Posted on 06/16/2010 9:58:48 AM PDT by logician2u
I'm confused. When I walk around busy midtown Manhattan, I often smell marijuana. Despite the crowds, some people smoke weed in public. Usually the police leave them alone, and yet other times they act like a military force engaged in urban combat. This February, cops stormed a Columbia, Mo., home, killed the family dog and terrorized a 7-year-old boy -- for what? A tiny quantity of marijuana.
Two years ago, in Prince George's County, Md., cops raided Cheye Calvo's home -- all because a box of marijuana was randomly shipped to his wife as part of a smuggling operation. Only later did the police learn that Calvo was innocent -- and the mayor of that town.
"When this first happened, I assumed it was just a terrible, terrible mistake," Calvo said. "But the more I looked into it, the more I realized (it was) business as usual that brought the police through our front door. This is just what they do. We just don't hear about it. The only reason people heard about my story is that I happened to be a clean-cut white mayor."
Radley Balko of Reason magazine says more than a hundred police SWAT raids are conducted every day. Does the use of illicit drugs really justify the militarization of the police, the violent disregard for our civil liberties and the overpopulation of our prisons? It seems hard to believe.
I understand that people on drugs can do terrible harm -- wreck lives and hurt people. But that's true for alcohol, too. But alcohol prohibition didn't work. It created Al Capone and organized crime. Now drug prohibition funds nasty Mexican gangs and the Taliban. Is it worth it? I don't think so.
Everything can be abused, but that doesn't mean government can stop it, or should try to stop it. Government goes astray when it tries to protect us from ourselves.
Many people fear that if drugs were legal, there would be much more use and abuse. That's possible, but there is little evidence to support that assumption. In the Netherlands, marijuana has been legal for years. Yet the Dutch are actually less likely to smoke than Americans. Thirty-eight percent of American adolescents have smoked pot, while only 20 percent of Dutch teens have. One Dutch official told me that "we've succeeded in making pot boring."
By contrast, what good has the drug war done? It's been 40 years since Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. Since then, government has spent billions and officials keep announcing their "successes." They are always holding press conferences showing off big drug busts. So it's not like authorities aren't trying.
We've locked up 2.3 million people, a higher percentage than any other country. That allows China to criticize America's human-rights record because our prisons are "packed with inmates."
Yet drugs are still everywhere. The war on drugs wrecks far more lives than drugs do!
Need more proof? Fox News runs stories about Mexican cocaine cartels and marijuana gangs that smuggle drugs into Arizona. Few stop to think that legalization would end the violence. There are no Corona beer smugglers. Beer sellers don't smuggle. They simply ship their product. Drug laws cause drug crime.
The drug trade moved to Mexico partly because our government funded narcotics police in Colombia and sprayed the growing fields with herbicides. We announced it was a success! We cut way back on the Colombian drug trade.
But so what? All we did was squeeze the balloon. The drug trade moved across the border to Peru, and now it's moved to Mexico. So the new president of Mexico is squeezing the balloon. Now the trade and the violence are spilling over the border into the United States.
That's what I call progress. It the kind of progress we don't need.
Economist Ludwig von Mises wrote: "(O)nce the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness ... (w)hy not prevent him from reading bad books and bad plays ... ? The mischief done by bad ideologies is more pernicious ... than that done by narcotic drugs."
Right on, Ludwig!
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DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM moved to Mexico. So the new president of Mexico is squeezing the balloon. Now the trade and the violence are spilling over the border into the United States.
You can't even keep prisons drug free so forget banning drugs in a free society.
Execute king pins and more will rise up. They're already forming armies and have more money than some nations.
Decriminalize and legalize and you pull the plug on the profits.
Just cut off all state aid, welfare entitlements, free medical care, whatever. They'll soon go the way of the Dodo bird.
Yes, it sounds harsh, but having worked undercover amongst the druggie world, no one will miss them. Least of all those who work and make things happen.
Yeah, that would be too crazy - lol
My car can go 100mph but I choose not to (although I have;)- there are speed limit prescriptions that I 'usually' adhere to because they make sense, I'll sometimes go 5-10mph over, so technically I'm abusing the prescribed speed limit intended for society.
I suppose the government could put GPS speed regulators on every vehicle, that wouldn't be too intrusive and we'd all drive the prescribed limit/s
Well, go ahead, go 100.
Maybe you won’t lost control. Maybe you won’t hit someone who has no expectation of coming across someone going 100.
Your crash may somehow avoid costing us more in insurance. Your presence in the ER may not negatively affect anyone else there. The clean up of your crash may not cause any trouble for anyone. Your dependents may carry on just fine without you. Society may be better off, who knows.
IIRC, Jesus transformed 12 jugs of water into wine at Canaan. Let's assume each earthen jug held 10 gallons...so now we have 120 gallons or 13.3 firkins of wine. And it was the good stuff, not Two Buck Chuck.
So with our 13.3 firkins we have 151 bottles of wine (using the contemporary measure of 750 ml/bottle).
It's pretty clear (God - I'm being sarcastic...) that Jesus, at his mother's behest, was intent on getting many people to partake in debauchery, vandalism, criminal nutballs wandering our streets, and others who cannot string together a coherent sentence.
So, alcohol “use” gets pass (rightly), but marijuana “use” can only be detrimental.
Again, BS.
There has been a government-coordinated (FUNDED) attempt to paint marijuana in a negative light, far disproportionate than it deserves. It would seem that there is no marijuana “use”, only “abuse”.
From my “personal experience and observations”, weed gets a very bad rap. And almost all of it is unfounded and a great deal of it hysterical. Again, look at the growing list of “adverse” effects. Nearly every one of them a government-sponsored smear. I’ll say it again, if marijuana caused all the things the goobermint says it does, it would be more toxic than Plutonium, Benzene and Arsenic, combined. You would die just from stepping on it (sarcasm, but well made).
“Reefer Madness”, indeed.
So, we’ve acknowleged that there’s a list of supposed/proven effects from marijuana. Now, let’s make a list caused by the WO(S)D.
Drugs do not support the underworld of evil, etc.
ILLEGAL drugs do. The problem with illegal drugs (notwithstanding the other poster obsessed with PCP and heads-through-windshields) is the illegal market.
Frankly who cares if someone snorts something? It's their problem.
With respect to the heads-through-windshields argument, I'm far more concerned with people texting and driving.
Nah, I'll keep it under 75, I know my limits and my cars limit.
So you've never gone really fast-ever? Whether by car, bike or boat -skating, even running. One could stub their toe or scrap a knee - so better not...there ought to be a law about running too fast too...got to love the Nanny-state.... Ingsoc: Department of Life, Department of Liberty, Department of Happiness
The law enforcement industry needs the illegal market so they can stay in business.
Exactly.
One of my patented FR slogans:
“Law Enforcement is addicted to the war on drugs.”
I’ll agree that they shouldn’t abuse state aid and freebies, but they are separate issues.
Linked in some ways, but separate.
We don’t want to be around druggies because they are dangerous and unpleasant. We can’t cut all aid without watching people die etc. So here’s what we do:
Pick some cheap land in some hellhole part of Nevada. Make everything legal there with no public funds whatsoever. No emergency personnel, no law enforcement, no nothing. The scum of the Earth will be drawn to it like moths to a candle. Even have cities sick of the druggies offer free bus service to it.
It would be like a roach motel. Many would never return. Those that do come back out would be searched first for drugs. Maybe they would die. Maybe they would learn. In any case it would be a free market solution far from us and our communities.
That’s how you drain the swamp. It would suck the worst of them away from the schools etc.
What I have in mind are the hardcore hallucinogenics like angel dust, PCP, etc. as well as crack and the like. These very clearly do introduce "issues" for those around their users, even when relatively little amounts of the substance are used, which is much of the reason why trying to draw an argument between these drugs and, say, alcohol are illegitimate.
A user can reduce the dose of any drug to lessen the pharmacological effect, all the way down to zero.
Adults decide to use or not use drugs.
No one else makes that decision for them, whatever they or government workers think.
There is a reasonable common ground between the Nanny State and anarchy (bully and nutjob rule).
I am not advocating either extreme.
Alcohol ABUSE does not get a pass.
No one smokes pot without getting high.
Most of us can have a drink without getting high.
And I don’t drink, so I am not just flogging my favorite drug. I don’t drink at all; I don’t care for it.
“Sullum, of course, had the advantage of being able to hand-pick his sample of “responsible drug users,” whereas the rest of us don’t....”
True enough. But responsible people can use drugs responsibly. And there really isn’t anything we can do about irresponsible people other than punish them when their stupidity injures someone.
I would be careful before you would accuse Jesus of getting drunk.
His word specifically forbids drunkenness.
Yet it allows for the use of wine. Wine is actually prescribed in communion, also, as you point out, Jesus made water into wine.
Some of the folks I argue with just seem determined to believe that anyone who opposes drunkenness therefore must want alcohol banned.
I am perfectly in favor of alcohol consumption, up until a person gets drunk.
Its worse than that. Even a rumor that you might have it in your home can get you killed.
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