Posted on 05/07/2006 7:17:42 PM PDT by found_one
There is no one anymore "conservative" than William F. Buckley, founder of The National Review magazine which was the founding of the modern American conservative movement, and he long advocated decriminalizing marijuana - not making it free and legal, just not creating an economy for the gangsters out of it and putting people in long-term incarceration for possessing more than an ounce.
His view, that we have created the crime environment, and it is winning, just as it won with prohibition.
This nation had the worst heroin and opium epidemic of its history, from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. It was fought, and quit successfully with large and consistent amounts of public education, in schools and the media and treatment in publicly supported clinics. We did not create a socially destructive criminal environment for it. It had been reduced to a minor social nuisance when we started enacting drug control laws in the 1920s.
Just imagine how many criminals there would be if tobacco was illegal, and how criminally profitable it would be.
We would be better off literally buying the entire drug supply in Columbia and Afghanistan - 100% of it, at prices the drug cartels could not afford. No supply, no crime. Then we'd just have to help the current addicts through their withdrawal.
Oh, I forgot, other drugs are being invented all the time.
Can't win. Just help the addicts try to get off and don't make a criminal mess out of whatever you do to suppress the use of bad substances. The crime environment you create is worse than the numbers of people who will not avoid the addictions. Those numbers are probably the same no matter what.
Sigh. Oh yeah - it's real tough to find pot these days.
What is overlooked in the discussion of pot laws is the effect of decriminalization - why buy it when you can grow it? Its called weed for a reason. If it wasn't for the threat of police helicopters snooping at folk's backyards the smuggling of pot from S.America would plummet.
Probably not a good idea to expect a lot of tax revenue from legally sold pot - not when it grows so easily.
As soon as you figure a way to tax/regulate a cup full of dirt and sunshine, they'll legalize it!
Till then follow the cash!!!
But you got to consider whats worse for society, a constant war that makes criminals rich, costs tax payers billions upon billions, and throws people in jail who have done no harm to anyone, permanently ruining their life, or 20% more people trying dope?Told ya so. Now go ahead and lawyer your way out of this one.
Not on the scale that legalization would cause.
It is readily available in spite of your best efforts
I am not making any efforts one way or the other, and I don't need you to tell me about availability.
I'd like not to be robbed, car jacked, shot, raided or otherwise be harmed so someone else can get a fix.
I see. And legalizing drugs is going to change this how exactly? Cheaper prices? That will just make more of the type of addicts that will commit dangerous crimes.
LOL anecdotal evidence debunks nothing.
How? It comes right out and says that Holland has much less drug use than we do.
"Revenuers" (ATF) do raid people because of suspected alcohol activity.
Stills can blow up.
You can make your own beer and wine, but not distill your own liquor.
If you want to move the DEA under the ATF and "regulate" things, so be it. And those penalties and fines for violations won't go away.
Some employers prohibit their employees from smoking tobacco even in off hours. Your drug tests won't go away.
Cities regulate even WHERE you can smoke tobacco (prohibit its use in bars, restaurants, office buildings, city parks, etc.).
I fail to see how "legalizing it" will result in less prosecution or regulation.
"I have smoked pot all my life, and I have never, at any time, advocated legalizing it. I think it should be way decriminalized, but legal? No. I just can't see how the wholesale introduction of another drug into society can have any positive net result."
Are you afraid you might start smoking it if it becomes legal? Oh, wait, you already do smoke it, as do millions and millions of others in this country. In fact, most adults under 60 have in this country have already tried it, at least that's what the government surveys say. I guess it's a little late to worry about "wholesale introduction" of marijuana into this country. That introduction took place decades ago.
"That's five out of twenty compared to Holland's one out of twenty."
Should have been "...four out of twenty..."
Told ya so.
You implied that someone claims that ALL those arrested for pot have their lives permanently ruined; this person isn't saying that, so your claim remains baseless bunk.
If the caterwauling of moms was proof of anything, then we should let the Million Mom March disarm us.
That's what you lawyered into what I said. I wasn't that that specific, and post 22 wasn't that specific either. If you want to behave like a lawyer, go ahead. Most people don't like lawyers, and that means more points for me.
Yeah, just like a FR thread on medical marijuana (My best friend's cousin smoked marijuana for athlete's foot and the problem cleared right up. Nothing else worked.)
Than before they passed their liberal drug laws? Do you have statistics on that? What's the link to your information?
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