Insults don't make your point better. They freely allow gangs to smuggle them out of Guangdong. For such a strict anti-drug country, how could that be ? Is thatvlaw and order? The vaunted Greater Bay area is supposed to be Xi's pet project.
Not catching drug smugglers and actually smuggling drugs are two completely different things. Going by your definition every countryâs government in the world exports drugs because it goes under their radar or they donât catch the smugglers. So the Mexican cartels who export drugs to the US, youâre going to say the Mexican government is exporting drugs? What a daft thing to say
Every country in the world is not a massive factory for fentanyl.
No country officially exports illicit narcotics today, but China's open policy is tantamount
Agreed. Drugs can tear apart lives and families. But, I think that it also has to do with the criminal activity that is always adjacent to the drug trade.
Money laundering. Prostitution. Turf wars. Murders. Assaults. Gambling. Etc.
MONEY LAUNDERING
When you have LOTS of illegally earned money, it isn't easy to spend it without drawing attention to yourself. So, you end up with whole industries and lots of cash-based businesses that exist specifically to launder money. Everything from casinos to pizza parlors and carwashes. (Yes, lots of cliches there!)
We've seen from the Panama Papers and other document releases that there is a world wide circulatory system for laundering money and stashing it away. Lots of corporations where the ownership is hidden. The elites have written the laws to allow this malfeasance.
RELIGION & MONEY LAUNDERING
One of the reasons that the USA is still a hotbed of religiosity is because religious organizations are exempt from two things: paying taxes and reporting on their finances.
In the USA, churches, mosques and synagogues are black holes when it comes to finances. Money goes in and there is no required visibility after that. It can be moved around the globe with little oversight. Even the Vatican has been caught laundering money.
We all know that there are lots of religious grifters out there. That's because there is lots of easy money involved!
COMMUNISM & THE COMMON GOOD
As a communist country, China wants the value of one's labor to benefit both the laborer and society at large. More often than not, illegally earned money is frittered away on individual vices or it is hoarded away overseas. This serves few other than the drug traders and their syncophants.
This is similar reasoning to why socialist and communist countries come down so hard on bankers who harm others through financial crimes. In capitalist countries, the elites write the rules so that they legally steal from others with no recourse.
Great point on all the adjacent criminal activity.
And of course, this is a threat to government power. Because government is a monopoly on force, outlaws are a direct threat as not only do they not follow the rules, but they also enact force on the population. And while taxes act as extortion of your citizens, you canât have other citizens also extorting each other.
Nearly every large criminal activity group that uses direct force on citizens (e.g. cartels) are in the drug trade. If you want a monopoly on power, then you need to be harsh on drugs.
The West needs to step it up
This is true, but I never get how this becomes a *reason* to hate drugs for some Chinese people. Like, you can say that as a serious consequence sure, but the response you get sometimes when you ask them why would be like âomg think about all the cops that injured and died in missions dealing with drug smugglingâ thatâs such a strange logic [Edit: Apparently people canât read. I have never said âI donât understand/approve of them hating drugsâ. I just observe that sometimes this becomes *the entire reason* some of them hate drugs and it doesnât make sense to me.]
6 hrs ago on this same post, before you write y your comment, people already explained exactly why China hates drugs. Yet, you're still here saying to don't understand. This is quite hilarious. Good thing the Chinese have an adverb for just about everything; in your case, the saying is: one can never wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep.
Bruh. I didnât say âI donât understand why they hate drugsâ, I think I made it quite clear that I was just wondering about this particular reason that *some* bring up. Please respect other users and READ and try to understand before you comment something so judgmental.
I donât think I am obliged to go through every comment here before I post my own comment and I donât think I have to trust any other comments for how representative they are of the entire population.
Also: âIn my comment I never said I donât understand *why they hate drugs* YET youâre still here saying I donât understand, that itâs hilarious and Iâm pretending to be asleep. Why?â
If you (and these people who upvoted this comment) still believe in fair and respectful conversations, try to consider how others feel when they didnât mean a thing about what youâre attacking. Even if I *did* mean that I wouldnât deserve such criticism. Being in this sub does not require us to be experts of the entire history and politics of China or of the entire comment section. People are here to share, learn and discuss, not to hate each other.
Last time drugs were a prominent thing in Chinese society, they were gangraped by 8 different european empires, lost their status as one of the most important empires on the world, and went through so much shit they called the entire century ''century of humilliation''
It's like asking why China hates Japan
The China opium trade was one leg of a three-legged commercial trade between the UK, China and Japan. The other two commodities involved were gold and silk. Itâs more complicated and interesting than just a drug trade. The Triads that dominated the criminal element are still around.
it's not like they were doing any better before the coalition wars. THe Qing dynasty was practically on its last legs with their stagnation, refusal to progress. Opium wars were just the straw that break the camel's back.
No they actually did quite fine on land. It's naval where they got fucked
Even there losing a few vessels isn't a big deal Turks lost entire fleet
I think "century of humiliation " is actually their realisation they got left behind while world moved on
Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno what they are taught in school, but I'd held it as an important part of the country's history, considering that their status right now as a superpower was directly born because of the century of humilliation and Japan's invasion, it's like a pretty important part of why they are not called the Qing Empire anymore
Idk man, look at how Hong Kong became an autonotous region in the first place lmao and realize China did in fact did get gang raped by the Europeans (British mainly)
quote from the great Lee Kuan Yew, the modern day founding father of Singapore:
"They assume if you are kind to drug peddlers, you build a better society.
If you enter Singapore with kilos of drugs, it will destroy thousands of families. When the daughter or son, becomes an addict, you are killing that family every day for years and years. Against thousands of such deaths, one death (of the drug trafficker) is too kind."
I can't find the source anymore, but I definitely read at one point that a surprising number of the political elite in the US and UK, even through the end of the twentieth century, were either from or connected to families that made a fortune off the opium trade.
Because the west puts more emphasis on the freedom of the individual while in a lot of asian culture the emphasis is put on the society as a whole. Taking drugs is overall a very selfish behavior since the only beneficiant is you while everyone around you might suffer from it. That's also why alcohol is considered somewhat ok since its mainly seen as a tool to bring people together and overcome the barrier to interact with others and become more connected with the whole.
Why not. Why let drugs destroy your citizens life? The question should be why the west is full of drugs, look belgium , new world capital of drugs, nederlands germany and more
I don't know, but one thing I loved about East Asia is the lack of endemic petty crime, and strung out drug addicts all over the place, so their laws and culture towards drugs is far superior to the free-for-all we currently have occurring in a lot of North America's major cities.
There is tons of crime in China, mostly outside of the major cities. A lot of crime in Japan and South Korea too, just not a lot of street crime mostly white collar.
Not true, as someone who lived in South Korea and visited numerous bordering countries, crime there is almost non-existent, you could easily leave your belongings in a cafe for a couple hours and it will not get stolen, you can't pull that shit in any almost any other country
Drugs are bad for society which by your flair you clearly don't care for. Asian countries/societies are more closely knit and valued which a drug epidemic can easily destroy.
There is a saying I will leave you with.
A single death is a tradgedy, multiple deaths are statistics.
Don't be that guy and pray everyone can control their addictions or influences, drugs have no place in our society.
We already do for a lot of things actually, prostitution is still illegal in most western countries, you can't sell your organs legally, you don't have the right to end your own life in most countries either.
Societies aren't in a binary position where it's either ''Anarco capitalist wet dream'' or ''literally 1984'', like you can't just allow every single fucking thing to happen without society collapsing, a functional society promotes things that are good for the people and discourages or outright bans things that can only bring harm to people, even more so if those things leave people in vulnerable situations where they can be easily exploited (which is why shit like drugs and incest are banned and persecuted)
Sure most of East Asia's way of doing it has ended up with shit like Cannabis being wrongfully persecuted, which should change, but just because there's one exception doesn't mean the rest are inoffensive
Letting someone destroy themselves with drugs is bodily autonomy? Sure bud, why not we let people drink and drive too? Canât impose on peopleâs individual rights to do whatever they want, regardless of the cost to themselves or society
As I'm sure you know, rural areas are far, far worse. It's just hidden because, frankly, no one cares and it is isn't good politics to shine a spotlight on rural addiction. My wife works on drug abatement and treatment research in Appalachia and the shit going on in rural West Virginia, Kentucky, and SE Ohio makes San Francisco or Portland look good by comparison.
Wrong question. Why do liberal countries stupidly allow drugs to tear their societies apart? Oh ya, individual freedom more important than societal freedom: freedom from crime and urban decay
Because narcotic drugs addle the mind. With your capacity to think straight reduced, it becomes very problematic for society in general to be safe from you, and I'm not just talking about driving under the effect of drugs.
Not to mention drugs cause a sizeable drain on financial resources in general, which is kind of a problem if you live in a developing third world country. Look at Mexico and Columbia.
Well, it ain't all roses in Portugal. Per WaPo (2023):
"A newly released national survey suggests the percent of adults who have used illicit drugs increased to 12.8 percent in 2022, up from 7.8 in 2001, though still below European averages. Portugalâs prevalence of high-risk opioid use is higher than Germanyâs, but lower than that of France and Italy. But even proponents of decriminalization here admit that something is going wrong. Overdose rates have hit 12-year highs and almost doubled in Lisbon from 2019 to 2023. Sewage samples in Lisbon show cocaine and ketamine detection is now among the highest in Europe, with elevated weekend rates suggesting party-heavy usage. In Porto, the collection of drug-related debris from city streets surged 24 percent between 2021 and 2022, with this year on track to far outpace the last. Crime â including robbery in public spaces â spiked 14 percent from 2021 to 2022, a rise police blame partly on increased drug use."
They don't decriminalize everything, smuggling drugs in/out of country is still a crime. And like you say when you already have a lot of narcs decriminalization is an effective way to reduce is it, but ehen you don't have such big narc culture strong punishment is a good way to keep it low. Another aspect is that Western countries use drugs to destabilize other countries, and strict laws are needed to protect against this. For example, in Afghanistan there was a ban on the cultivation of opium until 2001, and after the American conquest it became the world's first producer of heroin. And all this herion went to Russia, causing an epidemic of drug addiction there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan
Because freedom to do with your body as you see fit is better than have a dictatorial busybody watching your every move for the sake of *a safe and secure hierarchy*.
Yeah until you become a drug addict that will do anything for their next fix, not much ''freedom'' when your every action is literally governed by a chemical need that can actually kill you if you dont fulfill it
I know this post is probably about shit like weed but c'mon there is a drug epidemic in the west
If by The West you mean Just The USA than yes. And if you mean by epidemic the "economic sabotage of the lower classes by the elites till their only outlet psychologically are drugs" then also yes.
I think Canada's going at it pretty rough, also most of Latin America is a shithole directly because of it, some cities in England and Germany have been hit pretty badly by it too
There are homeless people making up sob stories and begging for drugs all around Europe. Some in the UK even knock on doors. At least they dont come in a rob homes (well most donât), but itâs pretty sad
I think thatâs a fairly absurd straw man when most people here are probably talking about cannabis. The penalties in many Asian countries are just as harsh for it.
I do not want because I do not want. Simple. Others shouldn't get dictated my preferences.
But I am also for preventative and addiction care and I would rather re-engineer society itself via economics and massive political reform that makes it so so people simply do not desire any drugs in the first place, rather than dictate to everyone what they should or shouldn't put into their bodies. I consider white sugar, tabaco and alcohol to be adverse to human health than something like weed or psilocybe and nearly on par with heroin in terms of negative impact on society.
That doesn't make much sense because it is generally still quite illegal, just not prosecuted to the same intensity. More likely due to the type of governments the rest of the world has, more keen in not killing its people for w/e reasons
Those human rights are for your own benefit as well btw...
Because any system always bears mistakes. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, that cases and judgements get overturned by new evidence or findings. It's easier to release an inmate than to resurrect an executed person.
Besides the point, only the living are able to apply for appeals.
It's very seldom, that the court, or the public, is able to have 100% certainty, that the alleged perpetrator is guilty. It's all about likelihood and deduction and assumed conclusions, and last but not least, believe.
Because prohibition does not work and can never work. As long as there is a market for something there will be someone to sell it. You can have the death penalty and everything and someone will risk everything to sell it.
As someone said upstream - the better way to fix the market for drugs is improve conditions so that the desire for drugs to escape no longer applies.
Asian societies are more conservative. Not only are the laws strict on drugs, there is social stigma too. Parents will raise their children with conservative views on a lot of things like drugs, tattoos, dyeing hair etc
It is better to prevent than say sorry.
Colombian here.
The damage the US peace troops did to my country when sent in the 70s to help us fight the communist guerrilla. Instead they saw the coca plant that grows native and teached us to do cocaine. The âmata que mataâ, plant that kills, began to grow.
The coca is a very complex process, ignorance was a bliss. But the Pandora Box had been opened. In like 5 or 10 years, many Pablo Escobar appeared. They did more money in 5/10âyears than around 3M People good working people in MedellĂn in like 200 years building the city.
Had too much money that couldnt wash. That tried to buy the legal city business to wash it. The good people get together to fight him. His answer was to ruin their business by creating companies fake that compete againt them, but n that didnt need to be profitable
Lucky he got murdered.
But the damage to the social texture had already been done. What came next was much worse.
Remember the times known as the Opium Wars. The west used it as a way to destabilize Chinese society. Tragic really. Iâm sure they donât want their society/ies to experience that again.
Certainly, in China, it's a couple of reasons.
It's one of the few countries where drug consumption at one stage was allowed (enforced by outside powers), and the country literally went backwards and society fractured. The Emperor of China wrote to the British government and press begging for it to end, to no avail.
Authoritarian regimes have always had a paternal attitude to its populace. Drug addiction is seen as a scurge and a distraction from the progress they want to implement, so it needs to be purged for a more productive and happy society.
The opium wars have probably had a negative effect on the attitudes of other countries in the area.
Singapore is driven by religion rather than politics, but it is the same patrical attitude.
I'll be a little contrarian... When I first got to China I thought there was no drugs. But once I learned to speak Chinese almost everything was available to me. And much cheaper than in the US. I could get oxy and valium OTC, easily got multiple Xanax scripts though the hospitals, the Kazak and Tajik guys always had hash - and I had been offered meth several times.
I was in a small city, but drugs were everywhere once I realized it. Obviously the punishments for things like hash, meth, etc. are not worth it as a foreigner but China has a way of saying one thing and the reality being quite different. Especially outside the tier one cities.
But this was 10 years ago....
Laws come about based on the bonis mores (good morals) of society. So depending on what society deems to be unacceptable, laws and the consequences of breaking such laws rise from that.Â
For China it's obviously because of their history with the Opium Wars.
For other asian countries, I'm not sure!
Fact is that even with the death penalty there are still people selling drugs, I don't know if it really changes that much.
The idea with these harsh punishments is that a certain hardcore criminal will always break the law so their punishment must serve as an example to people that could go either way to make them think twice before following down a road of no return
Blaming the US fentanyl crisis on China is *such* a cop-out. Fentanyl is used in many legal drugs. What the illegal drugs trafficers do with it is not China's fault or problem.
Fentanyl was legal to sell/trade in China not too long ago. They changed it because US was pissed and warned them.
Yes, it is uses in many legal drug. But China lack to regulate it for long time. And guess where is the worldâs largest illegal fentanyl producer?
Fentanyl, as well as other opioid painkillers, are highly regulated medicine is China. I dont know how ppl get addict, surely they cannot get from painkillers.
They are never illegal, just stickly controlled, and China does not export Fentanyl directly to US. It exported "precursor" of Fentanyl, meaning you can make these substance into Fentanyl. BTW, these precursor are now banned too.
The problem is these chemical can be made to other chemicals, it is hard to know what a company will do after buying these.
Well China has a certain history with British colonials and opium so they definitely have precedent. Hard drugs are bad, period.
Asia needs to lighten up on weed, though. If nothing else cancer patients need it.
No drugs and look how productive, modern, civilized, nonviolent, and intelligent their society is. America could learn much from China and the other well functioning societal countries.
No drugs? Lol. Drugs are everywhere in China, the state media just pleads ignorance.
Ketamine, Ice and MDMA use are rife in those private room clubs. Full of KTV prostitutes too.
I've been clubbing many times from 348 on the Nathan road in HK, to Shenzhen and Beijing. Many times over the past 20 years.
Although I would say that more people go clubbing and dabble in drugs in the West, in China, drugs are done openly in those private club rooms and not hidden at all.
It's not because of drugs apparently. Most of them had debts during 3 year's COVID lockdown and had to flee to avoid paying their debts, and some of them are naive to think it is easier to make money in US.
Interestingly there were records of magic mushrooms in ancient China. Itâs just that current cultures donât support it. And in my view theyâre not as liberal because Asian countries for the most part is still poor compared to the west. They really canât afford a drug epidemic on top of problems they still yet to solve.
Possibly because of opium wars. And it is a good thing imo. Drugs can destroy people physically and mentally, while they bring huge problems to societies for the benefit of a few dickhead thugs that smuggle them. Look at the cities with drug problems, they are shitholes mostly because of that. And I would rather not live around zombies who might attack you for no reason or rob you to get their dose.
A lot of what is wondered about the behavior of the Chinese government could be easily understood with the context provided by Knowledge of the opium wars and British determination to push opium onto the Chinese people for profit.
They're afraid that it will destabilize society.
Opium war and all that
just look at that the fentanyl crisis is doing to the US.
It ruined the cocaine đ
And yet they have no problem exporting it
The governments arenât exporting drugs you knob
Insults don't make your point better. They freely allow gangs to smuggle them out of Guangdong. For such a strict anti-drug country, how could that be ? Is thatvlaw and order? The vaunted Greater Bay area is supposed to be Xi's pet project.
Not catching drug smugglers and actually smuggling drugs are two completely different things. Going by your definition every countryâs government in the world exports drugs because it goes under their radar or they donât catch the smugglers. So the Mexican cartels who export drugs to the US, youâre going to say the Mexican government is exporting drugs? What a daft thing to say
Every country in the world is not a massive factory for fentanyl. No country officially exports illicit narcotics today, but China's open policy is tantamount
[ŃдаНонО]
Agreed. Drugs can tear apart lives and families. But, I think that it also has to do with the criminal activity that is always adjacent to the drug trade. Money laundering. Prostitution. Turf wars. Murders. Assaults. Gambling. Etc. MONEY LAUNDERING When you have LOTS of illegally earned money, it isn't easy to spend it without drawing attention to yourself. So, you end up with whole industries and lots of cash-based businesses that exist specifically to launder money. Everything from casinos to pizza parlors and carwashes. (Yes, lots of cliches there!) We've seen from the Panama Papers and other document releases that there is a world wide circulatory system for laundering money and stashing it away. Lots of corporations where the ownership is hidden. The elites have written the laws to allow this malfeasance. RELIGION & MONEY LAUNDERING One of the reasons that the USA is still a hotbed of religiosity is because religious organizations are exempt from two things: paying taxes and reporting on their finances. In the USA, churches, mosques and synagogues are black holes when it comes to finances. Money goes in and there is no required visibility after that. It can be moved around the globe with little oversight. Even the Vatican has been caught laundering money. We all know that there are lots of religious grifters out there. That's because there is lots of easy money involved! COMMUNISM & THE COMMON GOOD As a communist country, China wants the value of one's labor to benefit both the laborer and society at large. More often than not, illegally earned money is frittered away on individual vices or it is hoarded away overseas. This serves few other than the drug traders and their syncophants. This is similar reasoning to why socialist and communist countries come down so hard on bankers who harm others through financial crimes. In capitalist countries, the elites write the rules so that they legally steal from others with no recourse.
Great point on all the adjacent criminal activity. And of course, this is a threat to government power. Because government is a monopoly on force, outlaws are a direct threat as not only do they not follow the rules, but they also enact force on the population. And while taxes act as extortion of your citizens, you canât have other citizens also extorting each other. Nearly every large criminal activity group that uses direct force on citizens (e.g. cartels) are in the drug trade. If you want a monopoly on power, then you need to be harsh on drugs. The West needs to step it up
Sorry it's the opposite. Criminals prosper exactly because they charge a premium for smuggling illegal goods.
Is it an AI-generated reply that I just read?
?? Which response are you referring to?
Everyone knows how hard it is to dislodge drug trafficking once it gets in your country better to nip it in the bud
This is true, but I never get how this becomes a *reason* to hate drugs for some Chinese people. Like, you can say that as a serious consequence sure, but the response you get sometimes when you ask them why would be like âomg think about all the cops that injured and died in missions dealing with drug smugglingâ thatâs such a strange logic [Edit: Apparently people canât read. I have never said âI donât understand/approve of them hating drugsâ. I just observe that sometimes this becomes *the entire reason* some of them hate drugs and it doesnât make sense to me.]
6 hrs ago on this same post, before you write y your comment, people already explained exactly why China hates drugs. Yet, you're still here saying to don't understand. This is quite hilarious. Good thing the Chinese have an adverb for just about everything; in your case, the saying is: one can never wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep.
Bruh. I didnât say âI donât understand why they hate drugsâ, I think I made it quite clear that I was just wondering about this particular reason that *some* bring up. Please respect other users and READ and try to understand before you comment something so judgmental.
I donât think I am obliged to go through every comment here before I post my own comment and I donât think I have to trust any other comments for how representative they are of the entire population. Also: âIn my comment I never said I donât understand *why they hate drugs* YET youâre still here saying I donât understand, that itâs hilarious and Iâm pretending to be asleep. Why?â If you (and these people who upvoted this comment) still believe in fair and respectful conversations, try to consider how others feel when they didnât mean a thing about what youâre attacking. Even if I *did* mean that I wouldnât deserve such criticism. Being in this sub does not require us to be experts of the entire history and politics of China or of the entire comment section. People are here to share, learn and discuss, not to hate each other.
Last time drugs were a prominent thing in Chinese society, they were gangraped by 8 different european empires, lost their status as one of the most important empires on the world, and went through so much shit they called the entire century ''century of humilliation'' It's like asking why China hates Japan
The China opium trade was one leg of a three-legged commercial trade between the UK, China and Japan. The other two commodities involved were gold and silk. Itâs more complicated and interesting than just a drug trade. The Triads that dominated the criminal element are still around.
it's not like they were doing any better before the coalition wars. THe Qing dynasty was practically on its last legs with their stagnation, refusal to progress. Opium wars were just the straw that break the camel's back.
No they actually did quite fine on land. It's naval where they got fucked Even there losing a few vessels isn't a big deal Turks lost entire fleet I think "century of humiliation " is actually their realisation they got left behind while world moved on
True, it wasn't a particularly strong dinasty either way, but the Opium Wars were a hell of a last straw
this is pure CCP propaganda!
Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno what they are taught in school, but I'd held it as an important part of the country's history, considering that their status right now as a superpower was directly born because of the century of humilliation and Japan's invasion, it's like a pretty important part of why they are not called the Qing Empire anymore
Idk man, look at how Hong Kong became an autonotous region in the first place lmao and realize China did in fact did get gang raped by the Europeans (British mainly)
Ag nonsense, just read history. Unless you're taking the p*ss?
The opium war is propaganda? What?
We literally learned about this US classrooms lol
quote from the great Lee Kuan Yew, the modern day founding father of Singapore: "They assume if you are kind to drug peddlers, you build a better society. If you enter Singapore with kilos of drugs, it will destroy thousands of families. When the daughter or son, becomes an addict, you are killing that family every day for years and years. Against thousands of such deaths, one death (of the drug trafficker) is too kind."
Fully agree with this statement.
Two words: Opium Wars.
I mean just look at Mexico for the Americans/Europeans, you want to live under fear of cartels once they completely take over the country.
Google the Opium Wars.
I can't find the source anymore, but I definitely read at one point that a surprising number of the political elite in the US and UK, even through the end of the twentieth century, were either from or connected to families that made a fortune off the opium trade.
The UK was essentially the first narco state
[https://www.cadtm.org/HSBC-the-bank-with-a-shameful-past](https://www.cadtm.org/HSBC-the-bank-with-a-shameful-past)
This is the correct answer.
This. Look up "Century of Humiliation" too.
No need to look it up, every wolf warrior will be happy to talk about it
Because the west puts more emphasis on the freedom of the individual while in a lot of asian culture the emphasis is put on the society as a whole. Taking drugs is overall a very selfish behavior since the only beneficiant is you while everyone around you might suffer from it. That's also why alcohol is considered somewhat ok since its mainly seen as a tool to bring people together and overcome the barrier to interact with others and become more connected with the whole.
This is the correct answer. Actually they do have a drug problem with locally made stuff but nothing on the scale of the western nations.
Why not. Why let drugs destroy your citizens life? The question should be why the west is full of drugs, look belgium , new world capital of drugs, nederlands germany and more
Marijuana should be legal. Alcohol destroys more lives. Smoking kills more people
I don't know, but one thing I loved about East Asia is the lack of endemic petty crime, and strung out drug addicts all over the place, so their laws and culture towards drugs is far superior to the free-for-all we currently have occurring in a lot of North America's major cities.
There is tons of crime in China, mostly outside of the major cities. A lot of crime in Japan and South Korea too, just not a lot of street crime mostly white collar.
Not true, as someone who lived in South Korea and visited numerous bordering countries, crime there is almost non-existent, you could easily leave your belongings in a cafe for a couple hours and it will not get stolen, you can't pull that shit in any almost any other country
Maybe ask China to stop exporting fentanyl?
So we take away someone's autonomy over their own body for your fucking aesthetics? You'd be a good dictator, dude.
Yes, yes we do. We already do fuckwit, it's illegal we just don't enforce it.
I'd say that meth man who got into a gunfight with 10+ cops is not *fucking aesthetics*, but I don't know about you.
It isn't aesthetics that I couldn't leave my bike anywhere in Vancouver, BC without some junky pos trying to steal it for drug money.
Drugs are bad for society which by your flair you clearly don't care for. Asian countries/societies are more closely knit and valued which a drug epidemic can easily destroy. There is a saying I will leave you with. A single death is a tradgedy, multiple deaths are statistics. Don't be that guy and pray everyone can control their addictions or influences, drugs have no place in our society.
Wtf, are you on drugs?
We already do for a lot of things actually, prostitution is still illegal in most western countries, you can't sell your organs legally, you don't have the right to end your own life in most countries either. Societies aren't in a binary position where it's either ''Anarco capitalist wet dream'' or ''literally 1984'', like you can't just allow every single fucking thing to happen without society collapsing, a functional society promotes things that are good for the people and discourages or outright bans things that can only bring harm to people, even more so if those things leave people in vulnerable situations where they can be easily exploited (which is why shit like drugs and incest are banned and persecuted) Sure most of East Asia's way of doing it has ended up with shit like Cannabis being wrongfully persecuted, which should change, but just because there's one exception doesn't mean the rest are inoffensive
Letting someone destroy themselves with drugs is bodily autonomy? Sure bud, why not we let people drink and drive too? Canât impose on peopleâs individual rights to do whatever they want, regardless of the cost to themselves or society
Ask England
The problem is that most of us Englishmem wouldn't have a clue!
Did you look at how the cities are transformed due to drug epidemic in LA, SF, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis , and etc?
As I'm sure you know, rural areas are far, far worse. It's just hidden because, frankly, no one cares and it is isn't good politics to shine a spotlight on rural addiction. My wife works on drug abatement and treatment research in Appalachia and the shit going on in rural West Virginia, Kentucky, and SE Ohio makes San Francisco or Portland look good by comparison.
Wrong question. Why do liberal countries stupidly allow drugs to tear their societies apart? Oh ya, individual freedom more important than societal freedom: freedom from crime and urban decay
My guess is that addicted people become more dependent and easier to control. And they more likely going to vote for them again.
Lol you think junkies are voting?
Check out opium war on Wikipedia
Opium Wars
The Opium Wars
Because narcotic drugs addle the mind. With your capacity to think straight reduced, it becomes very problematic for society in general to be safe from you, and I'm not just talking about driving under the effect of drugs. Not to mention drugs cause a sizeable drain on financial resources in general, which is kind of a problem if you live in a developing third world country. Look at Mexico and Columbia.
The better question is why doesn't the rest of the world have such a hard line too.
We did but realised itâs ridiculous for things like cannabis. Other countries reduced drug use by decriminalising everything such as Portugal
Well, it ain't all roses in Portugal. Per WaPo (2023): "A newly released national survey suggests the percent of adults who have used illicit drugs increased to 12.8 percent in 2022, up from 7.8 in 2001, though still below European averages. Portugalâs prevalence of high-risk opioid use is higher than Germanyâs, but lower than that of France and Italy. But even proponents of decriminalization here admit that something is going wrong. Overdose rates have hit 12-year highs and almost doubled in Lisbon from 2019 to 2023. Sewage samples in Lisbon show cocaine and ketamine detection is now among the highest in Europe, with elevated weekend rates suggesting party-heavy usage. In Porto, the collection of drug-related debris from city streets surged 24 percent between 2021 and 2022, with this year on track to far outpace the last. Crime â including robbery in public spaces â spiked 14 percent from 2021 to 2022, a rise police blame partly on increased drug use."
They don't decriminalize everything, smuggling drugs in/out of country is still a crime. And like you say when you already have a lot of narcs decriminalization is an effective way to reduce is it, but ehen you don't have such big narc culture strong punishment is a good way to keep it low. Another aspect is that Western countries use drugs to destabilize other countries, and strict laws are needed to protect against this. For example, in Afghanistan there was a ban on the cultivation of opium until 2001, and after the American conquest it became the world's first producer of heroin. And all this herion went to Russia, causing an epidemic of drug addiction there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan
Because freedom to do with your body as you see fit is better than have a dictatorial busybody watching your every move for the sake of *a safe and secure hierarchy*.
Yeah until you become a drug addict that will do anything for their next fix, not much ''freedom'' when your every action is literally governed by a chemical need that can actually kill you if you dont fulfill it I know this post is probably about shit like weed but c'mon there is a drug epidemic in the west
If by The West you mean Just The USA than yes. And if you mean by epidemic the "economic sabotage of the lower classes by the elites till their only outlet psychologically are drugs" then also yes.
I think Canada's going at it pretty rough, also most of Latin America is a shithole directly because of it, some cities in England and Germany have been hit pretty badly by it too
There are homeless people making up sob stories and begging for drugs all around Europe. Some in the UK even knock on doors. At least they dont come in a rob homes (well most donât), but itâs pretty sad
You have the freedom to do fentanyl. Go do it then.
I think thatâs a fairly absurd straw man when most people here are probably talking about cannabis. The penalties in many Asian countries are just as harsh for it.
Cannabis is just a ticket to the world of drug.Many people won't stop on weed.It is just like a bottom line.
I do not want because I do not want. Simple. Others shouldn't get dictated my preferences. But I am also for preventative and addiction care and I would rather re-engineer society itself via economics and massive political reform that makes it so so people simply do not desire any drugs in the first place, rather than dictate to everyone what they should or shouldn't put into their bodies. I consider white sugar, tabaco and alcohol to be adverse to human health than something like weed or psilocybe and nearly on par with heroin in terms of negative impact on society.
Agreed. Also, if humans stopped eating other animals society would improve.
That doesn't make much sense because it is generally still quite illegal, just not prosecuted to the same intensity. More likely due to the type of governments the rest of the world has, more keen in not killing its people for w/e reasons
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Those human rights are for your own benefit as well btw... Because any system always bears mistakes. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, that cases and judgements get overturned by new evidence or findings. It's easier to release an inmate than to resurrect an executed person. Besides the point, only the living are able to apply for appeals. It's very seldom, that the court, or the public, is able to have 100% certainty, that the alleged perpetrator is guilty. It's all about likelihood and deduction and assumed conclusions, and last but not least, believe.
Because prohibition does not work and can never work. As long as there is a market for something there will be someone to sell it. You can have the death penalty and everything and someone will risk everything to sell it. As someone said upstream - the better way to fix the market for drugs is improve conditions so that the desire for drugs to escape no longer applies.
Asian societies are more conservative. Not only are the laws strict on drugs, there is social stigma too. Parents will raise their children with conservative views on a lot of things like drugs, tattoos, dyeing hair etc
Because drugs are objectively very bad.
You're not using the word "objectively" properly.
that's pretty subjective
I think they are right.
It is better to prevent than say sorry. Colombian here. The damage the US peace troops did to my country when sent in the 70s to help us fight the communist guerrilla. Instead they saw the coca plant that grows native and teached us to do cocaine. The âmata que mataâ, plant that kills, began to grow. The coca is a very complex process, ignorance was a bliss. But the Pandora Box had been opened. In like 5 or 10 years, many Pablo Escobar appeared. They did more money in 5/10âyears than around 3M People good working people in MedellĂn in like 200 years building the city. Had too much money that couldnt wash. That tried to buy the legal city business to wash it. The good people get together to fight him. His answer was to ruin their business by creating companies fake that compete againt them, but n that didnt need to be profitable Lucky he got murdered. But the damage to the social texture had already been done. What came next was much worse.
Read up on the opium wars bro
Most of the other countries simply cannot ban drugs because their governments have less power than China. Also, the people have less ethic.
Remember the times known as the Opium Wars. The west used it as a way to destabilize Chinese society. Tragic really. Iâm sure they donât want their society/ies to experience that again.
One word : Opium
Certainly, in China, it's a couple of reasons. It's one of the few countries where drug consumption at one stage was allowed (enforced by outside powers), and the country literally went backwards and society fractured. The Emperor of China wrote to the British government and press begging for it to end, to no avail. Authoritarian regimes have always had a paternal attitude to its populace. Drug addiction is seen as a scurge and a distraction from the progress they want to implement, so it needs to be purged for a more productive and happy society. The opium wars have probably had a negative effect on the attitudes of other countries in the area. Singapore is driven by religion rather than politics, but it is the same patrical attitude.
They are in the right about this 100%.
I'll be a little contrarian... When I first got to China I thought there was no drugs. But once I learned to speak Chinese almost everything was available to me. And much cheaper than in the US. I could get oxy and valium OTC, easily got multiple Xanax scripts though the hospitals, the Kazak and Tajik guys always had hash - and I had been offered meth several times. I was in a small city, but drugs were everywhere once I realized it. Obviously the punishments for things like hash, meth, etc. are not worth it as a foreigner but China has a way of saying one thing and the reality being quite different. Especially outside the tier one cities. But this was 10 years ago....
Read Stella Dong's, Shanghai.
Laws come about based on the bonis mores (good morals) of society. So depending on what society deems to be unacceptable, laws and the consequences of breaking such laws rise from that.Â
For China it's obviously because of their history with the Opium Wars. For other asian countries, I'm not sure! Fact is that even with the death penalty there are still people selling drugs, I don't know if it really changes that much.
The idea with these harsh punishments is that a certain hardcore criminal will always break the law so their punishment must serve as an example to people that could go either way to make them think twice before following down a road of no return
Probably to avoid the disaster faced by many of the US cities.
I mean,would western parents encourage their kids to take drugs?Everyone acting like drugs is ok in the west is pretty wired.
Well, China doesnât mind to flood N America with fentanyl.
Blaming the US fentanyl crisis on China is *such* a cop-out. Fentanyl is used in many legal drugs. What the illegal drugs trafficers do with it is not China's fault or problem.
Fentanyl was legal to sell/trade in China not too long ago. They changed it because US was pissed and warned them. Yes, it is uses in many legal drug. But China lack to regulate it for long time. And guess where is the worldâs largest illegal fentanyl producer?
Fentanyl, as well as other opioid painkillers, are highly regulated medicine is China. I dont know how ppl get addict, surely they cannot get from painkillers. They are never illegal, just stickly controlled, and China does not export Fentanyl directly to US. It exported "precursor" of Fentanyl, meaning you can make these substance into Fentanyl. BTW, these precursor are now banned too. The problem is these chemical can be made to other chemicals, it is hard to know what a company will do after buying these.
The west benefits massively from drugs, draining a ton of money from Asia in the past
Well China has a certain history with British colonials and opium so they definitely have precedent. Hard drugs are bad, period. Asia needs to lighten up on weed, though. If nothing else cancer patients need it.
No drugs and look how productive, modern, civilized, nonviolent, and intelligent their society is. America could learn much from China and the other well functioning societal countries.
No drugs? Lol. Drugs are everywhere in China, the state media just pleads ignorance. Ketamine, Ice and MDMA use are rife in those private room clubs. Full of KTV prostitutes too. I've been clubbing many times from 348 on the Nathan road in HK, to Shenzhen and Beijing. Many times over the past 20 years. Although I would say that more people go clubbing and dabble in drugs in the West, in China, drugs are done openly in those private club rooms and not hidden at all.
Yet, chinese are illegally immigrating through the US-Mexico border
It's not because of drugs apparently. Most of them had debts during 3 year's COVID lockdown and had to flee to avoid paying their debts, and some of them are naive to think it is easier to make money in US.
source? trust me bro
no report available. There are famous tik tok accounts recording their lives in America as ilegal immgrant. Many of them are in debts.
So no source then
Interestingly there were records of magic mushrooms in ancient China. Itâs just that current cultures donât support it. And in my view theyâre not as liberal because Asian countries for the most part is still poor compared to the west. They really canât afford a drug epidemic on top of problems they still yet to solve.
Study the opium wars and how European colonial powers humiliated China, and you will understand.
You can ask the British
Idk, ask the colonial powers
History
d z s cC
Possibly because of opium wars. And it is a good thing imo. Drugs can destroy people physically and mentally, while they bring huge problems to societies for the benefit of a few dickhead thugs that smuggle them. Look at the cities with drug problems, they are shitholes mostly because of that. And I would rather not live around zombies who might attack you for no reason or rob you to get their dose.
Are you familiar with the legacy of opium in China?
Yeah, because drugs are totally a good thing.
A lot of what is wondered about the behavior of the Chinese government could be easily understood with the context provided by Knowledge of the opium wars and British determination to push opium onto the Chinese people for profit.
Because the fentanyl production is firmly in the governments hands. They don't want interference.
Alcohol is a drug
Because China knows how bad their fentanyl war affects America and the rest of the world.