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.
That ‘have a drink in social situations’ thing is about mind alteration too. What do you think that ‘loosen up/relax’ bit comes from? HOW do you think you ‘loosen up and relax’?
And those were staunch right-wingers in the majority on Roe v. Wade? How about today? Who are the advocates today? We can find “exceptions’ to every generalization.
And people drink mainly for social reasons, not to get messed up. Dope is 100% about mind alteration.
People drank 100% to get messed up when that drug was illegal - and plenty of them still do so today.
There is violence connected with the Oxycontin trade, it’s just that it’s tangled up in all the other illegal trades. Which renders the drug war preposterous to my mind, when we have the exact same problem wth halfway legal as totally outlawed substances.
Drugs also come in via established shipping channels. What do you think it would cost to screen EVERY item imported into this country?
And what should be done about all the domestically produced drugs?
Getting a conviction on most crimes is an impossible task even with eye witnesses. If the local burglar stealing my stuff never gets caught for stealing but gets arrested for possession and goes to jail at least he is not stealing my stuff any more. After 3 convictions he qualifies for lifer status. Feel free to substitute child molester and the act of molesting in this scenario.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You don’t understand. Pot smokers are highly regarded tax-paying productive members of society. They never break laws and are never on welfare roles. We need more dopers and we need to legalize pot so we can tax it. And this time - the higher taxes WON’T lead to more government.
(At least this is what the pro-dope crowd tells me)
The article doesn’t even consider all the “wrong house” raids and family dogs shot-—practices defended because their practitioners insist those tactics are necessary to fight the “War on Drugs”.
I'll bet they tell you no such thing - prove me wrong and provide an exact quotation.
Making more drugs legal seems stupid. I say go with meth. Legalize that, and see how it goes. Go for the extreme.
I say alcohol is a necessary evil, but anything harder including pot is not.
Pot affects people differently than drinking. It produces mind changes that start liberalism. And it attracts liberal kumbaya types. Period.
Roe v. Wade was a 7-2 decision, with Nixon appointees Burger and Blackmun in the majority. And on the other topic you mentioned, divorce, red states were at least as fast as blue states (often faster) to adopt no-fault divorce. In fact, the last hold-out against no-fault divorce was New York.
Actually, if you bothered to look at the campaign funding, you would see that it was the alcohol lobby, the prison guard unions, police unions and the private prison corporations that piled millions into the effort to defeat it because it was going to interfere with their business model. But don't let what really happened get in the way of that fetish for using big government to make people live the way you say they should.
Sure they are, if there is a law against them.
I understand your point, but it's not that these aren't crimes, it is that they should not be crimes, a point for which I think there are good arguments.
A crime is anything that is against the law, and a criminal is someone who breaks that law. Unjust laws have been and will be passed. In Europe during WWII it was a crime to hide Jews.
Those probably all oppose legalized meth too. Can we start there since all drugs are apparently the same to legalizers?
If we restrict ourselves to the one shot of which he speaks, yes. But you do realize some people imbibe more than that and on purpose to get drunk, don’t you? And that busybodies tried to stop them with a whole War on Booze back when which failed utterly. Remembering that takes much of the force away from his little joke.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Since WWII, our track record hasn’t been so good.
War in Korea - tied
War in Vietnam - lost
Cold War - won
War in Iraq - we won the first and second half’s, but may lose in over-time
War in Afghanistan - lost
War on Poverty - lost
War on Drugs - lost
MAKE IT: 1-4-1 (with Iraq still undecided)
On the other hand, we’re doing pretty well in the undeclared wars:
War on the Family - winning
War on Men - winning
War on Free Enterprise - seems like we lost this war under Clinton, but we’ve since made a big comeback
MAKE IT: 0-2-0 (with free enterprise still undecided)
5.56mm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.