Replies

Thanks for sharing your feelings on enumerated powers.

Of course what you attempt to dismiss as “feelings” is the accumulated evidence of actual harm resulting from drug use. That rhetorical slight of hand works best for talk show hosts who don’t get called out on their sloppy logic.

How did easy access to drugs work out for that guy in Florida who ran across the Bath Salts face eater? Do you think he was harmed by the open sale of Bath Salts? How many people get their faces chewed off by people who aren’t on Bath Salts?

Bath Salts are legal. And there are multiple reports across the country of Bath Salts users becoming incredibly violent. Are those reports “feelings” or are they evidence of a very dangerous drug? According to the wizards on this thread Bath Salts would only be a problem if they were outlawed. There are no externalities from drug use in cartoon land.

And how did easy access to drugs work out for John Belushi? Jim Morrison? Jimi Hendrix? For their friends and families, not to mention their fans?

They of course were just high visibility casualties who make the news. There are thousands each year who don’t make the news. I can think of at least half a dozen kids from my own high school class who didn’t make the news but who died as a direct result of drug use.

One had been the gentle son of our school librarian. At least he was gentle until he and a couple of stoner friends began plotting the murder of someone they believed to be a police snitch. I guess that seemed rational to them at the time. But don’t worry, he died from an overdose before the assassination went forward.

And then there’s the nephew of one of my coworkers. A high school kid in affluent Orange County whose parents spent a lot of time with him. His dad used to take him target shooting and horseback riding, among other pastimes. One day the kid’s mom got after him to do some kind of chore around the house and the boy responded by chasing her down and shooting her to death. He was under the influence of a ‘recreational’ drug when he killed his mother.

But of course drug use bears no responsibility and her murder by her son is surely the result of the government’s War on Drugs. Because according to the posters on this thread it’s just the War on Drugs that causes violence, it’s never the effect of drugs themselves. And if it is the result of drug use, well, we will just focus on the individual’s right to do as he pleases and accept irrational violence as a small price to be paid by others.

So, your state government is helpless, your local government is helpless, your community is helpless, and you are helpless, and only the federal government can save you from the druggies.

You might want to check the kitchen and see who's mixing that Kool-Aid.

How did easy access to drugs work out for that guy in Florida who ran across the Bath Salts face eater? Do you think he was harmed by the open sale of Bath Salts?

I think he was harmed by the fact that the illegality of milder intoxicants incentivized both the creation of bath salts and his use of them.

And how did easy access to drugs work out for John Belushi? Jim Morrison? Jimi Hendrix? For their friends and families, not to mention their fans?

They clearly weren't helped in the slightest by the illegality of the drugs they used.

according to the posters on this thread it’s just the War on Drugs that causes violence, it’s never the effect of drugs themselves.

From the U.S. Department of Justice's National Criminal Justice Reference Service (publication NCJ 145534): "Of all psychoactive substances, alcohol is the only one whose consumption has been shown to commonly increase aggression. [...] Marijuana and opiates temporarily inhibit violent behavior [...] There is no evidence to support the claim that snorting or injecting cocaine stimulates violent behavior. [...] Anecdotal reports notwithstanding, no research evidence supports the notion that becoming high on hallucinogens, amphetamines, or PCP stimulates violent behavior in any systematic manner."

Of course what you attempt to dismiss as “feelings” is the accumulated evidence of actual harm resulting from drug use. That rhetorical slight of hand works best for talk show hosts who don’t get called out on their sloppy logic.

"Accumulated evidence" is no more an enumeration of power than "feelings". Who's using "sleight of hand" and "sloppy logic" here? The wailing about "accumulated evidence" is calculated to evoke an emotional response (fear) and stop you from looking at the actual, enumerated powers in the Constitution and asking whether the drug war is covered by the original intent of those powers.

Do you support honoring the Tenth Amendment in the case of CO and WA legalizing marijuana, YES or NO?