Posted on 01/08/2013 10:59:00 AM PST by Kaslin
Forty-odd (exceedingly odd, I might add) years ago, who would have envisioned a national war against drugs? Nobody took drugs -- nobody you knew, nobody but jazz musicians and funny foreign folk. Then, after a while, it came to seem that everybody did. Drugs became a new front in the war on an old social culture that was taking hard licks aplenty in those days.
I still don't understand why people take drugs. Can't they just pour themselves a nice shot of bourbon? On the other hand, as Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy argue, in a lucid piece for the Wall Street Journal's Review section, prison populations have quintupled since 1980, in large degree thanks to laws meant to decrease drug usage by prohibiting it; 50,000 Mexicans may have died since 2006 in their country's war against traffickers, and addiction has probably increased.
Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics, and Murphy, a University of Chicago colleague, argue for putting decriminalization of drugs on the table for national consideration. The federal war on drugs, which commenced in 1971, was supposed to discourage use by punishing the sale and consumption of drugs. It hasn't worked quite that way.
"[T]he harder governments push the fight," the two argue, "the higher drug prices become to compensate the greater risks. That leads to larger profits for traffickers who avoid being punished." It can likewise lead "dealers to respond with higher levels of violence and corruption." In the meantime, Becker and Murphy point out, various states have decriminalized marijuana use or softened enforcement of existing prohibitions. Barely two months ago, voters in Colorado and Washington made their own jurisdictions hospitable to the friendly consumption of a joint.
The two economists say full decriminalization of drugs would, among other things, "lower drug prices, reduce the role of criminals in producing and selling drugs, improve many inner-city neighborhoods, [and] encourage more minority students in the U.S. to finish high school." To the Journal's question, "Have we lost the war on drugs?" 89.8 percent of readers replied, "Yes."
One isn't deeply surprised to hear it. National tides seem presently to be running in favor of abortion and gay marriage -- two more elements of the culture wars that began, contemporaneously, with the battle for the right to puff pot. Swimming against powerful tides is no politician's idea of a participatory sport. Conceivably, armed with practical (i.e., $$$$$$) reasons for decriminalizing drugs, advocates of such a policy course will prevail. We can then sit around wondering what all the fuss was about.
What it was about -- you had to have been there to remember now -- was the defense of cultural inhibitions. Sounds awful, doesn't it?
As the counterculture saw things, inhibitions -- voluntary, self-imposed restraints -- dammed up self-expression, self-realization. They dammed up a lot more than that, in truth: much of it in serious need of restraint and prevention.
The old pre-1960s culture assigned a higher role to the head than to the heart. Veneration of instincts risked the overthrow of social guardrails that inhibited bad, harmful and anti-social impulses. The drug culture that began in the '60s elevated to general popularity various practices, modes, devices, and so forth that moved instinct -- bad or good, who cared? -- to the top of the scale of values. There was a recklessness about the enterprise -- do whatever turns you on, man! -- incompatible with sober thought: which was fine with an era that had had it, frankly, with sober thought.
Drugs are very much a part of our time and culture, which is why the war on drugs looks more and more like a losing proposition. The point compellingly advanced by Becker and Murphy may win out over the next decade. If so, the drug gangs may disappear, the prisons disgorge tens of thousands. Will things in general be as good as they might have been had the culture walked a different path 40 years ago -- the path of civilized "inhibition"? Ah. We get down here to brass tacks.
People who use recreational drugs are attempting to temporarily escape reality. Attempting to escape reality is insane and cowardly. I’ve been posting this for years, and nobody can refute it. Some try to justify their cowardice. “People in New Guinea jump into piles of stones so it’s OK for me to smoke pot.” Others try to put a brave face on cowardice. “What’s wrong with cowardice?” There’s a question I never thought I’d be asked. Legal or illegal, recreational drugs just produce more cowardly people in our country. I come to Free Republic and, every day, there are people wondering how the Democrat voters could vote for Democrat candidates. IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE SCARED. So let’s have more recreational drugs and produce more chickens who vote Democrat. I don’t use recreational drugs. I don’t like seeing the illegal drug dealers getting rich, but put this under government control, and ALL OF US will be paying for drug use as they hire 250,000 new government employees to keep tab of their money. Yep, that’s right. Legalize it and create more Democrat voters and watch your taxes go up so they can hire more Democrat government employees.
To qupte Brietbart...
SO???
It’s not your right, authority or call to tell another human what to do with his mind. This is not the same as abortion where another totally seperate life is involved.
When you can tell me with a straight face what authority you have to tell me what I can drink, smoke, swallow or inject, you will be God himself.
Until then I am very right and you are very wrong.
That is so wrong it’s hardly deserving of a response. People drink socially MUCH more than to get smashed. And I’d much rather be on the road facing traffic with drivers who’ve had a drink or two than those who have pot in their system. The motivations for drinking and smoking are not the same.
Sarah Palin.
Well you get both every day.
I’m not disputing any of that. It is easier to convict on the “crime” of possession than others. The point is partly that your substitution game is against the dictates of justice. You cannot criminalize petty things as consolation for not being able to nab people for real crimes. Or you cannot and be a civilizef person, in my opinion.
The pony also was all the vast powers and wealth now expended on fighting drug use and trafficking could be redirected toward fighting real crimes like burglary, preferably on the state level. So that we may not ever convict enough, but at least we’ll get more of them. And not on other charges, but for the things which actually violate our rights and cause us harm.
I’ll never understand why you can’t see the shallowness of your own arguments when you defend it on uhf basis of what else it supposedly prevents instead of on the thing itself. The Drug War is constantly being defended because it supposedly helps prevent all manner of other wrongs. But that’s to admit, isn’t it, that those other wrongs are more important?
Find the source for that. It’s easy to do. And when you do... KEEP READING.
You’ll find she does NOT favor legalizing it.
Nice try - thanks for playing.
WRT #5 - what is wrong with experimentation and learning on one’s own instead of just believing what they are told?
I don’t care what any pol thinks. And bear in mind, I don’t smoke dope.
What right do you as a human being tell me what I can or cannot smoke, drink, take/inject?
Where is your authority to do so? Give me chapter and verse.
The closest you can come is ‘consent of the governed. We all agree collectively through our laws that X is what it is.
Now what if the governed change X? What if they no longer agree with X and to be governed? You have a dilemma. Because When this country was founded, it was ALL legal.
YOUR ‘side’ changed X.
So you might want to explain why we are wrong for returning to the original position.
“at least he is not stealing my stuff anymore”
Why even bother with the drug charge, then? Lock him up or deport him. We know what he’s doing even if we can’t prove it, so it serves him right.
Oh, due process, you say? What’s the difference if criminalizing vices is unjust anyway? And it is.
This problem is not confined to drug laws, by the way. We have an anarchy of laws in this country. When a citizen can be charged at any moment for any number of infractions should the powers that be so chose, we have no justice. The tax code is a favorite. Look how they nabbed Caponr not for murder, extortion, racketeering but failing to admit he had committed crimes on his tax forms. Look at Martha Stewart, who is made an example of because she happened to get inside dope and wasn’t stupid enough not to act on it.
The king of these is definitely traffic law: the entry point for most citizens of the law onto your life. Where they get an awful lot of the evidence for drug violations, often in open mockery of the 4th amendment. But I guess it’s all okay with you, so long as we assume they were on their way to molested little children but for busybody cops.
Answer: Probably.
Comment: Since approximately 1960 Americans have increasingly become vice addicted. In dealing with vice it is a cardinal error to believe one can completely eradicate the particular vice. What should have been done was to concentrate one's efforts on protecting the healthy part of society. For example, any adult taking drugs to children would be executed; any person found to consistently have levels of nonprescription narcotics in their blood should be destroyed. Agreements with foreign governments should be entered into wherein helicopters spray defoliants on drug farms. Drug smugglers should be shot on sight-Hellfire missiles should rain down on those crossing the Mexican-American border carrying drugs. In short, the government has temporized, toyed and played with drugs; government has never been serious regarding the use of narcotics. The motive being obvious.
Its status is unique, and meth or crack will not be treated the same way as alcohol in law no matter what form decriminalization takes.
So it's not a good analogy.
She does favor decriminalizing it. Six of one, half dozen of the othet.
I’ll bet they tell you no such thing - prove me wrong and provide an exact quotation.
And I’ll bet you’re a paid agitator from NORML. Prove me wrong and provide documentation from NORML.
First of all, documentation from NORML would prove you right not wrong, Einstein. Second, you - unlike me - are asking for proof of a negative, which is logically invalid.
So back to your highly suspect claim about what "the pro-dope crowd" tells you: can you prove it?
You realize, of course, that your personal inattentiveness is not dispositive proof.
The case of Roy Napier of Laurel, IN is hardly an isolated incident.
According to the FBI, two out of three murder cases are cleared; in contrast, the number for drug sales is assuredly no more than two out of three-thousand.
What is your point?
As the link explains, "cleared" is basically FBI-ese for solved; my point is that the war on murder is going orders of magnitude better than the war on drugs.
Most people aren’t drunks, so most drink to socialize, yes. But 100% of drunks drink to get high, or at least even themselves out. Illegal drugs naturly aren’t as social, for the obvious reason that they are illegal. However, those that use them do use them in groups. It’s just that not all substances have been central to human interaction for thousands of years like alchohol. That’s a considerable advantage. Also, not all users of nonalchohol are junkies. We constantly undercount those who use them for a time then move on, or use them intermittently throughout their lives.
I guess what I’m saying is you’re using a lopsided comparison.
So, in other words, fight only symptoms. Never try to address the source of the disease.
I truly cannot understand the paper thinness of drug warrior arguments.
Flippancy is not refutation.
the shady world of prescription drugs you describe already exist
It certainly does.
Writing more prescriptions is the solution, then?
Funny you brought up abortion. I’d say it’s VERY close to the same. There are people that hate women to take certain pills that might abort. Why can’t they? You think that’s 2 people involved? Well, a drug user typically drags down more than 2 people with them.
That is so wrong it’s hardly deserving of a response. People drink socially MUCH more than to get smashed.
Or so you claim. Why should anyone believe you?
And I’d much rather be on the road facing traffic with drivers who’ve had a drink or two than those who have pot in their system.
Based on your hysterical misperceptions about pot.
The motivations for drinking and smoking are not the same.
There's plenty of overlap.
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