The bit about Nixon is obligatory for a good reason. It sidesteps a lot of historical nuances but is factually correct and underpins the key issue which emerges when people discuss drugs: people imagine that drugs are criminalized for good reasons while in fact the heavy handed judicial approach hurts taxpayers and it hurts the people needing help by stigmatizing them.

The criminal process does not help public health outcomes.

There is this fallacy among even smart people that if a thing has legislation controlling it must be well thought out and they can stop analyzing it.

The Nixon bit is a strong reminder that sometimes things are like they are for some obscure political reason rather than common sense. Daylights saving time used in many countries is a similar weird political vestige.

There is a strong moral sentiment about drugs in some segments of population. There are good reasons to fear substance abuse. But, churches also have good political reasons to fear them. If people can get raptured sitting at home with a group of friends what purpose would a conregation serve then?

Therefore, from churches perspective it's politically expedient to stigmatize drug use as morally corrupt.

Confusing drugs as morally corrupt adds to the odd ball mix of criminalization.

Addiction is never good, mmkay. People need help to fight it. Social networks are among the most important bits of this help. That's why shaming and stigmatization of addicts is one of the cruelest and counter productive things a society can do.

My mother perished of alcohol abuse recently. While I don't blame anyone, the stigmatization of society did not help.

My understanding is that there's the war on drugs and then there's the War on Drugs, and the latter is what is (correctly?) attributed to Nixon, even when it is not bothered to be capitalized.

I think the point is that, while yes the naming of the 'War on Drugs' is fairly attributed to Nixon, almost none of the significantly harmful policies we've come to associate with it were actually enacted on his watch - i.e. things like three strike laws or mandatory minimum sentencing or drug raids conducted by SWAT teams. It's really Reagan who should get the "credit" for most of that. And Clinton kept things trending in the same direction, to be fair.

Another context for the same words:

Vietnam could be considered the war on drugs.

If what I've read is correct, US soldiers were given amphetamine pills "like candy".

A huge proportion of US soldiers (20% according to some sources) also used heroin while in Vietnam, giving rise to one of the more interesting studies of addiction related to heroin [1] that also taught us a great deal about how to kick addictions and change behaviors (the short of it being that a change of environment makes breaking habits far easier)

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/01/02/14443179...

It really shouldn't be a surprise that if someone's life is so shitty that they feel they need to do Heroin to escape it, then putting them through a grueling recovery process and then sending them back to their shitty life with no prospects is tremendously counterproductive.

And yet it apparently amazingly is still surprising to a lot of people.

They were just following the tradition set by the Germans in WW2: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/pilot...

Good point, don't know how I forgot that.

I'm fairly convinced Hitler was on the gear too.

Yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Morell

Most probably yes, and also on cocaine as his fellow Goring. These things were considered not harmful and you could buy it anywhere.

Amphetamines were still used in 60s as enhancers for mountaineering for example. Most of traditional expeditions to 8000m peaks had the top party high on this, somehow balancing the rush and mental strength it presumably gave with existing in total exhaustion for days and pushing further up. One example out of many is Hermann Buhl climbing Nanga Parbat, solo, hallucinating, as a first ever ascent of the killer mountain.

People like Messner refused to use these, championing clean 'alpine' ascents, without support, just men with their skills and mental+physical strength facing mountains.

In support of this I'll point out that Prohibition predates Nixon's presidency by 50 years.

The righteous have been lording it over the morally condemned since time immemorial.

> Shibboleth

I don't know what that is. Should I?

From https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shibboleth :

1. A word, especially seen as a test, to distinguish someone as belonging to a particular nation, class, profession etc.

2. A common or longstanding belief, custom, or catchphrase associated with a particular group, especially one with little current meaning or truth.

Thanks!

Very clever joke?

Just irony it seems.

Its the war of mom & dads state sponsored sock-puppets waged against chemical induced self-destruction.

It would be really interesting to have a panel where both sides could express there interests, trying to find a compromise.