Posted on 12/06/2012 2:25:44 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
Editor's note: Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, with global branded revenues of $21 billion, and a member of the Global Drug Commission. Sir Richard was knighted in 1999 for his services to entrepreneurship. Watch today for Branson's interview with CNN/US' Erin Burnett Out Front at 7pm ET and tomorrow (12/7) with CNN International's Connect the World program at 4pm ET
(CNN) -- In 1925, H. L. Mencken wrote an impassioned plea: "Prohibition has not only failed in its promises but actually created additional serious and disturbing social problems throughout society. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic but more. There is not less crime, but more. ... The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished."
This week marks the 79th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933, but Mencken's plea could easily apply to today's global policy on drugs.
We could learn a thing or two by looking at what Prohibition brought to the United States: an increase in consumption of hard liquor, organized crime taking over legal production and distribution and widespread anger with the federal government.
~snip~
As part of this work, a new documentary, "Breaking the Taboo," narrated by Oscar award-winning actor Morgan Freeman and produced by my son Sam Branson's indie Sundog Pictures, followed the commission's attempts to break the political taboo over the war on drugs. The film exposes the biggest failure of global policy in the past 40 years and features revealing contributions from global leaders, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
It is time we broke the taboo and opened up the debate about the war on drugs. We need alternatives that focus on education, health, taxation and regulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
So is the War on Terror.
I really don't trust my government to declare war on anything any more. The kind of wars they should be deliberating and declaring they instead default to Presidential Whim so they don't have to put a vote on the record.
“But yet, who are the proponents arguing for pro-dope laws? “
I’ve seen people advocating for no/fewer laws when it comes to the plant marijuana. Those advocating government regulation of a plant (green, grows roots in the dirt, etc.) have had their way. The results have been complete and total failure.
Any other plants you want to have the government make illegal?
I’m afraid too many conservatives still have a ‘reefer madness’ image of drugs. If they’d tried them, they wouldn’t be so fearful. I have tried marijuana & hallucinogenic mushrooms - always in situations where I wasn’t going anywhere or doing anything that might create a hazard to anyone. The experience was interesting, but certainly had some unpleasant effects as well.
I have many friends who have used other, harder drugs like cocaine. To a one, they’ve all given them up. Just as with drinking, there’s an appropriate place for it & it can be done responsibly. Most users ‘grow up’ & stop.
Another poster on this thread asked if the government would have to provide drugs because of the expense? Drugs are expensive due to prohibition. Most drugs (cocaine included) can be cheaply produced. The most expensive thing, if legalized, would be the gov’t taxes, just as with alcohol.
We need to legalize drugs, end the police state we now live with on so many levels, & hold people responsible for bad behavior. If conservatives really believe in limited gov’t, personal responsibility & freedom they would be for legalization.
The premise of the article is a little foolish. Just like the war on drugs, the war on murder, rape, robbery, etc., hasn’t eliminated those crimes either. Sin will never be eliminated by a government program. However the purpose of government is to keep it under control, and that is the limit of what government can do.
If you think that there are no serious conservatives outside the beltway who support legalization, then you obviously have your head up your posterior.
First, we can look to the former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, as one elected conservative who favored ending the “war on drugs.”
Tom Tancredo is another. Thomas Sowell has spoken out on the futility of the current course of action.
People who support the “war on drugs” are just statist thugs, posing as law-and-order conservatives. William F. Bennett, the preening, unctuous twit who froze the civilian machine gun population is one of the examples of a conservative talking out both sides of his mouth. What did NFA weapons have to do with drugs? Nothing. But Bennett needed to make it look like he was “doing something” as “Drug Czar” and so he did.
Exactly right. No prohibition on substances has ever worked. Doesn’t matter whether we’re talking booze or ditch weed.
Lots of dope smokers have gone to jail in the past. Over time, the threshold and sentencing guidelines have increased the threshold where the quantities seized were taken as evidence of “intent to distribute,” but in the 80’s in California, I read about people with little baggies of weed getting sentenced to 6 months all the time.
I would like to legalize all currently illegal drugs, and then I’d like to provide highly concentrated drugs to dopers for free.
Within about six months, the death rate due to OD’s will taper off, natural selection will have runs it’s course and we’ll be on our way.
The problem today is that we’re all too eager to hamper the process of evolution in the human species. If we make stupidity painful or fatal again, we’ll be rid of the problem in a enduring fashion.
P.J. O’Rourke remarked years ago that instant legalization would result in darwin taking over. The “built-in payback” as he put it.
So your argument is now no longer made from “no serious conservative,” you’re now denying that these conservatives who actually made arguments which prove your assertion wrong aren’t or weren’t conservatives.
Let me boil this down for you: You’re an control freak imbecile. You’re not actually a conservative, you’re a statist posing as a conservative. You don’t want smaller government and more liberty, you just want government to beat up on people you don’t like.
You’ve conflated legal drugs with drug use; not the same thing. No sane person would encourage drug use, my strongest drug of choice is black coffee. Urging the end to the pointless waste of money and other resources to wage an unsuccessful war on drugs is very much a conservative position. Wanting an end to a growing and intrusive paramilitary police force is very much a conservative position. Honoring adults right of contract and the right to choose what goes into their bodies is very much a conservative position. Democrats had to invent the legal basis for these laws; the constitution does not support them.
lol.
Is that like increasing food stamps so they can eat themselves to death too?
lol
“Thanks for bringing up Bill Buckley. He would make a good poster child for the pro-dope liberals.”
Therefore, i suppose you would put Barry Goldwater & Regan there also?
bobo
“Because welfare freelaoders are more than happy to keep voting in the leftist liberals,” as are those who support their outrageous incomes for regulatory, so-called education and many other useless offices by voting for either of the two political parties (one for federal socialists and the other for local socialists receiving funding from the former). We’ll never generate enough revenues from manufacturing to support them.
Bill Buckley was a serious conservative and opposed drug prohibition, and so do I for the same reasons. I’ve used pot once, was never a hippie, and I’m a strong conservative on every issue.
I submit that the prohibition of pot is identical to the prohibition of alcohol: counterproductive, costly, and ineffective.
Should be legal. More problems are caused by it being illegal. I know many doctors, engineers, and other professionals who smoke pot regularly. I do not as I do not like the effects, and my lungs do not like any kind of smoke in them. However, every other year or so, I do like to do my desert shroom trip. I think it is ridiculous that plants like cannabis or fungus like psilocybin which grow naturally everywhere can be illegal.
Legalize pot, and put no restrictons, taxes or regulation on the substance.
Just because you make something legal is no reason to involve big brother.
Impaired driving is already illegal, so no further laws are required.
Pot is easier to get than beer on college campuses. So how’s that prohibition working out for y’all?
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