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Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by loeg on Saturday November 07, 2020 @11:46AM (#25016161)
GP's comment can of course be read more correctly as "the purpose of existing drug laws (in the US), ..."
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by rayiner on Saturday November 07, 2020 @11:52AM (#25016205)
Sweden has harsh drug laws too. So does China. The point is that there are other reasons people favor drug laws, since many homogenous countries have them too.
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by heavyset_go on Saturday November 07, 2020 @12:49PM (#25016775)
And yet the literal tons of fentanyl and fentanyl derivatives that are swamping black markets in the US and killing thousands are almost exclusively manufactured in China and shipped to the US.
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by Der_Einzige on Saturday November 07, 2020 @01:51PM (#25017458)
I'd take 10 years in a swedish prison over 3 months in a US prison...
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by jahaja on Saturday November 07, 2020 @02:02PM (#25017614)
"Harsh" is very relative. I would be very surprised to see anyone caught using drugs for the first time, or even the 3rd time, not just getting a fine unless they're in possession of a larger quantity. The maximum sentence is 3 years, which I would assume would require a substantial criminal record.
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by shmel on Saturday November 07, 2020 @12:28PM (#25016557)
China also has concentration camps. Just saying...
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by refurb on Saturday November 07, 2020 @11:52AM (#25016216)
Canada had very harsh drug laws too (at least for hard drugs). And so did much of Europe.

Did all those countries also create those laws to harass certain populations?

Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by masklinn on Saturday November 07, 2020 @11:58AM (#25016256)
How many did basically at the behest of the US? The US very much lead the crusade on drugs criminalisation after WWII.
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by disgruntledphd2 on Saturday November 07, 2020 @01:22PM (#25017093)
All of them, it's part of the founding UN treaties, as far as I know.
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by retrac on Saturday November 07, 2020 @03:46PM (#25019128)
The People's Republic of China has maintained its draconian anti-drug stance since before the international drug conventions of the 60s and 70s.

I would concur much of the puritanism and authoritarianism around the world about drugs originates from the US, but hardly all of it.

Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by refurb on Sunday November 08, 2020 @09:58AM (#25026157)
They were actually agreed upon by the UN. It didn’t take the US to convince other countries to make drugs illegal.
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by rjknight on Saturday November 07, 2020 @12:10PM (#25016373)
In many cases yes: European attitudes towards the lower classes are often similar to (though not as extreme as) racist attitudes in the US.
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health by tpxl on Saturday November 07, 2020 @12:52PM (#25016797)
Lots of European countries (and probably the rest of the world) also copy US laws for no apparent reason.

More or less everyone I know has tried drugs (MJ, magic mushrooms, LSD) or does them on a regular basis, but I don't know anyone who's ever been arrested over it. What I'm saying is there doesn't seem to be (much) of a stigma against drugs, neither with the population, nor with the cops. Nevertheless, MJ is illegal, and the protests for legalization started soon after the ones in the US.