> Analogy doesn't make sense for people who use drugs recreationally because they need some sort of logic that justifies their own behavior and fits with their morals as well. That is the only time the analogy doesn't make sense.
Fun ad hominem.
> I think the most effective way to win the drug war is to initiate vicious man hunts and executions on people who sell highly addictive and dangerous drugs. See Singapore. They did it effectively.
No they didn't haha.
All of the countries in east Asia have huge drug problems. Japan has incredibly strict drug laws and a horrible meth problem. In the last major outbreak, 2% of Japan was injecting meth intravenously. Drugs are available in Japan, [1] Singapore [2] and China [3]. Exacerbated by the criminalization.
All aggressive prosecution does is push problems underground.
We've tried it your way for like 52 years. Your way has filed. Time to try something new.
Look, if you want to turn the United States into a utopia like Singapore, I'm all for it, but it's going to take a bit more than just making drugs illegal.
Perhaps, we could start with nationalizing ~80% of the country's housing stock, requiring permits for which neighbourhood you are allowed to live in, having ethnic quotas for each region to enforce multiculturalism and harmony and common prosperity...
Stable housing, and a stable, harmonous society, with many of your pressing concerns back-stopped by a benevolent autocracy are probably the reason Singapore has low rates of drug use.
It's weird how the US right salivates over a very small, bloody subset of Singapore's social policies... While turning its nose at the ones that actually make it a successful state. It's almost like the cruelty, not the outcomes, are the point...
BS your information is just looking at relative change annually. Singapore's drug policies have plateaued. It's been in effect for decades you can't expect a drug policy that's been in place for decades have continues upward trends of lower and lower drug use, they will hit a limit.
Any change you see now is just noise as they're basically at the peak of the amplitude for maximal change. And that's what you're basically googling.
You need to look at relative illicit drug use by population percentage by country:
Also think critically. You will be killed if you attempt to sell drugs there. Does it make sense that the policy is not effective? What the hell is going on?
Don't be just a blind data scientist trying to scaffold the data to fit your view point. If the data doesn't fit the common sense then perhaps you're unconsciously manipulating the data to fit your view.
Also one of your articles shows 0.7% of youths in Singapore have used drugs in the past year. Is that suppose to support your argument? Look up the amount of youths that use drugs in the US. I think the reported number is like 40%. Actual number is likely 70%.
So what I'm hearing is the executions haven't stopped drug use.
> Also think critically. You will be killed if you attempt to sell drugs there. Does it make sense that the policy is not effective? What the hell is going on?
>So what I'm hearing is the executions haven't stopped drug use.
Did you not look at the data I sent you? Singapore has the lowest drug use among almost all countries. Not just a little low, but massively lower. The only countries better off then Singapore tend to be countries where the citizens can't afford drugs.
What you heard is wrong. And the google results you sent me is cherry-picked data in service of the articles agenda. Did drug usage increase in Singapore in the last year? Is that a 0.1% increase to 0.7% from the year before while the US sits at 40% usage rate? Come on bro.
>Finally, we're on the same page.
No we're not on the same page at all. Or at least you're just not admitting it.
Singapore is an authoritarian city-state with full control over its borders, and also a very unique society.
Many other countries have similarly draconian drug laws, up to and including execution, but do not have the same results. So that alone certainly isn't it. Malaysia and Indonesia for instance. China ranks first in the world for number of executions related to drug trafficking. List here. [1]
They also have full control over their border because it's a tiny island city-state, and their government leans heavily authoritarian. With the illegal gum and the caning. They also have strong social cohesion and lots of government support and social programs for individuals.
What I would say is:
1. Given other countries have similar drug laws and significantly more drug use than Singapore, this is likely correlation not causation.
2. The social programs in Singapore and the strong social cohesion are likely far more responsible for lower drug use.
3. Given the choice to lower drug harm by liberalizing like Portugal or cracking down like Singapore, I would suggest that the former is far more in line with canonical Western values and maximizes individual liberty -- and should be applied even if it leads to slightly worse outcomes overall because there is never a perfect solution.
I would caution you also that there's a long history of unsuccessfully attempting to replicate the 'Singapore model.' Most famously in China after Deng Xiaoping visited in the 70s.
> The only countries better off then Singapore tend to be countries where the citizens can't afford drugs.
Look at the data source I posted then look at the countries below Singapore. The citation is there you just didn't look.
>Singapore is an authoritarian city-state with full control over its borders, and also a very unique society.
Yes only an authoritarian society can pull off executions like this. Additionally such a society would be unique. Nothing supports your argument in this sentence.
>Many other countries have similarly draconian drug laws, up to and including execution, but do not have the same results. So that alone certainly isn't it. Malaysia and Indonesia for instance. China ranks first in the world for number of executions related to drug trafficking. List here. [1]
And you will see all counties with draconian drug laws and actual enforcement of the drug laws such that drug use policies that are illegal rather the "illegal" have drug use that is significantly lower then countries that don't have draconian laws. Again all of this is in my source which I already cited.
>Given other countries have similar drug laws and significantly more drug use than Singapore, this is likely correlation not causation.
Wishful thinking. There are many factors which blur the outcome of drug usage. It is not only draconian drug laws that influence it thus you will see all kinds of numbers everywhere.
What you must do is identify an overall generality. This generality is easily and I mean easily identifiable by the source I listed which ranks countries by drug use. You will clearly see that countries with more freedom to use drugs cluster at the top and countries with less freedom cluster on the bottom.
Also your argument is clearly flawed. Correlation does not prove causation but correlation is still a prerequisite to causation. Additionally minor exceptions to an overall correlation isn't evidence for no causation. That's just false.
>2. The social programs in Singapore and the strong social cohesion are likely far more responsible for lower drug use.
Nice. You just state this out of nowhere. How about I demand the same level of citation you demand? Where is your source and your source needs to establish "causation".
>Given the choice to lower drug harm by liberalizing like Portugal or cracking down like Singapore, I would suggest that the former is far more in line with canonical Western values and maximizes individual liberty -- and should be applied even if it leads to slightly worse outcomes overall because there is never a perfect solution.
As we see with the topic of this thread applying it to Portugal has good outcomes, applying it to Oregon had horrible outcomes. It's not clear if it works. Unless you can find evidence to the same level as the source I cited where countries with draconian drug laws are clearly clustered with lower drug usage, your arguments will remain inferior.
Additionally, Maximizing western values leads concentration of power in the business sector rather then the government sector. To even the modern day citizen it's not so clear cut which is better. Western values or Singapore?
>I would caution you also that there's a long history of unsuccessfully attempting to replicate the 'Singapore model.' Most famously in China after Deng Xiaoping visited in the 70s.
Sure maybe they can't implement something as effective as Singapore. But certainly the source I cited clearly shows a correlation.
Causation is more or less unestablishable for your or my argument. No point in bringing it up.
> Causation is more or less unestablishable for your or my argument. No point in bringing it up.
I would argue that it's pretty clearly uncorrelated because countries all over the world have varying degrees of draconian drug laws and have achieved nothing. You have an outlier, that's all.
Of course you're trying to establish causation because you're arguing this is the basis for similar laws elsewhere.
> To even the modern day citizen it's not so clear cut which is better. Western values or Singapore?
It's hard to say. One is better in some ways, the other in other ways.
Thanks for sharing your perspective! I think we can agree to disagree but this was an interesting conversation.
>I would argue that it's pretty clearly uncorrelated because countries all over the world have varying degrees of draconian drug laws and have achieved nothing.
The same source I cited illustrates a correlation that contradicts your argument. Go look at it again. Countries with draconian laws quantitatively correlate with lower drug use in the one source I cited.
You said drugs were everywhere in Singapore. You were proven wrong via sources. Now this argument is wrong again, also contradicted with the Same source.
>Thanks for sharing your perspective! I think we can agree to disagree but this was an interesting conversation.
No problem. But to be honest this sentence makes it look like we are on even ground and ending the argument amicably because neither can move forward with more evidence.
This is not what occured. You made several statements and those statements are categorically wrong. Your overall argument is definitively wrong. This is not about whether you agree or disagree with me as the sources directly contradict your claims.
> The same source I cited illustrates a correlation that contradicts your argument. Go look at it again. Countries with draconian laws quantitatively correlate with lower drug use in the one source I cited.
Again, there's 1 country with draconian laws and good results, and a whole armada of countries with draconian laws and bad results. That tells me it's correlation not causation. Even if it were causative, it's not a model that aligns with Western values.
You're fixated on a single data point that aligns with your preconceptions despite a whole lot of data that doesn't.
> You said drugs were everywhere in Singapore. You were proven wrong via sources. Now this argument is wrong again, also contradicted with the Same source.
Tons of articles disagree with you. Not to mention, I think the data is likely very suspect - after all, who would admit in surveys or studies to consuming drugs if it would get the executed? That's exactly the problem Japan has.
> This is not what occured. You made several statements and those statements are categorically wrong.
Respectfully disagree.
94% of people on death row in Singapore are there for non-violent drug offenses lol. That's not something I'm going to advocate for even if I believed you'd found a causative system in Singapore that could ever be willingly reproduced abroad, and I really don't. I see a correlation as evidenced by the myriad other countries who try this approach and fail miserably.
Here I'll support your unpopular Singaporean idea if you support mine - have 80% of people in the US live in government housing. The Singapore HDB is a fantastic model we should reproduce! It materially improved affordability of housing in SG.
Fun ad hominem.
> I think the most effective way to win the drug war is to initiate vicious man hunts and executions on people who sell highly addictive and dangerous drugs. See Singapore. They did it effectively.
No they didn't haha.
All of the countries in east Asia have huge drug problems. Japan has incredibly strict drug laws and a horrible meth problem. In the last major outbreak, 2% of Japan was injecting meth intravenously. Drugs are available in Japan, [1] Singapore [2] and China [3]. Exacerbated by the criminalization.
All aggressive prosecution does is push problems underground.
We've tried it your way for like 52 years. Your way has filed. Time to try something new.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8q7k/how-stigma-created-ja...
[2] https://www.thecabinsingapore.com.sg/blog/despite-tough-pena...
[3] https://time.com/5530597/trump-china-drug-problem/