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Comment by happyscrappy | Hacker News Reader

This meme needs to die. If someone says "the prison corporations are keeping drugs illegal" it just means they don't know what they are talking about. The Unions have much more power but it is not even them keeping drugs illegal, although they don't mind.

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Can you elaborate? Private prisons do spend millions lobbying-

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/23/251363/cca-geogr...

Perhaps you should take a look at what the prison corporations themselves have to say on the subject. For example, see this article:

http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/22/4-industries-getting-r...

Absolutely. Hard drugs are illegal in nearly every country, most of which don't have private prisons. Hard drugs are illegal because most people think they should be. The blame (or credit) lies with the majority.

I agree. Frankly, I think the majority of the world seems to want drugs, with a couple of exceptions here and there depending on the country in question, banned. Why this is, I'm unsure in some case, and very clear in others. The problem I find is treating all drugs the same: they're quite obviously all different, so they should be treated different, but then we lose the easy catch-phrases of "Ban drugs!" or "Legalise drugs!". A shame, really.

I don't agree with your assessment that the majority of the world wants drugs banned. Perhaps a majority of the governments and the powerful interests in these countries but the widespread use of drugs among all peoples everywhere shows that the majority of the world wants drugs, and not to have them banned.

Many of the countries were coerced into banning drugs with international treaties that were supported heavily by the United States. Drugs have been illegal for much less of civilized history than they've been legal. Also there is the problem of misinformation that was actively spread by the most powerful entities in the world, nation states. I think its very wrong to blame the majority when the average citizen has no control over international drug treaties from 40-50 years ago.

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