Trump Opioid Policy: Step Up War on Drugs, Not Treatment

[Cake4Breakfast]

Nah, the Drug War does work. The problem is you can't half-ass it like we've been doing. You either have extremely draconian punishments like this or you legalize. Half-way in between like we've been doing just doesn't work.

A 3,500% increase in spending to fight drugs between 1970 and 2011 had no effect on daily use of cannabis, heroin or any type of cocaine use (per the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Policy Administration's 2012 findings), what more are you arguing needs to be done to use our whole ass? How can you be tougher on drugs than law enforcement has been on crack cocaine?

 

[panamaican]

I'd like to see a more humane, health based approach across the board but this is America so the best I can hope for is the justice system occasionally taking a break from crushing pot smokers or opioid addicts. I see where you're coming though.

Yes, where I'm coming would extend your statement to include "...and occasionally taking a break from crushing crack and cocaine addicts".

It simply makes no sense to me how this conversation about reducing the judicial impact on drug users and dealers constantly addresses pot, sidesteps crack and cocaine, then runs over to opioids. As if crack and cocaine addicts don't deserve the same reductionist approach. Yet they are the same in the ways that matters - drugs that cause significant social issues, lead people to criminal sentences simply for the crime of being addicted, reducing the illegality would impact the criminal networks the same as legalizing pot, etc.. Yet crack and cocaine continue to be treated as the ugly step-sister in the conversation, unworthy of the more humane approach that seems to be in vogue.

 

[Falsedawn]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...eath-penalty-in-drug-cases-idUSKBN1GX25A?il=0

Federal prosecutors told to seek death penalty in drug cases

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed federal prosecutors on Wednesday to seek the death penalty in drug-related cases whenever it is “appropriate,” saying the Justice Department must boost efforts to counter America’s epidemic of opioid abuse.

His mandate to prosecutors followed a plan announced by President Donald Trump earlier this week that called for executing opioid dealers and traffickers, and for stiffer sentencing laws for opioid trafficking.

The call for greater use of the death penalty in federal drug cases has already sparked a backlash from criminal justice reform groups. They say it is the wrong response to a public health crisis and harks back to the 1980s-era war on drugs policies that led to racial disparities in prosecutions.
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Oh fuck, here we go.

 

[GSP_37]

Maybe he should execute those corrupt doctors who profited from getting people to become drug junkies and the drug company CEO's who bribed the doctors.