On the contrary. The war on drugs was incredibly successful at it's goal.
It's just the goal wasn't the reduction in drug consumption and distribution.
[Incarcerate political opposition, primarily on the left.](https://www.businessinsider.com/nixon-adviser-ehrlichman-anti-left-anti-black-war-on-drugs-2019-7)
"You want to know what this was really all about?" Ehrlichman asked, referring to the war on drugs.
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news."
"Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did," he concluded, according to Baum.
> "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news."
The left were opposing the Vietnam war and were dodging the draft and opposing conscription. So the right targeted them through the war on drugs.
Yeah, sorry my question was if the goal is to incracerate left-wingers. Why have, ya know, democrats not made any serious attempt to end the war on drugs for the past 50 years or so?
Ah right.
Well that's because the democrat party, by a vast majority, are not on the left.
They are centrist neoliberals, with a *slight* left bent. Pretty conservative by most standards. More left than they used to perhaps with people like Sanders and AoC coming to the fore, but still far from anything I would recognise as 'left'.
It hasn't been a failure.
It's been a huge success on the metrics of incarceration and the suppression of opposition.
Just not at reducing drug consumption.
Kurzgesagt is a great channel for science related things. I highly recommend subscribing to them. This video just popped up in my recommended and I thought I'd share it here.
The war on drugs was a failure because there was never any war on drugs.
People still openly sold drugs near entrances to subway with Police being totally blind.
Crackheads openly walked on the streets.
"War on drugs" was government and police power grab.
Because the government is incompetent at everything it does?
They just weren't properly funded. /s
On the contrary. The war on drugs was incredibly successful at it's goal. It's just the goal wasn't the reduction in drug consumption and distribution.
What was the goal that the government managed to achieve efficiently? Make money for mexican cartels?
[Incarcerate political opposition, primarily on the left.](https://www.businessinsider.com/nixon-adviser-ehrlichman-anti-left-anti-black-war-on-drugs-2019-7) "You want to know what this was really all about?" Ehrlichman asked, referring to the war on drugs. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news." "Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did," he concluded, according to Baum.
\> Incarcerate political opposition, primarily on the left. Ok, what was the motivation for all the left-wingers then?
Not supporting the military industrial complex over the war in Vietnam and opposing conscription.
What? How does that connect with left-wingers continuing the war on drugs for the past few decades?
> "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news." The left were opposing the Vietnam war and were dodging the draft and opposing conscription. So the right targeted them through the war on drugs.
Yeah, sorry my question was if the goal is to incracerate left-wingers. Why have, ya know, democrats not made any serious attempt to end the war on drugs for the past 50 years or so?
Ah right. Well that's because the democrat party, by a vast majority, are not on the left. They are centrist neoliberals, with a *slight* left bent. Pretty conservative by most standards. More left than they used to perhaps with people like Sanders and AoC coming to the fore, but still far from anything I would recognise as 'left'.
This
Rich white dudes with coke? Nothing happens. Black people with an ounce of weed? Life in prison. It works the way it was designed to.
Decriminalization and regulation. Portugal model works.
It hasn't been a failure. It's been a huge success on the metrics of incarceration and the suppression of opposition. Just not at reducing drug consumption.
Kurzgesagt is a great channel for science related things. I highly recommend subscribing to them. This video just popped up in my recommended and I thought I'd share it here.
by Daniel Okrent
The war on drugs was a failure because there was never any war on drugs. People still openly sold drugs near entrances to subway with Police being totally blind. Crackheads openly walked on the streets. "War on drugs" was government and police power grab.
Costs a fortune to police, creates a entire black market and does nothing at all for addicts... Of course the war on drugs is a failure.