Drug Legalization - Page 9 - Political Forum

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 08-10-2007, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dahermit

After 30 or so years of pouring money down the war on drugs rat hole, is not the above what we have now?

If you have to ask that, then obviously not. If things were so bad, then you would have pointed to what is so bad and stated that as proof of how the War on Drugs is a failure. Instead you only supply a questions, which indicates that you have no proof that the War on Drugs has failed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dahermit

The efforts to control drugs has been a failure at this point with no indication that laws against drugs are working.

A real solution would be to take a large amount of drugs off the street, poison it, put it back into circulation. Those that did not die, would stop using. Anticipating screams of outrage at the suggestion, why should innocent people die because drugers are invading homes looking for money to buy drugs?

If you cannot stomach that solution, have drug addicts register as addicts and then give them free drugs paid for with the funds that have been put into the "war on drugs". Dealers would disappear (no profit to be made), drug dealing would be un-glorified, druggies would eventually die from overdoses and other related causes.

Those are the stupidest ideas I have ever heard. If you paid people to do drugs you would just end up with a long line of body bags.

WEB

Bradgriff · 08-10-2007, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

An example of prevention that did work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...al_legislation
Sorry, I couldn't find a link that listed every other law in the United States beside Prohibition. I will concede that you are correct in less than 1% of laws and that I am right the other 99% of the time.

I don't understand what you mean DuBois. Are there 99 other examples successful drug prevention programs found in that monsterous link? Is that why you're 99% righter than me?.....Whatever

I gotta run Dubois, thanks for the stimulating mind cookies.

Wish me luck tonight..I've got 3 guys who are getting thier 1 year clean and sober awards. That's where it's at you know....saving them one at a time, and one day at a time......it's the only thing we have that works. I sincerely hope you're 99% smarter than me so come up with something fast!!!

Bradgriff · 08-10-2007, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodog

Don't most people get hooked on drugs because someone else convinced them to take it?

I'm having this same discussion with Du Bois, it's difficult for non addicts to understand addictive behavior, I don't mean to be presumptuous in that you may have experience with addicts. But, to most of the addicts I help, there was no convincing or coersion taking place. It's usually an older brother or sister that gets em going. I had a guy who's MOTHER got him started on junk at 6.

Addictive personalities are going pre designed to go ka-bloooeey. If there were no drugs, they might cut themselves, or become a sex addict, or a chronic liar, or kill themselves because they can't medicate. Rodog?......hasn't anyone ever told you that if you have an alchoholic in the family that hiding thier bottle does no good? Because they'll buy more.

Anyway....gotta run, thanks for all the mental stim Rodog

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 08-10-2007, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bradgriff

I don't understand what you mean DuBois. Are there 99 other examples successful drug prevention programs found in that monsterous link? Is that why you're 99% righter than me?.....Whatever

Your argument that prohibition of action which people want to do is a failure. You say that it cannot prevent the initiation of drugs. However, most laws are prohibition. What do you think a law is? It prohibits action.

Laws prohibit:

drug use
drunk driving
tax evasion
violent crime
theft
plagiarism
intellectual theft
breaking contracts
people smoking in public areas
etc, etc

So, ok prohibiting one thing (alcohol consumption) failed. However, all the other laws that we have have succeeded in prohibiting violent and or undesirable human behavior. So making harmful human behavior illegal and telling people why it is illegal successfully prevents harmful behavior.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bradgriff

Wish me luck tonight..I've got 3 guys who are getting thier 1 year clean and sober awards. That's where it's at you know....saving them one at a time, and one day at a time......it's the only thing we have that works. I sincerely hope you're 99% smarter than me so come up with something fast!!!

Coming up with new ideas is one thing, but let's not make it any worse first. It's better that you only see 3 guys tonite, rather than 30.

WEB

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 08-10-2007, 09:41 PM

@ Libertarian

This is a discussion, not a propaganda thread. Your copying and pasting of an entire page worth of arguments is not discussion and I have deleted them. This is a forum for discussion and debate, not a place to just dump enormous amounts of materials written by someone else.

If you want to advance your beliefs you'll have to step inside the ring and do the fighting yourself, not flood the arena with noise.

WEB

Scribbler1 · 08-10-2007, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

I disagree. The current strategy towards drugs is the most effective way to prevent drugs.

I don't just disagree, the governments own numbers do too. Between 2000 and 2004, drug use by people over 12 went from (all drugs) 6.3% to 7.9% and all the individually listed drugs used (heroin, cocaine, etc) with the ONE exception (LSD) either stayed the same or went up.

Quote:

Attack drugs:

Legally: It is illegal and you can go to jail if you get caught with them,

And the prisons are filled with people whose only crime "against society" was to get high.

Quote:

also it disrupts the supplies of drugs into this country, which also makes them more expensive, also you cannot advertise for them so many people don't know where to get them.

I would argue they DO know where to get them. The same stats I listed would support that. YOU might not know where, but I'll bet somebody you know either knows, or knows someone who CAN get them. That's how it works.
And the fact that addictive drugs are so expensive is the reason addicts steal to buy them, causing a corresponding high crime rate by junkies.

Quote:

Morally: Society opposes drugs, parents do, schools do, celebrities do, it's not the forbidden fruit now, now it's just evil and for losers.

That's a little too broad a brush you're using. First, as I said, its very illegality MAKES it a "forbidden fruit". Second, society can be counted on to support or oppose a LOT of illogical things so I wouldn't use it as an example. It's not logical to lump ALL drugs into the same legal basket. There is little doubt Heroin and crack cocaine are bad, but to lump them in with pot makes no sense. And as far as morals are concerned, it's a manufactured morality because (if they were legal) drug use in and of itself doesn't affect those who don't wish to do them. 100 years ago, it was blatantly immoral to look like ANY cheerleader in the NFL.

Quote:

You legalize it and you bring down the entire war on drugs, including the parts that don't deal with guns and raids.

And this is a BAD thing? (This is a Wikipedia article, but it sources government numbers)

Quote:

The U.S. government estimates the cost of the War on Drugs by calculating the funds used in attempting to control the supply of illegal drugs, in paying government employees involved in waging the war, and to satisfy rehabilitation costs. This total was estimated by the U.S. government's cost report on drug control to be roughly $12 billion in 2005. Additionally, in a separate report, the U.S. government reports that the cost of incarcerating drug law offenders was $30.1 billion — $9.1 billion for police protection, $4.5 billion for legal adjudication, and $11.0 billion for state and federal corrections. In total, roughly $45.5 billion was spent in 2005 for these factors.[2] The socioeconomic costs, as well as the individual costs (i.e., the personal disadvantages in income and career), caused by the incarceration of millions of people are not included in this number. Nor are the many real wars fought in the name of the "War on Drugs" included.

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Instead of most people having no idea where to get drugs, I see ads for it on TV and I pass by drugs while walking around in the grocery store. I have advertisements on TV enticing me to do drugs, celebrities telling me it will make people like me, I can easily get them at the grocery store while I'm doing my shopping and since they are so readily available now I think it is ok to do drugs.

I don't think you are so easily manipulated.

It should be a personal choice, made by a responsible adult and under controlled situations. Legal drugs would be regulated, and available ONLY to adults in places like liquor stores where age limits are already in place. This is not true now, because the pushers make their money targeting kids and there is no oversight whatsoever. If adults could get it legally, the sale of it by unauthorized people (pushers) can remain a punishable offense. And since it would be cheaper for adults to get legally (as well as safer) it woiuldn't be as economically attractive to the street pusher and he could consider getting a real job because the profit may not be high enough to risk a long prison term.

Quote:

Legalizing drugs turns the situation from preventing drug use to encouraging it.

WEB

No, it would only allow adults who want to use drugs get them safely and legally. This isn't some new product on the market that gets a big ad campaign. Drugs are generally used in small groups or alone, so the ads like for Captain Morgan rum, where the cool people party with the gorgeous chicks won't work.
Obviously you are not likely to use them NOW, so I doubt you would use them if they were legal. But the guy who DOES want to smoke some pot, or even snort come coke is going to buy it, just like a six-pack, go home and do his thing. He won't be robbing a 7-11 or stealing your car and he will be a lot less likely to drive, as that would still be illegal.

Drugs are just something that people do, just like alcohol. And just like alcohol, to use it should be the legal choice for adult Americans.

Personally, although the libertarian in me would favor legalizing ALL drugs, I would support keeping Heroin illegal. I've known many people who have done that stuff and I never saw anything but bad come of it.

micfranklin · 08-10-2007, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

OK, my argument withstands the black market counterargument. Let's say that yes, there will be a black market in drugs. By outlawing a drug, we have still performed damage control on the problem. Now it's a problem on the fringes of society and not a problem for most people of the United States.

WEB

When it starts off you're performing damage control but as time goes on it ends up causing more harm than good.

The Libertarian · 08-10-2007, 10:49 PM

It's a sad, indeed tragic, fact that Nixon's war on drugs has actually made it 7 times more likely for your child to come into contact with illegal drugs. The reasons are very straight forward: As the government increases the criminal penalties associated with prohibition, the price of various illegal drugs is increased. The increased price means greater profits for drug dealers. These greater profits attract more and more dealers, and especially, young teenagers.

Remember that when alcohol was illegal under prohibition that young teens were attracted to the easy profits from the criminal trade of alcohol. The same is true of recreational substance prohibitions. And as our young are brought into the illegal drug trade, they bring that criminal element into our schools.

Just like the days of alcohol prohibition, we need to remove the profits from the black market for recreational substances. Virtually every study done on the issue in the last several years has shown that only by removing the profits from the black market can we end the black market. And the only way to de-profitize the black market is to replace prohibition with regulation and taxation.

As it stands, our government is supporting the illegal drug trade, and sending huge profits overseas to drug lords, by enforcing the current prohibition. Prohibition only helps one group of people - drug dealers and drug lords. It promotes higher profits for them at the expense of our children, and indeed, our society.

Our children depend on us - we MUST work to protect them by ending the government's support of illegal drugs. We must replace prohibition with regulation, and put the drug dealers out of business once and for all!

The Libertarian · 08-10-2007, 10:55 PM

Drug use, possession, and sale by itself, harms no other person and cannot morally justify criminal penalties.

The Libertarian · 08-10-2007, 10:59 PM

Other people are not your property.

In other words: They are not yours to boss around. Their lives are not yours to micromanage. The fruits of their labour are not yours to dispose of.

It doesn’t matter how wise or marvelous or useful it would be for other people to do whatever it is you’d like them to do. It is none of your business whether they wear their seatbelts, worship the right god, have sex with the wrong people, or engage in market transactions that irritate you. Their choices are not yours to direct. They are human beings like yourself, your equals under Natural Law. You possess no legitimate authority over them. As long as they do not themselves step over the line and start treating other people as their property, you have no moral basis for initiating violence against them – nor for authorising anyone else to do so on your behalf.