Prison profits are spent lobbying for tougher crime laws. Thus, unnecessarily harsh criminalization of behavior has a strong economic incentive. Having an incentive to turn citizens into criminals is bad for society.
I wonder if you can raise evidence of unreasonable imprisonment. I completely agree that this can create a feedback loop that would be bad, ideally we should have a much more sophisticated system of rehabilitation. Maybe the problem lies on the state being too incompetent to even set metrics for third parties.
All drug offenses are violent. Illegal drugs channel money into large organized crime syndicates that kill, torture, terrorize and maim people. Just because those people are brown, poor, and not Americans doesn't mean we should care less.
If you ask me, we need substantially more drug enforcement. There are severe inequalities in how we police for drugs that often result in only the poor and marginalized locked up. We need to refocus our drug war on the rich and powerful and put them in jail to, to make things more equal.
Violence related to drugs is mostly caused by prohibition. If we decriminalized these drugs, we'd eliminate the price premium that can be commanded from secrecy and use of force.
I watched a really great lecture online that was about how everything that rich countries criminalize (primarily prostitution and drugs) ends up becoming powerful industries in poorer countries because the demand from rich countries persists and creates a price floor higher than normal economically productive work in those poor countries. If rich people want something and it's banned in their country, it becomes an extremely profitable endeavor in poorer nations to meet this demand. Because profit margins are greater than normal economic activity, this enables criminal to gain political power within those countries. The speaker had a name for this idea which I can't remember, something like "hedonic exportation" - if anyone knows what I'm talking about I've been looking for this lecture for a few years.
> Violence related to drugs is mostly caused by prohibition
The rising violence rate due to the marijuana trade in California (and other states) does not agree with your made up reasoning. Although, in principle, I agree that your reasoning ought to make sense. Unfortunately, my principles and empiricism are often at odds, so it's best to side with the latter.
> The rising violence rate due to the marijuana trade in California (and other states) does not agree with your made up reasoning.
It actually does, because federal prohibition has not been lifted (even though there is non-assured enforcement forebearance).
The fact that anyone in a significant ownership, leadership, or management position in any business in the industry is technically guilty of a federal felony with a 20-year minimum sentence (and, just by being sufficiently successful, that can bumped up to a life-without-parole minimum) [0] has a fairly substantial impact on the willingness of otherwise legitimate businesses and businesspeople to participate in the industry and thus on what kind of business people do participate, even when the feds aren't actually prosecuting at the moment.
[0] the “drug kingpin” (formally, Continuing Criminal Enterprise) statute and it's later-added “super kingpin” provision.
> Also, much of violence is related to legal marijuana businesses being unbanked
Right, except for the critical fact that there are no legal marijuana businesses, that is certainly an important effect of the continued federal prohibition.
Drug dealer Y kills someone to protect territory - This is violent.
If X was willing to buy drugs from anyone, and/or if X would prefer to buy from a legal seller but none is available, Y is not the cause of the violence.
Also, you can get locked up for smoking weed that you grew yourself and had no intention of selling. What of that?
X got the drugs from somewhere. At some point, someone paid someone to get the drug. This enables Y.
> if X would prefer to buy from a legal seller but none is available
If I want to buy a nuke, but one is not available from a legal seller, does that mean I am not responsible for paying an unscrupulous seller to furnish that for me?
> Also, you can get locked up for smoking weed that you grew yourself and had no intention of selling. What of that?
Where did you get the weed plant? Last time I checked, weed doesn't magically sprout in your hydroponic set up (and I'd know).
Yes, especially if you're buying guns for recreation. If it's for survival and you live in the middle of the wilderness, perhaps you can make a case for it.
Oops, was that not the answer you were trying to bait?
If using a drug puts you in the category of someone who has committed a 'drug offense', then you have -- by definition -- taken an illegal drug.
> An excellent argument for decriminalizing them.
Indeed, but that doesn't automatically exculpate those who have -- during prohibition -- directly caused violence by their money. In my opinion, they should all be in jail for murder. For life.
