Consuming unlicensed rotgut to the point of going blind or dying, in a single evening. It was a weekly event in every major US city during prohibition, and unheard of afterwards.
Blovations by bureaucrats and foreign police authorities hardly consititutes a devastating statistically based refutation of the points made in the sources I've referred to. Even if you can produce several reams of it. And even though you use shouting punctuation.
Could you kindly explain why Holland's parents and teachers haven't rioted in the streets in the last couple of decades to correct this? Do think there is something in Dutch blood that causes this craven indifference to the welfare of their children? Or could it be that the classrooms have reflected what the Dutch statistics showed: that there was a marked decrease in classroom addiction and drug-induced dropout rates after de-criminalization? What parent is going to give a hoot in hell whether Holland exports marijuana, or banned banana chips, or anything else, to other lands, if the price they pay to stop it is to return to US levels of classroom failure rates?
Just because you can manage to blurt out a couple of hysterical, largely anecdotal, quotes does not mean you have actually provided a serious arguement. Despite needle park, and despite these sorts of loopy op ed pieces such as yours, Hollland is not remarkably more or less civilized, without remarkably more or less problems with drugs than any other part of Europe. If it were, there'd statistics to back up these allegations. Of course there aren't--there never are in prohibitionist arguments--, because as soon as you start dragging out statistics, you make US statistics, which put the statistics of any country in europe to shame, become fair game. So here's your basic statistical problem: How come Holland and Switzerland, and Britain until the mid-60's, managed, on a reasonably objectively measureable basis, to do at least as well as the US, and usually better by a good margin, along almost any parameter you can look at with their drug problems?
Why did drug addiction go largely unnoticed in the US when it was legal as dirt, up until the first half of the 20th century?
Why did Oregon's and Alaska's brief (because the Feds were embarassed by the results, and shut them down) experiments with de-criminalization produce very little significant change in usage statistics? If your argument were sound, there would be devastating evidence of huge rises in usage--there is not--if there were anything but loud noise for evidence, it would have been vetted by the Young or the Nixon commissions--they were not. At best, what one sees is a slight early bulge in usage, as addicts emmigrate from more repressive regimes, followed by a permanent decline. This is an argument that depends just about entirely on bluffing for it's force.
and, furthermore, it's easy to understand why usage rates would eventually go down. When you eliminate illegal sales, you eliminate the incentives and increase the costs of the risks for the worst, most artificially concentrated, and therefore, most addictive forms of the drugs. To take just one example: a rational druggist would have no problems giving you coca leaves if you wanted them. But if he was willing to sell you crack, he would also have to assume the potential liability. No druggist is going to sell you crack, and it will be a cold day in hell anyone ever gets in serious trouble with coca leaves. Making the selling of something illegal vastly distorts the market costs, and usually not toward the side of sanity. We observed exactly this phenomenon with alcohol prohibition. After it stopped, the market for rotgut and hard liquors went into a tailspin--beer and wine are vastly better bang for the buck from a consumer's point of view.
You FAILED the test. Consuming unlicensed rotgut was/is still illegal. Evidently, your argument is that the government should provide pure heroin, cocaine, etc., to users so you don't buy some "bad stuff" on the black market and harm your body. You DO realize how assinine such a position is, I hope.
I will ask you once again. Can you name for me a SINGLE activity that has DECREASED in occurence when that activity was made LEGAL after being illegal? NAME ONE.
If you don't have the common sense to know that ANY activity will INCREASE once legalized (and thus blessed) by a government, then I can't help you. I can educate you with the facts, but I can't make you use simple reason and logic. Of course you know that I'm correct - that any activity that is legalized will increase. You may not want it to be so, but if you strip away all of your biases and desires, you know the truth. I'm sure of it.
Blovations by bureaucrats and foreign police authorities...
I see. So when you quote somebody, it's the "facts". When I quote people on the front line, and not some fat, liberal beauracrat behind a desk, then it's "bloviating". Yeah, right. LOL
Could you kindly explain why Holland's parents and teachers haven't rioted in the streets in the last couple of decades to correct this?
You know what happens when you "assume" don't you? Don't make the mistake of assuming that parents and interested citizens haven't lodged their protests of government policy. But that's beside the point, isn't it? You could care less what they say, isn't that right? You just want your drugs legalized. If somebody agrees with you, then they are brilliant geniuses. If somebody disagrees, then they are big brother, witch hunting Nazis. You do see what you are doing, right? You claim everything's hunky-dory in Holland and everyone there knows what a great success their drug policies are. Then when you are presented with many cases showing what a disaster the policies actually are, you want to shoot the messengers. Be careful what you ask for. If you don't want to know how things are in Holland, don't ask.
You ignore all the stats that I quote, and then complain that I don't provide any stats. I BOLD-FACED the stats so you wouldn't miss them, but you STILL managed to ignore the content of the BOLD-FACED comments, while at the same time complaining about the BOLD FACE type.
I could quote the Alaskan figures for you as well, but I'm sure you'd find a reason to dismiss them as well, but I'll give you hint as the findings - drug usage increased greatly under the liberalized policies. Shocking, isn't it? LOL
Look. You are obviously very committed to your cause of making drugs legal and free. You are not happy when the facts show what a disaster your policy would be, and is, in action.
You make the point that we have a drug problem in the U.S. I couldn't agree more. Let's not make it worse.