Posted on 04/25/2015 11:12:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
How many people have died as a result of drunk drivers since the end of prohibition? How many people have died from liver disease as a result of alcoholism since the end of prohibition? How many people have become incorrigible nonfunctional alcoholics since the end of prohibition? How many families have been ruined by alcohol, one way or the other, since the end of prohibition? How much has all of this cost society in terms of dollars and cents? Again, I'm not saying we need to make alcohol illegal again. I'm just saying that ending prohibition can hardly be used as a great example of why we should legalize things like crystal meth and heroin.
Why not, given everything you've said about alcohol?The tolerance of one evil does not justify tolerance of all evil.
Legalization certainly shouldn't start there - and it's possible that legalizing pot might leave us with a War on Drugs we can actually win, which is not the case now.
It's interesting that only a few short years after legalizing weed in a few states, some folks are already fighting to legalize crystal meth and heroin.
How would a properly waged War on Drugs differ from its current implementation?
It would involve a congressional declaration of war first and foremost. It would also involve a bit of an inquisition within our own government. If there are elements within our government profiting from narcotrafficking, powerful examples would have to be made of them. The borders would be fully militarized. Traffickers would be killed. Prisoners would be taken and they would be harshly interrogated for useful information. Internment camps would be established. We would engage narcotraffickers in any country that harbored them as if they were terrorists because that's exactly what they are. American drug addicts would be introduced to the concept of cold turkey withdrawal in a matter of months. Urine drug screens would become much more common. Positive urine drug screens would lead to civil right forfeitures and/or loss of taxpayer funded welfare. In short, it would actually be a war on drugs which, up to now, has been a catchy slogan and a lot of BS.
You said, “Isn’t legalization war against individual responsibility? It’s saying the government is entirely responsible for the individual, and absolves the individual of any responsibility.”
So, you think that any legal activity is 100% controlled by the government? I can’t fathom your logic. So, whether it’s target shooting, gymnastics, cutting firewood, or baking cakes, you think that the government is entirely responsible for the individual doing it?
I think you need to put down the bottle, the bong, or whatever drug you are doing.
"War on Drugs?" OK, but also the foundation of the Clinton Family Fortune, among many others. In exchange for the use of the airport at Mena, AR, as a CIA base, a semi-blind eye was turned to the importation of vast amounts of cocaine through it aboard the planes that were used to supply the anti-Sandinista rebels of Nicaragua. Team Clinton in AR then used State Agencies to launder vast sums through state agencies. GHWB, as VP at the time, and former head of the CIA, knew nothing about it. (Wink Wink)
But it is misleading to focus on the multi-millionaire and billionaire people. Many are the carefully guarded minor family fortunes based on drugs in Everytown, USA. Maine, with its 3,000-mile foggy coast? Sure. Laredo, TX, with a TV show of its own featuring grossly overweight Chicano cops assiduously cracking down on low-level dealers, LOL! It does show oine thing:
any war, even this one, needs an enemy. In the WOD, the enemy seems to be whoever is not part of the official program, free-lancing, or looking to upset the applecart by being too blatantly violent, i.e., un-business-like..
WOD? On one level it's a "War." On a more practical level, it's part of a multi-level marketing scheme. It's never going to end because it pays far too many people too much money ... one way or the other.
How many people have died as a result of drunk drivers since the end of prohibition? How many people have died from liver disease as a result of alcoholism since the end of prohibition? How many people have become incorrigible nonfunctional alcoholics since the end of prohibition? How many families have been ruined by alcohol, one way or the other, since the end of prohibition? How much has all of this cost society in terms of dollars and cents?
How much of that would have been prevented by continuing Prohibition? By some accounts alcohol consumption actually rose for the last several years of Prohibition (and alcohol consumption dropped by 23% from 1980 to 1995 while remaining legal).
I'm not saying alcohol should be made illegal again however.
Why not, given everything you've said about alcohol?
The tolerance of one evil does not justify tolerance of all evil.
That doesn't answer the question.
Legalization certainly shouldn't start there - and it's possible that legalizing pot might leave us with a War on Drugs we can actually win, which is not the case now.
It's interesting that only a few short years after legalizing weed in a few states, some folks are already fighting to legalize crystal meth and heroin.
Currently that view is in the minority - and the best way to keep it there is to make the War on Meth and Heroin less unwinnable by ceasing the war on far and away the most popular illegal drug, pot.
How would a properly waged War on Drugs differ from its current implementation?
It would involve a congressional declaration of war first and foremost. It would also involve a bit of an inquisition within our own government. If there are elements within our government profiting from narcotrafficking, powerful examples would have to be made of them.
That's not a plan but a pipe dream in the absence of specifics as to what changes we'd need to make for that to be done better than it is now; profiting from narcotrafficking, in or out of government, is already illegal.
The borders would be fully militarized.
Sounds like that would slow our legal imports to a trickle.
Traffickers would be killed.
Their competitors already kill them more effectively than our legal system or military could hope to do - and yet others fight to replace them before their bodies are cold.
Prisoners would be taken and they would be harshly interrogated for useful information. Internment camps would be established. We would engage narcotraffickers in any country that harbored them as if they were terrorists because that's exactly what they are.
What would we do about domestic drug production, e.g., of synthetics and of marijuana, which is the #1 cash crop of several states?
American drug addicts would be introduced to the concept of cold turkey withdrawal in a matter of months.
I don't understand this statement - is it a prediction of the effects of the previously stated policies, or a policy in its own right? If the latter, how would it be implemented?
Urine drug screens would become much more common.
So we'd further eviscerate the Fourth Amendment. This pro-Constitution pro-Bill of Rights web site may not be the one for you.
Positive urine drug screens would lead to civil right forfeitures
Such as?
and/or loss of taxpayer funded welfare.
That I support - but many drug users are not on welfare.
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