No War on Drugs from 1971

Thread inspired by the recent US govt announcement this wk that the War on Drugs is no more- WI Pres Nixon had never declared such a policy back in 1971 ?
 
Well...there would be massive influx of drugs, i can see a more corrupt goverment. There would be a lot more drug-realted murders...Pablo Escvaer as president of Columbia?
 
I think you went in exactly the wrong direction with that. No war on drugs would mean less government intervention so there would be LESS corruption. There would be no "drug"murders because it would not be black market, it would be business not criminal. We do not see masses of Tabacco murders or Alcohol murders (stupid choices by individuals withstanding) To be honest with you I think that only god would come out of situation like that. The stupid people who cant control there use die off. Society has less morons... all good things.
 
Simple really

Without prohibition you have no rumrunners, no bootleggers and no Al Capone.

Without the drug prohibition, you have no Columbian cartel, no Mexican drug lords, and a far less organized level of organized crime. Also significantly fewer drug addicts in the US and western europe.

No good deed goes unpunished. Many right wing observers blame what drug trade that does exist on the policies of the Democrats and Nixon caving to congress on the issue back in '71.
 
Nixon associated drugs with the CounterCulture which he despised. There was in that period what I like to call the CounterCounterCulture (sort of like ECCM) and Nixon sort of personified it.
 
well, narcotics were illegal before the WoD, so I'd imagine that there would just be less of an effort to fight them, but people would still be arrested if they happened to get caught... people would be arrested more on 'incidental' evidence (i.e., getting pulled over for speeding and the officer finding MJ in the car)...
 
Without prohibition you have no rumrunners, no bootleggers and no Al Capone.

Without the drug prohibition, you have no Columbian cartel, no Mexican drug lords, and a far less organized level of organized crime. Also significantly fewer drug addicts in the US and western europe.

No good deed goes unpunished. Many right wing observers blame what drug trade that does exist on the policies of the Democrats and Nixon caving to congress on the issue back in '71.

I'm a little confused by one of the points that you make here. You assert that, had there been no War on Drugs, there would be ".. fewer drug addicts in the US and western europe." I was wondering what your reason there was.

To be frank, I don't see how that could be the case. The War on Drugs was a massive effort dedicated to eliminating the drug supply. While no one claims that its anti-drug efforts were totally successful, the DEA and the other organizations that it cooperated with in the War on Drugs did seize a large number of shipments that were meant for consumption by U.S. addicts. (The figure most frequently cited is, I believe, that one in eight shipments into the U.S. is seized.) The affects of that interference, and the loss of the material which was seized would seem to be that drugs would be harder to obtain, and that they would be more expensive in the U.S..

Now, I admit that my understanding of the issue is far from perfect, but how do you equate the elimination of an anti-drug program which logically should have made drugs harder to purchase and more expensive with a reduction in the number of addicts? From what I can see, the converse should be the case. Which is to say, if anti-drug programs were eliminated, more drugs would make it into the U.S., resulting in it being easier to purchase such drugs, also probably resulting in the price of such drugs "on the street" declining at least to some degree. Both of which seem to be factors which would correlate with higher numbers of people "trying" such drugs, and therefore becoming addicted.

So, anyways, I'm just wondering if you would explain what your reasoning was when you made that point.
 
The very nature of prohibition is to increase both addiction and violence. As was said previously look what happened with alcohol. I think what you need to understand is that the WOD attacked supply, not demand. The vary basis of economics is that if supply is decreased while demand remains the same the cost of those items will increase. In the case of Narcotics, the cost in money and blood.
 
....resulting in it being easier to purchase such drugs, also probably resulting in the price of such drugs "on the street" declining at least to some degree. Both of which seem to be factors which would correlate with higher numbers of people "trying" such drugs, and therefore becoming addicted.

The case of the Netherlands suggests an increase followed by a decrease in use over a couple of decades. Notably, also lower levels of drug-related crime. This is compared to the UK which has a more traditional prohibitionist approach but is otherwise somewhat similar.

If the supply is squeezed, the game becomes more lucrative for the ones still in it. When supply was squeezed in BC just these last few years, we had an enormous eruption in gang violence, as I'm sure you must have heard.
 
Thread inspired by the recent US govt announcement this wk that the War on Drugs is no more- WI Pres Nixon had never declared such a policy back in 1971 ?

We would live in a Utopian society, where the government gains and important source of tax revenue; but people use morphine like they use alcohol.
 
well one upside to this is that domestic drug production in the US will probably be higher than in OTL so foreign production will most definetly be less. As a result perhaps a less profitable opium trade in afghanistan, and less money for the taliban/al qaeda.
 
Although, said opium helped fund the Mujahedin in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets. Not to mention the cocaine funding the Contras...

As for the PoDs, one could argue that if Richard Nixon accepted the Shafer Commission Report, then the Controlled Substances Act wouldn't be passed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_on_Marijuana_and_Drug_Abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substance_Act

Alternatively, if the court had upheld the Marijuana Tax Act (Repealed in Leary* vs. U.S.), there would be less need for a "War on Drugs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Marihuana_Tax_Act

* Yes, that was Timothy Leary...
 
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