Posted on 08/21/2009 2:53:19 AM PDT by SolidWood
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.
The law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Your objections to the WoD, if I understand you correctly, are twofold:
1. Do-gooders are prone to tyranny, and ought not to be permitted to restrict our liberties.
2. The WoD, being a federal project, is tyrannical (not to mention unconstitutional.)
Is that a fair assessment? If so, let me ask you both (and anybody else still reading this thread) whether you would object to letting local communities decide the legality question for themselves a la “dry/wet counties”?
If the USA ever figures that out, it will ruin my retirement plan.
I intend to smuggle cigarettes, toilet paper, transfats, booze, incandescent light bulbs, Yo-Yo's, SUV's or anything else our lords and masters care to ban or tax.
If the USA follows this lead, I may have to work the rest of my life.
The border patrol checked each time, searched his person, but could not find anything on him or on the donkey that he was leading.
Finally, one day, when the smuggler and agent were both retired, and having a drink at the cafe, the agent asked him,"I always knew you were smuggling, but could never catch you in the act. Just what was it you were smuggling?"
The retired smuggler took a swig off his drink, and paused for effect...."Donkeys."
According to ONDCP, that is a sign of drug abuse.
Go down to your local police station and turn yourself in.
So does Walter E. Williams.
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2000/08/01/three_cheers_for_smugglers
Though I disagree with the premise as a whole of restricting individual liberty, I do have a belief in the rights of communities and find the tyranny of the minority just as oppressive.
Typically the right of the community to set it’s own public standards does not necessarily interfere directly with the rights of one in privcy to do what he wishes, so as long as it does not harm another, or others. Taking drugs while sitting in your own home does not harm society in any way, as long as the taker is a responsible person. The exact same logic applies now with the use of alcohol, only difference is it is legally available . There may be things that aren’t 100% kosher with the law, but you can do in the privacy of your home without creating a societal disruption that would draw the ire of the law.
But we’re not at the point where government cameras are installed in your home to see what you’re doing at all times. Nor does the ‘civillian security force’ knock on your door every now and then to ‘see how you’re doing’...do you want to see us go there?
Of course, I have my subtle differences which break from the overall tone of the above affirmation of the rights of the community. For example, my belief that a privately owned business such as a restaurant or bar that resides in a community which has banned smoking is restricted from catering to that clientele altogether...for the ‘greater good’ or for ‘public health’. A private business should be permitted to afford its customers and guests the environment that they want, without government dictates. Clients who don’t want such an environment are free to choose another establishment.
But, regulating something like wet/dry at the Federal level is a disaster. History has proven such, and in my opinion continues to prove it with the WoSD (War on Some Drugs) that it is waging against it’s citizenry, and communities.
Not to mention it is an excuse and abused and often results in the most tragic deprivation of the general liberty of American citizens in our history.
Here is one such example:
I would like nothing more than these so called ‘crimes’ of possession of small amounts of drugs to be neutered. People who casually use most drugs recreationally are not criminals against anything, other than transgressing against a certain type of groupthink, which is used to satiate ones own desires of using the state to enforce a particular set of morals.
See my earlier post about ‘Omnipotent moral busybodies’ for some more clarification.
Except that you are the ‘Moralist Statist’. You won’t allow each state to make their own drug laws as the Constitution would have it. The Founders left this stuff to the states.
You think the Constitution gives people the right to take drugs. It doesn’t. That came from federal legislatures and courts and Presidents taking control away from the states.
Let’s have 50 different drug laws and all the druggies can go live in California and get prescriptions from doctors to take all the drugs they like. We’ll see how long California can limp along.
And you are completely putting words in my mouth! LOL.
Please indicate the post in my almsot 5 year history at FR where I said the Constitution gives people the right to take drugs?
Good luck with that...
And see post #187 on the rights of communities before you continue to place your own smallminded thoughts into MY head, thanks.
I agree with Mr. Loud Mime, donna. You’re like talking to a megaphone in a feedback loop. You seem only to hear yourself blather over the noise. Enjoy.
And please note tagline.
That seems to be your vision, some powerful entity in control so all is just as you like it, but it certainly isn't mine. Or perhaps you're just being defeatist. If I had a Dollar for each time I've heard something like "I agree with you but it'll never happen", I could go on a nice word cruise. And that would be lovely.
I have already discussed the perils that would likely come through taxation, government control of distribution channels, tracking of users and so forth, and I don't propose replacing a failure with something any thinking person can plainly see is doomed to become another.
If you wish to speak in terms of the lesser of two evils dismissing all other possibilities out of hand, you're not giving the issue the attention it deserves. The Greens have a slogan they like to use when running a candidate against a Democrat. "If you don't vote for what you want, you'll never get it." Now, you can go with the attitude, well, it's the Greens so it must be stupid (The Netherlands is socialist), but that betrays a closed mind. In my opinion, it's one of the most profound political sayings I ever heard and I try very hard to give it all due heed.
And I can use it in this argument and say no. I'm not going to be pigeonholed.
I forgot to add plastic grocery bags.
I intend to smuggle those as well.
The possession of alcohol during Prohibition was legal.
I absolutely DESPISE George Soros & his socialist view of the world. What gets me is how he can use capitalism for his own benefit in order to foist socialism on the rest of us. IMO, he has committed TREASON against the United States, but you know what they say about opinions....
Well that’s what we all have to hope for isn’t it!!?
That people, given Liberty, will invariatably choose the best path? Isn’t that what we all believe?
At least most will, and we’ll be the better people for what the best give, not for what the worst don’t. That doesn’t mean that the majority will go in the ‘worst’ direction, does it? Drugs are illegal now, and many millions are apt to abuse them anyway. Studies in human nature have proven that many people will gravitate toward something strictly because it IS illicit.
The problem with that ol’ slippery slope is that the Government has already created a cottage industry with the WoSD. Paramilitary gear for cops, no knock raids, and civil asset forfeiture laws have been used to give law enforcement a horrible incentive to absolutely rape the Liberty of thousands, unjustly and without any due process.
Just as we argue now against Government creating it’s own cottage healtcare industry, in the same breath many can happily support another...the War on Some Drugs.
You list a number of potential increases in state power that would accompany legalization, but which of those do we not have already under our system of extensive criminalization of drug use?
Sure, maybe if drugs were legalized some revenuers would erroneously show up at my door looking to collect taxes for drugs I'm not actually producing. I'd have to go through the trouble of explaining that I don't produce drugs, and maybe let them look around my place to make sure.
But right now, I might also get a visit from the police based on erroneous information that I possess drugs. Only this time, it's not going to be a matter of answering a few questions and letting them poke around a bit. Under our current drug war, if the police show up at my place looking for drugs they are going to be knocking down doors, pointing guns in my face, and generally tearing my place apart.
Kids are already taken from homes because of drug use. Cops already enforce laws against public intoxication. How could the state get any more intrusive when it comes to drugs than it already is?
What is your plan for legalization that keeps users off the federal database, inspectors out of our houses and gardens and - who pays users’ medical bills, food, rent and child care?
What is your plan for stopping the feds from getting richer and bigger collecting pot taxes, etc?
I’m still waiting for a legalization plan that doesn’t make it worse.
You have a point, but overall I think social conservatism has done much more good to our nation than it has harm. I think the problem w/ it is it's willingness to use force (i.e., government) to seek its goals of having a better, more improved nation rather than living by example & spreading The Good News. Doing so has helped to create a gargantuan federal government over what was once 50 sovereign states that were able to better govern themselves accd. to the wishes of We, The People.
Well it doesn’t have to be heavily taxed if the people don’t want it to be, does it?
But now that’s a problem with everything in general, isn’t it? And the Government taxes it anyway.
How about just reducing the Government to much less power than it has over your lives now...in as many ways as possible. Do you agree with me there?
So why can this not be one of them? The government freqently uses this War on Some Drugs as an excuse to deprive you of rights and seize your assets unjustly.
That is a transgression on the very basis of our ideals.
Prime example - look at what happened to this guy in FL in the name of the WoSD.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2320156/posts
That is merely the local authorities who have been given the power to brazenly destroy someone’s life.
Would you not argue at the very least that we should strip the FedGov of such authority immediately?
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