Posted on 01/04/2004 10:44:31 AM PST by patdor
Once we understand that the War on Drugs is an abject failure, the question arises, what can we do? What is the solution for ending the drug war?
The answer is very simple.
The core issues of crime and other social ills of the drug war come directly from the black market, not the drugs themselves. The black market is created by, and in fact encouraged by, the socio-economic effects of prohibition (called the “War On Drugs”).
As a result, the cure can only come by ending prohibition. But ending prohibition does not mean a sudden "free for all" of "legalization".
When alcohol prohibition was repealed, it was replaced by regulations and tax statutes that restricted distribution and maintained purity and dose (alcohol content by percentage). It also placed the methods of regulation for sale to the public largely in the hands of local and state governments, where it rightly belongs.
As a nation we are a very diverse culture. The values and cultural heritage of the east are different from the south and are quite different from the values of the west. The result is that federal level recreational substance laws fail in their ignorance of underlying social issues that are highly variable across the nation.
In other words, each state and locality should be afforded their own means of dealing with issues relating to drug abuse.
Thus, ending drug prohibition will be handled much like the end of alcohol prohibition - with the strict regulation and taxation of the manufacture, distribution, and sale of recreational substances.
The model of alcohol
For instance, comparative analysis of even the most pessimistic studies of marijuana show it to be safer and more benign than alcohol. Therefore it’s easy to see marijuana regulations mirroring those for beer and wine.
Hard alcohol is regulated more strictly than beer and wine, and certainly there are substances that should receive stricter regulation than marijuana. Soft drugs such as MDMA (Ecstasy), Psilocybin (Mushrooms), and Peyote, would need stricter regulation - along the lines of hard alcohol, which has significant restrictions on public use and distribution.
The very hardest of recreational substances, (i.e. the drugs with the highest physiological addiction rates, such as cocaine and heroin), would be regulated and distributed only by the government and directly to users. This distribution would seriously undercut, and virtually end, the black market for these drugs. This would greatly discourage the creation of new drug addicts.
It’s important to consider this last aspect of ending prohibition most thoroughly. It is the demonized “hard drug” user that the prohibitionists point to when declaring that the drug war must be continued.
(Excerpt) Read more at civilliberty.about.com ...
So9
If you have any information about the author's constitutional basis for the claim that it did not, I would (seriously) be interested in reading it.
"Research has revealed that a substantial proportion of violent crime occurs in the context of alcohol use. For the United States, estimates suggest that between 50 per cent and 80 per cent of assaults and homicides involve alcohol (see, for example, Pernanen 1991; Roizen 1993). There is a long list of studies that provide evidence that a notable percentage of violent offenders and victims are intoxicated at the time of the offence (Kevin 1999; Pernanen1991; Murdoch, Phil & Ross 1990; Wolfgang 1958).
In addition, studies have found evidence of the existence of ongoing alcohol use in the victim (Rivaraet al. 1997) and the offender (Lindqvist 1986). Similarly, studies amongst prison inmates detained for violent offences suggest that substantial alcohol problems are present in a large proportion of these inmates (for example,Collins 1989; Indermaur & Upton 1988).
The fact that both victims and offenders are frequently intoxicated at the time of violent offences suggests that the role of alcohol in the incident as a whole is important to consider. It has been suggested that, in many cases, who ultimately becomes the victim and who becomes the offender is somewhat incidental (for example, Pernanen 1991).
More specifically, the correlation between alcohol and homicide has been the subject of much research, and it is this association which is of interest in the present study. Alcohol has been found to be a significant factor in a large number of violent deaths, both homicides and suicides (Roizen 1993; Parker 1993b;Pernanen 1991; Wolfgang 1958)."
-- aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/35/paper9.pdf
I'll type if slowly for you. You specifically asked me: As a homicide detective, what percentage of your cases involve the use of legal alcohol by the perpetrator or the victim?
My answer is 'some'. There is no definitive way to tell in my specific area, since this is a very intense Latino gang-activity city, and most perps are still unapprehended. Witnesses who'll testify (even talk, for that matter) are extremely rare, and forensic deconstruction usually never reaches the point where blood analysis of the perp can be made.
Why would you assume to think national statistics can be superimposed onto to a city who's crime rate and demographics you know nothing about?
According to my cite, an amendment wasn't required and they never heard of FDR. Again I ask, where did you read it was?
Or are you just saying that you think a prohibition amendment should have been required ?
That is correct. It was only after FDRs packing that the legal theory appeared that the Federal Govt. would not need amendments to do things like this.
According to my cite, an amendment wasn't required and they never heard of FDR. Again I ask, where did you read it was?
Under current interpretation, an amendment wouldn't be required. Liberals like to pretend it was always that way, but until FDR packed the court, an amendment had been considered necessary.
Where did I read it? In any number of histories of the US and our laws. You have to be careful of the massive revisionism in US history that has taken place since WWII.
Until the 30s, the Federal Govt. was considered to be empowered to defend the coast, deliver the mail and very little else. All other powers were reserved to the States or the people.
In the 1880s Grover Cleveland vetoed a Drought Relief Bill.
It was to to appropriate $10,000 to distribute seed grain among drought-stricken farmers in Texas.
He did so because he could find no Constitutional basis for the power to spend the peoples money on such a thing.
This was the common understanding of the limits of Federal Power before FDR.
So9
Don't mean to do it, but if I didn't put those words in your mouth they'd never get there.
Why would you wish to legalize drugs, knowing full well the relationship between alcohol and homicide? Other than the fact the your job would be much easier.
If it were, the temperance reformers would never have considered a statute -- yet the historical research says otherwise.
If you find something concrete, let me know.
You are wrong. Once the temperance leaders had spoken to legal scholars, they knew that an amendment was required.
Tales to the contrary are Liberal Historical Revisionism.
You won't find anything written before 1930 that substantiates your belief.
So9
Well, robertpaulsen, since you specifically requested to know which percentages of my cases involved alcohol, I answered you in as precise a manner as I could.
And, yes, I am familiar with the frequency of alcohol involvement on a macro-level, but they have nothing to do with what you specifically asked me.
Don't mean to do it, but if I didn't put those words in your mouth they'd never get there.
You seem to have difficulty in formulating the right question for the data you are interested in.
Why would you wish to legalize drugs, knowing full well the relationship between alcohol and homicide? Other than the fact the your job would be much easier.
You are making unwarranted assumptions.
A. I see far and away more gang-related homicides, almost all of which have to do with control over territory for drug sales.
B. Drugs are already equally as available and as widespread as alcohol, and yet were involved with no homicides in my city. The drug trade? You bet. Actually being under the influence of drugs? Nope.
C. There is no evidence to suggest that decrim would either make the incidence of such events increase (since there are none to begin with) or cause them to start happening.
If you don't believe that free people, armed with the truth, can make good decisions for themselves, then our Republic is as good as dead.
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