To be fair, alcohol has not always been "fine". There have been various times in history where alcohol was prohibited and in fact still is in some countries. As much as what happened is a travesty, alcohol may be a good comparison for what is happening with Cannabis. After the prohibition in the US, Alcohol became legal and frankly widespread. Perhaps the same thing will soon happen for weed
Consumption of alcohol seems to be trending down in the West -- the figures for adult males' consumption in the 19th and early 20th century is shocking compared to today. So, lifting prohibition doesn't necessarily lead to higher consumption forever, there are cultural factors (and legal ones like drunk driving being taken more seriously than it once was) that reduce usage.
In 1770, colonial Americans drank about 3.5 gallons of alcohol per year - today it’s roughly 2.3.
One thing I learned when visiting an old settlement in Iowa: the settlers of the time made sure to have a constant supply of beer. The rate they consumed beer seemed to mean they’d have a slight buzz throughout many days.
In those time "beer" was drunk like water because it was safer than drinking the parasite and disease-infested water. Today we (mostly) all have water that is safe to drink.
This is apparently a bit of a myth. There was some knowledge of safe versus unsafe water. “Clean” water supplies weren’t uncommon and alcohol wasn’t a common substitute for clean drinking water.
That said, the beer was often weak and watered down so any mention of chronic use should be tempered by the strength of the drink.
The beer that was being consumed was often table beer, 3%abv at the absolute most. Made with a small amount of malt, left to ferment only a couple days. 3.5 gallons a year means about an ounce and a quarter a day. Drinking a gallon of 1%abv beer every day is probably not great for your liver but you might never feel an alcohol buzz from it.
Heavy drinking and all its bad effects were more common back then, but I don't think table beer is the culprit.
That number of 3.5 gallons per year is in terms of pure ethanol. 3.5 gallons of ethanol weighs 10,500 grams, which at 14 grams per standard drink is 750 drinks per year, or 2 drinks per day on average. That's quite a lot.
Right, I think we agree on the math here. When we read about people in the 18th century drinking beer with breakfast, they weren't having a standard drink. It was more likely a very low ABV drink.
If you drank a gallon of 1%ABV beer every day, you'd have 3.65 gallons of ethanol per year. That's not exactly what was happening - binges on whiskey and rum were common, but they weren't constantly buzzed, either.
That much alcohol is going to be bad for a liver no matter how you drink it. I don't think this was healthy. My point is just that there was less inebriation than we suppose when we think about drinking beer with breakfast
since this is Malaysia it needs a disclaimer: "except for Muslims"
I would also not drink in certain places like Kelantan and Terengganu[1] even as a non-Muslim otherwise the locals might get really upset :)
One colleague got caught carrying weed into KL int airport from NZ (< 3gramm) in '97 for personal consumption (the idiot). He was supposed to go offshore with us (work on oil-rigs). Instead he spent 5 nights in prison. Our office (a large US diving company) sent their local lawyer to pay a bribe and get him back to work. It was a minor inconvenience that could have ended really badly.
If you ever get yourself arrested in such a country make sure to contact a lawyer. Avoid contacting your embassy as the first step (which often escalates situations in ways the country is supposed to "act tough".) Better yet don't smuggle drugs (even if it's just weed)
> Muslims are barred from drinking alcohol. Non-Muslims do not face any curbs but some local governments discourage the sale of alcohol in neighbourhoods that are predominantly Muslim. In the states of Kelantan and Terengganu, alcohol bans are enforced in places like hotels, but non-Muslim establishments like Chinese restaurants and sundry shops are pretty much left alone.
Kelantan has some crazy rules but you can definitely drink to excess in a tourist hotel or on the islands without any concern. The Perhentians is certainly not a pious place of purity, it gets fairly loose there.
> If you ever get yourself arrested in such a country make sure to contact a lawyer.
Not getting arrested in the first place is what you should really be doing. In basically all of South-East Asia on-the-spot fines are routine and expected. If you don't go that route and it hits the books you are in for a world of trouble and no amount of coffee money will save you. Not endorsing this, simply saying that's how it works.
> In basically all of South-East Asia on-the-spot fines are routine and expected. If you don't go that route and it hits the books you are in for a world of trouble and no amount of coffee money will save you.
Except in Singapore. Don't bribe the cops in Singapore — the police and other law enforcement officials are paid a very decent wage here [1], and they'll just report you to save their own skin.
There will always be a tiny sliver of the population who prove themselves unsuitable/unable/unsafe to live freely with society and that society has to deal with them somehow.
Whether it’s better to lock them away to suffer an isolated existence for life or sentence them to die is a matter that can be debated I think, as both paths have elements that are more terrible than the other.
Locking someone away wrongly for a year or twenty years is also permanent in that they can’t get that life/time back, even if they’re still alive when found not guilty. It’s just permanent and slightly smaller, but still a horrific theft IMO.
Weighing economic costs against a human's right to live looks like a very strong indicator for a barbaric society to me. Although I'm aware that this is done (implicitly) in probably all societies to some degree.
It's a good thing the extra rigor applied to death penalty usage in the US causes it to be more expensive than life imprisonment. Giving the state a fiscal incentive to execute would be heinous.
Urgh I missed that, but I maintain that his comment is firmly "idiot comment" material as it's pretty obvious that the context is about capital punishment and not getting into a gunfight.
The article is about the relative opposition to this policy in Malaysia, compared to in many other countries where these things are banned and heavily penalized, and therefore the possibility that this man will become a "cause celebre" for changing the regulation around medical marijuana.
Shameful this is happening but I was curious to why are these laws so strict there? Was it because of why/when they were written? Maybe some info on how seriously the locals live by these laws? The article could have explored that regions' strictness more, it just repeats the title, over and over into a few paragraphs. Similar to news coverage of a fire.
I'll take a try at this. The answer is some combination of:
1. Traditional Asian values
2. Legacy of British colonial law. Punishment by hanging and caning were introduced by the British
3. Southeast Asia was a drug trafficking hotspot in the 70s. IIRC at least some of the harsh drug penalties are from recent times as a reaction to that
Just like US drug laws aren’t driven by one thing but rather a combination of moral fears, racism, fear of crime, intent to protect people from themselves, etc.
The claim of industrial hemp being held down, is something one mainly hears from Americans unaware that there is an entire world outside their borders. In many other countries, though cannabis as a drug might be restricted, hemp for industrial use was never banned. Yet modern industry has shown little interest in use of hemp because, indeed, paper and plastic in their current forms are regarded as superior.
Malaysia like all predominantly Muslim countries have some incredibly barbaric and backward laws such as death penalty for being gay, using drugs, or insulting those in power. The mere accusation of sodomy[1] is enough in all of these places to spend life in prison, a labor camp or worse.
> The article could have explored that regions' strictness more
Make no mistake, drug suppression benefits many parties: governments to have a tight control over the people (their consciousness), and entities that profit from the situation and would be harmed by drug liberalization (both "legal" businesses and underground drug industry). And they will hold the regulation tight as long as they can, regardless of what's actually best for people all things considered. Hence the absolutely disproportionate and draconic laws in many parts of the world (including the developed countries).
However, the biggest offenders in my view are the "unthinking masses" that dictate the overall view on drugs and drug use, hence, block reason and change. For some reason when it comes to drugs it's allowed to have a really strong opinion and say on how _others_ should live based on either absolutely nothing, or fear-mongering fuelled by the aforementioned beneficiaries.
Yes, drugs do harm people, but not intrinsically. People die from over-doses because of mis-information and not knowing what they get (from the random guy on the street). People get hooked but mostly as an expression of underlying problems. Why is alcoholism and gambling more OK? And do we help people by taking their substances but leaving them in the same shitty life situation? That's just patting yourself on the back for actually not doing anything.
At the same time people use responsibly as well, you just don't hear from them because, well, why would they tell you about it if it means getting ostracized, thrown in jail, or killed?
If you don't stay neutral if you haven't at all educated yourself about this fairly complex topic (which it totally fine), you are on the wrong side of history, the witch-hunter of today, and will be frowned upon by the future generations.
I can't help but imagine in 20-30 years the wold is going to on an "Apology Tour" over cannabis. The dam has broken on cannabis legalization, and the laws in some of these countries I feel is hanging on by a thread at this point.
At some point in the future everyone will come to their senses and were going to have days of remembrance for people that we harmed in the drug war, I hope.
It's easy to say "you are on the wrong side of history."
Indeed. No matter how convinced I am that I'm right in a discussion with friends/family, if I used a phrase like "right/wrong side of history," I would immediately lose their attention if not their friendship. It's vital to remember why people still disagree with whatever you believe in, rather than just steamroll and ignore them.
Exactly. When will the world come to its senses on abortion and realize it's the basic human right of a pregnant person to abort a pregnancy they don't want?
How does a law punish one for succesful suicide? Orthodox priests refuse to do funeral service and refuse to burry suicide victims in the cemeteries that they control, as if the deceased even cares.
The context didn't require any opinion either way - just a list of contentious issues.
There are already plenty threads here and on the net discussing abortion - you are just stating your own beliefs without any justification, or attempt to address the crux of the topic.
I thought you were playing devil's advocate and I wanted to take the bait. My apologies.
Regardless, in a discussion, I don't the onus is on me expound on the numerous facets of the position right from the get-go. Abortion is a topic with many facets. You can't cover it all at once. I mean, yeah, you have to establish a position to start, but not all that much.
I think rather than just saying 'without any justification' you could have more charitably asked a number of clarifying questions or could have taken an opposing stance to argue from. There was enough in my statement to squabble over.
The discussion of abortion is off-topic, and likely to become the kind of dog-pile that overtakes the original thread.
In general, the onus isn't on you to "expound the numerous facets" - but I think it is on you to expand on your own claims to the point they can be understood; for example - what is a "human right", are you talking about legal rights, or your own opinion; What is a "pregnancy" - do you include all trimesters, allowing abortion up until birth? etc etc etc
Note, I don't really want to get into the discussion, I'm just pointing out no-one could understand you position without follow-up questions.
> There was enough in my statement to squabble over.
True, but the same can be said of any unsubstantial post - you want me to charitably ask for substance, but "unjustified" statements are a dime-a-dozen, and can easily flood a thread - It's just as easy from my perspective to down-vote and move on.
Providing a fuller context in the first place, to me, proves greater good faith wrt wanting a good discussion, and a better guarantee the continuing the conversation will be productive.
You have made good points and I appreciate your response. I also don't really want this discussion. Your point about not overrunning the main thread is particularly applicable.
Capitalism has healthy and dysfunctional variants based on the attitudes of the people who engage in it. Meat eating is only wrong when you factory farm for billions of people. Abortion is distasteful, but as long as the child is reliant on the body of the mother to survive, she should have the ability to withdraw that support.
I am afraid in 20-30 years we will see the real consequences of smoking cannabis non-stop. I've never seen so many people smoking it as if it was part of their diet. And it's not even legal here.
More widespread and acceptable but that doesn’t mean that individuals are smoking more, just that more people are indulging. Even that may not be a large, overall increase from the studies I’ve seen. The main effect of legalization in our area was that it was no longer hidden.
More widespread means more people are smoking. And culturally now it's seen as normal as alcohol.
Kids here smoke as soon as they start high school, that's around 12-13 years. After a couple years they gather before school starts to smoke, then go to class, then smoke again.
>People die from over-doses because of mis-information and not knowing what they get (from the random guy on the street).
Certainly, 81,000 dead in the US during 2020 is a lot of misinformation and ignorance. Presumably these are mostly young lives each with family members having to live with the tragedy.
Not all who oppose legalization are from the 'unthinking masses'. Here's an argument from someone who's spent his working life as a psychiatrist working with prisoners and their drug habits. https://www.city-journal.org/html/don%E2%80%99t-legalize-dru...
"If the war against drugs is lost, then so are the wars against theft, speeding, incest, fraud, rape, murder, arson, and illegal parking."
I wish this country would wage a war on rape instead of a war on drugs. But it seems to have no interest in that.
Obviously the big, glaring, unmissable difference between drug use and the other crimes you've mentioned is that doing drugs is a personal choice that primary impacts the individual whereas every other item on your list is only a crime because it has a victim.
81000 is almost a factor 50 higher per capita than portugal which has decriminalized most drugs and treats addicts as people with a health issue, like one might alcoholics.
The quote you pulled from the article from 1997 is also pretty pathetic.
If the author can't distinguish between a crime where there is a very clear perpetrator and victim (rape/incest/murder) and one where at essence we are talking about self harm (drugs/suicide) the premise leaves a lot to be desired.
> And they will hold the regulation tight as long as they can, regardless of what's actually best for people all things considered.
I get dismayed when people think of drugs in terms of social freedom and opposing government. This is quite frankly a highly liberal view. And not one at all in line with the true definition of drugs.
Drugs are an intoxicant. They destroy minds. They destroy health. And they can make addicts lose control. Not to mention destroy communities. There are laws on the books specifically for this reason. It affects society. It does not just stop at the individual. There is a reason why neighborhoods around bars fall in value. While those around coffee shops rise in value.
Drug users WHO ARE IN CONTROL OF THEMSELVES see rules against drugs as oppressive. But the rules were never made for them! Using drugs is like balancing the tight rope, not something everyone can do. And advocates need to understand this.
Lastly comparing illegal intoxicants as similar to legal intoxicants is a poor justification. You try to stretch people’s benign feelings to one form of drugs onto another.
> Drugs are an intoxicant. They destroy minds. They destroy health. And they can make addicts lose control. Not to mention destroy communities. There are laws on the books specifically for this reason.
That's simply not true, or there would be laws on the books banning alcohol, too.
It's just arbitrary culture bias against certain drugs, weaponized against minorities.
Anyone who opposes the legalization of drugs (especially weed, but lots of others) but drinks/thinks alcohol should remain legal is just an absolute hypocrite.
Yup. 100%. If you are pro alcohol but anti weed you are either willfully ignorant or a hypocrite. I've partaken in both heavily in the past and now partake in neither but if I was going to casually pick one up again for social reasons weed would have a far lessor impact negatively on my life.
There were laws, a constitutional amendment in fact, against alcohol. Civil disobedience did away with that. As seems to be the case with legalizing drugs, where mass incarcerations are doing away with those laws.
Gorbachev had an anti alcohol campaign in Russia as well. While it had an impact in reducing male mortality and violent crime, it had some ill effects as well. Destroying vineyardsn in tge Caucaz and Moldova was kind of overdoing it.
I really like thevRussian humor part. They nicknamed Gorbachev mineral’nyi sekretar’, mineral-water-drinking secretary and the campaign was known as the dry law.
> I get dismayed when people think of drugs in terms of social freedom and opposing government. This is quite frankly a highly liberal view. And not one at all in line with the true definition of drugs. (..)
> Drug users WHO ARE IN CONTROL OF THEMSELVES see rules against drugs as oppressive. But the rules were never made for them! [..]
Frankly, most of the rules never really were about solving actual drug problems in the first place. Rather about controlling certain socioeconomic groups of people that happened to be associated with whatever substance.
At least that's the case for the US, however, most of the world has been influenced by their views and still hold them even when US is starting to change. Many parts of the world that lived peacefully (or even synergistically) with certain drugs now have one of the harshest rules regarding them, and that changed during the past ~50-70 years really.
> Using drugs is like balancing the tight rope, not something everyone can do. And advocates need to understand this.
I would say very few people educated on the matter claim drugs are not an issue at all and advocate their use to everyone. In fact, one of the main problems is - knowing the risks associated to drug use, and the fact that it's just gonna happen in the "real world" - how to minimize the harm? (i.e., education and treatment over punishment and rejection)
> Lastly comparing illegal intoxicants as similar to legal intoxicants is a poor justification. You try to stretch people’s benign feelings to one form of drugs onto another.
I'd say the main reason for making comparisons is to draw attention to the inconsistencies of people's judgements. When the statistics show how much more harmful alcohol (or pain pills) is to the mind, health, and society than almost any other substance, both relatively and in terms of prevalence of abuse, I just don't see how one can with a straight face claim it's right to send a kid to a cell for "smoking a joint", but have no desire to have any changes regarding the "normal" drugs.
Inconsistencies is what points you towards flaws in your thinking. Some may ignore it because it's easier to assume you know everything about everything. Some will use the opportunity to investigate.
> Drugs are an intoxicant. They destroy minds. They destroy health. And they can make addicts lose control. Not to mention destroy communities. There are laws on the books specifically for this reason. It affects society. It does not just stop at the individual. There is a reason why neighborhoods around bars fall in value. While those around coffee shops rise in value.
Don't want to be snarky, but these are just talking points. There are a lot of comparisons with other situations that could be drawn here, but as you've pointed out that's not necessarily the best tactic. However, if so, we should also have a "conversational rule" against throwing around three-word claims that are supposed to prove something but are clearly meaningless _without going into more detail_.
P.S. Nothing in life is black or white, it's all about balance and overall well-being.
I agree with your point, but many Asian countrys' pouplaces' attitudes to drugs are deeply influenced by the damage caused by British opium trade. It is more deeply rooted than a problem of education I think, unlike in the West.
> I agree with your point, but many Asian countrys' pouplaces' attitudes to drugs are deeply influenced by the damage caused by British opium trade. It is more deeply rooted than a problem of education I think, unlike in the West.
Deep emotional pain is simultaneously (a) completely understandable and needs compassion, and (b) not the best tool base decisions on.
I think the real question is how can we shape the conversation to, well, be a conversation.
P.S. (At least to my experience with people from some Asian countries) the newer generation does not have that emotional connection, but they do repeat those same old (false) arguments, almost religiously.
I’m not familiar with Malaysia, but as far as I know Singapore, Japan, Korea, China certainly have educational systems that push conformity towards group values. (And high rates of bullying for those who stick out.)
The other thing is that unfamiliarity breeds resentment. It is, and was, a lot easier to get weed in the US than it is in a lot of Asian countries, and so most people don’t have a nice person they know who smokes weed. Whereas even if you don’t smoke in the US, it really isn’t that hard to find someone who smokes weed, and a fair amount, if not most, are just average people.
Drugs affect behavior. Drugs that historically were assimilated via elaborate cultural mechanisms -- such as alcohol, beer, harvest, festival, +folk remedies for overdose -- are part of the societal matrix and accounted for.
No one really (really, outside of comical personalities) ultimately cares about "tight control [over others'] consciousness". People who care about societal order care about 'understood' phenomena and pervasive cultural mechanisms to sublimate its effects. Even assimilated drugs (again alcohol) still cause societal ills, even with literally thousands of years of usage experience.
A drug that makes you bliss out is perfectly fine for you, but a society of blissed out slackers could be looking for future trouble. That is really the legitimate basis for minimally thinking about the wide spread use of drug X (that affects behavior). That should not be controversial. Our modern additional factor is that there are for profit entities that also produce "medicinal" synthetic formulations that offer individuals some form of chemical psychological relief and pleasure, and thus present the possibility of distortion of facts around other, natural, drugs.
Whether the effect of a drug is primary or incidental is irrelevant. That the 'effect' occurs is the only thing that matters. I remember this previously famous electronic music artist who lived in the basement of the building where I lived as a student in W [109]th in Manhattan where he could score Heroin on the sidewalk. He was a Heroin adddict. He was intelligent and articulate. The Columbia English major girls kept him company. We had interesting conversations regarding addiction. His two main points were, that Heroin finally gave him relief from the un-ending pain/sensory-input of the body. He had an elaborate theory regarding that benefit. His second point was regarding the harm of Heroin. His take was that all negative effects of heroin were secondary and related to maintaining the usage, not the drug itself. I.e. if you were rich it was not a problem drug. You raided mother's purse only if you were poor so let's not blame Heroin. :)
Regarding your final anecdote - heroin is actually dirt cheap to produce. It's the illegal nature and all the externalities involved that seem to make it so expensive for users. We should probably just allow people to buy pure doses of known quantity at drug stores. We'd largely solve overdoses and addict poverty/petty crime that way, I think.
> No one really (really, outside of comical personalities) ultimately cares about "tight control [over others'] consciousness".
Many governments are participating in different kinds of censorship as well as organized disinformation campaigns. You may agree with certain policies ("drugs are bad" or "citizens are simply better off not knowing certain aspects of reality"), but the "control over consciousness" is a fact.
Oh, of course, but the distinction (not being pedantic, it is important) is that they control "behavior" not "consciousness".
Many people obey some mass idiocy promoted by some organized entity precisely because of their intelligence, appreciation of the situation, and their take on the equation of benefitial social behavior. It's not heroic but it is not unintelligent. And this social calculus may actually be happening inside the heads of the majority of the population. We simply do not know.
There's a portion of the population that will never be able to consume any of the mentioned substances responsibly. That same portion is responsible for killing people on the roads every day. Maybe we can hand-wave that away with SDV in 15 years. I don't know, but I don't think it's a clear-cut witch hunt.
However I'm all for trying to focus in on solutions to stop drunk/buzzed/drugged out driving (and other activities that take lives of families and children). Even if that includes 100% vehicle breathalyzers (as in mandatory even without prior drunk driving records).
Less for laws to govern the 90% to allow the driving population an easier time of it.
if someone wants to drive that metal death machine, then you need to prove you are capable. Or risk it and take the automatic jail time - like knife carrying.
Growing up in a mixed semi-rural area, it was kind of weird and maybe a little dangerous not to have a pocket knife. Are there places where carrying a pocket knife without using it is automatically illegal?
Urban knife crime has resulted in certain areas having "stop and search" for knives, usually targeted on the suspicions or prejudices of the officers doing the search.
> Are there places where carrying a pocket knife without using it is automatically illegal?
Yes, of course. Lots of them.
In Spain carrying with you any pocket knife with blade > 11 cm (or any automatic pocket knife <11 cm) is illegal unless you have a special permit for that.
You can have it at your home as a collection, but not in public spaces. Having one can be reasonable in some activities (ej police will not care normally if you scuba dive with a knife but will frown if you carry it in the front seat of your car when returning home)
> chocolate bars and brownie edibles made with hemp seed oil
The article continues to refer to "hemp seed oil". Is that a mistake from the author? The seed oil has no medicinal properties. The processed oil from the flowers and to some extent that leaves is what contains medicinal value.
As someone who has spent time in Asia the drug laws can sometimes be quite draconian. From what I’ve gathered it’s mostly due to the association of drugs with crime. Of course that association is often (but not solely) driven by the laws themselves.
Combine that with a more conservative social view (either Confucian or Islamic) and your end up with a lot of agreement with the use of severe punishments.
The interesting thing is that many parts of these countries where the central government wields less power you see a pretty laissez faire attitude. If problems done arise it’s ignored.
I saw this in Morocco as well. An official policy of marijuana prohibition but small towns had pretty open marijuana use.
The death penalty for drugs offences has quite a bit of popular support in Malaysia, but there are signs this support could be quite fragile.
In studies of people who say they support the mandatory death penalty, when faced with 'judging' specific cases and given the option of recommending the death penalty or another sentence as most appropriate, they very often shy away from recommending the death penalty as appropriate. It's one thing to give a blanket answer, but quite another to stick to that line when faced with decisions about particular circumstances.
Malaysia is planning (or at least was planning) to decriminalise cannabis. Also it seems to me that they are much more relaxed about it than they let on. For example I came out of a business meeting in KL and there were 2 guys casually smoking weed at the entrance to the office tower.
Derailing: Leaving aside that these drug laws are draconian, strict punishment does appear to have an impact on crime when observing 1st world countries. Japanese poverty rate for example is reportedly 16% and the last official rate in the U.S. was 10.5%, but has one of the lowest murder rates in the world. People like to chalk this up to mere "culture", which is absurd. Culture changes, and is itself informed by various factors which can include the law. The rehabilitation proponents skeptical of punishment tend to focus on recidivism only. The only question to ask is whether the severity of punishment is warranted.
America has pretty strict punishments. It locks up quite a lot of people and for long.
Another factor in murders is gun control - America has much bigger prevalence of guns. And most murders are in the moment escalation - impulsive acts, arguments that went out of hand and so on. When gun is present, people are more likely to pick them up and kill someone. If they are not present, the same thing does not end in death.
Your premise that strict punishment leads to impacts on crime in the 1st world is not supported by just picking Japan and the USA as your only evidence.
Issue one, do criminals actually know the penalties for their crimes? Deterrence relies upon criminals knowing facts of the law, when evidence suggests crime is impulsive and done by those who lack education and opportunity. The economy is hurt and crimes are on the rise in the US; I'm surmising criminals are not vastly less aware of laws than a year ago.
Issue two, even if criminals knew the penalties, deterrence would rely upon them to weigh and measure the consequences and not commit crimes. How does deterrence work when criminals believe themselves to be lucky and not susceptible to being caught? How does deterrence work when desperation, poverty, and a culture of crime leads young men to view punishment with a shrug or disdain?
Issue three, the biggest in my view, We've seen rises in violent crime in the US in the past year -- has deterrence gone down? Have laws changed towards less severe punishment? Or, have socioeconomic conditions changed?
Issue four, Japan is a highly insular island nation with an ancient culture and quite a unique cultural attitude. They have extremely low littering and crime, their populace is extremely "tight" in its conformation to laws and regulations such as masking, quaranting, etc. So I wouldn't say they are a good example of an average nation.
> Your premise that strict punishment leads to impacts on crime in the 1st world is not supported by just picking Japan and the USA as your only evidence.
They were just the only example, because I can't be arsed to detail all of East Asia that happens to have a comparable inequality and strong enough middle class.
See also Singapore, Taiwan, China, South Korea. Hell, see more than that. Lower crime rate, generally stricter punishment than found in the U.S.
> Deterrence relies upon criminals knowing facts of the law,
It doesn't. This gets transmuted through culture, and would-be assailants have an overall sense of what punishment would entail without knowing specifics. Anyone in the first world regardless of class would expect 1st degree murder to lead to ample time served for example.
> deterrence would rely upon them to weigh and measure the consequences and not commit crimes.
To an extent. It's not entirely conscious.
> How does deterrence work when criminals believe themselves to be lucky and not susceptible to being caught?
Cost-benefit analysis. They gamble.
> How does deterrence work when desperation, poverty, and a culture of crime leads young men to view punishment with a shrug or disdain?
It's viewed with a shrug when incentives to commit crimes are comparatively strong. Not so in the aforementioned countries.
> Issue three, the biggest in my view
Weird thing to say. It's not relevant.
> We've seen rises in violent crime in the US in the past year -- has deterrence gone down?
Nope. Unrest has gone up.
> Issue four, Japan is a highly insular island nation with an ancient culture and quite a unique cultural attitude.
Uhuh, and would this be the same bullshit argument to hand-wave away the circumstances of similar neighboring counties?
Culture is informed, and culture is not immutable. Laws change culture.
While I do believe the Japanese murder rate is low, the Japanese criminal justice system is also a complete farce and I would not consider their statistics reliable.
Unsolved cases are unacceptable and so suspicious deaths without an obvious suspect are classified as a suicide or natural death with little investigation and no autopsy.
Not that when they believe a crime has occurred is much better.
If the police think you have committed a crime, you are guilty, whether you are or not.
If you don't agree that you're guilty, they can just torture you with sleep deprivation and non-stop interrogation for a month without access to a lawyer.
If you cave to the torture at any point and sign a confession (or if someone just...forges your confession) that confession will be considered binding with little chance of overturning it. Good luck withstanding that.
It's a leap to assume that crime and incarceration rate stats are a fabrication by virtue that the solve-rate of crimes is abnormally high. They have nothing to do with one another.
I disagree. They're the product of the same pressure. Crimes need to be solved and unsolved crimes or acquittals are to be avoided at all costs.
If that is your reality:
They can be solved by aggressive prosecution of those under suspicion - torturing confessions out of people if they are unwilling to confess (maybe because they're innocent).
They can also be solved by selective prosecution - don't look too hard at cases that seem like they'll be difficult, call them a suicide or natural death and close the book. No crime, no problem to make you look bad if you can't solve it.
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I am not alleging that Japan is actually a place with high crime rates.
Just that the deep flaws in their system provide a strong incentive to distort their crime rates. Especially for homicide, being both high profile and being a crime where the victim can't complain about how their case is handled.
You're citing their homicide rates as an example of "strict punishment does appear to have an impact on crime", and I'm suggesting Japan's homicide statistics aren't a great example.
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On a related note (and one I've read far less on), it seems the vast majority of criminal offenders basically get a suspended sentence, at least for their first offense.
So, I'm not sure that you can really say that Japan's criminal justice system is an example of "strict punishment" either.
The gulf between U.S. and Japanese homicide rates is so high that it's a farce to suggest a hypothetical distortion of real occurrences would in any way be meaningful, notwithstanding that there is zero evidence it's not accurate in the first place.
> So, I'm not sure that you can really say that Japan's criminal justice system is an example of "strict punishment" either.
Is there some reason you're under the impression that Japanese criminal punishments are more harsh than USA criminal punishments? Look at the incarceration rates and you'll find that's completely backwards.
What is the enforcement like for Marijuana in the EU? Why isn’t it legalized there yet? The US will be legalizing it nationwide most likely in this decade.
Honestly, I would expect EU to take the lead in liberal drug policies more than anyone else.
Oh, yeah, I remember this. I saw a doc a few weeks ago about this, “My Father, Dr. G”.
Malaysia has some crazy drug laws still, but that’s to be expected from a muslim country. But they’re actually making really good progress when it comes to decriminalized cannabis, comparatively speaking.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 205 ms ] threadAnd yet alcohol is totally fine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In 1770, colonial Americans drank about 3.5 gallons of alcohol per year - today it’s roughly 2.3.
One thing I learned when visiting an old settlement in Iowa: the settlers of the time made sure to have a constant supply of beer. The rate they consumed beer seemed to mean they’d have a slight buzz throughout many days.
That said, the beer was often weak and watered down so any mention of chronic use should be tempered by the strength of the drink.
Heavy drinking and all its bad effects were more common back then, but I don't think table beer is the culprit.
If you drank a gallon of 1%ABV beer every day, you'd have 3.65 gallons of ethanol per year. That's not exactly what was happening - binges on whiskey and rum were common, but they weren't constantly buzzed, either.
That much alcohol is going to be bad for a liver no matter how you drink it. I don't think this was healthy. My point is just that there was less inebriation than we suppose when we think about drinking beer with breakfast
since this is Malaysia it needs a disclaimer: "except for Muslims"
I would also not drink in certain places like Kelantan and Terengganu[1] even as a non-Muslim otherwise the locals might get really upset :)
One colleague got caught carrying weed into KL int airport from NZ (< 3gramm) in '97 for personal consumption (the idiot). He was supposed to go offshore with us (work on oil-rigs). Instead he spent 5 nights in prison. Our office (a large US diving company) sent their local lawyer to pay a bribe and get him back to work. It was a minor inconvenience that could have ended really badly.
If you ever get yourself arrested in such a country make sure to contact a lawyer. Avoid contacting your embassy as the first step (which often escalates situations in ways the country is supposed to "act tough".) Better yet don't smuggle drugs (even if it's just weed)
[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/liquor-control-bill-h... which reads:
> Muslims are barred from drinking alcohol. Non-Muslims do not face any curbs but some local governments discourage the sale of alcohol in neighbourhoods that are predominantly Muslim. In the states of Kelantan and Terengganu, alcohol bans are enforced in places like hotels, but non-Muslim establishments like Chinese restaurants and sundry shops are pretty much left alone.
Kelantan has some crazy rules but you can definitely drink to excess in a tourist hotel or on the islands without any concern. The Perhentians is certainly not a pious place of purity, it gets fairly loose there.
> If you ever get yourself arrested in such a country make sure to contact a lawyer.
Not getting arrested in the first place is what you should really be doing. In basically all of South-East Asia on-the-spot fines are routine and expected. If you don't go that route and it hits the books you are in for a world of trouble and no amount of coffee money will save you. Not endorsing this, simply saying that's how it works.
Except in Singapore. Don't bribe the cops in Singapore — the police and other law enforcement officials are paid a very decent wage here [1], and they'll just report you to save their own skin.
[1] https://www.police.gov.sg/Join-SPF/Police-Officer/Direct-Ent...
SE Asia was hit hard by opium. not so long ago.
Whether it’s better to lock them away to suffer an isolated existence for life or sentence them to die is a matter that can be debated I think, as both paths have elements that are more terrible than the other.
Don't believe the Netherlands does? Try shooting into a crowd of police officers over there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Neth...
There is no capital punishment.
> What an idiot comment.
I'm pretty sure you're the one making comments without understanding, here.
Whether it's officially the "Death Penalty" is semantics.
1. Traditional Asian values 2. Legacy of British colonial law. Punishment by hanging and caning were introduced by the British 3. Southeast Asia was a drug trafficking hotspot in the 70s. IIRC at least some of the harsh drug penalties are from recent times as a reaction to that
Just like US drug laws aren’t driven by one thing but rather a combination of moral fears, racism, fear of crime, intent to protect people from themselves, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undang-Undang_Melaka
> The article could have explored that regions' strictness more
quick googling or Wikipedia has you covered[2].
__
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Ibrahim_sodomy_trials
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_in_Malaysia
However, the biggest offenders in my view are the "unthinking masses" that dictate the overall view on drugs and drug use, hence, block reason and change. For some reason when it comes to drugs it's allowed to have a really strong opinion and say on how _others_ should live based on either absolutely nothing, or fear-mongering fuelled by the aforementioned beneficiaries.
Yes, drugs do harm people, but not intrinsically. People die from over-doses because of mis-information and not knowing what they get (from the random guy on the street). People get hooked but mostly as an expression of underlying problems. Why is alcoholism and gambling more OK? And do we help people by taking their substances but leaving them in the same shitty life situation? That's just patting yourself on the back for actually not doing anything.
At the same time people use responsibly as well, you just don't hear from them because, well, why would they tell you about it if it means getting ostracized, thrown in jail, or killed?
If you don't stay neutral if you haven't at all educated yourself about this fairly complex topic (which it totally fine), you are on the wrong side of history, the witch-hunter of today, and will be frowned upon by the future generations.
At some point in the future everyone will come to their senses and were going to have days of remembrance for people that we harmed in the drug war, I hope.
When will the world come to its senses on abortion/meat-eating/capitalism etc?
Indeed. No matter how convinced I am that I'm right in a discussion with friends/family, if I used a phrase like "right/wrong side of history," I would immediately lose their attention if not their friendship. It's vital to remember why people still disagree with whatever you believe in, rather than just steamroll and ignore them.
In France there was a law that punished successful suicides, which is the extreme of such ridicule (disclaimer: I am French)
There are already plenty threads here and on the net discussing abortion - you are just stating your own beliefs without any justification, or attempt to address the crux of the topic.
Regardless, in a discussion, I don't the onus is on me expound on the numerous facets of the position right from the get-go. Abortion is a topic with many facets. You can't cover it all at once. I mean, yeah, you have to establish a position to start, but not all that much.
I think rather than just saying 'without any justification' you could have more charitably asked a number of clarifying questions or could have taken an opposing stance to argue from. There was enough in my statement to squabble over.
In general, the onus isn't on you to "expound the numerous facets" - but I think it is on you to expand on your own claims to the point they can be understood; for example - what is a "human right", are you talking about legal rights, or your own opinion; What is a "pregnancy" - do you include all trimesters, allowing abortion up until birth? etc etc etc
Note, I don't really want to get into the discussion, I'm just pointing out no-one could understand you position without follow-up questions.
> There was enough in my statement to squabble over.
True, but the same can be said of any unsubstantial post - you want me to charitably ask for substance, but "unjustified" statements are a dime-a-dozen, and can easily flood a thread - It's just as easy from my perspective to down-vote and move on.
Providing a fuller context in the first place, to me, proves greater good faith wrt wanting a good discussion, and a better guarantee the continuing the conversation will be productive.
Kids here smoke as soon as they start high school, that's around 12-13 years. After a couple years they gather before school starts to smoke, then go to class, then smoke again.
Certainly, 81,000 dead in the US during 2020 is a lot of misinformation and ignorance. Presumably these are mostly young lives each with family members having to live with the tragedy.
Not all who oppose legalization are from the 'unthinking masses'. Here's an argument from someone who's spent his working life as a psychiatrist working with prisoners and their drug habits. https://www.city-journal.org/html/don%E2%80%99t-legalize-dru...
"If the war against drugs is lost, then so are the wars against theft, speeding, incest, fraud, rape, murder, arson, and illegal parking."
Obviously the big, glaring, unmissable difference between drug use and the other crimes you've mentioned is that doing drugs is a personal choice that primary impacts the individual whereas every other item on your list is only a crime because it has a victim.
The quote you pulled from the article from 1997 is also pretty pathetic.
If the author can't distinguish between a crime where there is a very clear perpetrator and victim (rape/incest/murder) and one where at essence we are talking about self harm (drugs/suicide) the premise leaves a lot to be desired.
Not all are, but which of the two do you think really steer the general perception of drugs more?
I get dismayed when people think of drugs in terms of social freedom and opposing government. This is quite frankly a highly liberal view. And not one at all in line with the true definition of drugs.
Drugs are an intoxicant. They destroy minds. They destroy health. And they can make addicts lose control. Not to mention destroy communities. There are laws on the books specifically for this reason. It affects society. It does not just stop at the individual. There is a reason why neighborhoods around bars fall in value. While those around coffee shops rise in value.
Drug users WHO ARE IN CONTROL OF THEMSELVES see rules against drugs as oppressive. But the rules were never made for them! Using drugs is like balancing the tight rope, not something everyone can do. And advocates need to understand this.
Lastly comparing illegal intoxicants as similar to legal intoxicants is a poor justification. You try to stretch people’s benign feelings to one form of drugs onto another.
That's simply not true, or there would be laws on the books banning alcohol, too.
It's just arbitrary culture bias against certain drugs, weaponized against minorities.
http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1985-2/anti-alcohol-campaign/
I really like thevRussian humor part. They nicknamed Gorbachev mineral’nyi sekretar’, mineral-water-drinking secretary and the campaign was known as the dry law.
> Drug users WHO ARE IN CONTROL OF THEMSELVES see rules against drugs as oppressive. But the rules were never made for them! [..]
Frankly, most of the rules never really were about solving actual drug problems in the first place. Rather about controlling certain socioeconomic groups of people that happened to be associated with whatever substance.
At least that's the case for the US, however, most of the world has been influenced by their views and still hold them even when US is starting to change. Many parts of the world that lived peacefully (or even synergistically) with certain drugs now have one of the harshest rules regarding them, and that changed during the past ~50-70 years really.
> Using drugs is like balancing the tight rope, not something everyone can do. And advocates need to understand this.
I would say very few people educated on the matter claim drugs are not an issue at all and advocate their use to everyone. In fact, one of the main problems is - knowing the risks associated to drug use, and the fact that it's just gonna happen in the "real world" - how to minimize the harm? (i.e., education and treatment over punishment and rejection)
> Lastly comparing illegal intoxicants as similar to legal intoxicants is a poor justification. You try to stretch people’s benign feelings to one form of drugs onto another.
I'd say the main reason for making comparisons is to draw attention to the inconsistencies of people's judgements. When the statistics show how much more harmful alcohol (or pain pills) is to the mind, health, and society than almost any other substance, both relatively and in terms of prevalence of abuse, I just don't see how one can with a straight face claim it's right to send a kid to a cell for "smoking a joint", but have no desire to have any changes regarding the "normal" drugs.
Inconsistencies is what points you towards flaws in your thinking. Some may ignore it because it's easier to assume you know everything about everything. Some will use the opportunity to investigate.
> Drugs are an intoxicant. They destroy minds. They destroy health. And they can make addicts lose control. Not to mention destroy communities. There are laws on the books specifically for this reason. It affects society. It does not just stop at the individual. There is a reason why neighborhoods around bars fall in value. While those around coffee shops rise in value.
Don't want to be snarky, but these are just talking points. There are a lot of comparisons with other situations that could be drawn here, but as you've pointed out that's not necessarily the best tactic. However, if so, we should also have a "conversational rule" against throwing around three-word claims that are supposed to prove something but are clearly meaningless _without going into more detail_.
P.S. Nothing in life is black or white, it's all about balance and overall well-being.
Deep emotional pain is simultaneously (a) completely understandable and needs compassion, and (b) not the best tool base decisions on.
I think the real question is how can we shape the conversation to, well, be a conversation.
P.S. (At least to my experience with people from some Asian countries) the newer generation does not have that emotional connection, but they do repeat those same old (false) arguments, almost religiously.
The other thing is that unfamiliarity breeds resentment. It is, and was, a lot easier to get weed in the US than it is in a lot of Asian countries, and so most people don’t have a nice person they know who smokes weed. Whereas even if you don’t smoke in the US, it really isn’t that hard to find someone who smokes weed, and a fair amount, if not most, are just average people.
No one really (really, outside of comical personalities) ultimately cares about "tight control [over others'] consciousness". People who care about societal order care about 'understood' phenomena and pervasive cultural mechanisms to sublimate its effects. Even assimilated drugs (again alcohol) still cause societal ills, even with literally thousands of years of usage experience.
A drug that makes you bliss out is perfectly fine for you, but a society of blissed out slackers could be looking for future trouble. That is really the legitimate basis for minimally thinking about the wide spread use of drug X (that affects behavior). That should not be controversial. Our modern additional factor is that there are for profit entities that also produce "medicinal" synthetic formulations that offer individuals some form of chemical psychological relief and pleasure, and thus present the possibility of distortion of facts around other, natural, drugs.
Whether the effect of a drug is primary or incidental is irrelevant. That the 'effect' occurs is the only thing that matters. I remember this previously famous electronic music artist who lived in the basement of the building where I lived as a student in W [109]th in Manhattan where he could score Heroin on the sidewalk. He was a Heroin adddict. He was intelligent and articulate. The Columbia English major girls kept him company. We had interesting conversations regarding addiction. His two main points were, that Heroin finally gave him relief from the un-ending pain/sensory-input of the body. He had an elaborate theory regarding that benefit. His second point was regarding the harm of Heroin. His take was that all negative effects of heroin were secondary and related to maintaining the usage, not the drug itself. I.e. if you were rich it was not a problem drug. You raided mother's purse only if you were poor so let's not blame Heroin. :)
Many governments are participating in different kinds of censorship as well as organized disinformation campaigns. You may agree with certain policies ("drugs are bad" or "citizens are simply better off not knowing certain aspects of reality"), but the "control over consciousness" is a fact.
Many people obey some mass idiocy promoted by some organized entity precisely because of their intelligence, appreciation of the situation, and their take on the equation of benefitial social behavior. It's not heroic but it is not unintelligent. And this social calculus may actually be happening inside the heads of the majority of the population. We simply do not know.
However I'm all for trying to focus in on solutions to stop drunk/buzzed/drugged out driving (and other activities that take lives of families and children). Even if that includes 100% vehicle breathalyzers (as in mandatory even without prior drunk driving records).
Less for laws to govern the 90% to allow the driving population an easier time of it.
if someone wants to drive that metal death machine, then you need to prove you are capable. Or risk it and take the automatic jail time - like knife carrying.
Growing up in a mixed semi-rural area, it was kind of weird and maybe a little dangerous not to have a pocket knife. Are there places where carrying a pocket knife without using it is automatically illegal?
Urban knife crime has resulted in certain areas having "stop and search" for knives, usually targeted on the suspicions or prejudices of the officers doing the search.
Yes, of course. Lots of them.
In Spain carrying with you any pocket knife with blade > 11 cm (or any automatic pocket knife <11 cm) is illegal unless you have a special permit for that.
You can have it at your home as a collection, but not in public spaces. Having one can be reasonable in some activities (ej police will not care normally if you scuba dive with a knife but will frown if you carry it in the front seat of your car when returning home)
It was also weird and slightly dangerous growing up in North London and not being allowed to carry a knife. Less dangerous than prison though.
*should clarify the law states it's a certain length, so Stanley knifes are ok, pocket or flicks. Non.
The article continues to refer to "hemp seed oil". Is that a mistake from the author? The seed oil has no medicinal properties. The processed oil from the flowers and to some extent that leaves is what contains medicinal value.
Combine that with a more conservative social view (either Confucian or Islamic) and your end up with a lot of agreement with the use of severe punishments.
The interesting thing is that many parts of these countries where the central government wields less power you see a pretty laissez faire attitude. If problems done arise it’s ignored.
I saw this in Morocco as well. An official policy of marijuana prohibition but small towns had pretty open marijuana use.
> Is Malaysia ahead or behind US time? We may know the result soon, or even already.
I think the only places that are "behind US times" is the Aleutian islands (the Russian ones, the US ones well.. are part of the US).
In studies of people who say they support the mandatory death penalty, when faced with 'judging' specific cases and given the option of recommending the death penalty or another sentence as most appropriate, they very often shy away from recommending the death penalty as appropriate. It's one thing to give a blanket answer, but quite another to stick to that line when faced with decisions about particular circumstances.
It does not stop there. Details of what he did was he didn’t “disclose” the hemp ingredients in the product he sold. That is illegal anywhere.
Further people who bought it did not want to buy hemp. That was deceit.
Death penalty is anger.
Another factor in murders is gun control - America has much bigger prevalence of guns. And most murders are in the moment escalation - impulsive acts, arguments that went out of hand and so on. When gun is present, people are more likely to pick them up and kill someone. If they are not present, the same thing does not end in death.
Violent crime tends to scale more with poverty. The relationship with firearm laws is weak. See: the U.K.
Yet also, Americans are obsessed with idea of punishment. Their first idea of what to do with basically any issue is to punish more.
Issue one, do criminals actually know the penalties for their crimes? Deterrence relies upon criminals knowing facts of the law, when evidence suggests crime is impulsive and done by those who lack education and opportunity. The economy is hurt and crimes are on the rise in the US; I'm surmising criminals are not vastly less aware of laws than a year ago.
Issue two, even if criminals knew the penalties, deterrence would rely upon them to weigh and measure the consequences and not commit crimes. How does deterrence work when criminals believe themselves to be lucky and not susceptible to being caught? How does deterrence work when desperation, poverty, and a culture of crime leads young men to view punishment with a shrug or disdain?
Issue three, the biggest in my view, We've seen rises in violent crime in the US in the past year -- has deterrence gone down? Have laws changed towards less severe punishment? Or, have socioeconomic conditions changed?
Issue four, Japan is a highly insular island nation with an ancient culture and quite a unique cultural attitude. They have extremely low littering and crime, their populace is extremely "tight" in its conformation to laws and regulations such as masking, quaranting, etc. So I wouldn't say they are a good example of an average nation.
They were just the only example, because I can't be arsed to detail all of East Asia that happens to have a comparable inequality and strong enough middle class.
See also Singapore, Taiwan, China, South Korea. Hell, see more than that. Lower crime rate, generally stricter punishment than found in the U.S.
> Deterrence relies upon criminals knowing facts of the law,
It doesn't. This gets transmuted through culture, and would-be assailants have an overall sense of what punishment would entail without knowing specifics. Anyone in the first world regardless of class would expect 1st degree murder to lead to ample time served for example.
> deterrence would rely upon them to weigh and measure the consequences and not commit crimes.
To an extent. It's not entirely conscious.
> How does deterrence work when criminals believe themselves to be lucky and not susceptible to being caught?
Cost-benefit analysis. They gamble.
> How does deterrence work when desperation, poverty, and a culture of crime leads young men to view punishment with a shrug or disdain?
It's viewed with a shrug when incentives to commit crimes are comparatively strong. Not so in the aforementioned countries.
> Issue three, the biggest in my view
Weird thing to say. It's not relevant.
> We've seen rises in violent crime in the US in the past year -- has deterrence gone down?
Nope. Unrest has gone up.
> Issue four, Japan is a highly insular island nation with an ancient culture and quite a unique cultural attitude.
Uhuh, and would this be the same bullshit argument to hand-wave away the circumstances of similar neighboring counties?
Culture is informed, and culture is not immutable. Laws change culture.
Unsolved cases are unacceptable and so suspicious deaths without an obvious suspect are classified as a suicide or natural death with little investigation and no autopsy.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/03/national/media-...
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-nov-09-fg-autop...
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Not that when they believe a crime has occurred is much better.
If the police think you have committed a crime, you are guilty, whether you are or not.
If you don't agree that you're guilty, they can just torture you with sleep deprivation and non-stop interrogation for a month without access to a lawyer.
If you cave to the torture at any point and sign a confession (or if someone just...forges your confession) that confession will be considered binding with little chance of overturning it. Good luck withstanding that.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2015/12/05/forced-to-confe...
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/10/call-eliminate-japans-ho...
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/10/10/japan-forced-c...
If that is your reality:
They can be solved by aggressive prosecution of those under suspicion - torturing confessions out of people if they are unwilling to confess (maybe because they're innocent).
They can also be solved by selective prosecution - don't look too hard at cases that seem like they'll be difficult, call them a suicide or natural death and close the book. No crime, no problem to make you look bad if you can't solve it.
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I am not alleging that Japan is actually a place with high crime rates.
Just that the deep flaws in their system provide a strong incentive to distort their crime rates. Especially for homicide, being both high profile and being a crime where the victim can't complain about how their case is handled.
You're citing their homicide rates as an example of "strict punishment does appear to have an impact on crime", and I'm suggesting Japan's homicide statistics aren't a great example.
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On a related note (and one I've read far less on), it seems the vast majority of criminal offenders basically get a suspended sentence, at least for their first offense.
So, I'm not sure that you can really say that Japan's criminal justice system is an example of "strict punishment" either.
> So, I'm not sure that you can really say that Japan's criminal justice system is an example of "strict punishment" either.
You can depending on the nature of the crime.
Honestly, I would expect EU to take the lead in liberal drug policies more than anyone else.
Malaysia has some crazy drug laws still, but that’s to be expected from a muslim country. But they’re actually making really good progress when it comes to decriminalized cannabis, comparatively speaking.