What do you want to share the road with?
Who do you want flying the jumbo jet?
Who do you want driving your kid's school bus? Someone who might just have enough residual crap in their system to f*ck up and get people killed?
It isn't the addicts' felony drug convictions that keep them from having a lot of other jobs, either. It is that they are addicts. Period. Where performance counts, don't blame the law for people NOT getting a job. They made a choice. The law is no d@amned secret. Actions have consequences.
As a tobacco smoker, I pay higher taxes, higher insurance premiums, and I do pay for my health insurance. I am not asking anyone else to pay my way. Most tobacco smokers are not asking anyone else to pick up their tab, either. There are no free ashtray programs for me. NO free zippos, so let the druggies provide their own paraphenalia.
As for addicts having to steal a lot less if drugs were legal, I suppose just a little dogcrap in your soup is okay, as opposed to massive amounts of it. They are still stealing!
As for cigarette smuggling, that has been going on since trucks went up US 301 when I was a kid, taking $2 cartons of cigarettes from North Carolina (untaxed) to New York, where taxed cigarettes were selling for $7 a carton. Just the same mafia doing bidness.
I've had to deal with some f**ked up people in my time, and I'm not buying the legalize drugs song and dance one bit.
They dont want to answer those questions.
Fine. It's not only your right to have preferences about who you work with, it's even your employer's perogative to have company policies banning specific types of behaviors. This has nothing to do with prohibition - as you admit above, saying "legal or not."
What do you want to share the road with? Who do you want flying the jumbo jet? Who do you want driving your kid's school bus? Someone who might just have enough residual crap in their system to f*ck up and get people killed?
That's an awful lot of prohibitionist spaghetti to throw against the wall to see what sticks. Drunk driving and drunk piloting are already illegal, even though alcohol is legal. School bus drivers already have to - and maybe even should - take piss tests to prove they are safe to drive. Prohibiting certain substances has nothing to do with prohibiting some behaviors while under the influence of those substances, alcohol included. Arguing otherwise is as intellectually bankrupt and facially dishonest as the gun grabbers are, when they say gun bans are consistent with the Second Amendment, because you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater notwithstanding the First Amendment.
It isn't the addicts' felony drug convictions that keep them from having a lot of other jobs, either. It is that they are addicts. Period.
On the contrary, there are plenty of cases where someone's drug use was discovered, despite satisfactory job performance, that led to firing and inability to find similar jobs elsewhere.
Where performance counts, don't blame the law for people NOT getting a job.
Where performance counts, what difference does drug or alcohol use matter? If an employee meets or exceeds expectations, let them keep the job no matter what they smoke, drink, or toke on the weekends - and if an employee fails to meet expectations, don't keep them just because they're sober.
They made a choice. The law is no d@amned secret. Actions have consequences.
That is true, but it doesn't justify the laws.
As a tobacco smoker, I pay higher taxes, higher insurance premiums, and I do pay for my health insurance.
Believe it or not, I think you are being robbed, because I oppose those taxes, and I think smokers on average subsidize non-smokers. FWIW.
I am not asking anyone else to pay my way. Most tobacco smokers are not asking anyone else to pick up their tab, either.
And I am not asking you to.
There are no free ashtray programs for me. NO free zippos, so let the druggies provide their own paraphenalia.
Drug warriors even oppose charitable needle exchange programs, and of course they can't buy new needles outright because those aren't OTC items. At least you can buy ashtrays.
As for addicts having to steal a lot less if drugs were legal, I suppose just a little dogcrap in your soup is okay, as opposed to massive amounts of it. They are still stealing!
Yes they are, and I would jail them for that, but if you had to make the choice, would you want a little or a lot of dog crap in your soup? Are you telling me that you want a lot? In any case, how many police resources are out trying to bust drug users, when they could be trying to catch thieves instead? (And, how many thieves are released from prison, to make room for mandatory-minimum, nonviolent drug criminals?)
As for cigarette smuggling, that has been going on since trucks went up US 301 when I was a kid, taking $2 cartons of cigarettes from North Carolina (untaxed) to New York, where taxed cigarettes were selling for $7 a carton. Just the same mafia doing bidness.
Yes, and this is part of the reason I oppose those taxes, just as I oppose prohibition - do you really want to fund the mafia? The fact that such policies encourage black markets is a good reason to end them, not make them stronger - unless, of course, like eating soup with lots of dog crap in it, you want to enrich the mafia and other criminal elements even more by raising cigarette taxes even more. Let me add that I see tobacco increasingly being prohibited, and to the extent that smuggling will increase (which it will) and criminals become more bold (which they will), it will only increase public support for further restrictions on tobacco products. I will oppose those, just as I oppose the drug war, and for the same reasons, notwithstanding the fact that smoking is a lot more destructive to human life than presently illegal drugs are.
I've had to deal with some f**ked up people in my time, and I'm not buying the legalize drugs song and dance one bit.
I quote Paine again, if you wish to secure your own liberty, you must protect even your enemies from oppression, because if you fail this duty, you establish a precedent that will reach to yourself. There will quite likely come a day that, if you decide to continue smoking, you will wake up some morning at 3AM looking at the business end of a half dozen MP5s, wielded by Tobacco Warriors who became empowered to bust cigarette smokers on the coattails of your own arguments against drugs. And, FWIW again, I will oppose them just as I oppose drug warriors now. If that will be any consolation to you.
So you support banning alcohol?