Rethinking The Drug War (John Stossel Hits Home Run In Argument Against Futile WOD Alert)

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 was smoking pot and i am still working...
So firing an employee because he makes personal choices at his home is not right and you got to understand that!

LOL. I'm with you brother. They are firing cigarette smokers or refusing to hire them for smoking at home.
What are they going to do to you when drugs are legal?
Whatever they want. They sure can't fire smokers and keep people that do dope. Not unless they want to be sued into bankruptcy.

I also had a company car. Fortune 500 company.
Have a wreck on Monday. Got 24 hours to pee in a cup. Anything in my system from the weekend. Terminated.
Alcohol or anything else.
My point is, legalization doesn't mean a company has to hire you or keep you. They make the rules.
They have the right to say "stay drug free, or find another job".
Insurers have made a bundle off smokers. They won't be any kinder to people that test positive for drugs.Legal or not. Still considered high risk behavior. If they make you too expensive to insure, your company can make whatever demands they choose.
If apt managers don't want to lease to people that do drugs,they don't have too. They do it to smokers. Judges take kids away from parents that smoke. Why are they going to treat you any better? No offense, but they haven't started any half way houses for smokers. For people that hate the smell of smoke, they don't like pot smell any better than cigarette smoke. And you can smell a pot smoker
5 blocks away.
Cigarettes cost 75 cents to produce. New York fetches 8.50 a
pack. Being legal hasn't made them cheaper. This country has never had a bigger black market than now on tobacco.
If people are going to pay 150.00-200.00 a bag illegally,
they're only going to add massive taxes to that. Hey, like cigarettes, it's an optional tax. Don't want to pay it. Quit.
You're not going to jail now. Pay for it.
They will justify it by saying they have to pay the health care cost connected to drug use. Then parade every crack head out on t.v. for the public to see, and produce every stat known to mankind. Or parents that's kids have overdosed. Kind of like the lung cancer patients. Only the lung cancer patients are usually in their 70's. The dead kids will have a far bigger impact.
Our system is not Canada's or Amsterdam's.
Neither is the mind set.
Don't expect the same results.

paulsen pontificates on our rights:

If they're inalienable, they're God-given and can't be taken away.

Backwards. -- An inalienable right cannot be bestowed, granted, bartered, or sold away (eg, one cannot sell oneself into slavery or enable his government to ban arms).

If the right to do drugs is an inalienable right, like life or liberty, would you deny that right to 12-year-olds? You wouldn't deny the right to life or liberty to 12-year-olds, correct?

Parents can reasonably regulate the inalienable rights of their children, bobby, -- just as we empower governments to reasonably regulate the inalienable rights of man.
-- However, we have never, and cannot empower governments to enact prohibitions on our rights to life, liberty, or property.

Hmmmmm. Maybe the right to do drugs isn't an inalienable right after all.

Like all rights, the public aspects of 'doing drugs' can be reasonably regulated, using due process of Constitutional law. - Prohibitions are repugnant to due process of law.

Maybe it's merely a natural right which may or may be defined and protected by society (government).

There you go again paulsen, dreaming about your communitarian "society" that can define & choose which rights it protects or prohibits.

We live in a Constitutional Republic. Get used to it.

Difficult to argue the downside of pot legalization with a pot smoker, which you have admitted to being in a previous post. I would be more convinced of the integrity of your position concerning anti-drug laws if you quit breaking them or, Gandhi- or King-like, lit up a fatty on your hometown courthouse steps in broad daylight, and then took the legal consequences arising from such an action. At least then your stance would be principled. As it is, a scofflaw has no ground upon which to stand in such a discussion. Do you tell your kids it's okay to cherry-pick the rules by which we play? To ignore those laws with which they don't agree?

I'm not throwing stones from some moral high ground here. I've seen scores of otherwise good people die, end up in prison, or permanently brain-damaged as the result of drug use. You know that ragged, homeless guy you see walking the street, mumbling nonsense to himself, oblivious to everything but his delusions, eating garbage, sleeping under the underpass? That was me. I was that man. So yeah, I feel passionately about this particular topic. I hate mind-altering drugs. I hate them with every fiber of my being. It's a horrible, vicious, nasty business, and no good can come from legalizing any of it.

You know that ragged, homeless guy you see walking the street, mumbling nonsense to himself, oblivious to everything but his delusions, eating garbage, sleeping under the underpass? That was me.

Sad that you made the choice to do drugs. Good that you made the choice to stop doing drugs. The purpose of government is to protect people from one another. Government cannot protect people from themselves.

It's a horrible, vicious, nasty business, and no good can come from legalizing any of it.

Violent crime would substantially decrease.

The WOD is not a war against inanimate objects. It's a war against people. Drug warriors can't even keep drugs out of prisons where prisoners don't have constitutional freedoms. There's no way drug warriors can keep drugs out of a free society.

Educate yourself.. Here's some audio/video links from retired drug warriors -- LEOs that were in the trenches.

http://leap.cc/audiovideo/LEAPpromo.htm 12 minute video introduction. Powerful

The most cognizant way to handle the drug problem I've heard: [Video] Jack Cole Audio/Video presentation of "END PROHIBITION NOW!"

[Video] Peter Christ, Rotary Club Presentation, Stockbridge Massachusetts. Peter Christ, a retired LEO and founder of LEAP.

Drug legalization reduces violent crime problem. Education and outreach address the drug problem.

than maybe you could tell us some more details on which drugs you took? no offense but i really doubt you ever took illegal drugs...trully...

and also difficult to speak about the downside of pot smoking with a non pot smoker...you know it's going both ways and unfortunately banning one or the other (pot smokers/non pot smokers) is not the right choice...

Also breaking a law is not immoral you know...if rosa park never sat at the front of the bus, black people would still not be recognized...so by agreeing automatically with a law is not moral, some people has to fight them and i don't blame you for not trying to, some people don't want to leave their own confort others are suffering for...

but please, tell me what was that drug you abused from? you know so i don't abuse from it!

but still you didn't answer my question! if the drug use dof an employee do not affect its productivity, why should he get fired or would need to find another job??

LOL. Actually, I did. From a smokers perpective.
Smokers are being fired more and more in this country. Or not hired. Cigarette taxes put billions into the economy. We pay more for everything.
How does their smoking a legal product at home effect their job performance? Mothers with sick kids miss far more work than any smoker I know. We pay dearly for our "health related costs", but never see any of it.
Fair? No. It's called socialism. When the masses want free healthcare, the masses get to decide who can enjoy what.
Smoking,over eating, drugs, skydiving etc. Pay the piper.
Because the masses pay into the system, the majority rules.
Truth is, the majority don't smoke,drink,do drugs, skydive, or drive race cars. The majority aren't very tolerate to those that do. They feel the right to dictate others lives since they pay into the pool. Since masses get to vote on issues through the process, majorities can easily squash minority rights and set law.
Many tout the virtues of democracy. Most don't understand that democracy is nothing more than mob rule. Majority decides.
It sounds good on paper.
Our country became a Republic for that very reason.
Shame we haven't remembered it. Legalizing drugs may keep people out of jail, it doesn't mean the price for that luxury won't be steep. Employers, landlords, judges, insurance companies etc. can set the rules as they choose.
In this country, drugs won't be cheaper, quite the opposite.
You want to play, pay the government troll and all the rest
who will determine your habit has a huge social cost.
The black market on tobacco is massive today. Thanks to constant tax increases for the gov and health groups.
People caught smuggling get as much jail time as a drug dealer.
When legal pot sells in this country for 400.00 to 500.00
a bag, the black market and crime will only get worse.
People won't be able to afford the legal stuff.
The anti smoking groups set the precident for all.
Make sure to thank The Cancer Society when they call for that donation. :)

Robert Paulsen to tpaine: When I asked how a flasher harmed her, your response is that he harmed her. You add nothing more to the conversation than if I asked my parrot.
If you cannot tell me how she was harmed -- not shocked, not insulted, not alarmed, not embarrassed, not offended -- how she was actually harmed through force or fraud (those libertarian standards, mind you), then please be quiet and let someone else chime in.
I'd really like to know. 228

Zon: An impartial jury will decide if harm did or did not occur and to what extent restitution may be due. How about you tell the people on this thread how you have been harmed by the act of a person smoking a joint in the privacy of their home. You can pretend it's an impartial jury you're "talking" to. 236

Common RP, let's hear you explain.

great post but still didn't answer my question! but i must admit it was not well formulated! why would an employer fire a drug users whose productivity is not affected? you seem to get stuck with the idea that a drug user's productivity is automatically reduced!

also the government is creating it's own black market by putting up those taxes! don't you think it is suspicious! it is something the mass as to show to the government, the majority doesn't want black market, so they should wake up! that excuse cannot hold with drugs as the health deterioration is showing up earlier than cigarets...with cigarets you are so hooked on it you cannot quit even if you have to smoke it through a hole! drugs legal and proper education made, users will see what's not good about it!

soagain why would you fire somebody who's on drug but bring more money than it costs??? the motive of a company is profit, it should stick to it!

"no offense but i really doubt you ever took illegal drugs...trully... "

Yeah, that's right, you caught me. I make stuff up to give what I say greater impact and the authority of experience. 'Trully'.

Yeesh. I won't give a laundry list of drugs I have done--you hear people do that sometimes when they're sharing in the Program and it sounds like a perverse kind of bragging. Let me put it this way: Cocaine was my thing, along with alcohol. But listen: I was the kind of addict who wouldn't smoke crack cocaine because that would've made me, you know, a crackhead and I wasn't going to be a crackhead, no sir. And I wouldn't stick needles in my body, either, because that's what junkies did and I wasn't a junkie, no way.

I look back on that kind of thinking now and just cringe.

I started doing drugs and alcohol because I had an undiagnosed mental illness, and drugs and alcohol seemed to do for me. Drug and alcohol abuse exacerbated the mental illness, hence the divorce, the joblessness, the homelessness.

Whether you believe me or not is your affair. I have a little more than five years' continuous sobriety: what others believe or don't believe no longer gets under my skin--at least not so much as it once did.

Difficult to argue the downside of pot legalization with a pot smoker, which you have admitted to being in a previous post.

On the contrary, my friend, it should be quite easy---you've already set the standard, common sense, so use it. I assure you that even a slovenly pot-head like me can recognize good old-fashioned common sense when I see it.

I would be more convinced of the integrity of your position concerning anti-drug laws if you quit breaking them or, Gandhi- or King-like, lit up a fatty on your hometown courthouse steps in broad daylight, and then took the legal consequences arising from such an action.

Tit for tat: I'd be more convinced of the integrity of your conservatism, or that your argument has its basis in conservatism, if you weren't an admitted former leftist! It's not shocking to me that a statist would argue that the state owns my body; it makes perfect ideological sense. This web site stands for personal liberty. Sell your big government policies elsewhere.

At least then your stance would be principled. As it is, a scofflaw has no ground upon which to stand in such a discussion. Do you tell your kids it's okay to cherry-pick the rules by which we play? To ignore those laws with which they don't agree?

During the simple course of living, you probably break six or seven laws per day you don't even know about. Ever go more than 65 MPH on the highway? Ever make a rolling stop at a stop sign? Ever cut that yellow light just a little close? Ever cross the street against traffic? Ever rip the tag off your mattress? The world still spins on its axis, and I certainly won't call out the Gestapo if my son breaks a rule some bureaucrat cooked up somewhere in order to keep his fat ass employed.
If anything, I'd suggest this nation's marijuana prohibition laws actually foster the kind of cherry-picking you worry about. One would respect and understand laws based on reason. When laws have no basis in reason, the message is clear: law needs no basis in reason whatsoever.

I'm not throwing stones from some moral high ground here. I've seen scores of otherwise good people die, end up in prison, or permanently brain-damaged as the result of drug use. You know that ragged, homeless guy you see walking the street, mumbling nonsense to himself, oblivious to everything but his delusions, eating garbage, sleeping under the underpass? That was me. I was that man. So yeah, I feel passionately about this particular topic. I hate mind-altering drugs. I hate them with every fiber of my being. It's a horrible, vicious, nasty business, and no good can come from legalizing any of it.

If the above is true, then: (1) I'm glad you pulled through, and (2) since there's no bigger zealot than the recently reformed, it's senseless to argue this point with you. You're basing your argument on feeling and passion; I'm basing mine on reason.

...who gets to decide on what the list of "right choices" is.

The elected legislature.

Yeah, legislators like Randy "Duke" Cunningham are going to tell me a thing or two about "right choices," or craft legislation to help weak, inferior souls like me stay on the straight and narrow. Because without their strong medicine, I would most certainly travel the road to perdition.
Give me a break . . .
When conservatives begin talking about Congressmen like they're all Moses delivering the 10 Commandments to the great unwashed, it's time to break out the vomit pots. C'mon, man: there isn't a bigger bunch of liars, crooks, back-stabbers, ladder-climbers, glad-handers, buddy-effers, and over-arching assholes than the group of stuffed suits who make up the U.S. Congress.

The bottom of the barrel. Great choice - NOT! Voting for the lesser of evils always begets evil.

Honestly, my friend.

It might be an Internet legend, but I remember seeing a list of all these horrific crimes that went something like this:

XX% of this group has been convicted of a felony.
YY% of this group has been arrested for drunken driving.
etc.

And of course, at the end of the list, you discover "this group" is the U.S. Congress.

Here in Massachusetts, we have 60-year-old legislators who still live with their mothers, outright liars who "forget" to pay income taxes, etc. ad nauseum. We're supposed to look to these people for moral guidance? Hell: we actually have legislators who oppose tougher drunken driving laws. Oppose!

well that's good! thumbs up! and what helped you to get rid of this addiction...sorry for the personnal questions but i am curious from nature, it may seem as the opposit of a quality, but hey! however if you do not answer i won't blame you! we are not in a chat room after all! but i am curious about your story! and also, did you go to jail? if not do you think that helped you get rid of your addiction? if you were caught with coke and went to jail, do you think it would have helped you kick the habbit? and sorry if i said that you never took drugs, the way you were speaking about pot let me think you never tried it though! things are not so foggy as most people think under the influence of this "drug"! if you did try it though i believe it was laced with something that left you bad memories of it, the current problem of the black market, no control on what is and will always be available...

that's a good thing i am not living in your country though (or the USA if you do not live there!) because my curiousity would have brought me to jail!

You wrote, "During the simple course of living, you probably break six or seven laws per day you don't even know about. Ever go more than 65 MPH on the highway? Ever make a rolling stop at a stop sign? Ever cut that yellow light just a little close? Ever cross the street against traffic? Ever rip the tag off your mattress? The world still spins on its axis, and I certainly won't call out the Gestapo if my son breaks a rule some bureaucrat cooked up somewhere in order to keep his fat ass employed."

The speed limit, yellow light statements are examples of the reductio ad absurdum fallacy. There is a huge qualitative distinction between going a few miles over the speed limit and--unless you grow it yourself or have a horticulturally inclined dealer--buying drugs from a guy who buys his drugs from a guy who kills people, because that's the kind of business it is. Apples and oranges.

No, being a former leftist did not leave behind some collectivist residue. And no, I don't believe the state owns my--or anyone else's--body. I do believe, though, that legalization of mind-altering drugs is a profoundly bad idea--even your drug of choice. People--children especially--are, by and large, binary thinkers. If we--as a society, as a culture, as a representative government--don't spread a message that says 'Say no to drugs', then we are sending the message that says drug use is perfectly okay, and that simply isn't true.

You were the one who suggested the comparison:

Do you tell your kids it's okay to cherry-pick the rules by which we play? To ignore those laws with which they don't agree?

And yet now you insist there are rules and then there are rules. Lies and little white lies, in other words? Thank you for saving me from having to demonstrate the absurdity of this argument any further.

No, being a former leftist did not leave behind some collectivist residue. And no, I don't believe the state owns my--or anyone else's--body.

You can think whatever you want, but you've demonstrated on this thread, quite definitively, that you do. I'm still waiting for your common-sense explanation as to why it's proper to criminalize substance X while demonstrably more harmful substances Y and Z remain perfectly legal.

I do believe, though, that legalization of mind-altering drugs is a profoundly bad idea--even your drug of choice. People--children especially--are, by and large, binary thinkers.

Meaning what: all law should be formulated as though the government were a parent?

If we--as a society, as a culture, as a representative government--don't spread a message that says 'Say no to drugs', then we are sending the message that says drug use is perfectly okay, and that simply isn't true.

What bravo sierra. Substances do not need to be criminalized in order to "send a message" that using them is bad. What's the buzz around fast food: Bad, don't eat it, you'll become obese. Cigarettes? You'll destroy your lungs . . . you'll get cancer. Drinking too much? You'll destroy your liver, you'll kill someone in a drunken driving accident. Yet possession of a Big Mac, a Marlboro, or a Budweiser is not a crime---the latter for adults over the age of 21.
Amazing. How did we ever get this far without a War on Fast Food or a War on Tobacco?

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