Let those dopers be

LA Times ^ | October 16, 2005 | Norm Stamper

[robertpaulsen]

"legalizing drugs will lower (80 to 90%?) the cost of drugs and therefore"

Not necessarily, and not if every level of government is going to "tax the hell out of it", as some posters on this board suggest they do.

Medical marijuana is legal in California. It's grown for mere pennies. It's not taxed. It's not regulated by the FDA. There are no standards to follow. Yet, the following story:

"A buddy of mine in So. Cal saw an ad in the L.A. Weekly a few days ago for a doc that gives away marijuana buyers' licenses/cards like candy, so he went down to his office to check it out. The doc wasn't in -- just the receptionist. ....And she didn't ask him one question about any health condition, not surprisingly. Took his cash though -- $100 for a license. ...and made him sign an agreement that stated that he was under the direct care of the doc in question."

"Conveniently enough, right upstairs in the same building (in the mid-Wilshire district) was a marijuana buyers' club. (The receptionist informed him of this, of course). Highest quality bud imaginable, he tells me. ....from nearly every ganga-growning nation on earth. Young people with white lab coats behind the counters. Street prices -- $480/oz."
-- www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1331981/posts?page=132#132

I think that's more than what you'd pay for illegal marijuana in California. So don't tell me that prices would go down.

"1) lower profits to drug dealers (gangs, organized crime)"

They'll go away just like the mob went away after Prohibition and get real jobs. Uh-huh.

Sure they'll take a hit. But they'll continue to sell any drug not made legal, or to the underage, or export our legal drugs to countries where drugs remain illegal. Hell, they're making billions today selling tax-free legal cigarettes!

"3) lower expenses to the states and federal government"

With the legalization of all drugs, you can expect a drastic increase in the cost of social services, health care, drug treatment, and incarceration (for crimes committed while under drugs).

The federal government spends about $11B on drugs (that's .5% of the federal budget). Half of that is spent on drug treatment and anti-drug advertising. The other half on overseas drug interdiction and local border patrol. The federal government only accounts for about 1% of all drug arrests.

All states combined spend about $30B. That averages $600M per state, most of that incarceration. And if we're going to release these harmless little scumbag drug dealers to make room for the "real criminals", where's the savings?

[radar101]

Norm Stamper is the former chief of the Seattle Police Department. He is the author of "Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing" (Nation Books, 2005). Stamper was a San Diego Police Lieutenant. He had to shoot--and kill-- a guy. After that, his attitude was that of a Liberal Psycholgist. REMEMBER: Stamper was all squishy with the Radical Violent protestors in Seattle, which resulted in widespread destruction of property and the end of his term a Seattle Chief of Police.

[faireturn]

ccmay wrote:

I am tired of hearing you prohibitionists make the instant accusation that anyone objecting to the vigorous prosecution of the War on Drugs must be a user himself. It's not only unfounded and insulting in most cases, but excuses and perpetuates real evil.
This is the kind of thinking that leads to witch hunts.

---

Well said. - Political prohibitionism is tearing this country apart.

Socialists of both left & right are convinced that they have the constitutional power to prohibit most any type of behavior, or property.

They simply deny that our bill of rights and constitution apply to all levels & branches of all governments in the USA.

[GSlob]

Well, one has to look at the following angle: there are multiple jobs in the contemporary economy which are not considered compatible with the use of mind-altering drugs [airline pilot position would be a poster example. There are others, less glamorous, like armed security guard]. Thus under the regime of drug decriminalization the decriminalized users would need to be legally prevented from getting, or staying in, those jobs. This would logically require the licensing/registration/[and random spot checking] of the users into a serious database for the purposes of job clearance.

[Stirner]

"Spoken like a true liberal. You don't want other people doing things you wouldn't so why not just write them off."

Actually, no. I would do a lot of those things. I like the fact that people skydive, climb mountains, etc. I think it's a good thing that people engage in risky behavior. I've done quite a few things myself that I look back on as having been incredibly risky. My point is about not imposing costs on those who do not favor my taking such risks. The consequences are on me, and that's why I can say, "mind your own business and don't tell me what to do."

It's a political decision what sorts of public help we want to give for people who behave in certain ways. I think that political question should be answered through the political process. If we want to rescue stranded mountain climbers at public expense, we can. But if a political majority chooses not to indemnify certain sorts of risks, that does not necessarily amount to a heartless "writing off".

[dennisw]

                                     

 
What heroin pushers, cocaine and meth dealers need. Habitual child molesters too. (Is there any other kind?)

[avenir]

Legalizing drugs by punishing users with taxation--"tax the hell out of it"--and turning away from users who have gone too far--"If they're dragged into an emergency room with an overdose, just stick them in a 'pending' room next to the morgue"--...is a Libertarian comedy of errors.

[faireturn]

The Costs of War Against Your Own People: Negative Impacts of Prohibition.
 
     Many of the costs to society involving prohibition aren't easily quantified on a spreadsheet. Some intangible costs are trivial, but some threaten the very underpinnings of American society and government.
An incomplete listing of what we've given up in the name of Prohibition:

Prohibition undermines the US Constitution:

     1. Prohibition violates states rights. From the very beginnings of modern Prohibition, the Federal government has made every effort to undermine the freedom of the states and their citizens. In the early days, this occurred through legalistic mechanisms like requiring taxes to be paid on drugs, then refusing to accept such payments even when offered. More recently, it has taken a perhaps even more sinister turn in the form of the Federal government arresting people involved in providing 'medical' marijuana supplies in states in which it was legal for them to do so.


     2. Prohibition violates the right to privacy.
America has a long-standing tradition that your own body (and home) are your own business; the "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" promised to us in the Declaration of Independence. Prohibition has taken the unprecedented step of declaring that what consenting adults do with themselves in the privacy of their own homes is in fact wholly subject to the permission and approval of government; that 'it may not be good for you' is enough of a government interest to trump personal freedom and privacy.


     3. Prohibition violates the right to due process.
Shocked by the skyrocketing costs of Prohibition, governments on all levels have resorted to seizing and selling suspects property to pay for the 'drug war'.
If they were seizing property to pay for fines levied by courts after a suspect had been convicted it would be a reasonable process, however, that isn't how property seizure works. Rather, the government grabs any property that they even suspect was paid for in part of whole with drug trade money. They don't wait for a conviction. Indeed, they don't even need a conviction; even if you are never charged with a crime or are acquitted, they can keep your property!



     4. Prohibition violates the protection against excessive punishments/fines.
Another promise to us from the founding fathers was that we would be protected from malicious and unreasonable punishments.
Simply put, you don't get to execute people for jaywalking; the punishment must be appropriate to the crime. Have the punishments of Prohibition been appropriate for the severity of the offenses? Consider the strange case of Webster Alexander, an 18-year-old sentenced to twenty-six years in prison for selling about $350 worth of marijuana to an undercover police officer.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Do the rich North Siders hit the streets and committ violent crimes to pay for their hard on drugs? Nope. And that is the real reason why the emphasis on crack over Viagra. One is just as illegal as the other but the latter is the one that causes the most harm to society.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Something tells me Stamper's book sales are slumping. (pssst, tell 'em your for legalizing drugs Norm and you'll get lots of publicity for your book.)

[Lauretij2]

You're only thinking of the supply side.

Thing of the demand side when you lower price and increase availability.

Instantly more drug users. The society you want? Well.. Make it legal to kill anyone that uses pot or harder drugs and I'll go for it.

Will you?

[thoughtomator]

In other words, if you take risks that most of us consider unreasonable, you're entitled to do so, but you're on your own if things go wrong.

This should go without saying.

[THEUPMAN]

That's actually a cogent proposal I've not seen before. Let people sign themselves out of the system - no free medical care or support if they use drugs. You know, that makes a lot of sense. Kids couldn't sign, but there's no reason an adult shouldn't be able to sign a waver for self inflicted acts.



or perhaps we could just dismantle the socialist medical system we have built.
And go back to a system where I pay my bills and you pay yours ... the problem isn't about drugs , it's about who should have to pay the bills as they come due.

Stop the spread of socialism , and the problems solve themselves.

[neverdem]

Prohibition lasted for 13 short years, and alcohol consumption was at its lowest at the start of Prohibition.

Just enough time to get modern organized crime started and the National Firearms Act of 1934 following its end. If alcohol consumption was at its lowest at the start of Prohibition, doesn't that argue that the use of illegal drugs was lower before the war on drugs(WOD). Some folks try drugs simply because of the thrill that it is illegal. Who breaks a law expecting to be caught?

Drugs have been illegal now for almost 70 years with no end in sight.

There's no end in sight to the war on terror either. Denial is more than a river in Egypt. You want to drive on with all sorts of unconstitutional penalties listed by faireturn in comment 68 in this hopeless war on drugs, which also threatens physicians and harms their patients because drug abuse may get worse if it becomes legalized.

This WOD denounces drug users as funding terrorists when they create the black market in the first place. Are you some sort of narcotics officer, or do you give the speal at schools for the failed D.A.R.E. program? The WOD ought to be renamed the LEO Full Employment Act. I would much prefer the WOD resources were redirected to the war on terror.

[robertpaulsen]

"The WOD ought to be renamed the LEO Full Employment Act. I would much prefer the WOD resources were redirected to the war on terror."

Then it would still be the LEO Full Employment Act, now wouldn't it?

[faireturn]

robertpaulsen:

Prohibition lasted for 13 short years, and alcohol consumption was at its lowest at the start of Prohibition.

---

Just enough time to get modern organized crime started and the National Firearms Act of 1934 following its end.
-neverdem-

---

Don't look now, but paulsen has no objection to State & local gun prohibitions either.
To him the 2nd only applies to the feds, -- unless they infringe on it using the commerce clause.

[neverdem]

As a general rule, I wouldn't have a problem with occupational exceptions for job qualification, except for drugs, or the metabolites that they test for, which take a long time to be eliminated from a person's body, e.g. marijuana, and that there's no other evidence of working while impaired.

[sweetliberty]

"I'm a former cop who favors decriminalization of marijuana laws"

I difdn't realize that marijuana laws were criminal. Sheesh! Don't these people learn anything in school anymore?

[HiTech RedNeck]

The country is currently stuffed with so much "meth" that cops often don't bother to do squat about robust pot businesses operating in plain sight. And "meth" is a relatively recent craze. This is what a prohibition of a product that is difficult to govern does -- it pushes the usage towards more potent and more dangerous substances. Case in point: when this country tried to ban alcohol, the speakeasies and blind tigers never served beer, nor did anybody make bathtub wine. Taking the lid off -- at least for the less potent substances such as pot -- would go quite a ways towards stopping this trend.

[takenoprisoner]

bttt