Posted on 01/01/2007 5:13:06 PM PST by G. Stolyarov II
UR NUTZ! Please go to DU. The War in Drugs can be won, ikn large part, by closing the Border.
If you stick around, I won't be the last
ping
"Can I be the first to call you a loserdopertarian?"
Have you even *read* the *first few sentences* of my article? About how I loathe drugs and have no sympathy with those taking them?
Your accusation is thus ignorant, unfounded, and unconnected with anything I have written.
Congratulations on publicly embarassing yourself.
I am
G. Stolyarov II
http://rationalargumentator.com
You stay right here. There are many out here in FR who don't do drugs but hate the WOsD
Pay no attention to that poster. "Loserdopian" is the classic knee-jerk ad-hominem attack from the pro-Drug Warriors, since they're unable to use facts defending the stupid WOD.
No-one here ever *reads* articles about the War on Some Drugs.
2. Your accusation is thus ignorant, unfounded, and unconnected with anything I have written.
Yes it was. Just giving you a taste of the welcome you'll get here. (And darn it, I wasn't even first) As I said, if you are going to hang about here, get used to that.
3. Congratulations on publicly embarassing yourself.
Nobody gets my irony.
"Nobody gets my irony."
Point well taken. Thank you for the clarification.
Just because we're outnumbered here is no reason to surrender
Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate your readership and encouragement.
As much as 70% of illicit drugs enter the US from our southern border. Americans spent in excess of an estimated $69 billion last year in illegal drugs. Closing the southern border to unregulated entries could provide as much as a $40 billion annual reduction in supply.
Citation Please
It relies on and helps legitimize open-ended federal bureaucratic regulatory authority under the New Deal Commerce Clause (to quote Clarence Thomas, "every blade of grass").
It lends itself to indoctrination programs (DARE) written and administered by liberal/socialist activists (the RWJF) and gives them substantial input into formulating public policy.
It has produced, in a supposedly self-governing nation, the paradoxical existence of a federal agency (the ONDCP) who's job it is to oppose any attempt by the people to change the law.
If you're going to start complaining about taxes supporting things you disagree with, then you're going to be complaining forever. There are plenty of things my taxes pay for that I disagree with. However, keeping harmful drugs illegal is one of the better causes.
The War on Drugs is generous to drug addicts and punitive to all others; the drug addicts are arrested at others’ expense and given “free” food and “free” lodging at government prisons—free to the imprisoned, that is, but paid for by the taxpayers. Why should moral people pay to sustain others for those others’ immoral conduct? Why should the drug addicts be given state handouts and be spared the requirement to earn their own living on the free market? Prison conditions may be miserable, but they are granted to the drug addicts automatically—as a taxpayer-funded gift for having broken a silly law. Why should drug addicts deserve even poor-quality food and shelter for ruining their lives?
The same argument can be made for murders, rapists, pickpockets and any other criminal. Why not just legalize every illegal activity and really solve the problem?
The War on Drugs harms innocent schoolchildren, who are at risk of being suspended or expelled by draconian public school administrators for bringing in sugar, salt, aspirin, or other “drug look-alikes.”
Please. Most kids would love getting a day or two off from school until the misunderstanding is taken care of. And how often do you really think this is being done? Any statistics?
Thus is created the environment of competing heavily armed drug gangs—willing to murder to gain black market share.
And magically all of these thugs and criminals are going to become honest, law abiding citizens as soon as drugs become legal? I don't think so. They're criminals for a reason and that reason isn't because drugs are illegal.
The War on Drugs fundamentally harms Americans culturally. By dividing the ghettoes into the drug gangs and the slothful welfare recipients who are too afraid to leave their homes, the government has inadvertently created the American ghetto culture: a culture of dissipation, vulgarity, insolence, indolence, foul language, deceit, promiscuity, brutality, and violence—indeed, an anti-culture. This culture is eagerly romanticized and popularized by the leftist mass media and damages the morals of many who indiscriminately absorb it. The War on Drugs has been indirectly responsible for the widespread decline in tastes in music, art, clothing, and lifestyles during the past half-century.
Most conservatives would blame this on liberalism in general .
http://www.drugwardistortions.org/distortion19.htm
"[T]he value of the global illicit drug market for the year 2003 was estimated at US$13 bn [billion] at the production level, at $94 bn at the wholesale level (taking seizures into account), and at US$322bn based on retail prices and taking seizures and other losses into account. This indicates that despite seizures and losses, the value of the drugs increase substantially as they move from producer to consumer."
Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2005 (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, June 2005), p. 127.
"In 2000, Americans spent about $36 billion on cocaine, $10 billion on heroin, $5.4 billion on methamphetamine, $11 billion on marijuana, and $2.4 billion on other substances."
Source: Abt Associates, "What America's Users Spend on Illegal Drugs 1988-2000" (Washington, DC: Office of National Drug Control, December 2001), p. 2.
Analysis: The value of the illicit drug market is extremely difficult to estimate. The few serious attempts which have been made have resulted in widely varying figures. In the first excerpt above, from the Miami Herald, the figure of $400 billion was given. That estimate can be found in a United Nations publication issued in 1998, "Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking," and was until early in 2005 cited in Drug War Facts. According to the UN in 1998:
"With estimates of $100 billion to $110 billion for heroin, $110 billion to $130 billion for cocaine, $75 billion for cannabis and $60 billion for synthetic drugs, the probable global figure for the total illicit drug industry would be approximately $360 billion. Given the conservative bias in some of the estimates for individual substances, a turnover of around $400 billion per annum is considered realistic. This figure can be compared to estimates of more than $500 billion which are based solely on the average of minimum and maximum prices in the United States."
Source: United Nations Drug Control Program, "Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking," Technical Series No. 6, 1998, p. 55
The same argument can be made for murders, rapists, pickpockets and any other criminal.
murders, rapists, pickpocketry fall into the "harm to other people" column. No problem with making that illegal.
You can even pass laws against DUI or negligent discharge of a firearm in a public place, witout banning alcohol or guns.
a day or two off from school until the misunderstanding is taken care of.
Guess you are not up to date on the Zero Tolerance thing
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
May I add my voice to those welcoming you. I also agree that you will need to get used to the opposition. I have browsed your article and will thoroughly peruse it later.
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