War on Drugs...

2003TexasGrad

2003TexasGrad

Son of a Motherless Goat
Just read the article on Yahoo about the Mexican political candidate assinated likely by a drug cartel. The article states that 22,000 people have been killed in recent years directly related to the war on drugs in Mexico.
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Some people, myself included, are supporters of legalizing marijuana in this country. The most typical response is that legalizing pot doesnt solve the problem of cocain or meth or heroin. What would happen if any and every drug were legalized? Before anyone jumps off the ship, let me ask, how many of you here would go to CVS and buy some cocain for 20 bucks? Meth? Heroin? How many of you would, really?

Just because its legal doesnt mean you are going to jump up and get high out of your mind. What stops most of you from going and getting a bottle of tylenol and ODing on it? Common sense? Rationality? But its legal. You dont have people killing eachother over drugs you can buy at the store, and they can be extremely harmful or lethal if taken inappropriately.

I dont think these drug cartels want drugs to be legal. They can charge more money and can have greater control over the market when it IS illegal. I really feel that all drugs should be legal, and it comes down to common sense to determine whether or not you are going to use them.

We can talk about health care costs, and thats a valid discussion. Put something on the table. Smoking cigarettes costs what to the American taxpayer? Lung cancer research or care costs are what? What about costs related to car accidents and deaths related to alcohol?

If drugs are ALL legalized and taxed accordingly, people should be able to choose to use them. The "war on drugs" is never going to end. Its just not. I feel that we would be better served to let people just choose to do what they want to their own bodies. They pretty much do anyway. Does anybody have any cost analysis for the ramifications of legalizing all drugs?
 
Drugs are not going away, nor is either their local demand or supply. The "war" is not given a chance for total victory by its most ardent supporters. We spend money and resources on it with the most notable result being supporting prices for drug rings. These drugs were, for the most part, available and legal for centuries. Until racism against Chinese immigrants became a force in 19th century California politics, there was no significant move toward illegalizing narcotics. We need to legalize ASAP out of practicality and the principle that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
 
Legalize it all.

Set back to the early Nixon years where we were more likely to emphasize treatment (not that Nixon was friends with Mary Jane, given his hatred of the hippies).

I like cocaine. How do I know? Because I have used and endorsed. It helps me act like an obnoxious prick, so I don't really do that any longer. Also, the come down is a *****. To hell with that.

I thought pot was okay, but the high lasts too long and seemed to me to be non-directional. Don't miss it at all. I got stuff to do.

LSD lasts too long, though it is worthwhile on a few occasions in the same way that it makes sense to read Moby Dick at least once (not everyone has to, but I understand the interest).

Etc., etc. People use, some people abuse. The laws probably help a few people, but, in the end, criminalization cannot thwart the human desire to put chemicals into play with receptors in the brain. Been doing it, always will. Where there is a will, there will be a way. Criminalization does little more than inconvenience while creating a criminal class that, at its heights, include powerful criminal 'businesses.'

I am not indifferent to the plight of addicts and I have known my fair share of people that have died from abusing substances (alcohol and tobacco through to heroin). Criminalizing their tendencies just adds insult to injury and further destroys whatever little bit of community and family they can muster. **** that.
It is obviously quite possible, even likely, that using will not destroy the user's life. Treat those that can't handle it and leave the rest of us the **** alone.

The money goes down a drain or into the hands of brutal thugs. These laws are window dressing for people who profit from criminalization, sops for soccer-moms that want Johnny Law to do their jobs.

Stop already.
 
We need to make procreation difficult and expensive before legalization makes sense. After that, it's a great plan.
 
Damn right, legalize everything. Then all of those out of work lawyers will have some new pharma manufacturers to sue.
 
Tylenol was a random example of a pain killer or other drug that can easilyy be purchased at any drug store. The fact is that there are lots of legal drugs that you can buy, that if abused, will cause serious damage or death.

I dont think cocain should be treated any different. If you buy it and kill yourself on it, well, thats life. If you let your kids abuse it, then thats your responsibility. Kids already do stupid things with items that are very legally purchased.
 
I dont think you can just sue a company for taking a drug too much. But thats got to be part of the legal process. All the side effects and possibilities have to be clearly articulated so that the buyer, an adult, knows exactly what the risks are before buying.

People die in auto related accidents all the time as a result of alcohol consumption. Budweiser isnt going to get sued anytime soon because someone drank a bottle of Bud Light and then drove drunk, or got liver cancer and died. The risks are plain in sight and acknowledged.
 
I see your point, but glue can get you high, at least kids I knew got high sniffing it... any drug or substance that can be ingested can be abused or taken advantage of. Alcohol is still to me the ultimate example of a legal substance that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.
 
"Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."
-- W. F. Buckley, Jr. (for the conservatives out there)

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."
-- H. J. Anslinger (leading American in helping outlaw marijuana)

"It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve."
-- Henry George

"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
-- C. S. Lewis

"A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"To argue against any breach of liberty from the ill use that may be made of it, is to argue against liberty itself, since all is capable of being abused."
-- George Lyttleton

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."
--John Stuart Mill

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
-- Plato

"While the collateral consequences of drugs such as cocaine are indisputably severe, they are not unlike those which flow from the misuse of other, legal, substances."
-- Justice Byron White

Western history is replete with laws passed and massive undertakings assayed out of fear. The fears that led to prohibition of narcotics started with racism against the Asians, those against MJ largely against Hispanics. Currently we ban these, cocaine, and other substances apparently out of the fear that their use will become widespread and unaffordable to our society if we don't keep them in check. The truth is that after decades of prohibition and a fortune in enforcement, they are as widespread in use and availability as ever. The entire premise on which the war on drugs is founded is false. The negative effects of the war are no fantasy, though: they are far more real than the possibility of winning it. The corruption of law enforcement here and abroad, the distribution gang violence, the exploding prison populations. I am open to the idea that we should override the principle that what we do in private is no one else's business. I would like some philosophical defense first, though, and some concrete evidence that the practical good at least equals the bad.
 
Thats my feeling too Hornbud, and Id like to know the last time someone sued Budweiser for brewing and distributing a substance that causes the deaths of thousands, if not millions of people a year.
 
Better yet, when was the last time the Jack Daniels mob opened fire on the Jose Curevo Cartel for product placement and ownership of the I-10 smuggling route?
 
The problem is not drugs. Drug use and particularly drug abuse is a symptom of deeper problems in our society. Unless, and until we deal with issues much deeper than drugs, they will always be an issue. Do we have problems with alcohol because people drink too much? Yes. Legalising alcohol again after prohibition didn't solve all of the problems around alcohol. Legalisation isn't a magic pill. We will either end up spending money on folks who become addicts, or we will let them die. I see our compassion restraining us from the latter.
The use of most powerful drugs is a powerful thing. Many can be used in ways which do great harm, some can do much good. The drugs in and of themselves is not the issue.
 
Breeding legal competition where all parties actually profit would be good for the economy. Why dont Jack Daniels and Crown Royal kill eachother and blow up eachother's factories? Why dont we see the heads of Budweiser and Miller Brewing putting out hits on eachother's companies?

Because they both legally make billions of dollars. And both are the direct cause of millions of deaths a year in alcohol poisoning, drunk driving and other alcohol related deaths. The drugs are out there, people are using and buying them. However, they are also killing eachother and being sent to prison because they are illegal. Its ridiculous.
 
First of all, this is a fantastic thread. I especially appreciate kgp's quotes. Thanks for that.

Also, to the poster who pointed out that past efforts to prohibit certain classes of drug are rooted in racial considerations, I'd like to add that cocaine prohibition was pushed to stem the tide of purported bad behavior amongst African-American dock workers in the South.

To this day, drug enforcement disproportionately affects minorities in this country - though a solid argument could be put forward that this is due more to economic standing than racism per se. However, that does not change the de facto realities of the "war on drugs" and the impacts that it has on the political and social power structure.

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I support legalizing mj for certain. I could probably be convinced to legalize most recreational drugs too.

However, I don't get your alcohol rant.

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