All, This guy's got it right. Consider the FULL force of godgov went against him. Maybe{?} because he got Medicinal marajuanna{sp?} laws passed. LOL! Peace and love, George.

States rights? Huh? Oh yea they don't exist anymore.

He might have added that the cowards in the House that are behind this hideous legislation left Dodge at the first sign of risk to their oversized and overfed derrieres.

(And the American people watched Monday Night Football and sipped on beer. "Constitutional liberties? What are those? Are they even legal anymore?" asked Joe Six-Pack.)

Medicinal marijuana is an oxymoron.

And the whining dweeb who wrote the article is a mega moron.

The mega moron's master isn't government, but dope.

It's interesting that before they had the fires out at the WTC Hutchinson's goons were raiding a doctor/lawyer office in Calif. to get the records of anybody who even APPLIED for a medical use permit. I believe it was Jefferson who said "it is the responsibility of Americans to oppose tyrannical law", when the citizens of Calif. changed theirs under constitutional procedures our politicians chose to destroy the constitution.(again)

You should read what GW Pharmaceuticals has to say about it since they have been granted patent rights in Britain. No patent rights on a plant species under US law tho.

I'm curious. I know from previous threads it's useless to try and talk you out of your anti-drug fervor. But I do have a question.

Given that police have too much to do, especially these days, where would you like them to focus their efforts - on detecting and restraining terrorism or investigating and raiding marihuana users?

No fair saying both. I'm interested in your priorities.

In the words of Melvyn Douglas in "Being There":

"Reluctant to speak, eh?"

I've been trying to work out the correct way to approach discussion of the Drug War for quite some time.

Although I'm pro-legalization, I'm willing to allow that there could be arguments in favor of maintaining some criminal sanctions for certain kinds of drug traffic, at least for the present. I haven't heard any that I agree with, but I won't rule the possibility out. The problem is that virtually no one on the pro-Drug War side of the question comes to the table armed with anything but limitless condemnation and vitriol.

I've been treated to all the following pro-Drug War arguments:

• Legalization is unthinkable.
• Legalization would send the wrong message.
• People who use drugs are scum.
• People who sell drugs are scum.
• It's for the children. We have to protect the children.
• Kill 'em all and the problem will go away.
• You're high on something.
• You must be a pusher.
• You must have friends or relatives in prison for drug offenses.
• You secretly want to see this country destroyed.
• You openly want to see this country destroyed.
• You're an idiot.

Ahem. I particularly like the last one.

If there are Drug Warriors who are willing to argue about the matter honestly, with due regard for evidence and logic, forswearing all ad hominems and appeals to emotion, I have yet to meet one. When the subject is drugs, even the brightest people experience some kind of cerebral short-circuit. It hardly matters how you frame your question; they've already crashed into an output-only failure mode that won't relax until you've shifted topics to something entirely unrelated to drugs. (Don't make it sports. Too many pro athletes use drugs.)

So a real intellectual engagement, where people actually pose one another questions like "How is the current situation superior to the situation that existed before the Harrison Narcotics Control Act of 1918, and how is it inferior," is very hard to find. Even quantifying the price Drug Warriors are willing to pay for their crusade, in money and abridged rights, is impossible because of that rigid wall in their minds. Their position, if I'm correct, isn't a matter of cost-benefit analysis or convictions about right and wrong that could be conveyed to another mind; it's a pledge of fidelity to something akin to a religious belief.

If so, the current impasse on the right, with titans like William F. Buckley and William Bennett locked in an impasse, could last a very long time.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

"If there are Drug Warriors who are willing to argue about the matter honestly, with due regard for evidence and logic, forswearing all ad hominems and appeals to emotion, I have yet to meet one."

Agreed, and that's a source of continued frustration for me. I refuse to reciprocate with ad hominem arguments, however. I believe the long term result is that those undecided with an open mind recognize the difference.

Like yourself, I'm not asking them to accept anarchy in the area of drugs. I'd consider it a giant step forward and an acceptable compromise if we would just get the feds out if it, and make it a state and local matter like alcohol is today. Then some locales could legalize and others could stand pat (as we have dry counties today). But there is a complete refusal on the drug warriors' part to even grant the possibility that the feds may be overstepping their Constitutional authority, though they are very sensitive about federal involvement in lots of other areas. The contradiction is obvious, and probably explains why they refuse to even discuss it.

"Their position, if I'm correct, isn't a matter of cost-benefit analysis or convictions about right and wrong that could be conveyed to another mind; it's a pledge of fidelity to something akin to a religious belief."

That's my opinion also. The way I've expressed it is that drug warriors view drugs as an unalloyed evil. I don't. I consider most drug usage (including tobacco) to be stupid, but it's not evil. And that does seem to be a huge sticking point in having a rational conversation with a drug warrior. It's impossible to have any reasoned argument with someone who believes in their position as a matter of faith.

BATF'er _Jim admits marijuana is harmless!

Oh no, Kevie-poo, your pro-drug-war maniacs are defecting faster than the Taliban troops!

FYI: Caribbean drug traffickers step up for America in its time of need! From The Washington Times' Around the Nation (10/18/01) -- Drug trafficking up during terrorism war

Illegal drug trafficking in the Caribbean is up 25 percent, probably because traffickers see an opportunity with U.S. law enforcement focused on terrorism, Drug Enforcement Administrator Asa Hutchinson said yesterday.

Mr. Hutchinson couldn't say whether the rise would translate into more drugs coming into the United States. The DEA has been stretched thin since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he told the House Coast Guard and maritime transportation subcommittee.

More than 100 DEA agents have been pressed into service as marshals aboard airplanes, and 40 DEA intelligence analysts are working closely with the FBI.

But there is a complete refusal on the drug warriors' part to even grant the possibility that the feds may be overstepping their Constitutional authority, though they are very sensitive about federal involvement in lots of other areas. The contradiction is obvious, and probably explains why they refuse to even discuss it.

Interesting that you should mention that! You might want to look at the following:

The Monster Machine

Let me know if you think the argument is coherent.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

If you had a brain that functioned, you would be dangerous. As it stands, you're just a statist buffoon. Have a nice, government approved day.

---max

"What we can know is that, as the contradictions build, there'll be more of them."

This jumped out at me from your article you pointed me to. I'd agree that all the feds actions are tied together more tightly, in their purpose and their consequences, than most people realize. I had thought only superficially about it in terms of leading to irrational behavior, ala Tim McVeigh. But I suspect your more detailed analysis is quite correct.

To focus on the terrorist-fighting task at hand, I would strongly maintain that the federal government withdraw from all those areas you detailed in which it does not belong. Perhaps those who don't fear government action as much as you and I would agree with that as a reason for restraining government in those areas. And the side effect of lessening the possibility of another McVeigh is a another strong argument for that strategy.

Here you go:

"PART of this contains is a partial remembrance of a 30 page analysis I did in the 60s.

In the normally functioning human being, there is a complex feedback process that directs human thinking and behavior. Old time Freudians call it the pleasure principle. In behaviorist psychology it's looked at as a positive/negative reinforcement behavior shaping and extinguishing process. That is, certain behavior which produces a pleasurable state of affairs is repeated. Behavior or thinking that produces painful outcome is not repeated or is avoided. There are complex corollaries to these rules, but basically that's the idea. This positive and negative feedback system maintains a sense of reality, or maintains the realistic quality of a person's thinking and behavior in their life.

So-called recreational drugs short circuit this realistic feedback process by intervening or replacing it with something that produces unconditional pleasurable feedback. All behavior or thought becomes pleasurable or positively reinforced. Behavior which produces what would normally felt as painful consequences has the discomfort blunted. If you will, drugs occlude necessary danger signals in life. That's one of the reasons people like the stuff.

One of the problems with frequent drug use is that there is a type of unconditional reinforcement within the brain for random thought which results in a drifting mentality or a drift from reality. It's not as noticeable or of concern to the person who develops the mentality, as it is to the person to the observer who doesn't have it. For someone who doesn't share the condition, trying to live with and reason with someone who does have the condition can be difficult or impossible. There are serious social consequences here. People who are high on weed feel wonderful. Attempting to have a lucid conversation with, or counting on any sense of responsibility from, people with the weed mentality isn't very wonderful.

I long ago gave up trying to have any serious productive working relationships with anybody smoking weed. Such people might be able to function as musicians or something similar which are primarily expressions of emotion. But, if I need work done that demands rigorous cognitive acuity, discipline, grit, and determination, potheads can't get the job done. It's a loser. While drug use is claimed to be a victimless crime, working around such individuals, or working in a society of such individuals introduces a harsh unjust burden upon me. Let's make it clear. If I have an editor whom makes tainted or poor decisions, if I have a co-worker who can't function, if I have a supervisor who can't function, if I have an employee who can't function because they are jacking around with drugs, then I am a victim of their drug use. In the event such condition becomes the character of the nation, then I become a victim with little recourse for remedy. In the event such national character facilitates the economic or other decline of the nation, then all of us become the victims of jacking around with drugs. Got it? Drug use is not a victimless crime in the adult real world. Got it?

This state of unconditional positive reinforcement can be very psychologically, that is psychologically, addicting. Many novices are concerned about the physical addiction, the physical side effects, and the physical withdrawal from drugs. The reality is, the purely mental or psychological condition is more of a difficulty than the physical effects.

The initial attraction toward drugs is always purely psychological and occurs before physical addiction. Physical addiction takes time and escalating dosage. When someone comes back for more of a drug a second, third, fourth, or fifth time, they aren't coming back to avoid acute withdrawals or because they are physically addicted. They are coming back because they are psychologically hooked. They like the feeling. Later, they become physically as well as psychologically hooked. Still later, if you can manage to get them off the stuff, they are still hooked on the feeling and a great many other things including the residual mentality.

Frequent drug users adapt to the unconditional reinforcement of the drug world to a point where they slowly develop a mentality that is too soft to want to tolerate real world realistic feedback and effort. They lose capacity to handle real life while simultaneously becoming intrigued with existence in the unconditional positive feedback and insulation of the drug state. When the going gets rough, they head for the insulating state obtained through drugs instead of growing.

Drug users become jaded to the point that they are unable to enjoy normal aspects of life that require prerequisites and are not as easy to achieve as drug highs. There is a reprioritizing the importance of reality or real life to second place.

Drug use in adolescence is disastrous. It provides an easy source of pleasure which doesn't require, or which displaces, the maturizing resolution of the growth conflicts of adolescence. What results is a soft stunted mental level in which people have not only not maturationally developed, but have regressed. It produces 18 year olds functioning at the maturational level of distorted soft seven year olds--but who don't realize it. It is very difficult to make up that deficit. It is a condition readily noticeable in a number of people posting at this forum. People who don't share the deficit don't perceive it. This results in confrontational stand-offs on this forum and elsewhere of people shouting at each other, "No, I'm not" "Yes you are" dialogue. But what is is, and what I see in the mentality that has been on any kind of drugs for very long is nothing I can either trust or respect. If that bothers some people, so be it.

The person using drugs typically creates or does not face life situations or inadequacies. Attempts to leave insulation of drug world face the person with these problems and with a backlog of unresolved conflicts that drives him back to drugs. Drugs, and this includes medically prescribed drugs, often mask a serious life situation that should be resolved.

Dr. David Viscott was a distinguished training psychiatrist who used to have a radio talk show where he did serious psychotherapy and handled serious problems over the air. A woman called in wondering if she should have an increase in her dosage of tranquilizers to handle the tenseness she still felt. Viscott surveyed her life and told her she didn't need tranquilizers, she need to get rid of some of the people, around her that were eating and abusing her. There's a parallel to recreational drug use. They become too easily employed as a substitute for resolving deteriorated life situations or conflicts. They also dilute the need for resolving life conflicts and situations. This is a type of drug addiction or dependence that is every bit as powerful as physical addiction.

Drugs, particularly the psychedelics, can be instantly addictive to certain types of personalities. People who have what is called affective blunting, that is they are internally prevented from feeling, find that drugs come around the back door of their defenses and bring them a type of emotional life. This is a very strong dependent hook into their psyche.

It is easier to get someone physically off of drugs than it is to get them off the drug mentality.

I often hear people say the stuff they are using has few real side effects and hence isn't dangerous. They are right. There are few serious immediate physical side effects. That's what makes the **** so dangerous. There are no physical brakes on continued easy use and development of psychological distortion. It's too easy to fall into a subtle trap with junk that doesn't have a physical price.

DRUGS ARE CHEMICAL SOCIALISM. The goal of socialism is to produce a virtual reality society where maturity is unnecessary, where responsibility is not necessary, where clarity of thought is not necessary, where consideration of what you are doing to other people is not necessary, where feeling good and feeling good about yourself is an entitlement that can be effortlessly achieved without fulfilling any prerequisites, where subjective emotion takes precedent over reality. People achieve the same escape and effect by shooting up, snorting up, or swallowing stuff, or lighting up enough joints. Drug culture and socialist ideology eventually converge for that reason. The alliance between conservatism and drug culture or other bizarre life styles is shallow and temporary, and is limited only to downsizing the size and power of government sufficient to that level where it can no longer interdict drug supplies. Commitment to, or even understanding of, important broader issues in terms of quality and integrity of life are cosmetic or nonexistent. Any such alliances are Trojan horses. I don't view such people as being on my side and don't want their so-called support even temporarily.

There has been recent announcement of a drug that produces the same subjective effect as cocaine without any physical side effects. I haven't tried cocaine myself. I'm afraid I might like it. A lot of other people do--to the point they can't seem to stay away from it after one snort. People who do use it say it makes them feel like supermen or superwomen, and super-brilliant. But these superpeople never seem to produce anything superbrilliant. It's a subjective feeling without any support in reality. There is great compelling temptation to snort or swallow something that has no side effects and makes you feel like God. An extended population of people believing they are superhumans, but in fact having the mental functioning of manic rutabagas seems the quickest way conceivable to destroy all civilization on earth. I hope, for all our well being and survival, that whoever has that formula destroys it or is assassinated.

Alcohol is one of the best short term anxiety reducing drugs in existence. The problem with it is, it requires massive doses to be effective and has long term physical side effects. Consequently, alcohol, as an antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication, is lousy.

Many alcoholics, whether they understand it or not, are people with diffuse anxiety who self-medicate themselves with booze. In such cases, alcoholism is successfully treatable by competent depth psychotherapy that reduces the underlying anxiety state. It isn't a job for amateur or poorly trained therapists. Perhaps one in ten therapists can do that level of work. But it is much harder to deal with drug addicts than alcoholics.

If we legalize the stuff that people are now willing to kill to get after a short period of usage, will it not make it more available? Will it not make it more available to experiment with and get hooked on? I think the answer is perfectly clear. And it always fall into the hands of kids.

There is an argument that says if drugs are legalized and society sees the effects, or learns by seeing the effects of drug usage, it will be an individual deterrent to usage. The only problem I have with that is that society already sees the effects, and yet people still get hooked on the stuff. Is making the stuff more easily obtained going to change that? You should live so long.

There is, or should be known, a fundamental rule of society. The laws of physics take precedence over certain human freedoms. The reason we have traffic lights which are in violation of absolute freedom of action is a concession to the laws of physics and the realization that it would be too disastrous and destructive not to have them.

The reason we have laws against certain drugs is because the laws of body chemistry dictate that the effects of those drugs are too dangerous. It's that simple.

Drug legalization? No. Drug dealers? If they are in your neighborhood selling to kids, pour a quart of gasoline over them and hit them with a match. The ones who survive it will be readily identifiable and will tell the others it's no fun. It will be rough for three or four months, but after that there will be much fewer more drug problems in the country.

I grew up in a period, the 40s and early 50s when recreational drugs, as they are now commonly defined, were nonexistent in most portions of the country. For one thing, during that period, parents were in charge instead of kids running things. This condition ceased to exist in the 60s when kids took charge of the country. Many of the kids from that period remained kids and continued to be in control of the country. The recent occupants of the White House are testimony.

If someone had attempted to bring drugs onto a schoolyard, the parents of that period would have stomped whoever it was into the ground. Teachers and principals would have done the same, with parents's blessings. If a kid were found to be messing with drugs, the father of the house (there was a time when homes had fathers) would forcefully administer the lesson that the kid would be half-killed if he went near them again. From there, the old man would hunt down the people distributing the stuff to his kids. There was no popular tolerance. That was the governing element.

During the 60s a generation of brats overwhelmed the culture of the country, and overwhelmed the laws as well as the opposition to drug usage. And so it has been since then through the efforts of the original spoiled brats and their descendants.

Let me make note my observations acquired over the past nearly 40 years of experience with drugs and drug culture beginning with the beatniks, going through the hippies, and into the new breed:

Not once in 40 years have I seen drug use, including marijuana and the psychedelics, contribute any improvement to anybody's life or better anybody's abilities and capacities.

On the other hand, I have seen numbers of instances to the point of assured predictability where drug use makes those who are delusional more delusional, makes those alienated from reality even more distanced and separated from reality, makes those who believe they have capacities they don't really have more convinced they have those capacities, makes the lazy more lazy, makes the worthless even more worthless, makes the useless more useless for anything but using drugs, makes the stupid even more stupid, makes those who are irrational even more irrational, makes the weak even more weaker, makes the irresponsible less concerned about responsibility, makes those who have acquired these conditions attempt to impose toleration of those conditions upon those around them, makes those who rationalize more prone to easy rationalization, make those who are soft even softer, makes those who are seriously pathological more pathological by psychologically anesthetizing and blunting their acute awareness of their condition insulating them from realization of it seriousness. And last, but scarcely least, drugs have the effect of promoting belief in the validity of the drug world such that those who fall into those various conditions begin to view themselves as intellectuals. It has also been my observation over the years that far more people say they can handle drugs than can actually handle them.

By view parallels the answer given by Bill Cosby many years ago when presented with the assertion drugs magnify one's personality. His retort was, "But what if you are an *******?"

I am also of the view that if you think you function better using something, then it means you aren't worth a **** without it and you are dependent upon it to function.

The nation can not survive large numbers of people with these characteristics. As far as I'm concerned, both I an the nation have enough idiots to live with. We don't need drugs increasing the number.

One of the tragedies of drug use is that those who are borderline and would have had a chance had they interacted with life and adapted to it uncontaminated, are pulled away from that chance by drugs.

I am in strongly in favor of second amendment gun rights. However, I do not believe those rights extend to home ownership of atom bombs and similar weapons of mass destruction. Drugs in this country have become a weapon of mass destruction that a proportion of people willingly inflict on themselves. At some point mass destruction trumps individual rights. This is not a constitutional issue. It's a survival issue.

As far as alcohol is concerned, the effects are not comparable. I am, however, in accordance with the principle that in moderate amounts alcohol lubricates the wheels of society. Imbibed in excessive amounts, it grinds the gears." --RLK

Bump

Okay, Mort. I've read your piece, and though I don't agree with its premises or its conclusions (with one exception -- drug use among adolescents is a more serious matter than among adults, which could justify the control of sales to adults only, just as we do with alcohol), I'm willing to concede that you've given the matter some thought.

Now I'm going to put you on the spot, so brace yourself.

What kind of evidence, whether or not it exists, whether or not you believe that it possibly could exist, would cause you to change your mind? Put another way, could any conceivable development, experiment, or study persuade you that you're wrong about Drug Prohibition being right and desirable?

This is the test of falsifiability. If you concede that there is some imaginable evidentiary refutation to your arguments, then you're proposing a thesis based in reason. If you're unwilling to concede that reality might provide evidence that you're wrong, then you're proposing an article of faith, an unfalsifiable proposition that nothing can alter.

If you get this one right, you make my personal honor roll. If you get it wrong, you're just one more person whose opinions are expressions of personal taste or bias that can't be argued with.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

"What kind of evidence, whether or not it exists, whether or not you believe that it possibly could exist, would cause you to change your mind?"

If I woke up in a psychiatric hospital in an alternate universe and the shrink convinced me that I had been hallucinating all my life and that I'd been living in a dream world of invalid laws of physics, neurology, and chemistry, I'd be open to suggestion.

He'd have to do something that violated the laws of physics under which I had previously operated to prove it, though.

BTW, RLK wrote that piece. He dislikes participating in these drug threads.

Your disagreement with the premises and conclusions does not impress me. Unless you have been blind or stoned since the counter-culture and its revolutionary hangers on started their attack on American ideology and the idea that reality is not negotiable, I can't see how you cannot infer the rise of the idea of dope-as-normal is essentially linked to the popular notion of social disintegration-as-unexpected.

The only parallel to the American ideological milieu we have today is Weimar. I call the American version Woodstock. Peikoff noted that the political corollary of Weimar is Hitler. The political corollary of Woodstock is Hillary Clinton and her ilk. Dope just makes her power base that much stronger.