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Myth-busting Peter Hitchens confronts fake war on drugs
Australian Conservative ^ | November 30, 2010 | Ben-Peter Terpstra

Posted on 11/30/2010 3:38:01 AM PST by AustralianConservative

It’s an old trick mastered by marijuana-first libertarians.

One: Pretend there’s a massive war on drugs – a complete failure.

Two: Demand that we be even softer and kinder to drug users, because being tough is, like, mean.

Three: Repeat the user’s lawyer-approved statements and parrot his cop-bashing stories.

Four: In the name of “freedom” censor the failings of the soft-on-drugs movement, especially cracks in the Dutch experiment, attacks on family-run businesses and welfare-dependency concerns.

Five: Uncritically thank the former-Nazi collaborator George Soros, for supporting your enlightened cause.

(Excerpt) Read more at australianconservative.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Philosophy; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: blogpimp; marijuana; warondrugs
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http://australianconservative.com/2010/11/myth-busting-peter-hitchens-confronts-fake-war-on-drugs/
1 posted on 11/30/2010 3:38:08 AM PST by AustralianConservative
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To: AustralianConservative
A couple of minor problems... first, there is a massive war on drug users. Police forces at all levels of government have become more militarized as a direct result of this war, and it is all because of this war. Second, this war is indeed a huge failure. Drug use is no longer a shameful act, it is celebrated, and there are more drug users now than ever before.

Claiming otherwise is just ignoring reality.

2 posted on 11/30/2010 3:48:50 AM PST by pnh102 (Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
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To: AustralianConservative

Soros just won here in Arizona, getting “medical” pot legalized by an initiative barely passing. Meanwhile a huge distribution network is poised to deliver it.

Even many conservatives here don’t understand what Soros is doing.


3 posted on 11/30/2010 3:49:40 AM PST by \/\/ayne (I regret that I have but one subscription cancellation notice to give to my local newspaper.)
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To: AustralianConservative
to quote the pedophile Ginsberg

...I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness...

he of course, was referring to business suits and a goals.

I saw it as good minds from good families becoming little more than useless goofs...I tend to be libertarian on many subjects, not this one.

4 posted on 11/30/2010 3:59:15 AM PST by Vaquero (Dont pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: AustralianConservative

We don’t have a war on drugs. It is all smoke and mirrors. The border would be secure if we were in a real war. Some people are making huge amounts of money and they seem to be safe from arrest. The small time users and pushers seem to be the only ones that are arrested. That shows how well the “war” is being fought.


5 posted on 11/30/2010 4:08:44 AM PST by seemoAR
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To: AustralianConservative

6 posted on 11/30/2010 4:11:46 AM PST by WVKayaker (Remember that the faith that moves mountains always carries a pick.)
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To: AustralianConservative

What’s Wrong With the Drug War?

Everyone has a stake in ending the war on drugs. Whether you’re a parent concerned about protecting children from drug-related harm, a social justice advocate worried about racially disproportionate incarceration rates, an environmentalist seeking to protect the Amazon rainforest or a fiscally conservative taxpayer you have a stake in ending the drug war. U.S. federal, state and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make America “drug-free.” Yet heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs are cheaper, purer and easier to get than ever before. Nearly half a million people are behind bars on drug charges - more than all of western Europe (with a bigger population) incarcerates for all offenses. The war on drugs has become a war on families, a war on public health and a war on our constitutional rights.

Many of the problems the drug war purports to resolve are in fact caused by the drug war itself. So-called “drug-related” crime is a direct result of drug prohibition’s distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand. Public health problems like HIV and Hepatitis C are all exacerbated by zero tolerance laws that restrict access to clean needles. The drug war is not the promoter of family values that some would have us believe. Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse.

Few public policies have compromised public health and undermined our fundamental civil liberties for so long and to such a degree as the war on drugs. The United States is now the world’s largest jailer, imprisoning nearly half a million people for drug offenses alone. That’s more people than Western Europe, with a bigger population, incarcerates for all offenses. Roughly 1.5 million people are arrested each year for drug law violations - 40% of them just for marijuana possession. People suffering from cancer, AIDS and other debilitating illnesses are regularly denied access to their medicine or even arrested and prosecuted for using medical marijuana. We can do better.
-http://www.drugpolicy.org/drugwar/


7 posted on 11/30/2010 4:14:18 AM PST by WVKayaker (Remember that the faith that moves mountains always carries a pick.)
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To: AustralianConservative

> It’s an old trick mastered by marijuana-first libertarians.

Straw man - no such “old trick” exists - at least in the US. Maybe the UK is different.

> One: Pretend there’s a massive war on drugs – a complete failure.

There is a war on drugs. It’s not ‘pretend’.

> Two: Demand that we be even softer and kinder to drug users, because being tough is, like, mean.

Most libertarians don’t want to ‘go softer and kinder to drug users’. They want to return to the idea that a person has property in their own bodies to when no one else is harmed, the gov’t should not be involved. When someone is forced to take drugs or when people on drugs harm people then they laws should be enforced in the manner that alcohol laws are enforced. It’s a ‘freedom-first’ concept, not marijuana-first. Most libertarians I know don’t want anything to do with using drugs.

> Three: Repeat the user’s lawyer-approved statements and parrot his cop-bashing stories.

This happens but again, it’s a freedom issue, not a cops gone wrong issue.

> Four: In the name of “freedom” censor the failings of the soft-on-drugs movement, especially cracks in the Dutch experiment, attacks on family-run businesses and welfare-dependency concerns.

This makes little sense in the US. The solid libertarian argument is on freedom principles not on pragmatists considerations of ‘welfare dependency’.

> Five: Uncritically thank the former-Nazi collaborator George Soros, for supporting your enlightened cause.

Again, this is a stretch in the US to most who are aware of the freedom hating ideas of George Soros. The only ones thanking him are the far left, most of whom’s jobs depend on him.


8 posted on 11/30/2010 4:35:29 AM PST by Kent C
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To: pnh102

Only girly-boy men believe there is a true war on drugs. Turning to court records, there are numerous examples of soft-on-drug judges letting users off. Is talk therapy a war? Is bragging on TV about drug usage proof that people are scared of the cops? No. No. Time to man up and show them what a real war looks like.


9 posted on 11/30/2010 4:53:55 AM PST by AustralianConservative
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To: Vaquero

Right. Ginsberg. He was a friend of child molesters, right? Typical narcissistic personality.


10 posted on 11/30/2010 4:56:32 AM PST by AustralianConservative
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To: AustralianConservative
Time to man up and show them what a real war looks like.

Maybe they should have executed Roscoe Filburn.

11 posted on 11/30/2010 4:57:15 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: seemoAR

Right. Excellent point. Open borders = appeasement. This is no war.


12 posted on 11/30/2010 4:57:57 AM PST by AustralianConservative
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To: Kent C

Shut your borders and then you’ll have a better chance of selling your “war on drugs” myth to me. Is this a joke? How can a sane man claim that there is a war when your borders are wide open? It defies logic.


13 posted on 11/30/2010 5:01:56 AM PST by AustralianConservative
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To: \/\/ayne

It’s much easier to take over a country if everyone is stoned.


14 posted on 11/30/2010 5:05:28 AM PST by ryderann
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To: AustralianConservative

if we really had a war on drugs, you’d think we would have a well defended border. Secure the border from illegal aliens and the illegal drug problem is also solved.


15 posted on 11/30/2010 5:06:09 AM PST by ari-freedom (Islam is at war against America, while America is at the mall.)
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To: AustralianConservative
he diddled minors too....not just a defender

a despicable excuse for a human being.

he was a big anti smoking crusader....when I was in my early 20s, he was at my college, I, not being as aware of the world as I am now, went to his reading. He signed my Garcia y Vega cigarillo box “ Alan Ginsberg, doesn't smoke”. I eventually lost this box or I could sell it on ebay and the commies and perverts would have paid me beaucoup dollars for it....

16 posted on 11/30/2010 5:06:15 AM PST by Vaquero ("an armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein.)
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To: AustralianConservative
Only girly-boy men believe there is a true war on drugs.

You're an idiot.

Sure we don't execute pot users, like Iran or China, but our War on Drugs is certainly real and substantial. It gives our government massive powers to monitor financial transactions of the law abiding and criminal alike. It trashes our constitutional rights in dozens of ways.

You have the countries I've named, and others, where you can live like a real man with a real war on drugs. Man up and move there, or are you scared?

17 posted on 11/30/2010 5:11:00 AM PST by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: pnh102

“Police forces at all levels of government have become more militarized as a direct result of this war, and it is all because of this war.”

what about islamofascist terrorism? There are a lot of problems that can be solved if we didn’t let everyone just walk into this country.


18 posted on 11/30/2010 5:12:04 AM PST by ari-freedom (Islam is at war against America, while America is at the mall.)
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To: pnh102
A couple of minor problems... first, there is a massive war on drug users. Police forces at all levels of government have become more militarized as a direct result of this war, and it is all because of this war. Second, this war is indeed a huge failure.

Not from the drug-warriors' perspective: they're taking in HUGE amounts of money and tricking themselves out with lots and lots of new gear, both from tax money as well as from seized property alleged to be involved in crime.
19 posted on 11/30/2010 5:16:20 AM PST by aruanan
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To: AustralianConservative
Where do you believe the US Constitution delegates to Congress the power to impose a national prohibition on marijuana?
20 posted on 11/30/2010 5:35:15 AM PST by Ken H
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