zlacker

The American police force seems to be a catch-all for the vast amount of social problems caused by unequal access to healthcare, limited social security and a host of puritan laws that ignore peoples needs. Making drug users criminals despite the massive numbers of them drives up prices and decreases access causing large amounts of crime out of social problems caused by missing social systems. The drug war has also caused a lot of organised crime on an impressive scale and packed out prisons that treat its prisoners appalling badly, falling very much into the punishing end of the spectrum and addressing very little rehabilitation which reduces reoffence.

Combine all that lacking social programs and support with the culture around guns, which a lot of the populace owns, and you have by necessity a very militant police force. America has a lot of social issues which much of the populace does not want to address and the police end up arresting it all and putting them in prison. It impacts the middle classes a lot less and they don't want to pay for it so as a populace they suffer the consequences of those choices in their schools and criminal gangs and subsequently military-like police. There are other ways to do this but I highly doubt America will choose any of them in the coming decade.

>>PaulKe+(OP)
I find it surprising that these relatively well known issues aren't even considered topics for public discussion. I understand that the solutions are hard, but plenty of hard problems have been solved by determined societies. The police are symptoms of a problem in how wealth and services are distributed within our society. Fix this and we won't need para military police suppressing the proletariat.

>>PaulKe+(OP)
Agreed drug war is a total failure, policy-wise. Where is the middle ground between criminalizing everything and legalizing everything? Real lives are destroyed by drug abuse and particularly with regards to meth, fentanyl, etc it kills people. I can't imagine a world where we sell these things over the counter. Would that help or hurt communities?

>>Aviceb+f3
>I find it surprising that these relatively well known issues aren't even considered topics for public discussion.

Because they're all considered "leftist" if not "socialist" politics now, and the Overton window of acceptable discussion in the US has moved very far to the right over the last four years.

>>chrisc+P5
Maybe there’s a legal path to meth but you can literally die from touching a small dose of fentanyl if you haven’t built a tolerance. Very dangerous for that to exist in a legal setting.

>>krapp+66
I would be interested in learning if it has been only over the last four years. My instinct is that the "left" has been hollowing out since the late 20th century, and it's not as much that discussion is hard to the right as that substantive issues are being ignored because it's not convenient for those in power.

>>chrisc+P5
so the reason meth and fent are a thing is because speed and heroin are harder to smuggler and/or make.

MDMA is far safer and fun then MDA MDE PMA PMMA but you get the latter sold as it because no one wants anything but MDMA. Same with all sorts of synthetic RCs and drugs.

>>creagh+v6
Making things illegal leads inexorably to more of the hard stuff. If you can buy it at the corner store you’ll go for weak, comparatively safe substances, opium/morphine or beer. If you’ve got to smuggle it because it’s illegal you go for harder stuff with a greater intoxication for weight ratio like fentanyl or before heroin or hard spirits. Most people don’t drink spirits straight, they drink beer or wine or mixed drinks.

>>chrisc+P5
Why make the act of consumption illegal? If I am a functioning alcoholic, and I stay at home and work, no reason to arrest me. Same is true with weed and all the other drugs. If I become a danger while intoxicated, arrest me for that. I don’t need a charge multiplier.

>>virmun+ug
Technically, (in most places I’ve read about (in the US)) it’s not illegal to have it in your system. It’s illegal to be in possession of it. Presumably so people who OD actually go to the hospital.

>>creagh+v6
You may not be aware but methamphetamine is schedule 2 and is prescribed for a number of purposes the brand name is desoxyn. Meth is not inherently dangerous to use when it's production is regulated. Also, you can NOT die from touching fentanyl that is a myth there are many videos online of people handling fentanyl with their bare hands.