Posted on 07/05/2005 9:30:27 AM PDT by Sensei Ern
For many years, I have been a strong opponent of legalizing drugs. As you read this, remember that I am still against drug legalization, but I have more sympathy for the opposing argument.
The reason I have been opposed to drug legalization is to protect children. I grew up in a home that was one step up from a crack house..at least we had heat and food. I know first hand what can happen when a child lives in those conditions.
As a counter, I have always felt that use of tobacco and alcohol should be legal for those of a responsible age.
The reason I am considering a change is because of the pain I went through this last month. Four weeks ago, I had a root canal done on a tooth...it was Friday. Once the Novocain wore off, I was in serious pain because the doctor was inexperienced and left a partial root. I experienced pain worse than listening to Rosanne Barr sing the National Anthem. He forgot to write a prescription.
I called the emergency number only to be told I could see the doctor on Monday. TWO WHOLE DAYS IN EXTREME PAIN! I had some 800mg Ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet. That only took away enough pain to convince myself to not commit suicide to stop the pain.
On Monday, I was given a prescription of Tylenol 3 with Codeine and an antibiotic. That took away the pain. Until it ran out. Again, extreme pain. Another dentist did another root canal...and again did not get the whole root. I made sure he gave me a prescription for the pain, before I left the office.
Finally, when that ran out, and another dentist completed the root canal, the pain has subsided.
To be in the kind of debilitating pain I was in, cannot be described. Bill Cosby once talked about taking your bottom lip and pulling it over your head...that comes close.
I have always been an advocate of personal responsibility. That conflicted with knowing that some of the drugs offered today are so dangerous that they needed to be regulated. Then, I thought back about how things were a hundred years ago. The doctor prescribed a treatment, and you either made it yourself, or went to the pharmacist, who mixed up the more potential drugs.
Back then, the only regulation was, could you afford the cost? Drugs were available, and the pharmacist would determine whether you were abusing. If you OD'd on a drug from abuse, you died and life went on for others. But, you could get drugs if they were needed, and you did not have to wait until Monday. You didn't need to wait for approval from anyone to use a drug.
That is enough about that for the moment.
If drugs were to be legalized, they should be regulated like alcohol and cigarettes...have a legal purchasing age. Also, if you do harm to another while under the influence of anything, you should be held personally responsible...to the fullest extent, especially capital punishment for causing a death. If you are taking drugs to get high, strap yourself into a chair and sleep it off.
If drugs were immediately legalized, we could expect some immediate effects. For one, the drug addicts would run out and by everything, and we would have a rash of overdosing for about a month. The rest of us could then go on with our lives, only mourning the loss of a relative, instead of daily living with the horror of a drug addict in our lives.
Currently, I believe law enforcement should be stronger. But, I could be moved to undecided if I heard good arguments for the opposite.
--Pray for our troops --Pray they have wisdom to do the right thing --Pray they remain courageous --Pray they know we love and support them --Pray they get the equipment they need to do the job --Pray for their safe return home to a hero’s welcome
Ah -- maybe we're passing each other on terminology.
By 'goal', I mean the desired end-point of a process. The 'point' of it, so to speak.
For example, the 'goal' of a system of gun control laws is to increase 'safety' -- defined in this case by fewer gun injuries and deaths. I think it's important to understand this, only by understanding the other side can we fight them.
The problem, again, is in the 'methods', or the 'implementation'. The 'method' of 'gun control laws' actually create much bigger problems than it solves. Hence, it's a bad system. In my opinion, of course.
And that explains my comments about abortion, also. It *is* a form of "birth control", and by "birth control" I mean "pregnancy control", as you say. Birth control is indeed intended to free people from the consequences of intimate contact, as you say.
Take the way the schools are failing. Conservatives push for a return to tried and true 3R's and discipline. Libs push for the latest whole language, new math method fad.
Hmmm . . . then what about 'vouchers'? That's a 'new' system, isn't it? That's my idea of a 'fix' for education. Getting back to my basic principal of 'collective goals, privately managed' -- vouchers are the solution to the 'collectively managed' school system.
I'd allow people to take their voucher and use it for any accredited teacher or school. Allow teachers to take in as many or as few students as they'd like. Allow parents to choose the form their child's education would take. If they want a specialized education, or a Christian education, or a 'liberal arts' education, fine. It just seems like the best possible system.
Now, according to your definitions, that would be a 'liberal' position. I just have a hard time accepting that.
But if said drugs are actually sold across State or National borders, the Congress can regulate that commerce. That is the original intent. That is what I was refering to.
I would call vouchers an appeal to individualism (method) to free up resources and allow a person to choose to return to a school that employs traditional pedagogical practices. The "goal", in this case, is to obtain traditional education for one's offspring, and the ideal being "well learned children".
In this case, the vouchers are a tweaking of a "broken" system, which a conservative would find desirable, because it would allow him to reinstate a known, working educational model.
For example, the 'goal' of a system of gun control laws is to increase 'safety' -- defined in this case by fewer gun injuries and deaths. I think it's important to understand this, only by understanding the other side can we fight them.
Cast into my terminology: the ideal for both sides is "safety". Libs think more safety is to be found in the absence of guns, so they set a goal of limiting firearms to the public, through the method of governmental power. Cons think more safety is to be found in self-defense, so they set the goal of maintaining the ownership of firearms, via the method of appealing to the individual rights of the citizenry. Since that is the default position IRT the 2nd A., the Cons are in the position of defense, and the Libs in the position of attack.
The opposing political philosophies can be discerned by their guiding theories about the best way to get "safety".
Then why was a Constitutional amendment required to prohibit the interstate (as well as intrastate) sale of alcohol?
Repeating your opinion does not make it so. Can you point to case law or Constitutional provision that states that prohibitions employed by States are not reasonable regs when dealing with deadly dangerous substances?
Your quote from Harlan: "[Liberty] is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints . . . ", does not obtain, since the restraint of prohibitions need not be arbitrary and purposeless. Indeed, the opposition would argue that prohibitions of drugs are targeted and to specific purpose, in a word, reasonable.
If a prohibition in all cases is unconstitutional, what barrier is there to owning radioactive waste, small pox virus, rabid or diseased animals, or other inherently dangerous items? Besides, there are things absolutely prohibited to us to own, right within the Constitution. Namely, fellow humans.
I didn't say prohibit. I said regulate. The Feds can tax, require labeling, purity standards, inspections, licensing and a myriad of other impediments to anything sold across borders. If they put their mind to it, they can make the impediments tantamount to prohibition without actually banning something.
If the SCOTUS were to declare prohibition of cocaine unconstitutional tomorrow, the Congress could still slap on an import duty of $10,000 per kilo the next day.
I think you were responding to my post. No, they would not. The only people I could contact was an answering service. They promised to contact the dentist. They finally contacted him at 9:30 pm...well after the drug store closed...I guess in India it was around 9:30 am so they did not figure it would be a problem for me to get the medicine.
I am offended you called me a liar, but I have never presented any reason to question me, other than it goes against your pre-supposition.
Sorry, the law doesn't work that way. It's a long-held principle that regulations, restrictions, or taxes that constitute prohibition de facto are the same as prohibitions de jure, and if the latter are illegal, so are the former. See for example Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen v. Florio (requiring a machine gun permit to own an air rifle constitutes a ban on air rifles) and Metromedia v. San Diego (banning commercial billboards while allowing only noncommercial billboards constitutes a ban on all billboard advertising). These may not be the best cases to illustrate the principle (I'm a bit rushed at the moment), but a principle it is.
Ah, being the Voice of Reason for once
You stated...I am sick and tired of people disregarding the dangers of drug use in order to feed some need they have.
Then I responded with warning ads that are placed on cigarette packages since cigarettes, which contain nicotine, are considered drugs by several government agencies and private organizations. I did that as an example of how insipidly stupid your "rationalization" was.
Now then, regarding more directly your previous point and your subsequent response...since smoking cigarettes "feeds the need" a smoker has, address how others are "endangered" by this act, especially if it isn't done in public?
(and please, don't throw out "second hand smoke" as a public example because it's been shown in numerous places that the "study" saying it harmed others was nothing but pure propaganda)
And lets add just a few more question to further show how insipidly stupid your "rationalization" is...Who is endangered when coffee, which contains the drug caffeine, is drunk?
The drugs caffeine and nicotine do have inherent dangers, don't they? Aren't the surgeon general warnings sufficient in allowing an individual the right to choose to or not to undertake an action that "might" be harmful to that individual?
By George, I think you've got it!
How so, exactly? Please limit your examples to those which do not involve overt, external action on the part of one individual, i.e., a "drug addict robbing a convenience store in order to get money to buy drugs."
There are many ways drug abuse affects other people. Traffic safety is just one example.
In what way are existing traffic laws ineffective unless the possession, ingestion, or distribution of certain substances are criminalized? In other words, why do you assume existing traffic laws are not enough to ensure a baseline of traffic safety?
If this nation were to return to its Christian heritage people would abstain from drugs like marijuana without the need for government to codify it. If a small number of people did use these drugs, laws regulating them would not be necessary either.
I'm beginning to sense your true ideology . . .
It's a principle often honored in the breach. Again, it comes back to a judiciary divorced from Constitutional principles. The Feds can and do apply standards so onerous as to prevent some products from being profitable to sell if the regs are followed. Moonshine liquor, for example.
A similar example can be seen at the both the Fed and State level with the various anti-gun legislation that are de facto bans. "Assault" weapons, "cheap Saturday Night Specials", .50 cals, taxes and I.D. serial numbers on ammunition, electronic "smart gun" requirements, even the machine gun permits - all these are just thinly veiled ways of prohibiting arms under color of public safety or criminal tracking.
Yes, but right now we're speaking hypothetically, under the hypothesis that the Federal government actually did abide by the Constitution and the courts actually did check the executive and the legislature like they're supposed to. You stated that the Constitution would be no bar to the federal government imposing onerous taxes on the interstate trade in drugs, but that's not so. If the government imposed a tax whose purpose was not to raise revenue but was instead to serve as a backdoor ban, that would not be Constitutional, any more than would be a trillion-dollar tax on printing presses.
The examples you cite above are so lofty and over-arching that, for all practical purposes, they're meaningless. If you wanted to alleviate the existence and transmission of disease by criminalizing behaviors and practices which promote them, for example, you'd have to criminalize such a wide range of human activites it would render nearly all of us criminals, liable to prosecution, punishment, and banishment from society. In a just society, to deprive someone of his or her liberty, you must prove directly that his or her actions resulted in the loss of life, liberty, or property of someone else.
You're grasping at straws, my friend, in order to justify your stance on this issue.
It is my opinion that there would be an increase in driving under the influence if drugs are legalized.
Do you assume those who drove under the influence of drugs, and injured someone, or destroyed someone's property, would not be prosecuted for doing so if drugs were legalized?
I think alcohol can be consumed for enjoyment without getting drunk, but drugs are used to get high. There is no redeeming quality that I am aware of.
Because you find no redeeming qualities in a behavior is no reason to criminalize that behavior. I believe watching "American Idol" has no redeeming qualities, yet I wouldn't throw people in jail for doing so.
The pro-legalization crowd is going to have to do more than argue personal rights to persuade me.
You're a nanny-stater then, not a true conservative at all.
Sorry, I would have answered you earlier, but my daughter and mother are visiting London, and I've been trying to get info about them. Thankfully they're alright.
In this case, the vouchers are a tweaking of a "broken" system, which a conservative would find desirable, because it would allow him to reinstate a known, working educational model.
This topic is beginning to interest me even more. There's a thread on 'vouchers' going right now, in which some folks are against them because they aren't a conservative solution (in their opinion).
It's really starting to sound like 'Conservative' has become a flexible word.
I disagree with your analysis of vouchers. I'd say the 'goal' is "universal education", the idea that all children should be educated regardless of the parents' ability to pay for it.
The 'method' of achieving that goal is currently 'collectively-managed' schools. 'Vouchers' would simply substitute a 'privately-managed' system.
At least, that's my analysis.
Similarly, with 'gun control' i differ on the analysis. I'd argue that the 'goal' of safety (i.e. fewer gun deaths/injuries) can be reached by gun control laws. But that gun control laws also harm another of our goals -- 'freedom'. Freedom from criminals (using guns to defend ourselves) and I also honestly believe the old, "the 2nd ammendmant is the reset button in the constitution". The ultimate 'feedback loop', so to speak.
So the problem with gun control is that to the gun grabbers, this is all about gun safety. They don't consider the issue to be about 'freedom' at all. That's where their analysis fails, and why they are wrong.
Again, in my opinion, of course!
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