> Impressionable children are indoctrinated against drug use, by US law enforcement, in US public schools.
That's one theory, but it does not jive with the data. Millennials grew up with teachers shrieking "just say no!" at school assemblies. They were the most heavily propagandized generation with regards to the drug war. Much more so than their baby boomer teachers who grew up in the 1960's. Yet they're the ones leading the way on legalization of marijuana. So how can you say that moral opposition to drug use exists because of propaganda, when the more heavily propagandized generation is also the one with the least opposition to drugs?
I have a different theory. Moral opposition to drug usage is based on the need to establish social norms that discourage escapism and dependency. In an industrial society with booming demand for labor, that's an important social norm to instill in people. But in a post-industrial, automated society, with a robust safety net, that becomes much less important. It's not like teenagers sitting in their basement smoking pot today would otherwise be going off to work at busy factories building a solid future for their families.
> So how can you say that moral opposition to drug use exists because of propaganda,
Because most of the opponents of legalization use the same talking points that the DARE and other school drug-abstinence programs use. Gateway drugs, etc. All the things we now know are nonsense. That's what makes it propaganda instead of information.
If these people didn't come to these opinions because of propaganda they'd use different terminology and different arguments.
> Moral opposition to drug usage is based on the need to establish social norms that discourage escapism and dependency.
No, because TV(, etc) is acceptable. Drugs are a problem because of our puritanical background. The issue isn't that you aren't being productive, it's that you're enjoying it.
The propaganda was not particularly effective while aimed at children since its primary vehicle was tying opposition of drug use as a way to signal and support racism which was a particular societal trait the children had not yet learned. Opposition of drug use was a way to express racism without actually expressing it once it became taboo following the civil rights era.
The racism strategy was a much more powerful and effective tool for the older generation. There has been an attempt to continue to artificially associate drugs with other 'bad things' (terrorism, for example) now that associating something with black people isn't a guaranteed way to make people hate it, but success has been limited.
The illegality of drugs means that criminal organisations use the manufacture and supply of drugs as one way to make money.
Terrorist organisations need to smuggle things into and out of their target country (weapons, money, people) and so they have expertise that they can use to smuggle drugs.
This link between terrorist groups and drugs is not new.
Even groups who are strongly anti-drugs end up having connections to drug dealing groups. The Provisional IRA was anti-drug, the Real IRA is so anti-drug that it's joined up with anti drug vigilantes, but there are links as far back as 1990 between pIRA and FARC and Columbian drug money.
To try to deny the links between terrorist groups and drug smuggling is weird in the face of so much evidence. Drugs were used as payment for the Madrid bombings.
This reminds me of an article I read where somebody recommended abolishing the $100 note, as it was too associated with crime, and it would inconvenience criminals to have to carry bigger bundles of $20s. I wonder if/how often criminal organizations use drugs as a substitute for money for being easier to transport, verify, etc. I wonder how much that would increase if they did abolish the $100.
> James, 24, looks like just another lost soul in the high street, shuttling between the six betting shops in an east coast seaside town. It's a weekday morning and if you catch up with him inside a bookmaker, you'll find him peering intently into the green glowing screen of an electronic gambling machine – feeding in £200, "a score at a time".
> But this is not a young gambler blowing his meagre wages. James is a drug dealer and his interest in the bookmakers – and the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) in each shop – is all about laundering money. "That's what turns dirty money clean," he says. Dealers feed their drug money through the machines, losing a little and then cashing out with the vast majority of their stake, James says. They can then collect a printed ticket showing they have gambled that day – meaning that if stopped by police, they can answer questions about why an apparently unemployed young man carries hundreds of pounds in rolled-up cash.
> Earlier this month the Gambling Commission, the industry regulator, fined Coral bookmakers £90,000 in profits it made from one drug dealer who had laundered almost £1m in its shops.
I don't think the gamblers care. It's unlikely he was feeding £50 notes into the machines, but £20s and £10s.
That's one theory, but it does not jive with the data. Millennials grew up with teachers shrieking "just say no!" at school assemblies. They were the most heavily propagandized generation with regards to the drug war. Much more so than their baby boomer teachers who grew up in the 1960's. Yet they're the ones leading the way on legalization of marijuana. So how can you say that moral opposition to drug use exists because of propaganda, when the more heavily propagandized generation is also the one with the least opposition to drugs?
I have a different theory. Moral opposition to drug usage is based on the need to establish social norms that discourage escapism and dependency. In an industrial society with booming demand for labor, that's an important social norm to instill in people. But in a post-industrial, automated society, with a robust safety net, that becomes much less important. It's not like teenagers sitting in their basement smoking pot today would otherwise be going off to work at busy factories building a solid future for their families.