Posted on 03/28/2006 10:51:21 PM PST by goldstategop
Getting high can be bad. Putting people in prison for it is worse. And doing the latter doesn't stop the former.
I was once among the majority who believe that drug use must be illegal. But then I noticed that when vice laws conflict with the law of supply and demand, the conflict is ugly, and the law of supply and demand generally wins.
The drug war costs taxpayers about $40 billion. "Up to three quarters of our budget can somehow be traced back to fighting this war on drugs," said Jerry Oliver, then chief of police in Detroit, told me. Yet the drugs are as available as ever.
Oliver was once a big believer in the war. Not anymore. "It's insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over again," he says. "If we did not have this drug war going on, we could spend more time going after robbers and rapists and burglars and murderers. That's what we really should be geared up to do. Clearly we're losing the war on drugs in this country."
No, we're "winning," according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which might get less money if people thought it was losing. Prosecutors hold news conferences announcing the "biggest seizure ever." But what they confiscate makes little difference. We can't even keep drugs out of prisons -- do we really think we can keep them out of all of America?
Even as the drug war fails to reduce the drug supply, many argue that there are still moral reasons to fight the war. "When we fight against drugs, we fight for the souls of our fellow Americans," said President Bush. But the war destroys American souls, too. America locks up a higher percentage of her people than almost any other country. Nearly 4,000 people are arrested every day for mere possession of drugs. That's more people than are arrested for aggravated assault, burglary, vandalism, forcible rape and murder combined.
Authorities say that warns people not to mess with drugs, and that's a critical message to send to America's children. "Protecting the children" has justified many intrusive expansions of government power. Who wants to argue against protecting children?
I have teenage kids. My first instinct is to be glad cocaine and heroin are illegal. It means my kids can't trot down to the local drugstore to buy something that gets them high. Maybe that would deter them.
Or maybe not. The law certainly doesn't prevent them from getting the drugs. Kids say illegal drugs are no harder to get than alcohol.
Perhaps a certain percentage of Americans will use or abuse drugs -- no matter what the law says.
I cannot know. What I do know now, however, are some of the unintended consequences of drug prohibition:
1. More crime. Rarely do people get high and then run out to commit crimes. Most "drug crime" happens because the product is illegal. Since drug sellers can't rely on the police to protect their property, they form gangs and arm themselves. Drug buyers steal to pay the high black market prices. The government says alcohol is as addictive as heroin, but no one is knocking over 7-Elevens to get Budweiser.
2. More terrorism. The profits of the drug trade fund terrorists from Afghanistan to Colombia. Our herbicide-spraying planes teach South American farmers to hate America.
3. Richer criminal gangs. Alcohol prohibition created Al Capone. The gangs drug prohibition is creating are even richer, probably rich enough to buy nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden was funded partly by drug money.
Government's declaring drugs illegal doesn't mean people can't get them. It just creates a black market, where even nastier things happen. That's why I have come to think that although drug addiction is bad, the drug war is worse.
Nonsense. The fact that various legal constraints have been removed over the past decades disproves your assertion.
We live in a representative democracy.
I vote for public officials who most closely represent my views on the illegality of drugs, among other things.
You don't agree with the war on drugs? Find a candidate sharing your stance, vote for him or her, and quit whining about others imposing their morals on you.
Communitarian socialists of FR, -- join hands!!
Unite in your democratic stance to stamp out immorality!!
Even your namesake, tpaine, radical and rebel that he was, would agree that a 'free society' does not imply a society free of moral considerations. Laws in a representative democracy are ultimately agreed-upon boundaries on behavior, after all. Behaviors that cause the disintegration of a given society should not be encouraged or affirmed by that society, since no polity can exist for long if the legal structure sustaining and preserving it are undermined or removed. Your namesake was an advocate of common sense. Try exercising some.
Owning 'dangerous products' like drugs, guns, porn, - has never been constitutionally 'illegal', - and never will be.
Engaging in morally repugnant activities like gambling, pornography, prostitution, gay marriage, polygamy, bestiality, etc. -- In private, -- has never been constitutionally 'illegal', - and never will be.
You communitarian warriors simply cannot admit that you are engaged in an anti-constitutional 'war'. -- You are convinced that the moral majority can 'rule'.
Spread of AIDS (and other diseases) by sharing needles.
Finally, a beam of light!
Yet more clear intelligence!
There must be something going 'round!
I agree with you 100%. However, giving the government the power to make law to govern this sort of behavior isn't the answer: the answer is to encourage the return to morality, self-respect, and character. Because government is a blunt object, and power, once gotten, is rarely, if ever, given up.Allowing the government to tresspass into this realm causes much more harm than it does good.
Another candle lit.
Legalizing drugs legalizes all users -- proponents prefer to think in terms of the harmless, otherwise law-abiding, occassional, recreational user. But it would also be legal (and super-cheap) for the hardcore street addicts, and they would have an effect on public health.
Let the FDA and the IRS regulate the recreational drug trade in America. It'd be dead in three years.
After reading your bio, I can take your post for what it's worth. No disrespect, but you still haven't lost that collective leftist mindset yet, my friend. If anything, I'd say you merely changed sides and now support the statists on the right.
"Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." And all that.
I see most of the anti War on drug people on this thread do not seem to get it. Maybe it is because Marijuana use dulls the mind and ambition, and makes everything groovy. They claim that there is no harm to recreational use and think it is fine to smoke dope, or crack, or do percoset,xanax, you name it as long as they are not working. This is so sick, it does unfathomable damage to society. They think that there is no harm in getting so stoned you lie in the middle of the road for some poor unsuspecting citizen to accidentally run over and kill, or yeah decriminalize drugs and the next plane you take may be piloted by someone not drunk like in some instances, but stoned out of their minds. Are you going to ask the pilots to tinkle in a cup to analyze before he climbs into the cockpit? How about the train Engineer? How about your 7 year old daughter's school bus driver? How about the man that works in a Nuke Plant? Enough? How about a Police Officer wannabe Security Guard with a gun? Without Drugs being illegal and felonies, you cannot punish anyone. How about the President of the United states like a dope smoking Algore with their hand close to the Nuclear Button? People who do drugs should not be anywhere in society but curled up in their little beddy bye with their blankie. People that do not do drugs are clear headed, and can tell when someone is stoned in a heartbeat. If you are stoned, or a "little" high you do not see things clearly at all,and people laugh at you because you sound like you have Alzheimer's disease because you repeat yourself and forget whatever the hell you were talking about. In the workplace, you have no ambition except to get home to get high again and you think this is recreational. In that same workplace others see what a yutz you are but feel sorry for a poor doper, and do some of your neglected work for you,but eventually the Boss finds out and you are gone. You are supposed to babysit your infant son while your wife shops, and instead smoke dope and fall asleep, and what happens to your baby? Enough...................denial is not a River in Egypt.
Prove your specious numbers and we'll talk. 40 billion a year and nothing, yes nothing to show for it is my definition of failure. Drugs are more available than Coca Cola in any high school in America and the WOD will never change that.
And where is the harm in flashing? A person may be alarmed, or shocked, or offended, yes. But harmed? Harmed to the point of monetary compensation? Find a jury that can cope with that one.
Paulsen, when you wag your willy in some innocent young girls face on the subway, - you have not only harmed her, -- you have 'breached the peace'.
I could see a jury fining you heavily in order to "cope with" your behavior, and to compensate your victim.
When I asked how a flasher harmed her, your response is that he harmed her. You add nothing more to the conversation than if I asked my parrot.
paulsen, only a clown like you cannot see the harm in being shocked, insulted, alarmed, embarrassed, & offended by having a weenie wagged in your face on the subway.
If you cannot tell me how she was harmed -- not shocked, not insulted, not alarmed, not embarrassed, not offended -- how she was actually harmed through force or fraud (those libertarian standards, mind you), then please be quiet and let someone else chime in.
Sorry kid, but I've seen far too many here at FR allow your discourtesies to control the discussion. I 'diss' you back in kind. Deal with it.
I'd really like to know.
No you don't. In your time here I've seen you ignore every effort to have a genuine dialog on 'libertarian standards'. -- Presenting your own communitarian standards is your only agenda.
Take a breath, lady.
And put down the Koolaid jug!
Allowing the government to tresspass into this realm causes much more harm than it does good.
The present anti-civilization is in the Dark Ages compared to civilization thirty to forty years in the future.
Just the opposite!
They removed the legal constraint and what happened? People still refrained because of morality?
Hah! As soon as the legal contraint was removed, people rushed in. Which proves my assertion.
Plus take a look at this site www.leap.com Obviously some people will say they are a bunch of crooked cops, but that's so easy to do! It's not even an argument so please don't use it... They have seen it, live it, without necessarily using the drugs and they are tired of all these lie promoted by our governments and rich corporate that gains profite over the WOD... There's nothing worng in drugs them self, the problem is when as*holes takes it, so let the non assholes take the drugs they want and lock up the assholes and et voila! by the way the drugs doesn't make assholes, assholes influenced others to become assholes...
"...overburdening social services, especially medical."
Of course alcohol, cigarettes, junk food and lack of exercise also do this. Is that reason for a "war" on them?
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