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 DutchKillsRambo wrote:
Manny I get that some people do care. But the majority don't. Its only a fringe group that really worries about where all their clothing, food, electronics, home goods, etc. come from. Its a commendable thing, but its very few people honestly.

Has anyone ever shopped at Wal-Mart? Yeah your money probably went into something detestable. But somehow drug users are worse? Why? Because we've been indoctrinated to think so? If its purely the death aspect, than any one of the Defense industries whose bomb missed the target and killed civilians is even worse.

I agree with you that it's a bit hypocritical for people to buy legal consumer products from companies who have unethical and harmful business practices, while decrying buyers of illegal drugs for the same thing.

That being said, I don't think it's legitimate to dismiss people who make a habit of ethical buying or pretend that they don't exist, or claim that it doesn't matter at all, like you did before. Many people weigh at least SOME ethical factors into their purchasing decisions. Whether it be to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart because they don't like their practices, avoid buying from Citgo because they don't like Chavez, or avoid buying from Chic-fil-a because they don't like the owner's opinions and behavior toward homosexuals.

Im not dismissing them, I said its commendable. But it is a minority. A small one at that. And this being the interwebz I usually take anyone saying that they always do that with a pound of salt.

And Relapse this thread could be about how alcohol kills more people than cartels by miles every year but that drug is completely legal. Or it could be about how caffeine addiction leads to deplorable conditions in coffee growing countries.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My whole point is unless your actively sourcing out everything you buy to make sure you agree with how it was made, you shouldn't feel superior to drug users. If your money goes to a sweatshop or slave labor, you're not any better of a person. And for most Americans, we've all supported something like this. So get off your high horse. Pun intended.

I don't think you can reasonably claim that there's no distinction.

People make varying levels of distinction and put varying levels of effort into sourcing ethical products. Some pay no attention at all. Some pay only a little bit of attention, and avoid only certain companies or products which come to their attention in the news or through friends or relatives they respect. A few take it really seriously.

Even the difference between legal and illegal is a real distinction. Obeying the law is virtuous, unless you are very clear that the law in question is unjust, which people can debate.

The illegal drug trade does include a lot of really bad things. The cartel-related murder rate in Mexico is a whole 'nother level of bad beyond some worker exploitation in Foxconn factories.

I guess it all comes down to personal views. To me a few thousand deaths isnt worse than a couple hundred million in slave labor.

Maybe the quote "judge not lest ye be judged" would fit this situation?

 DutchKillsRambo wrote:
I guess it all comes down to personal views. To me a few thousand deaths isnt worse than a couple hundred million in slave labor.

Maybe the quote "judge not lest ye be judged" would fit this situation?

That's a cop out. Alot of folks are bringing up the comparisons to oil companies, wal-mart, etc. Those are not the issue I started this thread about and referring to them only allows folks to say "it's bad, but what about..." or to sidestep the issue by pointing to other examples of worker exploitation.

We can make a judgement about one thing before, at the same time or after making a judgement about another. That one is also bad, doesn't mean that the first isn't.

Put China, Walmart, and the middle east aside for a minute and address the question at hand.

Your question Eliif? No I dont feel bad. Why I brought up all these other scenarios is because you cant just look at the drug trade in a vacuum.

I feel as bad buying a gram as you do buying a pair of Nikes. Both end up with our money in someone elses hands. Both go to a deplorable end.

You didn't start talking about these other companies but to look at one set of consumers and say that their goods have brought more hurt and suffering than any other good is disingenuous. And in my mind every bad aspect about the drug trade brought up so far could be cured by legalization.

And the whole point of that quote was to say before you say what someone else does with their money is wrong maybe you should look at where your money goes. It is related whether or not you want to believe it.

I only dropped a bible quote as I though this thread was dead. And here I am bringing it back up. This I do feel bad about. About as bad as your average Wal-Mart shopper.

And now a bit of personal context from the OP.

As the thread is slowing, it may be too late for this to have any effect, but what got me thinking in this direction was looking at the drug dealers in my neighborhood (inner-city westside of Chicago) and seeing the at-first-glance ambiguity of how they are both a great source of revenue for their families and also a real blight on the community as a whole. In the end however it becomes clear that they are a true detractor and drain on the neighborhood and it's people.

Obviously the "war on drugs", ineffective policing and some amount of community tolerance and fear bear shares of the blame. However, I do feel that the folks who drive through here every day and buy drugs bear some responsibility for the effects that drug dealers bring on regular working-poor folks. Ththeir money supports the dealers, buys guns, keeps heroin cheap and available, housing prices depressed, businesses away, etc, etc.

It's not a pretty sight, but that got me thinking about how much worse the effects of the drug trade are on communities and workers in places like Columbia and Mexico and I felt that with the news of migrant killings and violence in places like Juarez would be a place to start that folks would be familiar with.

Just wanted to dispel any ideas that folks might have that this thread is unconsidered, or arising in a vacum. I do get a bit of a chip on my shoulder sometimes when speaking to folks who dismiss both the drug trade and wal-mart when they don't have to live daily with the most harmful effects of either (there a I go again making assumptions about fellow dakkaites) and I should probably be a bit more patient. Still...

Dutchkills Rambo and those of similar opinion,
Perhaps I was a bit hard on you ( and the rest of the folks coming from your point of view). I agree that there are alot of other things sold that have bad consequences on those where they are produced and transited. I have been thinking alot about where my money goes recently, but this thread was about a specific topic.

I think where I disagree with you and the others who expressed similar opinions is is:

1) That poor labor conditions in wal-mart producer countries are the same degree of bad as the mass murders and kidnapping in mexico and columbia.
2) The idea that it is disingenuous to talk about one without the other in the same conversation. I don't agree. If we only talked about everything at once, we'd never adress any issue. That's why organizations generally pick one thing and focus on it. (Aids Foundation, Amnesty international, etc)
3) That "every bad aspect of the drug trade brought up so far" could be cured by legalization. I'm all for decrimilaization (for users) of most/all and even legalization (for distribution) of some drugs, and it would go a long way to fixing many of the problems, but
- You're still going to have drug users and the negative effects on their lives.
-Completely legalizing hard drugs opens a whole other can of worms on the already over-extended medical and social support infrastructure.

Very nice post Eilif. Well thought out and well written.

I understand where your coming from. It's really the whole vicious cycle type of scenario. I don't pretend to think that a lot of dealers aren't scumbags. But then again just a lot of people are scumbags. Especially when you start throwing tons of money at them. I can't say I have the answer to this all, but the racist, bs war on drugs needs to stop. Its both a huge drain on our society and it also lines the pockets of a very few.

As to to your other points:

1. Why I think the murders in these countries isn't worse than slave labor countries is purely a numbers game. Your talking a couple tens of thousands of deaths vs. literally hundreds of millions of people working in sweatshops.

2. Your right we should focus on the topic at hand. That doesn't make the comparisons any less valid.

3. We already have problems with addicts. I think the best way to treat them is with compassion and education. Not incarceration. But it seems like we agree there.

Didn't Portugal do full decriminalization a few years back and have every appreciable negative number related to the war on drugs plummte?

 Monster Rain wrote:
The bus runs on pixie dust, does it?

The busses in the UK don't. Even if they did the cost increase would be marginal.

The simple fact is that if there is no demand a good, there will be no impetus to supply it.

Willful ignorance and half-assed rationalization don't change that.

If your buying taxed'ed regulated pot, then you can rest knowing your money is not funding hardened violent criminals.

Otherwise...


(This is regards to violence caused by dealers of drugs. Personally I think that THC/LSD/MDMA are less dangerous than alcohol. Meth, and Heroin though is very, very bad)

 Monster Rain wrote:
The simple fact is that if there is no demand a good, there will be no impetus to supply it.

That was the logic behind alcohol prohibition, which has already been pointed out in this thread as the means by which organized crime became rampant. People will want to by drugs of some kind and always will, therefore there will be a need and someone to supply it. The war on drugs bears the responsibility for the violence at home and abroad by not allowing local growers to supply local users like we do with food, alcohol, and all other things that people consume for recreation.

Willful ignorance and half-assed rationalization don't change that.

Naive expectations that needs can be rationalized or legislated away won't change the fact that the needs will continue to exist.

We can talk about how prohibition didn't work, but that doesn't address the OP's point that drug users are accomplices in the violence surrounding the drug trade.
There are other points brought up about sweat shops and gasoline which also merit thought and discussion, but they would probably be done better justice with a thread of their own instead of being buried in this one.

If American drug users are morally culpable, then so are American governments for placing control of such a desirable and lucrative product in the hands of murderous outlaws.

Relapse wrote:
We can talk about how prohibition didn't work, but that doesn't address the OP's point that drug users are accomplices in the violence surrounding the drug trade.
There are other points brought up about sweat shops and gasoline which also merit thought and discussion, but they would probably be done better justice with a thread of their own instead of being buried in this one.

Prohibition for alcohol and prohibition for drugs is the same thing since alcohol is a drug. That addresses the point directly, if drugs weren't illegal, the commerce of drugs wouldn't include violence, just like how legally sold alcohol doesn't have an underlying violent element to it.

 snooggums wrote:

Relapse wrote:
We can talk about how prohibition didn't work, but that doesn't address the OP's point that drug users are accomplices in the violence surrounding the drug trade.
There are other points brought up about sweat shops and gasoline which also merit thought and discussion, but they would probably be done better justice with a thread of their own instead of being buried in this one.

Prohibition for alcohol and prohibition for drugs is the same thing since alcohol is a drug. That addresses the point directly, if drugs weren't illegal, the commerce of drugs wouldn't include violence, just like how legally sold alcohol doesn't have an underlying violent element to it.

In both cases, the users were and are accomplices in the killings and violence going on. If the stuff were decriminalized across the board for everything from pot to meth to cocaine, the users would still be in large part responsible for the killings that had happened to date.
Basically, the desire to get high outweighed the care for human life.

Relapse wrote:

 snooggums wrote:

Relapse wrote:
We can talk about how prohibition didn't work, but that doesn't address the OP's point that drug users are accomplices in the violence surrounding the drug trade.
There are other points brought up about sweat shops and gasoline which also merit thought and discussion, but they would probably be done better justice with a thread of their own instead of being buried in this one.

Prohibition for alcohol and prohibition for drugs is the same thing since alcohol is a drug. That addresses the point directly, if drugs weren't illegal, the commerce of drugs wouldn't include violence, just like how legally sold alcohol doesn't have an underlying violent element to it.

In both cases, the users were and are accomplices in the killings and violence going on. If the stuff were decriminalized across the board for everything from pot to meth to cocaine, the users would still be in large part responsible for the killings that had happened to date.
Basically, the desire to get high outweighed the care for human life.

Does my buying alcohol now that it is legal mean I an responsible for mob killings from Prohibition? Were the people who drank in speakeasies responsible for the deaths of smugglers?

I think there is a massive difference between the Gangsters of Prohibition and the current Drug Lords.


the Gangsters weren't commiting what amounts to outright genoicde in some cases. Terrorizing the civilian populace and generally being evil.

The Gangsters fought with each other over territoy but overall left civilians out of it. And if you did get on their badside your life wasn't necessarily in danger, it depended on the severity of the crime.

The Drug Lords will kill you, rape your wife, and terrorize your neighbors on a whim.

As I said, when it was illegal the people who drank in the speakeasies were accomplices in the killings because the money they gave supplied the motivation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think there is a massive difference between the Gangsters of Prohibition and the current Drug Lords.


the Gangsters weren't commiting what amounts to outright genoicde in some cases. Terrorizing the civilian populace and generally being evil.

The Gangsters fought with each other over territoy but overall left civilians out of it. And if you did get on their badside your life wasn't necessarily in danger, it depended on the severity of the crime.

The Drug Lords will kill you, rape your wife, and terrorize your neighbors on a whim.

This is exactly the thing I've been told is going on in Mexico.

Relapse wrote:
As I said, when it was illegal the people who drank in the speakeasies were accomplices in the killings because the money they gave supplied the motivation.

A) That takes away the responsability of the smugglers who decided willfully to engage in what they knew was a dangerous activity.

B) Each of the individuals that drank shared a portion of the motivation so small that to dissociating themselves from the activity wouldn't have changed the the profit margin in any noticeable way.

C) You've jumped from bearing responsibility to being accomplice. That's an awful lot of responsability.

70 plus bodies found in a shed of people who refused to smuggle drugs for the cartels show that they don't exclude innocent people from their killings.
These people refused to supply drugs to users up here and were killed because of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Relapse wrote:
As I said, when it was illegal the people who drank in the speakeasies were accomplices in the killings because the money they gave supplied the motivation.

A) That takes away the responsability of the smugglers who decided willfully to engage in what they knew was a dangerous activity.

B) Each of the individuals that drank shared a portion of the motivation so small that to dissociating themselves from the activity wouldn't have changed the the profit margin in any noticeable way.

C) You've jumped from bearing responsibility to being accomplice. That's an awful lot of responsability.

I say accomplice, because they are not solely responsible, but are a large part of the problem and motivation to kill. It's like the old saying that goes: No single drop of water holds itself responsible for the flood.

That the American gangsters as a whole during the prohibition era didn't tend to act as inhumanely as the modern ones do is just because of the times. If America implemented prohibition again then they wouldn't all suddenly regain that old criminal code. The same goes for the drug rings back then, they followed different morals. Trying to applying the ethics from decades ago to the modern criminal world is a little silly.

If it wasn't drugs that the cartels were using as a source of income it'd be another banned, limited, or expensive product. Hell they already do it. As long as there's something someone wants then there's going to be a criminal way of getting it, so unless its the case that everything become free and legal there's always going to be some gang pushing a product for sustenance. Get rid of the drug problem and you still have the illegally manufactured goods one. Get rid of that and there's human trafficking, and more. Of course the market's what's fueling the industry, but there's no way that anyone could hope to starve the criminal world, there's always going to be that need for a limited product.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
That the American gangsters as a whole during the prohibition era didn't tend to act as inhumanely as the modern ones do is just because of the times. If America implemented prohibition again then they wouldn't all suddenly regain that old criminal code. The same goes for the drug rings back then, they followed different morals. Trying to applying the ethics from decades ago to the modern criminal world is a little silly.

If it wasn't drugs that the cartels were using as a source of income it'd be another banned, limited, or expensive product. Hell they already do it. As long as there's something someone wants then there's going to be a criminal way of getting it, so unless its the case that everything become free and legal there's always going to be some gang pushing a product for sustenance. Get rid of the drug problem and you still have the illegally manufactured goods one. Get rid of that and there's human trafficking, and more. Of course the market's what's fueling the industry, but there's no way that anyone could hope to starve the criminal world, there's always going to be that need for a limited product.

So you are saying use drugs and forget about all the people being killed along with the destruction of a country? That getting high for a night is worth multiple people dying?

A lot of bad stuff happens in the world, if you stop to think about it you'll either kill yourself or go join the Peace Corps. I'm not saying don't deal with a problem, just that as soon as you solve it another one's going to turn up somewhere else. I don't advocate criminality, but its so much of a problem that I just try and avoid it. I suspect the guys who are doing it probably have a completely different mindset from us and don't care for the ethical issues that result from their actions. Hell if your a freedom fighter in a country who's just killed a local diplomat's children because he's killed yours who's the bad guy in that situation? If you kill a family to better your own life then there's a clear definition of who the bad guy is, but what if drugs are your only sustenance because the local mob or the like's taken the farm land from you? Its situational, morality's a throw away thing when it comes to human need. =P

A) Most people don't know where their drugs are being grown/produced.

B) The User/Dealer relationship is not one where you can start inquiring about the origins of the drug, for reasons which are again more linked to the criminality status. If it wasn't, you'd be able to have a fair and ethical market choice just like coffee.

C) Most drug users I've known are more sensitive to humanitarian issues than non-user, so I beleive they would refuse to purchase if they knew the drug was bloodied.

Ultra-conservative drug laws coupled with the most liberal gun-control in the world makes for a pretty silly situation.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
A lot of bad stuff happens in the world, if you stop to think about it you'll either kill yourself or go join the Peace Corps. I'm not saying don't deal with a problem, just that as soon as you solve it another one's going to turn up somewhere else. I don't advocate criminality, but its so much of a problem that I just try and avoid it. I suspect the guys who are doing it probably have a completely different mindset from us and don't care for the ethical issues that result from their actions. Hell if your a freedom fighter in a country who's just killed a local diplomat's children because he's killed yours who's the bad guy in that situation? If you kill a family to better your own life then there's a clear definition of who the bad guy is, but what if drugs are your only sustenance because the local mob or the like's taken the farm land from you? Its situational, morality's a throw away thing when it comes to human need. =P

People have to be willing to take a stand against the evils in this world or they will overtake us. Look at it this way, if the average drug user were presented with a situation where everytime he used drugs instead of people he doesn't know in another country, but someone he cared about would be killed in some unpleasant way or another,would the attraction to drugs be there?

MarsNZ wrote:
Ultra-conservative drug laws coupled with the most liberal gun-control in the world makes for a pretty silly situation.

Heh, let's try liberal drug laws and liberal gun laws and see what happens...

Then again liberal drug laws and conservative gun laws work quite well, take the Netherlands.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
A) Most people don't know where there drugs are being grown/produced.

B) The User/Dealer relationship is not one where you can start inquiring about the origins of the drug, for reasons which are again more linked to the criminality status. If it wasn't, you'd be able to have a fair and ethical market choice just like coffee.

C) Most drug users I've known are more sensitive to humanitarian issues than non-user, so I beleive they would refuse to purchase if they knew the drug was bloodied.

If they're doing cocaine, there's a better than average chance the drugs are bloodied.
The only way these people would have any escuse is if they've been totaly cut off from all sources of news for the past three decades.