Posted on 07/11/2011 4:48:05 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
The Drug War, with an impact stretching far beyond the inner cities, is one of America’s worst policies. It costs billions we don’t have; it promotes the growth of transnational criminal gangs and supports large black markets in money and arms that terrorists as well as drug lords can use; if fills the prisons and it hasn’t stopped either the use of existing illegal drugs or the development of new ones. Furthermore, as a Cato Institute paper estimates that legalizing and taxing drugs would yield more than $80 billion a year in savings and new revenue. (Something tells me that even the hardiest Tea Partiers might see their way to a hefty excise tax on heroin and cocaine.)
What we are doing now isn’t working. My old CFR colleague and Coast Guard official Steve Flynn used to say that if terrorists wanted to smuggle a nuclear warhead into the United States their best bet would be to hide it in a shipment of cocaine. Since our interdiction rate is so low, the bomb would have an excellent chance of getting through.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.the-american-interest.com ...
On so many occasions (the gold standard, the war on drugs, the Patriot Act), I and others had dismissed Libertarian concerns about their long term effects. But time has proven them right. Even if I disagree with what Libertarians propose, my days of dismissing them are over.
Prohibition failed miserably once before in this country... the only lasting effect of it was to give us organized crime.
Why anyone in their right mind would expect the same thing to succeed is beyond all logic.
Its akin to those who keep trying socialism over and over again and again, thinking this time it’ll be different.
William Buckley…
June 29, 2004, 12:07 p.m.
Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. The laws aren’t exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating.
General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or — exulting in life in the paradigm — committing adultery. Send them all to
Guantanamo?
Drugs aren’t the real problem, they’re only a symptom of the real crisis. The fact of the matter is that too many Americans want to get high, and value that far more than being productive members of society. America needs some soul-searching to do, the kind that doesn’t involve psychoactive drugs.
This is the prospect no matter what happens or does not happen in re the drug laws. The inner city will decline. Things will get worse there. That is a necessary result of welfare and affirmative action and all the other ways we give inner city people the illusion of a free ride. That itself gives those people the idea that wealth is not earned or created but only stolen and hoarded and they "don't got none."
I'm a libertarian. I do not do drugs. I drink almost never, maybe once or twice a year.
But I wish drugs were legal and the government was out of the picture altogether. Because, once you give the government the right to tell you what you can put in your body, you've given them the right to do so many other things.
The right to tell you to lose weight. The right to tell you what you can and can't eat. The right to tell you when and where and how often to exercise.
Which is exactly what the government now does, every day. And that's just a start.
There is no limit to what the government can force you to do if you give up the right to control your body.
Many so-called conservatives call libertarians dopers. Some probably are, as are some conservatives and some liberals.
None of that changes the hard fact that drug warriors can't have it both ways. It's childish to think that when you give away power to the government, it will never be used against you.
The government uses the same power drug warriors gave up to tell the rest of us what to do. They use the same power to do no-knock-raids, shoot unarmed homeowners, do warrant-less searches, shoot family pets, and militarize local police forces.
Yes 70 to 75% illegitimate births in the black population is a predictor of even worse times ahead.
The “Great Society” has wrecked the black family structure in less than two generations.
A topic which Obama and the MSM refuse to mention.
The relationship between thousands of years of Western Civilization and beer and wine, and liqueurs and Scotch, is entirely different from the Black/Hispanic/Hippie/Addict, drug use that popped up in the last 60 years among some lower class Americans.
One is a fundamental part of Western culture, entertainment, socializing, health, and daily life and dining, and the other is getting stoned and zoning on the couch, like they do in places like the Arab world and the exotic and bizarre East.
Trying to erase alcohol in the West, is even much worse and more impossible than it would be to take away cannabis, among the cannibis based peoples, like the Arabs.
It’s time to end the War on (Some) Drugs NOW.
The lack of honesty in the pro legalization argument isn’t real helpful either. The “millions in prison for drugs” cannard is a good place to start. I’d like to see some hard data on how many people are in prison for drug possession alone. (excluding parolees, people who happened to have drugs on them when they were arrested for other crimes, and people arrested for crimes while using drugs)
I’m not even strictly opposed to marijuana legalization but think the utopian fantasy needs to be gone from the argument. After all, the guy who killed 7 people in Grand Rapids Michigan the other night was on drugs (coke or meth) and he wasn’t about to go seeking treatment regardless of whether it was legal or not.
I do find a certain poetic justice in the medical marijuana dispensers who quickly figure out that legal marijuana will put them out of business and act accordingly. There have also been a few stories about dispensary owners going to city councils in hopes of eliminating competition through restrictive ordinances.
That's not what the prohibitionists were spouting when they outlawed the consumption of alcohol during the Volstead Act.
legalize and tax rape, murder, child molestation and kiddie porn while you are at it
I imagine they weren’t, and now we have it confirmed that the daily use of alcohol is recommended for health.
we need to end those prohibitions on murder and rape, the prisons are full and that is enough proof to show we can never defeat it.
Legal it,
Amnesty for All American criminals.
Excessive alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States (1) and is associated with multiple adverse health consequences, including liver cirrhosis, various cancers, unintentional injuries, and violence.
To analyze alcohol-related health impacts, CDC estimated the number of alcohol-attributable deaths (AADs) and years of potential life lost (YPLLs) in the United States during 2001. This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated that approximately 75,766 AADs and 2.3 million YPLLs, or approximately 30 years of life lost on average per AAD, were attributable to excessive alcohol use.
These results emphasize the importance of adopting effective strategies* to reduce excessive drinking, including increasing alcohol excise taxes and screening for alcohol misuse in clinical settings.
I agree with you. By its nature, it is not a safe industry to work in. Yet, all these supply based strategies only go so far and are expensive, libertarians are correct that operations like Plan Colombia are not cheap. However, that doesn’t mean we just abdicate responsibility, we need to create a society that is hostile to drug abuse and its excesses so that demand plummets.
Anyone can look at Pop Culture today and see that this is clearly not the case, and in fact it just feeds into the drug culture. As someone under 30, I’ve encountered my fair share of drug users, a lot of them just simply have nothing to live for. They’re bored, nihilistic, have dysfunctional upbringings and it reflects on their behavior. Simply decriminalizing drugs or DEA funding isn’t going to solve a serious and complex social problem.
Excess is bad, eating kills countless Americans, if you want to ban alcohol, feel free to go after that.
I mow and mow and the weeds and grass in my lawn keep growing. I can never defeat it.
I should just surrender and give up my kids to lyme disease.
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