Posted on 03/28/2006 10:51:21 PM PST by goldstategop
Getting high can be bad. Putting people in prison for it is worse. And doing the latter doesn't stop the former.
I was once among the majority who believe that drug use must be illegal. But then I noticed that when vice laws conflict with the law of supply and demand, the conflict is ugly, and the law of supply and demand generally wins.
The drug war costs taxpayers about $40 billion. "Up to three quarters of our budget can somehow be traced back to fighting this war on drugs," said Jerry Oliver, then chief of police in Detroit, told me. Yet the drugs are as available as ever.
Oliver was once a big believer in the war. Not anymore. "It's insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over again," he says. "If we did not have this drug war going on, we could spend more time going after robbers and rapists and burglars and murderers. That's what we really should be geared up to do. Clearly we're losing the war on drugs in this country."
No, we're "winning," according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which might get less money if people thought it was losing. Prosecutors hold news conferences announcing the "biggest seizure ever." But what they confiscate makes little difference. We can't even keep drugs out of prisons -- do we really think we can keep them out of all of America?
Even as the drug war fails to reduce the drug supply, many argue that there are still moral reasons to fight the war. "When we fight against drugs, we fight for the souls of our fellow Americans," said President Bush. But the war destroys American souls, too. America locks up a higher percentage of her people than almost any other country. Nearly 4,000 people are arrested every day for mere possession of drugs. That's more people than are arrested for aggravated assault, burglary, vandalism, forcible rape and murder combined.
Authorities say that warns people not to mess with drugs, and that's a critical message to send to America's children. "Protecting the children" has justified many intrusive expansions of government power. Who wants to argue against protecting children?
I have teenage kids. My first instinct is to be glad cocaine and heroin are illegal. It means my kids can't trot down to the local drugstore to buy something that gets them high. Maybe that would deter them.
Or maybe not. The law certainly doesn't prevent them from getting the drugs. Kids say illegal drugs are no harder to get than alcohol.
Perhaps a certain percentage of Americans will use or abuse drugs -- no matter what the law says.
I cannot know. What I do know now, however, are some of the unintended consequences of drug prohibition:
1. More crime. Rarely do people get high and then run out to commit crimes. Most "drug crime" happens because the product is illegal. Since drug sellers can't rely on the police to protect their property, they form gangs and arm themselves. Drug buyers steal to pay the high black market prices. The government says alcohol is as addictive as heroin, but no one is knocking over 7-Elevens to get Budweiser.
2. More terrorism. The profits of the drug trade fund terrorists from Afghanistan to Colombia. Our herbicide-spraying planes teach South American farmers to hate America.
3. Richer criminal gangs. Alcohol prohibition created Al Capone. The gangs drug prohibition is creating are even richer, probably rich enough to buy nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden was funded partly by drug money.
Government's declaring drugs illegal doesn't mean people can't get them. It just creates a black market, where even nastier things happen. That's why I have come to think that although drug addiction is bad, the drug war is worse.
I usually jump right into this kind of discussion, but all of you have covered the bases.
I really would like to live on a street with each of you as neighbors.
Peace and keep up the good work.
Cheers! (that's code for have a toke for me.)
No reply needed - I think I pinged about 50 patriots.
The WOD: Drug warriors are fighting a war against inanimate objects and failing miserably. How pathetic is that!?
But it's not a war against inanimate objects. It's a war against people.
It's all a big farce.
Worse. Much worse. It's massive fraud. Institutionalized fraud.
The perpetrators/fraudsters will be held accountable.
This is not my notion at all...
It is according to what you wrote in your 317 post: "I have absolutely no problem legalizing drugs so long as you guarantee that a felony committed under the influence will trigger the death penalty."
Two persons commit identical crimes and you sentence one to ten years in prison and the other gets the death penalty.
This is probably one of the biggest trash arguments in favor of the drug war that I've ever read.
I oppose the war on drugs, and I've never used a single "illegal" substance in my life. No marijuana, no rocks, nothing. My roommate in college was the biggest pothead in the universe, yet I still didn't do it. According to your reasoning, I, as a drug war opponent, must be using these substances. Such reasoning falls flat on its face.
Furthermore, I do not claim that there is no harm to recreational use. Again, another one of your faulty assumptions about folks who oppose this ludicrous war on drugs. These substances are very harmful, but you know what? There's idiots out there who want to do these substances anyway. These select idiots will obtain these substances, no matter what the government does.
We might as well end this stupid war, and let the idiots be the idiots. Tax the hell out of the substances, step up penalties for public use, allow employers to use more drug testing in employment decisions, condition government welfare programs on drug rehab or no drug use conditions, and eventually people will either wisen up or destroy themselves. And if they want to destroy themselves, so be it.
It is not the role of the government to prevent idiots from being idiots. That is an impossible endeavor, and should not even be attempted. Sadly, however, it already has been attempted in this stupid war on drugs.
Your arguments fall flat on their face, even when it comes to your examples of the type of negligence that people using drugs could commit. People can commit the same type of negligence right now with alcohol, yet you don't see calls for banning alcohol anymore. Why? Because it failed miserably- just like drug prohibition has.
You talk about the right to self-determination. Historically, that right refers to whole peoples, nations, not individuals.
You really do need to read our Declaration and our Preamble. We the People, - individuals all, are endowed with self-evident rights, -- not "nations".
Constitutionally, in our country, individuals have the right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness [or property].' -- [see the 5th & the 14th Amendments]
This does not mean that commonsense constraints placed upon individual behavior are violations of those rights. I gather your right of individual self-determination is extracted from the pages of the Constitution in much the same way as 'the right to choose'. The logic is questionable in both cases.
Our right of individual self-determination can be 'extracted' from the pages of the Constitution in the Bill of Rights & the 14th Amendment.
Your refusal to acknowledge those principles is really becoming amusing. Why do you deny your own individual rights?
Some people value freedom and some don't.
To some it is a blessing, to others its a curse.
Wheat and chaff.
You can tell who's who by reading the thread.
"Some people value freedom and some don't.
To some it is a blessing, to others its a curse.
Wheat and chaff.
You can tell who's who by reading the thread."
Your so stoopid. YOu don't know the constition. The bill of rights Clearly gives the government the right to force my religous views on the world. I mean are you going to deny me the right to jail dangerous hipsters and a there weed that will make our virin daughters want to make time with dangerous jazz negros! Its all about the children and their right to grow up in a drug free America, Until they use a drug and then they go to jail for 20 years to be raped by men. You stupod liberel, how can you be against sending government agents to find people hurting themselves, then taking their house because they have a plant in the basement. Traitor
I gotcha! LOL! You nailed it!
Like insider stock trading?
You got my vote for dumbass kneejerk post of the day.
Our Big Stupid Government has gotten so big, so stupid and so overcontrolling that it's rapidly losing whatever moral influence it may have ever had. Now it's forced to bludgeon theoretically-free people into submission, because we don't give a sh#$ what people who can only get government jobs "think". I wouldn't sit down for a drink with 99% of those assholes in D.C., much less have any interest in doing what their whims dictate.
Our Founders would have started cleaning their weapons years ago; it may take a bit longer this time around.
Its all in the bible, Luke, 30-18 "The"
and the consitution, Amendment 4, Thou shall not murder, nor shall the government search or sieze property, or a person, unless Jesus, George Bush says so, or if they might be doing drugs.
Or for any other reason the government deems "necessary".
We are not free by any stretch of the imagination. Freedom is now only an illusion. We stay out of jail by the whim of our masters, just as we are put in jail by them on any pretext.
Those who willingly give up freedom have no idea what it is they are giving up until they are the ones who are targeted by their masters.
That was a very good post you made and well said.
We'll if the government says so its because God made them say so, so his will must be done. OFCOURSE DIDN'T you READ THE BIBLE, ITS THE SOPREAM LAW OF THE LAND
One day the government will be hunting down and killing anyone who believes in the Bible.
Owning a Bible will be a death sentence.
"One day the government will be hunting down and killing anyone who believes in the Bible.
Owning a Bible will be a death sentence."
Only because much of the Bible belt uses the government to try to push its agenda, not realizing it will bite them in the ass.
Stossel is a journalist who can't do dip about the wosds. It's the guys on steroids who carry heavy weapons, dress in black fatigues, wear polished combat boots and specially woven ski like masks that conceal their true identity that needs to be addressed.
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