Posted on 05/21/2009 10:27:30 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
DENVER -- Admitting that it may be "political suicide" former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo said its time to consider legalizing drugs.
He spoke Wednesday to the Lincoln Club of Colorado, a Republican group that's been active in the state for 90 years. It's the first time Tancredo has spoken on the drug issue. He ran for president in 2008 on an anti-illegal immigration platform that has brought him passionate support and criticism.
Tancredo noted that he has never used drugs, but said the war has failed.
"I am convinced that what we are doing is not working," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedenverchannel.com ...
Yup. I just don't do it.
I buy my cold and allergy medicine, antibiotics and tobacco products in Mexico now. That's also the only place I go to a bar or restaurant, because one can still smoke there.
America is just not worth the hassle.
Nonsense on you.
Those users would vastly prefer cocaine.
I pick the United Sates of America, that former bastion of freedom.
Why would you want to do that?
Smugglers are essential to a free market.
The curve has two components. Supply and DEMAND. Your proof is lacking.
:)
No.
1989-03-13
-snip-
But those here and across the country who join me today in our just war against drugs may take some renewed confidence in our prospects for success because the President of the United States has placed this struggle at the top of his administration's agenda, at the top of our common national agenda where it needs to be.
-snip-
My office is already conducting an exhaustive review of our national fight against drugs on both supply and demand sides. Where past strategy has succeeded, we will see to it that it's continued. Where past strategy has failed, we will see that it's replaced or modified.
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_papers.php?id=160&year=1989&month=3
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You can view the supply/demand figures since Dr. Bennett launched the current WOD in 1989:
http://www.briancbennett.com/quick-look.htm
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Would you say the WOD has succeeded in reducing supply and demand?
I’m not ready to concede that legalizing drugs won’t cause me harm, or that government has no authority to defend me and my property from the harm of legalized drugs.
If I could be assured that people who used drugs would hurt only themselves, I would agree with you.
I assure you, the harm done to the Constitution, the Republic and our individual liberty in the name of your precious war on some drugs is VASTLY greater than any possible harm done you by some drug user, by several orders of magnitude. And don’t forget, when you trade liberty for the ILLUSION of security, it’s MY liberty that goes down the drain along with yours... and I promise you, I do NOT take that lightly. I do keep in mind those of you who are so willing to give MY freedom away along with your own. It is precisely YOUR sort of attitude that makes Obaminations possible, and I remember THAT, as well.
My argument is that it skews all the numbers, not just the 1880 numbers. I have already apologized for that misconception. If you care to really research the subject honestly, you will find numbers all the way up to 1m addicts in 1900 (still without including the Asians).
I am sorry if you are under the impression that I accept the DOJ figures, as I do not - There are too many variables at this time in history to assume the numbers are anywhere near complete. That is why I am only going by the broad trends.
I am going primarily from my own knowledge on the matter, not by DOJ's numbers. The issue is so very polarized that it requires a great deal of discovery to come to any real conclusions. I will grant you that the government numbers often favor the WoD, but likewise, the material offered by the other side are likewise biased in their own favor, and take a fairly paranoid view, without reason. The truth, FRiend, lies somewhere in the middle.
The DOJ gives you a 100 year trend, but you'd rather confine your focus to a selected 30 year period. I'd say 100 years of data is more of an overall trend than the 30 years that you cherry pick.
No, we have focused upon those years because of the argument. There is another decided drop in drug use during the Reagan years (roughly '80-'90) which is directly attributable to a real assault upon the mechanics of the supply side of the drug problem - The only other time in the history of the WoD that real and sustained actions by the administration bore real fruit in the way of a real and measurable downward trend in drug use and availability. Again, I am looking at *trends*, as the trends can be more readily confirmed.
**NOTE** I am coming perilously close to defending federal law in this matter, which is not my objective. What I mean to defend is the idea that real enforcement does have a role to play in regulation of substances which should be controlled. I do *not* endorse the current model.
The article doesn't provide any numbers for the late 20s through the 30s. It leaps ahead to the low numbers of WWII. I think a better explanation is that most young men were in uniform, including black Americans. At the age when most take up the habit, the cycle was broken. And since you are apparently accepting DOJ numbers in this time period, the article says that the number of addicts increased from between 20,000 and 40,000 in WWII to 50,000 to 60,000 in the mid 50s. That's about a 50% increase.
Actually, most data shows the drop coinciding with '06-'14 laws, and show it continuing through the '50's, with the lion's share of the increase attributable to war veterans (morphine managed care). The data is skewed here because of the difference in how addiction is addressed compared to earlier (Civil war, addiction was not well defined).
However, war injuries still required pain relief, and morphine was what they had. We are also seeing complete data on Asians by now which is ramping the *official* numbers upward ('47, I believe, was the final year for full, normalized Asian citizenship).
Did you forget about the passing of the CW veterans during this time? Besides, you already said you reject numbers prior to this time, so how can you even say there was a decline into the 20s?
The most reasonable thing to credit the drop to is the "Pure Food Act" (or something of the sort) in '06. This federal law prohibited the use of narcotics in food products and elixirs, some of which were up to 50% cocaine or morphine in suspension.
At this time, the most likely addict was white, middle-aged, and female. Since these products were largely imbibed, or eaten, without the users knowledge of the narcotics within, and used common freight and storefronts for distribution, This single law probably cut usage and availability by three quarters by itself.
Secondly, a whole slew of states were passing laws to control the distribution of morphine and cocaine (47 states in all, AFAIR), and 25+ states passed laws restricting the use of opium (probably those states the trans-continental railroad ran through). These laws further restricted, or fully eliminated the legal use of the drugs at the state level.
Thirdly, the combination of the Harrison Act (Federal, 1914), and several international treaties (which obliged the Harrison Act), began to dry up sources world wide, as shipping began to be inspected, and the product began to be controlled abroad.
While the Harrison Act certainly is blamed for creating an underground distribution (perhaps, but many state laws were already in effect), It proceeded to tax narcotics out of existence, and prosecute doctors and pharmacists (for some years) for maintaining abusers. This DID have an impact on availability, because this was the major distribution network outside of the railroads and harbors prior to the highway system.
Probably equally important though, was the awareness in the medical community, and the government/public at large, of what exactly addiction was. The much maligned Temperance Movement began out of the understanding that alcoholism was a compulsion - That the abuser could not help his circumstance.
This is a vital piece to the puzzle, no matter how uninformed their reaction was - And the reaction to hard drugs was no different. I have seen work from that era which claimed that no less than 1 in 5 people were addicted to something. There was a real and abiding problem going on if 25% of the nation was addicted.
Remember that intravenous use was barely widespread. Folks didn't know what purified heroin, morphine, and coke addictions, or anything like them were. So the first idea, naturally, was to remove them, just like they tried with alcohol. Not understanding the nature of addiction, but realizing the compulsory aspect for the first time, It is little wonder that they took the road they did.
And it seems to have worked, although doctors were later given more room to treat addicts medically, using diminishing doses to wean them away from the drugs as it was proved that "cold turkey" was a torture that few could endure.
Yet, the post-WWII rise that began in the 1950s continued unabated for the next 40-50 years despite increasingly harsh laws and enforcement.
As I have already asserted, the *gigantic* rise came with the hippies in the 60's (Perhaps because of Viet Nam too, to some degree), and ran through to 1980, where there was a decided drop during Reagan's terms, Then right back at it, unabated, till today.
Yet, the post-WWII rise that began in the 1950s continued unabated for the next 40-50 years despite increasingly harsh laws and enforcement.
Except the Reagan years...
Like they can't go buy cocaine?
Such as?
The biggest thing to remember is that this (1900) is basically 50 years from the invention of the hypodermic needle. Cocaine was basically newly known (c. 1880) along with heroin. While Morphine had been around for about a hundred years, it had only been injected for about fifty years, and really used extensively by injection since the Civil War (c. 1865).
Combine this with the realization that addiction was compulsive, and beyond the will of the addict - a concept barely being entertained publicly by scientists (c. 1880), and one has a developing "perfect storm" against the use of both narcotics and alcohol, which, IMHO, lead to the legislative attempts.
I am not as quick to accuse as you might be, nor am I as wiling to distrust these folks, with 47 states passing laws along with the federal laws as well.
I would grant you there may well be some proto-progressive behavior here, but this is somewhat in the future still. The "New Deal", and the Great Depression are some years away.
The trend I see, spanning 1800-1865/1865-1900/1900-14 is a whole nation caught unaware by it's own devices, a slow discovery of a real and disabling problem, and a somewhat knee-jerk, but well intended attempt to fix it.
The only part of this that I see as unlawful is the Harrison act, and perhaps the Pure Foods Act as well. Both of these were prototypes which later drove unlawful federal power. These were the first bites of a bitter fruit, as it were.
Surely it is within the states' rights to ban or regulate substances, and in good part, those bans and regulations were in place prior to the federal legislation.
Would you admit that it is within the rights and prudence of the states respectively, or do you seek a federal remedy, legalizing all substances nation wide?
Did you crib that from a Brady Bunch screed against gun violence, or did they crib it from you?
"Communism does work. But it has to be true Communism, not the flawed imitations found in existing Communist regimes."
"Gun control does work. But the existing regulations have too many loopholes that need to be tightened up."
"Government welfare does work. But the system needs to be reformed and tweaked a little to prevent abuses."
Where are vices Constitutionally protected? I must have missed that part.
That indicates that there is no solution within the realm of political governance.
There is a general prohibition against murder. Rape is prohibited. Incest, robbery, etc... Do you need those rights given to you too? You live with thousands of prohibitions every day, but you MUST have your drugs.
Then the only thing left us is anarchy.
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