[rabscuttle385]

fyi

[a fool in paradise]

drug use, in and of itself, is a victimless act, whereas murder, like rape, kidnapping, assault, theft, and trespassing, is a rights violation.

Except in the case of DUI, deformed or addicted babies, theft to pay for drug habits because some dope fiends are completely unreliable/unhireable (we are talking ALL drugs when we discuss legalization or else you still maintain a drug war), and theft of taxes via welfare support for self-made "invalids".

But it's victimless.

Even when you could buy various forms of speed over the counter in the 1950s addicts would steal to support their LEGAL habit. The educated pot smoking libertarian who puffs gently in the privacy of his home after a hard day's work is not the lone story.

Happy 4-20 day.

[a fool in paradise]

millions of Americans, including at least one U.S. president, have done

At least 2. Three if you count JFK who doped while in the White House (LSD and pot and painkillers). And the public was upset about the captain relinquishing control of the Exxon Valdez because he'd been drinking...

[Hoodat]

There’s a perfectly valid reason why they call it ‘dope’.

[John O]

There will never be the resources to put an end to the lawbreaking.

The resources exist now, the only thing lacking is the public will to use them.

Make selling illegal drugs a capital crime and the entire network of suppliers will dry up (or die) in a few short months.

(Posted this just to tick off the dopeheads :^) )

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

Very cogent post.

I wonder, is the WOD another gov't creation that is 'too big to fail'? Are we doomed to perpetual futility in waging what amounts to a war on personal freedom?

Many supporters of the WOD point out that drug users are often dangerous characters, especially the coke and meth addicts. True, I will concede. However, if they did not have to rob and kill to support their habit, if drug gangs were put out of business by legal distributors, wouldn't most drug users be far less likely to commit violent crimes?

It's no secret that many career criminals, thieves and burglars for example, like to get themselves 'coked up' or high on meth, as it gives them the balls to do the crimes and calms their fears. However, just like guns, criminals will ALWAYS be able to get their drug of choice.

My strand of the argument against the WOD is to point out that ending it will not produce a perfect world, just a better one. And I would suggest an incremental approach. First, repeal all Federal laws against marijuana. Let the states, like CA and many others, have what they have wanted for a long time: legalization for private consumption. Then sit back and scientifically assess the results. If it withers drug trafficking in marijuana, and reduces police work and frees up prison space for violent criminals, good!

Then try issuing licenses to those who want to use the more dangerous 'white drugs' - cocaine, meth and heroin. But make them register as a user, and restrict their freedom to drive a car and have custody of children. No coke head or meth freak should be allowed those privileges. If someone uses without the above license and restrictions, throw the book at them. I have no sympathy for them. Offer programs to get unhooked and abstain. Not all white drug users will accept these restrictions, but some will. The remaining hard-core cases, who want to blow white drugs and do violent crime, would be easier to isolate and deal with.

The gist of the above suggestions is to stop confusing the 19-year-old pot dealer with the hard core thugs who like to get high on serious drugs and commit violent crimes.

These are my suggestions and I know they deserve a lot of scrutiny and constructive criticism, but it's a start. So if you respond, please do so in an educated, rational manner. No canards please!

[Bokababe]

sickoflibs said something that’s stuck with me on this subject: “You can’t have freedom in a welfare state”.

Although I completely agree with you on the “freedom to do with your body as you choose” issue and have repeatedly argued for it myself, I understand the objections of many of those who oppose legalizing drugs.

Drug use will never be a truly “victimless crime” as long as non-users are forced to economically support the drug abuser. Drug abusers may be the exception rather than the norm, but when the number of users go up, so do the number of abusers who’ll spend their lives sucking off the welfare teat.

Like it or not, in the current welfare state system, we have been chained together economically and those chains are already heavy. Carrying those on the chain gang who are anesthetized dead weight drug abusers — even if they are few — still affects those breaking their backs to make a living.

Moderate servitude means legally minimizing the dead weight on the chain gang. Freedom means throwing off the chains altogether.

Until we throw off the economic chains linking us to one another, even individually victimless crimes will collectively still claim victims.

[bamahead]

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[MrEdd]

[narses]

If the idea is to create a drug-free America, then we can safely say that after hundreds of billions of dollars spent, millions of arrests, and decades of escalating police and military efforts, the war on drugs is a complete failure.

Ditto the war against arson, murder, prostitution, rape and many other crimes. Shall we then eliminate all criminal statutes because, well darn it we still have crime? The drug dealers and their apologists are as morally evil as the slavers, pimps and murders are - they all violate the Natural Law and harm even to destruction the innocent. No amount of posturing can make a drug dealer less than evil or a drug addict more than a slave of evil.

[Bryan24]

Victimless.......

I stopped right there.

[ravenwolf]

The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can begin the process of restoring the precious American freedoms that have been eroded in this very evil war.

---

The drug war is just another way to expand the size of government and the control government has over the people.

Once people gets a position in government, especially in enforcement, they soon become different from other people.

They are the good guys and every one else is suspect, so when kids go to school and get into law enforcement before they even become mature adults, there has to be a problem.

How did Adolf Hitler and Joe Stalin get their people in government to murder millions of people?

Maybe a police state and a welfare state goes together, maybe you can not have one with out the other.

Could setting up a welfare state just be the first step in setting up a police state?

If the drug war was the only war that the government had against the people, then i might look at it in a different light.

Anything you do can get you in trouble with the law, from not having your seat belt buckled to smoking in public, forgetting to buy a permit, every thing you buy is regulated, every thing you do is regulated.

The drug addiction has to be a problem, but is it just an outcome of the other problems that the people has caused by
by insisting on all of the government control on every aspect of your life?

It is human nature to resist authority, i do not want some S.O.B to tell me to buckle up, so i may or may not.

I do not take drugs or drink, but if i had of been born twenty years later i may have been a drinker and a dopper both, just for spite against the police state mentality.