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When alcohol prohibition was repealed, it was replaced by regulations and tax statutes that restricted distribution and maintained purity and dose (alcohol content by percentage).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 ...
Until such time as even bigger letters in a different color come along. Then that'll be true.
I bet when you're in a foreign country and people don't understand you, you speak louder. Right?
No, nothing sinister. Alcohol and tobacco have been a part our culture since the Pilgrims landed.
Cocaine and heroin, marijuana, PCP, LSD, methamphetamine, and all the other recreational drugs have not. When they did surface, like marijuana or opium, they were part of the sub-culture.
Drugs are not legal or illegal solely based on their relative danger. Never were.
"but the alchohol companies are the largest single special interest contributers."
Really? Huh. I bet if drugs were legal, it would be the alcohol (or cigarette) companies that would either manufacture and/or distribute them through their existing wholesale and retail channels. Boy are they stupid -- they're missing out on all that money to be made with legal drugs.
You're the one that doesn't like the will of the people. You're the one that wants to do an end-around through the courts. You're the one that champions states flaunting the Supremacy clause in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. You're the one who wants to ignore court rulings on the Commerce clause in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
I'm fine with the jingoism. I consider it ironic that you would post it.
Cocaine and heroin, marijuana, PCP, LSD, methamphetamine, and all the other recreational drugs have not. When they did surface, like marijuana or opium, they were part of the sub-culture."
So you are saying that tobacco predates opiates in the European (Pilgrim) societies? I think you need to study history, at least a little bit. Learning is good thing : )
Don't you think the drink Coca Cola was mainstream enough?
"Drugs are not legal or illegal solely based on their relative danger. Never were."
At last we agree on something, drugs are illegal based solely on the whims of politicians, not for any objective reason. If the Politicians, Court system, Police system, Prison system, Alcohol companies, etc. didn't benefit from the war on drugs they would be legal.
Now where did you get that from my statement?
Tobacco has been part of the American culture since before there was an America. Opiates were never part of the American culture.
"Now where did you get that from my statement?
Tobacco has been part of the American culture since before there was an America. Opiates were never part of the American culture."
I got it from this statement of yours.
"No, nothing sinister. Alcohol and tobacco have been a part our culture since the Pilgrims landed.
Cocaine and heroin, marijuana, PCP, LSD, methamphetamine, and all the other recreational drugs have not. When they did surface, like marijuana or opium, they were part of the sub-culture.
Anyone with just a modicum of education knows that opiates (snuff, heroin, etc) had been used by the Europeans for 100's of years before the new world and tobacco and coca were discovered.
The only way your statement makes sense is if you think that our "culture" is based on some Indian pipe smoking tribal culture and not the European culture that all of our laws are based on.
Is that the best you can do to defend Tobbaco and Alchohol? And the war on the lesser drugs? How sad that truth and freedom mean so little to you : (
Groups of immoral people not "trusting" others to make good choices is a bizarre concept. The other behaviors you cited were those that violated other's rights. Some idiot smoking grass doesn't violate any of your rights.
That's kinda how I feel - 'laws' are for keeping the 'stupids' (literally: the stupid people) alive and out of harms way (for the most part).
Take most of your local ordinances, building codes, state statutes etc. - regulations, for the most part that dictate what *not* to do as well as what *to* do in a vast and growing number of situations that a knowledgeable/smart/informed person has no trouble 'navigating' by himself successfully ...
Where did you get the idea they were?
My big contention is that 'laws' exist, IN LARGE PART, as a result of AND FOR THE CONTINUED protection of 'the stupid' and the stupid acts they 'pull' in society.
Now, BEAR IN MIND the qualifying phrase 'IN LARGE PART', since, there is a criminal element ever-present for which we must have some statutes on the books to deal with (ALTHOUGH if we were to properly ARM ourselves the 'criminal' ranks might be substantially reduced in size due to 'attrition' doled out by the law-abiding citizenry on the spot during attempted robberies and the like).
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