Did bad heroin kill two coeds?

New York Daily News and lastnightsparty.com ^ | 8/16/05 | AUSTIN FENNER, ADAM LISBERG and ROBERT F. MOORE

[Redcloak]

both 18 and with promising futures.

Promising futures in what?

[Know your rights]

So when people died from drinking tainted alcohol during Prohibition, that said nothing about the advisibility of continuing that policy?

They either knew the risks or as adults should have. They rolled the dice and came up losers.

No one's fault except theirs.

Thanks for the answer. We'll have to agree to disagree; it's clear to me that deaths due to tainted alcohol did indeed weigh against the advisibility of continuing Prohibition.

[monday]

"Who was to blame, the persons who provided the cocaine or the persons who ingested it? Your answer will say a lot about what you believe."

The persons who ingested it of course.

My problem was your apparent glee at their deaths. You don't know them. Your belief that you are a saint and your self given ability to sit at your computer and judge them, without knowing anything about them, and without showing even a hint of compassion is sad.

It says a lot about what you believe, and the type of person you are.

[HitmanLV]

Very smart observations! And street + book smarts people are rare and AWESOME! ;-)

[PLMerite]

I'll get behind that if the laws are written in such a way that no druggie ever (*ever*) costs me a dime. No welfare, no "treatment," no "education." Period.

If they can do drugs, meet their obligations, and take absolute full responsibilities for the actions, then fine.

Otherwise no deal.

[Know your rights]

I'll get behind that if the laws are written in such a way that no druggie ever (*ever*) costs me a dime. No welfare, no "treatment," no "education." Period.

So you must also support banning alcohol until such time as no alkie ever (*ever*) costs you a dime. Right?

[coloradan]

Works for me. Trouble is that the welfare state is so ingrained here that it will never happen. And that fact has implications far beyond the drug war - consider immigration, for example, when we offer "free" education, "free" health care, "free" retirement, welfare checks, etc., to anyone who comes.

I wish the government would get out of the wealth redistribution business, but both R's and D's are in way too deep to stop now.

[76834]

Appreaciate that.

Give some thought to these scenarios:

You can either do bootleg booze, perhaps laden with methanol, or you can choose Crown Royal. Make a choice.

You can choose to beat the train to the crossing or you can wait a few moments for the train to pass. Again, your choice.

Life is full of choices like these and we all face decisions every day.

Simply put, these girls made the wrong choice.
No one really to blame except themselves.

[Know your rights]

You can either do bootleg booze, perhaps laden with methanol, or you can choose Crown Royal. Make a choice.

That's not the choice that Prohibition presented; it presented the choice of bootleg booze, perhaps laden with methanol, or stone cold sobriety. As I said, it's clear to me that deaths due to choosing the former did indeed weigh against the advisibility of continuing Prohibition.

[ModelBreaker]

I think you are making a mistake placing marijuana in the same sentence as cocaine and heroin.

Not if you apply consistent libertarian principles. Although they try to focus the argument to marijuana, the basic pitch is that drugs are your own business, not the body politic's. There is no principled way to stop at just legalizing marijuana.

To be sure, marijuana probably destroys fewer lives that heroin and cocaine. But it's only a matter of degree.

[coloradan]

I wish nobody cost me a dime. I wish the government would get out of the wealth redistribution business altogether. I'll donate to charities that I think help the sort of people I wish to help, and I'd ask others to do the same. But as it is now, I pay at government gunpoint for a whole lot of people, organizations, and business concerns that I don't wish to, including the helthcare and incarceration costs of druggies, as well as salaries, toys, and pensions of drug warriors. I particularly dislike paying for those.

[ModelBreaker]

But their stupidity shouldn't result in a reduction of my freedoms.

Respectfully disagree. The libertarian view of human nature is a rosy and as profoundly incorrect as is the marxist view of human nature--incorrect in a different way, but still incorrect. Drug legalization would, as a result, be a disaster.

[76834]

Concur
If I wasnt very very sure of the booze I danged sure wouldnt drink it.
Stone cold sober would be the logical choice here.

[coloradan]

You can either do bootleg booze, perhaps laden with methanol, or you can choose Crown Royal. Make a choice.
[...]
Simply put, these girls made the wrong choice.

These girls didn't have the choice to do legal heroin, with controlled purity and dosage. So their death partly rests on the drug warriors for denying that choice. Few people choose bootleg, when you can go to the liquor store and pick up some Night Train. Methanol deaths are way down since Prohibition I ended.

[coloradan]

To be sure, marijuana probably destroys fewer lives that heroin and cocaine. But it's only a matter of degree.

Pot also destroys fewer lives than alcohol or tobacco - but who's counting?

[Know your rights]

as it is now, I pay at government gunpoint for a whole lot of people, organizations, and business concerns that I don't wish to

Funny how some "conservatives" think that some of those payouts are a justification for restricting individual liberties, while others aren't.

[Know your rights]

That's not the choice that Prohibition presented; it presented the choice of bootleg booze, perhaps laden with methanol, or stone cold sobriety.

Stone cold sober would be the logical choice here.

I agree, and I'm not trying to absolve anybody of their responsibility for their own choices. Nonetheless,it's clear to me that deaths due to choosing bootleg booze did indeed weigh against the advisibility of continuing Prohibition.

[76834]

Understand
In the scenerio I outlined above about the train crossing.

Local families are right now mourning the loss of 3 teenagers who got smacked by BNSF. Lights flashing, bells gates but they still tried to get across.

In the drug thing, the lights are also flashing, bells ringing etc. yet the girls took the risk and they paid.

This could easily be blamed on screwed up laws, drug dealers, whatever, but girls made the choice

[Question_Assumptions]

When I was a kid, I saw a young woman lying in the gutter outside of the Port Authority in New York City having a seizure. A police officer stood over her watching her but did nothing to help. The young woman looked fairly middle class and normal otherwise. My aunt seemed disinterested, as did most of the other people walking by. She told me the woman was ODing as if she'd seen it all before.

That was the strongest anti-drug message I ever got as a child. I didn't ever want to be the person lying in the gutter having a seizure while the rest of New York City walked by and didn't care.

[ModelBreaker]

Pot also destroys fewer lives than alcohol or tobacco - but who's counting?

I would rewrite that "Illegal pot also destroys fewer lives than legal alcohol or tobacco." Not so clear to me this would be true were you comparing apples and apples.

But the argument from alcohol is not really a very good one. Just because there is one rotten situation (alcohol legalization and abuse) doesn't mean that we should try to add to it with other rotten situations (marijuana, cocaine and heroin legalization and abuse) for the sake of philosophical consistency.

There are historic reasons that alcohol and tobacco have their hooks into our culture. I don't see why we should facilitate other odious substances getting their hooks in even more than they already have.