Posted on 05/18/2002 7:44:57 PM PDT by LarryLied
One measure of a good society is whether its individual members have the autonomy to do as they choose in respects that principally concern only them. The debate about heroin, cocaine and marijuana touches precisely on this. In my submission, a society in which such substances are legal and available is a good society not because drugs are in themselves good, but because the autonomy of those who wish to use them is respected. For other and broader reasons, many of them practical, such a society will be a better one.
I have never taken drugs other than alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and medicinal drugs. Of these, I have for many years not taken the two former. I think it is inimical to a good life to be dependent for pleasure and personal fulfilment on substances which gloss or distort reality and interfere with rationality; and yet I believe that heroin, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and cognates of these should be legal and available in exactly the same way as nicotine and alcohol.
In logic is no difference between legal and currently illegal drugs. Both are used for pleasure, relief from stress or anxiety, and 'holidaying' from normal life, and both are, in different degrees, dangerous to health. Given this, consistent policy must do one of two things: criminalise the use of nicotine and alcohol, in order to bring them in line with currently illegal substances; or legalise currently illegal substances under the same kinds of regime that govern nicotine and alcohol.
On civil liberties grounds the latter policy is preferable because there is no justification in a good society for policing behaviour unless, in the form of rape, murder, theft, riot or fraud, it is intrinsically damaging to the social fabric, and involves harm to unwilling third parties. Good law protects in these respects; bad law tries to coerce people into behaving according to norms chosen by people who claim to know and to do better than those for whom they legislate. But the imposition of such norms is an injustice. By all means let the disapprovers argue and exhort; giving them the power to coerce and punish as well is unacceptable.
Arguments to the effect that drugs should be kept illegal to protect children fall by the same token. On these grounds, nicotine and alcohol should be banned too. In fact there is greater danger to children from the illegality of drugs.
Almost everyone who wishes to try drugs, does so; almost everyone who wishes to make use of drugs does it irrespective of their legal status. Opponents say legalisation will lead to unrestrained use and abuse. Yet the evidence is that where laws have been relaxed there is little variation in frequency or kind of use.
The classic example is Prohibition in the USA during the 1920s. (The hysteria over alcohol extended to other drugs; heroin was made illegal in the USA in 1924, on the basis of poor research on its health risks and its alleged propensity to cause insanity and criminal behaviour.) Prohibition created a huge criminal industry. The end of Prohibition did not result in a frenzy of drinking, but did leave a much-enhanced crime problem, because the criminals turned to substances which remained illegal, and supplied them instead.
Crime destabilises society. Gangland rivalry, the use of criminal organisations to launder money, to fund terrorism and gun-running, to finance the trafficking of women and to buy political and judicial influence all destabilise the conditions for a good society far beyond such problems as could be created by private individuals' use of drugs. If drugs were legally and safely available through chemist shops, and if their use was governed by the same provisions as govern alcohol purchase and consumption, the main platform for organised crime would be removed, and thereby one large obstacle to the welfare of society.
It would also remove much petty crime, through which many users fund their habit. If addiction to drugs were treated as a medical rather than criminal matter, so that addicts could get safe, regular supplies on prescription, the crime rate would drop dramatically, as argued recently by certain police chiefs.
The safety issue is a simple one. Paracetemol is more dangerous than heroin. Taking double the standard dose of paracetemol, a non-prescription analgesic, can be dangerous. Taking double the standard medical dose of heroin (diamorphine) causes sleepiness and no lasting effects.
A good society should be able to accommodate practices which are not destructive of social bonds (in the way that theft, rape, murder and other serious crimes are), but mainly have to do with private behaviour. In fact, a good society should only interfere in private behaviour in extremis.
Until a century ago, now-criminal substances were legal and freely available. Some (opium in the form of laudanum) were widely used. Just as some people are damaged by misuse of alcohol, so a few were adversely affected by misuses of other drugs. Society as a whole was not adversely affected by the use of drugs; but it was benefited by the fact that it did not burden itself with a misjudged, unworkable and paternalistic endeavour to interfere with those who chose to use drugs.
The place of drugs in the good society is not about the drugs as such, but rather the freedom and the value to individuals and their society of openness to experimentation and alternative behaviours and lifestyles. The good society is permissive, seeking to protect third parties from harm but not presuming to order people to take this or that view about what is in their own good.
Societal rights and obligations differ from "natural rights."
Society cannot have rights. Only the individual has rights.
Roscoe so frequently quotes "authorities" (albeit often out of context) because he has yet to recognize that the highest authority is ones own individual-self. Roscoe feels as if he is a ward of the STATE and owes the STATE for taking care of him, protecting him. He believes the STATE takes care of him and protects him because politicians and bureaucrats told him so. And after all, they are the authorities so who is Roscoe-the-subject to disagree with what his masters tell him. His master's will tell him what his social duties are and he will be to do their bidding.
What do you think? Na, me neither. He's just fundamentally irrational and intentionally dishonest. And he advocates the initiation of force, threat of force and fraud be applied against innocent citizens by their own government.
So why would "the people" be included in:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I guess what they meant was that when the States are finished deciding what powers are theirs, then 'the people' will get what's left. Thank god the state only passes a couple thousand new laws each year, or the people might someday find the cupboard bare.
I am proud to be an American.
LOL. Well there is always the 9th amendment. Look, I don't remember who said it but it was very true. "The people get the government they deserve". That is a very profound statement and should give all of us pause.
You have proved neither assertion.
So America has no right to exist? Anarchist nonsense.
"It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By a universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society." --Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson wasn't a simpleton, so he wasn't a "libertraian."
I like it! Partners in crime. LOL Buck I have never, for one moment doubted your devotion to America.
I pray we are up to the test.
Just as we respect majority votes in legislatures with regard to making law, wouldn't it be reasonable to respect the majority vote of 'the people' when seeking a redress? In what other form might the voice of the people be made legitimate and apparent to a state that may have acted against their interests?
That would be Republicans.
Buck, the simple answer is that when it comes to intoxicants, legal or illegal, there is always a minority large enough to abuse them to the point of being complete nuisances. The country made a conscience decision to amend the constitution to re-legalize the manufacture of alcohol, consumption was never prohibited BTW, but at this point in time : that is as much "right to get loaded" as the public is willing to accept on a legal basis. Yes, people will do drugs regardless and "prohibition" never works but there are very practical. non-moralizing, reasons for not opening the methods of "self-medication" to every miracle of modern chemistry known or yet to be discovered. Like it or not, we do live in a “welfare state” and the financial burden of legal drugs is heavy enough without opening an unlimited variety of the presently illegal escapes from reality and personal accountability.
Simple.
But it won't happen: First off, when it was tried, it failed. Secondly, there's too much money to be made in the legal market of alcohol.
Interestingly enough, the same is true for illegal drugs, and the money is the simple reason that they will not be decriminalized: Too much money. As a really good example, there was a major problem with the Kansas City Police department. It seems that there's a state law that says if a local, country, or state police agency confisgates money or property in a drug bust, that money goes to a state fund earmarked for education. On the other hand, if a federal agency makes the bust, they split the $$$ with the local police agency: There was a drug bust where the KCPD held the criminals until the Feds arrived, allowing them to make the arrest, in order to split the confisgated $$$. The problem was that the Feds weren't involved with the bust, until the KCPD realized how much money they were going to recover. The KCPD then notified the Feds, who swooped in for the arests. It was interesting to see the state sue the KCPD to recover the money, and force them to be honest in their drug busts. The money from keeping drugs illegal corrupts not only the drug users and dealers, but governments and police as well.
Mark
What do you think? Na, me neither. He's just fundamentally irrational and intentionally dishonest
You have proved neither assertion.
True. But I didn't intend it to be an assertion rather, over several dozen threads Roscoe's posts speak for themselves and that is my assessment.
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