Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

Not at all. You make the same mistake that Brad makes. You don't make any attempt at all to account for all the times drug prevention has worked. OK, drug use went up to 8%.....what about the other 92% of people who don't use drugs? Why is their status as non-drug users irrelevant? You certainly treat it as irrelevant, but it's extremely relevant. The fact that more than 90% of the population does not do drugs is a good thing, and something that would be lost if drugs were legalized.

So, what do you think should be legalized, Scrib? All drugs or just pot? Your argument again suffers from lack of balance. You say yeah several thousand inmates know where to get drugs but you again don't take into account the millions of Americans who don't.

A drug addict is going to run out of money sooner and later and thus whatever the price actually is, will resort to crime. The only difference is that by allowing more people to become addicted to drugs, you now have more people running out of money and committing crimes to satisfy their addiction.

Kiddie porn is illegal, so is incest. Are they forbidden fruits too?

Why does it makes no sense?

Depends on the drug. Ever heard of "crack babies?" There's nothing manufactured about the immorality of drug use. Drugs cause physical harm to people and they are indecent. As for your NFL comment, you are putting all morality on the path to degeneration. The reasoning you are using is that since SOMETHING was once considered immoral SOMETIME then there is no morality. That means everything is fair game: incest, bestiality, kiddy porn, public nudity, anything conceivable is ok, by your line of reasoning. Is there any morality by your line of reasoning or does humanity exist to satisfy whatever whim it may have at any given moment?

People don't want their children to be hooked on drugs. Have you tried to tabulate the costs of legalized drugs? Lots of focus on only half of the situation from the pro-drug folks. Focus on the COSTS of the war on drugs, focus on the people who still do drugs, but no focus on the COSTS of society doing drugs, the health costs, the psychological effects (just of pot I'm talking about here), as well as the effects of pot acting as a gateway drugs to other hardcore drugs.

The effects on WEB are not the same as the effects on the population, especially young people.

When I was under 21, if I wanted liquor, I could get it. So using your argument, it's just as easy to get weed if you are under 21. So I'd say that weed would be as easy to get and probably more easy to get (for children) if you legalize it. If you legalize it, you also morally legalize it, making people not really care about if they sell it to kids. People who sold liquor were willing to sell me liquor when I was under 21 even with no fake ID. So the same would be true for pot. I was also able to raid the families stash of liquor if I wanted (which only happened once though my cousin was not as restrained as I). So there would be family stashes of weed that could be raided now as well.

If other drugs are still not legal, then you still have the same drug dealers and they can sell weed to kids too. All you've really done would be to just flood American society with weed and eliminated the moral taboo of consuming and distributing pot.

Part of the reason that I have no interest in drugs is because I grew up in an anti-drug environment, that same environment that people like yourself want to destroy. You would thus deprive people of what enabled me to have no interest in drugs.

I feel the same way about all drugs.


WEB

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Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

Are you hear just to do "driveby posting"? Just delivering speeches, dumping articles and not engaging in discussion here? This forum exists for discussion, as in talking to other people, not just issuing talking points and articles with no interest in responding to what people on this forum actually say.


WEB

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The Libertarian

Obviously I would never encourage drug use. Thats just silly. Drug use is different than drug addiction though. Responsible useage of illegal drugs is very real, despite common ignorant belief. The argument "everybody would be drug addicts" is clearly flawed because alcohol is legal and why isn't everybody alcoholics? Also because people choose to do them legal or not, the same people who indulge right now will be the same ones who will do it if they are legal. Sure there may be an increase in casual users, but since it will be much easier to use drugs responsibly(much cheaper, no longer a need to associate with criminals to obtain drugs, etc.) the problems related to them will be much much smaller than the problems currently created by prohibition.

The Libertarian

A study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University confirms what many criminologists have long known: alcohol is associated with more violent crime than any illegal drug, including crack, cocaine, and heroin. Twenty-one percent of violent felons in state prisons committed their crimes while under the influence of alcohol alone. Only 3% were high on crack or powder cocaine alone and only 1% were using heroin alone.


Source: Califano, Joseph, Behind Bars: Substance Abuse and America's Prison Population, Forward by Joseph Califano, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (1998).

The Libertarian

After decades of experience, we know the drug war can’t work. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar or a fool. We also know that the costs are huge, to our liberty and our tax dollars. The drug lords don’t entirely mind; they will continue to earn monopoly profits so long as their competition is kept at bay. It is the rest of us who should protest.

But can we really make drugs legal at the federal level? There is no constitutional basis for doing otherwise. Nothing in that founding document permits government bureaucrats to control what we smoke, inhale, or inject. By letting them attempt to do so, we invite every form of tyranny. And no amount of increased power by the feds will do the job. Consider that one of the worst drug problems exists in federal prisons. Prisons can’t keep them out! A free society shouldn’t even try.
If we make illicit drugs legal, people warn, they will be available for anyone who wants them. But that is precisely the situation we are in now. Can it get worse? What happens if people take more drugs after legalization than before?

So be it. People do lots of things that are bad for them. They eat too many cheeseburgers and they skydive. They watch tacky movies and listen to rap. They wear sloppy clothes and forget to floss their teeth. They get too fat and pick their noses. And they ingest, sniff, and smoke mind-altering drugs. A free society deals with these problems at the level of the family, the church, and community norms, not through the leviathan state.

One of the worst arguments for maintaining the drug war is that even if the program cannot work, making drugs legal sends the wrong message to children. But why is this? Should politicians, who are known to frequently mislead the public, be the moral guides for children? Shouldn’t this be up to parents, clergy, community leaders, and perhaps role models in sports, movies, and entertainment? These people should surely be relied on before the state is, when it comes to leading by example. After all, when they fail at teaching values to children, it doesn’t matter how upright the legislators are. And when they succeed, it doesn’t matter how unscrupulously the politicians behave.

What kind of message does it send children, anyway, to continue the horrific drug war? To continue putting young people in prison where they are torn from the productive economy for years, where they are caged with violent criminals at a per-prisoner cost of tens of thousands a year to taxpayers. Where many are abused and raped and become hardened criminals, made much more dangerous to others and society than when they were first convicted – all because they were caught doing something peaceful that tens of millions of Americans, including at least one U.S. president, have done?

What kind of message does it send to children to say that it is wrong to physically attack others who haven’t hurt you and don’t threaten you, but that it is okay for the government to do the same to drug users? What kind of conflicted message do children get in a world where millions of drug users live productive, relatively normal lives and manage to avoid punishment, and yet the ones who get caught are punished more severely than burglars and rapists? How can a child learn about property rights and the founding principles of America and yet be taught that his home or vehicle can be searched one day, as long as some police officer thinks he might have drugs? And what kind of message does it send to say that a failing policy that has wrecked the lives of millions of good people must be continued, despite being a moral monstrosity and practical disaster, all to send “the right message” to children?

Although it is a politically incorrect point, we must recognize that people have a right to put what they want into their bodies, and no one has a right to forcibly stop them. Not only does this truth flow axiomatically from any proper understanding of the human rights to life, liberty, and property; it offers the best explanation of why the drug war has been such an abject failure. Something as abjectly immoral, as contrary to human nature as the drug war cannot bring about happiness or order or civilization or progress. It can, however, effectively destroy lives and turn the country into a much worse place to live.

Scribbler1

How many times HAS it worked? Some people avoid drugs because they're illegal, some for health reasons and others simply because they just don't WANT to.
Yes, what ABOUT the other 92%? And what bearing does that have on the legality of drugs. Surely you aren't saying ALL of those people don't do drugs because they are illegal or would take them if they became legal?
You are focusing on something that cannot be backed up with facts, as there is no way to know WHY they don't take them.
How so? Is there any way to know how many people who don't take them now, would if they were legalized?
No, my argument is perfectly balanced, and I never said to ONLY legalize pot. I referred to the illogic of the illogic of people lumping all drugs together as an illustration of how weak it is to say "society" is against drugs as proof they should be illegal. My own personal feeling that Heroin and CRACK Cocaine are extremely bad drugs is irrelevant.No, I did NOT say that. I said the prisons are filled with people whose only crime was getting high. And you're assuming these millions of Americans could never find any if they wanted some. As I said, just because you don't know where to go doesn't mean you don't know someone who knows someone who does.
I'd say that's a false assumption that addiction will go up if drugs are legalized. For one thing, you can't argue that for the simple fact that they are still illegal and there is no evidence to support your claim as to what will happen when they ARE legal. You also imply all drug users will become addicts. I would argue that most junkies are talked into it by pushers who give it to them free (or extremely cheap) in the hopes they WILL become addicted, and then the price goes up. These pushers exist primarily because these drugs ARE illegal.
Strictly speaking they are, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with drugs. Just because they are also illegal doesn't mean hey are in any way similar. There are a LOT of things that are "forbidden fruits", some MUCH worse than others, but we are talking about drugs.
And taking a drug is a solo activity and harms no one else. Kiddie porn and incest not only DO harm others, mentioning these quite reprehensible things is only trying to demonize drug use by association.
I shouldn't need to say this, but Crack Cocaine and Heroin aren't in the same LEAGUE as Marijuana. Have you ever heard of a pothead sticking up a liquor store? Or NEEDING to?
Of course I've heard about crack babies. Crack is one of those things that showed up because it's more addictive than regular Cocaine and a favorite of drug pushers with an interest in getting people addicted.
You don't seem to understand the economics of illegal drugs. Drugs are expensive BECAUSE they are illegal. The profit margin is in the thousands of percent. I'm not going to get into how the stuff is made or how it's distributed. Suffice it to say that every time addictive illegal drugs change hands, the seller makes a LOT of money. Obviously the stuff is dirt cheap when it is first made, and it only becomes outrageously expensive when it changes hands several times, to allow for maximum profit every time. That's what makes it worth the risk to deal in illegal drugs.
Legalization in the way I've described would take all those middlemen out of the loop and they would stay cheap. It would also, IMO, make heroin and crack a lot less popular because with other, legal drugs available, and a hell of a lot cheaper than street shit, pushers wouldn't generate enough business to make the risk worthwhile, because the PUSHERS would still have the law on their asses.
Understand this: NOBODY who becomes addicted to a drug does it because he WANTS to become addicted. They just want to get high and they don't much care what gets them there. It's just that, when that's all there IS, you can't be choosy.
I never said that.And I KNOW I never said or implied THAT! We are talking about legalizing drugs here and not the relative morality of other things. If you equate snorting Cocaine, for instance with screwing your own child or taking dirty pictures of her then we have a problem here. And if you think I'M saying those other things are okay because of your incorrect interpretation of my reasoning I resent that highly.

You brought morality into this. Not me. But I see no difference in "morality" between knocking down a six-pack, a few shots of Scotch, smoking a joint, snorting Cocaine or taking a load of Oxycontin before doing a radio show. It's a matter of what an adult wants to do when it affects no one but himself. YOUR sense of morality doesn't give you the right to interfere with the rights of others.
Didn't you see those figures I provided? Those were the costs for the War on Drugs and it hasn't done much. Drugs are still here and more people are taking them.
The addicts are the ones hurt by this ridiculous waste of energy and money. I've mentioned how safe and inexpensive drug availability would cut down on addiction because most of the people who would become addicts would have a choice of supply and supplier where they now have none.
And DRUGS don't target kids, pushers do. If, as I believe, legalization would eliminate most of the pushers there would be fewer of these bastards hanging around school yards. Cut out the pushers and make drugs available in age regulated liquor stores and I think you'll have safer children right there.
The so-called "war on drugs" has done little to stop any of that.
Legal drugs wouldn't be available to young people regardless of any advertising, which would probably not exist anyway. These drugs would NOT be sold at Walmart, or even advertised.

Are you even listening to me? My point is that it is available to kids BECAUSE it's illegal. They sell it on the streets and NOT in pharmacies or liquor stores.
You're not getting it. Where the legal drugs would be sold would NOT ALLOW CHILDREN to buy it.
You don't know that, and if the parents were responsible, or had a clue you might try to raid the liquor cabinet they should have locked it and then kicked your ass as soon as they smelled it on you. I know MY old man would have.
And whoever sold you the booze broke the law, just like if he had sold you pot.
There wouldn't be some wide open, drug crazed America where helicopters dropped bags of dope onto the streets. It would be regulated and the appropriate laws enforced.
But other drugs WOULD be legal. My personal feelings about Crack and Heroin are not at issue here. It's a matter of having the right to have a drink OR take a drug if you wan to, as long as you don't abuse the rights of others.
And as long as alcohol, which IS a drug, is legal the whole morality angle is bullshit.
That's the second time you've personalized this in a VERY offensive way. I see no reason for this.

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Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.

The Libertarian

How so? Even if this is a fact, responsible use of illegal drugs is still very real.

superdude17*

drugs are bad. legalizing them tells kids that they are good.

The Libertarian

One of the worst arguments for maintaining the drug war is that even if the program cannot work, making drugs legal sends the wrong message to children. But why is this? Should politicians, who are known to frequently mislead the public, be the moral guides for children? Shouldn’t this be up to parents, clergy, community leaders, and perhaps role models in sports, movies, and entertainment? These people should surely be relied on before the state is, when it comes to leading by example. After all, when they fail at teaching values to children, it doesn’t matter how upright the legislators are. And when they succeed, it doesn’t matter how unscrupulously the politicians behave.

What kind of message does it send children, anyway, to continue the horrific drug war? To continue putting young people in prison where they are torn from the productive economy for years, where they are caged with violent criminals at a per-prisoner cost of tens of thousands a year to taxpayers. Where many are abused and raped and become hardened criminals, made much more dangerous to others and society than when they were first convicted – all because they were caught doing something peaceful that tens of millions of Americans, including at least one U.S. president, have done?

What kind of message does it send to children to say that it is wrong to physically attack others who haven’t hurt you and don’t threaten you, but that it is okay for the government to do the same to drug users? What kind of conflicted message do children get in a world where millions of drug users live productive, relatively normal lives and manage to avoid punishment, and yet the ones who get caught are punished more severely than burglars and rapists? How can a child learn about property rights and the founding principles of America and yet be taught that his home or vehicle can be searched one day, as long as some police officer thinks he might have drugs? And what kind of message does it send to say that a failing policy that has wrecked the lives of millions of good people must be continued, despite being a moral monstrosity and practical disaster, all to send “the right message” to children?

The Libertarian

Through some miracle of rhetoric, drug warriors seem to have convinced the public that they are responsible for some marvelous society where no one uses drugs because they are illegal, but that reformers are responsible for the current situation where anyone, regardless of age or income, can purchase drugs easily with no control whatsoever. And too often we let them get away with it.
We have to turn this around. They are responsible. We sometimes argue that drug abuse problems aren't as bad as you think. In some ways this may be true. A tiny percentage of Americans abuse hard drugs, but the problems created are far out of proportion to the amounts. Current policy increases drug abuse and a host of other problems. We are in a disaster area, and prohibitionists are responsible.

We should sound like a broken record. They support drug anarchy. We support drug control. We should always be talking about strict regulation and contrasting it with the current complete lack of control. The framework is the same regardless of the argument:

Drug Warrior: Illegal drugs cause problem X.

Drug Reformer: So why do you support that problem? It's a lot worse than you say, and you're responsible. The solution is Y, and you're opposed to it.