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Posted on 02/29/2008 7:17:28 PM PST by neverdem
In the slide show I narrated about the late William F. Buckley, Jr., I didn’t have room to get into a couple of issues we’ve been debating here at the Lab: the Drug Enforcement Administration’s campaigns against medical marijuana and against doctors who treat chronic-pain patients.
Mr. Buckley was worried about the D.E.A. well before the OxyContin scare inspired the agency’s Operation Cotton Candy and led to doctors like William Hurwitz and Bernard Rottschaefer being sent to prison. In 1995, after criticizing presidents and members of Congress for pursuing a war on drugs he considered futile, Mr. Buckley wrote:
But perhaps the worst offender is the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration — not so much the agents who risk their lives trying to apprehend major drug traffickers as the ideologically driven bureaucrats who intimidate and persecute doctors for prescribing pain medication in medically appropriate (but legally suspicious) doses, who hobble methadone programs with their overregulation, who acknowledge that law enforcement alone cannot solve the drug problem but then proceed to undermine innovative public-health initiatives.I am often baffled by the resistance of conservatives to drug-policy reform, but encouraged by the willingness of many to reassess their views once they have heard the evidence. Conservatives who oppose the expansion of federal power cannot look approvingly on the growth of the federal drug-enforcement bureaucracy and federal efforts to coerce states into adopting federally formulated drug policies. Those who focus on the victimization of Americans by predatory criminals can hardly support our massive diversion of law-enforcement resources to apprehending and imprisoning nonviolent vice merchants and consumers. Those concerned with over-regulation can hardly countenance our current handling of methadone, our refusal to allow over-the-counter sale of sterile syringes, our prohibition of medical marijuana.
(Excerpt) Read more at tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com ...
A Libertarian, yes.
The federal ONDCP budget is about .3% of the total federal budget - a rounding error.
Plus, half that money goes towards prevention and drug abuse programs.
There are crimes against all of the things people on drugs do that "bother" other people.
Well then it’s not really conservatism any more is it? It’s just another form of coercion. I honestly can’t see much that’s conservative about the republicans any more. They talk a good talk on Sunday shows but turn right around a grow the govt by leaps and bounds. They are lying hypocrites just like the Rats.
The actual conservative voters are the blacks of the Republican party. The Pubbies expect their votes and then when in power turn their backs on them. If Bush hadn’t shown that the Pubbies can still appoint decent USSC judges there would be absolutely NO reason to vote for them.
Sex is legal, but few people have any problem with laws that require that it not be performed in public venues, nor in places where it will be seen/heard by those who do not with to see/hear it. Why could drug use not be regarded in the same category?
It could, very easily. Many municipalities have laws against consuming alcohol in public; the same could easily done for other drugs.
Laws against disturbing behavior beyond mere ingestion of drugs remain on the books, and cover just about any menace that could be produced by drug users.
Agreed. My point was that public consumption in and of itself could be prohibited without causing the problems associated with prohibition.
BTW, on a somewhat related note (prohibiting activity to the extent that it bothers others) what should have happened in the Lawrence case, IMHO, would have been a remand to trial court, to decide whether the defendants took reasonable care to prevent their conduct from being noticed by anyone who might be bothered. I don't know enough about the factual situation behind the case (including credibility of testimony) to know whether the defendants should have been prosecuted. If the defendants were in any way responsible for the burglary report on their dwelling, that would point toward conviction. If someone phoned in a burglary report because one of the defendants had earlier cut him off in traffic, that would point toward acquittal.
Sounds to me like Bill Buckley was advocating the application of science rather than pure ideology to our government's handling of the drug situation.
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Some cities have laws against consumption of alcoholic beverages on public rights-of-way, regardless of whether the person consuming them acts intoxicated. Whether or not such laws are a good idea, I see nothing inherently wrong with them.
More generally, I see nothing wrong with laws that forbid people from doing certain things in places where they may be observed by others who are not specifically looking for them. There should be different tiers of punishment based upon whether the behavior's visibility was a result of deliberate action, recklessness, negligence, or bad luck. Exposure due to bad luck shouldn't be punished, but may be logged; excessive "bad luck" could point to negligence or worse.
Then let’s round it down to .00000000% of the budget, for ALL federal and federally mandated or funded drug warrior efforts. Oh, and, bobby, the ONDCP is HARDLY all the federal drug war effort. But you lie so much anyway, what’s one more?
If posters wouldn't imply that the WOD is some giant leviathan, devouring massive amounts of our federal tax dollars, then I wouldn't need to point out the fact that they're wrong.
"Oh, and, bobby, the ONDCP is HARDLY all the federal drug war effort."
Hmm, yeah, it is. Incarceration costs are not included.
So you’re trying to say that DEA costs are included in the ONDCP budget? Wrong. And you know better. Or, if it IS, please point it out. Plus monies for anti-drug efforts for the FBI, for the Coast Guard and for the military. Plus costs to incarcerate the victims of the war on some drugs. Then add them up again. At just the FedGov level for now. Thanks in advance.
Yes. And the Coast Guard, the DOD, Department of Education, HHS, and a whole host of other agencies.
Go here for the ONDCP budget: Table 1 is spending by function and Table 2 is spending by department. $12 billion for everything in a $3 trillion budget.
Are you saying this happens a lot? Quite frankly, I don't remember it ever happening.
Sure, there are a lot of arrests for drug trafficking or drug dealing. Raids on crack houses, shooting galleries, drug dealer's houses. Arrests for buying and selling drugs. Even arrests for finding drugs during a traffic stop.
But I can't recall one single instance where the cops tracked down some drug user who was doing drugs in the privacy of his home, bothering no one, and arrested him. 1.5 million drug arrests every year and I'm not aware that even ONE of them was as you described.
So, excuse me, but what are you talking about?
What fraction of SWAT-style raids are performed on drug dealers and what fraction are on people who have, at most, a small quantity for personal use? Seems to me a lot of those raids end up hitting small-time drug users.
If the goal of a raid is to nail some big drug-dealing operation, then if it yields nothing but a couple of smoked joints in an ashtray it should be regarded as a failure. That raids which turn up tiny quantities of drugs are heralded as "successes" suggest to me that either (1) the people conducting them are perfectly happy using extreme levels of violent force against casual drug users, or (2) they have no objection to misrepresenting the "success" of their missions.
On a related note, if courts are going to allow DUI checkpoints, I'd like to see them impose a requirement that at least half of the citations and prosecutions from such checkpoints actually be for DUI offenses. If a checkpoint yields 5 DUI arrests, of which 3 yield convictions, and also yields 50 other assorted citations, then 47 of those other citations, chosen at random, should be thrown out (refunding any fees paid).
The ancient police power of a state was and has always been, at least historically, targeted damage done to others.
Protecting us against damage to ourselves can only relate to expectation to tax revenue, tax revenue that supports a socialist state. (Follow the logic).
Are you a socialist, Robert? Do you think you know what is best for other individuals?
LOL, with the amount of time you spend on FR, I don’t think what you’re aware of is an accurate picture of any reality.
End up? Sure. Sometimes these raids come up dry.
But they were going after a drug dealer, not user. You incorrectly said the police were "tracking down" users who are harming no one.
"then 47 of those other citations, chosen at random, should be thrown out"
If a guy is stopped at a DUI checkpoint and has a dead body in the back seat, I think he should be charged. But hey, that's me.
They still are. It's the Libertarians who want recreational drugs legalized. Buckley was an admitted Libertarian and I thought Rush was still against illegal recreational drugs.
Can you please point out where Rush has changed his position?
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