Useless legal system

[Jez]

]I've highlighted the only part there that needs to be read, scraping up addicts is cheaper than catching dealers, simply because nobody wants to. Ending the drug supply is bad for both the government and addicts.

The US government has been trying for decades to end the drug supply, spraying coca fields in Colombia and elsewhere with very limited success. People want to, we just can't. As long as the demand is there a peasant farmer in south america or SE asia is going to grow it because the local drug guys can pay him a lot more for those than he can earn growing regular crops.

The US already imprisons (or has on some form of bail/court supervision) a full one in one hundred of its adult population, a great number of which are non-violent drug users and drug dealers. Are you suggesting that we follow a similar path?

[Nekosan]

]I've highlighted the only part there that needs to be read, scraping up addicts is cheaper than catching dealers, simply because nobody wants to. Ending the drug supply is bad for both the government and addicts.

The US government has been trying for decades to end the drug supply, spraying coca fields in Colombia and elsewhere with very limited success. People want to, we just can't. As long as the demand is there a peasant farmer in south america or SE asia is going to grow it because the local drug guys can pay him a lot more for those than he can earn growing regular crops.

The US already imprisons (or has on some form of bail/court supervision) a full one in one hundred of its adult population, a great number of which are non-violent drug users and drug dealers. Are you suggesting that we follow a similar path?

Yes I am, dealers need to be in jail and users need to be locked into rehabilitation programs, you can't solve the problems in that way but you can't just let it go. Drugs can't be dealt with by putting a band-aid on any one part of the problem, everything needs to be addressed and dealt with. TBH I've always kinda thought that they should do a 1 year trial where they scrap everything and flood the ports with drug dogs, it can't be THAT hard to stop mass importation of hard drugs on an island if you really try (of course good luck finding the budget for that).

[Bato]

Bull, focusing on juvenile offender programs is like focusing on drug rehabilitation programs rather than on catching drug suppliers.

The Portuguese government wants to talk to you....

Edit:
I'd like to see how you will feel when ALL drugs will be banned and you will need a doctor script to enjoy a glass of wine or a cold beer (or a can of spray paint, or a litre of petrol). It's easy to see things in black and white when it comes to drugs, not so easy to accept that it's part of the human nature. There will always be someone to grow something that makes you high or trip or both and someone else to consume it.

[krapma]

I believe there are 2 situations which would probably cover a vast majority of these cases.
The first being that these kids' parents are the worst kind of scum, which causes a self propogating situation until a generation somehow breaks the cycle.
The second being that the kids' parents have just lost complete control, even though they really do want to stop their problem kids.

IMO the solution to the first situation is to hold the parents legally culpable for the kids' actions, while monitoring the situation extremely closely to prevent the repercussions of what the parents will do to the kid(s) for costing them the fines/community service/etc. The parents would be placed on probation in which they are given thorough education and given access to support services to help get the kids and parents back in control.

The second situation would be very similar, but they will not be held legally culpable while the parents voluntarily go to these education classes and utilise the support services. If they do not proactively go for these THEN they will be held culpable.


There is, of course, no way this will happen, seeing as though DOCS is already sorely lacking in resources and funding, plus making the move towards getting the legal system changed to adopt this kind of approach could be political suicide (i have no idea about this, but it wouldn't surprise me).


As people have mentioned above, a curfew for kids should be implemented, and the parents fined progressively more for each violation, plus community service sentences for the kids and parents in question.

[Zombywolf]

I think its reasonable to say that there are too many **** people.

Meteorite please.

[Snootle]

Don't worry, just wait for natural selection. These kids will be found dead in a ditch somewhere with a needle sticking out of their arm in the end.

But yeah to the thread title: You're right, the legal system is absolute ****.

So you are saying that placing children in lockup is an option that will help this situation? I would say that placing kids in lockup is not going to have any positive effects at all.

I'm not sure where you live but in nth Qld more than 50% of crimes committed after dark are committed by minors, we have some of the worst street crime statistics of any developed nation (or so i'm told)

Not surprised. When I lived in QLD, my neighbour had their house broken into 5 times, this was many many years ago so I'm under no illusion that things were better in the "good ol days".

[Jez]

Yes I am, dealers need to be in jail and users need to be locked into rehabilitation programs, you can't solve the problems in that way but you can't just let it go.

I don't think it will work. The US still has a major problem with drugs in many of its cities, and in NSW we already have an exploding prison population with rising rates of remand for young offenders, it doesn't really seem to help.

Drugs can't be dealt with by putting a band-aid on any one part of the problem, everything needs to be addressed and dealt with. TBH I've always kinda thought that they should do a 1 year trial where they scrap everything and flood the ports with drug dogs, it can't be THAT hard to stop mass importation of hard drugs on an island if you really try (of course good luck finding the budget for that).

Wouldn't that just lead to a large increase in the amount of drugs being produced locally? Not to mention a potential crimewave as junkies are now compelled to do whatever they can to buy drugs that are soaring in price.

[Novocaine]

Not every person who uses drugs is a junkie. Throwing any old person who has used drugs into rehab or prison would probably just make it worse.

[HandsomeSandwich]

Bull, focusing on juvenile offender programs is like focusing on drug rehabilitation programs rather than on catching drug suppliers.

Focusing on drug rehabilitation and drug education is 3 - 17 times more affective than drug control.

Effective at what? curing drug addicts? Scraping an egg up after you drop it doesn't change the fact that you broke the egg.

Drug addiction is curable and a broken egg isn't so that doesn't make sense.

I'm willing to bet that all those little asian countries where you get shot in the head for dealing drugs would disagree with you.

Yeah there is no organised crime syndicates and massive narco trafficking in South East Asia, you are correct. Draconian laws have created a drug free Asiaaaaoooh wait a minute...

for reference:

wikipedia:war on drugs:

During the early to mid-1990s, the Clinton administration ordered and funded a major cocaine policy study, again by RAND. The Rand Drug Policy Research Center study concluded that $ 3 billion should be switched from federal and local law enforcement to treatment. The report said that treatment is the cheapest way to cut drug use, stating that drug treatment is twenty-three times more effective than the supply-side "war on drugs".

I've highlighted the only part there that needs to be read, scraping up addicts is cheaper than catching dealers, simply because nobody wants to. Ending the drug supply is bad for both the government and addicts.

Actually the part to highlight was 23 times more effective. The methods compared produce the same results at a lower cost.

Unfortunately fixing the problems with society that drive people to drug addiction is dramatically harder than fighting the supply is, you'd have better luck trying to empty the ocean with a bucket.

Really? Because you just quoted a study that stated its finacially more effective and 23 times more effective than carrying out the fight?

[Marius]

There's not much you can do.

In any society you're going to have fringe cases that show up the system. Eventually he will spend a lot of time in jail, but that will also lead to high costs keeping him there.

[$had0w]

The legal system is sometimes broken, but i'd rather it be there and stop some stuff than it not be there and stop nothing at all...

[Doomcoon]

We live in a soft society, where the rights of the offender outway the rights of the victim. That is just the way it is. Don't believe me?... go work in corrections.

[Nekosan]

Wouldn't that just lead to a large increase in the amount of drugs being produced locally? Not to mention a potential crimewave as junkies are now compelled to do whatever they can to buy drugs that are soaring in price.

Many serious drugs can't be produced domestically, the ones that can (ala ICE) all require highly restricted substances that would ideally also be stopped before entering the country (with large jail sentences for domestic suppliers).

You're right about the rising price of drugs causing problems but that's something that would sort itself out pretty darn quickly, it doesn't matter how much you lie,cheat,steal if there's just no product to be had.

Drug addiction is curable and a broken egg isn't so that doesn't make sense.

Addicts don't just wake up one day cured, much like chronic alcoholics many drug addicts will spend the rest of their life fighting their addiction (even if they aren't using). People can't just "go back" to what they were before becoming an addict.

Yeah there is no organised crime syndicates and massive narco trafficking in South East Asia, you are correct. Draconian laws have created a drug free Asiaaaaoooh wait a minute...

Of course there is organized crime and drug trafficking still, SEA countries have some of the most corrupt and ineffective police forces/governments in existance. Compared to 20 years ago places like Malaysia have improved dramatically, expecting one change to eliminate all drugs when the entire system is broken is a little silly.

Actually the part to highlight was 23 times more effective. The methods compared produce the same results at a lower cost.

Taking the cheaper option and then saying it's better because it's cheaper isn't really a valid argument, fighting supply is only going to be more effective if the program has the funds and the people in charge have the dedication to do it right, to solve the problem you need to target the supply and doing that properly is going to be MUCH more expensive than the alternative. Ideally money shouldn't be the limiting factor but it is, as the statistics say: it's easier and cheaper to just put in 60% effort and claim your stat increase.

If the problem is going to go away we need to put some serious money and effort into it rather than just short term fixes, long term change cannot be enacted by using the cheapest method every time, sooner or later something like this needs to be done right rather than being the usual government circlejerk.

When they tried to target the supply they had the right idea, they just didn't go as far as is needed for that route to succeed.

Not every person who uses drugs is a junkie. Throwing any old person who has used drugs into rehab or prison would probably just make it worse.

Nobody really cares if you want to smoke a blunt after work to relax, using substances like meth, coca derivatives and opiates are dramatically different. I'm talking about hard drugs, not pot or the random substances you drop when you go to a rave.

[Mekon]

People can't just "go back" to what they were before becoming an addict.

Of course they can... heroin is the only drug I can think of that buggers up your brain pretty much irreversibly. I knew a lot of people in my younger days that were serious drug users of the harder variety (ie. multiple times a week), most of whom are now perfectly "normal" grown-ups. I can only think of 2 that ended up in rehab (one due to a heroin problem).

Mind you, depends on your definition of addict... pretty much everyone I knew had enough sense to attempt to distinguish between party-time and work-time, with varying degrees of success.

edit: There's probably an element of selective bias, mind you, in that I didn't tend to befriend people who were seriously out of control (or distanced myself from those who looked like they were heading right off the reservation).

If the problem is going to go away we need to put some serious money and effort into it rather than just short term fixes, long term change cannot be enacted by using the cheapest method every time, sooner or later something like this needs to be done right rather than being the usual government circlejerk.

But it's never going to "go away". People take drugs for a reason... because it is fun/enjoyable. Prohibition only ever drives it underground. Imagine applying your logic to alcohol consumption (as they did in the early 1900s), what chance of success would that have (or did that have)?

Nobody really cares if you want to smoke a blunt after work to relax, using substances like meth, coca derivatives and opiates are dramatically different. I'm talking about hard drugs, not pot or the random substances you drop when you go to a rave.

What exactly do you think people take when they go to raves? Methamphetamines (speed, ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, etc), primarily.

[Nekosan]

But it's never going to "go away". People take drugs for a reason... because it is fun/enjoyable. Prohibition only ever drives it underground. Imagine applying your logic to alcohol consumption (as they did in the early 1900s), what chance of success would that have (or did that have)?

You can't really compare hard drugs to alcohol like that, when prohibition was enacted it was a given that the majority of the male population were regular drinkers, drug addicts make up a far smaller portion of society and illicit drug use is already "underground".

What exactly do you think people take when they go to raves? Methamphetamines (speed, ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, etc), primarily.

A party drug like MDMA has an entirely different potential for addiction than something like ICE/meth, despite having "methamphetamine" in its name(MDMA) and crystal meth are not the same drug , likewise the vast majority of pill poppers aren't interested in mainlining heroin just to have a good time on the weekend.

Somebody who pops a pill once or twice a week isn't an addict, they're a recreational drug user.