Mexico Legalizes Drug Possession

NYT ^ | August 21, 2009 | AP

[SolidWood]

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.

The law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.

[dcwusmc]

Your question as posited is unanswerable, so I won’t even try. Just bear in mind that any form of jack-booted thug for any reason is anathema to a free society and a Constitutional Republic.

[donna]

If you legalizers were interested in being serious about the topic you would take on the responsibility of finding a solution. A nation full of drugged citizens is not going to be the America that gave us our liberty. The first step is acknowledging that it is a spiritual problem.

Excerpt:
Main Entry: phar·ma·cy

Etymology: Late Latin pharmacia administration of drugs, from Greek pharmakeia, from pharmakeuein to administer drugs, from pharmakon magic charm, poison, drug
Date: 1651

1 : the art, practice, or profession of preparing, preserving, compounding, and dispensing medical drugs
2 a : a place where medicines are compounded or dispensed b : DRUGSTORE
3 : PHARMACOPOEIA 2

The term magic arts comes from the original word,
pharmakia, from which we also get the word pharmacy. It
also refers to the use of drugs, or sorcery. Those involved
in sorcery get high on drugs in order to make it easier to
contact demons. Pathetically today, millions of young
people are getting in bondage to Satan through the use of
drugs without even knowing it.

Most people taking drugs claim there aren’t any harmful
affects from drugs. But drugs act as a tool to open the
mind, and leave you defenseless against evil spirits entering and taking possession. Ninety percent of those who belong to the church of Satan started on drugs.

As mentioned earlier, the mystics of the east use drugs in
order to go into a trance which enables them to make
contact with the spirits, and they are soon possessed by
them. Charles Manson is a typical example of one who
became possessed by evil spirits through drugs.

Revelation 18:23 - sorceries (Pharmakia, in the Greek) = drugs.

Source: www.aboundinglove.org

[donna]

A society’s first line of defense is not the law but customs, traditions and moral values. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word-of-mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. They include important thou-shalt-nots such as shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat, but they also include all those courtesies one might call ladylike and gentlemanly conduct.

Policemen and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. This failure to fully transmit value norms to subsequent generations represents another failing of the greatest generation.
- Walter Williams, Nov. 21, 2007

[LearsFool]

who decides whose morality should be enforced?

You and I do. That's the fundamental premise of self-government.

I have not advocated federal interference in this discussion, nor will I. On the contrary, I'm in favor of devolution of power on matters like this (i.e. "wet" counties, "dry" counties, etc.)

On matters of fundamental liberty, no government has authority. On other matters, liberty should be presumed, and the burden of convincing others rests on those who advocate restriction. Fair enough?

[dcwusmc]

OF COURSE there is a spiritual failure. There’s no question of that... but in my mind it started out when “Christians” started using government to do THEIR jobs. NOWHERE in Scripture have I ever found where Jesus said to get laws passed in order to stop sin. NOWHERE. What He said was for us to go forth and be His disciples, SHOWING BY EXAMPLE the difference Christ can make in folks’ lives. When Christians got lazy and started getting government to do THEIR job, they forgot that satanic forces can ALSO use the force of government to do THEIR job as well, and the result is the evil we see today.

So are YOU going out to seek out those downtrodden drug users and prostitutes and showing them that there’s a better way for them to live? Or are you just showing them that they either do it YOUR way or go to jail? Which is it, donna? Personal example or using the government and its force over EVERYONE to do your job toward the few?

Don’t you EVER try lecturing people until you can ASSURE them that you are doing YOUR OWN part to witness the way God wants Christians to witness: by personal example, NOT by force of government’s guns.

[LearsFool]

Just bear in mind that any form of jack-booted thug for any reason is anathema to a free society and a Constitutional Republic.

That's fine, and I agree. But whichever road we take, we ought to be able to look down the road and see where we're headed, don't you think?

To those lacking the virtue of self-control, liberty is perverted into license. And to a nation of such people, that's poisonous.

[dcwusmc]

The only acceptable place government has in any of these matters is at the local level where a town or county may properly regulate one’s behavior in PUBLIC PLACES or determine where and when one may discharge a weapon in a NON-EMERGENCY situation. That’s it and all. The rest is between the individual and his God (or gods or whatever). The training one receives as a child from his family and church or synagogue should adequately instill a decent set of moral values into him, which would then carry over into adulthood and from the individual into society itself.

For those without moral values, one can only properly regulate their PUBLIC BEHAVIORS or any actions involving UNWILLING participants or those not able to knowingly and voluntarily consent... That is ALL that the government our Founders gave us was to do. And it worked pretty well for a long time until people who should have known better (see my reply to donna, above) started getting laws passed, opening the door to the condition we’re in today.

[BradyLS]

What is that a photo of, BTW?

[Dumpster Baby]

I believe that's a "drain" for a big dam.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10262321

[LearsFool]

That is ALL that the government our Founders gave us was to do.

Are you referring to the federal government? Because the governments of our founders regulated far more than just public behavior. That's because they understood that "private" behavior has consequences for the rest of us, and they were interested in preserving the states and the nation they had just created. Nor was this a new idea, based on some new sociological discovery.

You sound like you might be a student of the Bible. If so, you're surely familiar with some of the explicitly-stated reasons for laws, back when God legislated for the nation of Israel. Though He doesn't legislate like that for America (that's left up to us instead) studying those laws is quite instructive if we want to govern ourselves wisely, wouldn't you agree?

[Wonder Warthog]

"A society’s first line of defense is not the law but customs, traditions and moral values. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word-of-mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error."

All true. But the problem is that you assume everybody is a weak-minded idiot, and that legalization will lead to universal addiction. This is simply not the case, and has never BEEN the case. Drug over-users are a tiny fraction of the population even where usage is completely legal.

These sources have data for the Netherlands:

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/67

http://www.ukcia.org/research/DutchPolicyAndCrimeStatistics.html

From what I see, it looks like legalization would be a good thing.

[donna]

You want to get rid of Christians so drugs can be legal - that’s some plan.

[bamahead]

What will happen to a free nation if all its free people decide to freely ruin their lives with drugs?

What a ridiculous statement.

Alcohol is a drug. Alcohol is legal. *All* Americans apparently haven't decided to ruin their lives with a drug that is far more addictive and dangerous than Marijuana, and freely available to anyone over 21 at your nearest gas station.

Do you often discard logic when arguing against certain behaviors with which you personally don't approve?

[donna]

The Netherlands has a population of 16.7 million and is socialist.

[Loud Mime]

A nation full of drugged citizens is not going to be the America that gave us our liberty.

Actually all drugs were legal when the Declaraton of Independence and the Constitution were written.

But, let's return to your statement: if pot is legalized we will have a nation full of drugged citizens? Oh, please.

I do not understand your argument. Are you saying that people do not do drugs because of their character, as you quoted Walter Williams before; or, are you saying that they do not do drugs because of our law, which you seem to also claim.

Also, in your arguments you ignore the crimes that are taking place because of the drug dealers, then charge us "legalizers" with not being serious about the problem. Let's see, what's worse? Murder or Pot legalization....let me think.

[LearsFool]

Alcohol is a drug.

Oh, that's brilliant.

Aspirin's a drug too. We're talking, though, about...

"decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs"

Try to keep up.

[donna]

FYI, I never mentioned pot.

The feds are going to add you to their database and make so much money off you and your “legalized” drugs!:

Tokin’ Resistance
By Howard Stansfield, 12/12/96

Soros, who declined to comment for this story, writes that “the drug problem as primarily a criminal problem is a misconception” and that “eradicating the drug problem is a false idea.”

“A drug-free America is simply not possible. You can discourage the use of drugs, you can forbid the use of drugs, you can treat people who are addicted to drugs, but you cannot eradicate drugs.”

So what would he do?

“I would establish a strictly controlled distribution network through which I would make most drugs, excluding the most dangerous ones like crack, legally available,” he writes. “Initially, I would keep the prices low enough to destroy the drug trade.

Once that objective was obtained, I would keep raising the prices, very much like an excise duty on cigarettes, but I would make an exception for registered addicts in order to discourage crime.”

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1996-12-12/news/tokin-resistance/full

[LearsFool]

Are you saying that people do not do drugs because of their character, or, are you saying that they do not do drugs because of our law, which you seem to also claim.

Both, as far as they go. Plus society's condemnation of it, as far as it goes.

When we can no longer rely on individuals' character, or on society's virtue, we either fall back on law (which will be jackbooted tyranny, since the people disagree with the law) or we all watch our nation go down the drain waving the American flag and proclaiming how free we are.

Neither one is pretty, nor am I happy with either option. But there we are.

[Clinging Bitterly]

If you legalizers were interested in being serious about the topic you would take on the responsibility of finding a solution.

We (and I don't mean to speak for everyone in your ping but I believe I am in good company) are quite serious about finding a solution. Actually, not so much finding it as it is plain as the nose on our faces, and it is ending prohibition.

The present solution (to drug use in and of itself) employed by much of modern civilization, and to quite an extreme in the U.S., is demonstrably the cause of the most serious drug related problems we face today. The sphere of crime we see that is associated with drugs is almost all the result of drug prohibition.

So, we have correctly identified the problem and do seriously propose the solution.

A nation full of drugged citizens...

There is just nothing to support an assertion such a thing would happen.

The first step is acknowledging that it is a spiritual problem.

Spiritual, morality, whatever you want to call it, some people (good people) do and always will have those failings. But your talk of drugs as magic potions somehow opening a door to the mind for evil spirits is simply asinine.

There is plenty room for persuasive discussion of the biblical principles, keeping the temple clean and so on, but the short term and long term affects of drug use are well studied and documented in science and they are purely medical issues, no more or less than one's poor diet being a contributor to certain disease risk factors. There are criminally insane people who have used drugs, and those who haven't. Likewise, lung cancer patients who smoked or worked in coal mines, or did neither.

Post prohibition, those health issues would remain unchanged, because they have no relationship whatsoever to spirituality, morality, or any law of man. People who are serious about those issues have long recognized that prohibition has done nothing to solve them, and further that it frustrates them in many ways.

[Loud Mime]

I believe this thread has lost its context, it has strayed from its initial argument.

I do not do drugs, except for my migranes.

I recently served on a federal jury concerning drug gangs. It seems that some here are arguing this from a comfortable armchair and addressing theory instead of reality; I saw evidence that brings the serious nature of drug crimes to the forefront.

For those of you who believe law is the solution, the trial was about two cops who decided to join the illegal drug trade. Gee, are there any more stories like that?

Let the guilty pay for their crimes. But too many innocent people are dying in the drug wars, despite all the arguments on this thread that the war is worth it. Those were not your lives, so you can keep arguing.