(VIDEO) "For every line of cocaine snorted, an innocent life is taken"

23536 said:
I believe they are wrong to target users, who are not the cause of the violence in Latin America.
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Uh, not really. If people weren't buying and using it, there would be no need for violent cartels to manufacture and sell it. Users are just fuel to the fire.
 
the cartels are the result of prohibition

As I said in another thread, there are no wine wars in Bordeaux, nor are there coffee wars in Colombia.
 
23536 said:
the cartels are the result of prohibition

As I said in another thread, there are no wine wars in Bordeaux, nor are there coffee wars in Colombia.
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That's a different topic altogether, and really has nothing to do with this.

For the time being, coke is illegal, and the users are still criminals that just give dealers more power.

Maybe sensationalizing it in a way that was shown in the video is a bit much, but they got the overall point pretty spot on.
 
There are two parts to the equation of the cartels' money and power:
1) There is a demand for drugs.
2) Drugs are illegal, so the profit for those who are willing to manufacture and sell them is enormous.

Why do you feel like the easier and more ethical way to disrupt this equation and take away the cartels' power is to try to change #1?
That topic has everything to do with this.
 
scureto1 said:
the profit for those who are willing to manufacture and sell them is enormous.
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And why is that? Because people are willing to buy them and use them
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It's a bit hyperbole. If a person died each time I did a line a whole city would be dead, never mind millions doing lines.

Some people will be drawn to substance use no matter what. The cartels are filling a demand that's already there. People in those counties are will to make, smuggle, and kill for the money drugs provide. Drugs are but one factor among others such as poverty, inequity, discrimination, instability, corruption and #1MONEY.

I try to think of a product that's totally clean and I have a hard time thinking of one. Why not every time you buy a gallon of gas someone dies, every time you buy some food someone dies, or every time you turn on a light switch someone dies?

Better yet why not focus on the positives. How about for every line snorted, a farmer supports his family? Or for every bag snorted, someone gets laid or has a good time.
 
it's certainly true that if demand disappeared, the market would disappear.

However, to blame the violent nature of the market on the users is unfair, principally because there was a (mostly) non-violent cocaine market in place before cocaine was prohibited. Prohibition policies begat the violence; and it was for nothing: the policies are entirely worthless.

The ball is in the policy makers' court. The commercials should be geared towards voters (somehow).

(where does that phrase come from: "The ball is in your court"? Wouldn't your opponent be on the same court you are on?)
 
Voxide said:
And why is that? Because people are willing to buy them and use them
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If prices are only very slightly above production cost, the profit is marginal (the very DEFINITION of marginal), no matter how many people want them. The reason the profits are enormous is because the prices are vastly marked up due to the risk of production/sale. That lies solely at the feet of those who keep drugs in the black market.
 
Voxide said:
Uh, not really. If people weren't buying and using it, there would be no need for violent cartels to manufacture and sell it. Users are just fuel to the fire.
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That's true from an idealistic point of view, but the reality is that no matter how many guilt trip ads are released, society as a whole is never going to stop using cocaine. Hell, it costs $400 here in Australia for a cut to shit gram which might contain 200mg of actual cocaine if you're lucky, and people still snort that shit up and go back to their dealer for more. Humans fucking love cocaine, that's just the way it is. And even if individual users here and there stop, the trade won't. It's impossible that ads such as these will stop the violence in Latin America (which, by the way, is as much about heroin/methamphetamine/marijuana as it is cocaine).

The flip side is that it is realistic that changing laws could stop these violence. As society changes and progresses, it isn't outside the realms of probability that these drugs will be legalized and the black market starved out of existence. The politicians who support and continue to enforce these laws despite mounting evidence of the devastation they cause are the ones who could create change on a large scale that would actually save thousands of lives, but choose not to. They are the ones who choose to remain 'tough on drugs' and allow the black market to survive.

As such, it's proper to place the blame on those who have the realistic power to end the black market (the politicians), not on the end users, who have no realistic power to end the wider cocaine trade (and often no power to even end their own use: after all, one of the qualifiers for addiction is continued use despite negative consequences).

If the creators of these ads seriously wanted to save lives in Latin America, they'd target these adds at the politicians who allow the black market to thrive and the voters who keep them in power.
 
People are never going to stop doing cocaine it's just that simple. It's the drug i love to hate because i love it so much but i hate it :! . However drug users should not be blamed here because if cocaine was legal and sold in a legal market where people who grew the plants and did the manufacturing got their fair share of the profit then there would be no violence associated with it. I mean people don't have wars over Tobacco and that is just as addictive as cocaine is.

Drugs are not the problem authoritarian laws are the problem.
 
one more argument against voxide's reasoning:

you can't just tell a person, "you can no longer take your medicine." it doesn't work like that. in most cases, i would argue, the demand exists due to medical reasons outside the user's control, even if most such users delude themselves into thinking they're "only getting high and can stop any time they want" (people will do a lot to keep feeling as though they have free will, even if that means internalizing the judgmental beliefs of "anti-drug" people around them)
 
Yep, you guys are right. The most important thing this country needs is more drugs. Above all else, I think the most pressing issue is the fact that there are no readily available drugs. People not having enough drugs is a pressing issue and should be dealt with before anything else. 8)


Please do not bring up tax revenue unless you're ready to show how much of the budget gap would be solved if illicit drugs were to become legal.

paranoid android said:
Drugs are not the problem authoritarian laws are the problem.
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Let's have no laws about seatbelts, helmets, DUI, speeding, or texting while driving then either.
 
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im just gonna go ahead and say that's bullshit. yes, buying cocaine does in the end support drug cartels who do sometimes murder innocent people, but 'for every line snorted an innocent life is taken'-thats a load of bullshit
 
Voxide said:
Yep, you guys are right. The most important thing this country needs is more drugs. Above all else, I think the most pressing issue is the fact that there are no readily available drugs. People not having enough drugs is a pressing issue and should be dealt with before anything else. 8)


Please do not bring up tax revenue unless you're ready to show how much of the budget gap would be solved if illicit drugs were to become legal.



Let's have no laws about seatbelts, helmets, DUI, speeding, or texting while driving then either.
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Typical regurgitated hyperbole, garnished liberally with red herring. A true delicacy.

1) No one has made the claim that people needing more drugs is even a problem, much less the biggest problem in this country. There's your hyperbole.

2) Tax revenue is totally irrelevant to this issue - the only claim that people have made is that if the drugs were legal, the profit from them would be in the hands of legitimate companies, rather than criminals. As far as I know, Fortune 500 companies aren't in the business of decapitating their rivals, so even if these companies are making enormous profits from the drug users, people will no longer be being killed by cartels.

3) All of those safety-related laws COULD be arguable if someone was making the "my body - I'll do what I want" argument. However, no one here has made that argument. There's your red herring. The argument being made here is "If the laws intended to protect people are causing more harm than the threat they were intended to protect against, maybe they should be re-thought." That argument would not include the seat belt/DUI/etc laws because those don't have the unintended consequence of funding cartels.

Feel free to try again, Limbaugh.
 
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scureto1 said:
Typical regurgitated hyperbole, garnished liberally with red herring. A true delicacy.

1) No one has made the claim that people needing more drugs is even a problem, much less the biggest problem in this country. There's your hyperbole.

2) Tax revenue is totally irrelevant to this issue - the only claim that people have made is that if the drugs were legal, the profit from them would be in the hands of legitimate companies, rather than criminals. As far as I know, Fortune 500 companies aren't in the business of decapitating their rivals, so even if these companies are making enormous profits from the drug users, people will no longer be being killed by cartels.

3) All of those safety-related laws COULD be arguable if someone was making the "my body - I'll do what I want" argument. However, no one here has made that argument. There's your red herring. The argument being made here is "If the laws intended to protect people are causing more harm than the threat they were intended to protect against, maybe they should be re-thought." That argument would not include the seat belt/DUI/etc laws because those don't have the unintended consequence of funding cartels.

Feel free to try again, Limbaugh.
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Cool, a bunch of terms you took out from your logic textbook.

I'm just saying that legalizing all forms of drugs across the board is a bad idea.
 
^how is it a bad idea?

1. Illegal drugs could be controlled, regulated and distributed to only those responsible enough to use them. The way it is now, kids can get cocaine easier than alcohol. If cocaine were regulated and controlled then it would be just as difficult if not more for kids to get cocaine.

2. Dangerous gangs/cartels would lose a great deal of power without their drug revenues. Violence would be reduced, although not eliminated. If there's no drug trade to fight over then there will be less lives lost due to turf wars and such.

3. Tax dollars wasted on the war on drugs could be better used to protect society, invest in social programs and help those who are having drug problems. At the same time, non-violent drug offenders can be released from prisons and actually contribute to society, possibly boosting the economy.
 
RobotRipping said:
^how is it a bad idea?

1. Illegal drugs could be controlled, regulated and distributed to only those responsible enough to use them. The way it is now, kids can get cocaine easier than alcohol. If cocaine were regulated and controlled then it would be just as difficult if not more for kids to get cocaine.

2. Dangerous gangs/cartels would lose a great deal of power without their drug revenues. Violence would be reduced, although not eliminated. If there's no drug trade to fight over then there will be less lives lost due to turf wars and such.

3. Tax dollars wasted on the war on drugs could be better used to protect society, invest in social programs and help those who are having drug problems. At the same time, non-violent drug offenders can be released from prisons and actually contribute to society, possibly boosting the economy.
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And who is going to pay for the health issues that these people will eventually suffer? So you're saying we could use the money we saved to help addicts recover from the drugs that we made legal? You're a genius. That just takes us back to square one. This sort of plan looks good on paper but it would never work. Nowadays people are too soft to simply say "No, it's your own damn fault your septum is collapsing and we won't help you." The last thing we need are more people living off welfare and public housing, practically snorting and smoking away our hard earned money. Junkies who leave prison won't contribute to society, they will most likely end up using even more of the drugs since they would be widely available and practically condoned. Often times, prison is the only thing stopping someone from continuing an addiction, even if there's drugs in there too. When it comes to hard drugs like coke and heroin, they really shouldn't be allowed. For every person that uses them "responsibly", there are another 10 who are robbing and murdering to get their next fix. Cartels would just move on to even more lucrative and illegal business and nothing would really change. This is obvious.
 
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