Posted on 01/16/2003 7:43:37 AM PST by MrLeRoy
After fighting the war on drugs for nearly 30 years, Lt. Jack Cole is ready to admit defeat.
The retired New Jersey State Police detective -- who spent 12 years as an undercover narcotics officer -- spearheads a movement to legalize all narcotics as a way of ending the bloody, expensive war.
"The war on drugs was, is and always will be a dismal failure," said Mr. Cole yesterday to a meeting of the Fairhaven Rotary Club.
Mr. Cole is one of the founders of an international nonprofit group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition -- LEAP.
That group, which includes current and former police officers, judges and others, is proposing nothing short of legalizing all narcotics -- including heroin, cocaine and marijuana -- and having the federal government regulate them.
While that might sound radical for a detective who spent the better part of his career looking to jail both users and sellers of drugs, Mr. Cole said it is the only rational viewpoint after a career on the front lines of the war on drugs.
While spending what Mr. Cole estimates to be $69 billion per year in law enforcement and prison costs for drug offenders, Americans have seen drug supplies become more plentiful and the drugs themselves more powerful and cheaper.
Mr. Cole acknowledged to the dozen Rotarians yesterday that the idea of legalizing narcotics -- similar to policies in Amsterdam -- sounds foreign.
The first question many people ask is whether drug decriminalization will increase drug use, especially among the young.
Mr. Cole pointed to studies in which young Americans said it was easier to obtain marijuana and other drugs than it was to purchase government-regulated alcohol and tobacco products.
Holland sees a lower rate of marijuana use among its young people, in part because decriminalization has made the drug boring, Mr. Cole said.
"We at LEAP are asking you to listen and to think about these ideas," said Mr. Cole, who is pursuing a doctorate in public policy at UMass Boston.
Just like each cell in her body does every day, replicates accoring to it's genetic code, skin cells do it, toenail cells do it too.
You think he'd rather be somewhere else?
Are you intentionally baiting?? It doesn't matter if he did, just like your heart, think it'd rather stop beating?
Who will make that decision? You? And will you enforce it with the gub bludgeon?
Just like each cell in her body does every day, replicates accoring to it's genetic code, skin cells do it, toenail cells do it too.
The comparison fails: skin cells make only other skin cells, whereas the fetus makes every kind of cell for himself.
[rewinding the exchange:] Dialysis and in-utero are non-comparable situations. One is voluntary, the other is not.
If I am knocked temporarily unconscious in an accident and a doctor puts me on a resipirator, I am using it involuntarily; am I not a person?
Since I don't expect it to ever be safer, I decline to worry about it.
I'm against enforcing safety on anyone.
Not true. A lot of cells in our body can make other cells when needed. Each cell contains our entire genetic code and when prompted can replicate other cells.
If I am knocked temporarily unconscious in an accident and a doctor puts me on a resipirator, I am using it involuntarily; am I not a person?
Were you born into the world and no longer a growth in you mommys belly? Then yes, you are person.
The distinction...you voluntarily got where you are as the result of your voluntary action. You got into the car, you got out of bed that morning, you didn't kill yourself the night before.
I don't like abortion. Never doubt that. Prophylatic uses are a sign someone was pretty g*dd*mn stupid earlier on.
If a fetus cannot survive outside the mother, can it be truely said to be a completely seperate person? Having an abitrary point, such as survivability, allows for future advances in science to pare back the point where abortion is still an option.
Third term and partial birth abortion should be outlawed. You are essentially throwing away a perfectly good human.
I agree with that entirely. I just disagree with the conception point.
Ah, so it's dependence on another person that makes one a non-person? What if I need blood transfusions to survive, and only one other person in the world is a match---does that make me a non-person?
If a fetus cannot survive outside the mother, can it be truely said to be a completely seperate person?
Completely separate? No. Person? Yes.
Having an abitrary point, such as survivability, allows for future advances in science to pare back the point where abortion is still an option.
It's a better criterion than birth---but it still allows the deliberate killing of innocent persons.
None of the cells in our body can make a compete body, as the fetus does for itself.
The distinction...you voluntarily got where you are as the result of your voluntary action. You got into the car, you got out of bed that morning, you didn't kill yourself the night before.
That doesn't make my being on the respirator voluntary.
Some "crimes" are just crimes because legislators say they are. Like crimes in one state aren't crimes in another. Or city to city.
RElegalizing the use of all substances isn't close to what you are attempting to characterize it as. Just as when it was a crime to drink alcohol, but now it isn't. You know the difference, too bad you won't admit it.
Then you say this in the same post;
the many young women that believe that the ability to murder their unborn children makes them "empowered", "independent", and "sophisticated".
Makes no sense unless you think murder should be legal.
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