Posted on 05/05/2011 10:01:32 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
While it took a little while for the Republican candidates attending tonight’s debate to get going, the sheer diversity on the panel guaranteed some spirited answers, paramount among them Rep. Ron Paul’s steadfast adherence to civil liberties, which somehow concluded with him supporting legalization of heroin to raucous applause– highlighting the thick tension between conservatives and libertarians on the GOP.
During a “lightning round” where candidates were asked to answer questions about the issues that would give them the most problems during the primaries, both libertarian candidates– Paul and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson– were asked to defend their liberal stances on drugs. First was Rep. Paul, who Fox’s Chris Wallace confronted with his controversial position that drugs and prostitution should be legalized. His unapologetic response elicited cheers from the crowd, as he argues that, just as “you don’t have the First Amendment so you could talk about the weather,” civil liberties do not exist to protect personal rights upon which most agree. He later likened private freedoms like this to religious freedoms, prompting Wallace’s follow-up: “Are you suggesting that heroin and prostitution are an exercise of liberty?”
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
Reagan was a staunch supporter of the war on drugs.
Guarded from whom?
Agreed re: heroine. Selling that one should be the death penalty. Period.
My longest friend - who I lost for 7 years to drugs before he got clean - agrees.
Pot, though? Legalize it. No worse or less common than beer.
Heroine? Crack? Meth? Sell it, die. Again, period. These drugs don’t just hurt the person who uses them. They create pain and death to all around them.
And that seems to be a good question in the extreme. Obviously the answer is no one that wouldn’t do it anyway. It just makes it easier to get.
Valid argument regarding importation though.
Don’t recall off the top of my head. Read the NG article. And let’s not make me correcting one error into me being the mouthpiece for U.S. drug control policy in Afghanistan.
“Paul is definitely not a statist, and I respect his trust of the individual.”
Well, you would be the only one.
When will Paulbots learn? Ron Paul (or Rand) have the exact same chance as being POTUS as you and I do. The single thing that makes them unique is their very samll group of very, very vocal supporters. Those who think that they can twist the mainstream GOP’s arms behind their back’s and support these nutcases. “Dr.” Paul will NEVER have my vote. Not even for Dog-Catcher. He is sadly not qualified. By the responses here to most of his stupidy, like the present subject, a huge majority of conservatives agree, this man is, sadly, not MENTALLY QUALIFIED to hold ANY public office. Heroine?
Ron Paul people wonder why they are scorned here at FR. Gee, I can’t figure it out.
But “Ron Paul is the only candidate that truly understands The Constitution”. /s
Why not look at Portugal since 2001?
"...in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well."
But, by all means, keep up the slaughter here and in Mexico, the gang bangers here and there love you for your irrational prohibitionist stance. It gives them enormous profits. The police here love it too, civil forfeiture lets them rake in the dough for more toys as they trample the Bill of Rights.
I remember when the first arguments to legalize pot came along. There was no way this was going to lead to the legalization of the harder drugs. Now a Presidential candidate is talking about legalizing heroin and being applauded.
How long will a heroin user be a productive member of society? A few exceptions. To defend legalizing heroin use pretty much tells me you haven’t paid much attention to the meth outbreak and it’s results.
Few things are innately evil. Nukes? Nope, even given their potential to kill millions. Without nukes and MAD, the Cold War would have gone HOT.
Disease? Scary, horrible, yes. Innately evil? No.
Guns? Freepers know the answer there.
But heroine? Yup. Pure evil. It just doesn't (almost always) destroy the user. It destroys everything around the user - unless you manage to disassociate yourself early. It is truly innately evil. A killer of people, and a killer of souls.
This might sound melodramatic to some. But those “some” have never seen the destruction heroine brings. Anyone who has will simply say, “yup, its evil.”
The mere fact the Ron Paul chose to make a stance here shows he's got no clue and is not qualified to be the GOP nominee, let alone President.
That’s a big leap you made there.
Yep...he’s thru.......
i can not help but pay attention to the meth outbreak when bullets are whizzing over my head. When you get shot at for no reason you will figure it out as well.
Fixed and that sounds good to me. let them die
Just to be clear would pot, mushrooms, mescaline or other “native” drugs be OK?
No.
Unless you care to quote the passage.
The idea that government thinks it can ban an element or plant or chemical that God created is only possible because of the innate stupidity of the American public. (Mainly Republicans in these cases.)
I propose a ban on sunlight. It causes cancer. And you can burn ants with it, if you use a magnifying glass.
The commies were smart. They knew we'd do ourselves in from within, by the "Do-Gooders".
Maybe we can keep civilization next time. Ah well.
That’s a good question.
While I tend to agree that civil liberties should come first the drug question is not as simple as some make it nor the panacea it is often described as.
If legalized, it will still be expensive. Drug companies have to list all the potential side effects, build up a fund to deal with lawsuits (I bet heroin would be a helluva class action), and ensure a high level of production quality to prevent problems. On top of the “legal” costs, our politicians will try to tax the crap out of it (see sin taxes on cigarettes creating tobacco smuggling). Stop and think for a second... the FDA would have to approve the drug or variety of the drug for distribution. That costs tons of money and having seen the long term effects of heroin, crack, and meth it won’t be approved using FDA guidelines. The side effects are pretty bad.
It won’t be hard for the Mexican cartels to beat the price of dope from Walgreens and the rest of the social ills from drugs will still continue. I wish there were an easy answer but anyone who promotes the idea that legalization will be all sunshine and sugar does not understand the drug culture or the criminals associated with it.
My own opinion or impression is that probably 85% of crime is related to/or influenced by addiction. Hard drug addicts (and dealers) are not going to go out and get a regular job after legalization happens. We will still have illegal drug dealers and addicts who will use crime to feed the addiction. We will still have the same social costs and if by some miracle the politicians did not tax it and made legal dope cheaper than Mexican dope many of the drug dealers (criminals) will simply find another racket. Hard drug addicts have a hard time holding a job and they will still need to feed the addiction.
How will the FDA approve “legal” heroin, crack, or meth? Anything the FDA approves will probably not be as good as the illegal stuff (or as strong) for the addicts since there is an inherent physiological risks to people who take drugs. I have attended many autopsies of people who OD’d and tossed plenty into an ambulance because they got bad dope, took too much dope, or had a bad reaction to dope. You don’t see lawyers sue drug dealers very often for an OD on a bad batch of dope but I bet the trial lawyers would be lining up to sue any company that distributed hard drugs for plenty of reasons.
Almost two decades in law enforcement and I absolutely agree that we need to try something new but I don’t know what it is. I am sick of the “war on drugs” but it is the law.
Uncle Sam is already paying the bills for half the country and most regular users of hard drugs will tell you that they can’t feed their habit on a government check. If we did not have to pay for the medical costs of Joe Crackhead (or his kids, apartment, utility bill, food, and kids school etc etc) I would not care what they did but we pay huge amounts of money for this problem.
I believe very little would change and any economic benefit would be minimal. I am not saying this to start a pissing contests with libertarians.... I am just sharing some thoughts for your consideration.
Marijuana is a different animal and I have never really cared much about it but I can’t imagine legalizing hard drugs. I sure would’nt want to work the Walgreens counter where they are selling crack, heroin, and meth because that would be more dangerous than crabfishing in Alaska.
It’s not a simple problem and drug addicts don’t exists in isolation from society in a bubble of self-determination because we pay for them. I don’t see any major evidence that marijuana guarantees you will go on to do hard drugs either. However, when you get past marijuana (equivalent to booze in my book) it’s a whole different discussion.
“That’s a big leap you made there.”
Which one? “Dr. Paul’s” 5% of GOP support? Or the scorn that always accompanies his stupity?
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