everyone knows, when you have Prohibition, you create gangsters. And the more you prohibit, the more gangsters you make. El Chapo is hero now to all those slumdogs who want to be millionaires. Kids in the street, when they play games, they all want to be El Chapo, the baddest man in the whole damn town."
Meanwhile, many speculate that rich and prominent Mexican families are in cahoots with American businessmen in the alcohol industry, wealthy industrialists who launder the unprecedented profits from the drug business with their legitimate enterprises, and lawmakers who get gigantic kickbacks and payoffs to make sure that these drugs remain illegal, so they can remain rich, fat and happy. According to sources on both sides of the border, tens of millions of dollars in payoffs and kickbacks are stashed in Swiss banks every year, blood money from the brutal business made possible by a corrupt system supported by laws that don't, and have never, worked.
Rather than putting El Chapo and his kind out of business by modernizing outdated laws and in the process making billions of dollars from taxing drugs (as is done with cigarettes and alcohol), United States government has spent hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars chasing its tail, and offered a $5 million reward for the capture of El Chapo. Many have said that the offer is unofficially: Dead or Alive.
Meanwhile, as an epidemic of murderous violence rages on the Mexican-US border, and the American government wastes boatloads of badly needed money on the illegal drug business which results from the Prohibition laws, El Chapo is laughing all the way to the bank. "Whoever came up with this whole War on Drugs," one of his lieutenants reports he said, "I would like to kiss him on the lips and shake his hand and buy him dinner with caviar and champagne. The War on Drugs is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and the day they decide to end that war, will be a sad one for me and all of my closest friends. And if you don't believe me, ask those guys whose heads showed up in the ice chests."
Moose-Knuckle
03-24-12, 15:51
If the Federal Goverment ever wanted to put the drug cartels out of business the most obvious way to acheive this is to legalize the drugs, regulate them, and tax the F*** out of them. Bye, bye third world shit hole dope runners.
If the Federal Goverment ever wanted to put the drug cartels out of business the most obvious way to acheive this is to legalize the drugs, regulate them, and tax the F*** out of them. Bye, bye third world shit hole dope runners.
A fallacy pure and simple. Alcohol is legal, correct? Yes, it is taxed, it is regulated for purity, there are limits placed on distribution locations and access, correct?
Cocaine, morphine variants, various stimulants and depressants etc. are also legally available and distributed via a similar taxed and regulated scheme and have been available for years. You go to a doctor and he prescribes them.
Moon shine is illegal, correct? Why? because it is produced, distributed outside the purity and taxation stream that legal alcohol is. It is illegal because back in the day a lot of moonshine would literally turn people into blind vegatables. Moonshine still exists because people try to cheat their way around that whole taxation and purity thing, that distribution chain, etc. to make a quick buck.
People buy illegal drugs for the same reason they buy moonshine, to circumvent those purity, access, and taxation controls. Do you think that the legalization of marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine are going to make those circumvention schemes go away? No, they won't. There will still exist a scheme to get around customs, taxation, purity controls, distribution networks, etc. It is happening now with the whole medical marijuana facade and debacle. Marijuana, supposedly grow for "compassionate care" are being sold in other states because the dispensaries are depressing prices. It has never been about the drug, or the alcohol, or whatever. Contraband, no matter what it is moves because of the money.
A fallacy pure and simple. Alcohol is legal, correct? Yes, it is taxed, it is regulated for purity, there are limits placed on distribution locations and access, correct?
Cocaine, morphine variants, various stimulants and depressants etc. are also legally available and distributed via a similar taxed and regulated scheme and have been available for years. You go to a doctor and he prescribes them.
Moon shine is illegal, correct? Why? because it is produced, distributed outside the purity and taxation stream that legal alcohol is. It is illegal because back in the day a lot of moonshine would literally turn people into blind vegatables. Moonshine still exists because people try to cheat their way around that whole taxation and purity thing, that distribution chain, etc. to make a quick buck.
People buy illegal drugs for the same reason they buy moonshine, to circumvent those purity, access, and taxation controls. Do you think that the legalization of marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine are going to make those circumvention schemes go away? No, they won't. There will still exist a scheme to get around customs, taxation, purity controls, distribution networks, etc. It is happening now with the whole medical marijuana facade and debacle. Marijuana, supposedly grow for "compassionate care" are being sold in other states because the dispensaries are depressing prices. It has never been about the drug, or the alcohol, or whatever. Contraband, no matter what it is moves because of the money.
Does moonshine finance entire countries? The blackmarket for drugs would not go away but it would be GREATLY reduced.
Moose-Knuckle
03-24-12, 16:44
A fallacy pure and simple. Alcohol is legal, correct? Yes, it is taxed, it is regulated for purity, there are limits placed on distribution locations and access, correct?
Cocaine, morphine variants, various stimulants and depressants etc. are also legally available and distributed via a similar taxed and regulated scheme and have been available for years. You go to a doctor and he prescribes them.
Moon shine is illegal, correct? Why? because it is produced, distributed outside the purity and taxation stream that legal alcohol is. It is illegal because back in the day a lot of moonshine would literally turn people into blind vegatables. Moonshine still exists because people try to cheat their way around that whole taxation and purity thing, that distribution chain, etc. to make a quick buck.
People buy illegal drugs for the same reason they buy moonshine, to circumvent those purity, access, and taxation controls. Do you think that the legalization of marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine are going to make those circumvention schemes go away? No, they won't. There will still exist a scheme to get around customs, taxation, purity controls, distribution networks, etc. It is happening now with the whole medical marijuana facade and debacle. Marijuana, supposedly grow for "compassionate care" are being sold in other states because the dispensaries are depressing prices. It has never been about the drug, or the alcohol, or whatever. Contraband, no matter what it is moves because of the money.
Watch the British film Layercake. In it legalization is theorized at the begining of the film.
Do some reading on the flow of cocaine to Africa, Europe, China, and India. The legality of the drug has little to do with anything, the money does.
Thomas M-4
03-24-12, 22:52
A fallacy pure and simple. Alcohol is legal, correct? Yes, it is taxed, it is regulated for purity, there are limits placed on distribution locations and access, correct?
Cocaine, morphine variants, various stimulants and depressants etc. are also legally available and distributed via a similar taxed and regulated scheme and have been available for years. You go to a doctor and he prescribes them.
Moon shine is illegal, correct? Why? because it is produced, distributed outside the purity and taxation stream that legal alcohol is. It is illegal because back in the day a lot of moonshine would literally turn people into blind vegatables. Moonshine still exists because people try to cheat their way around that whole taxation and purity thing, that distribution chain, etc. to make a quick buck.
People buy illegal drugs for the same reason they buy moonshine, to circumvent those purity, access, and taxation controls. Do you think that the legalization of marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine are going to make those circumvention schemes go away? No, they won't. There will still exist a scheme to get around customs, taxation, purity controls, distribution networks, etc. It is happening now with the whole medical marijuana facade and debacle. Marijuana, supposedly grow for "compassionate care" are being sold in other states because the dispensaries are depressing prices. It has never been about the drug, or the alcohol, or whatever. Contraband, no matter what it is moves because of the money.
OH man come on :no: for real you mean to tell me people try to cheat taxes no way.. Even by your own statements the profit margin goes down with leagalization.
Thomas M-4
03-24-12, 23:17
This goes to a previous statement I have made once before. You can tax it to the point were illegal sales profits trump the legal sales once you have created a profit margin for illegal profit you then have set open up a blackmarket.
He should also thank them for the weapons they funnel to his "workers".....BY THE THOUSANDS...
He should also thank them for the weapons they funnel to his "workers".....BY THE THOUSANDS...
+1
I don't even want to know how many more innocent people they killed because of these.
A fallacy pure and simple. Alcohol is legal, correct? Yes, it is taxed, it is regulated for purity, there are limits placed on distribution locations and access, correct?
Cocaine, morphine variants, various stimulants and depressants etc. are also legally available and distributed via a similar taxed and regulated scheme and have been available for years. You go to a doctor and he prescribes them.
Moon shine is illegal, correct? Why? because it is produced, distributed outside the purity and taxation stream that legal alcohol is. It is illegal because back in the day a lot of moonshine would literally turn people into blind vegatables. Moonshine still exists because people try to cheat their way around that whole taxation and purity thing, that distribution chain, etc. to make a quick buck.
People buy illegal drugs for the same reason they buy moonshine, to circumvent those purity, access, and taxation controls. Do you think that the legalization of marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine are going to make those circumvention schemes go away? No, they won't. There will still exist a scheme to get around customs, taxation, purity controls, distribution networks, etc. It is happening now with the whole medical marijuana facade and debacle. Marijuana, supposedly grow for "compassionate care" are being sold in other states because the dispensaries are depressing prices. It has never been about the drug, or the alcohol, or whatever. Contraband, no matter what it is moves because of the money.
Talking about logical fallacies...
Do I need to go to a doctor and get a prescription for alcohol?
There is NO COMPARISON AT ALL between alcohol and drugs as you laid it out. There are only CONTRASTS.
If your comparison had an ounce of validity, moonshine would be big business today.
(hint) It once was, when it was illegal, like drugs...
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Talking about logical fallacies...
Do I need to go to a doctor and get a prescription for alcohol?
There is NO COMPARISON AT ALL between alcohol and drugs as you laid it out. There are only CONTRASTS.
If your comparison had an ounce of validity, moonshine would be big business today.
(hint) It once was, when it was illegal, like drugs...
---
Do please describe your model for the distribution of "legal" cocaine and methamphetamine. Please explain how the legal distribution is going to eliminate the illegal distribution chain. How is this supposed legalized market in the United States going to impact the markets in other countries? The supply stream? Lay it out there, how is legalization going to work, cocoa field to end user, I'm dying to hear it.
Do please describe your model for the distribution of "legal" cocaine and methamphetamine. Please explain how the legal distribution is going to eliminate the illegal distribution chain. How is this supposed legalized market in the United States going to impact the markets in other countries? The supply stream? Lay it out there, how is legalization going to work, cocoa field to end user, I'm dying to hear it.
Same way it works with any other commodity including alcohol.
btw, nice way to deflect the question away from your dubious "comparison"
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Same way it works with any other commodity including alcohol.
btw, nice way to deflect the question away from your dubious "comparison"
--
The commercial death of moonshine had many linked causes, a small source area, enhanced enforcement, and a changing market combined to do it, and BTW moonshine is still illegal. But let's get back to your legalization theory I'm dying for a description of how it is going to work. Who controls the commercial growing of cocoa? Who regulates purity, the government? Will cocoa paste be a traded commodity? Who will refine and distribute? Will you go to Walgreens to buy it, will it be over the counter? How is all of this going to make Mayberry a beter place to live? Please, I'd like some details on how it is all going to work. I'd like to know how the "legal" drugs are going to eliminate illegal drug distribution, I mean none of this legal stuff sounds cheap to do. Will there be more or less demand once cocaine can be bought anywhere? Won't the people controlling the growing of cocoa paste still be in control?
Let's try marijuana, maybe that'll be an easier one to tackle. Marijuana is a plant like tobacco, you dry it and then you smoke it, pretty easy right? Marijuana is regulated by state and federal governments, you know, that whole purity thing and such. Commercial growing of marijuana will be handled by who, William Morris? Will the commercial production stop the clandestine production or will both be legal? you going to tax one but not the other or both, how? How do you propose the regulation of potency and purity? I'm dying to hear the details.
The major cause of the death of moonshine as a business wear directly related to the end of prohibition
Look at tobacco, alcohol, or other commodity for your model.
The commercial death of moonshine had many linked causes, a small source area, enhanced enforcement, and a changing market combined to do it, and BTW moonshine is still illegal. But let's get back to your legalization theory I'm dying for a description of how it is going to work. Who controls the commercial growing of cocoa? Who regulates purity, the government? Will cocoa paste be a traded commodity? Who will refine and distribute? Will you go to Walgreens to buy it, will it be over the counter? How is all of this going to make Mayberry a beter place to live? Please, I'd like some details on how it is all going to work. I'd like to know how the "legal" drugs are going to eliminate illegal drug distribution, I mean none of this legal stuff sounds cheap to do. Will there be more or less demand once cocaine can be bought anywhere? Won't the people controlling the growing of cocoa paste still be in control?
Let's try marijuana, maybe that'll be an easier one to tackle. Marijuana is a plant like tobacco, you dry it and then you smoke it, pretty easy right? Marijuana is regulated by state and federal governments, you know, that whole purity thing and such. Commercial growing of marijuana will be handled by who, William Morris? Will the commercial production stop the clandestine production or will both be legal? you going to tax one but not the other or both, how? How do you propose the regulation of potency and purity? I'm dying to hear the details.
The major cause of the death of moonshine as a business wear directly related to the end of prohibition
Look at tobacco, alcohol, or other commodity for your model.
btw, nice way to deflect the question away from your dubious "comparison"
--
Sounds familiar.
The_War_Wagon
03-25-12, 07:05
Hmmm... your Spanish isn't very good. What he's ACTUALLY saying is, "Thank you gringos, for NOT electing The War Wagon el Presidente yet, for surely we would NEVER survive the 4 year, round-the-clock carpet bombing and daily MX missile barrages he would unleash on our sorry asses, in retaliation for illegally invading your country, stealing your welfare, killing your police, and foisting drugs on your children." :eek:
Yep... I'm pretty sure that's what he was actually saying... :mad:
Hmmm... your Spanish isn't very good. What he's ACTUALLY saying is, "Thank you gringos, for NOT electing The War Wagon el Presidente yet, for surely we would NEVER survive the 4 year, round-the-clock carpet bombing and daily MX missile barrages he would unleash on our sorry asses, in retaliation for illegally invading your country, stealing your welfare, killing your police, and foisting drugs on your children." :eek:
Yep... I'm pretty sure that's what he was actually saying... :mad:
carpet bombing...it solves so many of the worlds problems yet we don't use it anymore; population control and landscaping.
How do you propose the regulation of potency and purity? I'm dying to hear the details.
How do we test the purity of tobacco? I bet you don't know.
In fact, cigarette tobacco is intentionally adulterated with things like ammonia and propylene glycol to intensify the nicotine high.
The FDA only gained the power to regulate tobacco in 2009 when Obama signed FSPTCA into law. How was tobacco regulated before that?
The FDA does not regulate alcohol. The BATFE does not really regulate the purity of alcohol per se, it simply collects taxes on alcohol of certain concentrations and certain quantities. Simple market forces ensure a quality product - not govt regulation.
Cocaine, Heroine, and marijuana, as processed, are actually of fairly high quality. Market forces ensure that. You may want to google Adam Smith and the 'Unseen Hand'. 'Mainstream' drug traffickers actually have an economic incentive to do a good job. Problems with quality/purity usually arise at the street/retail level of distribution. Most street level drug dealers only make slightly better than minimum wage. The amount of 'cut' being used to maximize profits varies depending on a number of market factors. During Prohibition, alcohol had the same problems with all sorts of 'hooch' and 'bathtub gin'. Once legalized large commercial entities got involved, they replaced a criminal culture of just getting over with a corporate culture of meeting market demand.
Prohibition is a great case study for legalization and would indeed help the current situation & there is a clear reason chapo is thankful. The only reason it will never happen is because of the $$$ & too many people making a living trying to stop a demand that will never go away.
If you want to stay home and smoke dope, drink moonshine, stick needles in your arms or hammer your toes with a rusty pipe wrench, why should I care...stay out of public / wheel if you are going to do anything that causes a danger to others.
No different than the the whiners saying passing CHL will turn things back into the wild wild west.:rolleyes:
Keeping it illegal has worked so well...let's just keep doing the same:rolleyes:
Sounds familiar.
I did not make a dubious comparison.
And I am not going to help you build a straw man argument.
It is not my line of business and I don't have a business plan at hand.
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The 'War on Drugs' costs a LOAD of money. Right? Where are we going to keep coming up with this money? People who want to get high, will. Don't believe me? People will breath in spray paint in a paper bag to get high. What now? You going to regulate spray paint? Oh, right. That's why I have to show my ID to prove I'm 18 paint the grill. Doesn't really seem to stop it since it's kind of 'the man's' way of saying: You can do this if you're of age. I bet you can spend a lot of tax payer money on agencies to control it. You know, save the kids and all. What a crock.
Here's a novel idea; How about the government get the **** out of our houses?!? People who want to get high will. Who are we to criminalize them? If they want to kill brain cells to have a good time, let 'em. We do with alcohol but I guess that is somehow not as bad as pot or other drugs? We learned our lesson with the horribly failed attempt at prohibition yet this is different... how?
People will go on and on about how we need to cut our dependency on foreign oil because we're sending our money to the middle east yet nobody seems to be too concerned about the billions heading across the border every year.
Drugs need to be legalized. Those who are doing time for drug related offenses need to be released.
As for people who say to tax the hell out of it, I couldn't disagree more. Until our government can manage the money they have the last thing I want is to give them more. If Joe Schmoe wants to grow MJ and smoke it or share it with some friends... let 'em. There needs to be NO regulation and there needs to be NO taxes added. Let taxes on cigarettes go up the way the have been and you will even create a black market on cigarettes which is just as bad as the black market created from meaning things illegal. If someone is addicted to something and it becomes too expensive then people will start to perform criminal activity to feed the addiction.
Creating black markets legislating morality is expensive and doesn't work.
(I should add that I've never tried pot or cigarettes once so none of the previous statement comes from a place of self gain other than the effects on the economy and crime rates)
Watch the British film Layercake. In it legalization is theorized at the begining of the film.
That was a great movie.
Hmmm... your Spanish isn't very good. What he's ACTUALLY saying is, "Thank you gringos, for NOT electing The War Wagon el Presidente yet, for surely we would NEVER survive the 4 year, round-the-clock carpet bombing and daily MX missile barrages he would unleash on our sorry asses, in retaliation for illegally invading your country, stealing your welfare, killing your police, and foisting drugs on your children." :eek:
Yep... I'm pretty sure that's what he was actually saying... :mad:
I'll vote for you. Can I have a cabinet position?
Time and again I tell people it is not laws per-say that keep people from doing things, it is cultural acceptability that holds more power. Almost everyone will speed 5 over and it is generally an acceptable thing to do, however few men go club women over the head and have their way with them, because as a society and culture it is not accepted. Mexico has many more laws than we do, yet it is complete bedlam currently because their culture permits it. Contrary to what TV would have you believe, not that many people were doing drugs in the 60's and 70's and it was because most people thought those who did were losers. Fast forward to today, between the parents who are dying for their kids to "like them" and the magic box that tells everyone who is listening how to live and think in every aspect of their life, it is now more culturally acceptable to do various drugs. Don't believe me? Look at the rates of usage in a trailer park and ghettos then look at hard working middle class and higher neighborhoods. Sure you will find drugs in all but not quite to the extent in the better ones even though they have more coin for it. It is simply less acceptable. We will never fix crime completely, not until God himself steps in.
Moose-Knuckle
03-26-12, 02:34
That was a great movie.
Tells it like it is. . . ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHKI8zMHCjE&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Dlayercake%2B%26oq%3Dlayercake%2B%26aq%3Df%26aqi%3Dg-s3g1%26aql%3D%26gs_l%3Dyoutube-reduced.3..0i10l3j0.419659l426413l0l428551l10l10l0l1l1l0l155l1060l0j9l9l0.
PdxMotoxer
03-26-12, 03:08
Is "TheHuffingtonPost" a credible news source?
It seems like just another online blog. :confused:
Even then this "according to someone that told someone" is from March 2009.
According to one of his closest confidants, he said,
Then...
According to sources in the Mexican government,
Well it's on these interwebs so it must be true and besides this is according to ONE of his closest confidants.
:lol:
If you'd like to see a case study of decriminalization then examine Portugal. Many people, due to ignorance, throw out the old Amsterdam example and it just doesn't apply. Portugal actually decriminalized all drugs and they've had very positive results since then. Lower drug usage across the board, especially amongst teens, and the HIV rates have plummeted. There's plenty more to read but this will get you started: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html and http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization
Drug addiction is an addiction and should be treated as such. The theory in Portugal is that they'd rather spend the money trying to help people's addiction rather than throwing them in prison. So far it's working while our WOD has failed miserably. The definition of insanity...
If you'd like to see a case study of decriminalization then examine Portugal. Many people, due to ignorance, throw out the old Amsterdam example and it just doesn't apply. Portugal actually decriminalized all drugs and they've had very positive results since then. Lower drug usage across the board, especially amongst teens, and the HIV rates have plummeted. There's plenty more to read but this will get you started: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html and http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization
Drug addiction is an addiction and should be treated as such. The theory in Portugal is that they'd rather spend the money trying to help people's addiction rather than throwing them in prison. So far it's working while our WOD has failed miserably. The definition of insanity...
Good post and more fact based than my rant which failed to cite any case study. :jester:
September 7th, 2011
Cato Institute’s Report on Portuguese Drug Policy: Reasons for Skepticism
by Keith HumphreysMark informs me that this Thursday he will be “with Glenn Greenwald on bloggingheads tv on drugs”. I have told him this is a bad idea and it would make more sense to take the drugs afterwards, but still, he’s his own man so there it is. Let me contribute something in advance nonetheless. Many policy people have asked me what I think of the Cato Institute’s report on Portugal “proving that drug legalization works”, which Greenwald authored. Below is the guts of the memo I have written for such decision makers, which expresses my doubts about the report’s standing as a serious piece of drug policy analysis. If you like your drug policy simple and ideological, save yourself some time and skip straight to the comments section to denounce me. But if you want to know how analysts and decision makers try to sort through drug policy in all its complexity, you may find the following of interest. Extra credit reading is this concrete example for how you can torture the statistics of Portuguese drug policy until they give you the answer you want.
***
This memo is to follow up on your request for some analysis of the Cato Institute’s report on Portuguese drug policy. To summarize my view briefly, I think some aspects of current Portuguese drug policy are useful, that all of it warrants even-handed evaluation and that the Cato Report does summarize a selection of the important facts about the policy’s impact. I do however have some reservations about how the report has been interpreted as well as how it was written.
The most important point of context is to understand what Portugal actually did, which was to expand addiction treatment services and to reduce criminal penalties for drug users who possess small quantities of drugs. Such individuals are sent to a “dissuasion committee” which decides whether treatment, a fine or some other civil punishment is in order. Portuguese policy is therefore not “drug legalization”, because the production, manufacture and sale of drugs remain illegal. I do not blame the authors of the Cato Report for this, but as a factual matter, many media reports and activists have cited the report as “the definitive study of drug legalization”. That is simply wrong because drugs are not legalized in Portugal. Portuguese officials with whom I have spoken have expressed the same concern, namely that they are being said to have advanced a drug policy which they have not and do not support.
As for the report itself, Cato Institute hired a lawyer who made the best case he could for the effectiveness of Portuguese policy. That’s what lawyers are trained to do: Gather the subset of facts that support their client’s case and build an argument around them. This differs from the role of a policy analyst, which is to evaluate all the facts and come to a conclusion afterwards. A drug policy analyst would have thus not only highlighted apparent positive outcomes of policy (which the report does) but would also have reported the negative and ambiguous outcomes (which the report omits). That’s why the reports reads more like the argument of the case for the policy, or less charitably public relations for the policy, rather than an even-handed evaluation of it.
Don’t confuse this criticism of the report with criticism of the policy. I have no doubt that there were some benefits to the change in Portuguese policy. I know they got more addicts into treatment and I hope there are fewer drug users in prison today in Portugal than there were in 2001 (though even this latter point must be evaluated empirically because decriminalization, paradoxically, can in the long-term increase rather than decrease drug users’ contact with the criminal justice system as the Australian experience has shown). My experience in drug policy persuades me that no country anywhere has ever had a universally-successful solution to the problems of drugs and alcohol, and I would have liked to see such a realistic, historically-grounded sensibility more strongly expressed within the Cato report. Some of the data suggesting a more complex picture that were not mentioned in the report are the following:
• Eurostat reports that the annual number of murders in Portugal began rising right after the new drug policy was put into place, during a time when homicide rates were falling in the EU as a whole. From 2001 to 2006 the increase in the number of murders was 41%. This is a number and not a rate, so population growth may account for a small part of it – but in any event, I find it hard to understand why the Cato report did not even mention these data, which were available at the time. Given the well-documented connections between substance use and violence, I believe these data should have been mentioned in a drug policy study.
• Cocaine seizures in Portugal increased seven-fold between 2001 and 2006, according to the U.N. World Drug Report. One explanation may be the imperfect market signal that is sent through drug policy, i.e., transnational criminal organizations may have taken the new policy as a sign that Portugal would be a safer, lower-enforcement venue in which to operate. The report does not mention this possibility.
• The European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction 2007 annual report indicates that Portugal has the second highest rate of HIV/AIDS among intravenous drug users in the European Union. Again, these data were not mentioned in the Cato report, even though reduction of HIV/AIDS is generally considered a central goal of public health-oriented drug policy.
• The latest data from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction show that from 2001 to 2007, the proportion of Portuguese people age 15-64 who used heroin in the past month doubled and the proportion who used cocaine tripled. The absolute rate remains low, but again, such rises should have received some serious attention in an evaluation of the nation’s drug policy. The Cato report says on page 11 that the population’s drug use increased “only slightly or mildly.” These are unusual terms to use for a tripling of cocaine use in a population; most people would consider such a change as more than slight or mild.
The report also doesn’t do a sufficiently thorough job of examining alternative explanations for the findings, attributing all the positive effects noted to decriminalization. Portugal, quite laudably, dramatically expanded methadone maintenance and other forms of treatment at the same time they decriminalized. Other countries that have expanded treatment have reaped significant public health and safety gains, so it must be seriously considered whether it was the treatment expansion that produced the positive changes noted in the report. The author of the Cato report asserts that decriminalization is what makes treatment expansion possible. But this is verifiably untrue, both France (from the mid 1990s to the early 2000s) and the United States (in the early 1970s) expanded treatment enormously and reaped large public health and public safety gains without decriminalizing…the latter policy has never been necessary to cause the former. Indeed, President Nixon initiated the largest expansion of drug treatment in U.S. history while openly battling the idea of decriminalization.
There are also aspects of the report that leave me puzzled as a policy analyst. The author attributes to Portugal’s 2001 policy change the country’s lower rate of lifetime drug use relative to the EU as a whole, in 2006. This is a singularly strange claim. The drug use over a Portuguese person’s lifetime will be far more shaped by policies that have been in place throughout his or her lifetime than in the past 5 years (e.g., a person who was 40 in 2006 would have had 35 years under the old policy and 5 years under the new policy). Similarly, the author presents a figure on page 19 showing a rise in drug-related deaths in Portugal up to 1999 and then concludes that the 2001 policy caused the lower number of deaths seen in 2005. But there are two years between 1999 and 2001 that are not discussed, and during this time drug-related deaths fell sharply. Again, I am puzzled: How could a policy change implemented in 2001 be credited for a reduction in deaths that began two years earlier?. Also worth noting is the fact that last year (after the Cato report came out) Portugal reported more drug-related deaths than it did in 2001.
None of this should be read as a condemnation of the Portuguese government – they expanded treatment and tried to lower the number of non-violent drug users in prison, which are good things. Indeed, I have spent a great deal of time pursuing similar goals with state and national governments. My complaint rather is that the Cato report doesn’t do a sufficient job of helping us all understand the complexity of what happened in Portugal, the positives and the negatives that policymakers know are always both present in the world of public policy. Instead the report gives a partial picture that supports a particular (perhaps predetermined) conclusion, and that creates doubt in my mind about its value as serious policy analysis.
http://www.samefacts.com/2011/09/drug-policy/cato-institutes-report-on-portuguese-drug-policy-reasons-for-skepticism/
ForTehNguyen
03-26-12, 12:39
Drugs are still illegal there just the punishments were greatly reduced. It still doesnt do anything to address supply. Portugal has decriminalization not legalization. Decriminalization does nothing to stop the cartels and suppliers.
Some points about those bullet items above:
Prove the increase in murders were related to the decriminalization of drugs
What was Portugal's HIV/AIDS rate before decriminalization?
Also now that its decriminalized more people are going truthfully admit to using drugs. Before they would arrest if you said you used drugs. No idea if the reported increase in drug use was true increases in drug use and not more people truthfully reporting.
September 7th, 2011
Cato Institute’s Report on Portuguese Drug Policy: Reasons for Skepticism
He doesn't do anything to substantiate what he's saying. No links to info or anything of nature so it boils down to "He said, she said..." in terms of debunking Cato's report. Far from solid info even though he may be right.
I believe in freedom.
Legalize and let it run rampant, I say. Just publish warnings as to how and why it will kill you. We'll clear out the users pretty quick, that way, and legal weed will really minimize leg work for LE guys, so they can focus on more important stuff.
Everytime legalization debates come up on m4c, I feel embarrassed to be a part of a community who has a, however small, subgroup of those who do not see the difference between alcohol and heroine.
Absolutely insane and in line with the most liberal of hippies. But whatever, call it libertarianism. I'm sure I'll get pummeled for this so I will step aside and not post further.
I'm your Huckleberry...
Maybe you should try to learn a little more about your American history before you go casting aspersions.
Fact #1 Bayer, the aspirin company, used to sell Heroin over the counter in drug stores, it was marketed as a cough suppressant. As a German company, Bayer was forced to give up the trademark after World War I under the Treaty of Versailles.
Fact #2 Cocaine, first manufactured by Merck, was popular, too. Parke-Davis (which is now a subsidiary of Pfizer) advertised a "cocaine kit" that it promised could "supply the place of food, make the coward brave, the silent eloquent and . . . render the sufferer insensitive to pain." Late-nineteenth century advertisements for "Cocaine Toothache Drops" promised users (including children such as those depicted in the ads) an "instantaneous cure." FYI - Cocaine is a "bad drug" and is also the major ingredient in "crack".
Another popular product, "Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup," contained one grain (65 mg) of morphine per ounce, and was marketed to mothers to quiet restless infants and children. McCormick (the spice company) and others sold "paregoric," a mixture of highly concentrated alcohol with opium, as a treatment for diarrhea, coughs, and pain, with instructions on the bottle for infants, children, and adults. Another medication called laudanum was similar, but with 25 times the opium. Heroin and opium were both marketed as asthma treatments, too. And, of course, cocaine was an ingredient in Coca-Cola from 1886 until 1900.
America did have addicts in the nineteenth century (perhaps as much as 0.5 percent of the population), there are some things it notably did not have. Most important, there was virtually none of the violence, death, and crime we associate with the present-day drug problem. Most drug users were not street criminals; instead, the typical addict was, as author Mike Gray put it, "a middle-aged southern white woman strung out on laudanum." Many or most opium addicts led more or less normal lives and managed to keep their addiction hidden.
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6788/cocainetoothachedrops.jpg
ARE WE NOW A NATION OF ADDICTS?!?!?! Oh no, run and hide, run and hide! People have actually had access to schedule 1 drugs and not gone completely batshit crazy!
Seriously, how many people are "hardcore addicts"? And if you legalized drugs how many would becomes these so called "hardcore addicts"?
This is a great read on the WOD http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb111/hb111-33.pdf.
According to this report we'd also save $41,000,000,000 a year ending the WOD http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf
I also find it rather humorous that our last 3 presidents are admitted illegal drug users and yet somehow insist that you shouldn't partake in the same activity.
Moose-Knuckle
03-27-12, 00:11
Everytime legalization debates come up on m4c, I feel embarrassed to be a part of a community who has a, however small, subgroup of those who do not see the difference between alcohol and heroine.
You do realize that there are more Americans who abuse alchohol and are killed by alcohol related incidents/ailments than heroin don't you?
Everytime legalization debates come up on m4c, I feel embarrassed to be a part of a community who has a, however small, subgroup of those who do not see the difference between alcohol and heroine.
Absolutely insane and in line with the most liberal of hippies. But whatever, call it libertarianism. I'm sure I'll get pummeled for this so I will step aside and not post further.
Insane? How is freedom insane?
Please support your position with some sort of reasoning, facts, or whatever.
People call your love of firearms insane. The state that has the power to control what you put into your body has the power to control your body, and everything about you including your firearms.
And you make the number one mistake of prohibitionists. You equate legality with morality. You think that making something legal makes it moral. Drug use is stupid and making drugs legal is not the same thing as making them moral.
This has nothing to do with hippies. I am a tea-totaler. I have never even drunk a beer, let alone tried any sort of drug. But I support legalization. Because criminalization of drugs is INSANE. Trying to force people to abide by whatever thing you think is best, for example, to force people to stay away from drugs by force of arms and law, merely moves it underground, creates a black market, and a criminal class willing to exploit that black market.
Many if not most of the problems the country faces from drugs actually is the effects of them being illegal, not the actual drug use itself and most of the costs of drugs to the country come from their being illegal, not their use.
The so-called War on Drugs has not stopped people from taking drugs. Anyone in the country including children can get any drug they want with very little effort and a little cash. But it has brought severe anti-gun laws into being, funded tons of money's worth of fancy LEO units and prisons, killed thousands of people in struggles to control the markets for drugs, and is a big cash cow for government and the criminals, all to the detriment of the average citizen.
What is INSANE and STUPID is making drugs illegal. The costs to society for making them illegal far outweigh the costs to society if they were legal.
We spend and spend and spend to try and fight them, and the struggles and criminality to control the markets it spawns is huge, yet anyone can still buy drugs so we still suffer from the effects of the users. Lets get rid of all the costs associated with illegality and focus on the costs of the users themselves.
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