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A comment on The War on Drugs and Prison Growth: Limited importance and legislative options [pdf]. Parent comment

Re:The War on Drugs and Prison Growth: Limited importance an... by tptacek on Thursday August 20, 2015 @10:02AM (#10091862)
This is the wrong way to read the paper. The author isn't making a case against decriminalizing drugs. He's saying that even if you decriminalize drugs, you will still need other stronger interventions to work against mass incarceration and, for that matter, the racial disparities in incarceration.
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Re:The War on Drugs and Prison Growth: Limited importance an... by kazinator on Thursday August 20, 2015 @10:38AM (#10092095)
The specific argument is made that if you decriminalize marijuana, it won't make a difference because there aren't that many incarcerations for marijuana specifically.
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Re:The War on Drugs and Prison Growth: Limited importance an... by tptacek on Thursday August 20, 2015 @10:49AM (#10092181)
Which is an argument so obviously true as to be banal; even the marijuana decriminalization campaign in Colorado pointed it out.

Marijuana is going to be legal in the US. It's not a live issue. We don't have to import it into every other social science inquiry.

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Re:The War on Drugs and Prison Growth: Limited importance an... by josefresco on Thursday August 20, 2015 @10:07AM (#10091900)
Keep in mind that the "business" of drugs creates a lot of other crimes - theft, murder, extortion etc.

A change in policies towards illegal drugs would have a wide ranging impact.

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