What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?

Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by mc32 on Saturday May 17, 2014 @11:22PM (#7762035)

I don't think the 'war on drugs' which happens in all sorts of countries, not just the US, is indicative or racism and corruption or police militarization or a prison system. Japan is very homogenous and they have very strict drug enforcement. Same goes for other Asian nations as well as European nations --many of the countries are quite homogenous compared to the US and yet they have strong policies. I think this would indicate that it's more a political issue. In China there is also an anti-imperial reason aspect, but I'd not say their policies are due to what you have described.

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Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by dragonwriter on Sunday May 18, 2014 @01:54AM (#7762308)

> I don't think the 'war on drugs' which happens in all sorts of countries, not just the US, is indicative or racism and corruption or police militarization or a prison system.

The War on Drugs that happens in many countries is, in fact, a result of that; specifically, its a result of (1) the War on Drugs in the US being a direct result of those things, and (2) the War on Drugs implemented in many other countries being a direct outgrowth of the exportation of the US War on Drugs through US foreign policy. (Ironically, this is true even of international treaties that foreign governments are now accusing the US of violating due to marijuana legalization efforts in some states.)

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Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by chrischen on Sunday May 18, 2014 @02:38AM (#7762391)

While true for a lot of countries, this not true for China, which have probably stricter drug policies (with the exception of maybe alcohol). China would not let itself be dictated by US policies.

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Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by dragonwriter on Sunday May 18, 2014 @12:24PM (#7763442)

Well, yeah, there are a number of countries that have their own parallels to some or all aspects of the US motivations for the war on drugs -- particularly as part of a broader militaristic centralization of authority, the racism involved in the US war on drugs is a less-common motivation -- and don't need to be pressured by the US. There's also religious authoritarianism in, e.g., the Islamic world, though that often overlaps with militaristic centralization.

My point was that a lot of the countries where there may not be direct domestic parallels to the US motivations still have a War on Drugs as a product of the same motivations because they do so as a result of US pressure.

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Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by chrischen on Sunday May 18, 2014 @03:37PM (#7764087)

Right. And what you end up seeing is that all disparate cultures, religions, non-religions, have concluded that they need to control drugs, in order to control the people. When Opium was unleashed China it just allowed the British to control the people.

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Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by watwut on Sunday May 18, 2014 @04:46AM (#7762551)

Drugs are illegal in Europe, but Europe does not have war on drugs rhetoric nor such high incarcerations rates nor such high punishments for small amounts of marijuana nor stop and frisk policies nor cops militarized to the same degree.

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Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by br78 on Sunday May 18, 2014 @11:26AM (#7763305)

In the UK police have powers of stop and search which are very wide ranging. Small, personal amounts of cannabis possession are sometimes overlooked or given a 'caution' (which still goes on your record) but its completely up to the cop's discretion. No surprise, figures out last month showed black people are rarely given a caution compared to white. Cannabis is the same class (B) as mephedrone and speed and more restricted than class C ketamine.

Few European countries have police as militarized or jails as full as yours, but many of them eat up the same war on drugs rhetoric.

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Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by yen223 on Sunday May 18, 2014 @03:09AM (#7762427)

"In China there is also an anti-imperial reason aspect, but I'd not say their policies are due to what you have described."

This is a reference to a period in Chinese history when the entire nation suffered from a crippling opium addiction. The opium was introduced by the British, in an effort to address trade imbalances.

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Re:What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War... by tomp on Sunday May 18, 2014 @05:11AM (#7762592)

A lot of the "war on drugs" in other countries happened because of US pressure, because other countries want to kiss US's ass.

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