Posted on 08/23/2008 7:03:25 AM PDT by PurpleMountains
I would never criticize Mitt Romney for changing his mind about what the proper role of government is regarding abortion because I have changed my mind a couple of times over my lifetime. I also have changed my mind about how to deal with drugs.
"Thirty-five years into the “war on drugs”, the United States still has a huge drug abuse problem, with several million problem users of illicit drugs and about 15 million problem users of alcohol. Illicit drug-dealing industries take in about $50 billion per year. Much of the retail drug trade is flagrant, involving either open-air activity or identified, dedicated drug houses. Flagrant dealing creates violence and disorder, wrecking both the neighborhoods where it goes on and the lives of the dealers.
(Excerpt) Read more at forthegrandchildren.blogspot.com ...
“Well, first of all, I’d rather be on the road with a guy on pot than a drunk.. but, i’d rather be on the road with neither. The main difference here is that you seem to think there will be a massive upsurge in usage if it is made legal, correct?”
No, I wouldn’t say a massive upsurge. But those who wouldn’t partake while it was illegal, may try if it was made legal. I don’t want a drunk or someone high on the road, period. Laws that would restrict operating a motor vehicle while under the influence would be thumbed at, just like now, only there would be more of them, without a stiff penalty. The supposedly stiff penalties, now in effect, on drunk drivers, is a big joke. They put them in the tank to sober up and are released to go out and do it again. I know someone, who lost his license from a dui, who has driven for the last four years without a license and has even been incarcerated and they still release him. These people are NOT victims once they break the law.
“A)Do you mean like alcoholics and tobacco addicts currently do?”
I happen to know someone who is not above stealing to buy his alcohol. He’s committed fraud with Unemployment and the IRS. And no, I can’t turn him in, his family of reprobates wouldn’t be above hurting my family.
So? Are you willing to make a general rule based on him?
Does his alcoholism force him to lie cheat and steal or would he do that anyway?
Bad example, you are voted off the island.
“No, but by definition it immediately ends the carange of the drug war.”
Yeah, I can just imagine how any major company is going to start selling crack or meth or heroin at an affordable price when their “customers” will be able to sue over their adverse reactions and crippling addictions.
Has anybody done the math on how much these “recreational” drugs will cost once they’re “legal” and fully lawyered up?
My position has always been: I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t cost me any money or inconvenience me. That means I don’t want to hear about “treatment,” “I’m too sick to work,” “I need welfare for my kids,” etc. If you can support yourself and fulfill your obligatsion, fine. If not, well let me coin the term “Narco-Darwinism” if no one else has.
If cocaine cost as much as cornstarch, there would be no violence over it. People that use it would still use it anyway. There will always be addicts but they won’t need to steal as much to kill themselves.
Prohibition makes drugs more valuable than gold. People will always try to steal gold. Especially when the owner can’t report it to authorities.
Since they can’t report to authorities, dealers and ripped off buyers resort to weapons and violence. It causes a cycle of violence due to he profit involved. No profit means no incentive for violence.
Getting it legally.
Now when you get high on that joint and then get in your car, and start swerving all over the road, and kill somebody, you are infringing on others rights.
Same allegation can be made about alcohol. I drink, I have a few gallons of the stuff at home, yet - amazingly - I don't get drunk and then get in my car and start swerving all over the road and kill somebody and infringe on others' rights. Now why do you think that is?
I don’t understand what you mean by “stomping innocents rights to nail druggies”
I can't move $5000 around without the feds being notified. I can't have $10K in cash without the gov't declaring a right to forfeiture, requiring I prove it's not "drug money". There were several "drug raids" in this area that resulted in deaths of innocents when the wrong home was raided on fabricated charges.
If you don't know what rights are being trampled in the name of the "war on drugs", you're pathetically out of the loop. Try paying cash for your next car over $10K; good luck.
How do you know there wouldn’t be an upsurge in use?
How do you know there would? Some do it just because it's illegal. Most people who don't now wouldn't start if it were legal. Most who want to already do because it's widely available despite prohibition.
Would you want to confront a person who’s high on pcp?
That risk already exists.
Who is going to decide what would be legal or illegal?
Seems kinda redundant to ask. We already have people who decide what is legal or illegal.
We have laws in place to maintain order, they are there for a reason, whether we like them or not.
And, after a few decades of trying them out, those laws are looking pretty darned useless. If anything, they seem to be aggravating the situation. Recreational drugs are, on the whole, totally illegal throughout the country, yet they are widely & easily available to anyone who wants them. Civil forfeiture laws, dynamic entries, financial "guilty until proven innocent" laws, etc. all do a heck of a lot more harm to innocents than the guilty - and this is a country that's supposed to make defending innocents a paramount goal of law.
So ... after 30+ years of a "war on drugs", anyone can get pretty much anything anytime and most likely get away with it. Remind me why continuing this "war" is desirable.
Thank god we don’t live in a society that would allow a recreational drug.
Now excuse me while I go out and buy a bottle of raspberry flavored vodka...for it’s fine refreshing flavor, of course.
Why would one rob a liquor store for something you can get a bottle of for $5-10?
Therefore I enjoy single malt Scotch Whiskey but draw the line at the nuances of cocain, marijuana, and halucinogens that permanantly alter the synapses of my nervous system.
But thats too much common sense and not enough ideological input for an over simplistic approach involving "consistency".
So we need to ban alchohol too. Lets return to the days of Prohibition while we are in the mood.
“Why would one rob a liquor store for something you can get a bottle of for $5-10?”
I think you have supported my point.
Return to the days of prohibition? We are at those days now.
They will, but that pales in comparison to what drug dealers will do to make money.
The real question is whether drug legalization will create more addicts or fewer. I don't know, but I would bet that there would not be much change either way. The people who don't use drugs now, just because they are illegal probably are the type of people who wouldn't use drugs anyway.
drug dealers don’t “do” anything to make the money to buy drugs.
They do stuff to transport and make the drugs. Usually as invisible as possible.
the USERS steal money. Just as they steal for buying “legal” perscription drugs or just plain ol’ booze.
They're not very invisible where I live. One of the most common phrases heard on the local news is "drug deal gone wrong."
I'm not sure whether you're agreeing with me or not. I didn't say that drug dealers "do anything to buy drugs;" I said they will do a lot to make money.
So far as I can tell, the main distinction between legal and illegal psychoactive substances (besides the brute fact that some legislature voted to prohibit the latter) is that the legal ones (alcohol, tobacco, caffeine in coffee and tea) were in common use in England at the time these United States declared their independence from the British Crown.
There is no compelling rationale for treating the excessive use of alcohol, tobacco (or caffeine, for that matter) as a medical and public health issue, while any use of marijuana, opiates, cocaine, ibogaine or various hallucinogens is treated as a criminal matter.
One might be able to make a rational case for proscribing the use of those hallucinogens that create flashbacks, and for making it very difficult to acquire a large enough dose of cocaine to induce paranoia.
Beyond that, in a vain attempt to prevent those inclined to take pleasure in fouling up their own brain chemistry (notice how many folks still do under the current regime of prohibition), we have driven trade in psychoactive substances into the hands of the most ruthless and violent criminal enterprises (precipitating many deaths in turf-wars); created a large untaxed black economy; inflated the prices for psychoactive substances by artificially creating risk for their dealers (making habits more costly to maintain, increasing the urge for those already defined to be on the wrong side of the law by the drug prohibition to engage in other crimes), obliged adicts to use products which have no quality control, leading to overdoses and poisonings; eroded our civil liberties with the creation of no-knock warrants; eroded respect for the rule of law; and made fear of prosecution an impediment for addicts seeking medical help.
Certainly drug abuse is devastating to the abuser and those about him or her. The question is whether there would be less devastation if we put the trade in psychoactive substances in the hands of legitimate businessmen, and treated drug abuse the way we treat alcoholism.
The question is whether the expected increase in experimentation with and addiction to currently illegal drugs would lead to more harm than is presently done by the problems with the prohibition regime outlined above. The answer may vary from drug to drug.
It would be salutory to return the matter to the states, since we could then find out.
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