Posted on 06/16/2010 9:58:48 AM PDT by logician2u
I'm confused. When I walk around busy midtown Manhattan, I often smell marijuana. Despite the crowds, some people smoke weed in public. Usually the police leave them alone, and yet other times they act like a military force engaged in urban combat. This February, cops stormed a Columbia, Mo., home, killed the family dog and terrorized a 7-year-old boy -- for what? A tiny quantity of marijuana.
Two years ago, in Prince George's County, Md., cops raided Cheye Calvo's home -- all because a box of marijuana was randomly shipped to his wife as part of a smuggling operation. Only later did the police learn that Calvo was innocent -- and the mayor of that town.
"When this first happened, I assumed it was just a terrible, terrible mistake," Calvo said. "But the more I looked into it, the more I realized (it was) business as usual that brought the police through our front door. This is just what they do. We just don't hear about it. The only reason people heard about my story is that I happened to be a clean-cut white mayor."
Radley Balko of Reason magazine says more than a hundred police SWAT raids are conducted every day. Does the use of illicit drugs really justify the militarization of the police, the violent disregard for our civil liberties and the overpopulation of our prisons? It seems hard to believe.
I understand that people on drugs can do terrible harm -- wreck lives and hurt people. But that's true for alcohol, too. But alcohol prohibition didn't work. It created Al Capone and organized crime. Now drug prohibition funds nasty Mexican gangs and the Taliban. Is it worth it? I don't think so.
Everything can be abused, but that doesn't mean government can stop it, or should try to stop it. Government goes astray when it tries to protect us from ourselves.
Many people fear that if drugs were legal, there would be much more use and abuse. That's possible, but there is little evidence to support that assumption. In the Netherlands, marijuana has been legal for years. Yet the Dutch are actually less likely to smoke than Americans. Thirty-eight percent of American adolescents have smoked pot, while only 20 percent of Dutch teens have. One Dutch official told me that "we've succeeded in making pot boring."
By contrast, what good has the drug war done? It's been 40 years since Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. Since then, government has spent billions and officials keep announcing their "successes." They are always holding press conferences showing off big drug busts. So it's not like authorities aren't trying.
We've locked up 2.3 million people, a higher percentage than any other country. That allows China to criticize America's human-rights record because our prisons are "packed with inmates."
Yet drugs are still everywhere. The war on drugs wrecks far more lives than drugs do!
Need more proof? Fox News runs stories about Mexican cocaine cartels and marijuana gangs that smuggle drugs into Arizona. Few stop to think that legalization would end the violence. There are no Corona beer smugglers. Beer sellers don't smuggle. They simply ship their product. Drug laws cause drug crime.
The drug trade moved to Mexico partly because our government funded narcotics police in Colombia and sprayed the growing fields with herbicides. We announced it was a success! We cut way back on the Colombian drug trade.
But so what? All we did was squeeze the balloon. The drug trade moved across the border to Peru, and now it's moved to Mexico. So the new president of Mexico is squeezing the balloon. Now the trade and the violence are spilling over the border into the United States.
That's what I call progress. It the kind of progress we don't need.
Economist Ludwig von Mises wrote: "(O)nce the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness ... (w)hy not prevent him from reading bad books and bad plays ... ? The mischief done by bad ideologies is more pernicious ... than that done by narcotic drugs."
Right on, Ludwig!
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM moved to Mexico. So the new president of Mexico is squeezing the balloon. Now the trade and the violence are spilling over the border into the United States.
“It doesn’t really matter what you think.”
Yes, it does. And those of us who go through life sober will have a lot more influence on things than those who don’t.
Yeah. ok...compare your influence in life to that of Rush, Favre, Frued, or even Ted Kennedy.
You’ve made your hypothesis but I don’t think you can support it. Too many contradictions
Is it yours to give?
If not, then why are you offering to give what belongs to someone else?
Drug abusers have no special right to other people’s money. But if they have an entitlement based on other legal criteria then their drug abuse probably shouldn’t eliminate that entitlement.
IMO get rid of the entitlemens without tying them to the war on drugs.
“You’ve made your hypothesis but I don’t think you can support it. Too many contradictions”
Really now. All around us are drug addicts living crime free, productive lives, huh?
Yes. Millions of addicted cigarette smokers and coffee drinkers do live crime free lives.
There's probably a bunch more using prescription pain killers, anti-depressnats, and amphetamines like Ritalin that would go into classic withdrawl if you cut them off cold turkey.
Like I said in post 99:
“In this corner, we have the totalitarian state you describe above.
In this corner, we have the anarchy equals freedom crowd, where anyone can do anything up to and until it violates another person’s physical space. Forgetting the the vulnerable can’t really even make that known, and that the less vulnerable are still severely violated, often to death, before “justice” is meted out.
And here in the middle, we have reasonable restraints on demonstrably anti-social behavior with plenty of personal freedom still intact. That’s where I am.”
I don’t advocate the outlawing of tobacco, caffeine, or moderate alcohol BECAUSE those three items have centuries of history proving they are not a source of anti-social behaviors.
If you had read any of my posts before commenting you would know that.
As for drunkenness or any other psychoactive drug, they have nothing but a history of anti-social behavior production and should be banned, except under controlled circumstances for legitimate medical use.
And if you think the world would be a better place if it was a free for all, you are sorely mistaken.
These drugs have a superior moral quality to them, their dealers having received the blessing of state licensing.
Please don't confuse the two classes of drugs, thereby contributing to moral anarchy.
Yep. Hubby's job means he goes into people's homes to fix things.
He tells me their are a LOT more legally-drugged out soccer moms and higher income people than most folks realize.
Please don't confuse the two classes of drugs, thereby contributing to moral anarchy.
As soon as it's about drugs, everybody falls all over themselves holding up beltway bureaucracies as a moral authority.
That is entirely dependent on body weight, chemistry, and the strength of the alcohol ingested. I had an ex-girlfriend who was one of the biggest lightweights I've ever seen with booze. She would have a single beer, even the light crap where the alcohol volume is around 4%, and get fairly drunk off of it. A person who has 1-3 drinks but the drinks are filled with shots of 100 proof vodka would get more intoxicated than the person drinking 1-3 low alcohol volume beers.
Not to mention, what exactly is "impaired?" I feel a buzz off of a beer myself, although I wouldn't call myself drunk. But it does get to the point whether I question I should be operating a vehicle. Granted, I very rarely drink. But why is getting even buzzed but not impaired (if there is a difference, since there is no actual standard for each state) morally acceptable? Why is getting intoxicated in generally morally unacceptable?
You seeming ignored my point that there are addicts who function at extremely high levels and wield far more influence in society than you can ever aspire to.
The stereotype of the crack whore exists, in large part to your war on drugs.
But the opposite end of the spectrum exists or else you wouldn’t have clients in the Betty Ford clinic.
As stated before, Rush and Favre were addicted to drugs as probably was Elvis and Michael Jackson. Those four have had tremendous influence, more than you can ever dream of.
And addicts wielding influence was your hypothesis.
“Addicts that function at extremely high levels and wield lots of influence in society” are temporary if they exist at all.
No one just keeps using psychoactive drugs without losing their mind.
No one.
The “stereotype” of the crack whore is real. She is not a crack whore because of “my” war on drugs. She is a stereotype that she bought the line you are selling. Drugs are ok for her to do. She is now a slave because all she can live for is another fix.
Like all drug addicts are slaves.
Some, with great effort, end their slavery. Like Rush, as you mentioned. Brett Favre I don’t know about. Elvis and Michael Jackson ended their addiction the more usual way; by dying.
“That is entirely dependent on body weight, chemistry, and the strength of the alcohol ingested.”
Absolutely, and there is a margin of error. Some hold their liquor better than others. We all know that.
Just like setting ‘adulthood’ at age 18, there is a margin of error. Some are essentially adults by age 16 or earlier. Some never grow up. But we set a standard, because if we don’t, we can’t have law.
As for what is “getting high,” same thing, there is a variable there that we have to quantify at some point or another. Otherwise we pretend that the raving lunatic meth head talking to Napoleon while he stabs himself with a fountain pen is equivalent to my Mom having a glass of wine with her dinner.
Of course there’s a line. But I don’t think the person having a few hits of moderately potent pot is any different than the person having a glass or two of wine. I’m curious as to why you think there is a difference. The intoxicating effects are roughly equal to me.
I am opposed to a few hits of pot because I don’t think it’s moderately potent. I think anything you buy these-a-days has a very high THC count.
Also, because every person I know that smoked pot - and there have been a lot by now - got very stupid using pot over time. The only ones who did not were the ones who quit. The rest became, slowly or quickly, useless.
No, they were not as dangerous as the crack addicts or meth heads. They were just rendered useless.
In my observation, three things can happen when you start smoking pot:
1. You do it once or for a while, realize it is making you stupid and paranoid, and quit. Generally you recover fine.
2. You keep basically doing it for the rest of your life and within a few years become a useless idiot.
3. You start using harder drugs.
I have not seen any other outcomes.
Then your experiences are limited. There are millions of people who smoke pot on even a regular basis, much like someone who has a scotch on the rocks after work, and are not paranoid losers who are useless and later become crack addicts.
Plus the whole idea of high potency pot is that less has to be used to obtain a milder effect. Much like not everyone who drinks whiskey goes around and drinks 12 ounces of it like they would a beer, not everyone who smokes higher potency pot goes around and smokes until they can’t see straight. It is possible for one to limits one’s dosage.
“It is possible for one to limits one’s dosage.”
Certainly it is possible. If you smoke it, I hope you limit yourself.
I am afraid you can’t convince me that the world or the country would be a better place with legal, ergo increased, marijuana smoking.
What about the judges, probation, lawyers, interpreters, juries, corrections, prison unions,parole, transcribers, jailers, the millions in probation, the endless government programs???????
let them eat cake
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