Posted on 12/17/2002 9:39:06 AM PST by Joe Bonforte
In a little noticed hearing of the House Government Reform Commnittee last week, Indiana Congressman (my homeotwn's Congressman actually) and longtime drug warrior Dan Burton made some stunning comments. In a hearing entitled "America's Heroin Crisis, Colombian Heroin and How We Can Improve Plan Colombia," Burton stopped just a hair short of advocating the decriminalization of drugs. Watch the video here (cut forward to 1 hour, 18 minutes into the hearing). Here's the transcript:
Dan Burton: I want to tell you something. I have been in probably a hundred or a hundred and fifty hearings like this at various times in my political career,. And the story is always the same. This goes back to the sixties. You know, thirty or thirty five years ago. And every time I have a hearing, I hear that people who get hooked on heroin and cocaine become addicted and they very rarely get off of it. And the scourge expands and expands and expands. And we have very fine law enforcement officers like you go out and fight the fight. And you see it growing and growing, and you see these horrible tragedies occur. But there is no end to it.
And I see young guys driving around in tough areas of Indianapolis in cars that I know they cant afford and I know where they are getting their money. I mean that there is no question. A kid cant be driving a brand-new Corvette when he lives in the inner city of Indianapolis in a ghetto. You know that he has gotta be making that money in someway that is probably not legal and probably involves drugs.
Over seventy percent of all crime is drug-related. And you alluded to that today. We saw on television recently Pablo Escobar gunned down and everybody applauded and said thats the end of the Medellín cartel. But it wasnt the end. There is still a cartel down there. They are still all over the place. When you kill one, theres ten or twenty or fifty waiting to take his place. You know why? Its because of what you just said a minute ago, Mr. Carr, Mr. Marcocci (sp). And that is that there is so much money to be made in it there is always going to be another person in line to make that money.
And we go into drug eradication and we go into rehabilitation and we go into education, and we do all of these things... And the drug problem continues to increase. And it continues to cost us not billions, but trillions of dollars. Trillions! And we continue to build more and more prisons, and we put more and more people in jail, and we know that the crimes most of the time are related to drugs.
So I have one question I would like to ask all of you, and I think this is a question that needs to be asked. I hate drugs. I hate people who succumb to drug addiction, and I hate what it does to our society. It has hit every one of us in our families or friends of ours. But I have one question that nobody ever asks, and that is this question: What would happen if there was no profit in drugs? If there was no profit in drugs, what would happen. If they couldnt make any money out of selling drugs, what would happen?
Carr: I would like to comment. If we made illegal... what you are arguing then is complete legalization?
Dan Burton: No I am not arguing anything. I am asking the question. Because we have been fighting this fight for thirty to forty years and the problem never goes way...
....Well I dont think that the people in Colombia would be planting coca if they couldnt make any money, and I dont think they would be refining coca and heroin in Colombia if they couldnt make any money. And I dont think that Al Capone would have been the menace to society that he was if he couldnt sell alcohol on the black market and he did and we had a horrible, horrible crime problem. Now the people who are producing drugs in Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia and Colombia and everyplace else. They dont do it because they like to do it. They dont fill those rooms full of money because they like to fill them full of money. They do it because they are making money.
At some point we to have to look at the overall picture and the overall picture and I am not saying that there are not going to be people who are addicted they are going to have to be education and rehabilitation and all of those things that you are talking about - but one of the parts of the equation that has never been talked about because politicians are afraid to talk about it this is my last committee hearing as Chairman. Last time! And I thought about this and thought about this, and thought about this. And one of the things that ought to be asked is what part of the equation are we leaving out? And is it an important part of the equation? And that is the profit in drugs. Dont just talk about education. Dont just talk about eradication. Dont just talk about killing people like Escobar, who is going to be replaced by somebody else. Lets talk about what would happen if we started addressing how to get the profit out of drugs.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if, twenty years from now, we could look back at law-and-order Dan Burton's conversion as the "Nixon goes to China" turning point of the drug war?
Neither made these decisions on their own. Pressure came down from above telling them to either do this,or have their own careers ended.
Sorry I don't think you are smart as you think you are. I would invite you to follow your own suggestion.
I took my neighbor to court, sighting the danger in which he places my family, and I WIN, you have no problem with him receiving a judicial punishment, right?
Wrong, and no amount of setting up false scenerios will make you correct. In the first place, courts and juries do not grant rights any more than laws and documents and kings do.
In the second place, even though it's irrelevant, on what grounds would you sue him? Even if you could "sight" him. LOL
Correct
Drug usage is not.
Incorrect.
I seee you are still stuck on this nonsensical BS that rights come from the constitution or some other place like that and that they have to be spelled out somewhere. Put your dunce cap back on.
The following is a link that may help both of you in determining the use of opiates in the latter half of the 19th century. Be advised that it is a long read but has some useful information. You will also find other articles on this site that is a great compilation of the history of drug use and the development of drug laws in our country.
To make the statement that the majority of people during the late 1800s were addicted to opiates is to say the least an overgeneralization, however it is a fact that many people where addicted to opiates during that time period. From the material presented in the above link it can be determined that there are at least three truism that can be found.
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Cute editing, but it won't fly with adults.
The tenth amendement refers to POWERS. It limits those of the federal government and says that those not specifically granted to the federal government are reserved for the states or the people. It doesn't talk about rights and it doesn't grant any power desired by either the state or the people. Your childish reading of it in order to use it to control the rightful actions of other people says that the federal government has the power to do certain things and after that the states and people have the legitimate power to do anything else they desire. It's a fifth grade interpretation.
Your continual idiotic comments about "where does it say drug use is a right" just shows how immature and ignorant you are.
It fails in the same fashion as Hillarycare, ballistic fingerprinting, and most other goverment programs that are for "our own good."
Free drugs? Who called for that, not me. Prescriptions? Legalization? So who is going to pick up the bill for the increase in addiction, overdoses and worktime losses? you assert that but the experience of Prohibition doesn't bear that out, al least not the calamity you imply. How do you keep the heroin addicts off the street? Hwo does it now? What about the winos? who pays for that? Should we register drunks?
As the article stated, we spend trillions (with a "T") on this failed "war". For that kind of dough, we could deal with a few problem addicts and still give you a good chunk of change back. Oh, and my 4th ammendment rights as well, if you don't mind.
You get a little touchy when your ox is in line for a goreing I see (my original post). You belie the weakness of your position by your sophomoric insults. But, hey, have a nice day anyway.
I will rephrase my question then. There is a document that protects the right to own a gun. Which document protects the right to use drugs? Do any of the states have a document that protects the right to use drugs?
I'll help you out, the 21st ammendment can be interpretted (loosely) as a protection of the right to consume alcohol. But thats only one drug. What are some others?
I know, it was meant to say the majority of the population USED opiates or cocaine.
So, you would say the jury is wrong?
Amendment IX - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It is not about the straw-man "right to do drugs", it is about the right to live your life without interference so long as you respect other peoples right to do the same.
The proper question is, by what authority does the government wage war on its citizens. I haven't been able to find that anywhere.
Um...crack? ;>)
A great example, really. An imagined danger. People were killed but since "most good citizens" supported it, it was ok, right.
That really is a perfect analogy.
I don't care what men have written in documents. If the 2nd amendment wasn't there, I'd still have the natural right to protect myself by any means possible, including with a gun. Men and governments can write all sorts of things and do all kinds of things to people. Hell, "government" doesn't even recognize the clear intent of what some men back in the late 1700's wrote concerning keeping guns for protection against enemies, foreign and domestic. Do you realy expect the same government to recognize that each person owns his/her own body and we are all not just at the disposal and whims of the State?
Do you not understand the utter foolishness in believing that men can take a pen and write on paper, "you cant do this" and people magically lose their natural rights to engage in any activity that does not violate the same rights of others?
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