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.
Congressional findings and declarations: controlled substancesThe Congress makes the following findings and declarations:
(1) Many of the drugs included within this subchapter have a useful and legitimate medical purpose and are necessary to maintain the health and general welfare of the American people.
(2) The illegal importation, manufacture, distribution, and possession and improper use of controlled substances have a substantial and detrimental effect on the health and general welfare of the American people.
(3) A major portion of the traffic in controlled substances flows through interstate and foreign commerce. Incidents of the traffic which are not an integral part of the interstate or foreign flow, such as manufacture, local distribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and direct effect upon interstate commerce because -
(A) after manufacture, many controlled substances are transported in interstate commerce,
(B) controlled substances distributed locally usually have been transported in interstate commerce immediately before their distribution, and
(C) controlled substances possessed commonly flow through interstate commerce immediately prior to such possession. (4) Local distribution and possession of controlled substances contribute to swelling the interstate traffic in such substances.
(5) Controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate cannot be differentiated from controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate. Thus, it is not feasible to distinguish, in terms of controls, between controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate and controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate.
(6) Federal control of the intrastate incidents of the traffic in controlled substances is essential to the effective control of the interstate incidents of such traffic.
(7) The United States is a party to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, and other international conventions designed to establish effective control over international and domestic traffic in controlled substances.
Hey, every con loves a sucker who stays sold...you should be a popular guy amongst the scammers...chump!
One actually is forced to admire the effectiveness of the socialist public school system in conditioning the populace to accept up as down and black as white.
The propagandistic and 'progressive' teaching of history is probably the single greatest crime being committed in our schools.
Oh wait, there's the illiteracy drive and the innumeracy campaign. :^(
Been that way since George Washington was President. So much for the claim that drug laws are unconstitutional.
Not a strawman at all. In fact it IS the argument unless you just want drugs legalized at any cost. Soros is the prime mover behind the "harm reduction" movement. He wants all present WOD funds plus many multiples directed at rehab centers he is already forming in California and the other states in which he financed various pot initiatives. Read up on the "Drug Policy Center" formally the Lindsmith Center. Soros is not advocating a "libertarian" solution that is, if the libertarian solution as espoused around here is honest.
You're channelling FDR again, I see. Do you enter a trance or just conduct a seance?
Given that drugs are so prevelant while remaining illegal, one has to question whether one's representatives are truly voting 'society's will'. I'm not sure what the holdup is, but it would be nice if our elected representatives might someday cast votes with an eye for what is rather than what they might 'wish' to be. This disconnect may be the source for the abuses that the average citizen endures when dealing with the State, whether at a checkpoint or sleeping soundly in bed only to be awakened by a flash grenade as some imformant got an address wrong, or a neighbor with a beef likes to dial 911.
Seems Thomas J's quote still holds true.
You are very confused and using the standard convoluted approach to debate your points.
I advocated no dictatorial enforcement of any kind and putting words in my mouth, doesn't prove you right.
My entire point was, we live in a country that is governed by the rule of law and through the will of the people, in a free and open election process. If you have problems with law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system, work to get them changed. If you don't like the laws, work to get them changed. If you don't like your representatives, vote them out. If you don't like what the majority supports and believes in, too bad.
As a minority voice, you have all the rights of the majority, just not the power and influnce of numbers. If you think its that bad here in the good old USA, then move somewhere that is more to your liking. Otherwise, you have the freedom of speech to moan and groan all you want, but that doesn't mean people will take you seriously, or not object to your rhetoric.
The national drug control policy isn't intrusive or excessive, to law abiding people. American's support it in overwhelming numbers and believe intervention and incareration are proper efforts against reducing drug dealing and drug abuse. Remember, illicit drugs aren't called that for nothing. They are illegal! Period.
Am I making any sense? I hope so, but it is 1 am and I've had a few beers. Flame away pro-WODers, but at least try to stick to facts and logic, if you're capable of doing so.
Aren't you a Canadian? Or do you just have their State's side franchise?
...blahblahblah...
Complete with hands over ears and eyes tightly shut?
You can't have it both ways. Either you believe the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing (when they wrote a minimalist Constitution heavy on individual freedoms from government intrusion), or you believe in Congresses right to infinitely shade the penumbra of meaning anyway they like (effectively a dictatorship by a thousand slices), but you certainly can't believe the federal drug laws are legislatively legal AND Constitutional at the same time. Criminy, if Congress can do anything it believes is in the "general welfare", then we will soon be paying half our incomes in income taxes to support a welfare state! (oops, I guess that's where we are already).
Just please don't quote Congressional legislative self justifications as being the final word on what constitutes the "general welfare" or what is "Constitutional".
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