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.
Many crimes are committed by people ON drugs, not necessarily committed to GET them. Legalization would result in more people using drugs, hence more crime.
| Table 2. Percentage of State and Federal prison inmates who reported being under the influence of drugs at time of their offense, 1997 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type of offense | Federal prison inmates | State prison inmates |
| Total of all inmates | 22.4% | 32.6% |
| Violent offenses | 24.5 | 29.0 |
| Murder | 29.4 | 26.8 |
| Negligent manslaughter | * | 17.4 |
| Sexual assault | 7.9 | 21.5 |
| Robbery | 27.8 | 39.9 |
| Assault | 13.8 | 24.2 |
| Other | 15.9 | 29.0 |
| Property offenses | 10.8 | 36.6 |
| Burglary | * | 38.4 |
| Larceny/theft | * | 38.4 |
| Motor vehicle theft | * | 39.0 |
| Fraud | 6.5 | 30.5 |
| Other | 16.4 | 30.6 |
| Drug offenses | 25.0 | 41.9 |
| Possession | 25.1 | 42.6 |
| Trafficking | 25.9 | 41.0 |
| Other | 17.1 | 47.1 |
| Public-order offenses | 15.6 | 23.1 |
| Weapons | 24.4 | 22.4 |
| Other | 8.1 | 23.3 |
| * Too few cases in the sample to permit calculation. Source: BJS, Substance Abuse and Treatment, State and Federal Prisoners, 1997. |
||
Beyond the smaller body of drug prohibition laws, almost every person breaks the law several times a year. Yet with every person violating the law persons and society have not run headlong to destruction, rather, both have increasingly prospered. Thwarting the destruction of self and society is the premise for each of the 3,000 new laws and regulations the federal government passes each year. So how is it that persons and society don't self destruct this year without the 3,000 laws yet to come next year and the year after that? How did people thrive and prosper in the 1980's and 90's without the 15,000 new laws passed since 1999? That question can be asked for any time in America's history. And that's just at the federal level. State governments each created half as many laws each year. Clearly, if it was possible to apprehend every person that violated the law people -- that includes police, judges, persecutors and politicians -- society and the economy would come to a screeching halt -- self-destruct.
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.
To me, the warriors are fanatics. Like all fanatics they simply cannot see that absolute prohibitions on sinful objects & behaviors violate our due process of law under the Constitution.
-- Only a police state can enforce such absolute prohibitions.
He changed the title -- I heard it was Ain't Nobody's Business If You Engage In Promiscuous Homosexual Anal Sex, Get AIDS, And Die By The Age Of 50".
But hey. You gotta admire a guy who practices what he preaches.
Excellent rebuttal against the totalitarian mindset Bump!
Laws vary from state to state. If you have less than an ounce, it's a misdemeanor, max. Any state. We are not sending marijuana users to prison for 10 years.
Of course. But the Republican Party is counting on insanity to grasp hold of its dwindling base of support. They'll keep up the stupid WOD and its corruption, theft and perversions of liberty, they'll keep their record spending, they'll keep us in Iraq babysitting the defective Moos forever ("no, just until we're done, and we'll let you know when we're done"), they'll keep ignoring the illegal-alien invasion.
And some people will be insane enough to keep voting for them and their stupid, worn-out, big-government, power-mad actions. I won't be one of them.
How do you figure that? Maybe you're stocking up for the winter. It's a plant, so get a grip, and nobody gives a sh#% anymore what Big Stupid Government "thinks" about it.
See my tagline; our dumbass government has less and less moral influence as it continues doing jackass, stupid things to us and in our name.
Yes they would. Because in our society it is currently against the law. But that wasn't my question to you.
My question concerned your argument that laws should be based on harm. What harm is caused by flashing? How do you justify a law against flashing?
Can I get monetary restitution in your society if I am merely offended or shocked by someone's behavior, like flashing? Does that constitute harm?
Answer that first, then we can move on.
Just as I have never seen anyone identify any government or society anywhere in the world in all of recorded history that restricted their laws to those that only involved harm to others.
Ping!
My question concerned your argument that laws should be based on harm.
Strawman. You cannot quote me anywhere on this thread where I made that argument because I never did and you know it. Admit your error and then perhaps I'll continue the discussion of what you wrote and what I wrote. I will not engage in your strawman arguments nor let you "put words in my mouth".
Quite the contrary. I contend that our constitution allows us to write laws governing immoral behavior.
It is the libertarians who insist on restricting our laws to those that only involve harm to others. And where is the harm in flashing? A person may be alarmed, or shocked, or offended, yes. But harmed? Harmed to the point of monetary compensation?
Find a jury that can cope with that one.
Our Constitution does not allow laws taking away individual freedoms. Our Constitution guarantees individual freedoms.
Wrong again, robertpaulsen. You do like the government jackboot, don't you?
Alcohol use was at its lowest at the start of Prohibition. Drug use went down 60% and has remained relatively flat for the last 15 years.
Prohibition lasted 13 short years. Drugs have been illegal now for 70 years with no end in sight.
Only about 1% of the public wants to legalize all drugs. It's a non-issue with the voters.
The drug war is not following the same path. Not even close.
"The drug war is not following the same path. Not even close."
You're right. It's worse.
"It is the libertarians who insist on restricting our laws to those that only involve harm to others. And where is the harm in flashing? A person may be alarmed, or shocked, or offended, yes. But harmed"?
Flashing another person is not an INDIVIDUAL RIGHT! There is more than one person involved.
How does this contrast to a single person who has grown their own marijuana and is smoking it all by themselves? No one else is involved but a single individual.
You and your straw man arguments! Always indirection, inuendo and just plain B.S.
Tell it to the judge. Maybe he'll believe you. I don't.
"are there actually people who shoot up heroin and do not end up addicted?"
I said it before in considerable detail in Comment #45, but i think it is so important to the drug argument that it bears repeating. ALL PAIN KILLERS ARE ADDICTIVE TO THOSE WHO ARE IN PAIN. If one is continually in pain, one will become addicted very easily.
For example the "maintenance alcoholic" who is constantly nipping, but seldom drunk, and reasonably functional probably has a moderate amount of continual pain which is successfully blunted by a moderate amount of alcohol.
The episodic alcoholic/binge drinker is often someone sitting on a lot of supressed feelings. When they get drunk and pour out their grief in a flood of maudlin verbalizing, or get angry and go on a rampage, they temporarily feel better until the pain/rage builds up again, and they get drunk again and discharge again. One such individual was staying at our home. When my husband threatened to throw him out, he went into an acute anxiety attack and I helped him remember a time when his father abandoned the family. He was lured by a pedophile and brutally and repeatedly raped over a period of 8 hours. He went home and totally forgot what had happened to him until the potential loss of a father figure, my husband, and the availability of someone who knew what to do allowed him to recover what had been forgotten for 20 years.
To summarize, a person with mild or intermittent pain can experiment without becoming addicted. A person with severe pain is at great risk.
I have never gotten to know a person well who has severe substance abuse issues who was not sitting on a mountain of suppressed or repressed PAIN.
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." ('Atlas Shrugged' 1957)
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