Posted on 03/07/2003 5:39:54 PM PST by Frapster
You ought to huddle with Leroy and the other legalizers because they want to legalize everything. I asked one marijuana (only) legalizer what he would choose between no illegal drugs made legal and all illegal drugs made legal. Guess what he chose.
My kids (including the grown ones) are dope, tobacco, and alcohol free. Although there are no guarantees in life, I am reasonably confident my children will never use drugs (or alcohol). I pray night and day they will remain clean.
Methamphetamine is a truly vicious and terrible drug. I have acquaintances whose children are hooked on meth, and the impact on the kids and their families is severe beyond belief.
The only thing I would agree with, with the "legalize everything" crowd, is that the user base of drugs wouldn't change much. People don't choose not to do drugs because they are illegal, they choose not to do drugs because they "get it", that the drug would destroy them. Mere illegality is a comfortable illusion. The market is there, the users are there, and the use happens.
I guess we have to decide whether this is a public health issue, to be dealt with medically and spiritually, or whether it is a criminal issue to be dealt with by police. Are we winning the way it is?
Actually, I believe that addictive drug use and the WOD as it is currently being pursued are two different, and only marginally related, social problems. I don't really understand why, but the "War on drugs" doesn't seem to be keeping these poisons from being widely available. And no, I don't have a better idea. And it seems to me that with no-knock raids and asset-theft "laws" the WOD is doing substantial damage to Americans' constitutional rights. Two different problems, both destructive.
You never miss a chance to be snippy, do you?
I must disagree with you. Gambling was 98% illegal and suppressed in 1975. Since then it's been made legal in a 1000 ways. Gambling is highly regulated by the states and the states promote it and host their own lotteries.
The upshot is there many more gambling addicts today than in 1975. Gamblers Anonymous can confirm this
AFA Issues: Gambling - A case against legalized gambling
... In 1989, only 1.7% of Iowa’s adults were gambling addicts, but after riverboat
casinos were legalized, the rate of addiction more than tripled to 5.4%. ...
www.afa.net/gambling/acalg.asp - 34k - Cached - Similar pages
So when they find out that what you told them about marijuana was wrong... they'll assume that everything else you told them was right?
My kids (including the grown ones) are dope, tobacco, and alcohol free.
At least that's what they've told you. It's good that you believe them. Trust is important. Honestly, I hope you're right.
Although there are no guarantees in life, I am reasonably confident my children will never use drugs (or alcohol). I pray night and day they will remain clean.
Of course you do, and I would hope that you're right. Its important to realize however that their decisions to use or not use are out of your hands now.
Methamphetamine is a truly vicious and terrible drug. I have acquaintances whose children are hooked on meth, and the impact on the kids and their families is severe beyond belief.
No disagreement there. Meth is nasty and vicious. Presumably though, those kids were brought up being told all the same right things, and meth is just as illegal for them as it is for your kids, yet they still went there.
Drugs are a spiritual problem. Criminal solutions haven't worked. Logical arguments haven't worked. Even emotional arguments don't work. It is a spiritual problem, and the only reliable solution is a spiritual one. That's where we should be spending our energy, in my opinion.
Well... OK, I'll bite. Lets play with your numbers a little.
If 5% of gamblers are "gambling addicts", what does that say about the other 95%? You are then arguing that 95% of the people can gamble legally without any adverse affects of "addiction" corrupting the rest of their lives... Are you willing to equate this to drug use? That 95% (or some other high number) of users can use without becoming "addicts"??
Interesting argument...
Stand back, People.
Proud Mom here and i've just got to toot my daughter's horn a bit.
My daughter is 10 and in the Fifth Grade. She is also mildly autistic, so there are some things she "misses".
Anyway, she and I are very tight, and we talk about EVERYTHING.
Drugs, the war, sex, religion, you name it.
What can I say? I'm a stay at home Mom and she's the Light of my Life! :O:!
Came time when they were getting ready to do the "Introduction to DARE " ( A feel-good program that i think is a waste of time and actually encourages drug-use) and I had refused to sign the indoctrination-er----"permission " slip for it.
I felt it was better use of her time to work on actual school-work. Naturally, concerned counselors asked her why, and what she knew about drugs and "Why Drugs Are Bad....Mmmmmkay?"
My Cait, when asked stood up and told the counselor, that she would never do drugs for three reasons:
1) "Drugs are against the law, and in our family we follow the law. 2) "Drugs are bad for you and make your body and soul sick" and then she topped it off with : 3) " If you buy drugs you are giving your money to peope like Osama, who will use it to hurt other people!'
I got asked about it when I went to pick her up later.
My Girl! And they say misses things.......!
Enough bragging on my kid. LOL!
Tia
This is the part that bothers me the most, admittedly. The WOD will cost us our guns, because of the turf battles over inner cities, caused by the money that results from the black market in drugs.
There's just too damn much money at stake. Enough money to buy whomever they need to buy. I say this as someone who has spent some years as an antidrug warrior on the law enforcement side of the fence. I've seen the corruption first hand, and it is sickening.
The last thing in the world that the inner city gangs would ever want is the legalization of drugs. When a 15 year old kid can make $1000 a day dealing and protecting his territory with his 9mm Glock, it is lunacy to think that he'd be just as happy working at McDonalds. Every time he uses his pistol, its a nail in the coffin of my right to carry my Kimber.
Some day I'll lose my right to carry mine, and he'll still have his. That, in my estimation, is a bad thing. It's worse that the thing we are trying to cure.
We're playing right into their hands.
Ha! Sounds like she's in better contact with reality than a lot of adults!
Bragging? I'd say well-justified!
"Ha! Sounds like she's in better contact with reality than a lot of adults! Bragging? I'd say well-justified!"
She sometimes displays a really unworldy and incicive wisom, that I am SURE she didn't get from me!LOL! Startles and delights me at times!
I occasionally wonder if her "disability" is really a pretection and a blessing in disguise. FReegards,
Tia
Of course I should be the one to be defining stupid, bigoted and judgmental.
LOL! LOL! Look at the time of this post!
I saw a picture of smoker's lungs compared to normal lungs while I was in elementary school and it was the main reason I never tried cigarettes.
There was a program started in elementary schools to teach kids to appreciate trees, in order for them to grow into teens that wouldn't commit the kind of vandalism on city trees that was a problem in that community. They didn't expect the program to yield results until the kids got into high school, but it started to help almost immediately.
Imagine what a teen would feel if a little kid came up to them with tears in their little eyes pleading with them not to hurt the wonderful, defenseless tree? That's what happened, and a lot of teens evidentally responded to the idealism of the little kids.
I'm glad, too, sister. :-D
I've heard exactly the opposite, that the town was riddled with dopers hanging out in parks waiting for their next fix. That the degenerates of the world had flocked there and sucked it into a nightmare.
You got a 'nonbiased' source, an investigative piece that goes into the history there and the stats? I'd be interested in reading it.
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