None more pious than the fallen, eh?
Posted on 03/28/2006 10:51:21 PM PST by goldstategop
Getting high can be bad. Putting people in prison for it is worse. And doing the latter doesn't stop the former.
I was once among the majority who believe that drug use must be illegal. But then I noticed that when vice laws conflict with the law of supply and demand, the conflict is ugly, and the law of supply and demand generally wins.
The drug war costs taxpayers about $40 billion. "Up to three quarters of our budget can somehow be traced back to fighting this war on drugs," said Jerry Oliver, then chief of police in Detroit, told me. Yet the drugs are as available as ever.
Oliver was once a big believer in the war. Not anymore. "It's insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over again," he says. "If we did not have this drug war going on, we could spend more time going after robbers and rapists and burglars and murderers. That's what we really should be geared up to do. Clearly we're losing the war on drugs in this country."
No, we're "winning," according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which might get less money if people thought it was losing. Prosecutors hold news conferences announcing the "biggest seizure ever." But what they confiscate makes little difference. We can't even keep drugs out of prisons -- do we really think we can keep them out of all of America?
Even as the drug war fails to reduce the drug supply, many argue that there are still moral reasons to fight the war. "When we fight against drugs, we fight for the souls of our fellow Americans," said President Bush. But the war destroys American souls, too. America locks up a higher percentage of her people than almost any other country. Nearly 4,000 people are arrested every day for mere possession of drugs. That's more people than are arrested for aggravated assault, burglary, vandalism, forcible rape and murder combined.
Authorities say that warns people not to mess with drugs, and that's a critical message to send to America's children. "Protecting the children" has justified many intrusive expansions of government power. Who wants to argue against protecting children?
I have teenage kids. My first instinct is to be glad cocaine and heroin are illegal. It means my kids can't trot down to the local drugstore to buy something that gets them high. Maybe that would deter them.
Or maybe not. The law certainly doesn't prevent them from getting the drugs. Kids say illegal drugs are no harder to get than alcohol.
Perhaps a certain percentage of Americans will use or abuse drugs -- no matter what the law says.
I cannot know. What I do know now, however, are some of the unintended consequences of drug prohibition:
1. More crime. Rarely do people get high and then run out to commit crimes. Most "drug crime" happens because the product is illegal. Since drug sellers can't rely on the police to protect their property, they form gangs and arm themselves. Drug buyers steal to pay the high black market prices. The government says alcohol is as addictive as heroin, but no one is knocking over 7-Elevens to get Budweiser.
2. More terrorism. The profits of the drug trade fund terrorists from Afghanistan to Colombia. Our herbicide-spraying planes teach South American farmers to hate America.
3. Richer criminal gangs. Alcohol prohibition created Al Capone. The gangs drug prohibition is creating are even richer, probably rich enough to buy nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden was funded partly by drug money.
Government's declaring drugs illegal doesn't mean people can't get them. It just creates a black market, where even nastier things happen. That's why I have come to think that although drug addiction is bad, the drug war is worse.
No. It's called "civil asset forfeiture" -- "civil" meaning that no crime has been committed. The other 20% of the time, a crime has been committed. Then it's called "criminal asset forfeiture".
Got it?
But that's just property. What about people? Did you know that people are seized and thrown in jail without a trial? Without being found guilty by a jury of their peers beyond a reasonable doubt?
Geez. Where's your outrage? Screw the property -- people actually lose their freedom and their liberty! How can this happen in America?
"-- There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. --"
- Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged
Paulsen shows his political stripe:
The government in Atlas Shrugged was basically a dictatorship. We are a self-governing nation. If our government is cracking down on criminals, it is because the majority of the people want it that way.
Indeed, the government in Atlas Shrugged was basically a dictatorship.
We are a self-governing Constitutional Republic, not a 'moral majority' dictatorship.
Our government is cracking down on manufactured 'drug war' criminals because the 'democratic moral majority' people want it that way.
They "want it that way" because they are actually power hungry communitarian socialists that could care less about honoring our Constitution.
If adult legalization of drugs would result in the doubling of teen use, would you still want drugs to be legal? Just curious.
Rehab/teachers don't need Black uniforms and Jackboots. The enforcement lobby wins on the funding front.
-- DuckFan4ever
Government exists to protect us from one another, we cannot afford the government it would take to protect us from ourselves.
-- Ronald Reagan
they also dont have a big problem with chewing gum over there either geuss why
Chewing gum
As an extension of the "no littering" mantra, the import, sale and possession of chewing gum is banned. You are also not allowed to bring in chewing gum for your own consumption. In short, no chewing gum whatsoever.
is that really the kind of fascist police state you want to emulate here?
That sounds suspiciously like "we are from the government and we are here to help you."
I'm a little unclear on "down side". What do you mean?
Are you referring to overall deaths due to alcohol? Diseases like cirrhosis? Broken marriages? Spousal abuse? Lost productivity? Drunk driving?
You're saying that these incidents occur less today than during Prohibition?
Is it useful to compare two different cultures and draw meaningful conclusions? What can we conclude when we compare saki use in Japan to saki use in the U.S.?
not necessarily. before prohibition there weren't armed street gangs running booze in speakeasys.After prohibition started they formed machine gun toting gangs to sell booze.
When prohibition ended so did the armed alcohol gangs they disappeared because everyone that wanted a beer and a shot could go to any local tavern again and get it so all the gangs financing dried up
That's the first step. Before an impartial jury nine out of ten juries would find the flasher guilty if it was public flashing. Though the monetary restitution would likely be small. The next step is to go to criminal court, if the victim chose to press charges which is highly likely. With the civil court finding guilty, again with an impartial jury nine out of ten juries would find the flasher guilty.
Offense: person ingests drugs in privacy of their own home.
Juxtaposition: Before an impartial jury nine out of ten juries would find the home-drug-user not guilty of harming you by his act of ingesting drugs in his home. The next step is to go to criminal court, if the victim chose to press charges which is highly unlikely. Having lost in civil court, in the odd event that you pressed charges in criminal court, with an impartial jury nine out of ten juries would find the home-drug-user not guilty.
People are much better judge and jury than politicians and bureaucrats. The first responsibility is always to the victim -- impartial jury in a civil court. Then to the community -- impartial jury in a criminal court.
No group/community can exist without there first being an individual. Sacrificing the individual in whole or in part always harms the group/community. The smallest minority is the lone individual. Protecting individual life and property -- protect individual rights -- protects minorities and the majority. Communitarians and collectivists disagree.
If you think you or your property have been damaged by a person's act of ingesting drugs -- perhaps while they were sitting in their home -- take them to court and try to convince an impartial jury that you were harmed and the extent of that harm so that you may gain restitution for your loss.88After seven-odd years of participating on FR WoD threads, I've yet so see a WoD-supporter answer this question . .
Nor have I. It separates the communitarians from the champions of individual rights.
It's called "civil asset forfeiture" -- "civil" meaning that no crime has been committed.
Call it what you want, just as politicians and bureaucrats do. It's still theft. And you support it. You support enlisting government agents to commit theft.
Decriminalize is something different. You mean legalize and regulate (like cigarettes and alcohol).
If drugs are legal, would you allow people to make their own -- like marijuana, methamphetamine, and crack cocaine? How will you tax that effectively -- or would you just let that go untaxed?
What's to stop the gangs from going into the export business, legally growing and manufacturing cheap drugs here in the U.S. and illegally shipping them to countries where drugs remain illegal?
Currently, government taxes on cigarettes (federal, state, county, and city) are driving that product underground. But that won't happen with drugs?
That's the whole crux of the disconnect: To support the WoD, those on the pro-WoD side have to believe that drug use associated with morally repugnant behavior is somehow more pernicious than the morally repugnant behavior itself---not unlike the logic that supports "hate crime," if you ask me.
...question can't be answered by the warriors, so like paulsen they dance around pretending that our jury system [under constitutional rule of law] cannot cope with simply regulating the public aspects of morally repugnant behaviors..
These warriors insist that 'we the people' must ignore our own constitution in order to prohibit some types of property, and some types of behavior from ~society~. -- Thereby initiating a police state.
Well said, tpaine
that wont happen because the draconian drug laws that have put in place by the war on drugs has packed the prisons so full of people that real criminals that committed real crime where there is a actual victim are getting released early or not going to prison at all and the people in prison for possession have to stay in because of the mandatory minimum sentences.So when they go to release prisoners tp free up space to put more druggies in the only ones eligible for parole are the violent people that get out a commit more violence on society.
I read some stats a number of years ago that stated the average time a man spend in prison for murder before getting paroled is 14 years the average time a man spend for possession under the mandatory minimum sentences is 19 years now we are getting story after story of child molesters that are sentenced to 60 days in jail 1 year in jail and some are sentenced to mere probation.Does that seem just a little f'ed up to you? The only way that will change is if you end the drug war so that there is prison space available to keep the violent people locked up and not arrest people that are only in possession of a plant or chemical
Let's go back to Prohibition. This was a miserable failure.
The drug war is following the same path. Lots of crime. Lots of dead folks. A few folks getting filthy rich.
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