Prohibition

Unlike Bill Clinton, President Obama admits he inhaled!. "Frequently," he said. "That was the point."

People laugh when politicians talk about their drug use. The audience laughed during a 2003 CNN Democratic presidential primary debate when John Kerry, John Edwards and Howard Dean admitted smoking weed.

Yet those same politicians oversee a cruel system that now stages SWAT raids on people's homes more than 100 times a day. People die in these raids -- some weren't even the intended targets of the police.

Neill Franklin once led such raids. The 33-year Maryland police veteran, now executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, locked up hundreds of people for drugs and felt good about it.

But 10 years ago Franklin decided that drugs -- even hard drugs -- do much less harm to Americans than does the drug war.

"Drugs can be -- and are in many cases -- problematic. But the policies that we have in place to prohibit their use are 10 times more problematic."

The raids helped change his mind. "We end up with kids being shot ... search warrants being served on the wrong home, innocent people on the other side of the door thinking that they are protecting their home."

Still, most Americans support the drug war. Paul Chabot, White House drug adviser to Presidents George W. Bush and Clinton, told me: "We should be kicking down more doors. ... They're kicking the door of somebody who's a violent person."

Violent? People who get high are rarely violent. The violence occurs because when something's illegal, it is sold only on the black market. And that causes crime. Drug dealers can't just call the cops if someone tries to steal their supply. So they form gangs and arm themselves to the teeth.

"We have the violence of these gangs competing for market share, and people get hurt," said Franklin.

"Some of these gangs have better recruitment programs than Fortune 500 companies. They know what to say to kids."

People think that if drugs were legal, there would be more recruiting of kids. Franklin says the opposite is true.

"Prohibition causes that. We don't have kids on the corner (saying), 'Pssst, I got a fifth of Jack Daniel's.'"

Kids rarely peddle liquor, and there's little violence around liquor sales because alcohol is legal. There was lots of violence before 1933, but that was because Prohibition forbade liquor sales. Prohibition gave us Al Capone.

That's true. But much less of it. The murder rate rose when alcohol was banned. It dropped when Prohibition was repealed.

"If we were to do away with our drug laws ... we know drug usage numbers will skyrocket," Chabot said.

It's logical to assume that, were it not for drug prohibition, drug abuse would be rampant. But 10 years ago, Portugal decriminalized every drug -- crack, heroin, you name it. The number of abusers actually declined.

Joao Goulao, Portugal's top drug official, said that before decriminalization "we had a huge problem with drug use ... around 100,000 people hooked on heroin."

Then they started treating drug use more like a parking ticket. People caught with drugs get a slap on the wrist, sometimes a fine.

Independent studies have found the number of people in Portugal who say they regularly do drugs stayed about the same. And the best news, said Goulao: "Addiction itself decreased a lot."

At first, police were skeptical of the law, but Joao Figueira, chief inspector of Lisbon's drug unit, told me that decriminalization changed lots of minds.

"The level of conflicts on the street are reduced. Drug-related robberies are reduced. And now the police are not the enemies of the consumers!"

All good news. But in American and in most of the world, the drug war continues, thousands are murdered and in ghettos the police are enemies of the people.

“Saying that the prevention of sin is not the proper nor effective province of government is not “to toy with sin.”

It is the proper province of CHRISTIANS to protect that element of the culture that best reflects Biblical values.

That is the darkness you are toying with.

And if you flirt with the darkness, eventually it will overcome you. And if you extend that to your nation, eventually it will infold that nation.

And don’t try to pretend that your claim that you don’t personally use drugs recreationally absolves you of what you are doing to others. If you loading a pistol with one bullet and hand that gun to others to play Russian roulette (especially children), you are responsible for what happens to them.

And Jim Robinson — as all true conservatives know — that what Jim posts as the definition of conservatism comes from the Founding Fathers, who understood what I’ve been saying all along, that liberty will only endure as long as there is a moral code of voluntary individual restraint. The Founding Fathers relied on the Christian Church to carry that message to the people to safeguard liberty. You are a part of that group of 1960’s radical leftists (whether you know it or not and whether you acknowledge it or not) that is subverting “the establishment” and primarily that cultural code of ethics that has safeguarded our liberty for over 200 years. Your course of action, while you call it move toward greater liberty, has been proving to be (since the Progressive began their assault on traditional America) the destruction of our liberties. When their leftist actions lead to greater problems, their solution is always greater government control.

Just say no to nannies? Sure thing. But you need to understand that you are ideologically in bed with those nannies you claim to despise.

Saying that the prevention of sin is not the proper nor effective province of government is not “to toy with sin.”

It is the proper province of CHRISTIANS to protect that element of the culture that best reflects Biblical values.

Absolutely - but not by force, which is government's stock in trade.

If you loading a pistol with one bullet and hand that gun to others to play Russian roulette (especially children),

As I pointed out in post #30, since kids report that they can now get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer, it follows that the best way to restict their access to drugs is to make them legal for adults only (thus giving those who sell to adults a disincentive to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult market).

liberty will only endure as long as there is a moral code of voluntary individual restraint.

Irrelevant to drug criminalization, which is a LEGAL code of INvoluntary restraint.

But you need to understand that you are ideologically in bed with those nannies you claim to despise.

Nannies wear pants - does that mean I should stop wearing pants?

Are you kidding me?

Again, you can’t possibly be that perfectly illogical, can you?

Jesus had dinner with the sinners, but while he was there, he preached against sin, he did not condone the sin, he did not engage in the sin.

To legalize those substances that are so powerful (remember, you said NO restrictions on the manufacture, sale, and use of ANY drug) that destroy lives and families condones a behavior that leads people away from God and into darkness.

You’ll say, “Baseless hysteria.”

And I’ll say, Jesus had to die on the cross because of mankind’s desire to sin. What What Biblical teaching asks us in return is to show gratitude by avoiding that self-centered behavior that leads us and others away from God.

In America, the people decide the laws (supposedly). Enacting a law prohibiting an action is not the same as forcing a people to act. If you don’t see that difference, then you are either not intelligent enough to follow this discussion, or you are, as I said, nothing more than a leftist agitator trying to split up conservatives and push your leftist agenda.

And as I asked in previous posts, if that is your Christian and Biblical response to sinful behavior, what ELSE do you want to completely UNrestrict? Prostitution? Same-sex marriage (where is your Biblical approval of that?)? Pornography in the grocery stores?

‘A legal code of involuntary restraint’

OK, so the murder rate has increased over the past century. Should we just legalize murder? How about car theft?

You keep stepping back and forth over the line you have drawn around your argument. On the one hand, you claim that the majority of people who share a common culture should not pass laws that restrict behavior that they consider harmful to individuals and especially to society at large (which results in individual behavior harming the lives of others) and then you try to cross back over the line and state that the laws themselves are causing the behavior and that in order to eliminate that behavior, we should just eliminate the laws.

This is just silly at this point.

Our drugs criminalizing recreational drug manufacture, sale, and use seek to limit a substance and behavior that anyone (who is being honest) will acknowledge has been historically harmful to the lives of individuals and society at-large. Lifting those laws (even somewhat, such as legalizing pot — we don’t even have to go as far as you suggest and remove ALL drug laws) will make drugs more prevalent in society and lowers the Durkheim constant, which will tacitly imply that recreational drug-usage is acceptable. Aside from the effect this has had in other countries in regard to addiction, increased crime, unemployment, and the expansion of government (those nannies you claim to loathe), such an action flies in the face of our basic Judeo-Christian morality and responsibilities.

You can continue to copy-and-paste my comments and reply, but your replies have become redundant and circular and you are defeating your own argument.

To legalize those substances that are so powerful (remember, you said NO restrictions on the manufacture, sale, and use of ANY drug)

Still false - I've stated a number of regulations (short of the current total ban) that I support.

that destroy lives and families condones a behavior that leads people away from God and into darkness.

Still wrong - many legal acts are not culturally condoned in this country, for example, insulting your wife. (What's enjoyed as lowbrow entertainment is not necessarily condoned in real life. Try going around putting pies in people's faces and see how condoned it is.)

I do avoid use of illegal recreational drugs as well as legal ones (alcohol and tobacco).

In America, the people decide the laws (supposedly). Enacting a law prohibiting an action is not the same as forcing a people to act.

It is the same as forcing those who voted against the law to act - and such forcing is legitimate only to defend individual rights.

And as I asked in previous posts, if that is your Christian and Biblical response to sinful behavior, what ELSE do you want to completely UNrestrict? Prostitution?

Yes, legalize and regulate, as they've done in Nevada.

Same-sex marriage (where is your Biblical approval of that?)?

There is no "right" to same-sex marriage, as the legal institution of civil marriage merely recognizes a pre-existing societal institution that does not include same-sex couples.

Pornography in the grocery stores?

Pornography licensed and regulated. I'd vote against having it in grocery stores in my city.

‘A legal code of involuntary restraint’

OK, so the murder rate has increased over the past century. Should we just legalize murder? How about car theft?

No, those crimes have actual unwilling victims, unlike drug "crimes."

you try to cross back over the line and state that the laws themselves are causing the behavior

I never said that - and I already corrected you on this point in post #25.

Which, as I've pointed out, even if true doesn't imply increased harm. For example, legalization will remove the incentives for users to use in ways that make abuse and addiction likelier - like getting as high as possible when one gets high (as drinkers did during Prohibition) and spending lots of time planning one's next high.

and lowers the Durkheim constant, which will tacitly imply that recreational drug-usage is acceptable.

Actually, what you mean to claim is that the standard of deviancy will lower in order to maintain the constancy of the Durkheim constant. ('Emile Durkheim's proposition that there is a limit to the amount of deviant behavior any community can "afford to recognize" (called the "Durkheim Constant"). As the amount of deviancy increases, the community has to adjust its standards so that conduct once thought deviant is no longer deemed so.' - http://www.metafilter.com/33743/Defining-Deviancy-Down)

This is just another way of phrasing your "culturally condoned" argument whose falsity I showed above.

Aside from the effect this has had in other countries in regard to addiction, increased crime, unemployment, and the expansion of government

You provide no evidence for this claim, whereas the article at the top of this thread shows the opposite has been true in Portugal.

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