A Personal Battle in the War on Drugs By Allison Brown

Lew Rockwell ^ | June 11, 2003 | Allison Brown

[yonif]

What do you guys think of this? I do not have a strong opinion concerning the WOD, and I use posts like this to learn more about both sides for and against this.

[yonif]

Ping.

[M. Peach]

Excellent article. I too have recently changed my stance on the WOD. This one sentence summarized the article, and is one that even I cannot deny: "This means that more people become innocent victims of what should really only be someone else’s personal problem."

Every single decision we as humans make is based on two basic elements - the need to gain pleasure or the need to avoid pain. Humans by nature are pleasure seekers, and the need to avoid pain is generally the overriding decision to most of us. When the need to gain pleasure overrides the need to avoid pain - then addiction and (social) problems ensue.

Government will never be able to totally legislate or govern our need to seek pleasure. The only alternative is to manage it in a fair and equitable way that causes the minimum amount of harm to society. At least that's the way I see it....

[LadyDoc]

How would the gangs support themselves?

How many boys who join gangs have fathers?

How many women have babies out of wedlock because the men they sleep with put a higher priority on 'freedom" (i.e. drugs, alcohol, partying) than in working hard marrying and caring for their families?

What is overlooked here is that since drugs became "acceptable" in the 1960s and 1970s, that drug laws are rarely enforced at all. Most of the "drug possession" convictions are plea bargains for other crimes by a court overwhelmed by other crimes. (plea bargains for pushers, plea bargains for DUI, plea bargains for theft, plea bargain for assault of a girlfriend or her kid).

Legalizing drugs will "normalize" the behavior, making it epidemic.

A better argument is the way that Mayor Guilliani cleaned up NYC. the previous mayor argued not to bother with minor crimes, since major crimes were so widespread. But Rudi promoted the idea of "broken windows".

When windows are broken, when graffiti is all over, it sends the message to the neighborhood that disorder is allowed, and that the thugs are in charge. Good people move out, and those who can't move out lock themselves in their houses and apartment, virtual prisoners of the disorder.

Young boys see these rich thugs as role models, perpetuating the problem. After all, to thirteen year old boys with no other role models, a rich pim or pusher is more glamourous than working hard, studying etc. And those boys who actually try to study and work hard are looked on as "sell outs" (the real reason is that the gangs know that these boys are right, and recognize that good students prove by their very life that what they are doing is wrong). Disorder sent the message: you can do anything you want, and you won't be punished. So the sociopaths and their emulators ruled.

Rudi, by promoting arresting "minor" crimes sent a message: this won't be tolorated. Those arrested for minor crimes got the message: get arrested for graffiti, or breaking a window, and you know you'll be punished for breaking into a house, beating up a little old lady for her social security check, or shooting a rival gangmember.

The way out of this is to make drugs unacceptable. Getting high or drunk is unacceptable.

This lady's brother could be cured if there were no drugs. But he also could be cured if he lived in a world where drugs were unacceptable. Right now, the main problem to our druggies in staying sober is their old friends who "visit" and entice them back to taking drugs. (a sober ex user is a threat to users, who know they are doing wrong).

If this lady could not only have the law enforce drug treatment for her brother, but be able to arrest his "friends" when they come back to seduce her brother back to drugs, it would be better. What happens now is that the druggies are back out on the street within hours, able to beat up, shoot, or burn down the house of those who reported them to the cops.

So the good are imprisoned, the good are seduced into ruining their lives, and the children and teens are brought up to think drug using is a fun thing without consequences....

[M. Peach]

You provide an excellent argument, however I feel that the genie is already out of the bag. Just like during prohibition, you can try and stop it from the source - but then you just drive it underground and allow the criminals to profit which equals more crime and disrespect for the law.

Humans from the beginning of time have sought to alter their awareness with pleasure seeking substances, and no laws short of the draconian ones like they have in places like Indonesia (death) or Saudi Arabia (lengthy imprisonment and sometimes death)are ever going to totally prevent it. Is that the answer? I don't think so - at least not here in American.

Legally enforced drug rehabilitation (as Bill O'Reilly proposes) for those who get addicted could be the answer, but allowing criminals to profit only spreads the problem to innocent people as noted in the article.

[fporretto]

What I find amazing is how few of us remember the awesome power of openly expressed disapproval.

There's no question that intoxicants are capable of doing great harm. The word "toxic" is built right into the name! But, as the article notes, government involvement has made matters far worse, just as it did in the Twenties, when city streets ran with blood from gangland warfare over the sale of alcohol.

A law, even a law with the most wholesome of aims, will do more harm than good if enough people decide that it's acceptable to violate it, as LadyDoc notes. How large a fraction is "enough"? Axelrod and Hofstadter's work seems to imply that it's about 2%. Far more Americans than that -- at least 12%, by some recent surveys -- think the drug laws are inane and should be repealed.

BUT...

That doesn't mean the problem of drug abuse is completely intractable. Early 19th century America had a horrible problem with drunkenness. The typical tippler would consume more than two quarts of his favorite guzzle each day! Public order was very much at stake, and legal attempts to deal with the problem failed miserably.

What improved matters was the Christian temperance movement, which gave birth to both the Young Men's Christian Association and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU didn't quite adopt the Lysistrata tactic...at least, not publicly...but it is noteworthy that these groups succeeded in reducing alcohol consumption per capita in the U.S. by more than two-thirds between 1835 and 1865. (See Charles Sykes's book A Nation Of Victims for more details.)

Sometimes the old ways really are the best ones.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

[William Terrell]

Yep, legalizing alcohol after prohibition sure "normalized" the behavior and made it epidemic, didn't it.

[tdadams]

Very well said.

[MrLeRoy]

Most of the "drug possession" convictions are plea bargains for other crimes by a court overwhelmed by other crimes.

Provide evidence for your claim.

Legalizing drugs will "normalize" the behavior, making it epidemic.

Was post-Prohibition alcohol use "epidemically" larger than its use during Prohibition?

The way out of this is to make drugs unacceptable. Getting high or drunk is unacceptable.

Is getting drunk on the legal drug alcohol now regarded as acceptable? If not, why would the legality of other drugs make them seem acceptable? If so, do you support banning alcohol to make it unacceptable?

[MrLeRoy]

Wod_list ping

[bk1000]

You want a kid to do something, tell him not to do it.
Any middle school kid can get street drugs easier than
he can get tobacco thanks to the recent crackdown on underage
tobacco sales. Who can monitor drug sales? Middle school kids
have nicknames for the various local schools based on the drug
most favored at that school...i.e.: coke central, reefer academy.
People fool themselves with this whole WOD thing. Makes
them think they are doing something, while never accepting
any responsibility.

[jmc813]

WOD Ping

[jmc813]

I don't agree with you, but I will say you presented your argument well.

[vin-one]

Mr. L, why even bother, LD is famous for her hit and runs.
never debates,just puts in a post, and buh bye,
her argument is flawed, talking about gangs, and pushers, and pimps,
pushers would not be needed, because you could buy safe drugs, at the local ABC Store,
and the criminal elements of drug dealing would vanish, if drugs were legalized, regulated, and controlled.

[MrLeRoy]

Mr. L, why even bother, LD is famous for her hit and runs.
never debates,just puts in a post, and buh bye

If so, that just makes it easier for me to get the last word. ;-)

[circles]

Uh, drugs are already quite unacceptable and illegal with many, many arrests every day.

Do a google search to see the percentage of arrests that arise only from drug violations.

So I don't know what you are advocating the Federales do further in this war

Shoot anyone suspected of possessing marijuana on sight?

[Henrietta]

"One doesn’t have to spend $200 a day to fuel an alcohol problem, but a drug problem can easily reach that level."

The only reason drugs are so expensive is because they are illegal. Make the WOD go away, and the illegal drugs will soon be as cheap as the legal drugs (alcohol, tobacco).

If someone wants to pump mind-altering chemicals into their body, it's a shame. But it shouldn't be criminal. I choose not to use drugs (well, the occasional alcohol), and wish that other people would abstain as well. But the world does not revolve around my wishes!

[steve-b]

Getting high or drunk is unacceptable.

[LadyDoc, one second after posting] D'OH! Why doesn't this stupid site have an edit button? I just showed how stupid my position is -- by my own argument, I MUST demand the return of alcohol prohibition!

[steve-b]

Was post-Prohibition alcohol use "epidemically" larger than its use during Prohibition?

Every attempt to measure the matter at the time when the evidence was most available (i.e. the years immediately following repeal of Prohibition I) shows that drinking actually went down (for one thing, once alcohol could again be shipped without the need for concealment, the market shifted from high-proof booze to low-proof beer and wine).

During the 1980s, advocates of Prohibition II seem to have undertaken a concerted effort to sweep this inconvenient fact down the memory hole.

[gcruse]

Just Think

Just think of the War on Drugs and the victimless lifestyle crimes. By our making so much private behavior illegal, we are in fact making scofflaw criminals of great swaths of the population. This is corrosive to good citizenship, at the least, which leads to degradation of society. Degradation of society is the primary rationale of those folks who support and demand ever more victimless crime penalties and lifestyle regulation.
Think about it.

_________