[RLK]

Legalizing drugs will produce a nation of zombies who are impossible to live with individually and who will impose their stunted mentalities politically.

[Pistias]

Here we go again...

[ravinson]

Substitute the word "guns" for "drugs" and you can use the same narrow-minded arguments to scare people into giving up their 2nd Amendment liberties.

[StDonTheBaptist]

Drug legalization is no doubt the brain child of someone on drugs. Someone who only thinks of themselves.

[laredo44]

No one is completely sheltered from the violence, destruction, and costs that arise as a result of drugs.

No one is completely sheltered from the violence, destruction, and costs that arise as a result of tyranny. Liberty is far more important than this petite minded war on drugs.

[Rodney King]

Although tobacco contributes to roughly 400,000 deaths per year, marijuana is much more carcinogenic than tobacco, which means it supresses the human immune system in a more fatally powerful way

Actually, that is not what carcinognenic means.

[Rodney King]

Moreover, researchers have found a correlation between increase drug use and the increase likelihood of committing domestic abuse.

I am sure this is true. However, people who assume that correlation=causation know absolutely nothing about statistics, which weakens their credibility. For example, 100% of all murderers were found to have eaten within the previous 72 hours. Does that mean that eating causes people to murder others? Of course not. As I said, I am sure that this correlation is true, and the causality is probably there as well. However it is a poorly written paper that throws out correlations and just assumes that they prove causation.

[Rodney King]

Great Britain experiemented with softening its heroin laws from 1959 to 1968. The result was that Scotland Yard had to double its narcotics squad just to keep up with the ever increasing drug related crimes

Interesting. What then explains the rise in drug use in the U.S. from 1959 - 1968?

Well, I could pick apart more of this but I hope that you guys get the point. There are a lot of good arguments that can be made against legalizing drugs. The author of this piece, however, wastes his time with opinion disguised as fact and other shoddy journalism.

[ICU812]

Perhaps some may interpret these last few points as attacks against alcohol too. Tobacco and alcohol, however, cannot be grouped together with drugs for one simple reason: the dangers behind tobacco and alcohol are far less severe than drugs. Although alcohol is a factor in half of all murders, sexual assaults, robberies, a nd violent crimes, this is actually rather benign compared to drugs.

LOL. I swear that last sentence is so badly thought out that I could almost believe that the author is secretly for legalization and that this entire article is an attempt to point out the absurdity in prohibitionist arguments. The author says, yes its true "alcohol is a factor in half of all murders, sexual assaults, robberies, and violent crimes this is actually rather benign compared to drugs". Hmmmm. Even if drugs were a factor in ALL "murders, sexual assaults, robberies, and violent crimes" it would not make his previously quoted statistic "benign". As for tobacco, the CDC has said that it kills more people than AIDS, murder, suicide, fires, alcohol and all illegal drugs COMBINED.( Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, May 23, 1997)

Even though 400,000 babies are born every year to some sort of disability because of irresponsible, drunken mothers, drugs are still worse. For example, mothers who smoke marijuana give their babies a 500 percent greater chance of developing disabilites and eleven times greater chance of getting leukemia over mothers who drink alcohol while pregnant.

Meaningless statistic, try comparing marijuana to tobacco since they have similar delivery systems. Smoking tobacco during pregnancy is estimated to account for 20 to 30 percent of low-birth weight babies, up to 14 percent of preterm deliveries, and some 10 percent of all infant deaths.

Cocaine is addictive to 75 percent of first-time users. Compare this to alcohol, which is addictive to 10 percent of first-time users.

Meaningless statistic, alcohol is tried by many more people so it only makes sense that a smaller PERCENTAGE of people would become addicted to it, however the actual number of alcohol addicts would be much, much larger than cocaine addicts.

Although tobacco contributes to roughly 400,000 deaths per year, marijuana is much more carcinogenic than tobacco, which means it supresses the human immune system in a more fatally powerful way.

This joker doesn't even know what "carcinogenic" means. A carcinogen is something that promotes abonormal cell growth(namely cancer). Do we really need to argue about which substance, marijuana or tobacco, kills more people with cancer every year?

Therefore, while it is true that alcohol and tobacco are unkind products, to argue that drugs ought to be legalized because alcohol and tobacco are legal completely ignores the vast differences in harm between the legal and illegal.

There is no bright dividing line between what drugs are legal and which aren't. The only reason tobacco and alcohol are legal today and marijuana isn't is because there are enough alcohol drinkers and tobacco smokers to make their prohibition politically impractical. BTW, no one I know is arguing that "drugs ought to be legalized because alcohol and tobacco are legal", we're merely pointing out the absurdity of treating them differently. The "because" of drug legalization is that its not the government's job to protect us from ourselves but only to protect our rights.

And something I like to inject into every WOD thread that I'd like an answer to from a prohibitionist that considers himself a constitutionalist: If it took the 18th amendment to the Constitution to ban alcohol in 1919 then why is no such amendment necessary to ban other drugs today?

[tdadams]

This is the most amateur and sloppy piece of "journalism" I've ever seen. This guy consistently substitutes his own opinion for hard facts. This is laughable. This is no more an authoritative article than some of the rambling prohibitionist rants from pseudo-tyrants in our government (or here on FR for that matter).

The author states that drugs cannot be lumped together with tobacco and alcohol, but does exactly that himself (twice in fact) in the paragraph just preceeding. I'm sure he realizes that taken separately, the dangers and consequences of drugs are miniscule in comparison to alcohol, therefore it's necessary to lump them together in order to talk about the collective danger of mind-altering substances. His contention that drugs (especially marijuana) is more dangerous than alcohol is obviously wrong (and laughable) even to the most gullible and un-critical thinker.

His examples of Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Switzerland take a very selective view of the problem. It also refers to the early stages of those countries' decriminalization programs, where the best approach was yet to be played out (but nonetheless worthwhile). I've been to both countries and seen them firsthand. I doubt the author has. Of course there's going to be a certain amount of transitional problems, but that doesn't make decriminalization a failure or without merit.

This is so poorly written and researched (if it was researched at all!) that I can't believe someone would actually publish it. This student newspaper has just injured its credibility significantly.

[fod]

Good grief, this article is nothing more than emotional quasi-marxist tripe.

I wonder what this idiot's view on gun control is

This really did need a "barf alert"

[steve-b]

Gotten tired of being laughed off the Harry Potter and creationism threads?

[steve-b]

much more carcinogenic than tobacco, which means it supresses the human immune system

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Wolfie]

The author would do better to consider how the U.S. is going to do business in a world where the rest of the industrialized nations have abandoned the Drug War model.

[tacticalogic]

Drugs are a societal problem.

So are illegitimacy, divorce, gambling addiction, adultery, and a whole host of other things. The government seems to have little success keeping it's own problems in check. Anyone who thinks it can solve society's problems too hasn't been paying attention.

[redrock]

....just more propaganda from the 'Do-Gooders'.

redrock--Constitutional Terrorist

[eleni121]

Drugs already cause so much harm. Imagine the societal mayhem if illegal drugs were legalized!

[AnalogReigns]

Try and convince me that Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, et als, would support the war on drugs...with its concomitant loss of liberty--for everyone. The only way drug use could be fully controlled is if WE ALL are fully controlled to--by an all powerful police state.

Who is one of the most economically free and vibrant states in Europe--Holland, which has full drug legalization.

The Netherlands has, by the way, significantly fewer users and addicts proportionally, than the USA.

[aruanan]

Except that the major costs to society have been as a direct consequence of having made drugs illegal. The same thing happened with tobacco centuries ago with the death penalty, asset forfeiture, mutilation (lips and noses removed) being imposed for tobacco use. Making a substance illegal, especially a substance that people want, guarantees that it will become the subject of criminal enterprise. The costs to society of this criminal enterprise cannot be blamed on the drug. It's just a substance. It cannot be blamed on the behavior of people who desire to use it, because their desire is not what made the drug illicit. The costs to society, beyond the physical effects of addiction or other physical/health consequences of the drug, must be placed on directly on the actual cause--decisions made by legislators pandering to pressure groups for votes (or worse, attempting to use the law to engineer society in their own image)--and consequent enforcement actions. The United States had easily--available drugs of all sorts for hundreds of years. Yes, there were some addicts (there will ALWAYS be addicts), but there weren't the legislative-added consequences of property seizure, organized crime (both by criminals and police), home invasions (both by criminals and cops), etc., etc., etc.. Folks, you need to get real. Even if drugs were being sold on every street corner if made legal (oh wait, in a lot of places they're sold on just about every corner even though illegal), your attitude as a parent will have a greater effect on preventing drug use by your children than will anything else.

[realpatriot71]

No one is completely sheltered from the violence, destruction, and costs that arise as a result of drugs

Violence always accompanies an illegal market. As long as drugs are illegal, keep on looking for the violence.

Tobacco and alcohol, however, cannot be grouped together with drugs for one simple reason: the dangers behind tobacco and alcohol are far less severe than drugs. Although alcohol is a factor in half of all murders, sexual assaults, robberies, and violent crimes, this is actually rather benign compared to drugs.

This guy lost ALL credibility when he made this statement. Alcohol, impairs judgement, slows down motor coordination, too much will poison you, stop your breathing, and you will die. But alcohol is benign, right? Its not dangerous, right?