Posted on 12/12/2004 5:45:15 PM PST by cougar_mccxxi
Not. No matter how much you want to confuse the issue; Marijuana is NOT spelled F-I-B-R-E.
You do NOT smoke the fibre part.
Do you suppose Justin didn't realize the contradiction when he wrote this article? No contradiction. Did you read the entire article? The "legal" drug pushers were selling to kids. (Imagaine that! Who would have guessed!?) Usage by kids was exploding. This had nothing to do with, gee, maybe it was taxed too little or too much, yada, yada. So the government tried to shut down the "coffee" houses, since they were an absolute disaster. Well, of course, the newly addicted drug addicts wanted their fix so with the genie out of the bottle there was a much increased demand for drugs and of course the black market tried to fill the vaccuum. NOW they want to stuff the genie back into the bottle??? Boy, what a clear-thinking move this was to begin with. How many new young drug addicts were created for the purpose of this social experiment? As the TV ad says, "BRILLIANT!" Does the term "unintended consequences" mean absolutely anything??? This is but one example of why you don't want drugs legalized. It's crazy, insane, idiotic thinking. Just plain common sense should tell anyone how ludicrous the idea that legalizing drugs is the answer to the drug problem is.
Once again, I'm STILL waiting for ANYBODY to tell me what undesired activity DECREASES when you change it from illegal to legal.
So do illegal drug pushers in the US and everywhere else.
Usage by kids was exploding. This had nothing to do with, gee, maybe it was taxed too little or too much, yada, yada. So the government tried to shut down the "coffee" houses, since they were an absolute disaster.
Nonsense.
"Cannabis use among young people has also increased in most Western European countries and in the US. The rate of (cannabis) use among young people in the US is much higher than in the Netherlands, and Great Britain and Ireland also have relatively larger numbers of school students who use cannabis."
Source: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Drug Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report September 1997-September 1999, (The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, November 1999), p. 7.
"The figures for cannabis use among the general population reveal the same pictures. The Netherlands does not differ greatly from other European countries. In contrast, a comparison with the US shows a striking difference in this area: 32.9% of Americans aged 12 and above have experience with cannabis and 5.1% have used in the past month. These figures are twice as high as those in the Netherlands."
Source: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Drug Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report September 1997-September 1999, (The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, November 1999), pp. 7-8.
Well, of course, the newly addicted drug addicts wanted their fix so with the genie out of the bottle there was a much increased demand for drugs and of course the black market tried to fill the vaccuum. NOW they want to stuff the genie back into the bottle??? Boy, what a clear-thinking move this was to begin with. How many new young drug addicts were created for the purpose of this social experiment?
Less than the US in the WOD. "The number of addicts in the Netherlands has been stable - at 25,000 - for many years. Expressed as a percentage of the population, this number is approximately the same as in Germany, Sweden and Belgium. There are very few young heroin addicts in the Netherlands, largely thanks to the policy of separating the users markets for hard and soft drugs. The average age of heroin addicts is now 36."
There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992.
www.usdoj/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm
Do the math. The US rate is about twice the rate of Holland.
As the TV ad says, "BRILLIANT!" Does the term "unintended consequences" mean absolutely anything???
Like increased crime from the black market and funding of scofflaws due to prohibition laws or too high taxes?
This is but one example of why you don't want drugs legalized. It's crazy, insane, idiotic thinking. Just plain common sense should tell anyone how ludicrous the idea that legalizing drugs is the answer to the drug problem is.
Which country has a worse heroin problem, the US or Holland?
Not rub salt in the wound, but I'll bet you didn't know that Singapore has a higher rate of heroin addiction than Holland and that Singaporean heroin lords are heavily involved in the heroin trade.
Ok, I'll give you that much: they are DIFFERENT portions of the SAME plant...how's that sound?
You can't grow one w/o growing the other, just like bones & eyes are different parts of a human being. The hemp would be like our bones (used for supporting the plant/person), & the marijuana would be like our eyes, which is used in creating VISION...in more ways than one! (I love it!) :-)=
http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html
Figures for the Netherlands--
Demand Reduction. The Netherlands has extensive demand reduction programs and lowthreshold medical services for addicts, who are also offered drug rehabilitation programs. Authorities believe such programs reach about 7080 percent of the country's 25,000 harddrug users (in a total population of 15.1 million).
http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html
Using a figure of 3 million for Singapore in 1996, that works out to an addiction rate of about 0.30%
Using the State Dept. figures for the Netherlands, the addiction rate was about 0.17%.
WRONG.
"TOUGH laws are not the only reason why Singapore is winning the battle against drug abuse.
Rehabilitation and preventive programmes are just as important, says the Home Affairs Ministry ( MHA ), which yesterday released figures showing a decline in the drug problem over the past decade.
Between 1993 and 1998, the number of drug abusers arrested fell steadily from 5,857 to 4,502.
By last year,it had fallen dramatically to 1,785."
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n218/a01.html?397
And Holland? Oh, yes...BRILLIANT!...
HOLLAND'S HALF-BAKED DRUG EXPERIMENT
THE NARCOTICS CAPITAL OF EUROPE
"LOOK AT the Dutch example!" That phrase has become a kind of mantra, chanted whenever the advocates of liberalizing drug laws in Europe or the United States gather. The Dutch, liberalization proponents argue, got it right by legalizing the public sale, under certain restraints, of cannabis products in their now-famous coffee shops and by adopting a much more lenient policy toward all forms of drug use and abuse based on a philosophy of "harm reduction."
But did they? It has been almost a quarter-century since the Dutch Parliament set Holland's drug policy on a course of its own, one markedly different from that of the rest of Europe. Surely 23 years is enough time to examine the consequences of that policy. How has it affected drug use and addiction in the Netherlands? What impact has it had on Holland's next-door neighbors, France, Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom? Do the results really justify holding the Dutch drug policy up as a model for other nations to follow? Or are they a warning about the risks of following the Dutch example?
At the time the Baan Commission report was adopted, Holland had what was considered a serious heroin addiction problem, albeit one roughly comparable to that of its European neighbors. The nation was relatively untroubled by major international drug traffickers, with the exception of a number of Chinese "triads" ( gangs ) whose trafficking was pretty much confined to the Dutch marketplace.
How has that situation changed today? First and most revealing, Holland ( in the words of senior customs and police officers in the United Kingdom, France, and Belgium ) has become 'the drugs capital of western Europe"--and not just of those soft drugs depenalized by the Dutch Parliament but also of hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and now ecstasy. (BRILLIANT!)
Britain's Customs and Excise Department figures that 80 percent of the heroin seized in the United Kingdom either passed through or was temporarily warehoused in Holland. The Paris police estimate that 80 percent of the heroin consumed in the French capital comes from Holland. The forthcoming 1998 figures for France's Central Office for the Repression of the Illegal Traffic in Drugs will, one of the organizations senior officers says, show "an explosion" of drugs coming into France from the Netherlands. (BRILLIANT!)
"Holland has become the place for drug traffickers to work," states a senior officer at Her Majesty's Customs and Excise. "It's central. You've got guys there who have access to any kind of drug you want, smugglers who can deliver it for you to Liverpool or London. And it's an environment which is relatively trouble-free from a criminal's point of view. It's ideal, and it has become a magnet for our criminal types." (BRILLIANT!)
As a senior French narcotics officer puts it, "Holland is Europe's drug supermarket. Drugs of all kinds are freely available there. The price is cheap. Your chances of getting caught with them are minimal, and you can carry them home across our customs-free borders without a care." (BRILLIANT!)
Worse, the greatest drug problem facing European youth today comes from synthetic drugs like ecstasy and amphetamines that have spread across Europe like a virus since they were first introduced in Holland in 1987. British police estimate that a million of these pills are swallowed every weekend in British discos and clubs. Overwhelmingly, these synthetic drugs are coming from and being made in Holland. British customs states that virtually all the pills seized in the United Kingdom last year were manufactured in Holland or Belgium. Ninety-eight percent of the amphetamines seized in France in 1997 came from Holland, as did 73.6 percent of the ecstasy tablets. During an official briefing last summer, a senior Dutch police officer admitted to former General Barry McCaffrey, the U.S. drug-policy czar, that "Holland is to synthetic drugs what Colombia is to cocaine." (BRILLIANT!)
Holland's emergence as the drug capital of Europe is not due solely to the decision by the Dutch government to commercialize the sale of cannabis products in the nation's now-famous coffee shops. But many Europeans believe it is the consequence of the tolerant attitude toward drugs that grew out of that policy. That attitude, defined by Dutch foes of the policy as the "coffee-shop mentality," now permeates Holland's criminal justice system. (BRILLIANT!)
"If you want to do drugs, Holland is the place to do them," notes one of France's top drug police officers. "The light sentences they hand out [and] the liberal attitude of their judges has resulted in an explosion in the number of international trafficking groups operating out of Holland." (BRILLIANT!)
"As a drug dealer," a senior U.K. customs officer observes, "you are less likely to come to the attention of the police in Holland than you are in any other country in Western Europe. For our Dutch counterparts to get permission to conduct a surveillance operation is unbelievably difficult. It is absolutely impossible to place a bug in a drug dealer's home or office. Get arrested with 50 kilos of heroin or cocaine in France or England, and you'll be sentenced to 20 years to life [and] serve at least 17 of those years in prisons that are less than welcoming. Get arrested with the same amount of either drug in Holland, and the most you'll get is eight years, of which you'll serve only four in prisons, where you'll be in your own cell, with color TV and a stereo, and have the right to a conjugal visit twice a month from a woman who may--or may not--be your wife. Is it any wonder then that the country has become the drug traffickers' preferred working place?" (BRILLIANT!)
But what about the policy's consequences for the Dutch themselves? "Our liberal drug policy has been a failure, but its advocates are so rooted to their convictions they can't bring themselves to admit it," says Dr. Franz Koopman, director of De Hoop ( The Hope ) drug rehabilitation center in Dordecht and an open opponent of the Dutch policy. "First, we banalized cannabis use. We have left our kids with the idea that it's perfectly all right to smoke it, and from there it was an easy step for them to move to the notion that it's also okay to use mind-altering substances like ecstasy. It is that mentality that is behind the explosion in the use of these synthetics we've seen in the last three years, and [it] is a grave peril to this country just as it is to the rest of Europe." (BRILLIANT!)
SEE NO EVIL
DUTCH CRITICS of their nation's drug policy--and even some of its proponents--admit that it is characterized by at best wishful thinking and at worst hypocrisy. The Dutch even have an expression and a gesture for this: You place the palm of your right hand on the tip of your nose and spread your fingers. You are now "looking through the fingers"--alles door de vingers zien--seeing only what you want to see and blotting out the rest.
...Probably 70 percent of the cannabis now puffed in Holland's 1,500 coffee shops is Nederwiet. The result? "We see more and more people getting into trouble with cannabis," acknowledges Dr. J. A. Wallenberg, the director of the Jellinek Clinic, Holland's best-known drug abuse rehabilitation center. "We have indulged ourselves in a kind of blind optimism in Holland concerning cannabis. [Use of] this stronger THC cannabis has stabilized at too high a level. We see young users with psychological problems who use it as a form of self-medication. It can and does produce a chronically passive individual ... someone who is lazy, who doesn't want to take initiatives, doesn't want to be active--the kid who'd prefer to lie in bed with a joint in the morning rather than getting up and doing something."(BRILLIANT!)
Even Dr. Ernest Bunning of the Ministry of Health, the central repository of Holland's liberal drug philosophy, largely agrees. "There are young people who abuse soft drugs," he admits, "Particularly those that have this high THC. The place that cannabis takes in their lives becomes so dominant they don't have space for the other important things in life. They crawl out of bed in the morning, grab a joint, don't work, smoke another joint. They don't know what to do with their lives. I don't want to call it a drug problem because if I do, then we have to get into a discussion that cannabis is dangerous, that sometimes you can't use it without doing damage to your health or your psyche. The moment we say, 'There are people who have problems with soft drugs,' our critics will jump on us, so it makes it a little bit difficult for us to be objective on this matter."
HENDRIK AND PIETER'S JOINT VENTURE
AS THE coffee shops boomed between 1984 and 1996, marijuana use among Dutch youths aged 18 to 25 leapt by well over 200 percent. (BRILLIANT! AND SO MUCH FOR THE "IT WON'T INCREASE USAGE IDIOCY")
In 1997, there was a 25 percent increase in the number of registered cannabis addicts receiving treatment for their habit, as compared to a mere 3 percent rise in cases of alcohol abuse. In 1995, public Ministry of Justice studies estimated that 700,000 to 750,000 of Holland's 15 million people--about 5 percent of the population--were regular cannabis users.(BRILLIANT!) A much more recent study just completed by Professor Pieter Cohen of the University of Amsterdam disputes those figures, claiming that only 325,000 to 350,000 Dutch men and women are regular cannabis users. Unfortunately, however, his survey discovered that those smokers are particularly concentrated among the young in densely populated areas of Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Rotterdam. In the last three to four years, these same areas have witnessed a skyrocketing growth in juvenile crime and the number of youths involved in acts of violence associated by many Dutch law-enforcement officers with the abuse of "soft" drugs. With remarkable candor, Amsterdam Police Commissioner Jelle Kuiper declared more than 18 months ago, "As long as our political class tries to pretend that soft drugs do not create dependence, we are going to go on being confronted daily with problems that officially do not exist. We are aware of an enormous number of young people strongly dependent on soft drugs, with all the consequences that has." (BRILLIANT!) A few months later, his counterpart in The Hague, the de facto Dutch capital, echoed his views: 'Sixty-five percent of the persistent rise we are seeing in criminality is due to juveniles and above all juvenile drug users." (BRILLIANT!)
...Jansen estimates that this pot crop--a direct outgrowth of Holland's drug policy--comes from some 25,000 to 30,000 small-to medium-scale producers, most of them growing their grass indoors, in a garage, a basement, or a back room. Under Dutch law, anyone may possess five plants for personal use. Virtually all those growers are raising far more than that because, as an American narcotics officer in The Hague notes, "the profits from growing Nederwiet are tremendous, way out of proportion to any risks the grower runs." (BRILLIANT!)
THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY
IN THE 1970s, advocates of Holland's coffee-shop policy argued that providing soft-drug users with a shopping outlet in which to buy their drugs would keep them from falling prey to drug-peddling criminals. At the same time, they would be corralled off from hard-drug users into a congenial environment of their own. Petty criminality would fall, and hard-drug consumption would be cut by offering young people an attractive alternative.
That was the theory. Unfortunately, it did not work. A 1997 report on hard-drug use in the Netherlands by the government-financed Trimbos Institute acknowledged that "drug use is considered to be the primary motivation behind crimes against property"--23 years after the Dutch policy was supposed to put the brake on that. Furthermore, the Trimbos report put the number of heroin addicts in Holland at 25,000, a figure so low that critics of the government say it "Promotes a policy, not a reality." That statistic is based, the skeptics note, on the number of heroin addicts who actually come into contact one way or another with the nation's social or justice departments. The real figure, they maintain, is far closer to 35,000. But even if one accepts the Trimbos figures as correct, they represent almost a tripling of the number of Dutch addicts since the country liberalized its drug policies. (BRILLIANT!) They also mean that Holland has twice as many heroin addicts per capita as Britain, which is known for having one of the most serious heroin problems in Europe. Furthermore, the number of heroin addicts being treated in the methadone-maintenance programs run by the Ministry of Public Health went from 6,511 in 1988 to 9,838 in 1997, an increase of just over 50 percent--hardly an indication that heroin use has declined since the introduction of the coffee-shop law. (BRILLIANT! - GLAD TO KNOW IT'S BEEN SUCH A HUGE SUCCESS!)
The sale of hard drugs at the coffee shops was strictly forbidden by the law that created them. That was an edict honored for years more in the breach than in the observance. Michel Bouchet, now an officer of the French Ministry of the Interior but for many years the head of the Paris narcotics squad, regularly sent his officers to Holland undercover to see if hard drugs were being sold in the coffee shops. Almost inevitably, they discovered that they were. And on and on and on...
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n444.a01.html
Not that I want to rub salt in your wound. ;-)
So legalizing even soft drugs does NOT curb crime (it INCREASES) and doesn't curb usage (it INCREASES) while destroying all the more lives.
Instead of thinking ways to make drugs more pure, cheap and easily available, how about we do the only sane thing as a society and oppose such idiocy? If the WOD is a failure, let's find a better way to fight it, not abandon it.
http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html
WRONG
If the State Department's figure is wrong, what is the correct figure?
Re your heroin stats: We'll even use the 35,000 figure in your article for Holland and stick with 980,000 US addicts. We'll assume that counted every addict in the US.
That still works out to an addiction rate of 0.23% for Holland and 0.34% for the US. Do you accept that the US has a higher rate of heroin addiction than Holland?
Instead of thinking ways to make drugs more pure, cheap and easily available, how about we do the only sane thing as a society and oppose such idiocy?
We don't have to think of ways to make them more pure, cheap, and easily available. The drug traffickers have been doing that for years despite a 16 year cabinet level effort to prevent it.
If the WOD is a failure, let's find a better way to fight it, not abandon it.
OK, let's start with the basics. Where do you think the Constitution grants the federal government the power to interfere with intrastate drug policy?
Huh? Why are you quoting a 1996 report? LOL
I don't know the number of US addicts. Let's assume for the moment that the US has a slightly higher addiction rate. Suggesting that the way to reduce the rate by legalizing it is about as smart as suggesting the way to reduce the high murder rate in the US is to legalize murder.
I will repeat this for, what, the 10th time? NAME ONE UNDESIRED ACTIVITY THAT WILL DECREASE BY MAKING IT ILLEGAL INSTEAD OF LEGAL. You have already admitted that you can't come up with one, so please quit insulting your own intelligence by suggesting that drug usage in the US would decrease by decriminalizing it. Did you even read the information posted? Did you not read that it was this acceptance or lax attitude toward drugs that encouraged people, especially young people to start using? OF COURSE THAT WAS THE PREDICTABLE RESULT! Geez, Louise.
Where do you think the Constitution grants the federal government the power to interfere with intrastate drug policy?
The same place it grants it the power to interfere with intrastate murder, rape, robbery, etc. policy.
Now if you can read that entire report on the Holland experiment and surmise "yeah, that's great. that's what we should be doing in the US." I'm afraid I can't help you any further. Common sense would tell that you that all of this was entirely predictable. Common sense should tell you that you don't make legal, acitivities you want to discourage. If you can't understand or comprehend such basic concepts then I don't know what else there is to discuss. If you truly believe that making an illegal activity legal would reduce its occurence, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Huh? Why are you quoting a 1996 report? LOL
If you'll check the thread, you said the figure was "WRONG". So how do you know it's wrong? As for the 1996 date, it's the latest figure I could find. If you have a later one (arrests do not = addicts under treatment) please share.
I don't know the number of US addicts. Let's assume for the moment that the US has a slightly higher addiction rate.
I gave you the latest USDOJ figure-- 980,000 in 1999, up about 50% since 1992. The drug czar quoted in the article, Barry McCaffrey, presided over this rise. I then used your 35,000 figure. It is still 50% higher in the US, which I would consider more than "slightly higher."
I will repeat this for, what, the 10th time? NAME ONE UNDESIRED ACTIVITY THAT WILL DECREASE BY MAKING IT ILLEGAL INSTEAD OF LEGAL.
I answered it by saying none that I can think of. What's the deal here, I answer your questions twice and you ignore mine?
You have already admitted that you can't come up with one, so please quit insulting your own intelligence by suggesting that drug usage in the US would decrease by decriminalizing it.
Tell you what. I'll make a $100 donation to FR if you can cite where on this thread I said drug usage would decrease if it were decriminalized. Will you pledge a donation to FR (doesn't have to be $100) if you cannot find such a claim?
Did you not read that it was this acceptance or lax attitude toward drugs that encouraged people, especially young people to start using? OF COURSE THAT WAS THE PREDICTABLE RESULT! Geez, Louise.
Yes I read that, but I think it's a questionable claim. The author needs to explain why Holland has a continuing low addiction rate compared to other countries and why Iran has the highest addiction rate in the world. Recall this from a prior post:
"The number of addicts in the Netherlands has been stable - at 25,000 - for many years".
"There are very few young heroin addicts in the Netherlands
Where do you think the Constitution grants the federal government the power to interfere with intrastate drug policy?
The same place it grants it the power to interfere with intrastate murder, rape, robbery, etc. policy.
Which Section or Clause would that be?
How many Federal arrests or prosecutions are done for intrastate murder, rape, and robbery?
As a matter of fact, the USSC struck down the Federal Violence Against Women Act, one of the few cases where the extent of the Commerce Clause was actually pared back.
If you truly believe that making an illegal activity legal would reduce its occurence, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I said it would decrease the crime associated with the black market and reduce profits for bad guys, such as terrorists. These are points you decline to address.
As far as my supposed claim that it would reduce its occurence, will you donate to FR if you cannot find where I said that?
I know it's wrong because I cited for you the correct numbers, using the source cited which is much more current than your source. Don't you see what you did? You said there were the same number of addicts NOW as there were in 1995. You backed up your assertion with a report from 1996! In other words, the 1996 report said there were the same number of addicts as a year earlier. Big whoop-dee-doo! What does that have to do with the number of addicts TODAY?
Tell you what. I'll make a $100 donation to FR if you can cite where on this thread I said drug usage would decrease if it were decriminalized.
You may have not said those exact words, but you have certainly danced around. At the least you seem to refuse to accept the fact that drug usage would increase if legalized. So which is it? Are you trying to have it both ways? I keep insisting that drug usage would INCREASE if legalized, and you keep arguing the point. That would certainly lead to the logical conclusion that you believe it would drop or have no effect. You have previously stated:
Your assertion assumes a significant number of people who would abuse drugs, but are only prevented from doing so by the laws. I think that's highly questionable....Would abuse and addiction increase? I dealt with that question. I doubt those who would otherwise abuse drugs are restrained by laws...Would you consider it a success if the black market is reduced and drug abuse increases? No, but you have no evidence that abuse would increase.
Laughable. And I'll let you decide whether or not you need to cut that check for FR.
I'll restate some facts that you have decided to conveniently ignore. Consider that when Alaska briefly legalized pot, the use of marijuana and cocaine among adolescents soared more than twice that of any other U.S. state. (SOURCE: INTERNATIONAL DRUG STRATEGY INSTITUTE)
Coincidence?
In Holland where dope smoking is permitted, use among 11 to 18 year olds increased 142% from 1990 to 1995; crimes like aggravated theft and breaking and entering are now 3 to 4 times that of the U.S. (SOURCE: INTERNATIONAL DRUG STRATEGY INSTITUTE)
Coincidence?
AS THE coffee shops boomed between 1984 and 1996, marijuana use among Dutch youths aged 18 to 25 leapt by well over 200 percent.
Coincidence?
"...a tripling of the number of Dutch addicts since the country liberalized its drug policies."
COINCIDENCE?
Again, which is it? Legalizing drugs will increase or decrease usage? And if you dare say drug usage would NOT increase, then please name for me some other undesired, currently illegal activities that would NOT increase if made legal.
The following also bears repeating again and again..."Holland's emergence as the drug capital of Europe is not due solely to the decision by the Dutch government to commercialize the sale of cannabis products in the nation's now-famous coffee shops. But many Europeans believe it is the consequence of the tolerant attitude toward drugs that grew out of that policy. That attitude, defined by Dutch foes of the policy as the "coffee-shop mentality," now permeates Holland's criminal justice system.
All so sad and all so predictable.
You cited arrest records, not addicts under treatment.
You said there were the same number of addicts NOW as there were in 1995.
No I did not. I copied a direct quote from the 1996 report:
There are currently about 9,000 addicts undergoing rehabilitation in Singapore treatment centers, the same number as in 1995.
http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html
Also, I made it clear in post #105 I was using 1996 figures:
Using a figure of 3 million for Singapore in 1996, that works out to an addiction rate of about 0.30% [end quote]
What does that have to do with the number of addicts TODAY?
Show me more recent figures for heroin addiction.
I keep insisting that drug usage would INCREASE if legalized, and you keep arguing the point.
Do I? From my post #84:
If you're asking would drug use increase, probably so in the case of mj.[end quote]
Note that I have never said that drug use would decline with legalization. I don't think it would decline, so why would I say or imply it? Can we consider that settled now?
But many Europeans believe it is the consequence of the tolerant attitude toward drugs that grew out of that policy.
Many Europeans think the US is a rogue nation, but I wouldn't consider that fact very good evidence that we are.
That attitude, defined by Dutch foes of the policy as the "coffee-shop mentality," now permeates Holland's criminal justice system.
I thought the Dutch had lower rates of violent crime than the US. I know their murder rate is about half ours. Will have to google the stats, but not tonight.
I'll restate some facts that you have decided to conveniently ignore.
That's not fair. That was too long of an article to expect me to respond to every paragraph plus give a rebuttal to your own points.
How about I go with the 4 paragraphs you just posted from the article.
But before that, I'd like one of my previous questions answered:
Which Section(s) and Clause(s) of the Constitution grants power to Congress to interfere with intastate drug sales and possession policies, in your opinion?
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