Posted on 05/07/2006 7:17:42 PM PDT by found_one
The Young Pay the Price for Dutch Drug Experiment
by Don Laigle
Ever hear a liberal or libertarian say that we need to legalize “soft” drugs like cocaine and marijuana because they did this in Holland and it was wildly successful? You know: kids immediately lost interest in these drugs and stopped taking them?
Here’s what Republican Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico said on CNN on Feb 22, 2001:
“Holland has 60 percent the drug use as that of the United States by kids and adults and that's for hard drugs and marijuana both. So if you want to look at a country that really has rational drug policy, Holland would not suggest that it would be a worse alternative than what we've currently got.”
Gary was referring to the fact that Holland had legalized soft drugs and was implying that it wouldn’t hurt American kids a bit to have these drugs available. He was apparently trying to appear "progressive." He was not the only one.
The web is awash with the same kind of conclusions, drawn by liberals, that drug use must be legalized because drug laws are antiquated and the more we enforce them, the more drugs kids will use. In fact, a quick search shows that the number of sites that agree with this hypothesis far outweighs the number that don’t [1], [2], [3]. Guess we old fogies need to stop holding up progress, then, right?
I love it when objective information proves what people with common sense knew in the first place. On May 6, the web site for the Dutch paper Volkskrant ran an article on a group of mothers in Holland who are concerned about their kids’ drug habits. Seems drugs are out of control there. Surprise surprise!
The writer says (my translation):
“One out of every 20 kids has at least experimented with hard drugs such as cocaine [note that they admit this drug is not soft!] or xtc. Coke is becoming more and more popular as a starting drug. The mothers have nothing good to say about regular social services, which are usually located too far away.”
The article ends with:
“ ‘The problem is a major one and is prevalent everywhere’ says Bak [one of the moms interviewed]. She gets calls from mothers from all over the region with the same stories. Kids of 12 or 13 who deceive their own parents. School kids tell her that the lockers at the high schools are sold to dealers so that they can deal from them.”
Notice that it seems not to have occurred to any of the mothers to call for making these drugs illegal. They only call for help from mothers themselves tackling the problem. You see: banning drugs is now a dead issue in that part of Europe (and may soon be in other parts as well). There can be no reasonable discussion of legalization of soft drugs. That is “settled law.”
Does this sound like the “enlightened” Europeans are years ahead of us? More progressive? Just remove the barriers and kids will follow their good instincts? Kids only do things that are forbidden, and since cocaine isn’t forbidden in Holland any more, kids will stop taking it, right?
Christians know that man is born in sin. He does not have the sweet nature that European philosophers believe he does. In “L’éducation d’Emile,” Jean Jacques Rousseau recommends letting kids do whatever they want to when they are very young. For example, he says that it is foolish to tell a child not to break a window. The child should be allowed to break one so that he can see that breaking windows is not a good thing.
Today’s Europe is proof enough that trusting in human nature simply doesn’t work. And that whenever people try social experiments, it is the young who pay the heaviest price.
Let's pray that Europe starts to see how much they need God before it is too late. Truly it can be said of Europe: eyes they have but they do not see (Psalms 115: 5).
Don Laigle copyright© Laigle's Forum
Permalink: LAIGLESFORUM.COM/2006/05/07/the-young-pay-the-price-for-dutch-drug-experiment.aspx
There is no one anymore "conservative" than William F. Buckley, founder of The National Review magazine which was the founding of the modern American conservative movement, and he long advocated decriminalizing marijuana - not making it free and legal, just not creating an economy for the gangsters out of it and putting people in long-term incarceration for possessing more than an ounce.
His view, that we have created the crime environment, and it is winning, just as it won with prohibition.
This nation had the worst heroin and opium epidemic of its history, from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. It was fought, and quit successfully with large and consistent amounts of public education, in schools and the media and treatment in publicly supported clinics. We did not create a socially destructive criminal environment for it. It had been reduced to a minor social nuisance when we started enacting drug control laws in the 1920s.
Just imagine how many criminals there would be if tobacco was illegal, and how criminally profitable it would be.
We would be better off literally buying the entire drug supply in Columbia and Afghanistan - 100% of it, at prices the drug cartels could not afford. No supply, no crime. Then we'd just have to help the current addicts through their withdrawal.
Oh, I forgot, other drugs are being invented all the time.
Can't win. Just help the addicts try to get off and don't make a criminal mess out of whatever you do to suppress the use of bad substances. The crime environment you create is worse than the numbers of people who will not avoid the addictions. Those numbers are probably the same no matter what.
Sigh. Oh yeah - it's real tough to find pot these days.
What is overlooked in the discussion of pot laws is the effect of decriminalization - why buy it when you can grow it? Its called weed for a reason. If it wasn't for the threat of police helicopters snooping at folk's backyards the smuggling of pot from S.America would plummet.
Probably not a good idea to expect a lot of tax revenue from legally sold pot - not when it grows so easily.
As soon as you figure a way to tax/regulate a cup full of dirt and sunshine, they'll legalize it!
Till then follow the cash!!!
But you got to consider whats worse for society, a constant war that makes criminals rich, costs tax payers billions upon billions, and throws people in jail who have done no harm to anyone, permanently ruining their life, or 20% more people trying dope?Told ya so. Now go ahead and lawyer your way out of this one.
Not on the scale that legalization would cause.
It is readily available in spite of your best efforts
I am not making any efforts one way or the other, and I don't need you to tell me about availability.
I'd like not to be robbed, car jacked, shot, raided or otherwise be harmed so someone else can get a fix.
I see. And legalizing drugs is going to change this how exactly? Cheaper prices? That will just make more of the type of addicts that will commit dangerous crimes.
LOL anecdotal evidence debunks nothing.
How? It comes right out and says that Holland has much less drug use than we do.
"Revenuers" (ATF) do raid people because of suspected alcohol activity.
Stills can blow up.
You can make your own beer and wine, but not distill your own liquor.
If you want to move the DEA under the ATF and "regulate" things, so be it. And those penalties and fines for violations won't go away.
Some employers prohibit their employees from smoking tobacco even in off hours. Your drug tests won't go away.
Cities regulate even WHERE you can smoke tobacco (prohibit its use in bars, restaurants, office buildings, city parks, etc.).
I fail to see how "legalizing it" will result in less prosecution or regulation.
"I have smoked pot all my life, and I have never, at any time, advocated legalizing it. I think it should be way decriminalized, but legal? No. I just can't see how the wholesale introduction of another drug into society can have any positive net result."
Are you afraid you might start smoking it if it becomes legal? Oh, wait, you already do smoke it, as do millions and millions of others in this country. In fact, most adults under 60 have in this country have already tried it, at least that's what the government surveys say. I guess it's a little late to worry about "wholesale introduction" of marijuana into this country. That introduction took place decades ago.
"That's five out of twenty compared to Holland's one out of twenty."
Should have been "...four out of twenty..."
Told ya so.
You implied that someone claims that ALL those arrested for pot have their lives permanently ruined; this person isn't saying that, so your claim remains baseless bunk.
If the caterwauling of moms was proof of anything, then we should let the Million Mom March disarm us.
That's what you lawyered into what I said. I wasn't that that specific, and post 22 wasn't that specific either. If you want to behave like a lawyer, go ahead. Most people don't like lawyers, and that means more points for me.
Yeah, just like a FR thread on medical marijuana (My best friend's cousin smoked marijuana for athlete's foot and the problem cleared right up. Nothing else worked.)
Than before they passed their liberal drug laws? Do you have statistics on that? What's the link to your information?
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