Posted on 07/03/2011 10:36:29 AM PDT by april15Bendovr
William Bennett was spot on with his article Why Barney Frank and Ron Paul are wrong on drug legalization.
Here is my opinion
A conservative’s view on the war on drugs and legalization
With the 2012 election just around the corner, many people on the right are weighing their opinions on the “war on drugs” and legalization.
Many Republican candidates, while trying to please everyone, have decided to compromise by saying, “It’s up to the states to decide.” Really? Is our country going to be less dysfunctional and less dependent on big government if the states decide how to control addictive street drugs?
If the question is, Have we failed fighting the war on drugs, the answer is yes, but why have we failed? The DEA reports on its website that 60% of all marijuana consumed in America is brought across the borders of Canada and Mexico. Our law enforcement hasn't failed us, but America has, as we have become more and more complacent continuing to witness our once-great nation dumb down on its favorite illegal binkies. It’s like watching the levees in New Orleans holding back the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina. This shifting of views is nothing at all to be proud of.
As Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine stated about Timothy Leary:
“Never too comfortable with politics (he dismissed student activists as "young men with menopausal minds" and proclaimed that LSD stood for "Let the State Disintegrate"), he nevertheless hosted a Los Angeles fundraiser in 1988 for the very buttoned-down Libertarian Party presidential candidate Ron Paul (now a congressman from Texas). Yes, the same Ron Paul running as a candidate for U.S. president for the Republican Party and teaming up with Barney Frank on legislation that would legalize marijuana. Just when the Society of Nuclear Medicine presented an illustrated PET scan study showing effects on the brain as habitual marijuana smokers decrease the number of receptors in the brain.
Maybe Dr. Ron Paul could also enlighten everyone as an obstetrician on the dangers marijuana presents to the reproductive system during pregnancy.
Why ending the war on drugs and legalization is not a conservative issue: Working as a psychiatric counselor for 25 years, I have witnessed countless people who were independent but became addicts, ending up relying on SSI, SSDI and many other federal assistance programs.
Legalization will create a litigation war and fiasco between drug users and their employers. People who had already been prescribed medical marijuana have sued companies like Walmart for their right to work. Every addict knows they can walk into a doctor’s office and be prescribed a medical marijuana card simply by stating, "I have a pimple on my ass." We also know that trial attorneys love these types of lawsuits, and they are the largest special-interest group that influences the Democratic Party. Who is behind ending the war on drugs anyway?
The Wall Street Journal wrote an article June 2, 2011, titled “Panel Calls War on Drugs a Failure.” "‘The global war on drugs has failed,’ said a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy released Thursday. The report calls for a frank dialogue on the issue and encourages governments to experiment with the regulation of drugs, especially marijuana,” the WSJ article said. The article went on to say, “The Global Commission is funded by member Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group Ltd., George Soros's Open Society Foundation, the Instituto Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais in Brazil.” There are well-known people on this commission who are proven drug legalization advocates and are using this 20-page report as propaganda.
Why ending the war on drugs and legalization itself is unconstitutional: This apathy and Laissez-faire 1960's attitude toward drug use is going to quickly lead us on the path to our own demise. This itself is a major threat to our republic as it stands. There are too many people in the cart, but not enough people pushing. More drugs is just going to add more people to the cart. I am a big fan of the DEA's work to keep drugs off the streets even though they are outgunned and inundated.
Our federal government has the unique role in fighting epidemics and pandemics in an attempt to protect its citizens. Drugs have reached that point in our country. We need candidates who understand that a more dysfunctional drug-addicted society becomes more dependent on that socialist cradle-to-grave system that loves to wipe everybody’s bum when they lose brain function as a result of a liberal Amsterdam-style drug policy.
Think about the message ending the war on drugs and legalization sends to children and teens. It’s a tacit approval. We are witnessing drug use stats with teens go up. CBS news reported April 6, 2011 Teenage drug abuse is trending upward, according to the Partnership at Drugfree.org. It recently announced results of a new study showing sharp increases in the use of marijuana and Ecstasy after years of declining use.
We need to debate the consequence of use before we degrade just what the war on drugs was meant to represent. There will be more repercussions to these liberal attitudes on legalization. Is that really what America wants?
Then, at the end of the day, our legislatures sit back with a stiff scotch and water to toast their accomplishments of how safe they've made the American people.
Hypocrites.
Well said. Drug addiction is the work of Satan & at it’s root is spiritual warfare. The last thing the U.S. needs is to condone more evil.
ML/NJ
Funny thing is, it took more processing to make that scotch than it did to grow weed. Now, which is exactly more natural?
“Is our country going to be less dysfunctional and less dependent on big government if the states decide how to control addictive street drugs?”
Errr...uh...hmmm...yes.
A Federal Ban on Marijuana? That’s not law. No matter how pat the argument, well-dressed the arguer, well-beroped the Judge, or how well-armed and numerous the police.
Why? Well ...
Only trouble is gee whiz ... NOTHING in something known as the Constitution of the United States of American as ratified into law on 21 June 1788, and as afterwards amended gives the Federal Government any such authority.
Moreover the necessity of the 18th Amendment (since repealed by the 21st Amendment to giving the Federal Government the authority to ban alcohol is itself a mighty REAFFIRMATION AGAINST any Federal Authority to ban a item of trade.
Why would we want that?
I don't want fellow employees legally stoned so they can jeopardize workplace safety and the performance of the company.
We also don't need more parents stoned so they cannot take care of their children.
Children don't need the OK of the government to go ahead and begin using drugs by following the example of their own legally-stoned parents.
Why don't you just make up a list of everything you want, and the government will outlaw everything else.
If drugs are legalized, companies can still require that you be sober, the same way they do for alcohol.
How could it not be?
Maybe Dr. Ron Paul could also enlighten everyone as an obstetrician on the dangers marijuana presents to the reproductive system during pregnancy.
He could cite a history of more than 2,000 year's use to ease labor.
Both marijuana and alcohol are pretty natural. Both been around for thousands of years.
Pharmaceuticals, however, are unnatural.
Conservative doesn’t mean Limited Constitutional Government.
Conservative means “what Conservatives like”. No different from Liberals, just that Conservatives and Liberals have different tastes.
Kidding about that, but that’s how a lot of “Conservatives” see it.
Let the states decide.
Bill Bennett was the first openly “neocon” / “neotrot” in the Reagan administration. All the neocons were Democrats in the 60s, and many were still into the 80s. Bennett switched to Republican when he joined the Reagan Administration, not before.
Bennett is not a true conservative. True Conservatives believe in Limited Constitutional Government.
Legalization on dope won’t make the dopers happy. They will find that employers can still randomly drug test them and fire them for what they do in their off hours?
Why? Because they did NOTHING to fight the demonization of tobacco and alcohol and in fact cheered it on. There are employers that prohibit tobacco use by ALL employees even when not at work.
You have age and place restrictions on alcohol and tobacco use and even restrictions on which days of the week and what hours you may buy it.
The ATF is a tax enforcement agency and will be just as likely to barge into homes of pot growers who still want to grow at home rather than pay through the nose on sin taxes for government regulated pot.
What a non-issue this should be for 2012 but it’s sidetracking all discussion of the real problems this nation faces.
If all neocons were Democrats in the 1960s then why did the term Neoconservative come from the Left IN the 1960s?
They can’t keep contraband out of prisons because even the guards are crooks.
PS many police forces now permit officers to have a prior drug conviction on their records.
No one starts from the right place on these arguments.
Start with the right of people to live in freedom, despite the fact that freedom is messy. If you want to outlaw the possession of a wild-growing plant, how can you argue that possessing a gun should be legal? Because some piece of paper says so. That piece of paper can be amended.
That’s why in America the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. At least, that’s how we once thought about such things, before some us decided we should run other people’s lives.
There will always be some people who will use substances, guns, vehicles, tools, etc. in an irresponsible manner. That fact is not grounds for making the said substances, guns, vehicles, tools, etc. illegal to possess or use. In a free society that fact is ground for setting boundaries for the responsible use of said articles, and penalties for their misuse. Said boundaries are set due to the concept of “My right to swing my fist stops at your nose.”
You are free to have your drink. You are not free to drive drunk. You should be free to possess pot or any other drug.
You should not be free to drive stoned, or operate machinery, etc. while impaired on ANY substance, just as you have a right to a gun, but not to shoot it at signs along the roadway, or within ncity linits, etc.
Some so-called conservatives have a need to control others’ behavior for their “own good” and/or the “common good”.
Some so-called conservatives are nothing of the kind. And Carry Nation was no conservative. She was a busybody liberal determined to run the lives of others.
Was prohibition of drugs or alcohol in effect under secular law in the Bible? Is there any recommendation in the Bible that there should be prohibition in secular law?
Why do you support the New Deal Commerce Clause?
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