But you'd be better off to simply legalize it all than to do what we're doing now. A hundred years ago there was no "war on drugs" and there were no drug problems worth worrying about. Doesn't the reason for that seem obvious?
A hundred years ago the world was different. Would you place your loved ones on a train, ship or airplane when you knew that there was no restrictions on the crew using drugs during the operation of that equipment? Or that members of the crew had frequent 'flashbacks' from the abuse of certain drugs they used?
Now lets change the scenario to smaller transportation vehicles, motorcycles, cars, light and heavy trucks. Would you allow your small children to play, walk alone or with someone who was infirmed on lawns or public sidewalks where common vehicles travel in close vicinity?
Alcohol, a common item in America is abused daily, resulting in the deaths and injuries of many innocent victims. You would add the free use of drugs amongst citizens to this hazard? Why, so I could be so stoned that crossing a street was exciting and extremely dangerous? Are you looking forward to being questioned and perhaps arrested by a LEO who doesn't know exactly what he's doing to you?
Just a small side question..have you ever seen the corpse of someone who was hit by a car going sixty, or a train going ten mph?
A hundred years ago the world was different. Would you place your loved ones on a train, ship or airplane when you knew that there was no restrictions on the crew using drugs during the operation of that equipment? Or that members of the crew had frequent 'flashbacks' from the abuse of certain drugs they used?
I never said drugs were a good thing; what I would claim is that the "war on drugs" is a worse thing than drugs in all but the most extreme cases. Any sort of an ideal solution would keep LSD, PCP, and anything else like that which is totally destructive outlawed forever.
But the "war on drugs" is turning people who would have simply gone about their business spending as much on drugs as others did on beer a day in 1880 into one-man crime waves having to steal hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of stuff every day and empowering both crime syndicates and terrorist networks.
Assuming the next thing like 9/11 is financed by drug money, i.e. by money which would not be available to terrorists other than for the "war on drugs", and destroys Chicago or Pittsburgh, are you going to want to explain the need for a "war on drugs" to people who had relatives in that city?
Now lets change the scenario to smaller transportation vehicles, motorcycles, cars, light and heavy trucks. Would you allow your small children to play, walk alone or with someone who was infirmed on lawns or public sidewalks where common vehicles travel in close vicinity?
Driving under the influence of alcohol is illegal now, and so would be driving under the influence of anything else.
Even assuming 1000 kids a year get run over by people smoking reefer, is that worse than a city going down due to the "war on drugs"? Do you want to be responsible for that?
What about the kids in countries like Columbia which are being destroyed by our "war on drugs"?
Alcohol, a common item in America is abused daily, resulting in the deaths and injuries of many innocent victims. You would add the free use of drugs amongst citizens to this hazard?
Our laws should at least be logical. Surely you aren't recommending that prohibition be reinstated? Or are you claiming that you LIKE living under illogical and irrational laws?
Just a small side question..have you ever seen the corpse of someone who was hit by a car going sixty, or a train going ten mph?
More than once. I don't see an argument for the "war on drugs" in that.
It's almost a shame Ambrose Bierce is no longer with us. The definition of "war on" in his dictionary isn't difficult to picture:
"WAR ON": n. A government policy or program designed to promote, promulgate, or otherwise cause the increase and widespread dissemination of, e.g. "war on poverty", "war on drugs", etc.
It's called "equal rights for drugs." Cocaine, marijuana, heroin, LSD, PCP, and speed have been treated as second-class citizens far too long. Such prejudice and bigotry is unconscionable in the progressive 21st Century.
George Soros is the dopers' Martin Luther King.