Talk:War on drugs

51 Billion is unsourced

The source link goes to an advocacy site that just states the cost as 51 billion without showing any source for the number. http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-war-statistics

united kingdom

The united kingdom is a very nice place to spend your vacation. But united kingdom has strict policies. The use and abuse of illegal drugs in the UK widespread a growing problem. The effects of such use manifest themselves in undescriable imoacts on individuals,families,communites and the country as a whole.So basically whats going on is that smoking in united kingdom is not a very good thing to do one thing you do is that never ever ever ever is that smoking in united kingdom is that you'll die for doing anything thats not even right though so never do anything thats not even right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.55.242.61 (talk) 01:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Rate of interception

Only 5 to 10% of the illegally produced drugs are actually intercepted. Despite this, the war on drugs has costed the USA in the last 40 years a total of 1 trillion US dollars.

Perhaps include in text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.178.137 (talk) 11:54, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

References

1912 International Opium Convention

Just a quick link to the article in the BBC magazine entitled 100 yrs of the war on drugs. EdwardLane (talk) 16:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Only a British magazine can forget the Opium war in this type of historical overview , the shameless war for continued profits to British Companies on opium from India to China. Dala11a (talk) 20:17, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

They didn't forget, just some journalist in search of an exquisite story. Did you even read the article, or only the header line? Just asking... ;) --178.197.225.69 (talk) 22:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Lincoln protege???

In the middle of this article it says...

> Lincoln protégé and former Vice-President George H. W. Bush was next to occupy the oval office...

I don't think George H. W. Bush was a protege of Lincoln. I'm not sure that's even possible. I think someone who wrote this meant Reagan? Maybe someone who knows more about wiki can fix this? 76.118.214.18 (talk) 04:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Heroin trafficking operations of the CIA, U.S. Navy and Sicilian Mafia

Under this heading, it is asserted that "[d]uring World War II, the United States Navy ... released the mobster Lucky Luciano from prison ... ." It's hard to believe that the Navy held Lucky Luciano in custody at the time. The circumstances of Lucky Luciano's confinement, and the means by which the Navy purportedly obtained his release, would be a welcome addition here. Rickythesk8r (talk) 23:24, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at this [1], the snippet of page 145. It seems to say that he was in prison. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:24, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thomas Szasz, the Nazis and drugs

A user has deleted the comment that the Nazi commanders in practice were big drug pushers while officially advocated for a healthy lifestyle. This is not nonsense, it's true. However, what has no place in an encyclopedia are false parallels that different laws in the U.S. can be compared with history's greatest genocide. So I put it back the text of the Nazis. Alternatively, the whole comparison with Nazism and the Holocaust be removed. So I put back the text about the Nazis.Dala11a (talk) 06:52, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The question, as I see it, is whether Thomas Szasz is a sufficiently reputable source to be considered within the range of opinion relevant to an encyclopedia. Szasz has published over twenty books. A quick search on Penn State's library database turns up over six thousand hits. He was very respected in his field. I'm putting the quotation back in for now. I'm not sure if this is too much to ask on Wikipedia, but can we please discuss this on the talk page before removing it again? The question isn't whether we agree with him, it's whether a sufficiently wide range of views on the subject can be represented. If you read the quote carefully, you'll see that he doesn't say our persecution of drug users is comparable to that of the Jews. The comparison claims only that both societies designate a certain portion of the population as a "problem," and then imprison and persecute them. From Szasz's perspective, where he saw how those rejected by society for being "insane" are treated (the pscyhopharmacological straitjacket is, Szasz thinks, a form of torture), we might see his tendency to make such analogies as evidence that the treatment of dissenters in our society is not so humane as we imagine from outside. talk1/12/13

Others state that the comparison with the Nazis is completely preposterous and absurd. Several top Nazis were themselves drug abusers, for instance Hitler and Herman Goering. It is well known that Hitler, at least the latter part of World War II, was addicted to drugs that he took the form of injections. Herman Goering was a period in the 1920's locked up in a psychiatric clinic in Sweden for his drug addiction.Dala11a (talk) 22:32, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Is Thomas Szasz an expert on the Drug policy of the Third Rich? I do not believe that.I found a study by Jonathan Lewy, with a lot of references:Jonathan Lewy:The Drug Policy of the Third Reich

• • • Consumption of any drug was legal in nazi Germany, but possession without prescription was forbidden.
    • Drug use was never considered a crime in The Third Reich
    • None of the drug laws in Germany was influenced by racial hygiene doctrines of the regime, nor were addicts particularly affected by the Nazi pursuit of social or racial purity.
    • Nazi Germany was probably the first country to regulate methamphetamine, but they never banned it.Dala11a (talk) 18:24, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. One question, though. Szasz is claiming that the designation of the drug using minority as a "problem" minority is analogous to the designation of other minorities in history as "problem" minorities. The only claim is that the vocabulary used to describe a "problem" minority is similar. He doesn't seem to be making any claims about the drug policy of the Third Reich. So I have trouble seeing why this issue keeps coming up. To make an analogy between A and B in one respect does not imply they are similar in other respects. The issue of drug policy in the Third Reich is interesting, but I'd like to better understand why the Szasz quote raises this issue for you in the first place. talk 1/19/13

The Third Reich had simultaneously 2 very different drug policies, one for jews and other minorities and one for other citizens. The first lead to mass murder of jews etc. The others had a very liberal drug law, any drug legal in medical prescription, but most reader do not know that. Any comparison with the Third Reich must include some kind of link to the real Drug laws of Nazi Germany. Dala11a (talk) 00:43, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

This is way off. The jews were killed for being jews, not drug abusers. --178.197.236.72 (talk) 13:08, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Globaliza tag

Ok Nixon invented the term but that is no reason to have a US centred article. Articles like this and this make it clear it is not a US centred war, the terminology is used worldwide. So i have tagged the article and will keep working at globalizing its emphasis. Thanks, ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:50, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

TBH I think the only solution is to move this article to the US War on Drugs and start again with an international article on the war on drugs which could have a section on the USA but this article is not recoverable as an international article and besides its a valuable article that I dont want to destroy but it isnt the article on the war on drugs. I can make a formal RM but would first like to hear what others think as if there is no opposition I can do it myself (I would perhaps create a temporary article in my user space to avoid disruption). Please let me know what you think. Thanks, ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 00:23, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I see no harm in a move to a US centric article. An RM probably isn't needed. If no one opposes in a while then go ahead and be bold.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:37, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

It is biased to attribute US legislation to the Presidents rather than to Congress where it originates. Specifically, the article states that "...Reagan was able to pass legislation through Congress..." as if the Democratic-controlled Congress had no say in the matter. In fact, all legislation originates in Congress. This is a fallacy that permeates American society and does a great disservice to our political discourse. It leads to terms such as "Bush Tax Cuts" and "Obamacare." While Obama did support that eponymous legislation, the tax cuts signed into law by Bush were substantially different that the ones he asked for. We would better serve the site visitors to not support this mischaracterization of the political process.Ronlewishouston (talk) 04:12, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Accuracy

The report was criticized by organizations that oppose a general legalization of drugs.

That's a euphemism for "the report was criticized by organizations who benefit from the prohibition of drugs, specifically, the Drug Enforcement Administration, law enforcement groups, the prison industry, and criminal justice groups, including attorneys." And, there needs to be a voice from citizen groups who are tired of this never ending war on civil liberties. Several authors point to the war on drugs in the 1960s as an excuse to arrest political dissidents. Going farther back, it was used as an excuse to harass minorities. Viriditas (talk) 05:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Bias

While informative, this article shows significant bias. Notably, history and other relevant information regarding the current state of the drug war constitutes a fraction of the page size and often seems poorly researched or otherwise under-represented

Further, sections 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10 appear to be thinly veiled forms of political criticism. These should be condensed into a generalized criticism section or ported over to pages of their own — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.162.23 (talk) 00:52, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

The theories about a connection between hemp and a) nylon b)Pulp and paper industry lack sources from experts on those materials. The theories are only built on speculations from persons that "belived" in hemp, Ok, there are a number of persons, but there are no links to documents to any important person in the pulp- and paper industry or textile industry or in DuPont that had the same "belive" in the 1930s. The list of "belivers" is long but where are the primary sources that show that there was a link? And where are the quotations from relevant persons in the 1930s? There are are numerous texts about the the history of paper that do not have anything about hemp (the same for nylon). There are many and strong sources that show a fast progress of the technology for production of nylon and pulp from wood in the 1930s. Hemp become almost completely out-competed as raw material. The development become the same in countries that did not put fees or taxes on hemp; hemp could not compete with pulp from forests or nylon except in some very small applications. So delete the conspiracy theories about hemp and nylon, hemp and pulp industry or hemp and Hearst's ownership of forests.Dala11a (talk) 23:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Notably, the "Plan Colombia" section contains no mention of the fact that Colombia had ceased to be the leading producer of cocaine by 2012, even though this is important enough to be mentioned on the Colombia page itself. The section seems more concerned with the civil war and human rights issues than with the efforts to combat the drug trade. -J. Conti 108.20.137.173 (talk) 23:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Links

>> The marijuana economy(Lihaas (talk) 11:59, 19 January 2014 (UTC)).

6 = 4?

In the section on 'Legality' there is a claim that legality is challenged on six main grounds. This claim is followed by a list with just four entries. 70.171.44.124 (talk) 02:43, 25 February 2014 (UTC)BGriffin

Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and Len Bias

It seems totally unreasonable that the act was "driven" by Bias's death. Is there a source for this? It should probably be removed. Exercisephys (talk) 03:01, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

The death of Len Bias resulted in considerable anti-drug publicity and it was this publicity that played a role in legislation calling for harsh mandatory sentences for cocaine possession (and particularly for "crack cocaine" possession - despite the fact that Len Bias had not been using crack). Indeed, such harsh laws (not just the ADAA) were often called Len Bias Laws. Maybe if the article said "driven in part by publicity surrounding the death of Len Bias" it would be more accurate. But it is not 'totally unreasonable' as written. The law itself was unreasonable and was surely influenced by factors other than an accidental overdose by NCAA basketball star. - Qdiderot (talk) 04:49, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

"Collateral damage" section needed

Since there is no "criticism" section I suggest to create a "collateral damage" section to implement information how the rights of US citizens are endangered. Together with examples like this here: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/05/baby-in-coma-after-police-grenade-dropped-in-crib-during-drug-raid/

Sorry, but there are countries where such an action would be illegal anyway, where the police can't just attack people in their homes. Looks like the Iraqi war is finally coming to the USA. And that is a war in which noone will win and all will loose.

Now I hope that the victims get a good lawyer and will sue the police, the county, the state and the US president himself. --178.197.225.69 (talk) 22:05, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Excessive Quotation marks in the "Common Drugs" section

Why are there quotation marks on nearly everything in that section of the article? Its really amateur looking from a style viewpoint and it needs to be cleaned up. I'd edit it and clean it up myself, but the article is semi-protected and I'm not registering just to do so, no thanks. Someone else who can edit this page should probably do so as soon as practicable, because it looks ridiculous as it stands in one part looking as if Mexico and the United States don't really exist. 2602:306:C4B9:8D90:14CA:D4CC:629F:F064 (talk) 04:45, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Another style suggestion: remove second person POV. It makes passages read like they were written by a high school student.

Semi-protected edit request on 19 April 2015

Common drugs section

All links in this section are in quotes.

Basic grammar and neutrality are all out of whack. :

"If the possession of it is not as great as "cocaine" or "heroin"."

Citations are needed:

In addition, the Criminal Defense Lawyer article explains that "crystal meth" is specifically made up of "chemicals".

Really, this section makes a joke out of an important societal issues and requires a full rewrite. Edupop (talk) 23:29, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@Edupop: Edit requests have to be specific (i.e. "Please change X to Y"). Please reopen this request with the specific changes you want to be made. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 23:45, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

wikiproject legalize drugs!

which is all this clearly biased article really is — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.216.50 (talk) 04:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Please remove spam from article

This article has link spam pointing back to an exact match domain "CriminalDefenseLawyer.com" and also "CriminalAttorney.com". Those are references 80-83 at time of writing.

They also put themselves in the body of the article in a sentence beginning:

"The Criminal Defense Lawyer article claims that..."

I'd remove it myself but this article is locked. 131.191.57.0 (talk)

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Dan Baum Harper's article

This article might provide some valuable new insights why the war on drugs was created: [2]. Bonomont (talk) 06:34, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

John Ehrlichman Quote

I notice that an alleged quote from John Ehrlichman which emerged recently (to the effect that Nixon's cracking down on drugs was explicitly racially-motivated) has been added to this article. Nearly every news article I've seen which talked about this admission, however, indicated that the quote's authenticity has been questioned and remains uncertain. While the quote is certainly relevant here, I think the article should state that Ehrlichman "allegedly" said it, unless I've missed something which has strongly backed up its authenticity. After all, when even the Huffington Post waffles about how sure we can be about something nasty a Republican leader said, Wikipedia probably ought to be cautious as well.

I agree, using "alleged" is nothing but fair. In addition, Ehrlichman might have hold a grudge against Nixon after being in prison for Watergate and may have deliberately tried to make him look bad. Bonomont (talk) 21:24, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

2 Topics Here

The article seems to quickly merge 2 topics: the facts/history on the War on Drugs, and the current political movement against the War on Drugs. The history of the War on Drugs is spread throughout the article, and seemingly so are current judgements on those histories. At the same time, a 3rd topic could be explored, and that is defining the motivation behind those who are against the War on Drugs, which varies from the desire for drugs, to protection of users, to political posturing by those seeking office. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:1307:8030:1DCB:8337:7037:E9E8 (talk) 19:44, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

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Do we need the Global Commission on Drug Policy in the lead?

I know the name makes it sound important and impartial, but it's actually a very selective group of people gathered together to oppose the War on Drugs, and it doesn't seem like a terribly important or influential group either. Seems like it should be in the main body instead, along with the many other organisations that have something to say on this topic. 2.102.184.54 (talk) 11:48, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 August 2017

• Change "When the convict possessed" to "If a convict possesses"
• Remove the comma after "and" in the first line
• Remove "having" from "Having possession is when..."
• Remove quotes on "prison", add "a" before "$2,500", and replace the period after "fine" with a comma. It should be "two years in prison, a $2,500 fine, or both."
• Remove quotes from "prison" again in the following line.
• Replace "In some states in the US" with "In some U.S. states,"
• Remove the word "of" after "million" in "Over 80 million of Americans have tried this type of drug."
• Provide citation.
• Remove quotes from "prison" in second to last line.
• Replace "how much of the "marijuana"" with "how much marijuana"

529djm09 (talk) 17:19, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. When you say "Provide citation," where's the citation coming from? jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 19:02, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Sources are not needed for basic copyediting. WP:MOS is the "source" for how to write encyclopedically.

• Rewrote the entire sentence to use encyclopedic instead of blog-style wording, per MOS:TONE. This also resolved the clarification request the sentence was tagged with.
• Comma deletion request declined. See MOS:SERIAL.
• Weird "scare quotes" removed from "prison" in all places. Looked like some kind of PoV vandalism that went undetected for a while.
• The edits desired around "$2,500" were correct and have been done.
• "U.S. states" edit has been done: per MOS:U.S. (the rest of the article uses "U.S.", not US); because a comma is required in after that clause; and because the longer wording was awkward.
• Removed the grammatically incorrect "of". Also replaced awkward wording elsewhere in that sentence, and fixed title of work immediately after it.
• Don't know what cite 529djm09 wants, where.
• Did the "how much marijuana" fix, since the original was ungrammatical and again abusing "scare quotes".

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:32, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 24 September 2017

War on Drugs → War on drugs – MOS:CAPS. Not an actual war, and not consistently capitalized in reliable sources, even those direclty quoted in the lead section.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:14, 24 September 2017 (UTC)