Posted on 06/12/2011 5:07:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
So tell us, how do you woddies justify supporting a violation of the original Commerce Clause and Tenth Amendment in your quest to 'fight drugs'?
In 1911 the US was importing more narcotics, per capita, than any other country on earth: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1910/worstfiend.htm
If I had to guess, the term “addict” not applied to middle or upper class citizens who didn’t disgrace themselves in public. It will be difficult to make apples to apples comparisons. If they didn’t have a problem, what were they so upset about? Was it ALL just racism and moral panic?
It was Timothy Leary and black musicians who popularized it -- Leary was of an earlier generation, born during the Depression, and black musicians had been using "boo" since forever.
You're right, there wasn't a significant drug problem in the 50's the way there is now (although I did see an old episode of Highway Patrol a few nights ago that portrayed heroin smuggling in the late 50's, small distribution rings secreting two- and five-pound packages in automobile engine compartments and gutted car radios).
You have guesses. I have numbers from the leaders in the WOD themselves.
If they didn't have a problem, what were they so upset about? Was it ALL just racism and moral panic?
You might ask the same about any unconstitutional fedgov program. If we don't have a health care problem, why do we have Obamacare? If we didn't have a poverty problem, why did we get the Great Society? As you can see, issues can be demagogued.
How do you justify your support for a fedgov policy that violates the original Commerce Clause and Tenth Amendment?
You're forgetting all the feedback, which is demonstrable in our society.
If drug culture hadn't become such a prominent part of the counterculture 40 years ago ("turn on, tune in, drop out"), do you think evening TV news would now be just a lure for an unending stream of Prevacid, Lunesta, Nexium, Pravachol, Boniva, Cymbalta, and Cialis ads?
And look at what they're advertising: some of the most heavily advertised-to-the-public drugs are psychotropic: in addition to Cymbalta already mentioned, they include Effexor, Abilify, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Paxil (I know a bipolar woman who was given that by mistake: wrecked her life), Zyban, Seroquel, and Celexa. And that's just the ones with the ad budgets -- Holy hangover, Batman! -- and not getting into things like St. John's wort, heavy-duty psychoanaleptic drugs like Tofranil, Kaltexin, galantamine and imipramine, or the sidewalk stimulants like Jolt! Cola and assorted "energy drinks" sold on racks at the local stop-and-rob.
The feedbacks run in both directions. Timothy Leary was a huge impactor on the youth culture of his time, and his baleful influence has not gone away, n/w/s the last of his cremains are now in space somewhere.
Alcohol won't nail your butt to a tree the first time you try it. Rock and crank have that potential.
Put it all under the State Department and Customs, and you're washed.
The Framers never heard of drugs that could addict someone for life over a weekend's exposure.
Fedgov has plenary power over foreign commerce, so that part is already 'washed'. We're talking about national intrastate prohibition under the Wickard Commerce Clause.
The Framers never heard of drugs that could addict someone for life over a weekend's exposure.
The Framers left a mechanism in place for dealing with unforeseen problems. It's called amending the Constitution. If prohibitionists respected the Constitution, they'd try to pass an amendment rather than cheat on the Commerce Clause.
So again, how do you justify support for federal laws that violate the original Commerce Clause and Tenth Amendment?
Interesting how tenuous the Constitution has become, and how little it takes to make it irrelevant any more.
“If drug culture hadn’t become such a prominent part of the counterculture 40 years ago (”turn on, tune in, drop out”), do you think evening TV news would now be just a lure for an unending stream of Prevacid, Lunesta, Nexium, Pravachol, Boniva, Cymbalta, and Cialis ads?”
The reason for the unending drug ads is the fact that Americans are sick as a group, sicker than they’ve ever been. It’s got nothing to do with Leary or the counterculture.
As a frontline drug warrior, It’s my opinion the WOD is a miserable failure. The only thing that can replace the WOD is a return to a populace that is significantly less hedonistic and more moral.
So again, your premise, that the laws violate the Constitution, is faulty.
Show me how turning California into Drugistan behind the cloak of the Tenth Amendment meets the spirit of the Founding.
John Adams said it, that the Constitution is suitable only for a Christian, moral society whose members know how to govern themselves.
Might be time for Plan B, since the liberals have been largely successful in their 110-year war to corrupt the People.
The live ones, you mean, the ones who didn't die of perforated ulcers at 45 or heart attacks at 50?
Possibly .... but the pharma companies are waging a wider campaign, which is reminiscent of a theme of John Kenneth Galbraith's, about creating demand via advertising.
If someone "needed" Cymbalta in 1905, would he have been diagnosed during a visit to his doctor? Of course not. People soldiered on without relief.
It’s got nothing to do with Leary or the counterculture
I disagree ..... instant gratification, and all that. If you have issues, hey, drop this tab and achieve instant wisdom and transcendent knowledge. Acid and mescaline? Far out!
A pill for everything, even your attitude. That's what Leary and others were selling. Leary via pills and tabs, Baba Ram Dass (who was an East Coast Jewish Harvardian before he changed his name and his game) the ancient wisdom of the East, as received by an illuminated Ivy Leaguer and retransmitted to the eagerly questing.
These laws depend on the Wickard Commerce Clause. If you are going to argue that such laws are in keeping with original understanding, then you must accept that fedgov control over health care, education and the environment is also in keeping with original understanding.
Show me how turning California into Drugistan behind the cloak of the Tenth Amendment meets the spirit of the Founding.
Justice Clarence Thomas said it well.
Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything, and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
J. Thomas, dissenting in Gonzales v Raich
_______________________________________
So do you think Wickard (the New Deal Commerce Clause) is in keeping with original understandng of the Commerce Clause... YES or NO?
People did get depressed in 1905 too. And people not getting relief is somehow a good thing now ?
Besides, people would have been prescribed heroin/opiates for depression in those days, so it’s not like the doctors were completely helpless.
“...I, for one, don’t want to have to walk by a bunch of loaded up junkies or pot heads when I shop at the local mall...”
-
Hell, half the shopkeepers at the local mall are probably potheads.
Red herring, I didn't say or hint at that. My point was, the incidence of different disorders was probably similar, then and now, allowing for better nutrition now (debatable, and debated, what with transfats and other adulterants making the news today) "probably", and a higher mortality rate earlier in life for people who did share our disorders, so that what population was left alive of any particular cohort, and of the population as a whole (cities were population sinks, growing by immigration only as their mortality rates exceeded birthrates all through the 19th century), was probably the sturdier elements and possibly sturdier, man for man, than today's population.
Hence your statement is true, is my point, only if you don't account for people killed off by their weaknesses and disorders at a young age.
Case in point: My cousin's firstborn boy was afflicted by stenosis in his gut and, in 19th-century America, would have dieds, another sad story of infant death. A closely attentive mother and pediatric surgery stood him up, he grew up to be 6' 2" or so of twisted steel, and is out in the Fleet today, getting ready to cruise to northern Europe later this summer, having just participated in Fleet Week in New York. All hail modern medicine!
Still, whatever the reason, the country as a whole is sicker than it used to be. Diet probably has something to do with it, but that’s a digression.
A sicker, wealthier country and more advanced medicine means more advertising for drugs.
Nothing much has changed, heroin was once advertised as a painkiller.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.