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.
I would rather pay more for incarceration than pay to help them use drugs. Basically, your argument is like that of some black democrats where they say, "give us money or we will steal from you" or "give us money or we will burn down your house"
Only habit I currently have involves a Smith rack and a quarter ton of iron.
Come on Teach, you can do better than that. Go hang out with the debate club and get back to us once you get all that "logic" and stuff worked out. Ok?
As I said, no wonder our schools are such a mess.
IMHO, the greatest piece of body building equipment ever devised by man can be had at any hardware store for about $40. They call it a "post hole digger".
It may very well be. People who live in different environments tend to have different points of view. I do find that demands that federal policy that affect everyone be driven by what is deemed in the best interest of those in inner-city urban areas is typically a liberal, Democratic agenda.
Sniff...I haven't been able to get in the power rack for 2 months. Blew out the discs at L4/L5. No more squats for me!
RIGHT. The guy is a humourles weenie.
Drug and alcohol abuse is everywhere and needs to be addressed. Libertarians tend to think that nothing should be legislated and only acted upon when the victim is dead. I am very conservative, but I don't give up easily on what I think is right. Abuse of substance or person in any form is wrong and legalizing it doesn't correct a thing. That's just my opinion for what it's worth and I guess my vote counts as much as anyone else's at the polls, so.... I should be able to say what I think. Calling me names as the previous poster did is not going to sway me at all. He used the same logic, or lack of, that abusive parents have used for years. I just don't buy it and don't apologize for it.
I've known people with various pins and braces that still manage to get a good workout in.
Tangenial though. Quite a few of the anti-WOD posters here don't use illicit drugs. We'd rather have to fend off the occassional junky, than have a Nanny State telling us what is good for us ala "Demolition Man" and "THX 1138".
Granted. But by what logic do you consider those two to be interchangeable? You seem to automatically equate substance abuse with child abuse, and I don't think that's a rational basis to start from.
Shows how little you know about libertarian philosophy.
As for the Drug War. The "cure", as put forth by government, is currently worse than the disease. This is pure fact in the abuses of power and errosion of Rights we are seeing on a daily basis.
With the Billions in tax money being spent, we should have seen some appreciable results by now. We haven't. Ergo, that money was not well spent and spending more on it is throwing good money after bad.
Making criminals out of people with what is essentially a medical problem seems an assinine way of going about it as well. Should medicare pay for their treatment? No. But neither do I want to pay for their incarceration for hurting themselves either. If they abuse their children, steal from others, or mug people to support their habbit, then charge them with that and throw away the key.
Say what you think, that is what this place is for. Don't get so offended though if someone like me comes along and points out the failure of your logic.
I am arguing against self-interest when I write my arguments--the control of drugs enhances my income. Basically, I take two positions:
1. The federal government has no Constitutional right to say anything whatsoever about drugs, except to REGULATE (not prohibit) their interstate sale. If it takes an Amendment to prohibit alcohol, then it takes an Amendment to prohibit other drugs.
2. The STATES have a right to do what they want. That is the basis of federalism. If Utah wants to execute marijuana smokers, that is its right, odious as it is to me. Marijuana smokers may move to California or whatever other state may legalize it.
Again, if it were Constitutional, I would totally agree with you about costs. Your reasoning, IMO, is exactly correct here.
That's pretty darn abstract, in my opinion. The bird was, on it's own: 1) recognizing that the other bird wasn't speaking clearly,
That's not necessarily abstraction; it may be, for example, that parrots make certain sounds when not speaking clearly that they don't make (or make much less) when speaking clearly.
and 2) knowing what "speak clearly" even means.
That one I simply don't buy; someone must have taught this parrot the phrase.
There's the chimp who makes tools (he subsequently learned how to make them with his hands, just like the scientists wanted). There are chimps who even know sign language.
I don't see either toolmaking or language use as necessarily abstract---or at any rate not at a level of abstraction I would consider as "reasoning."
(So what IS that level, you ask? I haven't carved anything in stone, but I think I was pretty near the mark when I told the last person who asked that if one could understand and use negative numbers one was a reasoning being.)
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