I think this is a straw man. Very very few people in prison for simple possession, especially small amounts.
Now you might get a few nights in jail, before someone bails your ass out, just like the drunk drivers, but diversion and drug rehab programs are super expensive to run, and designed to suck a max amount of tax payer dollars which could be better spent on darn near anything.

https://www.ontheissues.org/2020/Pete_Buttigieg_Gun_Control.htm

Buttigieg on guns. Nope No libertarian leanings here. Just another freakin socialist fascist.

I agree that prohibition isn't working, and has bad side effects (e.g., asset forfeiture laws). The War on Drugs is over, and drugs won. Now what?

Buttigieg is seeking to make his brand of populist socialism distinct from the rest of the field's versions. Even Quid Pro Joe is making socialist noises.

Hard pass on Buttigieg. As Isab points out this is just soft on crime nonsense instead of any sane position.

More interesting for me Trump appears to be a big drug worrier. It looks like appointing Sessions wasn't a mistake but instead a very intentional act. He has done a few things pulling back on the war on drugs. But most of that appears to be transactional in nature. I.e. he had something else he wanted more and compromised. Before his election I did not think Trump would be a war on drugs proponent. Quite frankly I think Trump would reimpose prohibition if he thought he could get away with it.

While I'm in favor of legalization, it won't be without a few unintended consequences - of the kind glossed over by the legalization proponents eager to point out the bankruptcy of the cartels and gangs, along with the reining in of police misconduct.

Even if drugs were legal, the effects of heavy use will not change. A heavy, or even moderate, user will be employable only at a lower level job - i.e., one that does not pay much and will not leave him much extra cash for his habit.

Legalization won't clean up the streets. We'll still have junkies living in the street because they can't pay rent and begging for spare change to finance their next fix. We'll still have black market dealers undercutting the tax-paying legal dealers. We'll still have cartels bringing in untaxed product to sell on the black market.

Legalization will put society in much the same position as Prop 47 did California, a bunch of unemployed or barely-employed users living in the streets and committing petty crimes to finance their habits; and the police unable to enforce quality-of-life issues. Broken windows and petty crime will be met with additional laws and increased government regulation of private lives. Witness San Francisco's proposed fining of landlords for unoccupied retail space - as if government fiat can cause a storefront to be rented when market forces cannot.

While legalizing drugs does mean that attorneys, doctors, and engineers will be free to have a toke to relax after a hard day. It also means that lowlifes, junkies, and dirtbags will be free to toke or shoot up. And when the cash runs out, how do legalization proponents think these users will get money for more drugs? Only now, the police won't be able to arrest them for possession, but will have to see an actual crime take place.

As Isab points out, rehabilitation costs money. If we shift from paying for interdiction to paying for rehab, will we really save anything - money or users? After all, we pay for rehab in jail now.

There will be a price to pay either way - legal or illegal. Let's honestly discuss what the price will be and comparison shop before we canonize St. Pete.

I'm with Ben and Isab in thinking his legalization position is mostly political pandering to get votes and not representative of a well-thought policy position.

Quite frankly I think Trump would reimpose prohibition if he thought he could get away with it. ~ Ben at December 31, 2019 7:42 AM

I think Trump, like many abstainers, has a tendency to turn Puritan. I had a friend quit smoking. He became the most annoying anti-smoking crusader - to the point none of his friends, even the nonsmokers, wanted to be around him. He finally mellowed out, years later.

Trump's experience with his older (and then-idolized) brother may also be influencing him. Watching someone waste away and die due to an addiction they cannot or will not fight is rough. I can empathize with Trump on that. Trump, through iron will or Puritanical self-righteousness, has abstained from using alcohol and drugs. He, like many who are not driven by addiction, may feel that others can beat it, if they're not weak.

"And some reading this will find this idea just nuts -- eliminating the incarceration of people using or selling drugs. However, ask yourself about all the terrible costs of Prohibition, and then consider that we really have no right to have the government tell people what they can and can't put in their bodies.

Additionally: The reality is, alcohol being legal does not mean we're all alcoholics."

"However"?

How about you look at just one episode of LivePD and count the people carrying meth and heroin, not to mention those driving with weed and guns in their cars. That shit's just gonna stop, if we only quit prosecuting?

Yes, we damned well do have the right to establish laws, including those that penalize you for putting yourself first before the well-being of everyone around you.

I DO have a right and the duty to see that my neighbor is not victimized, by addiction or any ancillary crime. Would you protect the dealer's energetic efforts to increase his market share by addicting more people? What?

CRIME is the ultimate selfish act. When a drug user says to you, not just the rest of us or some anonymous "other" people, "Fuck you, I just want to get high", the proper response is not, "Oh, OK, then. Go ahead!"

These people have funded criminal enterprises worth billions at OUR expense. That is not my culture, and I make no excuses for it.

Whatever else you might wish to do.

From the link Isab posted about Buttigieg on gun control: If more guns made us safer, we would be the safest country on earth. It doesn't work that way.

If less guns made us safer, then Mexico, where it's nearly impossible for a law abiding private citizen to own a gun, would be a lot safer than the US. But it doesn't work that way. Mexico, with a population of about 126 million, had over 30,000 murders this past year, compared to about 17,000 in the US with a population of 330 million. So there must be some other characteristic besides the abundance or scarcity of guns that makes a country more or less safe. Maybe it has something to do with the nature of the people who live there. Maybe it's the abundance or scarcity of law abiding citizens that makes all the difference.

" Very very few people in prison for simple possession, especially small amounts. "

About 45,000 in state prisons, last count.

Conan: Only now, the police won't be able to arrest them for possession, but will have to see an actual crime take place.

If you were walking down the sidewalk with $50 worth of heroin in one pocket and $50 worth of crack in the other, the police won't know unless they see you do something that gives them justification to look in your pockets. Most people arrested for drug possession were caught when the police saw them committing some other crime - shoplifting, prowling, disturbing the peace, intoxicated in public, jaywalking, trespassing, running a red light, driving without a license, misdemeanor assault, contempt of cop... usually some minor offense that gave the cops an excuse to search them.

For most drug users who get arrested for drug possession, the criminal justice system does more damage to their lives than the drugs do. So it's like we're saying, "Drugs are illegal because they're bad for you and can mess up your life. So if we catch you with drugs we are going to really mess up you life."

So it's like we're saying, "Drugs are illegal because they're bad for you and can mess up your life. So if we catch you with drugs we are going to really mess up you life." ~ Ken R at December 31, 2019 10:46 AM

Essentially, we are saying that. Drugs are bad for you - and so is breaking the law. Doing both is really going to mess you up.

However, legalization won't mean a drug addict's life is, or will be, any less messed up. That's not how we're gonna save them.

Nor will legalization clean up the illegal activities. California, eager to get in on the tax revenue Colorado was realizing, legalized drugs and taxed them to death. State officials ignored the Laffer Curve, which clearly shows that, at high levels, taxation stifles the taxed economic activity. And so, legal pot sales account for only about a quarter of total sales; and the state is losing out on a windfall.

Legalization comes with its own consequences. And an honest discussion would admit them. Buttigieg's is not an honest discussion.

Buttigieg isn't pandering. I think he is honest about wanting to legalize most drugs. But if you look at his actions as a mayor you can see that is part of a wider trend to be soft on crime in general and not drugs in specific. Buttigieg looks like he would also like to decriminalize theft, assault, and pretty much anything else. Part of the whole 'It isn't the criminal's fault. They are just poor.' school of thought.

Buttigieg wants to be kind to all those hurting in prison, but in doing so he ends up being cruel to all their victims.

Conan, I agree on the brother angle for Trump's puritan trends. It just wasn't a part of the man I was aware of till the last year or so.

From Judge James Gray (maybe 30 years ago):

"Our laws are telling people:

'If you're concerned about getting caught,
don't use marijuana,
use cocaine'.

Well, that is not necessarily what people want to do."

And:

"Don't do drugs because if you do drugs you'll go to prison, and drugs are really expensive in prison."

John Hardwick (not the 54-year-old UK film director, I think).

"Legalization comes with its own consequences."

Gee, deja vu. Ten years old!

"If more guns made us safer, we would be the safest country on earth. It doesn't work that way."

Only where your policies are enacted, idiot.

> Now what?

Props to CD for making a important (if eternal) point: Authoritarians adore drug abuse! Through a thousand mechanisms direct and articulated, illegal drugs make populations malleable and exploitable.

After reading the rest of the commentary, this is a reminder that problems with lots of moving parts are thorny and difficult to solve, but they do not lend themselves to the 15 second sound bite.

Ah, the Law of Unintended Consequences bites hard.

Authoritarians also find populations who are considered criminals to be easily malleable. Have you committed your three Federal felonies today?

"we damned well do have the right to establish laws, including those that penalize you for putting yourself first before the well-being of everyone around you."

That pretty much outlaws making a profit, selling junk food, most advertising amd most any activity not driven by altruism.

"I DO have a right and the duty to see that my neighbor is not victimized, by addiction"

Just like people are victimized by alcoholism? How about sex addiction - should we impose sharia law to protect people from how sexualized our society has become?

"Would you protect the dealer's energetic efforts to increase his market share by addicting more people?"

As long as there's no coersion, heck yeah. Making beer commercials falls under that definition.

"When a drug user says to you, not just the rest of us or some anonymous "other" people, "Fuck you, I just want to get high", the proper response is not, "Oh, OK, then. Go ahead!"

You're right, except it's "Go ahead, but not on my lawn!" the same way, if you say you want to drop out of school, or eat junk food, look at porn, or spend all your money on beer and cigarettes, it's none of my business (at the same time, it's not my responsibility to save you from the consequences.)

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” -C.S.Lewis