Posted on 08/21/2009 2:53:19 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Both points of which are completely irrelevant to the question of whether large numbers of the populace would become permanent addicts if drug laws were relaxed.
donna, please rush me five pounds of whatever it is you’re smoking so I can sell it and retire a RICH man. I will not dignify your “post” with a response. Just go read what I wrote and try to comprehend, using your basic English language skills. Unless of course you are a product of our public education system. If that’s the case please ask a home-schooled second grader to explain it to you.
Good day to you.
And you’ve yet to provide any valid argument backing your statment that that removing restrictions on an individuals’ choice on what substances they can ingest will somehow lead to the downfall of liberty in the USA, when other harmful substances are already freely available.
Smugness and conjecture does not win any arguments here on Free Republic.
I ask you again to provide some kind of backing for your ridiculous, illogical statement.
Of course we are serious about finding a solution to America's drug "problem" -- but you Police Staters refuse to listen. The solution is RE-LEGALIZATION; ending the War on Drugs; returning our nation back to its roots of individual LIBERTY, especially when it comes to those of us who use responsibly & are not a threat to others.
I agree that it is a spiritual problem. But not everyone has the desire to live their lives as clean as Billy Graham has done. We have a God-given right to behave in such a manner. To paraphrase what Paul wrote in Romans 1:6, I can't help but say
For I am NOT ashamed of my smoking of pot.
Thank you for the nice post and the honest debate, Loud Mime.
This is a vexing problem, complicated by a “solution” (the “War on Drugs”) that, if it didn’t start out that way, was certainly perverted into a tyrannical power-grab by many.
I’m typing from an armchair, and my closest encounter with the drug problem is having watched my brother ruin his life for many years with the stuff. (He’s been off it now for several years.:-)
Perhaps my concern should be directed more at the crime exacerbated by prohibition. It’s not that I’m unconcerned about that problem, though; it’s that I’m not convinced legalization is a good solution.
The solution has to come from the people, and it’s disappointing to see FReepers advocating “legalized casual use” as that solution. For pot, maybe. Maybe. But for many, pot is nothing more than a stalking horse, a “harmless” way to sneak in cocaine, heroin, LSD, and meth (those others listed in the Mexico story.) Those are not harmless, are they?
Parts of our society seem perfectly content to live with violence, drugs, prostitution, widespread promiscuity, and general trashiness. Well, that’s their freedom (insofar as they get away with it.) As much as I would wish better for them, only a tyrant would try to force them to change their ways.
On the other hand, these folks and their trashy communities are a drain on my community and on my country. Still, the best I can reasonably hope for is that the trashiness can be contained to those communities that want it, and kept out of mine. It still bleeds over into communities that don’t want it, and we have to clean up the messes caused by others. Maybe, in the final analysis, that’s the best we can expect, given the lawlessness and trashiness of some parts of our society.
My brother told me of his ventures to parts of town that no sane person would dare drive through after dark. There are invisible walls in our cities, which ought to be made into real walls. Let everyone then freely choose which side they want to live on, and then let’em stay there, so each side can deal with the problems it alone creates.
May I answer that question? I would say mot "NO", but instead I would say
IMO, the Wickard decision practically eviscerated the 10th Amendment by judicial fiat...& BOTH Democrats & Republicans have jumped on this w/ glee whenever it suited their purposes.
We'd all be dead or taken over in a short time as the power grid broke down, commerce stopped, etc. Now, I have a couple of simple yes/no questions:
1. Do you have any evidence that a hundred years of drug prohibition has reduced addiction?
2. Do you have evidence that countries with harsh drug policies have lower addiction rates than countries with more lenient ones?
Personal insults - you sound like Obama (the drug user).
Oh, Soros has a plan for you. See post #157.
My FRiend, I never claimed either of those were true (assuming they’re rhetorical questions.) In fact, I’ll grant for the sake of argument that the answers to both are No, since they have no bearing on my argument.
But they’re probably good questions for data-gathering just the same, particularly for those who argue that law alone can determine drug abuse rates.
How do you think Obama got elected? The whole country is taking happy drugs.
Everywhere you turn we will have problems with any "solution." There is no perfect fix. But the current laws are not working.
Perhaps my concern should be directed more at the crime exacerbated by prohibition. It’s not that I’m unconcerned about that problem, though; it’s that I’m not convinced legalization is a good solution.
Sorry, it's the ONLY solution. I live one mile from gangland and see them all the time. We're feeding those crooks with our laws; I do not see how that point can be contested.
So what is your solution?
Cigarettes are legal...the various governments got rich on cigarette taxes and expanded government control of private property.
You can have that for all drugs if you want.
Did you go back and READ what I wrote or are you just gonna act dumb still? Let me know when you have READ my post. Then you can tell me where it is I said I wanted to get rid of Christians in order to have legal drugs. Until then, don’t bother to post to me.
Legalization the way you want it will never happen. Just face facts.
The best examples you have are alcohol and cigarettes. You’re talking larger more powerful federal law enforcement to collect the taxes, catch bootleggers, local cops will still arrest underage and public intoxication, etc.
Soon, gardens growing pot will be regulated like swimming pools - inspectors on your property to collect home grown taxes.
Official medical lists of drug abusers, government programs for rehab, children taken from homes due to exposure.
You all aren’t thinking it through. Big brother will get a foot in your front door with legalization.
You have missed the spirit of my argument,redefining it into something that it is not. You have ignored questions of mine as well.
I prefer to argue with serious persons who actually engage in dialogue. If you wish to see that at work, read the posts between learsfool and myself.
Will you guys read my post 145 and explain it to ms. donna? I’m at a loss as to how she came up with “You want to get rid of Christians so drugs can be legal - that’s some plan.” from what I said to her...
No, "the whole country (IS NOT) taking happy drugs". The reason Obama got elected is because people who are normally conservative and/or Republican were sick and tired of the Iraq war, and for no other reason. Bush lost the Jacksonians, and hence the the Republicans lost the election. It's really hard to respect someone who makes dumbass comments like yours above.
You might think that, as conservatives who supposedly share our wariness of the government's heavy hand, social cons might support fighting drug use, prostitution, porn consumption, and other behaviors they dislike through purely cultural means, rather than through use of government law enforcement. You'd be wrong, though, since it seems that social conservatives nearly always jump to sick the government on a perceived social ill before they even think of doing anything else. This is deeply disturbing, since it shows not only an irrational trust in government's effectiveness as a social engineering tool, but also exposes an underlying lack of respect for liberty, not to mention a callous disregard for the human consequences of sicking the police on people for simply disagreeing with socially conservative standards of conduct. Smoking marijuana shouldn't land you in a jail cell in an overcrowded lockup where you could be subject to anal rape by a gang of thugs, but it easily can in this country, thanks in great part, to social conservatives.
At some point, we liberty minded conservatives are going to have to ask ourselves whether we, at a basic level, really have that much in common with social conservatives. It's clear that their idea of freedom includes only the freedom to behave as they do, or as they claim to believe one should. "Freedom for me, but not for thee" is not liberty, however, and it is difficult to see how we continue an alliance with big-government-friendly folks who look forward to establishing a socially conservative utopia enforced by the thick boot of a virtual police state.
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