On the Border of Madness (Today's Inquisition: War on Drugs)

[gitarmac]

I remember when mary jane laws were pretty much ignored, hell it was legal in Alaska. Then came the "war on drugs". Pot, being easy to find, was cracked down on and worse drugs were developed. In the "60's" folks learned their lesson about drugs like heroin and h usage was practically non-existant in the 70's.
Now we have legal drugs like paxil, prozac, ritilin, ect. which cause more damage than pot ever did. But then theirs money to be made off of prescribing these addictive drugs for everything under the sun. The only money to be made off of pot is keeping it illegal.

[deanf]

Munro, I'm sorry that you and yours feel attacked. When I think of "attack" I imagine a force moving affirmatively against something to take it over and dictate it's conduct. The definition of "attack" at m-w.com pretty much supports my interpretation.

But aren't the forces that you see as attacking really doing just the oposite? They are certainly not seeking to dictate anyones conduct, or to force anyone to take any action that person doesn't deem appropriate. I don't see how a movement to free people from the dictates of others can in any way be seen as an attack.

I appreciate your participation in these threads. You seem to take the time to form reasoned and well buttressed arguments. I like that.

[Don Gwinn]

Personally, I do oppose the war on drugs, but I'm not sure which of the "types" I am. I have never used any drug except tobacco and alcohol, so I guess I'm not a "user." And I can't be an "intellectual" (as nice as that sounds) because I've seen it all firsthand.

Here's the bottom line. I have two cousins who use drugs. They're idiots, to be honest. The one is my age and just moved out of his mother's house; he has an awfully hard time holding a job. The other one seemed to be getting his life together recently, with a job and a house--but the house burned down when he wouldn't replace a few fuses at the insistence of an electrician, and his live-in girlfriend is apparently leaving him and taking their son. No, he never bothered to marry her.

Then there's my future brother-in-law, who's been dating my sister for a couple of years. He's a pot smoker; apparently, so is my sister*. But they're both gainfully employed; neither, as far as I know, has ever committed any crime except smoking pot at his home. I made my peace with the dope a long time ago. It bothered me at first, but it just doesn't seem to affect their lives in any negative way. All the things that bothered me had to do with legal penalties, so it seems my problem is with the banners, not my sister or her boyfriend.

The point here is that, just like picking up a gun doesn't make you a gangster, doing drugs didn't make my cousins losers. They just plain are. When my sister and her boyfriend did the same drugs, they weren't magically turned into giggling morons who knock over liquor stores.



*Just in case there are any interesting lurkers around, I should clarify. I found his pot the summer before last in my sister's car. I have no real reason to believe either still smokes it.

[kjm]

Wow! this is a better thread than the last. The arguements I'm seeing are ranging from the ravings of a 2 year old to the well thought out arguements of someone from some Eastern think-tank. This is really why I love TFL. I suppose that my IQ has gone up at least 3 points since I read this thread.

Keep at it Monroe. It is your arguements that keep me polishing mine.
Thanks for the occasional food for thought Lawdog.
I'm still firmly in the Libertarian side if not more committed to freedom and liberty.

Keep on going, I'm getting a good education here....

[Politically Incorrect]

Let's put everyone in prision because they harm others through smoking cigarettes, taking illegal drugs, taking legal drugs and making their families suffer with their disease and by being an unproductive member of society, committing adultery, owning, selling, or buying anything that politicians think can be harmful such as guns, knives, baseball bats, cars, etc.

Then after we rid ourselves if these people, we can concentrate on those who view online porn, forecast the weather wrong (which I really think should be a crime), crossdress, are late to work, and whatever else we decide is harmful to society.

It's not social engineering, it's protection of individual rights which includes but is not limited to the right to remain silent (so as not to defend anyone), the right to purchase only government approved products, and the right to keep your body clean.


I'm sorry to rant like this, but Munro, I really wish that your local sheriff will suspect that your vehicle was used in a drug crime and confiscate it. Then they can paint it and make it into a D.A.R.E. vehicle to drive around and tell kids to just say, "NO!" to those harmful illegal drugs.

Now, won't you be proud that your nice shiny vehicle is used to teach children the dangers of drugs?

Or perhaps you will be like Peter McWilliams one day, who used marijuana to keep from throwing up the pills he used to combat AIDS and cancer. Unfortunately, Mr. McWilliams didn't die of either of those terrible diseases. He died from choking on his own vomit thanks to federal judge George King who forbid McWilliams the only relief from his voimiting.

His story is told here: http://www.november.org/PeterMc.html

[mrat]

Since my time on TFL I have read many posts on the WOD. Everybody makes the same arguments and I have not seen one person have their mind changed yet. I am not sure I see the point of this but hey it is a free country.

P.S. I use to be vehemently against the WOD on drugs in my younger years. I became a LEO twelve years ago and initially I still thought the WOD was BS. Then I saw how drugs destroy people's lives and now I am ardently against drugs and nothing will change my mind. It is my opinion that drug abuse will be a great contributor to the downfall of our great country. But that is just MY opinion and we all know what they say about opinions.

[John/az2]

Well, sure it will be a contributor to this country's downfall. If we can agree that this country is supposed to be one of/for free men, then so will the WOsD be a contributor to its downfall. Because, it's impossible to force responsibility AND retain freedom. The two are diametrically opposed.

The WOsD is the act of forcing responsibility. And not just for infringements of rights of others, but also for the possible infringement against others.

A pre-emption that assumes guilt until proven innocent.

An arrest and incarceration that further burdens the tax-payer and creates victims (another tax-payer burden) of those dependant upon the "guilty" individual.

Again, directly contrary to our Constitution.

The cry of "We'll be over-run with doped up people!" holds about as much water as the anti's cry against CCW, "It'll be like the wild west where people will be shooting others over a fender-bender!"

Same argument, different Emperor's clothes.

Naked supposition at its finest.

[Munro Williams]

"But aren't the forces that you see as attacking really doing just the oposite? They are certainly not seeking to dictate anyones conduct, or to force anyone to take any action that person doesn't deem appropriate. I don't see how a movement to free people from the dictates of others can in any way be seen as an attack. "

Take a look at today's problems: children born out of wedlock, the drug problem, garbage educational systems, or damned near anything. These problems were not seriously widespread 50 years ago, when the nation as a whole was considerably less affluent than it was 20 years later. We didn't have those problems then. Why are we expected to believe that they are inherent in America, and thus, unsolvable now? Today's problem is that what are called problems are not the real problems. They are merely consequences of the real problem. They are the product of lunatic, oppositional, defiant, political temper tantrums rationalizing irrationality and destructiveness, and then imposing it on the entire nation through manipulation of the educational system, the news and entertainment industry, and the political process. One of the consequences was the election of the Clintons. Twice.

During the 60s and 70s reality-based reason was demonized. Simultaneously, oppositional, defiant , permanently adolescent brats with advanced post graduate and doctoral degrees inherited (and at times, literally seized at the point of a gun, as happened at Cornell in April, 1969) the mantle of the American Intellectual. They gained credibility and license to employ counterfeit logic to impose twisted solutions that made initial problems uncontrollable. In each case, the insane behavior and mental illness that lay at the root of a problem was excused, justified, and then aggressively marketed in dry, nearly unreadable academic journals as "liberation" from an oppressive social system.

Society follows art. Art, in turn, follows philosophy, and the philosophy that dominates the American Mind at the beginning of the 21st Century considers the massive personal and cultural collapse, virtually unkown a half century ago , combined with a triumph of authoritarian, warped, oppositional, defiant insanity (as practiced by the Clintons, for example) as progress.
To paraphrase Oleg, Brave New World was written as a warning. These days, it's an instruction manual.

That is the nature of the attack.

[John/az2]

Today's problem is that what are called problems are not the real problems. They are merely consequences of the real problem. They are the product of lunatic, oppositional, defiant, political temper tantrums rationalizing irrationality and destructiveness, and then imposing it on the entire nation through manipulation of the educational system, the news and entertainment industry, and the political process. One of the consequences was the election of the Clintons. Twice.

This is called, PRIDE.

It is blind, it is irrational, it is defiant, it is oppositional, it always precedes the fall.

[Ipecac]

What if, just what if, the folks here who are against the Wo(s)D are right? Have the pro-drug war people ever actually honestly considered that? For the time being, we'll dispense with the alleged psychological effect on the populace and look at the substance of the issue.

Let's look at the economic side. Restricting any commmodity drives the price way up, so far up that black markets will spring into being overnight. Black markets, in turn, actually create violence since the participants in such a market have no legal recourse should they be wronged in a transaction. Gangs form, and war with each other over turf where they can sell their wares. Further, with addictive substances the situation gets even worse. There is no legal commodity to serve as a substitute, so addicts who once scraped by selling junk to pay for their habits (junkies) are forced to turn to theft and prostitution to garner enough cash to pay for the now very expensive drug. Additionally, the drugs will be made more potent, more portable, to ease the transport and sale in the black market. Crack is simply concentrated cocaine. Proof of concept: Prohibition and winos. Organized crime blossomed under Prohibition, and has never gone away, especially now that they have Prohibition II, a gold mine for them and for all the gangs. Winos panhandle instead of stealing; their drug of choice is legal, and cheap enough that begging gets them by. Obviously, drug prohibition is an economic disaster, and more draconian restrictions will only serve to drive prices higher yet. The cycle will spin farther into violence. Economics tell us the drug war is illogical and actually counterproductive.

What about the legal side of the matter? Constitutionally, the drug war doesn't have a leg to stand on, else why was the 18th amendment necessary to ban the drug alcohol? The 9th and 10th amendments reinforce this idea. However, we blithely pass laws like asset forfeiture and are surprised when law enforcement agencies begin seizing everything they can get their hands on, splitting the take with the government, who passed the law to begin with. We fill our prisons with drug users, non-violent drug offenders who can't afford either to pay off corrupt judges or pay high-powered lawyers. When the prisons are full, we release the violent non-drug offenders, thanks to new tougher sentences for drug offenders. We are "shocked" and "dismayed" when a repeat violent offender is released only to rape, maim and murder again. Illicit drugs are readily available in our prisons and even in our military, via corrupt guards and officials. The only option open to the would-be drug warrior is to create even tougher sentences, to seize more assets to pay for more police and prisons, which we will fill with more non-violent drug users, releasing a new crop of prison-hardened, prison-muscled and prison-trained violent criminals into our neighborhoods. Legally, the Wo(s)D is unconstitutional, unenforcable and a disaster.

Is the War on (some) drugs moral? After all, drugs are bad for you, people do stupid, harmful things at times under their influence. Still, many people do use drugs, licit and illicit, without harming others, to say otherwise is simply false. Don't some people misuse firearms, too? Some folks can't follow a particular religion without becoming fanatical and endeavoring to restrict the beliefs of others. Obviously we don't ban things that are potentially bad for us, else television, hot dogs and sex would be illegal. Isn't a person's body their own to use as they see fit, so long as they don't harm others? Isn't anything less slavery? Unless you believe the state has the right to decide for the individual what is best, the war on drugs is immoral. By the way, if you do think the state does have the right to decide, then you haven't read the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence.

Your body is your own, to feed, to medicate, to educate, to do with as you see fit. The only remaining option is to be the property of the state, a slave.

[Chris Pinkleton]

First of all, I am a libertarian, but I won't go into all the standard libertarian arguements on this -- but I would suggest that anyone who thinks that we're all "dopers" should read "The Probabability Broach" by L.Neil Smith -- an excellent SF/Adventure novel, which is also an excellent libertian polemic on a wide range of issues -- mostly the duty of the free citizen to bear arms! Mr. Smith obviously does not approve of drug use beyond nicotine and alcohol but he recognizes that true liberty means allowing others to do as they wish until their behavior becomes a menace to others. Admittedly, this is sometimes a difficult standard to apply, but I don't see how we could ever have a prayer of winning the current drug war without scuttling the constitution, including the second amendment. Even if we became a true police stste, it is likely we would still have many folks using proscribed substances. When tobacco was first introduced to the Middle East, the penalty for use (not sale) in some areas involved knocking out the smokers teeth, then pouring hot lead down their throat. I'm sure they never smoked again!

But, in one more generation, in these same areas, tobacco use was nearly universal. All the laws and punishments helped not a whit! And you can bet that not many loopholes existed in Muslim courts!

I agree with the conservatives on one thing: the answer to drug abuse and other misbehavior lies in societal disapproval. Social pressures, not laws, are really what keep most of us in line. The problem with legal solutions to moral issues is that they create the impression that good moral behavior is the responsibility of the state, not the individual. At the turn of the century, heroin, cocaine, etc. were availible over the counter, even through the mail. Abuse occurred, but on a far less wide scale than today. Folks saw what happened to abusers, and wisely chose not to follow their example.

Today, we have cops go into classrooms and tell kids that smoking marijuana is essentially the same as injecting heroin. You may agree, but while there have many deaths linked to IV heroin(and many, many more to legal prescription drugs), in 4,000 or so years, there have been NO recorded instances of death due to a THC overdose. Many kids decide that the DARE program may be a bit simplistic and inacccurate. They may decide that crack can't be all bad if that cop in the classroom disapproves -- and certainly that marijuana must be absolutely harmless(which it is certainly NOT in my opinion, and neither is alcohol for that matter). All studies seem to show that DARE, at best, has no effect in keeping kids sober, and it may actually increase the chances of a child becoming a drug abuser. Considering the attitude of the general public towards police officers, sending cops into the classroom to "drug-proof" kids makes about as much sense as using sugar to repel ants at a picnic.

If anyone thinks I'm pulling the idea of the drug war itself creating the drug problem out of thin air, please read the "Consumer's Union report on Illicit and Licit Drugs." It may be out of print, but check a good library. By use of detailed historical research, it shows in case after case how drug use explodes when the government steps in and bans drugs. I think even hardcore conservatives may find they have something to think about after a reading.

I think we would all like to be on the side of the angels on this one, and it is difficult to stand by and do nothing while some folks destroy themselves and their loved ones. But no society in history has ever successfully dealt with a drug problem with hard-core prohibitionist tactics. (I take the SE Asian claims with a few tons of salt -- a friend from Singapore assures me that marijuana, etc. are just as availible there as in the USA -- they seem to limit the draconian stuff to non-natives caught smuggling).

Sorry about the length of this, and my tendency to ramble, but its way past my bedtime, and I have a real knee-jerk reaction to drug-war enthusiasts who think that anyone who suggests legalization is a more rational approach must be morally depraved and black-hearted. If our drug war justifies the highest incarceration rate of any nation ever, why do we still allow the sale of a drug that kills more people than any other(tobacco) and a drug implicated in over half of violent crimes(alcohol). How many good LEOs have been sent to their deaths by drunks?

I can understand pro-drug war LEO opinions, but the fact remains that the police are basically forced to be the "clean-up crew" for folks without much self=responsibility, and see their fellow citizens at their worst, sober or not. The majority of drug users(legal or not) stay out of trouble with the law and hold down productive jobs -- they need the money! These folks will never be on the news, or make an impression on LEOs. They may have problems, but so do many "drug-free" folks. This kind of person would make up at least a substantial minority of the guys I worked with when I did construction work -- and they were safer to work around than guys with bad drinking habits(Not that crack addicts didn't cause some serious saftey issues . . .)

I realize my opinion on this subject must be worthless since I am currently a daily amphetimine user -- a drug which has caused numerous psychotic reactions, proven correlation with increased violent behavior, total degeneration of users to a sort of "walking skeleton" state, hideous addiction, etc . . . but since I have a majic piece of paper called a "prescription" and a guy called a "doctor" who says I can benefit from this soul-killing drug the law says it's fine for me to have 100 or more doses of it in my possession. Funny, I've never been tempted to go beyond the prescribed dosage. You would think they'd pass a law to protect me from what I could do to myself . . .

[Munro Williams]

The fundamental philosophical problem with recreational drug abuse was articulated brilliantly by TFL's own RLK, thus:

DRUGS ARE CHEMICAL SOCIALISM. The goal of socialism is to produce a virtual reality society where maturity is unnecessary, where responsibility is not necessary, where clarity of thought is not necessary, where consideration of what you are doing to other people is not necessary, where feeling good and feeling good about yourself is an entitlement that can be effortlessly achieved without fulfilling any prerequisites, where subjective emotion takes precedent over reality. People achieve the same escape and effect by shooting up, snorting up, or swallowing stuff, or lighting up enough joints. Drug culture and socialist ideology eventually converge for that reason. The alliance between conservatism and drug culture or other bizarre life styles is shallow and temporary, and is limited only to downsizing the size and power of government sufficient to that level where it can no longer interdict drug supplies. Commitment to, or even understanding of, important broader issues in terms of quality and integrity of life are cosmetic or nonexistent. Any such alliances are Trojan horses. I don't view such people as being on my side and don't want their so-called support even temporarily.

... which I posted earlier here:

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...threadid=64684

Please read that, and my other responses on that thread, carefully.

[Libertarian]

earlier Muro said "We didn't have a major drug problem in the USA until the 60s because people had more sense than to get high and stay high for fun."

WRONG!

In the 60's drugs came out of the ghettos and stopped being a colored problem (and nobody cared if they killed themselves off) and became "our" problem. As soon as "respectable" white society found its children using non-prescription drugs the hounds were released and the WoD began.

[John/az2]

I believe you just enjoy reading your own posts.

You have not responded directly to any questions put to you. You have not aknowledged any point that others have made that you agree with. You appear to be a one man argument running full steam ahead, reason be damned.

Almost lost in the psychobabble that you repeatedly post is the message, "society has problems that run deeper than drug abuse," which is true, and with which many have agreed. But, this does not justify the abuses that we see being perpetuated by the WOsD.

Your arguments for support of the WOsD mirror those that the anti-gun people use to garner support for the WOsG.

[Edited by John/az2 on 05-04-2001 at 11:55 AM]

[zot]

history of drugs,morhpine was a serious addidtion after the
civil war,cocaine could be bought in many elixers, heroine
was even thought to help morphine addicts,?when you trust a
government who injected syhilis into black men and let the
disease run its course,did the cia bring cocaine into the U.S?did the fbi know in advance that those kids where going to kill?a war on drugs that targets the poor?its not rich
people doing time for possesion,you who spout how wrong drugs are and all the dapravity you've seen,more alcaholics
cause more crap than a pot head,20 years from now we won't
have people on ILLEGAL drugs, we'll have them on federal
drug control and no one will have guns anymore, and we will
all be good relaxed moral resonsible droids,the war on drugs
is another big brother program to control us, and if your dumb enough to beleive in it then your part of the problem.

[Politically Incorrect]

I don't really want to write anymore until Murno's vehicle is turned into a DARE vehicle.

Ipecac has really made this post worth reading. Thank you for such an excellent answer to the economic, legal, and moral issues to our drug war.

One must ask themselves, if drugs were made legal, would you use drugs?

After prohibition, we did not become a nation of drunks. I know people who don't drink because they know the effects of drinking, and they do not want to experience what alcohol does.

I know people who don't smoke (like me) because we know tobacco's effects of lung cancer, emphysema, etc. and we do not want that for our lives.

If they legalize drugs, would I partake? No, I wouldn't. I've tried marijuana while in high school even though it is illegal. I drank in high school (even though it was illegal for me to purchase). I still drink, but not nearly as often as before I turned 21. I am now able to easily purchase it, which took all the fun of getting drunk.

And if we made drugs illegal, we would not have a nation of irresponsible drug users. One of the reasons that many people do not take drugs is that their employer forbids the use of not only illegal drugs, but also of being intoxicated by alcohol. This however does not stop some people from abusing these substance, but it is a deterrent to those who depend on work to make a living.

For me, I think the 50% of time law enforcement now currently use to combat the drug war could be spent chasing after violent criminals such as murders, rapist, and child molesters.

There was a post earlier on the WOD that if you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and expect different results, it is called insanity.

So when can we stop this insane WOD? I've gone around this carousel enough and I'm about to throw up!! :barf:

WHOA! Horsey!

[Munro Williams]

Show me a messed up kid and I'll show the basic premises that he or she forms his world view by. These are mostly inherited from the parents. It's so predictable as to be almost mathematical. I've worked with literally thousands of kids over the past twelve years. When marijuana is considered on par with beer, serious problems arise. I've seen it in adolescent psych, and I've seen it in English class. There's some serious weirdness afoot in these posts in the form of indignation to observations which are blithely dismissed as “psychobabble,” and in the generally flippant attitude to recreational drug use. This is not evidence of an enlightened, tolerant attitude to people of different recreational inclination, it's evidence of serious denial of reality. If, after over thirty years of the celebration of institutionalized insanity, you can't or won't face the causal link between drug abuse and the decay of American competence, then you are living in denial and are seriously part of the problem.


I used to teach here in Japan (I’m welding now, instead, no longer able to tolerate the similar mindset of other foreign teachers, and obviously unable to be tolerated by them) where cannabis and LSD are legally the same as heroin. Among the Japanese there's a small problem with amphetamines. Most of the dopers over here are either in prison or have fled the country, never to return. In Japan there truly is a total war on drugs. This is one of the main reasons that they're wiping us out industrially and economically. Making machine tools leaves little room for error, and no room for the bland contentment with mediocrity that typifies the USA of today.

My point is that while the USA was producing rock stars, talk show hosts, and other TeeVee types, Japan was producing engineers. Those engineers are now wiping the floor with us. And those same Japanese totalitarians also own all the paper that keeps the US economy going. They routinely threaten to start selling US Treasury Bonds to make sure that trade negotiations never go in a direction they don't want. For all its faults, the Japanese system routinely produces kids who can calculate, design, engineer, and produce circles around American adults, the largest percentage of whom are morbidly obese, intellectually flabby, content with mediocrity in all walks of life, and quick to throw temper tantrums whenever unreasonable immediate sensory gratification or amusement isn't available or faces disapproval.

Somehow folks imagine the fact that recreational psychosis isn't tolerated in Japan and is considered basic human right in the USA has nothing to do with it. The mind rejects, but the senses cannot deny the responses on these threads, and the only conclusion I can draw is that the distinction between adulthood and adolescence has disappeared, or is no longer considered important. No solution to recreational drug abuse is presented beyond stern admonition and legalization for the love of God, indeed, for all intents and purposes, mental parasites are considered victims of repressive government, when the fact is that the entire Western world is the victim of counterculture assault.

If the decline in educational levels, the endemic violence that would have been considered social science fiction forty-five years ago, the obesity rates, the mental health problems, and the destruction of American industry doesn't disturb you, then you either haven't known anything else and think that that's the normal state of affairs, or you have not paid attention to your own eyes and ears. Perhaps you distrust the evidence of your senses. If you can't see a parallel with the rise of Woodstock paradigms and the decay of the USA, then you've got your head stuck in the sand.

Many contributors to this thread share this counterculture, lifestyle-left view of life, and this on what is supposed to be a leading conservative forum. Yep, we are definitely losing the war for self-government, because you folks accept the basic premises of the counterculture. You've been compromised. Despite your protests to the contrary, you are in service to the enemies of the Republic. The fact that you can't see that only shows how successful the counterculture has been in its subversion.

By accepting the enemy premise that government suppression of psychoactive drugs is a greater sin than their widespread use, you help create an intellectual climate where idiocy rules and the conditions of self-government, that is personal responsibility, morality, and rationality, are undermined, you hasten the destruction of the Republic. To repeat myself: we can stand a Draconian Total War on Drugs. It's provided for in the Constitution: Article 1, Section 9 provides for the suspension of the privilege of habeus corpus. We can't survive much longer as a nation composed of nitwits with the attention spans of ten year olds.

Yes, there was wide spread opiate addiction after the Civil War, but there is one hell of a difference between first taking opium to relieve the pain of the fragments of a soft lead Minié ball in your shoulder than smoking the stuff for kicks. Doctors back then didn’t even understand biotics, let alone antibiotics or the rudiments of neurochemistry. It’s one of the reasons we have laws nation wide against dope.

I submit that we're losing the cultural war against recreational psychosis for the same reasons we lost against socialism in Vietnam. The existing policies are not meant to work. They're designed to generate a prevailing mood of resignation to a life of misery among the populace, and a general sense of doom. Had we actually mounted a genuine offensive, we'd have won in South East Asia. If we really want to stop drug abuse in the Western world, which I seriously doubt that many of the posters on this thread do, we can never let up the ideological, legal, economic, legislative, and constabulary assault.

The ultimate solution will be mostly local, with disgusted folks mounting night assaults on the local power centers of the drug trade with automatic weapons, hand grenades, flamethrowers, trained attack dogs, and machetes. When that happens, we need to know that we are doing the right thing.

Freedom is problematic for the mentally ill. That's why there are mental hospitals. Freedom is a threat to the rest of us when it’s enjoyed by those who don’t consider other people as important. That’s why we have jails. Freedom is also problematic for children. That's why we have parents and teachers. When the reduction of human beings into borderline or full blown psychotics, sedate euphorics, manic dobermans who think they’re superman, or squalling brats is advocated to be a fundamental human right, obviously the person advocating such reduction benefits from it, and is an ideological threat to the mental health, maturity, and responsibility , and all the other pre requisites for a nation of self-governing citizens. The argument can be dismissed, because it is self-evidently absurd, at best, and pernicious, at worst.

That's how it works in the real adult world. It's not how it works in college dorm bull sessions, parties, in animated cartoons, or on these dope threads, but that's how it works in the real adult world.

These other bizarre constructs comparing alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine with cannabis and LSD insult folks' intelligence: again, the mind rejects what the senses cannot deny. As for “it wasn’t a problem ‘til white folks started using the stuff,” that’s right out of the “foreign white devil” school of sociology. I remember hearing it (and most of these pro-drug arguments, by the way) for the first time back when I was in high school more than twenty five years ago. It was as irrelevant then as it is now, and is insulting to boot. It’s the kind of talk that will cause police cars and ambulances to show up post haste at the local saloon.

That’s all I have to say about this. I leave you to it.

[Oleg Volk]

Munro, I do agree with you about drugs being harmful to the user and about some users being a danger to others. Works for alcohol, crack and many others.

What kind of solution to drug abuse do you propose that doesn't trample all over our Constitutional rights? Can you find a cure that isn't significantly nastier than the affliction?

(FWIW, I'd rather deal with addled and unarmored junkies than with armored and trained DEA employees...esp. since all drug users I know are significantly nicer people than any DMV employee I've met. Further, i don't see alcoholics commit armed robbery to get money for another bottle...yet crime over that substance was rampant up to the end of Prohibition)

[Nightcrawler]

I must admit, I'm divided internally on this issue.


However, there are some things that need to be mentioned that the drug legalization argument seems to have ignored. Many seem to think that if the drug laws were rolled back overnight, society wouldn't change, and drug use would be invisible, hardly noticable, and that it would go down now that it was legal (and, as they've said, less expensive).

I'm going to have to disagree on this. The transparency would last only as long as it took advertisers to start peddling the drugs. Billboards for PCP, commercials for this or that brand or potentcy of pot on TV, etc. Don't think this would happen? Why not? I'm not willing to support censorship to stop it, either.

Parents might be faced with a problem, too, when their kids hear of celebrities, heros, etc, being drug addicts, yet leading otherwise "healthy" and "successful" lives. It's hard to convince your teenager that drugs are bad if all the "cool people" do them, and it's not even illegal. So, you parents out there would have to work extra hard, but the constant bombarding by commercial advertising might make protecting your children harder. Wait until they see some college students shooting up at the beach or in the park. Why not? You can drink beer in the park, can't you?

Zurich, Switzerland, legalized drugs for awhile. It turned out to be a disaster. Switzerland is a much more...how do you say, uptight, society than the US, as a whole. People there feel a more of a commitment to civic duty and self control, from what I've read. But even there, the city became a haven for junkies, wandering the streets high, shooting up needles in the park, etc.

Many of you don't care about the results of drug legalization, because you believe it is just. I can respect this opinion (freedom has a price). But some of you seem to think that drug use won't go up. I simply have to disagree. Today, we live in a society where amongst young adults, self restraint and control are practically frowned upon (try being the only guy on your dorm floor that doesn't drink, if you don't believe me). Without the threat of the very draconian drug punishments, drug use would expand, exponentionally, and very quickly, and it'd stay up for a time. Did this happen during prohibition? No. But alcohol is different to our culture than drugs are, my friends. Alcohol has been with us for centuries. Heavy drug use in the US was practically unheard of before the 60's. Some of the drugs we have now weren't even invented until halfway through the 20th centruy.

As for pot not being harmful, I have to disagree. It may not kill you, but have you ever seen someone who's been a pothead for many years? Geez louise, they can barely complete a sentence. Beavis and Butthead come to mind. I've met real people that are just like that. We called them "burnouts" in high school, because their brains were fried. Admittedly, it takes a LOT of pot to do this, and I'm not saying any different, as saying that pot is instantly lethal is just as bad as saying it's perfectly harmless.

This, of course, could be avoided if society were different. But society isn't different. This is the age of personal irresponsibility. Why do you think so many people would rather dial 911 than protect themselves with a firearm?

On the other had, the drug war has been an abysmal failure, and has been used as an excuse for usurping several consitutional ammendments. But I don't know if drug prohibition itself is unconstitutional; most drugs are imported, and the federal government has the expressed power of controlling imported goods. Furthermore, like it or not, agree with it or not, Congress has the expressed power to provide for the "general welfare" of the United States. Whether drug use is a threat to that welfare is debatable, but that's the pretense the drug war is being waged under. If, in fact, drug use is harmful to the nation, then by the Constitution, the Congress has the power to regulate it. If you don't like this fact, you have to take it up with the good people that wrote the Constitution, or lobby to have the General Welfare clause removed by Ammendment, or make a concerted effort to prove that legalized drugs are not harmful to society.

All I'm saying is, if you're for drug legalization, that's your opinion, and many of you have expressed it well. But don't try to deny the results, because if you're going to be for something you have to be willing to accept the results.

Like I said, this is a very confusing issue, that has me split. I suppose it doesn't really matter, and won't, unless this debate can ever make the national spotlight. I'd love to see Hannity, Colmes, and a couple speakers debating this instead of, I don't know, Jesse Jackson or whatever. It would do the Republic good to sit back and examine what it is doing, in the drug war, the gun control grab, and many other things.

It's a shame most people don't care enough to argue one way or the other, though. Except the gun grabbers, but their arguments could be compared to me arguing for or against a certain procedure in neurosurgery, because I know about as much about neurosurgery as they do about guns.

[Oleg Volk]

"but have you ever seen someone who's been a pothead for many years? Geez louise, they can barely complete a sentence."

My trouble with this statement is that about half of the most accomplished people I know have, in fact, been smoking pot, taking acid or drinking excessively throughout their lives. They may have accomplished yet more had they not done so but, as they are, they disprove the theory that drug users = losers.

Further, I'd like to ask again "how shall we prevent drug abuse without violating everybody's liberty?"

[exxageration]
As things are now, I'd support poaching DEA doggies simply because they can "find" whatever the handlers want to find. Likewise, I'd see absolutely no moral problem (plenty of practical reservations, though) with eliminating DEA personnel or anyone voting in favor of laws that violate my constitutional rights.

The statement above makes about as much sense as hunting and imprisoning drug users or dealers who are only guilty of using and distributing (not of murder or other real crimes). After all, I am told that drug users are fiends who might come to get me someday and the same has been said about the Inquisitors...so it would be prudent to war on them before they can war on us.
[/exxageration]

I am willing to go with the assumption that drug use is a problem (i.e. I have no desire to take drugs or kill myself or listen to loud music, etc. -- I view all those as self-destructive behaviors)...but is it a greater problem than the so-called solution in the form of the evermore ubiquitous police state?

[Nightcrawler]

Oleg, when I said a lot of pot, I meant, a LOT of pot, but I've seen it with my own two eyes. It can burn you out, but the effects drugs have on people differ from person to person.

I, for instance, would likely be puking my guts out from a single can of beer. I've never drank before, and therefore my body, regardless of my body mass, probably can't handle a sudden intake like that.

On the other hand, I've known people that have smoked and drank heavily their whole lives and have lived to a ripe old age.

But this does not mean that these things are not harmful.

Now, as to how to solve the drug problem without turining the country into a brutal police state (the fears of the legalizers) or a nation of burned out addicts (the fears of the prohibitionists)? Man, if I knew that, I wouldn't be worrying about saving for college. That IS the question, isn't it?

Of course, some might say that we are becoming a police state of burned out addicts. Talk about a lose-lose sitaution...

[C.R.Sam]

Snippets....
Theft, Murder, Assult, Rape, Vandalism etc were crimes before the "war on drugs"

At the turn of the century, "drugs" were used by all classes. Then, as now, a large percentage of professionals were speeders and/or escapers.

The 60s socialistic anarchiacal brats had Tim Leery for their guru. Their grandfathers had S. Freud to lead them to enlightment.

The idea of a Constitutional Republic has been under attack in the name of Socialism since before Lincoln became president.

The illicit drug industry generates multiple billions of revenue.

Sam

[glock glockler]

Now, as to how to solve the drug problem without turining the country into a brutal police state (the fears of the legalizers) or a nation of burned out addicts (the fears of the prohibitionists)? That IS the question, isn't it?

What everyone fails to realize is that drugs wouldnt simply be legalized overnight. We must legalize them, but we must do it in a fashion that will cause the least amount shock to our country.

When you have an Algebra equation, you have an "Order of Operations" that you must follow in order to get the right answer, otherwise everything comes out wrong. The same thing exists with the WoD, it is part of the tyrannical State that we seek to deconstruct, but we must do it in the right order. If we allow hard drugs to be immediatly legalized the publically subsidized health care system will be flooded with junkies (foreign and domestic) who will get on that dole. Same thing with welfare.

Marijuana could be immediatly legalized with no problem, but the other stuff will have to come after the public saftey net is eliminated so that Darwin can do his thing. Drug Laws are part of the State and it must be taken apart with care.

[zot]

marijuana should be decrimanalized, able to grow enough for personal use, not for sale. alaska had this and what happened to it?I saw how indian reservations outlaw the sale
of alcohol to indians, so the indians buy hairspray and drink that,that has to be better on your liver and brain cells than booze, right?people huff paint, their not getting high, their lacking oxygen.I have no answer for HARD
drugs, herione,cocaine,LSD,PCP,these are very dangerous drugs, don't say marijuana is a stepping stone to hard drugs
thats BS, booze must be a step to marijuana?I've seen very
hard working people from all types of lifes and occupations
only smoke weed and only on days off,responsible relaxtion
with a weed? no violent behavior like some drunks I know.
marijuana is a recreational drug like alcohol, but wothout
the bad side effects, and yes you'd be burned out if you smoked it 24/7, but if you drank 24/7 I can be damned sure you'd be dead in soon time. the war on drugs should not be
against marijuana, and decriminalization of this one drug
would be a heavy weight lifted off LEOs and the people who
choose to use it.

[gitarmac]

About long term pot-heads I mean. That's cause some of my friends in my younger years that were potheads didn't have much initiative. But my friends brother has been a pothead since he was in high school and is more financially responsible than I am!! Never misses work, devoted to his wife and family (they don't have kids yet), and all in all a nice level-headed guy.

Then another of my old friends became upper management at a missil plant. He was "exempt" from drug testing, something that many upper managers are. Makes me think something is fishy when "they" keep saying employees must be tested cause "drug users" will steal and not come to work. I think upper management would lend itself to more abuse than other postions, but I digress. This fella has a sterling work record also. His wife doesn't do much all day but then she takes drugs of another kind, you know those prescription ones for your "chemical immbalence", but I digress again.

I agree about the part where the cop or whoever goes to a school and says that pot is the same as heroine, when in fact it doesn't take in idiot to see the two aren't in the same league. Some folks keep bringing up the 60's and 70's but like i've said, after the stupidity of using hard drugs was reveled all anyone I ever knew did was smoke pot. It wasn't till the war on drugs that people went back to the hard stuff.

And for the record, I didn't smoke pot in H.S. I was too goody goody, I believed all the BS about the "dangers of drugs". Most of my friends did though, they all seemed to turn out ok.

Yes there are some people that are sorry and lazy, some of them smoke pot. But this analogy does not take into account the millions of pot smokers with good jobs who do their job well. People like that keep their big mouths shut so they don't lose those jobs.

There are irresponsible gun owners too, maybe we should outlaw guns, criminals use guns, if there were no guns there would be no crime! Yeah, that's the ticket!