Try your analogy again when this piracy war has killed 55,000 people. That is the estimated death toll from just the Mexican drug war that "started" less than 6 years ago (by official tally).

The Mexican drug war and the US war on drugs are completely different things... In the Mexican drug war, rival drug warlords massacre dozens of civilians because they think they'll be used as mules by the other side; the government then come in force to try to re-establish order in the region. It's more of a civil war, or a war against bandit warlords, or a war against corruption that buys off entire police departments. It's almost a civil war.

The US drug war is mostly an unnecessary but lucrative obsession with jailing people for minor marijuana offenses, at least domestically speaking.

They are not completely different things. The US war on drugs drives the Mexican drug war. Without the US as consumers, the situation in Mexico would be very different. While they are not exactly the same, it is not accurate to think of them as completely different things.

Yes of course things are linked. But javinskie's post makes it sound like the 55,000 deaths are the Mexican government's fault alone. While the Mexican government is no doubt not the most effective, the druglord themselves are massacring people. Whereas in the US, it is the government causing the most damage on its own, by overly incentivizing the incarceration of minor drug offenders. And it is this government over-enforcement that is the parallel to the copyright issue at heart. Not the near civil war in another country that is partly linked to it.

If marijuana and other drugs were legalized, there wouldn't be drug lords with private armies to begin with. They would disappear just like American mobsters at the end of Prohibition.

afterburner clearly understands this. His point is that in the US drug war, it is the government of the United States that is the main antagonist. This is not the case in with the ongoing violence in Mexico.

My point is that drug prohibition remains the root cause. Even in America, most of the actual harm is done by gangsters rather than the government. And yes, I'm aware that organized crime still exists in the United States, but not to nearly the same extent as during alcohol prohibition.

Yes, so... the metaphor is valid for copyright. Which was what I was defending.

No they wouldn't, they'd still be there but in far less number. Legal weed is expensive, there will always be $20/8th alternatives out there from mexico to compete with $60/8th legal stuff. It will be no different than it is in california. Adults buy the legal stuff, and unemployed people and highschool kids buy the mexican stuff.

Analogies need not indicate equivalence. His works, despite the obvious gap in magnitude.

I like the "Political Prostitution" (website now defunct) one: http://vimeo.com/45864549

Yeah, that one seems very relevant to the story here. Almost forgot about it.

Marijuana is never gonna be legalized in US. The current private prison system, the ghettos, supplying soldiers (most with fathers in jail) for the military, etc. works too well for the elite to be messed with.

  soldiers (most with fathers in jail)

Sounds made up. Citation?

I've talked with 50 or so US marines (used to live near a base), most of them grew without father for different reasons, usually jail.

What does Washington and Colorado mean for the above now?

I'd guess in those states there are not that many private prisons.

It'd be really interesting to run the numbers on this... would Wolfram Alpha have that data?

after a quick google search

http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/private%20prisons%2...

Looks like Colorado is actually #7, and Washington, while low (4.8%) has more than ~30 other states.