[MrLeRoy]

Wod_list (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/involved?group=124) ping

[Protagoras]

The federal government as the new drug dealers. If ya can't beat em, join em.

[toothless]

LEAP is nothing but a bunch of druggie liberdopian hippies.

[Taiwan Bocks]

"Legalization allows you to regulate and control something," Cole said Saturday. Control is needed

IMO, Duh!!!

[Hodar]

Cole likens his ideas to alcohol prohibition and says when that ended in 1933, officials gained control of the quality of alcohol and placed restrictions on buyers and sellers.

Sounds familiar ... never in the span of recorded history has prohibition worked.

[LibWhacker]

I like it. Take the outrageous profit out of the drug business and you'll take the outrageous behavior out of it, too.

[MrLeRoy]

Cole advocates the federal government producing drugs

I'm against that---we didn't get the government into the distilling business when we wisely ended Prohibition.

[Ol' Sparky]

What's a failure is the decriminalization and liberalizing of drugs in nations like the Netherlands, where drug use, drug dealing and crime have all dramatically increased over the past 15 to 20 years.

And, nevermind, in this nation, that montly drug users, according to the National Household Survey, declined from 26 million to 14 million from 1979 to 2000.

[harrym]

Another case of the wide gap between liberals and conservatives in the understanding of what laws are. Liberals think of the law as some liquid, malleable agreement by a consensus of popular opinion on what should and should not be allowed. Conservatives see law as a set of rules made to allow the optimum functioning of society as a whole with as little incursion into the individual's rights as possible. Liberals are adolescents rebelling against the rules, conservatives are like parents attempting to enforce them. We have, in this country, a family being run by the children and parents who have thrown their hands up in frustration and given up. Pretty soon it will be back to the sandbox for us all.

[BnBlFlag]

We're about to legalize drugs and outlaw cigarettes. Go figure!

[narby]

Now, ya can't legalize drugs!

Once the people think they have a right to control what goes into their bodies, they'll think they won't need a Dr's perscription either. Then what will the Dr's do for a living???

[jmc813]

WOD Ping

[robertpaulsen]

Similar approaches in Switzerland ... 22 percent of heroin addicts given free drugs stopped using them."

And the other 78% of them cost Switzerland $625,000 (US) per addict per year to provide them with free shooting galleries, free heroin, free medical, and free drug classes.

In the US, we have about 900,000 heroin addicts. So, if Jack Cole has his way, this will cost you and me about $500 BILLION per year, just for the heroin addicts.

As a comparison, the federal government spends about $20 billion per year now on the War on Drugs.

[eyespysomething]

bump for later

[waterstraat]

Its not 33 years, it is more like 90 years. The only thing the drug war has done, is make more crime, more violent crime, and made the mafia and attorneys, and politicians, and police , and judges, and prison guards, etc rich.

[Res Nullius]

Consider:

Congress passes a five year, experimental, moratorium on the sale, possession, and use of cocaine, for example. The exclusive right to distribute is awarded, by bid, to an established drug company. Bidding starts at, oh say, one billion dollars. The winning bidder would have to agree to buy only from the established govenment of the producing country and distribute through licensed pharmacies. Better to have a licensed pharmacist dispensing than a fifteen year old illegal on a street corner.

Sales would be taxed with the revenue dedicated to establishing detox centers for those who wish to kick the habit. Once the "glamour" of using illegal drugs passes, following legalization, the former detox centers could be converted to senior centers for the aging population.

Nah, . . . . never work; makes too much sense.

[TopQuark]

"I cannot help but think that alcohol prohibition was incorrect. There certainly is a correlation."

NO there is not.

Prohibition ourlawed alcohol, which has been used en masse since times immemorial. By contrast, widespread drug use is a recent phenomenon. If this this society could live without it, one can argue that it can return to that state.

Comparisons with prohibition are popular but flawed.

[ampat]

I will admit the 33 year war on drugs is indeed a failure.
Instead of legalizing one substance (MJ), why not try the "treat it as a medical problem, and if that doesn't work, then jail with a sentence commeasureate with the criime."

[Terriergal]

Ex-police officer says 33-year-old 'war' is a failure

So because we haven't succeeded in stopping people from doing something -- we should automatically make it OK to do?

Strange and useless rationale. Gotta give me more than that.

[Zack Nguyen]

"We have to legalize drugs so we can control them and regulate them and keep them out of the hands of our children," Cole said.

I seriously doubt that legalization will "keep it out of the hands of our children." After all, any teenager who wants alcohol can obtain it.