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Comment by twblalock | Hacker News Reader

Europe also has a "« war on drugs », « war on terror », « war on crime » and so on.". Outside of a few outliers like Portugal drugs are still very illegal in Europe, and in some cases Europe is even stricter than America about things like marijuana.

Besides, that is not where the money is going.

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Completely disagree. If we compare incarceration rates, surveillance programs, sentencing guidelines, etc. it is very clear that European and American policies are incomparable. Almost half of US discretionary spending goes to the military. The impact of incarceration in the US is estimated at 6% of GDP. And the drug situation speaks for itself.

https://nicic.gov/economic-burden-incarceration-us-2016

Europe is much more aggressive in drug enforcement than the USA. They sort of nip the problem in the bud before it becomes an even larger problem, which is where America fails. You really don't want to mess with the Swiss police.

America kind of teeters between doing nothing and coming in very punitively.

The Swiss police? Is it some kind of jokes? They are doing strictly nothing against drug dealing, and the judges are just as bad. https://www.24heures.ch/en-finir-avec-les-toilettes-de-la-ho... https://www.illustre.ch/magazine/crack-a-geneve-le-quai-9-so... etc not like it's any better in the Swiss German part.

This is not the same proportions at all.

Compare how much of the GDP of European countries went into invading foreign countries?

Our how much is spent to arrest, judge and jail people. The number of people in jail in the USA for drug related crimes is completely insane.

Europe has a completely different approach to crime. Superficially many jurisdictions in Europe are way more strict than anywhere in the USA. For example in Switzerland you will go to prison for driving 45MPH.

You can also go to prison in a number of EU countries for possession of marijuana.

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