Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
Posted on 08/23/2008 7:03:25 AM PDT by PurpleMountains
I would never criticize Mitt Romney for changing his mind about what the proper role of government is regarding abortion because I have changed my mind a couple of times over my lifetime. I also have changed my mind about how to deal with drugs.
"Thirty-five years into the “war on drugs”, the United States still has a huge drug abuse problem, with several million problem users of illicit drugs and about 15 million problem users of alcohol. Illicit drug-dealing industries take in about $50 billion per year. Much of the retail drug trade is flagrant, involving either open-air activity or identified, dedicated drug houses. Flagrant dealing creates violence and disorder, wrecking both the neighborhoods where it goes on and the lives of the dealers.
(Excerpt) Read more at forthegrandchildren.blogspot.com ...
That will create an underclass of slaves.
He can't be serious about this, in America.
The left wants to take our guns, create lawful drug addiction, and slaughter the unborn,raise taxes, raise capital gains, ride bicycles instead of driving cars, and fight against the natural climate variations caused by the sun ( as if it makes any difference.), spending billions of dollars fruitlessly. They are going down.
But you’ve gotta understand. Legalizing drugs magically creates lawful loving drug addicts who just want to share their love with the world.
Course that means we’ll have to legalize rape and criminalize resistance but it will be utopia.
(Buying it yet?)
WOD Ping
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
How so? Is there an underclass of slaves in countries with lax drug law enforcement? Was there an underclass of slaves in this country before marijuana was criminalized?
No, but by definition it immediately ends the carange of the drug war. The thousands of murders between rival gangs, the stray bullets flying into apartment buildings. With the drop in murders, it reduces the assault on our 2nd amendment rights. The drug was has also been the driving force behind asset forefeiture without trial, and no-knock raids.
But what does that matter so long as you get to tell people what to do?
Great post.
Thanks for the ping, bamahead.
The “carnage” of the drug war? What the hell makes you think drug addicts won’t steal and kill to support a legal habit?
Then reality bites me on the ass.
Today, at 12:30, I must assume the duty of Preacher to give the Prayer of Scattering of the Ashes for my 33 year old nephew who died in a overdose this past Tuesday...
There are no easy answers when everything is taken into consideration...
They won't have to; the next step will to be declaring their addiction an illness and covering it under Universal Healthcare. In other words, we who don't use get to pay for them that do. Isn't that SPECIAL?
“What the hell makes you think drug addicts won’t steal and kill to support a legal habit?”
There are no guarantees in a free society, even fewer in an unfree society, except the lack of freedom. But, if one is addicted to liquor, the legal addictive drug, most often, one might rob the liquor stores. When drugs are illegal, robbing drug dealers is a lot more dangerous, since the drug dealers are already criminals.
“But you’ve gotta understand. Legalizing drugs magically creates lawful loving drug addicts who just want to share their love with the world.”
Don’t forget all the alcoholics out there that obey the laws of the land, you know, don’t drink and drive. That’s worked out so well.
People don’t realize how much more easily controlled they would be, by the government, if they did legalize it. But I guess those who want it legalized, don’t see that.
Could you imagine how much fun it would be, dodging drug addicts and drunk drivers, just going down the road? Oh wait, they wouldn’t do that, that would be against the law. And we know how well the law has worked for drunk drivers, right?
We know how well outright prohibition of alcohol worked, right? Same idea.
Legal or illegal, there will certainly be problems. I'd rather live in a society that's not he11-bent on stomping innocents' rights to nail druggies. It's not like there's going to be a huge upsurge in use, 'cuz the stuff is ALREADY WIDELY AVAILABLE. Prohibition hasn't helped anything, it just raises the stakes - which people are willing to risk to get a fix.
There are thousands of legal plants that have thousands of compounds with psychoactive properties. Extracted, they can be WAY more powerful than any illegal drug.
I know many chemists and “psychonauts” that visit different universes completely legally and naturally. It requires some skill though. Most drug users simply buy drugs and there simply isn’t much profit in legal ones.
In effect, making drugs illegal makes them more popular. Salvia D was a house plant to 99% of people until it started being made illegal. Now it is everywhere. It was made fully illegal in Australia and now one of the most popular drugs there.
The spread of free information is putting lots of these new drugs out there. The DEA is in for a sh**storm when they wake up and realize they can’t outlaw every plant.
You are already dodging them on the roads.
Ours is a compassionate society that will not, ever, let the completely helpless wither and die in the street without trying as best as is administratively possible to care for them EVEN if their condition is 100% their own fault.
This has always been my objection to completely legalizing cocaine, heroin, meth etc. because regardless of what the libertarians pound their chest and say with the luxury of speaking in the abstract, we would never legally sanction cocaine addicts using as much coke as they want because they would quickly and in significant numbers render themselves either permanently incapacitated or dead, all graphically depicted in front of the media's cameras. The public outcry upon viewing mothers dying in the street, bereft of aid because their condition was deemed "their own fault" would be deafening. And inevitably, despite what any libertarian ever promises you about legalization we will end up shelling out LOTS of money for the addict's care, and we would be right back where we are now, only with cocaine, heroin and meth use a protected right. Libertarians cannot change the empathetic human nature of the average American. To pretend otherwise is obtuse self deception.
There's also the practical reality that even legalized drugs will cost their users money to purchase. Gainful employment and heroin or meth use don't seem to go hand in hand for some reason... Unemployed addict that needs to find money to buy a legal drug is as sure a recipe for crime as it is when the drug is illegal. Perhaps mass producing the drug would at least reduce its price?
Uh huh. Don't even get me started on the complete disassociation with reality one must exercise to imagine any system of cocaine/heroin/marijuana legalization that would survive American product liability attorneys. We can't get tort reform on the products that are currently legal, does anyone seriously think we could push through lawsuit immunity to anyone that would market cocaine???
I'm not saying the WOD is a success, (but then neither is our attempts at stamping out child porn. Given that such failure is depicted as a criteria for legalization shall we therefore legalize that?) I'm just saying that the concept of hard drug legalization in this country ignores the reality of the American public's nature.
I specifically stated what part of the carnage would disappear. You just dont’t care because its not in your neighborhood.
You'll be paying for the healthcare of people who haven't been productively employed for generations, and you'll be paying for healthcare for tens of millions of third-worlders who qualified for benefits by strolling across the southern border... at least what you pay for the drug-users would be offset by the reduction in spending on prisons, courts and drug-warriors.
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