Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here. Hey, even bureaucrats have to eat.
“John Walters, still slinging the bull”
I want some of what the drug czar’s smoking!
Is the author suggesting that we legalize heroin, meth and cocaine so those drugs can kill more people -- maybe even catch up to alcohol?
What a maroon.
Uh, yeah. That's why it's called Civil Asset Forfeiture. If they were charged with a crime, it would be Criminal Asset Forfeiture.
What a maroon.
I love the inner city analogy...the only thing black kids have to aspire to is pro sports or drug dealing.
Stop the WOD & legalize drugs.
Voila, the black kids then only have pro sports to improve their lives.
See, making drugs legal solves the inner city black kids!
Yes. We could legalize drunk driving. Arrest the drunk driver only if he harms someone or damages property. Drunk driving, like drug use, harms no one. Right?
Nor murder, burglaries, rapes, prostitution, etc. No reason to throw in the towel and legalize those activities.
I seem to recall that the urban lifestyle was pretty darn barren during the Great Depression, but I don't recall reading that pro sports and drug dealing were the only way out.
I believe the solution back then was to GET A JOB. Perhaps that would work today.
What was it George Carlin used to say?... Just give us the pot. ;-)
Liberty combined with taking responsibility for one’s actions works in solving problems each time it is tried.
Making it legal to put what one wants in ones own body could reduce drug use if this increase in liberty is combined with an increase in liberty for those of us who must interact with the drug users. What do I mean? I suggest the following.
1) Any employer has the liberty to require drug testing at his pleasure and expense on any employee and does not have to keep employed anyone using something he does not like.
2) Any insurance company has the liberty to require drug testing at its pleasure and expense on any customer and can adjust rates accordingly as it likes.
Just these 2 things in combination with legalizing any drug would dramatically reduce drug use, crime, violence and corruption of government.
Think not?
In the 1970’s and 1980’s when I was an independent trucker there was a serious problem with truckers going over hours on their legal hours of service. This was often the result of illegal amphetamine use and sometimes other drugs. The result of all this irresponsible activity was an increase in accidents and deaths.
While I was still in that business, government tried mightily with all its power to solve this problem. They failed miserably. Yet, today truck drivers going over their hours of service is much less of a problem than it use to be. Government did not reduce this problem. Private industry did the most to reduce this problem.
Specifically, accident insurance companies just made it way too expensive for truck companies to continue to have these accidents. Then the truck companies used innovative technology and better management to control their drivers.
The drug problem can also be attacked by private industry while the government saves a ton of money (and lives) by not engaging in a futile effort.
All that it would take is for when you give drug users the liberty to do what they want, give employers and insurance companies the liberty to do what they must.
Saved for later.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.meanwhile CA is about to ban smoking in one’s own apartment. prohibition, widely successful, lives on.
The drug laws and enforcement regime are set up pretty much the way the big players in the industry want it, as in most regulated sectors of the economy.
Why would the principles of political economy change for one, and only one, industry?
They don’t, of course.
I do not see how any thinking person with a conscience could possibly approve of the current prosecution of the War On Drugs, in either conception or execution. The WOD has brutalized American life, and with no redeeming “unintended consequences” whatsoever visible to my possibly untrained eye, although there must be some - with all that horse-sh*t, there surely has to be a pony somewhere!
"the problem is not that we make drugs a crime; it is that drugs are catalysts to crime."
Ok, General Walters. If drugs are a catalyst to crime, generals are a catalyst to war.
And retired generals heading up the ODCP are a catalyst to further setbacks (relabeled "successes) in the WOsD as well as continued erosion of the Bill of Rights.
Some people like John Walters just don’t like to admit that they are wrong. How many years ago did Nancy Reagan say;”Just say no.” I notice how the one time big cheer leader for the war on drugs Rush Limbaugh is now quiet on this subject.
“Maybe next time, I will turn off my car and lock it,” she said.
lol... maybe? Some people are slow learners but this is ridiculous.