Social conservatives have, with some justification, long warned of the dangers of single-parenthood among the poor, which often leads to poor outcomes for children. However, some of those same social conservatives are also staunch supporters of the War on Drugs. Unfortunately, as Kerry Howley points out in a recent LA Times debate with Kay Hymowitz, the War on Drugs is a major contributor to the prevalence of fatherless children in poor black communities:
[C]hildren tend to do better when they're raised by two biological parents, along a variety of dimensions and controlling for all sorts of factors. It was always a mistake to deny that fact in the service of some larger political crusade.
Still, I'm not sure where blindly repeating "two parents are ideal" gets us. I have yet to meet a single mother who doesn't want help. The low-income single women in "Promises I Can Keep," the study of poor mothers I referenced during our pregnancy pact discussion, hope upon hope for a worthy partner to come along....
For low-income black women, the world really isn't cooperating. We put an awful lot of nonviolent black men behind bars, which is not generally conducive to good fathering. With so many young men absent, the marriage markets are heavily skewed against women, and mothers who might otherwise demand that men stay home and change diapers find themselves in a miserable bargaining position. In his book "The Logic of Life," Tim Harford describes one study indicating that "a one-percentage- point increase in the proportion of young black men in prison reduces the proportion of young black women who have ever been married by three percentage points." Now consider: In New Mexico, 30% of black men between 30 and 35 are in prison. Telling women to want marriage more just doesn't seem like an effective strategy here. Nor does it seem right to suggest that they ought not to have children at all; these women are simply responding rationally to the world as it is.
As I have noted in the past (here and here), some 55% of US federal prison inmates and 21% of state inmates are non-violent drug offenders. And over 62% of incarcerated nonviolent drug offenders are black(most of them poor black males). I don't claim that this racial disparity in drug incarceration is caused solely - or even primarily - by racial prejudice. But even if undertaken for the best of motives, it drastically reduces the available pool of marriageable men in poor black communities. And, as Kerry notes, those men who remain have far less incentive to marry because their stronger bargaining position caused by scarcity makes it easier for them to obtain sex without making any longterm commitment to the women they do it with. Even after drug offenders are released from prison, they are likely to be worse marriage prospects than before, if only because it's hard to get a steady job after being in prison for several years.
Some conservatives might argue that the kinds of men who get arrested for drug possession or dealing wouldn't make good husbands even if they stay out of prison. Perhaps that is true in some cases. But these men still probably beat the alternative of single parenthood. Moreover, Kerry's point about bargaining position is crucial here. If fewer men from these communities were in prison, there would be more competition between them in the dating market and thus stronger incentives for them to behave in ways that appeal to women. To the extent that women prefer men who don't get high to those who do, that might well include staying off the drugs - as well as becoming better providers and fathers in other ways.
UPDATE: Some commenters question the implicit assumptions of Kerry's and my bargaining position point: that many men would like to gain access to sex without making a longterm commitment, while most women prefer men who are willing to make such commitments. All I can say is that both points are backed by extensive social science evidence - far too much to summarize here. Promises I Can Keep, the book cited by Kerry, is among the studies that shows that most low-income women prefer men who will be good longterm providers. John Marshall Townsend's book What Women Want, What Men Want, provides further extensive evidence on both male and female preferences on these points. And Tim Harford's book, also cited by Kerry, provides evidence showing that marriage rates do indeed decline in communities where more men are imprisoned, suggesting that men and women respond to incentives in the way the post posits.
The point is not that men are less "moral" than women. Rather, the two sexes are responding to different incentives. Men can gain a reproductive advantage from casual sex without commitment because one man can impregnate a large number of women. Women, for obvious reasons, can't do this (because the number of pregnancies they can have is relatively fixed, regardless of how much casual sex they have). Therefore, men, on average, have a stronger interest in casual sex without commitment than women do. At the same time, they are willing to restrain such behavior and make longterm commitments if women are in a strong enough bargaining position to insist that they do so. None of these points apply to all men and all women all the time. But they do identify important general tendencies.
What Wilson said is that most people convicted of mere possession were actually dealers. That doesn't necessarily make them "really evil." And indeed most of them are small-time, low-level dealers. In any event, Wilson is a drug war supporter, and I'm not required to agree with his views.
..But all is changed. These single mothers can marry each other. Help has arrived. Or do we let it descend to the depths of Haiten society while we only punish black on some-other-race crime ?
Doesn't this assume a curiously Victorian notion that men are amoral hunter-gatherers and women nurturing fonts of morality?
At what point do the cultural messages that lead women to prefer "bad boys" until the consequences kick in, at which point they begin seeking caretakers, get some play, here? It certainly seems that this outweighs the influence of the WoD, which I also oppose, in the absent-fathers problem.
To be frank, most of the "take responsibility" types being passed over by the never-married-no-kids types are unlikely to be receptive to the advances of secondhand women with other people's kids. That's the bigger dilemma, here, I think, and TV expresses our angst about it daily.
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Funny, I only see a comment about non-violent drug offenders.
I never said that we should release "burglars" or "con men." My post was limited to nonviolent drug offenders. Try reading the post before commenting. It might help you to avoid future embarrassment.
No, it assumes that men have a strong interest in sex, and many of them will pursue that interest without making a commitment if they can get away with it. It also assumes that women tend to want men who are willing to make a commitment. Both points are backed by extensive social science evidence. Tim Harford's book, cited by Kerry, summarizes some of it.
THere is ZERO proof that such cases account for any significant fraction of the people in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. Especially in the case of those in federal prison, since federal prosecutors can't prosecute the violent offenses anyway (since nearly all of them are purely state crimes).
Lots of luck, ladies.
That's an awful dangerous assumption there, brushing off an entire argument with such a brusque statement and no proof.
Is this a serious question?
And, as Kerry notes, those men who remain have far less incentive to marry because their stronger bargaining position caused by scarcity makes it easier for them to obtain sex without making any longterm commitment to the women they do it with.
This is more than a little slanted. Marriage is very often a losing proposition for men, regardless of color. Witness the marriage strike. Having a woman take your children and chances at economic prosperity because she may feel "emotionally unfulfilled" while she looks for the next candidate isn't a positive outcome, and men are starting to vote with their feet in this area. And the stakes are even higher at the middle class and lower - CEOs and celebrities can to some extent afford divorces, most others can't. Virtual indentured servitude at someone's whim for something like "emotional unfulfillment" isn't a winning proposition for anyone of any sex or color - the legal system is just currently set up to hit men with it the vast majority of the time.
And as an aside in many states doesn't alimony usually end when a woman remarries? So in some cases it might behoove divorced single mothers to stay single. Boyfriends can wine and dine them and otherwise contribute economically while the income stream from the ex-husband remains intact. I'm not saying that this is a large component of the "single mother" demographic, but it is a small part of it. It would be interesting to see in which states this factor is more significant and the breakdown in percentages. Also to what extent does getting married effect the receipt of government benefits?
What the statistics tend to miss (and I wish Prof. Wilson had been able to provide better data to support this, but the studies on prison population all have some significant flaws) is that the "most serious offense" for which the offender is currently incarcerated forms the basis for most stats, but it's the sum total of current charges and offense history which determines whether a judge sentences an offender to prison, and how much time they get. If you've got 2 serious batteries in your past, and then you get popped for a drug offense, and the judge sentences you to 10 years on the drug offense because you've got a past history of violence, you will be counted in the stats as a "non-violent drug offender." But you're realy not. You're a violent criminal whose most recent offense simply happens to be a drug offense. If you had just been arrested for the drug offense with no violence (or burglary or some such) in your past, then you probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much jail time, if any. Similarly, if you're arrested for an assault charge (pulling a gun on someone) and a drug charge, the drug charge may be the nominally most serious charge, so that's all that shows up on the stats, again making you a "non-violent drug offender" when in fact you're not.
We certainly need some better data in this area to allow a better classification of offenders. I can tell you, from intensive personal experience, that when I was working for our governor here, we allowed a new law to provide for a review process aimed at releasing non-violent drug offenders from prison. The secretary of our department of corrections himself thought that this program would ease his population problems a lot, by allowing plenty of people out of prison.
As part of the process, the secretary was required to sit on some of the hearing panels deciding who was to be considered for release. After just a few days of hearings, he remarked to me that he hadn't know just how hard people have to work to get sentenced to prison. He was truly surprised to discover that the number of "non-violent drug offenders" in the true sense, people who did not have a criminal history of violence or burglary or some "real" crime, was remarkably small.
As part of that process, I tried my very best to find statistics on the prison population that were more sophisiticated than just the "most serious offense" count used in the Justice Department studies which you cite. Unfortunately, there's not a commonly-agreed method for looking at the criminal history that actually led to the prison sentences.
A guy I knew once dabbled in dealing ecstasy for awhile. After a few months, he was making a healthy profit, and his "business" was expanding. Then someone who knew him robbed him at gunpoint for about $5000 worth of drugs.
That's when he realized that to be a drug dealer he'd have to get a gun and be willing to play dirty. Instead, he made a much wiser decision to quit dealing drugs and never did it again.
I'm sure it is possible for some drug dealers to avoid these types of situations, so I think it is possible to be a non-violent drug dealer. But you've got a lot going against you.
That drug-use and drug-dealing have been criminalized doesn't seem to be held to answer for the violence. Isn't it more reasonable to assume that violence is associated with the need to break the law to achieve the behavior rather than to the behavior itself?
With criminalization, there is no logical way to answer whether violence is a part of the behavior or a result of the criminalization.
I favor the latter view.
The issue of violent crime is a red herring. You don't outlaw food because a poor person robs a bank to buy some. You outlaw and prosecute for the crime. You don't outlaw or prosecute for the product a criminal intends to purchase with the loot.
No, it assumes that men have a strong interest in sex, and many of them will pursue that interest without making a commitment if they can get away with it. It also assumes that women tend to want men who are willing to make a commitment. Both points are backed by extensive social science evidence.
There is a lot of evidence that women have a strong interest in sex as well, regardless of commitment. Witness the actual paternity rates. You seem to be pretty one-sided in these arguments.
THere is ZERO proof that...
Sheesh Ilya, you don't have to shout. It's not like you're being tortured or anything. (Although if you were being tortured I wouldn't expect you to do a thing the cowardly criminals told you to do, and that you should demand the enormous amount in reparations, restitution, etc. that would be due to you or anyone in a situation like that.)
..That's why I brought up black felons doing time for the nonviolent crimes of burglary/auto theft/Dope dealers and con men; because it was in the original comment.
...And why is dealing drugs to your sons and daughters any worse than stealing your car ? Give me the choice of stealing my stereo or selling crack to my mother, I'll take burglary every time. Which do you think hurts the black family values more, getting the single mother hooked on heroin or theft of her property ? Pimping isn't considered a violent crime, but hooking and whoring a sister is about the next worse thing to killing her and her family. Both of you need to spend more time on the streets and less time reading about it. I spent 4 years patrolling south Central L.A. ( 1971-73/ 1976/77 ) These felons you so blithely want to release so they can again prey upon their previous victims are thieving, lying brutes. They earned there way into prison and shouldn't be released based on a theory.
Where to begin? It is the decision to use drugs that causes harm. This is similar to blaming liquor stores (7-11, Supermarkets, etc) for people getting drunk.
Crack did not exist in 1977.
The point is not that men are less "moral" than women. Rather, the two sexes are responding to different incentives. Men can gain a reproductive advantage from casual sex without commitment because one man can impregnate a large number of women. Women, for obvious reasons, can't do this (because the number of pregnancies they can have is relatively fixed, regardless of how much casual sex they have). Therefore, men, on average, have a stronger interest in casual sex without commitment than women do. At the same time, they are willing to restrain such behavior and make longterm commitments if women are in a strong enough bargaining position to insist that they do so. None of these points apply to all men and all women all the time. But they do identify important general tendencies.
But the flip side of this is that there are incentives for women to cheat. There are incentives for women to cheat with the male of the highest perceived status that they can find that will have sex with them. And note that the paternity laws in some states look to whoever the woman is married to, not the biological father for support. And of course if the husband wants to get a divorce because of the cheating he is hit with all the penalties of divorce. And this isn't even getting into stolen sperm, illegal artificial fertilization, etc.
One strategy the single black women women could take would be to look for partners who are non-black.
I'm not clear on the relative incentives or disincentives for black single mothers to themselves become drug dealers.
This is such a stereotype... the fact that some sociologists have managed to concoct studies to promote it isn't surprising.
There are also studies -- which I find more compelling -- that both men and women are by nature serial monogamists... that a man does not help his gene pool by spreading seeds and then not tending the garden... but rather will have the best reproductive success by staying around to support and protect his children, at least for the first few years.
Women, also, can enhance their reproductive success by having children with more than one father. Why invest all of their reproductive capacity with only one source of seed?
My personal experience is that most of the men I know well are MORE monogamous by nature than the women we date/marry -- and they are generally non-religous as well, so the monogamist tendencies seem to be very natural, rather than being forced by some moralistic teachings.
It would be nice to assume that we somehow have self-selected our social pool to associate with especially decent men, but I suspect this is just the seduction of egotism.
I cannot disprove the conventional wisdom, but combining my personal experience with the existence of SOME compelling and well thought out studies to the contrary, I think at a minimum that there is some pretty major over-generalization going on.
Back to the original topic at hand, the wisdom of the War on Drugs. As a libertarian, I tend to agree that the WoD is not only ineffective, but an inappropriate intrusion into self-determination.
At the same time, I have had considerable experience with the devastating consequences of drug abuse. Anti-WoD activists tend to minimize the true social consequences of abuse... they claim that "treatment" is appropriate and effective -- in reality, "treatment" is a misnomer -- it is a mixture of education, peer pressure, and other things, but is not in any real way analogous to legitimate medical "treatments."
Claims that prohibition was a dismal failure are also distorted. Blanket prohibition in 20th century USA did actually have measurable social benefits, and the gang violence was generally restricted to being among criminals.
There are also communities in Alaska who currently are benefiting tremendously from alcohol prohibition -- domestic violence has dropped from being rampant to rare.
To sum up, what I am saying is that drug policy is very complex and serious social issue. It seems that both sides in the ideological debate tend to trivialize the seriousness of the issues. I would certainly like to see more intellectual honesty and rigor on the part of the participants, because we are otherwise stuck in the current shouting match which does little to really shed light on the subject.
I find this very interesting. My personal experience is much more in line with the common stereotype.
Are they really "nonviolent"?
I'm under the impression that many drug offenders are violent criminals, and they admitted to a lesser offense as part of a plea bargain.
On the other hand, there is no support in the post for the proposition that it is in the best interest of a child to have a drug-using, drug-dealing father or mother in the home. In other words, there is no support for the following: "But these men still probably beat the alternative of single parenthood."
I was an attorney ad litem for dependent-neglected children and now am a child-support lawyer. I see these sperm recipients and donors in real life all the time. The legal fiction that this post (and a portion of our legal system) is based upon is: The mother is fine; the father is just a bum.
James Wilson, who claims that most drug prisoners are dealers, knows the above information and is being disingenuous. He slants the arrest and conviction data to make the drug war look more effective and fairer. Neither is true. I would bet that half the persons in prison for drug dealing were just users or users/partiers (who bought drugs for a party the way others buy booze). James Wilson, the DEA, and the media want everyone to believe that every convicted drug dealer was a merciless, hardened criminal who sponsored gang wars and drive-by shootings that killed children. Given the comments I've seen, it is obvious that the propaganda campaign is effective.
PatHMV says he's in Louisiana. Is it possible that Louisiana and New Mexico do it differently?
Surely nearly all these jailed Americans would soon lead perfectly stable family lives with a peer-equivalent job and a dollar high.
I can only dream.
Some commenters question the implicit assumptions of Kerry's and my bargaining position point: that many men would like to gain access to sex without making a longterm commitment, while most women prefer men who are willing to make such commitments without sex.
Fixed that for you.
.. I never saw crack when I worked in L.A., but the Univ. Of Maryland says it was invented in the 70'S. I'll defer to your expertise on it's invention and use. Nice try at a non sequitur, though. What you so carefully avoided addressing was Ilya's theory that black families would be better off with unincarcerated felons 'nurturing' their children. Ilya says these single mothers make a rational decision to have out of wedlock children and we shouldn't even suggest they wait to get preganant until they are married to a provider. That " Doesn't seem right " to Ilya.
...I'll bet Ilya tells her ( his ?) own kids no to get pregnant serially by different felons because doing so is the sure and certain road to poverty and misery. And I'll bet it seems right to come as much more than a suggestion. Why would you advocate that for black women when you wouldn't want it at your house, for your kids?
I predict, that when gasoline hits $8 a gallon, we will see the quick change of our War on Drugs.
The problem is really the females fail to value their sexuality enough to withdraw it unless the male commits. If teenager girls refuse sex to the bad exciting men, then they do not have children by them and may decide to try for the nice dull male.
I have seen high school white girls, who know better about birth control, jump into bed with an exiting bad black male and get pregnant. Her parents pay for it all. My neighbor’s 15 yr old white son had 21 yr old white girlfriend who got pregnant. Now you tell me who was the sexual aggressor? The 21-year female or the 15 yr old boy who felt he was the luckiest boy?
The strongest method to impose sexual morality was to impose on the female. That has been true in almost all cultures throughout history. If the girl is chaperoned and not allowed free access to males that will try to seduce her, then the chance of her getting married is better. If the girl’s family introduces an eligible suitor for marriage the chance that she will have a stable marriage and more economic success.
Males will try to have sex with as many females and especially males with high aggressive tendencies. However if the females are sheltered from them, the males have less success and have to rely on the less moral girls and prostitutes.
This is a problem with the culture that has evolved to this level of immorality that affected the black and now affecting the white middle class and the upper economic classes also.
Plus the disincentives for males to marry are quite high. They have easy sex and since they have no certainty of retaining their offspring they decide either not to have any or take a less involved attitude about their children because they may not be allowed to keep or see them if there is a divorce.
It is really ironic that the emancipation of women has led to this. Once birth control and abortion became available it disconnected the requirement of males to marry the girls. because they then do not feel responsible since it was the girls choice to not use birth control or abortion.
I see no way to change this progression and maintain the free choices of woman and economic choices of women. Religion has been used to maintain the morality of the females and impress the requirement of male responsibility, but that has lessened among the population. Girl children are exposed to high level of sexuality from popular culture and advertising at a young age. Their desire to experiment is very strong and leads to these mistakes. For example please see the Maine school with the high level of pregnancies among girls 16 and younger. The girls aware all white and sought the males including homeless males. They had a approving culture of teenage pregnancies, since they had an in school day care and like all teenagers, a failure to understand the lifelong risks and ability to support themselves or marry another man when they already have a child by another.
So blaming the high level of unwedded black women who have multiple children from multiple fathers on the war on drugs, fails to account for the poor choices of the women. The women are the ones who are getting pregnant and allowing themselves seduced into sexual relationships with poor marriage prospects.
Humans are narcissistic and usually have a hard time imposing morality on themselves. Young humans react to the now and fail to restrain themselves for the uncertain future. The urban black poor in urban areas have absorbed the lesson that life is short and why wait? Conversations with these kids in schools uniformly indicate they see a high death rate among their peers. That is part of the criminal culture that has enveloped the urban areas.
The most murderous time period for males is 17-25. But most do not believe they will live that long so why not live for the moment? The females absorb these lessons also. If they want children who are unlikely to die soon, they must get pregnant early while their potential mates are alive. Of course this perpetuates the cycle. The children, especially males, grow up without a father figure and pick up roles models from the street. The most obvious role model is the corner drug dealer that has money and girls. The absorb the role that they are not supposed to marry girls but enjoy as many as possible before their life is cut short.
So I think your thesis fails to account for the female role in this problem.
1) Black men and women refuse to have sex unless they are married.
2) Black men who have fathered children refuse to do drugs, because if they get caught they know they will go to prison and become an absentee father (and husband).
3) Young black people stop listening to music that glorifies drug use and promiscuity.
4) Black people in general stop blaming society, history, and white people for their problems.
5) Guilty white liberals stop acting as if black people are incapable of being responsible for their actions.
But that didn't stop The State from using a violent paramilitary SWAT raid to arrest Paey:
www.theagitator.com/2006/02/14/richard-paey-vs-swat/
Turning dealers loose would probably not help much without developing mechanisms to encourage marriage. How about no public jobs and no public benefits (at all) w/o marriage. Not a problem for the libertarians on the list because we don't wnat anyone to have the jobs or benefits in the first place.
How about no franchise without marriage.
Can't get those suggestions through the commie judges? How about hiring people to nag fornicators and divorcers to clean up their acts. Solid government jobs. No legal objection there. The government can speak about its opinion of various behaviors. It certainly does with recycling and fat.
Just an idea.
Of course.
And every drug dealer is an innocent, according to the other propaganda campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUkpR2Q6Oy8
You lost me this sentence. Solely? Primarily? Implying that there is racial prejudice, albeit at some lesser ill-defined level at work in drug incarceration?
I assume we're talking about the prehistoric Serengeti here, where the modern human genetic code was finalized. So the theory is that men gained a reproductive advantage by fathering lots of children -- and then abandoning them to single-parent families or hostile stepfathers? Some advantage.
As a number of persons have commented the prisons are overcrowded and most of the first time offenders in prison are there because they committed a serious violent crime. The property, drug, public order offenders have been though the system enough times to be considered habitual offenders. Some data sets break down drug offenses into possession, trafficking and other drug. Unfortunately there is overlap between possession and trafficking that depends on the type of drug.
There may be a difference between the original charge and the convicted charge and I worked with a data set that gave both and discovered that an enhancement charge was just as likely as a reduced charge. One would expect mostly reduced charges if plea bargaining was the only process but it is not. It is not uncommon for a suspect to be arrested and jailed on a minor charge to keep them around or to prevent them from interfering with an investigation of something more serious.
There probably are a few nonviolent first time dug offenders in prisons and my guess is they are most likely to be girl friends of drug traffickers.
But...
to claim the war on drugs is creating or contributing to single parent families, and thus, is bad for family values, is more than a reach. Drug dealing does not exist in a vacuum. Dope is surrounded by all types of attendant crime, including violence, corruption, money laundering, and other contraband. Theorizing that decriminalizing drug sales would suddenly empower thousands of potential fathers to suddenly morph into Ward Cleaver is just silly. The great majority would still be criminals; they just wouldn't be selling illegal drugs anymore.
There are any number of valid criteria to find the war on drugs lacking. The OP is not one of them.
suddenlymorph into Ward Cleaver..."mea culpa
Perhaps if the goal is to prevent unmarried women from having bastards we should lock up the juvenile’s delinquents early and do not release them, so the women would get access and get pregnant by them. That would leave only the decent males who would marry the woman and get a good job.
That sounds just as sensible as the idea that incarceration is at fault for bad family values.
Really why are we concerned about this? It sounds like a liberal thesis designed to release dangerous people back into society to prey on them.
Drug dealers and drug users are not victimless crimes despite what libertarians think. Drugs cost so much that they often need to use theft and crime to get the money. That takes away property that people have spent a portion of their lives to obtain. That loss of the victim’s life is not recoverable. Some thefts damage the ability of others to provide a living.
More and more people with castle doctrine are killing thieves. So they cost to property theft can often be loss of life to the burglar.
Forgot a crucial " Not" in previous post
Given that it usually takes quite some effort to land in prison, that is a doubtful proposition at best.
So unless you are prepared to prove in some way that the average inmate of the type you want to release are going to actually do the necessary fathering (as opposed to, say, creating more children who will have absent fathers), you have no point. None.
2) Theft is a crime. Drug use is not. The fact that some drug users steal things does not make drug use a crime with a victim. It makes theft a crime with a victim.
This is a real stretch pegging something ancillary to what the real problem is- another "root cause" smokescreen.
There aren't any recognizable family values, here.
1) Crimes are committed by persons intoxicated on alcohol/drugs.
2) Crimes are committed by persons to obtain funds needed to support an alcohol/drug dependence.
3) A complicating factor is that some of these individuals may also be mentally ill.
4) Alcohol is legal and prescription drugs are also legal.
5) Good quality illegal drugs are readily available at reasonable prices.
Has the "war on some drugs" improved any of these problems? Perhaps it has because property crime rates have declined. On the other hand so did unemployment.
Please explain why this is "bunk?" Grocers supply alcohol. Drug dealers supply drugs. Both drugs and alcohol cause tremendous amounts of harm in society. Both can also be used in moderation without disastrous consequences. It is ultimately up to the individual to decide whether (and how much) to use and to bear the consequences of their decision. I think it's a nearly perfect analogy.
The most dangerous, destructive drug in the US is alcohol. One of the reasons for that is that it is legal, easily accessible and socially acceptable, within reasonable limits of use. Even abuse of it is often acceptable and celbrated by some.
The legalization of, now, illegal drugs, will create more accessible, more socially acceptable use of those, now, illegal drugs and will increase the problems we have, now.
I see little doubt that would occur and, with that in mind, single mothers could become even more of an issue or, non single mothers may have increased problems over what they have now.
Resulting crime from the drug users attempt to get money to pay for drugs creates another layer of victims. It is like a pebble thrown in the water and the resulting rings from the splash keep going outward until they subside.
This would be largely reduced (I would guess nearly eliminated) if drugs were legalized due to drastic reduction in price. How much crime is the result of drunks trying to fund the purchase of alcohol?
..You boys don't get out much , do ya ? The black underclass and the white underclass are both highly disfunctional because of dope and booze. Poor whites ( and they'll be poor at the end ) prefer meth, blacks like crack and both like weed and booze. They steal from each other, they steal welfare monies from their kids care needs and they steal dope even when they know dope dealers are viscious and retributive. They are in the grip of something they crave and can't/won't quit. Whoring themselves, lying, stealing and killing follow as night follows day. Alcoholism is not different, either. That's why liquor store clerks get robbed on a regular basis.
..Nieporent, you seem to think only the illegality is the difference between cocaine and alcohol. One is a depressant, one is the exact opposite. I'd have thought a dope advocate....would know that.
Alcohol is permitted because it can be used in moderation. You can't use drugs without getting high, or without being physically harmed.
If drugs were legal, the price would go down and they would not need to steal to get them any more than people steal to buy cigarettes.
..Hawkins, you don't read for content, do Ya ? I would refer you to my post IMMEDIATELY ABOVE your last post as the answer to your question. This thread isn't really about your choice of wreckreational drugs, it's about freeing black felons to pair up with their black consorts. Perhaps the damage you've suffered prevents you from staying on topic.
... But Hawkins, old pal, if you had the courage of your convictions, ref drugs, you'd turn out your daughter and buy her the first taste of ( smack/crank/crack/toluene ) as a token of your Libertarian faith, and to keep her in bondage while she earns the big bucks. If you don't think that is appropriate, then I'll give you another chance to answer the question I asked you before : If that's not ok for your girl, why is ok for somebody elses daughter ?
Very difficult to even follow such rambling nonsense, but I choose option 'B' - not ok with anyone's daughter.
i'm a drug warr OPPONENT, but wilson is right. this canard gets trotted out in nearly every drug war debate "x% of inmates are for non-violent drug offenses, etc. etc."
what they fail to mention is that it's not at all that simple. for example. many of the imprisoned "non-violent drug offenders" imprisoned for drug offenses have multiple priors, etc. and/or had a plea deal, etc. etc. etc.
NORML (whose position i agree with) trot out these bogus statistics in order to "prove' their point - that prisons are filled with "non-violent drug offenders".
in my state, there are lots of juvies in *(juvenile) lockup for auto theft. whatever the % is, it would be erroneous to look at that stat and think that juveniles routinely get locked up for auto theft. in fact, it's rare for juvies to get any time until they commit and are convicted of AT LEAST 3 auto thefts.
if one looked at all the non-violent drug offenders who DON'T go to prison (or go for very short time), and compare them to those who DO, ***that*** would give a much more reliable picture of how difficult it actually is to go to prison for non-violent drug offenses. unless you are dealing with metric a**loads of drugs, it usually takes a lot (priors, already on probation , etc.)
the reality is that a hell of a lot of those who are in for "non-violent drug offenses" are career criminals (burglars, auto thieves, etc.) who have had multiple chances before they ever got locked up for any serious time.
But to say "well, A is a vile criminal, but we can't prove it, so we must instead imprison him for the marijuana in his dresser"... hardly good public policy.
that's not what's being said.
look, if you want an example of what i am talking about look at robert downey jr. he was jailed for a non-violent drug offense. and it was merely possessory.
but he had to work HARD for that sentence. that's the reality of the kind of person who actually gets jail (let alone prison - which is much harder to get) for a drug offense
hawkins responded:
I've always wondered how anomolous my experience has been... I certainly know men a layer or two removed me who fit the stereotype. Certainly, when dealing with large social issues it is dangerous to rely too much on personal experience rather than larger statistical data. But when a belief is so widespread that contradicts personal experience, it gives one motivation to look for alternative theories that are supported by data.
LarryA wrote:
This is the kind of reckless argument that is thrown about casually by anti-WoD people, and severely damages their credibility.
Drugs do a lot of harm by themselves. To minimize this in such a way is ridiculous. Our legal drugs -- alcohol &tobacco -- are usually credited with causing 400,000 and 200,000 deaths annually in the USA. And the total costs go much further.
Doesn't it seem very likely that making cocaine &marijuana &heroin legal would INCREASE their use? Of course it is true that some of the social costs would be reduced, but to totally brush off the actual and substantial damages that would be increased is simply disingenous.
Sure, we all know people who smoke a little dope once in awhile and don't seem to have any long-term negative consequences. A lot of people experiment with drugs, but do not become regular users or abusers.
And a lot of people who become substance abusers in their 20s and then stop or moderate later on is well known -- in addictionology it is called "maturing out."
A psychistrist I spoke to who has 30 years experience in treating addiction says there is no real data, but from his experience he estimates that youthful abusers tend to fall into three roughly equal categories: Those who eventually get over it -- more likely by abstaining than moderating; Those who continue using by reduce the abuse enough that it does not destroy their lives, and can absorb the moderate negative consequences; and those whose lives will ultimately be destroyed unless they get serious help in becoming and remaining abstinent.
Yet the fact that some people can "handle" drugs, and others have relatively short-term patterns of abuse does not mean there are not tremendous costs of abuse. If you really think there are no significant costs of drugs other than those caused by the WoD, you need to spend a little time around patients in a hospital, or listening to stories in 12-step meetings.
Again, my point is not that I favor the currently-constituted WoD, my point is only that when anti-WoD people make such stupid arguments that they do a lot more harm than good to their cause. Many of them would do well to learn a bit more about addiction and its tremendous negative consequences rather than just waving their hands and pretending that legal drug use is completely benign.
It is what's being said by James Wilson. He claims that many/most people in jail on drug use charges in fact plead down from more serious charges.
If they have committed serious crimes, we should try to convict them of those crimes. If they can only be shown to have possessed drugs, they should not spend time in jail.
Forget about blame. Trying to get Person A to change his behavior and make a sacrifice so that Person B and Person C is a mug's game. "Hey, Bob, how about you give up sex so that Sally doesn't become a single parent and Angie isn't born into a one-parent household?" "How about 'No'?"
The woman is the one who will inevitable bear the burden so, fair or not, she's the one who will have to take the responsibility.So the purported defense of the Drug War is that it enables us to imprison people we know are bad, bad, bad, without the inconvenience and expense of proving that they actually did anything wrong?
I would be very curious what would happen if drugs were legalized. Some things I know. (1) The price would go down (both in dollars and the chance of going to jail), so there will be more users and the users will use more heavily. (2) Since the dollar cost of drugs goes down, there will be less petty crime. (3) Since more police attention and more prison space make the odds of being arrested and imprisoned for real crimes go way up, there will be less serious crime.
Since I myself don't use drugs, I am indifferent to (1), but (2) and (3) are cool.
What I don't know is: what will all the people who make money dealing drugs (that is: they support themselves by absorbing the risk of imprisonment) do? Will they continue their current profession? I don't see how -- without its risk premium, there isn't a lot of profit in drug sales. Will they go into other crimes? Perhaps, but they have no real experience there.
After the end of Prohibition, organized crime switched largely to other consensual crimes -- prostitution, gambling, and especially narcotics. In a libertarian world, I guess they'd be struck with low-rent work like hijacking and extortion.
Experiments have shown that the addictive potential depends, for many drugs, including cocaine, on the dosing regimen. Large doses make for euphoric highs, hard come-downs, and a resulting physiological urge for more more more.
The illegality of drugs incentivizes the production and trafficing of extremely pure drugs, moved and sold in bulk. Pure powders are easier to manufacture (than e.g. pills, cigarettes, etc.), easier to smuggle, and possibly easier to sell as well. Dosing is thus left entirely up to the (ab)user.
If drugs were legal, I doubt that bulk powder would be the most popular form of cocaine, for example. Instead, dosing would be determined by manufactures or dealers, and the drug would likely be fashioned into pills, cigarettes, or even foods. For example, people might choose to chew coca leaves instead of smoking crack. In this way users may avoid, at least for a time, the excessive dosing which leads to most of the averse health impacts, as well the highest chances for addiction.
Drug users would appreciate these options, and I think that this policy could go some ways towards reducing the rate at which casual drug users become hardened addicts whose lives are destroyed because of drugs.
Of course, this isn't a magic bullet. I have no doubt that even under such an englightened policy, addiction to hard-core drugs would still be a problem. But that's a problem we already have.
Many commenters here are for more knowledgeable than I on matters relating to drug policy, so if anyone has heard this line of thinking anywhere, I would love to know about it!
..More drunks, more dopers = more crime and worse behaviour. It always will.
I'm curious, what do you think of the studies which find that moderate alcohol consumption is beneficial to one's health? A whole lot of those have come out in the past ten years or so.
Perhaps you need a primer in Econ 101.
..Mr. Fischer, I'd like to believe those studies but...but...there is so much flim flam of scientific studies in the press, I'm not sure if it's true. I loved scotch like a brother, but I can count on the fingers of my neck all the good things it's brought me. Diabetes put paid to ETOH for me. I admit I'm biased, based on what I saw, against the behaviour of folks on booze and dope. I wish I could take you to the canal district in San Rafael, or Parker center in L.A. and watch bookings in the glass house on Saturday night. A lot of the underclass got there via intoxication. E.R. doctors in cities usually hate motorcycles ( donorcycles ) and guns. That's the grisly wounds they see a lot of. I think most street cops will tell you that intoxicants fuel almost all their calls, especially after dark. I also know that the doper fan club says that lots of folks use it in moderation, without ill effect, for years and years. That's not my experience.
I bet it was closer to 1/10th or 1/30th or so. A cup of coca tea contains about 4.2 mg or so of cocaine. A little bit of scrounging around in this site led to a figure that supposedly a "line" of powdered cocaine is 50 mg or so, although I don't know how accurate a figure that is. I'm not sure how many leaves coca chewers usually chew, but if it is one gram of leaves, that would make for about 8 mg of cocaine, extraplating from figures in Wikipedia.
Even a small difference in dose and delivery system (oral vs. snorting) makes a HUGE difference in drug availability to the brain.
For any recreational drug, and that includes alcohol and tobacco, whether one "gets high" or is "physically harmed" depends on one's exposure, not based on the legality or illegality of a drug. One can use cocaine in moderation. Yes, really. There are difficulties, but they revolve primarily around the incentives created by the current legal regime.
complete rubbish. to quote some old greek dude, all things are poison in the proper dose (although marijuana HAS no LD50 value).
you can most definitely use drugs (illegal or legal) responsibly or irresponsibly. many illegal drugs don't even create a "high"- hgh comes to mind (illegal w/o prescription).
some drugs (legal or illegal) are physically addictive - caffeine, heroin, alcohol, methamphetamine
others aren't - hgh, marijuana, etc.
i have known many many people who use illegal drugs responsibly. i experienced this when i worked undercover (buying drugs), and of course... college. one of the top students in our school used cocaine as an occasional study aid.
and just to take the wind out of the sails - yes, marijuana is habit forming. ANYthing that people enjoy is habit -forming - internet posting, for instance. that is not the same as physically addictive.
this is of course true. price is also a remarkable indicator of the failure of the war on drugs.
when i was in college, a gram of cocaine ran about $80-100 and an 8-ball (3.54 gms) for $250. today, the price is usually cheaper (depending on region), and rarely more expensive
considering the MASSIVE decline in the dollar, this actually means cocaine is signficantly cheaper in real dollars.
while cocaine is difficult to process, many expensive drugs would be quite cheap if legal - marijuana is ridiculously easy and cheap to grow (most of the real costs of growers come from trying to hide their grow from the law), opium poppies as well, etc.
when you consider how far (for example) tar heroin has to come to get to the inner cities, the current costs of fuel, etc. its remarkably cheap. but it would certainly be cheaper if legal.
Pretty much.
For cultural reasons, marriages for black women rarely cross the color barrier. And overwhelming majorities of all Americans marry within their self-described racial group.
We work on changing the culture, but in the meantime, making black men into better marriage prospects may be a viable strategy for improving the marriage odds of black women.
I'm skeptical that keeping people out of prison is much of an answer. In my direct experience, almost nobody winds up in prison for a single victimless petty crime, or even a single instance where they were caught committing such a crime. Hard time is almost always the result of conviction for a very serious crime, or the culmination of numerous petty charges over a number of years.
Almost everyone in prison is someone for whom diversion to some alternative is totally inappropriate, or for whom diversion has been tried. And, of course, there is a real risk that reducing or eliminating punishment for particular behaviors will result in more of it.
I don't deny that active fatherhood in general is a positive thing; just that in these particular cases, the general rule might not hold.
I've known drug dealers. I wouldn't care for most of them to be babysitters, let alone active fathers. They tend to not be the sort of people I'd want children around.
Change "The War on Drugs" to "Drug abuse", and strike "black", and you're closer to the truth.
Conservatives are advocating two fundamentally contradictory things which result in "damned if you do and damned if you don't" negative results for the black and the poor? That's not a bug, that's a feature.