I see, so what, exactly makes alcohol different than any other drug?
If you don't think the prohibition of drugs is working, if you believe it's futile, then you must believe that if we ended it drug use would not increase.
Well first, the prohibition of drugs is obviously not working, just like the prohibition of alcohol didn't work, and for all the same reasons and with all the same side effects.
And second, your statement is a logical non sequitur. My belief in the futility of it has nothing to do with whether it decreases the use of drugs. It is futile because it is not a proper function of government to regulate what we ingest. It is futile because the goal of prohibition is to eliminate drug use, something that is obviously impossible.
Who cares? The point is that the success or failure of one is not dependent on the other.
"Well first, the prohibition of drugs is obviously not working, just like the prohibition of alcohol didn't work, and for all the same reasons and with all the same side effects."
What are you talking about? Prohibition reduces use. I call that "working".
"My belief in the futility of it has nothing to do with whether it decreases the use of drugs."
Gobbledygook. It reduces drug use, therefore it is working, therefore it is not futile.
"It is futile because it is not a proper function of government to regulate what we ingest."
Wrong. Look it up. The police power of a state, an inherent power going back 400 years, is "the capacity of a state to regulate behaviors and enforce order within its territory, often framed in terms of public welfare, security, morality, and safety".
"It is futile because the goal of prohibition is to eliminate drug use, something that is obviously impossible".
So a reduction in drug use is no good and therefore the program is futile.
Nicely put Steve..
The whole point of having a Bill of Rights [to stop government from 'regulating' what we ingest] was to make certain things vote-proof.
As Justice Robert Jackson said:
"-- The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.
One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections."
(West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943
NCSteve: I see, so what, exactly makes alcohol different than any other drug?
Ooh! Ooh! I know!
*ahem* robertpaulsen uses alcohol and doesn't use the other drugs.