Comment by kakarot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kakarot | Hacker News Reader

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I've been extremely poor most of my life. I've been homeless. And neither of our personal anecdotes have any bearing on the reason why the drug war began.

I suggest checking out The Emperor Wears No Clothes for a background behind the start of drug prohibition as a new way to discriminate and make use of bolstered police forces after the failure of alcohol prohibition, as well as prevent the disruption of several entrenched industries.

It's a short read, extremely informative, and it's available freely online here: https://jackherer.com/emperor-3/

> Go be genuinely poor, it's really easy to do. Just use a tiny amount of money to live off of. And see if it causes you to commit crimes.

That's not the correct way to look at it.

We are artificially creating crimes from things which shouldn't be illegal and which infringe upon basic freedoms, and then creating the conditions that lead to people committing those "crimes".

"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime," as Beria says. The Drug War is a tool to, among other things, benefit the new tax-supported slave trade disguised as a private industrial prison system. Affluent citizens are usually able to circumvent the system, as designed, and thus these laws are able to discriminate against the poor while seeming "fair".

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. But you aren't hearing what I said, being poor doesn't cause you to commit crimes.

If you have been homeless, you know that there are both good and wonderful people that are homeless and rotten crooks. Neither of which adding money to their pocket would change.

The argument isn't about being poor causing someone to commit crimes. That's a complete straw-man. Let's focus.

The argument is about discriminatory laws and conditions forcing a percentage of those in poverty to be considered criminals. Specifically, the drug war. That was all my original comment deconstructed. We could extend the moral boundary to stealing food in order to survive provided you don't hurt anyone, but that's it.

I never made any claim that being poor causes some kind of effect on people that turns them into criminals. You're barking up the wrong tree.

>..a percentage of those in poverty to be considered criminals. Specifically, the drug war.

I knew tons of people that did drugs on the streets (most of them) and none of them went to jail accept those that committed crimes while doing drugs.

Is there statistics somewhere that shows "x number of people are in jail for inhaling while minding their own business"?

The police are always around on the streets, they don't have time to arrest people for just "drugs". I am amazed this is the refrain still going around. Consider how many states have made weed legal now, those same states decriminalized weed decades ago. No jail for weed in a lot of places for a very long time.

If you want to talk about other drugs, and pretend like they don't lead to crimes, bring up the stats, I'd be curious to know.

I got in a car accident, and it turns out the driver had a tiny crumb of marijuana in a booksack, and I got six months jail time for it because the judge was incredibly corrupt and complicit with how the system works.

I watched someone else who got caught trespassing and hunting without tags, caught with several grams of marijuana, his second possession arrest, only get a few hours of community service because he wasn't poor or youthful.

This charge has had an extremely negative impact on my life, and I did nothing to deserve it.

Your understanding of how the world works is so small and broken, you need to work on developing empathy for others caught up in the system and stop assuming that just because they are in it, they deserve it. You have no idea what police are arresting people for outside of your little town, and it's arrogant to assume otherwise. Read that book.

My experiences are LA, Portland, Tampa, Key west, Phoenix, Tempe, Tuscon and a lot of other places where I was homeless.

I didn't get into fights, I didn't argue with the police when they told us to move or leave an area, I was respectful and decent. While people right next to us caused problems and got arrested.

So, I have seen plenty of police action, and rarely was it undeserved.

I think people who don't want to take responsibility for their actions are blind to the effects they have on others and simply can't see how their actions are scary for police to deal with and feel entitled to be belligerent.

> The police are always around on the streets, they don't have time to arrest people for just "drugs"

Meanwhile, my local police blotter is littered with "adolescent charged with drug possession/paraphernalia" reports.

> No jail for weed in a lot of places for a very long time.

There are plenty of fines, and if you can't pay them, you have the option of voluntarily or involuntarily spending time in jail over them.

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