Infrastructure Reforms

[Blankbeard]

I guess you are unfamiliar with the term "free body"? I'm not surprised you are dodging. It is a difficult point to refute.

You don't have a point. Epidemiology is not physics. If you'd like to understand the spirit of my answers, ask a physics teacher to tell you the story of the spherical cow. In case you don't know a physics teacher, it involves a silly solution that ignores the attributes of the situation. Which is rather like using physics questions in epidemiology.

Yes, the spread of communicable disease is far too complicated to discuss without knowing precisely which disease is to be discussed. Obviously the logistic growth is widely different from one disease to another. It's a wonder the CDC has any clue what to do when an outbreak occurs.


Dodging again.

The CDC knows what to do when an outbreak occurs because of study and experiment. They don't simply apply a one size fits all solution. Influenza is not West Nile Virus is not E. Coli is not Herpes is not Ebola. If you go to the CDC, you'll find they have specialists in different diseases. They have individual plans that take into account differences between diseases. Very importantly, they conduct post-mortem analysis to see what worked, what didn't, and how they could improve. And despite all of that, they still occasionally fail to respond appropriately. But when that happens, they work to improve.

In short, the CDC with all of its shortcomings is very unlike the sort of analysis (and I use that term very loosely) that you are supporting. They are an evidence-based organization with an observe-act-react cycle of improvement. They don't call a simplified picture or colonial China the end all of policy.

You don't have to pretend to take the question seriously. Obviously you recognize that answering the question in a reasonable manner is a dire threat to your argument. I'm sorry for you argument that it cannot stand up to actual analysis.

Ask an epidemiologist to give you a detailed plan to deal with disease. Oh, and tell him that the type of disease doesn't matter.

You haven't performed any analysis. You've posted a chart from a guy who doesn't know how diseases spread. Now I'm not blaming you for not knowing how this works. There's no shame in not knowing something. I'm certainly not claiming to be an expert. I know enough about this to do my job. Here though is an expert. http://www.stanford.edu/~thkim7/research.html
Scroll down to "2. Computational Epidemiology." This researcher is modeling avian flu and other diseases and containment. Note his charts don't look like the one you posted. Even in the absence of containment, diseases just don't act like you seem to think they do. If they did, the Spring Flu would be an extinction event, or at least the end of civilization.



This is just an example to show the shape of the curves. Note that the Y-axis (number/percent infected) is on a logarithmic scale. X-axis is time periods.

The red line is exponential growth. This is the sort of growth you're thinking about. It may look different than you're used to due to the fact that it's on a logarithmic scale. This is fast growth. Even with a low rate of fatality, a disease like this will burn through a population quickly if reinfection is possible or if the disease is chronic.

The blue line is logarithmic growth. Notice that it grows like exponential at first but then levels off. If you know a bit of calculus, you can even calculate the number it will reach. This is a possible model for diseases.

The green and black lines are my attempt at modeling specific diseases. The black is a disease like influenza. Reinfection is either unlikely or impossible for most of the population. Since it spreads so fast, it burns through the available hosts and then goes away. Exponential growth to saturation followed by quick, often exponential, decay. Interestingly, this is also the pattern of hulu hoops, Katy Perry songs, and other fads.

The green line is like what we observe with addictions, products with lasting appeal, and many ideas. They grow quickly, reach a plateau, and then rise and fall in popularity. With addictions, we tend to see this kind of pattern regardless of law enforcement. Indeed, this pattern often seems to be influencing the passage of laws. In 2003, meth use peaked and began to decline. In 2005, the Combat Methamphetamine Act was passed and immediately hailed as a success.

Yes, obviously we would have fewer if we didn't interfere with their drug usage. It's when people write stuff like this that I cannot help but think they are unserious about having a rational discussion.

I haven't made that claim. My claim is that our current drug policy is not depressing the number of drug users.

The proxy evidence of exponentially increasing shipments of drugs into a nation is not sufficient to imply usage? What on earth kind of evidence do you need to prove it?

I see the problem here. You aren't really reading the counter arguments to your position. You think you are fighting a straw man. No one has postulated 100% usage, I have merely pointed out that according to MSimon's favorite reference (the Drug Library) Usage in China among Adult Males was 50% by 1906.

You've claimed that lax enforcement of anti-drug laws would cause an increase in drug use. I pointed out other countries that have lax enforcement and or lax laws that nonetheless have lower rates of drug use. This strongly indicates that your point is wrong.

You could claim that the experience of those countries doesn't apply to the United States but we're far more similar to them than we are Qing dynasty China, thus removing the one real instance of evidence you have. And it's not really evidence of your claim to begin with.

I don't know about you, but I think a 50% addiction rate among adult males is a serious threat to the existence of a nation. Do you have a better explanation how a country of 65 Million could beat the crap out of a nation of 500 Millionin 1931?

Yes. China was a corrupt, moribund autocracy with little in the way of societal cohesion before it was invaded by the most powerful and technologically advanced nation on earth with the power of a highly abusive and extractive world-spanning empire. What you're probably not aware of is that there was little in the way of a Chinese identity before the end of the British occupation. Ethnic infighting was common and a unified defense was out of the question. Half a billion people or not, China was in no condition to defeat the most powerful nation on earth.

There is another way of looking at the data. Even with the most powerful nation on earth acting as a drug pusher, half the male population opted out. Changing drug policy will not result in a powerful nation forcing Americans to buy any drug. Our situation is completely different. You're simply identifying two common data points and then running wild. Attempting to understand the history of opium in China without acknowledging the role of the East India Company and the British Empire is like trying to explain the fall of Saddam Hussein without talking about the invasion by the US or the liberation of France during WWII without talking about the American troops who formed the backbone of the effort.

Then again, Eurocrats in France have pretty much airbrushed the US soldiers out of Second World War while their children paint swastikas on the tombs of those same soldiers. So your method is not without precedent.

"Saddam fell in the shower! France just freed itself or maybe the Germans got bored and went home. Drugs made people smoke them in China!"

And I am not equating you with the Eurocrats, But your method is no better. I'm sure that you are capable of far better now that the errors in methodology have been pointed out to you.

[williatw]

That's just pathetically out of touch. Did making alcohol legal destroy the market for it? You're proposing nonsense. Do you even believe the nonsense you write?

And the idea that cannabis has grown in potency only because it is illegal is just batty as can be. Where do you come up with these crazy notions and why would anyone believe such a thing? That's like saying if there had never been prohibition against alcohol the still would not have been invented. Crazy, completely unsubstantiated nonsense.

I said destroy the market for the illegal pot...
The potency increased by illegal unregulated suppliers who could increase the THC content as they saw fit, vs regulated legal providers who couldn't if the legal allowed concentration is regulated.

[Blankbeard]

He was saying a private company has a federal contract for running US prisons, but there's a clasue in it that says the State has to maintain 98% occupancy

Probably one of the things that should not be run by private companies, then, eh?

Not enough information to be sure, but I'd bet that's a rate guarantee. The state gives the company a projection of inmate numbers and the company builds prisons/hires staff to match. If the state deviates (high or low) from these projections by more than a couple percent, the rate changes.

The same thing would occur if the prisons were publicly managed except it wouldn't be public and the cost would be higher.

[Blankbeard]

Actually GIThruster 42% of adults in the United States will try cannabis in a lifetime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_life ... 2008july-2

So exactly what is 9X 42%?

Why do you keep using Pot as a proxy for Meth, Crack, Opium, Cocaine, Heroine, etc? The Libertarian argument does not stop at Pot, it covers the entire gamut of drugs. Stop minimizing the danger by picking the least offensive among the bunch. Argue reality.

Why are you using pot as a proxy for the rest of reality? The Statist argument doesn't stop at Pot, it encompasses control over what you say, buy and every conceivable action. Stop minimizing the danger by picking the least offensive among the bunch. Argue reality.

That's the problem with Statists. When you come right down to it, there isn't anything they think you can control better than they can. That's why Republicans talk limited government and freedom but they expand its power almost as fast as the Democrats. They see so many people who are wrong and they just can't help themselves. No matter how many times it's shown that people manage their own lives better than government.

[Blankbeard]

Hate to serial post but here are a couple of interesting articles on the Prohibition. This first one is somewhat pro- or at least in the "Prohibition wasn't as bad as you've heard and more effective" mode

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470475/

This one is interesting. You see, there isn't actually much data on alcohol consumption during Prohibition. So most of the numbers you see are actually estimates of unknown accuracy and apparently no one who studies this subject has ever heard the term "error bar." What this paper does is lay out its methodology and allow you to follow along.

Their results probably won't surprise our resident drug warriors but they match up well with what data there is both during and after Prohibition.

Edit Oops. Forgot the second link. http://www.nber.org/papers/w3675.pdf?new_window=1

[Diogenes]

I guess you are unfamiliar with the term "free body"? I'm not surprised you are dodging. It is a difficult point to refute.

You don't have a point. Epidemiology is not physics. If you'd like to understand the spirit of my answers, ask a physics teacher to tell you the story of the spherical cow. In case you don't know a physics teacher, it involves a silly solution that ignores the attributes of the situation. Which is rather like using physics questions in epidemiology.

Yes, the mathematics describing exponential acceleration of gravity are completely different from the mathematics which describe the exponential acceleration of a disease.


After all, the concept of exponential acceleration cannot be compared from one discipline to another. It must be relearned completely from scratch every time one enters a new area of study.

Yes, the spread of communicable disease is far too complicated to discuss without knowing precisely which disease is to be discussed. Obviously the logistic growth is widely different from one disease to another. It's a wonder the CDC has any clue what to do when an outbreak occurs.


Dodging again.

The CDC knows what to do when an outbreak occurs because of study and experiment. They don't simply apply a one size fits all solution. Influenza is not West Nile Virus is not E. Coli is not Herpes is not Ebola. If you go to the CDC, you'll find they have specialists in different diseases. They have individual plans that take into account differences between diseases. Very importantly, they conduct post-mortem analysis to see what worked, what didn't, and how they could improve. And despite all of that, they still occasionally fail to respond appropriately. But when that happens, they work to improve.

In short, the CDC with all of its shortcomings is very unlike the sort of analysis (and I use that term very loosely) that you are supporting. They are an evidence-based organization with an observe-act-react cycle of improvement. They don't call a simplified picture or colonial China the end all of policy.

And with your methodology, were we to discuss glass, we would have to find out the exact silica content in it before we could determine that it was transparent.


You must REALLY, REALLY, REALLY be afraid of my argument to run so hard and fast away from it. It's like "Blankbeard bane" or something.
So fine, you aren't going to address the point. I guess we can just snipe at each other than.

You don't have to pretend to take the question seriously. Obviously you recognize that answering the question in a reasonable manner is a dire threat to your argument. I'm sorry for you argument that it cannot stand up to actual analysis.

Ask an epidemiologist to give you a detailed plan to deal with disease. Oh, and tell him that the type of disease doesn't matter.

It's funny that you think this is about epidemiology. And here I thought you might actually be perceptive or something.


Let me clue you in on something champ. All those boundaries you see between disciplines in science? Those are all illusions created by our desire to see a boundary. In fact, there are no boundaries between Chemistry\Physics\Biology. It is merely a human artifice that we regard them as having boundaries.


Now you just can't comprehend the concept of logistic growth, and I dare say it won't matter how I present it to you, because you just don't want to concede that logistic growth is the determining factor in the spread of drug addiction because that would utterly screw your argument. What you are suffering from is "cognitive dissonance" because what you have is a religion and not a set of beliefs based on reason.


No law against that, but to those of us who don't share your religion, your arguments don't make any sense because they violate obvious and easy to understand principles. Now you can try to dress it up any way you like, but at the end of the day, we heretics are not going to buy your faith based arguments.

You haven't performed any analysis. You've posted a chart from a guy who doesn't know how diseases spread. Now I'm not blaming you for not knowing how this works. There's no shame in not knowing something. I'm certainly not claiming to be an expert.

Oh, I don't know, you are making a pretty good case that you are an expert on not knowing something.

I know enough about this to do my job. Here though is an expert. http://www.stanford.edu/~thkim7/research.html
Scroll down to "2. Computational Epidemiology." This researcher is modeling avian flu and other diseases and containment. Note his charts don't look like the one you posted. Even in the absence of containment, diseases just don't act like you seem to think they do. If they did, the Spring Flu would be an extinction event, or at least the end of civilization.



This is just an example to show the shape of the curves. Note that the Y-axis (number/percent infected) is on a logarithmic scale. X-axis is time periods.

The red line is exponential growth. This is the sort of growth you're thinking about. It may look different than you're used to due to the fact that it's on a logarithmic scale. This is fast growth. Even with a low rate of fatality, a disease like this will burn through a population quickly if reinfection is possible or if the disease is chronic.

The blue line is logarithmic growth. Notice that it grows like exponential at first but then levels off. If you know a bit of calculus, you can even calculate the number it will reach. This is a possible model for diseases.

The green and black lines are my attempt at modeling specific diseases. The black is a disease like influenza. Reinfection is either unlikely or impossible for most of the population. Since it spreads so fast, it burns through the available hosts and then goes away. Exponential growth to saturation followed by quick, often exponential, decay. Interestingly, this is also the pattern of hulu hoops, Katy Perry songs, and other fads.

Very pretty. And of course Opium is such a fad that it lasted over a hundred years. Katy Perry should be so lucky.

The green line is like what we observe with addictions, products with lasting appeal, and many ideas. They grow quickly, reach a plateau, and then rise and fall in popularity. With addictions, we tend to see this kind of pattern regardless of law enforcement. Indeed, this pattern often seems to be influencing the passage of laws. In 2003, meth use peaked and began to decline. In 2005, the Combat Methamphetamine Act was passed and immediately hailed as a success.

Yeah, you must have missed that documentary on PBS which explained all the efforts leading up to that Act. (I think this is the one.)Apparently they found out that the drug cartels were getting their pseudo-ephedrine from a certain factory in India. They (the feds) went over there and had a little chat with the Factory and ouila, suddenly the supply of cheap meth took a big nose dive.

But please, do go on about your theory.

Yes, obviously we would have fewer if we didn't interfere with their drug usage. It's when people write stuff like this that I cannot help but think they are unserious about having a rational discussion.

I haven't made that claim. My claim is that our current drug policy is not depressing the number of drug users.

Which as far as I can tell means the exact same thing. It is also as sensible as saying that our current murder policy is not depressing the number of murderers. Errant nonsense that is in complete conflict with deterrence, the theory upon which the entire Legal system is based.

Again, how can anyone take this claim seriously?

The proxy evidence of exponentially increasing shipments of drugs into a nation is not sufficient to imply usage? What on earth kind of evidence do you need to prove it?

I see the problem here. You aren't really reading the counter arguments to your position. You think you are fighting a straw man. No one has postulated 100% usage, I have merely pointed out that according to MSimon's favorite reference (the Drug Library) Usage in China among Adult Males was 50% by 1906.

You've claimed that lax enforcement of anti-drug laws would cause an increase in drug use. I pointed out other countries that have lax enforcement and or lax laws that nonetheless have lower rates of drug use. This strongly indicates that your point is wrong.

That is one possible explanation. Another is that Libertarians are unknowingly colluding with Socialists to torture statistics to scream out what they want to hear. As Frederick Hayek put it:



“Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.”

― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom



But that is not just supposition. Here is a study which indicates that this is indeed what is happening in the case of Portugal.

Ouch! I bet you didn't expect that!

You could claim that the experience of those countries doesn't apply to the United States but we're far more similar to them than we are Qing dynasty China, thus removing the one real instance of evidence you have. And it's not really evidence of your claim to begin with.

Oh God! If I ever hear "This won't happen to us because our culture is COMPLETELY different from the Chinese!" again, I think i'm going to puke. Physiological characteristics are for all intents and purposes, exactly the same between Americans and the Chinese. That which will addict them, will also addict us.

This argument that Cultural differences will shield us from poison is just another dodge for someone who doesn't want to accept what is true.

I don't know about you, but I think a 50% addiction rate among adult males is a serious threat to the existence of a nation. Do you have a better explanation how a country of 65 Million could beat the crap out of a nation of 500 Millionin 1931?

Yes. China was a corrupt, moribund autocracy with little in the way of societal cohesion before it was invaded by the most powerful and technologically advanced nation on earth with the power of a highly abusive and extractive world-spanning empire. What you're probably not aware of is that there was little in the way of a Chinese identity before the end of the British occupation. Ethnic infighting was common and a unified defense was out of the question. Half a billion people or not, China was in no condition to defeat the most powerful nation on earth.

Especially not hung over like that. For strung out addicts, odds of 8-1 just aren't good enough.

There is another way of looking at the data. Even with the most powerful nation on earth acting as a drug pusher, half the male population opted out. Changing drug policy will not result in a powerful nation forcing Americans to buy any drug.

And now I think YOU are smoking crack. Force? Persuade? What's the difference when it comes down to the end result? Hell, if we could sell drugs to Iran, *I* would chip in a few thousand to send them there. And I get a return on my money? H3ll YEAH!!!!!

Our situation is completely different. You're simply identifying two common data points and then running wild.

Intuitive leap based on a pile of knowledge and experience the likes of which I've yet to see matched let alone surpassed. (although I suspect djolds1 and perhaps DeltaV)

Attempting to understand the history of opium in China without acknowledging the role of the East India Company and the British Empire is like trying to explain the fall of Saddam Hussein without talking about the invasion by the US or the liberation of France during WWII without talking about the American troops who formed the backbone of the effort.

By all means, try to understand the role played by the British East India Company. Especially their, you know, SHIPPING RECORDS!!!!!!!

Then again, Eurocrats in France have pretty much airbrushed the US soldiers out of Second World War while their children paint swastikas on the tombs of those same soldiers. So your method is not without precedent.

I dunno, telling the truth has seldom been in favor for those wishing not to hear it. Maybe your methods perhaps?

"Saddam fell in the shower! France just freed itself or maybe the Germans got bored and went home. Drugs made people smoke them in China!"

Well, the absence of them certainly didn't cause it. That would be a neat trick.

And I am not equating you with the Eurocrats, But your method is no better. I'm sure that you are capable of far better now that the errors in methodology have been pointed out to you.

Must have missed it. You probably did too, but not for lack of trying on my part.

[Blankbeard]

Yes, the mathematics describing exponential acceleration of gravity are completely different from the mathematics which describe the exponential acceleration of a disease.

Most diseases don't undergo unlimited exponential growth. They undergo logarithmic growth. That's biology 101 material. You. Should. Know. This.

Edit: I have used the underlined word incorrectly. The correct statement is that "They grow in a fashion consistent with their characteristics and usually cannot be accurately described with a simple function."

And with your methodology, were we to discuss glass, we would have to find out the exact silica content in it before we could determine that it was transparent.

No, we just wouldn't treat glass, plastic, air, and water as if they were the same thing simply because all can be transparent.

You must REALLY, REALLY, REALLY be afraid of my argument to run so hard and fast away from it. It's like "Blankbeard bane" or something.
So fine, you aren't going to address the point. I guess we can just snipe at each other than.

I'd addressed what little of an argument you've made. You cannot simply generalize about all diseases, particularly between broad classes like communicable diseases and mental/social "diseases" like addiction. You can't even generalize between different drugs. Do you think, just to give you an example, that withdrawal from Alcohol, Oxycotin, and Marijuana are the same? Would you treat them the same way? Would you give a benzo to all three to combat symptoms? Because with two of those three, you're getting nothing done while the patient is in withdrawal. Which one is fatal if unattended? Which one is the most disconcerting to the patient? Hint: The last two questions do not have the same answer.

(The pharmacologically astute will notice that we treat withdrawal from one addictive drug by giving the patient another addictive drug.)

Look, I understand that you're almost certainly not involved in a field where you have to see any of this. And you're probably a generally law-abiding person (having not read Three Felonies A Day ) so you've never had to live with the effects. You're not a doctor who risks going to jail if the DEA thinks he's been too easy with pain control medication. I seriously hope you never have to deal with back pain or another chronic pain because more than likely your doctor will have issues effectively treating you. Every time the DEA revises its guidelines it's a bit harder for doctors. Since not having a DEA license is the same as not having a job, it's best not to complain too loudly. Pain management clinics take the load but the rules are no easier for them. It's just the appearance of a new specialist to handle the regulations around pain medications.

Regardless of what you think, I'm not sniping at you. I'm bringing up basic methodological problems with your argument. You are arguing from a position of ignorance (no judgement intended) and assuming that there's nothing more to a situation than what you know about.

But let me extend an olive branch. You say I'm missing the point. I'll play the inadequate student and ask what is the point I'm missing. Put your cards on the table and we'll go from there.

It's funny that you think this is about epidemiology. And here I thought you might actually be perceptive or something.

In the spirit of clear communication what is this about?

Let me clue you in on something champ. All those boundaries you see between disciplines in science? Those are all illusions created by our desire to see a boundary. In fact, there are no boundaries between Chemistry\Physics\Biology. It is merely a human artifice that we regard them as having boundaries.

True but irrelevant. You could describe any problem using only the language of physics but for any non-trivial problem this description would take most of a human lifetime. For almost any real problem, it would take longer than the lifetime of human civilization to do so. If you'd like to show me the peer-reviewed studies that you've done a few tens of thousands of years of work creating a description of drug addiction that would almost certainly be longer than the combined literary output of the rest of mankind in all of history (and almost certainly, the rest of history) then by all means, give me a link. Otherwise, you just come off as another crackpot.

We have different sciences to break reality down into manageable pieces. Holistic views are nice but above your paygrade. When a physicist manages to produce workable models for epidemiology, it won't be some forum guy who introduces it to the world.

Now you just can't comprehend the concept of logistic growth, and I dare say it won't matter how I present it to you, because you just don't want to concede that logistic growth is the determining factor in the spread of drug addiction because that would utterly screw your argument. What you are suffering from is "cognitive dissonance" because what you have is a religion and not a set of beliefs based on reason.

The small text is at least partially wrong and perhaps completely wrong. Rather than confuse the issue please skip to the bolded text below for the correct argument.

Dude, you've been posting graphs showing exponential growth, not logistic. Exponential growth produces a graph where as x goes from 0 to some point lower than infinity, y approaches infinity. Functions that do this are called exponential functions and the simplest one is y=x^2. Exponential functions approach infinity more quickly than any other type. In laymen's terms, exponential growth makes a graph with a simple curve that quickly straight up.

Logarithmic, or if you prefer logistic, growth looks completely different. They start off similarly and for a while it may even grow faster than exponential, but the line levels off and heads straight right. Technically, logarithmic growth produces a curve that approaches its finite limit asymptotically. The simplest of these are the functions of type y=log(x) where the logarithm may be in any base, commonly base 10 or the natural logarithm.


Edit: Thanks to 93143 for pointing out that the above paragraph is wrong. Rather than continuing to torture my decade old calculus, let me get to the heart of the issue:

Diseases don't grow that way. Sometimes their behavior can be approximated by different functions but each disease follows its own rules based on its characteristics and environment.

I'll assume this is a simple mistake on your part. Also, a simple mistake on my part.

No law against that, but to those of us who don't share your religion, your arguments don't make any sense because they violate obvious and easy to understand principles. Now you can try to dress it up any way you like, but at the end of the day, we heretics are not going to buy your faith based arguments.

This is craven slander and you know it. I've posted evidence for all of my statements. Are you another clown like GIThruster? I rather believe you aren't. Do better.

Oh, I don't know, you are making a pretty good case that you are an expert on not knowing something.

Look, I'm as guilty of indulging in the occasional ad hominem attack as the next guy but you really can't base an argument on them. Do better.

Very pretty. And of course Opium is such a fad that it lasted over a hundred years. Katy Perry should be so lucky.

If the US government enforced sales of her records, she wouldn't need luck.

Yeah, you must have missed that documentary on PBS which explained all the efforts leading up to that Act. (I think this is the one.)Apparently they found out that the drug cartels were getting their pseudo-ephedrine from a certain factory in India. They (the feds) went over there and had a little chat with the Factory and ouila, suddenly the supply of cheap meth took a big nose dive.

But please, do go on about your theory.

I wonder if you mean this 2009 bust in India?
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-north ... regon.html


I see no dates on your link but it doesn't actually matter. How does this change what I said? The Combat Methamphetamine Act of 2005 was claimed as the reason that meth usage dropped. In 2003. If a different effort reduced meth supply, that still doesn't make that claim true.

Further the Combat Meth act addresses pharmacy sales of small amounts of precursor chemicals, not overseas factories. So your link is irrelevant to the act. I am familiar with this act because I'm the one required to keep records of what customers buy, to cut them off when they reach their daily and monthly limits, and its the records that I use that are used to arrest people like this guy:

http://reason.com/blog/2006/12/24/man-a ... -allergies

And here you go. This is education for pharmacists. Take a look at the items they want us to watch for and notify the DEA if your purchases are suspicious. And what's suspicious? I hope the pharmacist who's filling in for yours the day you bring table salt, coffee filters, and 2 liter sodas to the counter isn't the paranoid type. No-knock raids are nothing I'd wish on anyone.

http://pharmacistsletter.therapeuticres ... eSupport=1

Meanwhile, meth usage was back to previous levels by 2006 and has bounced around every since.

http://www.samhsa.gov/data/nsduh/2k10ns ... esults.htm

http://carnevaleassociates.com/meth_2011

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 2279#f0010

Does this look like clear success for interdiction?

Which as far as I can tell means the exact same thing. It is also as sensible as saying that our current murder policy is not depressing the number of murderers. Errant nonsense that is in complete conflict with deterrence, the theory upon which the entire Legal system is based.

Again, how can anyone take this claim seriously?

1) There would be more murders if murder were legal.
2) There would be the same number of murders if murders were legal.
3) There is no evidence that there would be more murders if murder were legal.

Not the same. Three separate claims. In fact, 3 could be a true claim even if 1 or 2 turned out to be factually correct or even if they both turned out to be wrong.

1) There would be more drug users if drug use was legal.
2) There would be the same numbers of drug users if drug use was legal.
3) There is no evidence that there would be more drug use if drugs were legal.
3 separate claims, of which 3 is the one I've made. Not hard to understand.

The proxy evidence of exponentially increasing shipments of drugs into a nation is not sufficient to imply usage? What on earth kind of evidence do you need to prove it?

It would be nice to have that happen in a situation that at least vaguely resembles the situation in the united states.

That is one possible explanation. Another is that Libertarians are unknowingly colluding with Socialists to torture statistics to scream out what they want to hear. As Frederick Hayek put it:

That's not an explanation, that's a social conservative indulging in conspiracy theory so he can avoid admitting the evidence doesn't support him.

Please provide evidence that libertarians are running the show in any of the named countries. Heck, show they're even an important political force in any of those countries. Double heck, find me one country run by libertarians. I'll move there and leave you to turn this country into the United States of Jail.

“Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.”[/b][/i]

― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

Ooh, quoting Hayek as if he were an authoritarian! Trollish goodness. Description is not Prescription, Diogenes.

Triple troll score for trying to tie libertarians to socialists. You just ad hom'ed millions. As I mentioned to GIThruster, the next step is ad hom'ing Jews.

(Why did a social conservative take the name of a greek philosopher known for flouting tradition and pissing off conservatives? I hope it's not simple irony.)

But that is not just supposition. Here is a study which indicates that this is indeed what is happening in the case of Portugal.

Ouch! I bet you didn't expect that!

Did you read that study? Or just see it was critical of the Cato foundation and assume it supported you?

Here's their conclusion

The promulgation and uptake of different accounts of the Portuguese reform is a clear indicator of the interest in it. Considered analysis of the two most divergent accounts reveals that the Portuguese reform warrants neither the praise nor the condemnation of being a ‘resounding success’ or a ‘disastrous failure’, and that these divergent policy conclusions were derived from selective use of the evidence base that belie the nuanced, albeit largely positive, implications from this reform.

Given their potential for use in promoting or blocking drug law reform in Portugal and elsewhere, the selective uses of data and divergent conclusions are perhaps to be expected. Yet, while we found evidence that the misinterpretation of evidence may garner national or international support and contribute to the uptake of misconceptions and erroneous accounts (that may align with core beliefs), we contend that particularly for proponents of reform, that is, those challenging the status quo, deliberate misinterpretation of evidence is a high-risk game. The dissemination of incredibly certain [6] and overly positive accounts provides easy grounds for discrediting reforms, ignoring the lessons that they provide and shifting public debate in directions that may prove detrimental to future proponents.

More broadly, the dissemination of loose accounts poses serious risks of devaluing the case for evidence-based drug policy [7]. Indeed, the divergent accounts of the Portuguese reform provide ample grounds for questioning the implicit assumption that evidence will generate policies ‘devoid of dogma’[7]. At a time when many countries in the developed world have shifted electorally to the right, there may be a temptation to throw evidence-based drug policy out, under the pretext that science proves nothing at all. Careful communication of claims is thus critical for both academics and advocates, so that evidence-informed accounts are more than mere ammunition for the policy battlefield.

And here's a bit about the effects of the reform on the drug rate:

The question is: how meaningful is this information for determining the effects of the reform? Portugal has historically had very low prevalence of drug use and was one of the last European nations to experience significant increases in heroin use. During the 1990s it had very high prevalence of all the indicators referred to by Pinto (excepting homicides). It is only by taking into account rates pre-reform—or more preferably trends pre- and post-reform—that we can examine the extent to which Portugal's current drug situation, relative to the rest of Europe, can be attributed to the reform.

Our article examined trends in Portugal relative to Spain and Italy (chosen for their similarity in geography and drug situation) and concluded that post-reform Portugal is similar or performing better for most indicators. In relation to drug use we identified that between 2001 and 2007 there were similar increases in all three nations for lifetime and recent drug use for cannabis and cocaine [8]. For school students, lifetime prevalence (using ESPAD data) increased in all three nations from 1999 to 2003 before a drop in 2007, with the major difference being that in Portugal, the drop in reported use of any illicit substance appeared more pronounced and the decline in reported cannabis use appeared less pronounced. Significantly, Portugal was the only nation to exhibit declines in problematic drug use.

Regarding drug-related deaths, Portugal, Spain and Italy had different trends, reflecting the different stages of the heroin epidemic, but ‘it is clear that since the Portuguese introduction of its drug strategy and the decriminalization, all three nations showed declines in drug-related deaths, but that the declines were more pronounced in Portugal and Italy than in Spain’[8]. The main point of difference was that Portugal alone showed an increase in drug-related mortality in 2007 and 2008; however, as illustrated earlier this was attributed to the increase in toxicological autopsies. The more recently available INE evidence largely supports this attribution. Broader examination of the EMCDDA reports and data supports our earlier conclusion that post-reform Portugal is performing—longitudinally—similarly or slightly better than most European countries.

Bold print is mine. So both the "resounding success" and the "complete disaster" were overblown. No surprise there. Politics is the home of the overblown, exaggerations, and panics over nothing. But what they found was consistent with my position.

Noticeably, the drug use apocalypse you warn against didn't happen. So again, this suggests you are wrong. Legalization will probably not increase the usage of drugs. Legalization advocates who claim that legalization would lower drug rates were also wrong. Yay! Moderation and science win the day!

Lesson: Make sure you read and comprehend your sources.

Oh God! If I ever hear "This won't happen to us because our culture is COMPLETELY different from the Chinese!" again, I think i'm going to puke. Physiological characteristics are for all intents and purposes, exactly the same between Americans and the Chinese. That which will addict them, will also addict us.

This argument that Cultural differences will shield us from poison is just another dodge for someone who doesn't want to accept what is true.

The British Empire isn't trying to force opium on us. Occupation by drug pushers is not a cultural difference. It's a difference in reality. Goebbels said if you keep repeating a big lie, people believe it. He didn't say it becomes true.

Especially not hung over like that. For strung out addicts, odds of 8-1 just aren't good enough.

Inaccuracy and racism, all in one convenient image. How efficient of you.

(Shout out to Babylon 5 for that adapted quote.)

And now I think YOU are smoking crack. Force? Persuade? What's the difference when it comes down to the end result? Hell, if we could sell drugs to Iran, *I* would chip in a few thousand to send them there. And I get a return on my money? H3ll YEAH!!!!!

A guy who persuades you to have sex with him is your lover. A guy who forces you to have sex with him is a rapist. You are well aware of the difference. Do not beclown yourself. Iran actually has quite strict laws against drugs and a rather high rate of use and abuse.

Intuitive leap based on a pile of knowledge and experience the likes of which I've yet to see matched let alone surpassed. (although I suspect djolds1 and perhaps DeltaV)

Well, you are certainly a legend in your own mind. Telling me how smart you are will not make up for unsupported arguments. If anything, I've found those who label themselves smart will talk themselves into the most idiotic ideas because they're good at convincing themselves of things based on little evidence. I'm certain you're capable of better.

By all means, try to understand the role played by the British East India Company. Especially their, you know, SHIPPING RECORDS!!!!!!!

Yes, we're back to that force/persuade. A man with a knife to your throat is not persuading you to give him a donation. He is robbing you. I don't know of a single world view that doesn't recognize that. Surely you have enough moral sense and rational ability to agree with that.

Likewise, the East India Company forced opium upon China until the British were finally forced out. Even if you were right about this (and you are not) the counter examples I listed earlier (as well as Portugal) would suffice to disprove any rule.

I dunno, telling the truth has seldom been in favor for those wishing not to hear it. Maybe your methods perhaps?

Well, the absence of them certainly didn't cause it. That would be a neat trick.

This doesn't dispute what I said.

Must have missed it. You probably did too, but not for lack of trying on my part.

Mark 4:12 is most assuredly written to you personally. I believe you're trying to make an argument even if you do seem to resort to trolling when you are frustrated. But in the future, I'm going to attempt to shorten my response according to the amount of effort I see you making. I'm not going to spend a couple hours researching and proofreading a post for you to make ad-hominem attacks. GIThruster did that and if that's how you end up arguing, you're free to sit at the kids table with him.

Oh, ladajo, how about those studies you mentioned? I understand you're probably busy.

[paperburn1]

wow now it sound like some people are pretending to be other people. polywell please publish some data so we can get back on track!!!

[93143]

@Dio & Blank: You're both wrong.

...

An exponential function is y = a^x. The most common one is y = e^x, where e is a fundamental irrational constant roughly equal to 2.718. Interestingly, d(e^x)/dx is also e^x.

y = x^2 and the position of a falling object in a uniform gravity field are both quadratics, a type of polynomial, and they don't approach infinity anywhere near as fast as an exponential.

Also, a logarithm (the opposite of an exponential) does not approach a finite value. It approaches infinity just like an exponential does - but it is extraordinarily slow to do so; the natural logarithm of a billion is just under legal drinking age in the U.S....

A logistic function is a slightly more complicated function that incorporates an exponential. It is bounded between two asymptotes (generally zero and the carrying capacity, in its original usage) and is commonly referred to as an S-curve, though it is not the only possible kind...

[Blankbeard]

I'm not refering to The Exponential Function but rather what are generally known as exponential functions which are indeed as I described, one that grows exponentially. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/mth251/ ... esson.html


You're right on Logarithmic functions though. It's been too long since calculus and I should have double checked my definitions. While the shape of the two lines is similar, the line from a logistic function seems to be as I described as "Logarithmic" while a true Logarithmic function will head towards the upper left.

Thanks for the correction! Luckily, neither point alters my points. The graph Diogenes posted shows exponential growth. Diseases do not show unbounded expoentiial growth.


It just goes to show, don't rely on memory for what you don't use everyday Also the importance of sources.

[williatw]

Hate to serial post but here are a couple of interesting articles on the Prohibition. This first one is somewhat pro- or at least in the "Prohibition wasn't as bad as you've heard and more effective" mode

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470475/

This one is interesting. You see, there isn't actually much data on alcohol consumption during Prohibition. So most of the numbers you see are actually estimates of unknown accuracy and apparently no one who studies this subject has ever heard the term "error bar." What this paper does is lay out its methodology and allow you to follow along.

Their results probably won't surprise our resident drug warriors but they match up well with what data there is both during and after Prohibition.

Edit Oops. Forgot the second link. http://www.nber.org/papers/w3675.pdf?new_window=1

Looked over some of your links thanks for posting. I thought the consensus of opinion about alcohol prohibition is that it may have reduced overall alcohol consumption (hard to estimate illegal production/consumption though) but the side effects were worse than the benefits. Alcohol deaths caused by people drinking badly prepared alcohol often laced with poisons skyrocketed. The profits from the illegal trafficking caused a huge explosive growth in the power and reach of organized crime, causing crime in general to increase, gov corruption etc. (just like the war on drugs), abuse of civil liberties, loss of respect for law enforcement etc.

[williatw]

This is craven slander and you know it. I've posted evidence for all of my statements. Are you another clown like GIThruster? I rather believe you aren't. Do better.

Oh, I don't know, you are making a pretty good case that you are an expert on not knowing something.

Look, I'm as guilty of indulging in the occasional ad hominem attack as the next guy but you really can't base an argument on them. Do better.Mark 4:12 is most assuredly written to you personally. I believe you're trying to make an argument even if you do seem to resort to trolling when you are frustrated. But in the future, I'm going to attempt to shorten my response according to the amount of effort I see you making. I'm not going to spend a couple hours researching and proofreading a post for you to make ad-hominem attacks. GIThruster did that and if that's how you end up arguing, you're free to sit at the kids table with him.

As far as Diogenes and GIThruster are concerned...you are pretty much getting their "A" game. If they had better you would have seen it.

[GIThruster]

You can ignore william. We all do. If you want to see my arguments against decriminalization of cannabis there are many dozens of posts making my position clear. I am simply not going to go back and do the reading for you.

The reason you're pretending my arguments are all ad hominem is you haven't bothered to read or respond to the arguments. You're pretending the data doesn't exist by avoiding it altogether. You're treating the two primary observations I've made about cannabis causing psychosis and about how the raw numbers of users are affected by legalization as if these arguments don't exist. It appears you believe you've won a debate by default, but it's not that the other side didn't show up. It's that you're too lazy to read and respond to the arguments.

[Blankbeard]

Looked over some of your links thanks for posting. I thought the consensus of opinion about alcohol prohibition is that it may have reduced overall alcohol consumption (hard to estimate illegal production/consumption though) but the side effects were worse than the benefits. Alcohol deaths caused by people drinking badly prepared alcohol often laced with poisons skyrocketed. The profits from the illegal trafficking caused a huge explosive growth in the power and reach of organized crime, causing crime in general to increase, gov corruption etc. (just like the war on drugs), abuse of civil liberties, loss of respect for law enforcement etc.

No problems. Facts are a good disinfectant Yeah, that's pretty much the consensus although I'd probably say there appears to be little evidence for a large increase in Alcohol related deaths. The problem is that there isn't a lot of good data from the period of Prohibition so it's very possible to read your preferred conclusion into the data. The first paper is contending that's what the mainstream consensus has done. The second uses a predictive model that reproduces the data we have which gives a measure of weight to its predictions of missing data. I find that quite useful.

And of course, then you have bias, politics, and the tendency of nearly every voice in the conversation to equivocate, exaggerate, and lie.

As far as Diogenes and GIThruster are concerned...you are pretty much getting their "A" game. If they had better you would have seen it.

Oh my. Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to admit, when he claimed his knowledge was yet to be matched, I realized he was a buffoon. But I've already registered for the board. Maybe these posts will serve as a reference to some future person.

[Stubby]

Looked over some of your links thanks for posting. I thought the consensus of opinion about alcohol prohibition is that it may have reduced overall alcohol consumption (hard to estimate illegal production/consumption though) but the side effects were worse than the benefits. Alcohol deaths caused by people drinking badly prepared alcohol often laced with poisons skyrocketed. The profits from the illegal trafficking caused a huge explosive growth in the power and reach of organized crime, causing crime in general to increase, gov corruption etc. (just like the war on drugs), abuse of civil liberties, loss of respect for law enforcement etc.

No problems. Facts are a good disinfectant Yeah, that's pretty much the consensus although I'd probably say there appears to be little evidence for a large increase in Alcohol related deaths. The problem is that there isn't a lot of good data from the period of Prohibition so it's very possible to read your preferred conclusion into the data. The first paper is contending that's what the mainstream consensus has done. The second uses a predictive model that reproduces the data we have which gives a measure of weight to its predictions of missing data. I find that quite useful.

And of course, then you have bias, politics, and the tendency of nearly every voice in the conversation to equivocate, exaggerate, and lie.

As far as Diogenes and GIThruster are concerned...you are pretty much getting their "A" game. If they had better you would have seen it.

Oh my. Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to admit, when he claimed his knowledge was yet to be matched, I realized he was a buffoon. But I've already registered for the board. Maybe these posts will serve as a reference to some future person.

Actually of the 2 GiT is the more rational. digot is so far gone that it is not worth the effort of writing this sentence but it is saturday and I have some free time.

btw GiT love the royal 'we' regarding william. Classic and classy too!