No - people on drugs commit crimes, destroy their lives and the lives of those around them. The drug trade destroys families, neighborhoods, and communities not merely because of its illegality but because of its effects on the human mind and spirit. There is absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever, no reason, no excuse, and no purpose for drugs like crack. That's none - as in "zero" - and that is a rare thing.
In my mind, there are very few objects or substances in our world that rise (sink) to this level, so as to justify making them illegal. Now, many people would describe that last statement as a "libertarian" position, and I think it is. What it isn't is "absolutist" in the sense that one might believe if the Government can ban "A", it can ban "B" and then "C" and then "D"...etc. No, it cannot; not in this case, and not in any other. A single, vital condition (our Constitution) would be sufficient alone to break the "chain of inevitability", more about which below.
You want to justify legislating on perceived threat. That is exactly how dictatorships arise.
That might just be an overstatement. If drugs are banned... what? The Nazis are coming? You've got to make a more convincing argument than that, Radioman. As a rule, "slippery slope" arguments almost never work. The reason they don't is because they always depend on a theory of inevitability in which mechanisms of connection are presumed to exist regardless of relative condition, value and potential, as well as the incentives and disincentives for human action upon them. In other words: the entire framework of free will and written law is presumed powerless against the cascade of historical inevitability. Marx made an argument like that once, too. Didn't work out too well for him, as I recall.
So America of the 18th and 19th Century (when most of the drugs you are talking about were pefectly legal on all States and Territories and most localties) was some sort of hopelessly flawed society? A den of inequity where the social fabric of society could not be held together?
Sorry, I don’t buy that arguement. The country got by perfectly well BEFORE most of our current drug laws were enacted and I’m willing to believe it could get by perfectly well without them now. Sure, there were and would be some people who would get themselves into trouble by abusing them....and some who would even be made more likely to commit violent crimes because of that.... just as there are right now, and just as there were in the 18th and 19th centuries..... and those people could be punished for the violent crimes they DID commit.
The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of illegal drugs are not nearly as dangerous as they are made out to be. The college kid that smokes a joint a couple of times a year is NOT likely to turn into some strung out killer.
The vast majority of people today don’t abuse drugs because it doesn’t make any sense for them to do so. The same would be true if most drugs were legalized today. We wouldn’t turn into a nation of addicts, anymore then we were in the 18th and 19th centuries. The vast majority of people who have used some sort of illegal drug at some point in thier lives..... are NOT addicts.... they are not hardcore criminals. Most of them leave full, productive and generaly law abiding lives. They are probably all around you and you wouldn’t know it. Thier flirtations with drugs were generaly quite brief...and had no lasting effect of any kind.
Crack is absolutely the worst drug today I agree with you 100% on that point. If you ban the drug you can not track the users. I would rather know who they are and what they are doing. Give the user a license and enforce that.