Posted on 06/20/2014 9:08:47 AM PDT by xzins
Pope Francis condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a flawed and failed experiment as he lent his voice Friday to a debate that is raging from the United States to Uruguay.
Francis told delegates attending a Rome drug enforcement conference that even limited steps to legalize recreational drugs "are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects."
Likewise, Francis said, providing addicts with drugs offered only "a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon."
"Let me state this in the clearest terms possible," he said. "The problem of drug use is not solved with drugs!"
Francis has described drug addiction as evil and met addicts on several occasions. When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he devoted much of his pastoral care to addicts.
To reject illegal drugs, he said, "one has to say 'yes' to life, 'yes' to love, 'yes' to others, 'yes' to education, 'yes' to greater job opportunities.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I don’t think any true Christian would argue with the need for the Good News to reach people everywhere.
Francis, though, is addressing a particular social problem — drug abuse, addiction.
I, too, think that criminalization hasn’t worked. I saw a piece on the news in the last 24 hours about a kid who had some pot and some pot brownies, and he’s up for life imprisonment...no violence, no drug running, no cartels.
The middle ground is controlled access....things like heroin and crack only through a prescription. Things like pot, only from a state liquor store with all the same restrictions that we have on alcohol, age of purchase, dui penalties, etc.
We are entering an incredibly dangerous period.
And drugs aren't the only problem. The interaction of technology and pornography is another area where addiction will be out of control.
Application of scientific agriculture has greatly increased the potency of marijuana. And we've not talked yet about genetic modification. So the science in the field and in the lab has produced some terrible new choices.
Controlled access is the best answer out there at the moment, imo.
Some say that, some say otherwise:
'As Washington's so-called "pot czar," UCLA public policy professor Mark Kleiman has furnished the state’s Liquor Control Board with policy recommendations. [...] Many people in Washington have worried it will be too high, making it uncompetitive with black market pot. [...] Kleiman guessed that once the market stabilizes, producing a gram of marijuana could cost as little as 50 cents. Even adding taxes and profits margins could price it well below what illegal pot costs.' - http://www.kplu.org/post/washingtons-pot-czar-says-legal-marijuana-could-be-too-cheap
Potency has gone up - though not by the 30-fold that was tossed around by the feds a few years back. And there's nothing wrong with that so long as it's labeled ... greater potency means less smoke for the same high, so it's less unhealthy.
Controlled access is the best answer out there at the moment, imo.
Agreed: treat it like liquor.
One thing that I doubt Pope Francis [and, sadly, a lot of 'conservatives'] understands about the US is that legalization
is a technical non-issue precisely because the federal government has no legitimate authority to illegalize drugs in the first place.
Consider Precedence
:
In order to prohibit alcohol, the constitution had to be amended; no such amendment exists WRT drugs.
Consider the framework whereby the War on Drugs is justified
by the USSC:
● The foundational portion is Wickard v. Filburn, wherein the USSC declared that Congress has the power to regulate intrastate commerce via the interstate commerce clause under the laughable justification that local [non-]commerce has some impact on interstate commerce and therefore can be thusly regulated. — incidentally, this is foundational for ObamaCare.
● The ideas above were further expanded in Gonzales v. Raich to cover some item which has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market
(see dissent), which makes the federal government one which is unrestricted and unbound by any enumeration of powers.
In fact, there is a line of reasoning which shows the War on Drugs is definitionally, by the Constitution, Treason — the enforcement of the WOD is the waging of war or the assertion of will upon a conquered state.
It will start high and stay high. Supply and distribution will be extremely constrained and will stay that way. Growers can’t even get agricultural water.
Kids are everywhere, and they're such easily-abused items. Or--- did I say "abused"? Perp could argue it was user-friendly.
I'm very uncomfortable with that line of reasoning: it could be exactly applied to firearms — after all, we now have firearms that are superior in accuracy, ease-of-use, portability and (with modern manufacturing, soon to be enhanced/replaced via 3-D printing) availability.
I cannot condone CONTROLLED ACCESS of firearms precisely because those controlling the access will not allow them to be used when/if they should be used against that controlling authority
; moreover, to endorse controlled access WRT drugs is to endorse the eradication of free-will and impose infantalization upon society.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
— C. S. Lewis
I do wonder whether removing the (admittedly imperfect) power of government suppression, though, won't lead to a general insouciance about drugs. It can't be bad, it's legal. It's not only legal, it's government-sponsored. Law teaches: and this is what law will teach.
Legalizing the act of anal intercourse now means it has to be taught to middle-schoolers as part of sex-ed. Yes, there were always people who sought gratification from anal penetration. The law against it could in fact rarely or practically-never be enforced. But now it's "normalized" and therefore part of the way we raise our young.* I can't think that's better.
(NOT MY YOUNG!!)
The 2nd amendment is about firearms and not about drugs. “The right to keep and bear drugs” is not in the Constitution.
Therefore, like many things it is controllable. Driving is controlled via licenses. FISHING is controlled via licensing.
Alcohol is controlled by ID checks and by greater potency alcohol being sold in state stores (at least in Ohio).
In my opinion, some things should be by prescription BUT available. Others should be in state stores. There should be DUI laws. There is no such thing as access that makes it ok to harm someone else, either through intoxicated acts or thoughtlessness.
Time will tell. I don't doubt that the state of Washington is capable of screwing up legalization. Colorado seems to have done it reasonably well.
Government does a fair job of dealing with real crimes that have actual victims: almost two-thirds of murders get solved. It does a much poorer job with self-harming vices; the proportion of drug transactions that are even detected (by anyone other than the buyer and seller) is assuredly vastly lower than two-thirds.
Sex with a minor is a crime with a victim.
I tend to agree with you. When Christianity became the state religion, Christian people would pretend adherence in order to be thought better of by the Emperor. That just about always ends up corrupting people's intentions.
However, that sentence would be clarified a bit if it were noted that the church reformers (I am not talking about the Reformation, I am talking about e.g. the Hildebrandian/Gregorian, Cistercian reforms --- the many reforms before the 16th century )--- almost always had as their object, the reform of the clergy and freeing of the Church from the corruption of benefices and the control of princes.
The control of the State came back with a vengeance in the 16th century Wars of Religion, when the universal church was vivisected along national lines, became precisely identified with nationalism (Church of England, Church of Scotland, Church of Sweden, Church of a dozen German landgraves and princes.)
They're already working on the APA with those suppositions.
I of course say that's crap: a child can't give consent. They respond: the English common law traditionally set the age of consent within the range of 10 to 12, as it was in the United States until the 1880's. (In Delaware it was 7 as late as 1895).
Have you talked to teens recently? They can already get any popular drug they wish. Usually right inside school.
And so can adults. If you go to any popular night spot and dress right, dealers will give you their business cards and you can get any drug you like delivered faster than a pizza. They obviously have local cops in their pocket.
The drug war is pointless except for the vast transfer of wealth to criminals, bought politicians and corrupt cops. Drugs are far easier to smuggle and hundreds of times more profitable than liquor during the bootlegger era so you will never put a dent in the industry. Even in places where the death penalty is handed down, people still risk their lives to get rich and drugs are available.
I've never met a single person in my life who stayed away from drugs because they are illegal. They stay away because they don't enjoy them or know the consequences of using. All we can do is educate people on the consequences in a real world, educated manner. Something the stupid “anti-drug” campaigns always failed to do. It's almost as if they wanted people to laugh at them and use more drugs...
I have sure known plenty of people who avoid or stopped using drugs, or associating with drug users, because of the laws.
That second remark is interesting, people can spot you as a drug user yet I don't get pushers giving me their business cards, your entire post sounds like the media figure who didn't believe that Nixon had been reelected in one of the biggest landslides in history, because she personally didn't know anyone who voted for him.
I disagree. Strong liquor isn’t in the hands of kids very easily because it is controlled....not illegal.
If you make everything a candy store and open it to everyone, then kids are more likely to enter the candy store.
Beyond that, it’s a moral issue. We do NOT allow our kids to be intoxicated. That’s not what childhood should be about.
>> We do NOT allow our kids to be intoxicated. That’s not what childhood should be about.
bttt!
You probably mean that 1% of drug users who got caught and ended up getting randomly tested by the government while on probation. That's not a solution and otherwise nobody cares about the laws. Your chance of being caught is so astronomically low that no users take it into account.
“That second remark is interesting, people can spot you as a drug user yet I don't get pushers giving me their business cards”
It has nothing to do with outwardly displaying you are a user. If you dress wealthy and drive a flashy car to a hot night club, they will try to get friendly with you and give you a card. Most wealthy people who go to these clubs use drugs at least occasionally. These are the dealers for A-listers and celebrities.
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