Politics: 2020 Dem POTUS candidate catch all discussion thread

B1GTide said:

You need to do some research then. Putting people in jail for using those drugs does not diminish their use at all. All it does is double down on the destruction.

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You can make stuff illegal without putting people in jail for it. I think that making meth recreational would be horrible. It is not the same as marijuanna. I know a girl that worked for a bank before she got hooked on that stuff. The before and after is shocking.

I think the concept we’re looking for w/r/t harder drugs is decriminalization. It becomes less of a crime to possess and more of a public health concern for you to be addicted.

uafanataum said:

You can make stuff illegal without putting people in jail for it. I think that making meth recreational would be horrible. It is not the same as marijuanna. I know a girl that worked for a bank before she got hooked on that stuff. The before and after is shocking.

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Again, do some research. The US has some of the toughest drug use and sale laws in the world. The use in America is among the highest in the world. The illness and death from drug use is among the highest in the world. Then we add the misery of filling our prisons with these poor souls.

The only people who are helped by our drug laws are the cartels and the corporations that run the prisons.

uafanataum said:

I'm alot younger than you and you can forget trying to convince me about most drugs besides marijuanna. I have seen people's lives ruined by heroine and meth. They are in no way similar to pot.

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I won't try to convince you then, but you should research Portugal's experience with the issue. I will help you get the information, though. I do have to tell you that supporting legalization of all drugs is one of the most difficult decisions I've made.

https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/

Seventeen years on, the U.S. is suffering its worst addiction epidemic in American history. In 2016 alone, an estimated 64,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses—more than the combined death tolls for Americans in the Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq Wars. In Portugal, meanwhile, the drug-induced death rate has plummeted to five times lower than the E.U. average and stands at one-fiftieth of the United States’. Its rate of HIV infection has dropped from 104.2 new cases per million in 2000 to 4.2 cases per million in 2015. Drug use has declined overall among the 15- to 24-year-old population, those most at risk of initiating drug use.

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But by eliminating the threat of criminal penalties—and along with it, a great deal of stigma—it has become easier for people to seek treatment. Between 1998 and 2011, the number of people in drug treatment increased by over 60%; nearly three-quarters of them received opioid-substitution therapy.

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If you hate the destruction that drugs cause then legalization/decriminalization is the most likely approach to actually help people get off them entirely or be able to use them more safely. I prefer legalization because it will do at least two things decriminalization will NOT do: better ensure the safety/purity/potency of the supply and greatly reduce or eliminate the violence associated with the drug trade.

crimsonaudio said:

There's a reason the US literally has the highest incarceration rate on the planet...

"Land of the free" they say...

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We had a conversation about this at work today. All these people in prison for years - sometimes life - for using drugs while murderers and rapists walk free after a few years or even a few months in some cases. It's ri-goshdarn-diculous. Wasted money. Wasted lives.

There was a very good documentary recently that aired on TV that went into great detail about everything discussed here about drugs, laws, imprisonment, and rehabilitation.

Can't remember the name but it was very good.

All the stuff y’all are talking about is why I want Sanders in the presidency so badly. I just have no faith any other Democrat would be so bold. If nothing else, we can really start to move forward as a people by putting an end to the clearly race-based prejudicial drug enforcement in this country. It has got to stop. Minorities on the lower-ends of the economic ladder need to stop fearing the intentions of our police officers and the state in general. Families don’t need to be torn apart by drug-related gang violence. It is only going to end when most drugs are just highly regulated products available above the board instead of under the table.

rgw said:

All the stuff y’all are talking about is why I want Sanders in the presidency so badly. I just have no faith any other Democrat would be so bold. If nothing else, we can really start to move forward as a people by putting an end to the clearly race-based prejudicial drug enforcement in this country. It has got to stop. Minorities on the lower-ends of the economic ladder need to stop fearing the intentions of our police officers and the state in general. Families don’t need to be torn apart by drug-related gang violence. It is only going to end when most drugs are just highly regulated products available above the board instead of under the table.

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I am still digesting the post above and am not sure whether I have changed my mind about hard drugs yet. However, one thing I am sure about is that is am not voting for president based upon drug policy. Actually, I am voting for whoever is on the democratic ticket so that Trump is not reelected in the general. My primary vote is what is your for grabs.

rgw said:

All the stuff y’all are talking about is why I want Sanders in the presidency so badly. I just have no faith any other Democrat would be so bold. If nothing else, we can really start to move forward as a people by putting an end to the clearly race-based prejudicial drug enforcement in this country. It has got to stop. Minorities on the lower-ends of the economic ladder need to stop fearing the intentions of our police officers and the state in general. Families don’t need to be torn apart by drug-related gang violence. It is only going to end when most drugs are just highly regulated products available above the board instead of under the table.

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Bernie or no Bernie this needs to happen. It shouldn't even be a partisan issue at all. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can clearly see the "war on drugs" (consider all references to be in quotations) is an abject failure in every way that doesn't count as an employment boom for LEO's and corrections.

The war on drugs has caused or made worse much of the misery that gets blamed on drugs.

Violence? Who is the present day Al Capone of alcohol? There isn't one. Why is that?

Civil rights violations? The war on drugs is the excuse to curb civil rights, to have police invade homes with no-knock raids and kill completely innocent people (not to mention dogs), to punish minorities for being minorities in an endless loop of arresting them for the same things whites do without being arresting quite often and then use the higher crime rates to justify ever increasingly oppressive police actions in those communities, and so on.

Drug overdose deaths? Prohibition makes higher potency and adulterated (impure) products that are more likely to kill more likely to be on the streets. The war on drugs causes many overdose deaths and does little to prevent them.

Lack of treatment? Think of all the money wasted on law enforcement and prisons (where people learn to become even worse criminals). That money could be repurposed for drug treatment and disease prevention. New tax money could be used for this purpose also (I don't trust politicians to do this but at least we could stop the bleeding of cash for a lost cause).

Sorry, guys. I was passionate about this for several years before growing cannabis here for medication. Once I allowed myself the freedom to cast aside the brainwashing of my youth the answer was clear as day to me and without any doubt legalization is the path to help solve several societal ills that plague this country. I have reached the point that I am quite open and vocal about the issue.

It’s got to happen Bernie or no. I don’t think it will without him but I’m absolutely willing to be surprised.

A lot of our “blue lives” are made more fraught by making them execute law enforcement policies that are clearly racially targeted and have made them into pariahs of communities rather than defenders of our communities.

Delaney bows out.

CharminTide said:

Delaney bows out.

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Probably better for the field.

B1GTide said:

Probably better for the field.

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He basically said as much. Doesn't want to split the moderate vote. Not that, ya know, he was splitting it very much. But still.

CharminTide said:

Delaney bows out.

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Gotta at least respect the arrogance of that dude lol.

He didn't want to split the hair off one of the moderate votes. LOL

Conservation started by the journalist pointing out that the DNC refused to let Senator Gravel who qualified into a debate but allowed Bloomberg into a debate simply because he wrote a big check to the DNC.

LOL - Democrats afraid of Bloomberg so they are accusing him of buying his way into this election - as if every one of them didn't do the exact same thing, but in different ways.