Posted on 12/14/2001 10:15:53 AM PST by Native American Female Vet
No longer 'Just Say No': Bush says quit drugs and fight terrorism
By Associated Press, 12/14/2001 13:52
WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush said Friday that drug users aid terrorists who get their money from global trafficking in narcotics. ''If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terrorism,'' he said.
Bush offered a new argument in the fight against drugs while signing a bill to expand a federal anti-drug program over the next five years.
''Drug abuse threatens everything, everything that is best about our country,'' he said. ''It breaks the bond between parent and child. It turns productive citizens into addicts. It transforms schools into places of violence and chaos. It makes playgrounds into crime scenes. It supports gangs at home.''
''And abroad, it's important for Americans to know that trafficking of drugs finances the world of terror, sustaining terrorists,'' the president said. The administration has linked the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan to heroin trafficking. The terrorist group, led by Osama bin Laden, is suspected in the Sept. 11 attacks on America.
The bill signed by Bush expands the Drug-Free Communities Support Program, which helps community groups reduce illegal drugs. The program's budget is about $50 million, and would almost double in five years under the bill.
''Over time, drugs rob men, women and children of their dignity and of their character,'' Bush said.
''Illegal drugs are the enemies of ambition and hope and when we fight against drugs we fight for the souls of our fellow Americans.''
Incidentally, you are aware it's far easier for kids to get illegal drugs than alcohol? Do you realize that's because alcohol is legal and controlled?
Now, try this on for size: since the poppy cultivation during this campaign was primarily in areas controlled by the Northern Alliance, guess what, Sherlock? WE WEREN'T BOMBING THE NORTHERN ALLIANCE, WE WERE BOMBING THE TALIBAN. So friggin' of course we weren't gonna be bombing any poppy fields.
Sheeeez...
Try something similar. Tell a smoker he should quit because growing tobacco uses pesticides. Tell an alcoholic he should quit because Jamaican rum is made by oppressed workers.
The other posters have it right. If you want drug profits to stop going to criminals and terrorists, bring drugs within the law. Then the money goes to companies not unlike RJ Reynolds and Anheiser-Busch. I haven't noticed Auggie Busch funding any suicidal terrorists.
What constitutes a crime? I'd argue, as did the Founders of this great nation, that an action can only be a crime if the rights of another are infringed upon, or if their person or property is threatened, damaged, or destroyed.
Marijuana was legal in the United States of America since it's inception in 1775 until 1937, when the alcoholic beverage industry, the pharmacutical industry, the cotton industry and the wood paper/pulp industry got together and lobbied Congress to pass the Marijuana Tax Act because industrial hemp and marijuana were threats to their livlihoods. It is a fact that the United States Constitution, the greatest document written since the Bible, is written on hemp paper. I dare say that if that same document was written on woodpaper, we wouldn't be able to go down to Washington DC and see it with our own two eyes.
Now, back to the definition of a crime. I would like to quote Thomas Jefferson, the man responsible for authoring a bulk of the US Constitution:
"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him."
--Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816.
"Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia
"The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills."
--Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"An unjust law is no law at all"
--Thomas Jefferson
and finally...
"Resistence to tyrants is obedience to God."
-- Thomas Jefferson's motto
I would also like to take a quick second to have you think about something said by Abraham Lincoln:
"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of Temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
--Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln raises an interesting point when he says prohibition "makes a crime out of things that are not crimes." It seems that our generation has lost the basic ideals which were the fibers binding our country together; that with food in the cupboards and money in the bank, we have forgotten to hold close what is most dear to us: our Liberty.
And what of the Constitutional Amendment passed by the States, outlining the alcohol Prohibition? Why have we seen no such actions taken to the States for this prohibition? Do we not have a 9th and 10th Amendment? Does the US Constitution no longer limit the Federal government, instead limiting our Rights and Liberties to only those 10 Amendments in the Bill Of Rights? I believe not.
I would argue, in the same vein as our Founding Fathers, that a crime is an action that violates rights; that a crime must have a victim and a perpetrator; that a crime cannot be commited against ones self; I would argue that it is not the role of the State to protect one from himself.
Mr. President, would America be better off if you had gone to jail for your drug use?
A report just came out, based upon research funded by the American Bar Association no less. The results? School based D.A.R.E. and other such high-minded programs, despite the tens of millions of dollars spent on them over the years, have had NO EFFECT whatsoever on curbing drug use.
No kidding - they were getting the crap bombed out of them. You still haven't done squat to back up your implication that the Bush Admin is trying to promote poppy cultivation.
Well, define the "war on drugs", first off. The Gallup Organization has been conducting polls on the legalization of marijuana since 1969, and their latest was last year.
The bottom line? Well, apparently the percentage of Americans supporting the legalization of marijuana is at an all-time high (no pun intended). But, that peak level is actually only 31% of Americans that support the full legalization of marijuana. On the other hand, 47% say that the possession of small amounts should not be treated as a criminal offense.
I think there's quite a long way to go if you want to convince people that legalization of drugs is the way to go. Considering that support for legalizing marijuana is rather thin, that suggests that support for legalizing other drugs is going to be even smaller.
But, the demographics of that study are interesting. Break it down by age, and a pattern becomes pretty clear - 12% of people over 65 think marijuana should be legalized, compared to 28% of 50-64 year olds, 35% of 30-49 year olds, and 47% of those aged 18-29. This might portend a continued shift in favor of the legalization of marijuana in the future.
You mean the 'War' isn't working? [surprise!]
"I always hoped the GOP understood basic economics but they persist trying to get water to flow uphill. It is supply and demand, and unless they can genetically engineer the next generation of Americans to have no vices, they will never stop it. Thousands of years of laws and enforcement never stopped prostitution and it won't stop drugs either."
Many in the GOP are all for the free market -- UNTIL it involves something that is deemed immoral. To them, when it hits that point, the GOP is supposed to turn into RIGHT-WING BIG-GOVERNMENT advocates and institute moral policing of its citizenry.
Here in Memphis, there is an adult novelty store, Christal's, that is looking to relocate in an upper-middle class suburban area. Needless to say, some of the GOP's 'Fundy Squad' are out saying the free markets don't apply to 'immorality', and are trying to keep the business from opening. Of course, all in the same area there is a firearms store and a liquor store, but I guess the fundies think that buying edible lingerie locally and having it around the home can endanger children's lives and cause drivers to accidental swerve into oncoming traffic.
Yep ... go figure ...
There are some so-called conservatives who aren't for less government. They simply want right-wing big-government.
That's a rather harsh characterisation. I wouldn't agree. LP was king 20, 25 years ago. Fifty years from now, I bet, we may be saying that CD-ROM and DVD are a joke. Now you want a joke? Take 8 track!
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