Posted on 12/06/2012 2:25:44 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
Editor's note: Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, with global branded revenues of $21 billion, and a member of the Global Drug Commission. Sir Richard was knighted in 1999 for his services to entrepreneurship. Watch today for Branson's interview with CNN/US' Erin Burnett Out Front at 7pm ET and tomorrow (12/7) with CNN International's Connect the World program at 4pm ET
(CNN) -- In 1925, H. L. Mencken wrote an impassioned plea: "Prohibition has not only failed in its promises but actually created additional serious and disturbing social problems throughout society. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic but more. There is not less crime, but more. ... The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished."
This week marks the 79th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933, but Mencken's plea could easily apply to today's global policy on drugs.
We could learn a thing or two by looking at what Prohibition brought to the United States: an increase in consumption of hard liquor, organized crime taking over legal production and distribution and widespread anger with the federal government.
~snip~
As part of this work, a new documentary, "Breaking the Taboo," narrated by Oscar award-winning actor Morgan Freeman and produced by my son Sam Branson's indie Sundog Pictures, followed the commission's attempts to break the political taboo over the war on drugs. The film exposes the biggest failure of global policy in the past 40 years and features revealing contributions from global leaders, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
It is time we broke the taboo and opened up the debate about the war on drugs. We need alternatives that focus on education, health, taxation and regulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Legal drugs would mean tremendous reduction in deaths, prisoner populations, less urban blight, more tax revenue, and less welfare.
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Oh really? And when Prohibition ended we also had a “tremendous reduction in deaths, prisoner populations, less urban blight, more tax revenue, and less welfare.”
Friend, we won’t be able to handle the welfare buden alone when millions of drugged out dopes are added to the welfare roles. Not to mention the increase in crime associated with drug usage.
Ending the federal drug war will not legalize drugs.
Tom Tancredo supported Amendment 64 here.
Which article and section of the constitution do you feel authorizes the federal government to enact drug laws? It appears to me to be a state issue, but I’ve been wrong before.
You raise a good point.
The reason why America isn’t winning the WOD is because we haven’t tried.
Secure our borders.
It’ll solve our illegal immigration problems. It’ll solve our illegal drug problems.
We aren’t winning the War on Poverty either. Why? Because welfare freelaoders are more than happy to keep voting in the leftist liberals.
When you get the federal government out of education and welfare, then we’ll talk
These millions currently on welfare generally are already drugged out dopes. Most inner city murders are committed to protect drug dealers territories and most burglary and robbery is to get the money for the drugs. You will have a huge reduction in crime with a minimal increase in consumption. Druggies are already using drugs. Availibilty is not a concern for these folks, but price is.
Two (many) wrongs don’t make a right.
And Tom Tancredo is a has-been. No longer credible on a state or national level.
exactly.... we haven’t even tried. Open borders is national suicide.
did you see post #40?
I’ve long said that ignoring the constitution has led to most of our present problems. Politicians have been trying to circumvent it to increase their power since John Adams. It is our culture that is failing us and more legislation will not solve that.
The problem, as always, is that any issue - in this case drugs - is the thin end of the wedge when it comes to greed (REAL greed), abuse of authority, and the government’s insatiable desire for control.
Seizure/confiscation of anything but especially vehicles and cash is rife in every PD and sheriff’s department. Occasionally they will buy something with proceeds from an auction but for the most part the goodies disappear into a black hole with no audits, no accounting and no obvious signs of benefit to the paymasters i.e. taxpayers, especially when the inevitable begging for police levies occurs.
Due process is a long-forgotten concept under these laws (and I use the term loosely) and property seized under paper-thin pretexts is rarely recovered despite the individual being completely innocent - or often mistaken for a suspect/perp.
The drug war has brought us cops dressing in paramilitary/SWAT gear for everyday shifts, armed to the teeth and glowering at all. The drug war has brought us the ludicrous concept and practice of no-knock warrants. The drug war has brought us early release (or mere home confinement) of violent types - rapists, murderers, thugs - to make room for mandatory minimum drug sentences.
In short, the police and the legal system have, as usual, taken their eye off the ball in order to perform a ‘skim’ that would make Meyer Lansky blush with embarrassment.
Your argument holds water only if there are no new users after legalizaion.
And do you really think THAT will happen? After Prohibition ended, millioms more started drinking. Same thing will happen with drugs.
Anything that grows the size and scope of the government outside it’s Constitutional mandate isn’t very conservative.
That should include the “war on drugs”.
Really? In 2010, Tancredo polled second for Governor and was endorsed by the vast majority of Republicans over the hapless Dan Maes, who barely broke 10%.
Interestingly enough, it was the Left (then styling themselves as Progressives) that pushed to make many of these substances illegal in the first place, not to mention they were behind the 18th Amendment.
1.) You weren't supposed to notice.
2.) It was about social control then; it's about social control now; it's always going to be about social control. That's what self-styled "benevolent" oligarchies do in the foreground. Do you suppose it's a mere coincidence there's nothing self-styled "benevolent" dictators and theocrats and oligarchies won't do to expand and extend their powers of control while making high-sounding speeches and waving flags for their "benevolent" goals?
3.) If you deliberately look away from the frantic activity in the foreground, all of it kept in motion by the foot soldiers and officers of middle high rank and useful idiots, and poke about among the highest of the high, you'll always find the rampaging psychoses of compulsive control, hatred of numerous forms and kinds, revenge, racism, classism, compulsive lying, delusion, anti-realism, grandiosity, et alia. You'll encounter Lenin's syphilis and accompanying psychological warpage, Stalin's pederastry and paranoia, Mao's pederastry and artistic pretensions, Hitler's paranoia and artistic pretensions and aversion to meat, Idi Amin's sexual perversions and cannibalism, et cetera ad infinitum.
4.) The first lesson history teaches is that very few people ever seem to learn the obvious lessons of history.
BUCKLEY: Okay, if I were the drug czar, I would say, “Okay, here are the five or six popular, illegal drugs. You can get them at the federal drug store for just more than the pharmaceutical cost of producing them. Enough to sustain the overhead, but enough also to discourage a black market in them. But before you go in there you’re going to have to read a description of what this drug does to you. And if you’re in a mood to play Russian roulette, go ahead and take some crack cocaine, because the probability that you will be seriously affected by this is up around eight, ten percent.” So therefore I would give them all the warning that they needed about the toxicity that they were able to accept in indulging this habit, but I would not let the price rise to where Mr. Middleman decides that he’s going to sell you that crack cocaine, and in order to get it he’s going to fumble around in people’s living rooms or steal women’s purses or mug people.
http://www.thirteen.org/openmind/the-law/on-legalizing-drugs…with-william-f-buckley/181/
Definitely legalize meth, crack cocaine and LSD and prostitution and illegal immigration
Ever hear of William F. Buckley?
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Yeah. I threw him under the bus in post 32.
Buckley was not a SoCon. He and his ilk have now been replaced by Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. Who themselves are now nobodies.
Who is the new Bill Buckley? Who is the libertarian hero today?
Truth is, there has never been one.
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