Unfortunately, I think for many in America, the conversation need not even advance to discussing efficiency, effectiveness or value.
Government propaganda, a good deal of it channelled through TV and Hollywood have so thuroughly established unrepentant drug users as villians that many people want it prosecuted on its face for its immorality.
Lawmakers find it difficult to let up on drug crimes because they are quickly painted as weak and enablers of other crimes. It's the same tirh the death penalty. The problems with it are plain for all to see. But lawmakers feel the need to signal the virtue of "justice" or "strength" and enough voters still respond to that signal. Even in the supposedly lefty stare of Washington where I reside, progress on criminal justice issues has been glacially slow.
Government propaganda, a good deal of it channelled through TV and Hollywood have so thuroughly established unrepentant drug users as villians that many people want it prosecuted on its face for its immorality.
Lawmakers find it difficult to let up on drug crimes because they are quickly painted as weak and enablers of other crimes. It's the same tirh the death penalty. The problems with it are plain for all to see. But lawmakers feel the need to signal the virtue of "justice" or "strength" and enough voters still respond to that signal. Even in the supposedly lefty stare of Washington where I reside, progress on criminal justice issues has been glacially slow.