Hawaii To Study Decriminalization of All Drugs

[ironyak]

The_Saints - perhaps you have an insight on who does favor the current enforcement policies or why they're so entrenched?

[kalakoa]

who does favor the current enforcement policies or why they're so entrenched

Note that enforcement postures vary by state; I suggest that our local enforcement priorities are simply a function of revenue -- tourism does not make a well-rounded economy, and there's plenty of outside money available for interdiction.

Hawaii might make more money with legalized marijuana, but the legislature we currently have is basically refusing to consider the concept...

[The_Saints]

Follow the money. There is much funding to be had for interdiction efforts. There is also much money to be made in the incarceration of those arrested through those interdiction efforts. Others still stand to lose money if the drug war were to end.

The DEA is the head of the snake. They would lose legitimacy without the drug war. They would not need to exist in their current size and incarnation. Through my career, I have seen such abuses by the DEA. They are very heavy handed and do not operate with any regard for the community. I attribute this in part to the fact that a federal agency does not serve any particular community, so they don't feel any sense of ownership or involvement in that community. I was with a federal agency for many years, so this is not mere conjecture. It is my own observation from the inside. I have also served in state and local agencies. The more local the agency, the more vested they are in the health, satisfaction, and prosperity of the community. However, it seems that every time that the DEA gets their talons into a local agency, by creating and funding a new task force, that agency's ethos changes. The DEA permeates the new task force with their heavy handed tactics, and that is when the bravada starts to matter to the front line Officers. They then justify the heavy handed tactics as necessary to protect the community in the war on drugs. They say things like it is for the children. The local agency won't say anything, and won't step in to stop it, because they are now addicted to the new funding. Keep law enforcement local, and you will keep the accountability local too.

The stomach of the snake is the for profit prison operations. Not just big companies, but many local jails receive funding for housing drug offenders too. The interdiction efforts swallow up these low level nonviolent drug offenders. 'Oh, your local system is overwhelmed by the drug users facing a few years? Send them to us, for only $35,000 per year.' A good portion of which will then be used to turn around and lobby for the drug war to continue, to ensure a steady supply of 'product.'

The tail of the snake is comprised of many other groups who believe that they could lose a buck if the drug war where to end. Money has been spent by lobbyists from the alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical, and drug treatment industries, to keep the drug war going. These are but a few, there are others.

The ground that the snake is upon would be the black market. Everyone from the kingpins to the street level dealers stands to lose out. So they work hand in hand with government entities to keep the drug war happening. There have many cases of the cartels giving gifts to influential people to influence drug policy. This goes on at the lower levels too. The DEA managers who received the prostitutes from the cartel during their Columbia visit surely are no longer impartial (it really did happen.) The street level trafficker who drops a dime on his competition to gain market share is not merely a thing in the movies. Remember, alcohol did not make Al Capone, prohibition did.

Worst of all, is the way that this trickles down to the drug user. In the end, they are the ones who pay the most. They are the product being bought and sold.

So, just follow the money.

[knieft]

quote:

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Originally posted by The_Saints

snip
Worst of all, is the way that this trickles down to the drug user. In the end, they are the ones who pay the most. They are the product being bought and sold.

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Excellent summary. Reminds me that I have mentioned that some people want to legalize all drugs to students in classrooms from 5th grade to 12th, and they are pretty much aghast at the idea. Especially the highschoolers whose first response is that everyone will do drugs then.

I ask if the reason they don't do heroin is because it is illegal, and after the joke responses, most admit that the legality is not really central to their choice of using a drug or not.

Seems that the decades of propaganda of the "war" on drugs has been pretty effective--even to highschoolers who use drugs seeing legalizing all drugs as laughable. In any case, it would still be illegal to teens...

I doubt history will judge the war on drugs very favorably, but I will be curious to watch how people react to the mention of legalizing all drugs today. No one probably predicted how fast gay marriage has become accepted across much of the US--though there remain the folks who find it threatening. All the "status offenses" (from sexual orientation and recreational drug use to prostitution and runaway teens) may one day be seen in a new light.

In any case I would be interested in what such a study on the effects of legalizing all drugs would find, but less interested in paying for it as a taxpayer.

(And I agree that a national movement would be more useful than Hawaii only.)

Cheers,
Kirt

[ironyak]

Thanks The_Saints for the insights. So many vested interests it's difficult to see sufficient incentive for change, although Colorado and other states have shown it's doable for a recreational drug.

Moving from enforcement to treatment for "harder" substances seems unlikely without a substitute for federal enforcement funding (need some DoH task forces backed with unlimited Fed funding).

I doubt we'll ever see full legalization for all substances, but hopefully the economics of decriminalization will become increasingly competitive to foster some change and HI can simply follow the money.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Is drug use a developmental disorder, a medical condition, or learning disability? If it is, are we in effect arresting and imprisoning people as if they were autistic, or didn't learn their math tables correctly in 3rd grade? Look back 100 or 200 years, the prisons were filled with people who had conditions now treatable with modern medicine:

... journalist Maia Szalavitz argues that a better way to understand addiction is to view it more as a developmental disorder, like autism or dyslexia.
...
When I say that addiction is a learning disorder, I don’t mean that it is any less medical. Addiction cannot happen without learning, because learning shapes values over the course of development. If you don’t learn that the drug comforts you or creates pleasure, you cannot become addicted.
http://gizmodo.com/maybe-addiction-is-mo...1771485777

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." -Annie Dillard

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

As The Saints mentioned earlier, one of the reasons drugs are criminalized is to support the private for profit prison system.

Hawaii sends 1400 inmates to the mainland:

Often, the best-behaving prisoners — those with no disciplinary record, escape history or medical issues — are the most likely to be sent far from home.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/....ndEmNPlOl

What does it cost for family members to visit relatives locked up in Washington or Arizona? $2370 per trip. Plus when they can't be there in person, 25 cents a minute to talk to them on the phone using the prison for profit phone system. A disproportionate number of these inmates are Native Hawaiian, but at least the facility has been blessed:

Today, under a $30-million-a-year contract with CCA, the state sends all its overflow prisoners to Saguaro, which was opened just for Hawaii in 2007, with a blessings ceremony performed by Hawaiian "cultural advisors" flown in from the islands.

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." -Annie Dillard

[leilanidude]

As The Saints mentioned earlier, one of the reasons drugs are criminalized is to support the private for profit prison system.
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However, private for profit prisons are relatively new. This has been going on for decades.

[leilanidude]

A disproportionate number of these inmates are Native Hawaiian,
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If they are the ones committing the crimes, then the percentage is accurate and not racist, correct?

[kalakoa]

the percentage is accurate and not racist

By some amazing coincidence, the percentage is "accurate and not racist" all across the country -- and the net result is always (somehow, magically) fewer whites in prison.