Posted on 01/17/2003 8:01:41 AM PST by robertpaulsen
Not really, I think you'll find that the Libertarians here are very aware of what the problem is.
Then maybe you can help me understand the persistent and pervasive pro-drug question of, "Who does marijuana harm?" I point out some children that were harmed, and you just pooh-pooh it, saying, in effect, beer is......what? Just as harmful? Not as harmful? "I'm just trying to be funny"? What's your point?
Now, if your point is that beer is just as harmful, then haven't I made my case that MJ is harmful?
Person A smoking MJ does not harm anyone else. If person B is harmed by person A while smoking MJ, punish person A for the action, not the smoking. How about that?
If that's the rationale, then how do we justify making it illegal to: go 95 in a school zone, shoot at someone and miss, drink and drive, let my pit bulls roam free, build a large bomb, or put a mine field in my front yard. What's wrong with attempted robbery (or attempted anything)? Why were people so bent out of shape when Michael Jackson hung the baby over the balcony? Hell, he should be allowed to juggle three of them.
With that thinking, do I qualify for honorary Libertarian?
Are you being coy? Or stupid?
The only "harm" that came to this child is the "harm" of seeing his parents arrested.
Like I said, we'll just have to agree to disagree
For comparison...the Dallas Cowboys cornerback that killed two men (who were trying to help a man out of a burning car) with his 110 mph weapon was released on 50K bail. Yup, the WOD creates some interesting situations alright.
No, "just as harmful" can mean they measure both harms as zero. Please answer this yes-or-no question: If the kid had come to school with a 6-pack, would you say that was evidence that alcohol harms its users' children?
"If the kid had come to school with heroin and needles, would you say that was evidence that heroin harms its users' children?"
Your one word answer, "Yes".
What did you expect from the clueless?
My point, for the clueless, is that they're both illegal, Schedule I drugs. Any parent who leaves this type of drug laying around for a 6-year-old child to find is guilty of child endangerment. And stupidity.
You are correct, they are both illegal, but the only property that a Schedule I drug must possess is that it has to have a potential for abuse. If cigarettes and alcohol were illegal, I’m sure that the government would see fit to include them as Schedule I drugs.
But to say that the addictive properties and\or the potential to harm oneself is the same for marijuana as it is for heroin is at best absurd. That’s like saying the potential for harm is the same from leaving a slingshot laying around as it is for a loaded 357. If you are going to try and make comparisons, at least try to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.
I guess you didn't read the article. He is living with relatives now.
Not quite. According to the CSA:
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
Alcohol does have "accepted medical use in treatment in the United States", so it would not be listed as a Schedule I drug, if it were illegal, which it is not.
If, and I see that you're big on "ifs", marijuana is found to have some medical benefit, it would be rescheduled to a II, III, IV, or V drug. It's there mainly because of the "no medical use" designation.
Now, you say it shouldn't be there. Fine. I'm sure many others agree. But it is there, right along with heroin and all the others on the link I gave you. And no matter what schedule it is, it's still illegal, it was made available to a 6-year-old, and he brought it to class.
That's my point.
Gee, thanks for pointing that out.
I guess YOU didn't read the entire thread, somebody else already pointed out to me that the child is living with relatives. And as I stated to them, I am certain that NO government angency was involved in any way in that decision. < /sarcasm >
I hope his "relative" is more responsible than the exotic dancer in Newark who was taking care of her cousin's children.
And on that point I will have to agree with you. Weather one likes it or not the law is the law, which is one reason I don’t use illegal substances, as I do believe in the rule of law, but certainly not the primary one. But even that being true, that does not mean that when one sees that the law is wrong, and in fact does more harm than it does good, that one should not speak up against it.
And I am aware of the other two criteria but didn’t think them really worthy of mention since their primary function is more verbose language to support the first criteria.
” Alcohol does have "accepted medical use in treatment in the United States", so it would not be listed as a Schedule I drug, if it were illegal, which it is not.”
A hundred years ago that would be true but I don’t believe that alcohol is being widely used these days for medicinal purposes. Outside of the base for some products, i.e. mouthwash, Nyquil, and as a cleansing agent, I have not recently heard of any doctors using Jack Daniels, or more appropriately Everclear, as an anesthetic. But even if it does have current day medicinal uses, does that mean that the government was willing to sacrifice the well being of it’s citizens, in it’s zeal to stamp out moral corruption during the years of prohibition? Would not the medicinal uses of alcohol been more pertinent in the 20’s than it is today? And while we are in the area, why did the government have to pass a Constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol but can today make certain drugs illegal by simple legislative action? Did something change in the Constitution between then and now?
"if marijuana is found to have some medical benefit, it would be rescheduled to a II, III, IV, or V drug. It's there mainly because of the "no medical use" designation."
Or more specifically, it is there because the government has determined that it has no medical benefit, there are many in the medical community who would disagree. And giving the choice between what a doctor thinks is a substance medical value, and what a bureaucrat thinks it is, I would have to place more weight on the doctors opinion. But I have not spent a lot of time following the medical marijuana position in that it is somewhat disingenuous as it is an approach that recognizes the governments right to prohibit marijuana in the first place. A right I don’t believe the government has.
But to get back to the subject at hand to say that the parents in the article engaged in child endangerment by having marijuana in the house is a liberal position if I ever heard one. If one accepts that as being true, because that child might have been done some harm by coming in contact with the marijuana, although in the case as presented no harm actually came to anyone, then one would have to agree that having a loaded firearm in the house, for personal protection, is clearly subjecting the child to possible harm. I mean after all the only function that a firearm has is to kill, if the child were to somehow acquire the weapon it’s hard telling how many people could be harmed. And don’t think that the gun grabbers are above using that as an argument. No I think the true endangerment to the child here is that they could become a ward of the state. I can think of a no worse fate.
Really? I can.
"Earlier this year (2000-rp), a six-year-old boy pulled out a gun at school and killed one of his classmates at a school in Mount Morris Township, Michigan. Her name was Kayla Rolland."
"No, little Dedrick Owens's family could be called a lot of things, but normal wasn't one of them. The family's collective police record reads like something out of an Iceberg Slim or Donald Goines novel. His 28-year-old father is in jail - again - and his mother has demons that prevent her from coping with the pressures of keeping a job, paying rent and raising her three children. She left her two boys with an uncle. That's when a sad story turned sordid. The uncle was a drug dealer whose home was a crack house."
"A drug dealer, to survive in the "profession," must be totally ruthless. He must be willing and able to kill at a second's notice. There are no trigger locks in a crack house. You won't find tenderness, mercy or morals, either. Frankly, the safety and well being of his nephews was probably the last thing on the uncle's mind."
"Time for Some Child Control" by Kimberley Jane Wilson
So you're suggesting that maybe we should wait until "harm actually came to anyone"? I'd rather not.
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