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Jesus Christ, this sounds horrible. There is definitely huge cultural difference between me and an average Seattleite, but for me "supervised injection sites"

Jesus Christ, this sounds horrible. There is definitely huge cultural difference between me and an average Seattleite, but for me "supervised injection sites" doesn't look like an obvious answer at all. The thing you're describing (particularly "3 of the stalls occupied by people doing drugs") sounds like an egregious safety hazard. I'm a big guy, so probably not the easiest target, but I would be terrified to think that my mother or girlfriend could get jumped at in women's restroom. Why don't people demand police to do something about this? Yo guys, I know this may sound crazy to you, but have you thought about imprisoning those junkies? If you're so humane, maybe give them treatment AFTER you take them off the streets? While you're at it, might as well get the name of their supplier and imprison him too -- doesn't sound like a rocket science to me. I don't buy that police is doing a good job right now -- I've been living in NYC in 2011-2015 and for whole 3.5 years every Friday and Saturday there was a guy standing at the intersection outside my work at 15th & 9th peddling coke and molly (the guy was standing there, sometimes walking crosswalks and saying out loud "coke, molly, weed"; not yelling, but loud enough that passerby's could hear him).

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
> every Friday and Saturday there was a guy standing at the intersection outside my work at 15th & 9th peddling coke and molly (the guy was standing there, sometimes walking crosswalks and saying out loud "coke, molly, weed"; not yelling, but loud enough that passerby's could hear him). That's too flagrant to be legit. Did he spend Monday through Thursday listing "solvent traps" on eBay under the username "TotallyNotATF"? I could understand a dealer "advertising" in the open like that in 70s Detroit or somewhere else where the primary mechanism of "law" enforcement is getting paid by a tax on his profits and not by the city but saying "yo I got drugs for sale" is on a whole different level than standing around.
- elliotec 7y ago
  It’s legit and very common in many, many places throughout the world. It wasn’t a cop trap, people just do that.
- yznovyak 7y ago
  I honestly don't know if that was a police trap or not. But considering how easy it is to find drugs in NYC I wouldn't be surprised if it was legit. Like ... at least half of chess hustlers look like they're on something. edit: to be fair -- this may be an act to lure in regular people who may think they have a chance against a tweaker. They don't. Those guys are crazy good.
- IWeldMelons 7y ago
  Go to Seattle U. District after 10pm. Lots of "youth" advertising "some shit" on the Ave.
leetcrew 7y ago
> The thing you're describing (particularly "3 of the stalls occupied by people doing drugs") sounds like an egregious safety hazard. I'm a big guy, so probably not the easiest target, but I would be terrified to think that my mother or girlfriend could get jumped at in women's restroom. I hate to break it to you, but there are people other than drug addicts who are willing to jump your mother/girlfriend in the women's restroom.
- afiori 7y ago
  Which is not the point, sober people have driving incidents all the time, yet I am more scared of drunk drivers.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    of course, but being drunk has a direct impact on your ability to drive. I am pushing back on the implication that people who are in the act of shooting up are uniquely dangerous people who need to be kept out of the bathroom. I could easily believe that, as a group, IV drug users are more likely to commit violent crimes out of desperation than the average citizen, but there are plenty of other people like this, including people who are just very poor. the most ridiculous part is that you can fix this by not letting them shoot up in the bathroom. even if they can't do drugs in there, they still have to pee sometimes, and then your mother/girlfriend is in there with a Dangerous Drug User again.
    - afiori 7y ago
      > the most ridiculous part is that you can fix this by not letting them shoot up in the bathroom. On this I agree, I personally am against legalizing drugs, but I am also against criminalizing drug use. Public safe places to use drugs that are not used as bait from the police are essential (IMO) to solve drug problems when they are already widespread. However I agree that it is not wrong to be scared of drug users, especially just after use and when you or the people you know are not prepared to handle someone under influence.
CathedralBorrow 7y ago
> Yo guys, I know this may sound crazy to you, but have you thought about imprisoning those junkies? Why do you think this approach hasn't worked so far? Do you think if we only arrested more drug users the war on drugs would finally be over?
- yznovyak 7y ago
  > Why do you think this approach hasn't worked so far? Because you are not actually jailing people, duh. GP has written about 3 stalls being used by drug addicts at the same time! Where the fuck is police watching? Drugs are ridiculously easy to come by, hence why I believe the police isn't doing it's job. > Do you think if we only arrested more drug users the war on drugs would finally be over? Yes. Currently USA is doing absolute jack shit and wondering why the war on drugs is being lost. It seems that everyone but the police knows about dozen of celebrities who are doing drugs on an industrial scale. There are people whose identity and fame are revolving around drugs, for example Snoop Dogg, why the fuck he's not in jail already? The guy was smoking lifetime sentence worth weed per week way before it was decriminalized. I'm not going to believe that you guys are actually having war on drugs until you actually start jailing high profile public drug users. Strict and actual enforcement of drug laws works. Period. Singapore and Japan are effectively drug free. Off top of my head more recent examples are Georgia (the country) and Davao city, which have eradicated rampant drug use in matter of years. For the record: I have absolutely nothing against the drugs and am 100% for legalizing majority of drugs. But I'm very against saying that US is actually doing something about the drugs -- it's like hearing a fat kid who is eating a cake right fucking now claiming that he's on a diet and has been dieting for a long while and the fact that he is still fat proves that diets don't work.
  - jMyles 7y ago
    > Because you are not actually jailing people, duh. The United States has 2 million prisoners. 6 million people are under supervision of other phases of the "criminal justice system." This is the largest imprisonment regime in the history of the planet in sheer numbers, and the largest present today in sheer numbers or per capita. How many do you propose jailing? > Snoop Dogg, why the fuck he's not in jail already The answer to this is simple: the government does not have the power to do this and yet continue stay in power (this is sometimes called "political capital"). Cannabis prohibition has never enjoyed anywhere near consensus support among Americans, and hasn't even enjoyed majority support for a decade now. Jailing Snoop Dogg for smoking cannabis will result in nothing short of a general strike (or worse) among young people, especially young people of color. It is not an exaggeration to say that an event of this magnitude, conducted in the public eye against an articulate public figure, effectively turning that person into a political prisoner, is likely to result in the total collapse of the US political system. As you rightly point out, the government enforces the law with a great deal of "discretion", sometimes carefully choosing to tread in places that won't result in this sort of revolt. The drug war is already on a razor's edge. And I think that the state has already shown a willingness to imprison (in 13th amendment terms, to enslave) a huge mass of Americans. The reason that more is not done is because it is politically impossible. > Strict and actual enforcement of drug laws works. Period. Your use of the sentence "Period" indicates to me that you don't actually take your own position particularly seriously. And you are unambiguously incorrect on this point, at least if you take every academic expert seriously. Moreover, you seem to be under- and mis-informed about the facts surrounding drug policy, and this appears to be hampering your argument. If you are interested in gaining knowledge in this area, I suggest Mike Gray's book, Drug Crazy, in which he very convincingly shows the futility of prohibition in a world historical context. [0] I think that Drug Crazy is a very effective refutation, made by someone who is a deeply compelling author, a lauded drug policy expert, and cannabis consumer, to the assertion that "Strict and actual enforcement of [drug prohibition] works." > Singapore and Japan are effectively drug free. I think that it has been reasonable to assume sincerity on your part until this statement. But now I'm not so sure. Do you really mean this? Are you just totally unaware of these reality of these societies? First of all, declaring a particular political region "effectively drug free" requires that you first adopt a contrived definition of what a "drug" is. Both regions you have chosen have cultures that celebrate intoxication from alcohol, a drug whose toxicity profile is similar to heroin and withdrawal from which is a far more dire medical episode than withdrawal from heroin. Japan in particular embodies this phenomenon as much as any place on the planet. So before we even talk about the actual prevalence of addiction in these societies - rates of which are extremely difficult to ascertain due in part to drug prohibition - we have to recognize that this ostensible achievement has come only by choosing to allow the vast majority of drugs, again including alcohol, which is perhaps the most intoxicating and debilitating drug among those widely consumed by humans, to remain legal and then handling the consequences of their unhindered consumption. The fact that Singapore and Japan have purportedly reduced consumption of a tiny few drugs out of the pharmacopeia of thousands is not impressive, nor touted as a success by any serious drug policy expert. > I'm very against saying that US is actually doing something about the drugs Fine, I can understand this position. I think that you need to educate yourself on the history of political capital as it is consumed by prohibition, from the opium wars to wrangling over the Southern border of the USA today. For this, I recommend Jim Gray's (unrelated to the other author I suggested) book [1] or Michelle Alexander's book [2]. If books are not your thing, let me know what kind of media you prefer to consume and I will dig some up for you. 0: http://drugcrazy.com/ http://drugcrazy.com/ 1: http://www.judgejimgray.com/whyourdruglawshavefailed.php http://www.judgejimgray.com/whyourdruglawshavefailed.php 2: http://newjimcrow.com/ http://newjimcrow.com/
atorodius 7y ago
We have these sites in Switzerland and it helped massively to take Heroin shooters off the streets. https://arud.ch https://arud.ch
jMyles 7y ago
> Yo guys, I know this may sound crazy to you, but have you thought about imprisoning those junkies? Indeed, it sounds crazy. In fact, it's very close to the cliché definition of insanity: what you are proposing has been done over and over again, without a single successful example of prohibition in all of western political history. But more than crazy, what you're suggesting sounds childish, expensive, and complicated. It does not sound like sober thinking about effective public policy to deal with the consequences of addiction. A contrasting approach which is mature, affordable, and simple, is to legalize all plants and to create a controlled, safe market for plant derivatives like heroin. This will have the impact that is most important: it will disrupt the income stream of the drug cartels and dealers who, as I'm sure you already know, share your policy approach quite passionately.
- dsr_ 7y ago
  Glancing through yznovak's post history, he's a Ukrainian who is very much in favor of the death penalty for using drugs. He doesn't seem to be interested in considering any other alternatives, either.
  - yznovyak 7y ago
    I am a Ukrainian, but I also used to live in the US (working for Facebook 2009-2011 living in Palo Alto and regularly visiting San Francisco, and working at Google 2011-2015 living in NYC), I have now returned to Ukraine. A homeless person has thrown shit at me in San Francisco in 2011 around Powell Station. I have been waiting for corporate bus on Market street to take me to Palo Alto and have seen homeless people brazenly smoking weed across the street. I do not believe you guys are doing ANYTHING to fight drugs despite all the claims. I am not against drugs, I have plenty of friends who are responsible users. I am not for death penalty (I think I know which comment you are referring to, that was a Devil's Advocate). edit: as per wikipedia [1] there are ~7k homeless people living in San Francisco. As per the same article it is said that SF spends $241M on homeless people. This averages out to ~34.5k$/year ~= $2870/month. I will never believe that average homeless person is getting $2870 worth of goods and services per month. I'm saying that your homeless program is grossly inefficient. The same way as your drug war is an utter joke. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_San_Franci...
imtringued 7y ago
For people with withdrawal symptoms and dependency "illegal drugs" are medicine just like any other legal drug. The biggest problem with illegal drugs is the lack of proper dosage and access to clean drugs without contaminants (codeword for brick dust) from street dealers who wouldn't mind ruining the health of their customers for a quick profit. If you let doctors give these people what they need in a safe manner it is possible to reduce most of the downsides of illegal drugs. Imprisonment just fuels the pockets of drug dealers and gives organized crime a profit motive. Ever wondered why terrorism is so rare but organized crime is so common? Because terrorism isn't profitable.
e40 7y ago
Yo guys, I know this may sound crazy to you, but have you thought about imprisoning those junkies? If you're so humane, maybe give them treatment AFTER you take them off the streets? While you're at it, might as well get the name of their supplier and imprison him too -- doesn't sound like a rocket science to me. I can't tell if you are a troll or not. This is literally the war on drugs for the last 40 years. How's it working out for us??
- yznovyak 7y ago
  I'm not a troll. I'm writing from an account that is tied to my real name. This was my personal opinion. Also to clarify: I'm not against drugs. I am against saying that you are actually doing something to fight them. The current war on drugs is not doing anything because THERE IS NO WAR ON DRUGS. You are doing barely anything and claiming that it's not working. Here's my response to the sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19682651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19682651 It has more examples and may clarify my position a little better.
  - objectivetruth 7y ago
    You're not a troll but you have some major hyperbole and strawmen issues. When you say Americans are 'barely doing anything' about drugs, and we point out that 7 million people were arrested in a 9-year period for cannabis possession, and that to all those people and their families, that IS A LOT. That is A Big Deal, dude. Many of those people spent time in jail, paid thousands of dollars in fines, and are now permanently cut off from the federal student loan/grant program. So you basically shift the goalposts to "Ah, that's not enough. That's not really "doing" anything. They should hunt down and jail cannabis users like Snoop Dogg." Unlike one of my fellow commenters, I don't think doing that would cause a general strike in the population, BUT it would be widely acknowledged as an incredible overreach in policing priorities and cost-effectiveness. A significant fraction of Americans think that our current anti-drug criminal justice system is incredibly authoritarian and anti-democratic and heavily over-funded already, even despite the recent liberalization on cannabis in some areas.... so that's probably why when you say "Oh, America isn't doing anything about drugs," you get so many people saying "WTF?!"

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

> every Friday and Saturday there was a guy standing at the intersection outside my work at 15th & 9th peddling coke and molly (the guy was standing there, sometimes walking crosswalks and saying out loud "coke, molly, weed"; not yelling, but loud enough that passerby's could hear him). That's too flagrant to be legit. Did he spend Monday through Thursday listing "solvent traps" on eBay under the username "TotallyNotATF"? I could understand a dealer "advertising" in the open like that in 70s Detroit or somewhere else where the primary mechanism of "law" enforcement is getting paid by a tax on his profits and not by the city but saying "yo I got drugs for sale" is on a whole different level than standing around.

elliotec 7y ago
It’s legit and very common in many, many places throughout the world. It wasn’t a cop trap, people just do that.
yznovyak 7y ago
I honestly don't know if that was a police trap or not. But considering how easy it is to find drugs in NYC I wouldn't be surprised if it was legit. Like ... at least half of chess hustlers look like they're on something. edit: to be fair -- this may be an act to lure in regular people who may think they have a chance against a tweaker. They don't. Those guys are crazy good.
IWeldMelons 7y ago
Go to Seattle U. District after 10pm. Lots of "youth" advertising "some shit" on the Ave.

leetcrew 7y ago

> The thing you're describing (particularly "3 of the stalls occupied by people doing drugs") sounds like an egregious safety hazard. I'm a big guy, so probably not the easiest target, but I would be terrified to think that my mother or girlfriend could get jumped at in women's restroom. I hate to break it to you, but there are people other than drug addicts who are willing to jump your mother/girlfriend in the women's restroom.

afiori 7y ago
Which is not the point, sober people have driving incidents all the time, yet I am more scared of drunk drivers.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  of course, but being drunk has a direct impact on your ability to drive. I am pushing back on the implication that people who are in the act of shooting up are uniquely dangerous people who need to be kept out of the bathroom. I could easily believe that, as a group, IV drug users are more likely to commit violent crimes out of desperation than the average citizen, but there are plenty of other people like this, including people who are just very poor. the most ridiculous part is that you can fix this by not letting them shoot up in the bathroom. even if they can't do drugs in there, they still have to pee sometimes, and then your mother/girlfriend is in there with a Dangerous Drug User again.
  - afiori 7y ago
    > the most ridiculous part is that you can fix this by not letting them shoot up in the bathroom. On this I agree, I personally am against legalizing drugs, but I am also against criminalizing drug use. Public safe places to use drugs that are not used as bait from the police are essential (IMO) to solve drug problems when they are already widespread. However I agree that it is not wrong to be scared of drug users, especially just after use and when you or the people you know are not prepared to handle someone under influence.

CathedralBorrow 7y ago

> Yo guys, I know this may sound crazy to you, but have you thought about imprisoning those junkies? Why do you think this approach hasn't worked so far? Do you think if we only arrested more drug users the war on drugs would finally be over?

yznovyak 7y ago
> Why do you think this approach hasn't worked so far? Because you are not actually jailing people, duh. GP has written about 3 stalls being used by drug addicts at the same time! Where the fuck is police watching? Drugs are ridiculously easy to come by, hence why I believe the police isn't doing it's job. > Do you think if we only arrested more drug users the war on drugs would finally be over? Yes. Currently USA is doing absolute jack shit and wondering why the war on drugs is being lost. It seems that everyone but the police knows about dozen of celebrities who are doing drugs on an industrial scale. There are people whose identity and fame are revolving around drugs, for example Snoop Dogg, why the fuck he's not in jail already? The guy was smoking lifetime sentence worth weed per week way before it was decriminalized. I'm not going to believe that you guys are actually having war on drugs until you actually start jailing high profile public drug users. Strict and actual enforcement of drug laws works. Period. Singapore and Japan are effectively drug free. Off top of my head more recent examples are Georgia (the country) and Davao city, which have eradicated rampant drug use in matter of years. For the record: I have absolutely nothing against the drugs and am 100% for legalizing majority of drugs. But I'm very against saying that US is actually doing something about the drugs -- it's like hearing a fat kid who is eating a cake right fucking now claiming that he's on a diet and has been dieting for a long while and the fact that he is still fat proves that diets don't work.
- jMyles 7y ago
  > Because you are not actually jailing people, duh. The United States has 2 million prisoners. 6 million people are under supervision of other phases of the "criminal justice system." This is the largest imprisonment regime in the history of the planet in sheer numbers, and the largest present today in sheer numbers or per capita. How many do you propose jailing? > Snoop Dogg, why the fuck he's not in jail already The answer to this is simple: the government does not have the power to do this and yet continue stay in power (this is sometimes called "political capital"). Cannabis prohibition has never enjoyed anywhere near consensus support among Americans, and hasn't even enjoyed majority support for a decade now. Jailing Snoop Dogg for smoking cannabis will result in nothing short of a general strike (or worse) among young people, especially young people of color. It is not an exaggeration to say that an event of this magnitude, conducted in the public eye against an articulate public figure, effectively turning that person into a political prisoner, is likely to result in the total collapse of the US political system. As you rightly point out, the government enforces the law with a great deal of "discretion", sometimes carefully choosing to tread in places that won't result in this sort of revolt. The drug war is already on a razor's edge. And I think that the state has already shown a willingness to imprison (in 13th amendment terms, to enslave) a huge mass of Americans. The reason that more is not done is because it is politically impossible. > Strict and actual enforcement of drug laws works. Period. Your use of the sentence "Period" indicates to me that you don't actually take your own position particularly seriously. And you are unambiguously incorrect on this point, at least if you take every academic expert seriously. Moreover, you seem to be under- and mis-informed about the facts surrounding drug policy, and this appears to be hampering your argument. If you are interested in gaining knowledge in this area, I suggest Mike Gray's book, Drug Crazy, in which he very convincingly shows the futility of prohibition in a world historical context. [0] I think that Drug Crazy is a very effective refutation, made by someone who is a deeply compelling author, a lauded drug policy expert, and cannabis consumer, to the assertion that "Strict and actual enforcement of [drug prohibition] works." > Singapore and Japan are effectively drug free. I think that it has been reasonable to assume sincerity on your part until this statement. But now I'm not so sure. Do you really mean this? Are you just totally unaware of these reality of these societies? First of all, declaring a particular political region "effectively drug free" requires that you first adopt a contrived definition of what a "drug" is. Both regions you have chosen have cultures that celebrate intoxication from alcohol, a drug whose toxicity profile is similar to heroin and withdrawal from which is a far more dire medical episode than withdrawal from heroin. Japan in particular embodies this phenomenon as much as any place on the planet. So before we even talk about the actual prevalence of addiction in these societies - rates of which are extremely difficult to ascertain due in part to drug prohibition - we have to recognize that this ostensible achievement has come only by choosing to allow the vast majority of drugs, again including alcohol, which is perhaps the most intoxicating and debilitating drug among those widely consumed by humans, to remain legal and then handling the consequences of their unhindered consumption. The fact that Singapore and Japan have purportedly reduced consumption of a tiny few drugs out of the pharmacopeia of thousands is not impressive, nor touted as a success by any serious drug policy expert. > I'm very against saying that US is actually doing something about the drugs Fine, I can understand this position. I think that you need to educate yourself on the history of political capital as it is consumed by prohibition, from the opium wars to wrangling over the Southern border of the USA today. For this, I recommend Jim Gray's (unrelated to the other author I suggested) book [1] or Michelle Alexander's book [2]. If books are not your thing, let me know what kind of media you prefer to consume and I will dig some up for you. 0: http://drugcrazy.com/ http://drugcrazy.com/ 1: http://www.judgejimgray.com/whyourdruglawshavefailed.php http://www.judgejimgray.com/whyourdruglawshavefailed.php 2: http://newjimcrow.com/ http://newjimcrow.com/

atorodius 7y ago

We have these sites in Switzerland and it helped massively to take Heroin shooters off the streets. https://arud.ch https://arud.ch

jMyles 7y ago

> Yo guys, I know this may sound crazy to you, but have you thought about imprisoning those junkies? Indeed, it sounds crazy. In fact, it's very close to the cliché definition of insanity: what you are proposing has been done over and over again, without a single successful example of prohibition in all of western political history. But more than crazy, what you're suggesting sounds childish, expensive, and complicated. It does not sound like sober thinking about effective public policy to deal with the consequences of addiction. A contrasting approach which is mature, affordable, and simple, is to legalize all plants and to create a controlled, safe market for plant derivatives like heroin. This will have the impact that is most important: it will disrupt the income stream of the drug cartels and dealers who, as I'm sure you already know, share your policy approach quite passionately.

dsr_ 7y ago
Glancing through yznovak's post history, he's a Ukrainian who is very much in favor of the death penalty for using drugs. He doesn't seem to be interested in considering any other alternatives, either.
- yznovyak 7y ago
  I am a Ukrainian, but I also used to live in the US (working for Facebook 2009-2011 living in Palo Alto and regularly visiting San Francisco, and working at Google 2011-2015 living in NYC), I have now returned to Ukraine. A homeless person has thrown shit at me in San Francisco in 2011 around Powell Station. I have been waiting for corporate bus on Market street to take me to Palo Alto and have seen homeless people brazenly smoking weed across the street. I do not believe you guys are doing ANYTHING to fight drugs despite all the claims. I am not against drugs, I have plenty of friends who are responsible users. I am not for death penalty (I think I know which comment you are referring to, that was a Devil's Advocate). edit: as per wikipedia [1] there are ~7k homeless people living in San Francisco. As per the same article it is said that SF spends $241M on homeless people. This averages out to ~34.5k$/year ~= $2870/month. I will never believe that average homeless person is getting $2870 worth of goods and services per month. I'm saying that your homeless program is grossly inefficient. The same way as your drug war is an utter joke. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_San_Franci...

imtringued 7y ago

For people with withdrawal symptoms and dependency "illegal drugs" are medicine just like any other legal drug. The biggest problem with illegal drugs is the lack of proper dosage and access to clean drugs without contaminants (codeword for brick dust) from street dealers who wouldn't mind ruining the health of their customers for a quick profit. If you let doctors give these people what they need in a safe manner it is possible to reduce most of the downsides of illegal drugs. Imprisonment just fuels the pockets of drug dealers and gives organized crime a profit motive. Ever wondered why terrorism is so rare but organized crime is so common? Because terrorism isn't profitable.

e40 7y ago

Yo guys, I know this may sound crazy to you, but have you thought about imprisoning those junkies? If you're so humane, maybe give them treatment AFTER you take them off the streets? While you're at it, might as well get the name of their supplier and imprison him too -- doesn't sound like a rocket science to me. I can't tell if you are a troll or not. This is literally the war on drugs for the last 40 years. How's it working out for us??

yznovyak 7y ago
I'm not a troll. I'm writing from an account that is tied to my real name. This was my personal opinion. Also to clarify: I'm not against drugs. I am against saying that you are actually doing something to fight them. The current war on drugs is not doing anything because THERE IS NO WAR ON DRUGS. You are doing barely anything and claiming that it's not working. Here's my response to the sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19682651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19682651 It has more examples and may clarify my position a little better.
- objectivetruth 7y ago
  You're not a troll but you have some major hyperbole and strawmen issues. When you say Americans are 'barely doing anything' about drugs, and we point out that 7 million people were arrested in a 9-year period for cannabis possession, and that to all those people and their families, that IS A LOT. That is A Big Deal, dude. Many of those people spent time in jail, paid thousands of dollars in fines, and are now permanently cut off from the federal student loan/grant program. So you basically shift the goalposts to "Ah, that's not enough. That's not really "doing" anything. They should hunt down and jail cannabis users like Snoop Dogg." Unlike one of my fellow commenters, I don't think doing that would cause a general strike in the population, BUT it would be widely acknowledged as an incredible overreach in policing priorities and cost-effectiveness. A significant fraction of Americans think that our current anti-drug criminal justice system is incredibly authoritarian and anti-democratic and heavily over-funded already, even despite the recent liberalization on cannabis in some areas.... so that's probably why when you say "Oh, America isn't doing anything about drugs," you get so many people saying "WTF?!"