Big Drug War News (Congressman Dan Burton on the drug war)

The Agitator ^ | 17 December 2002 | Radley Balko

[Texaggie79]

Back from the saloon so quickly?

[Kerberos]

"I've seen 4% as of 1903

Where have you seen this? Kerberos posted a thorough reference that did not cite that figure."

Well at least you guys are closer on your figures than what you were. Your at 1.8%, Tex is at 4%, do I hear 2.9%.

[mvpel]

Nicotine is a vasodilator, and as I understand it, cigarettes and cigars give their users a bit of a buzz. Never tried it myself.

But if there were an alternate universe where a War on Some Srugs encompassed tobacco's active ingredient, I'd lay 10:1 odds that you'd be railing about the dangers of the jittery and wild-eyed users of rock nicotine that might inhabit your neighborhood.

[Texaggie79]

that is beyond laughable. I have personally experienced tobacco among other drugs. I have witnessed first hand users of hard drugs.

[mvpel]

A drunk redneck neighbor who lets his lawn grow wild and leaves rusting wrecks parked out front can also do quite a bit of financial damage to your property value, but you don't use laws against booze to correct that situation, you use your city ordinances against blight.

The safety of your children is unaffected by seeing drunk bums sleeping off a bout of Wild Turkey on the park bench. In fact, they might even gain a benefit from that, by seeing an object lesson in the perils of using a drug to excess. And if their safety is affected by a drunk belligerant bum accosting them, then there are laws against assault already on the books, and there's again no need to ban the substance that the bum is abusing. Plus, San Jose has an ordinance against public intoxication, as do many other cities and towns.

Your kids see drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, and narcotics on the store shelves, back in the pharmacy, and they somehow manage to grow up without lasting psychological damage or the impression that abusing such drugs is "perfectly acceptable."

Send your kids to a convent, and they won't be faced with any of these "perils."

[Texaggie79]

the drugs in the pharmacy are for medicine, not recreation.

[mvpel]

Have you ever witnessed a user of concentrated nicotine? You quite likely would under a War on Nicotine regime, and you'd probably be calling it a "hard drug" too in that case.

[MrLeRoy]

A crack addict neighbor could do quite a bit of financial damage to my property value.

So could an alcoholic neighbor; nothing there justifies banning the substances.

The social safety of my children having to see people out on the streets that use hard drug,

Public intoxication is already against most local ordinances. They might see the occasional drug user before he's arrested, just as they now might see the occasional drunk; nothing there justifies banning the substances for home use.

as well as seeing the drugs on store shelves sending the message that it is perfectly acceptable.

The same "message" is sent about tobacco and alcohol---and Marxist books. Nothing there justifies banning the items.

[Texaggie79]

Concentrated nicotine would simply make you very sick. If you could get anywhere NEAR the effects of smoking crack by smoking a lot of tobacco, people would be trying it left and right.

I don't care how much you want to ignore facts. Cocaine is a hundred times worse than tobacco.

[MrLeRoy]

Concentrated nicotine would simply make you very sick.

False. I read a newsgroup account (looking for it right now) by a fellow who smoked tobacco in such a way as to get "so blasted he could hardly walk."

[mvpel]

Concentrated nicotine would simply make you very sick. If you could get anywhere NEAR the effects of smoking crack by smoking a lot of tobacco, people would be trying it left and right.

I don't care how much you want to ignore facts. Cocaine is a hundred times worse than tobacco.

I also mentioned previously, perhaps you missed it, that I was administered cocaine in solution as part of my septoplasty surgery, or the fact that Coca-Cola for the first fifteen years of its existence contained the equivalent of a small line of cocaine.

You don't seem to grasp that conentrated cocaine is far worse than ordinary tobacco, just as concentrated alcohol is far worse than a glass of beer.

[tpaine]

TJ said:
This other idea that you have some legitiamte power to violate my rights just because YOU deem something to be threatening is past ridiculous. I haven't addressed it because it is so dumb. But you force me to show how dumb it is and embarrass you so I shall.

A person who is very tall and dressed in tattered clothing and wearing a certain facial expression is walking down a street on the same dark night as I.
I feel threatened. Therefore I have the legitimate power to use force to restrain him. That is the preposterous notion you advance.
- 323 ThomasJefferson -

You repied

IMPOSED danger, at a certain level is a violation of one's rights. correct?

There must be a 'clear & present danger' according to common sense & law.
If you use restraint in the above example, you must justify YOUR action in court, or suffer the consequenses.

Or do you argue that I may put you in as much danger as I wish up until the point I actually cause damage to you?
-328 Texaggie79 -

It's a judgement call, and our constitution, in the 5th & 14th amendments, -- says that due process must be used to deprive persons of their rights to life, liberty, or property.
Prohibitive laws endeavour to criminalize property & restrict behaviors BEFORE they result in damaging acts.
You claim that:

States may probibit an activity within their borders that they find to be too much of a threat.

Not true tex, as you are well aware.
They can reasonably 'regulate' public behaviors and the public sale of such threatening objects, -- but under our constitution, they have no power to outright prohibit, as we saw evidenced with the 18th.

We have a right of assosiation. I do not wish to live in the same community with hard drug users. I can form a community that has such standards. This does not violate any constitutional right.

True. -- But you cannot violate constitutional rights in the forming, or in the enforcing of such standards.

My community is my state, and or county.

States, counties, and communities are bound to obey our constitution by the Supremacy Clause.

Learn to live with it aggie.

[Texaggie79]

If that were the case, college kids would be doing it all over.

Do you realize that the rumor went out that baking banana peels and smoking them would get you high, when I was in high school, and we ALL went and blazed away on banana peels. Everyone I knew tried it. We all got nothing but headaches, except for those few that claim they felt something.

[MrLeRoy]

Here it is (from http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=kq9kctodhlmei55ofaivfk12s4f4rr0lre%404ax.com):

On Tue, 03 Apr 2001 18:37:18 GMT, Guido Marx gmarx@SPAM?_NO_THANKScmc.net wrote:

>Pete nospam Zakel wrote:
>> In article Pine.GSO.4.31.0103292305090.23479-100000@atom.ecn.purdue.edu adam meadowsa@ecn.purdue.edu writes:

>> >Do tobacco and alcohol meet the definition of a schedule 1 drug? If so,
>> >why aren't they classified as one?

>> >If you smoked tobacco to get drunk, would you expect that to be illegal?

>> There were South American natives who smoked tobacco for hallucinogenic
>> purposes. But that's neither here nor there. Tobacco is smoked by "main-
>> stream" people, so even if it were smoked for its intoxication, it would
>> still be legal.

>Anyone out there who thinks that tobacco isn't intoxicating should try the following experiment.
>1) Go and buy yourself a little tin of Copenhagen snuff.
>2) Take out a small pinch - place it between your lip and your gum.
>3) Let it sit there for about 60 seconds (be careful NOT to swallow any spit - spit it into a cup)
>4) Rinse your mouth out with warm water.
>5) Note how it feels like your head is spinning. Note also that your heart is pounding and you are experiencing >feelings of elation.
>
>This is called being intoxicated. It is also entirely legal.

you don't even need to do that, you can get high as a kite smoking
tobacco from a pipe, I did it earlier today, and I could barely walk.

[Texaggie79]

>5) Note how it feels like your head is spinning. Note also that your heart is pounding and you are experiencing >feelings of elation. > >This is called being intoxicated. It is also entirely legal.

Puleez. I have done that PLEANTY o time. I can get the same feeling if I stand on my head for a few minutes. Or if I down a couple of Two Way pills from the gas station.

[MrLeRoy]

Puleez. I have done that PLEANTY o time. I can get the same feeling if I stand on my head for a few minutes. Or if I down a couple of Two Way pills from the gas station.

So you do know that tobacco can get a user high; should it therefore be banned? What about "Two Way pills"---or headstands?

[Texaggie79]

Pot can get you a lot higher, however it should not be banned.

[mvpel]

OUTLAW HEAD-STANDING!! IT'S FOR THE SOCIAL SAFETY OF THE CHILDREN!!!

[tpaine]

-- when I was in high school, and we ALL went and blazed away on banana peels. Everyone I knew tried it. We all got nothing but headaches, except for those few that claim they felt something.
493 -tex

Are you SURE this substance abuse had no long term affect, aggie?
I think I detect some slippage in your logical processes.

[Texaggie79]

So you are implying that Coke, meth, heroin are all really harmless? The danger is all in our heads?

Are you Keith Richards?