Apologies if I am mixing you up with someone else.
Posted on 07/09/2007 7:21:35 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084
WASHINGTON -- News that Al Gore's 24-year-old son, Al Gore III, was busted for pot and assorted prescription pills has unleashed a torrent of mirth in certain quarters.
Gore-phobes on the Internet apparently view the son's arrest and incarceration as comeuppance for the father's shortcomings. Especially rich was the fact that young Al was driving a Toyota Prius when he was pulled over for going 100 mph -- just as Papa Gore was set to preside over concerts during a 24-hour, seven-continent Live Earth celebration to raise awareness about global warming.
Whatever one may feel about the former vice president's environmental obsessions, his son's problems are no one's cause for celebration. The younger Gore's high-profile arrest does, however, offer Americans an opportunity to get real about drug prohibition, and especially about marijuana laws.
For the record, I have no interest in marijuana except as a public policy matter. My personal drug of choice is a heavenly elixir made from crushed grapes. But it is, alas, a drug.
Tasty, attractive and highly ritualized in our culture, wine and other alcoholic beverages are approved for responsible use despite the fact that alcoholism and attendant problems are a plague, while responsible use of a weed that, at worst, makes people boring and hungry, is criminal.
Pot smokers might revolt if they weren't so mellow.
Efforts over the past few decades to relax marijuana laws have been moderately successful. Twelve states have decriminalized marijuana, which usually means no prison or criminal record for first-time possession of small amounts for personal consumption. (Those states are: Alabama, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon.)
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
So being that you are outnumbered in every single drug war thread by people opposing the Drug War (not "pushing pot"), would you logically conclude that FR is not a conservative forum?
True, they can make the choice to break the laws, but in the process they try to push the Transfats for others to try, they often bring concerns if not outright grief to their families and the health costs they may leave to the public tax dollars also affects everyone else. If they want to buy their own island and kill themselves, so be it.
If they want to live among others, don’t over eat transfat saturated food in resturants and obey the laws. There is no right to put others at risk for a good meal.
The federal government has no right to tell the individual what substances they can or cannot injest. This should at most be done at the local level by city councels, similar to booze and dry counties.
You rush to give your power and liberty to the federal government for a false promise and people like me are trying to tell you that you've made a deal with the devil. You can't win, you can't get your power or liberty back and you've helped mine to be stolen as well. You set a precedent to prohibit substances on some moral ground but morals change in politics, they change as often as money changes hands.
The only thing you are currently supporting is a federally enforced black market monopoly on some narcotics and the militarization of our local police forces. Not a good thing to support, unless you trust government to be objective, and free of corruption. In reality, check the tagline
Apologies if I am mixing you up with someone else.
Sounds like your operating under the assumption that "get(ting) it right" is one of the government's goals. I've yet to see any indication of that.
"Marijuana contains more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke and because marijuana smokers usually inhale deeper and hold the smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers, their lungs are exposed to those carcinogenic properties longer."
"One study found that marijuana smokers were three times more likely to develop cancer of the head or neck than non-smokers. Many researchers believe than smoking marijuana is overall more harmful to the lungs than smoking tobacco."
Constitution: Do you think the expansion of the Interstate Commerce Clause to include regulation and prohibition of drugs and firearms is a proper use of that clause?
Member Opinion
No 85.8% 1,733
Undecided/Pass 9.1% 184
Yes 5.1% 103
LOL. How silly of me not to realize. :)
Only reason I post is so those lurking here realize the conservatives here realize these are just a small pro-dope crowd, but that the common folks realize recreational drugs are dangerous and that it is something to avoid.
My favorite chat on one of these threads was with some pro-dope dad who talked with me about letting his pre-teen kid do drugs with him. (disgusting)
Recreational drug use is behavior of the lowest kind deserving of no respect. Most people know that IMO.
I’m extremely conservative. I’m so conservative that I’d like to keep my liberties, the ones granted by God and guaranteed by the US constitution. I’d like to be able to move my money around in cash without reporting it to the Internal Revenue Service. I’d like to open the newspaper and not see editorials demanding another gun ban because a pair of crackheads shot it out with each other over drug turf the other day. I’d like to live in a country where you don’t have to get urine tested everywhere you work. Of course, you don’t have to have the test done, and you don’t have to have a job, either . . .
We should have learned from alcohol prohibition that the drug laws don’t make less addicts, they make more criminals. We should have learned that idiots machine gunning each other over contraband is the norm, not the exception. We should have learned that organized crime is not afraid of being murdered by rival gangs, so prison isn’t a much more serious threat. We should have looked at Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who I consider the absolute worst president this country ever had, and we should have seen how he started the drug prohibition and used it as one of the many federal overreaches he made.
If you’re wondering, no, I don’t get high. In fact, I spent eight years as an EMT doing CPR on people who overdosed. My grandmother died from alcohlism. My brother died at age 38 after he had three back surgeries, got addicted to Vicodin, and was put on methadone. The methadone reacted to the non narcotic pain killers he was given and killed him. He was also broke at the time.
We did reduce the use of recreational drugs, but I think it happened mostly because of a concerted campaign to make it socially unacceptable. The prisons are still full of addicts and of people who sold a product other people wanted to buy.
So now the price of a $1500 rifle is over twenty grand, and the semi automatic version of it is banned in a half a dozen states because of the drug war. And if you get caught with the twenty thousand dollars in cash that you might need to legally purchase one of those $1500 rifles, you better pray that your money came straight from the bank so it hasn’t got drug residue on it. Because if it does, or if you failed to report the withdrawal, your money is confiscated.
That, I think, is a far worse assault on liberty than a dope head next door.
My mother was involved all over the state regarding the subject and I have had first hand talks with many inmates myself who have gotten out into half way houses in an attempt to get over the drug dependence and they all mentioned the big role pot had.
Did it ever occur to you or your mother that they are telling you what you want to hear? Most likely it was pot use that led to involvement in the black market, which can lead to more serious criminal behavoir. Did it ever occur to you or your mother that its quite likely that these ex-cons you are dealing with might have never been on the "wrong" side of the law but for prohibition?
While I know explaining this ia a waste of time with you, others will read this and perhaps understand. The biggest problem with the drug laws is the inherent injustice between so-called legal and illegal drugs. The people punished for possession of illegal drugs are being treated unequally before the law. Both legal and illegal drugs share underlying moral hazards and risks, so to punish for one and not the other is to create injustice in the law and therefore in the land. Sadly, self-righteous folks like yourself pat yourselves on the back as you give political support to this injustice.
You are so right, if there'd only been a war on drugs, then these 4 siblings would have avoided ..... oops, wait a minute. There is a war on drugs and they had problems anyway. What kinda logic you trying to sell here mister?
Or maybe you'd be happier if these 4 siblings had just become alcoholics instead.....
Here’s the kinda logic I’m trying to sell....
We don’t need more crap in the game!
You’re the clown that introduced “the war on drugs” and then tried to pawn it off as though it was some inadequate concept that I’d suggested.
As for bogus logic, the idea that if they didn’t have access to drugs, they’d certainly be alcoholics, is just more crap!
Hope you do better than the first time.
We don’t need more crap in the game!
The "crap" is already here and millions of people are doing it while millions of others have tried said "crap", so the "crap" is already in the game. By keeping the “crap” out of the game, the WOD has managed to create a violent black market, turned tens of millions of citizens into scofflaws, given a criminal record to millions of non-violent drug users, etc. I could go on and on. All this would never had happened if we'd never kept the "crap" out of the "game".
By keeping the "crap" you refer to out of the "game" you end up with inequality before the law. To discriminate between "legal" vs "illegal" drugs is to create injustice. The moral hazards and risks for legal and illegal drugs are the same, yet we treat people differently before the law based on the drugs they possess. That is injustice pure and simple.
A guy getting drunk every night is the moral equivalent of a guy smoking pot every night. If one is legal, then the other must be. If one is illegal, then the other must be. To have one legal and one illegal is unjust. Surely you can see that?
You’re the clown that introduced “the war on drugs” and then tried to pawn it off as though it was some inadequate concept that I’d suggested.
Now you're being obtuse. Let's see what you posted earlier:
I’ve seen enough lives and families destroyed via these “victimless crimes”. (4 siblings from a very “Leave it to Beaver” family.)
As this article was about changing the laws on pot and you took a position against it, I think it's logical to assume that you support the WOD as is. You mentioned some folks you knew affected by drug abuse as poster children for why the WOD is needed. I merely pointed out that WOD didn't stop them from abusing drugs. The fact that you point to a WOD failure as some sort of reason to continue with the failed policy is your logical flaw, not mine.
As for bogus logic, the idea that if they didn’t have access to drugs, they’d certainly be alcoholics, is just more crap!
This one sailed over your head. I was merely pointing out that even "legal" drugs can be problematic for some folks. I didn't say they would be alcoholics, I asked if that is what you'd prefer, since alcohol is in the "game". I'm sure you wouldn't, but if harm is a reason to ban any substance, then alcohol qualifies in spades. As there's no chance alcohol prohibition is coming back, the injustice between it and marijuana can only be eliminated by changing the pot laws to where they mirror alcohol.
Why would my mother who helped create a prison ministry and many of the prisoners that I myself have spoken with want to tell me all the same supposedly false story about pot and how they often mixed it with other stuff and got in trouble?
Considering they were mostly injuring or killed others during their violent crimes, I don’t think your political speak about prohibition had a darn thing to do with why they were there. That is among the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard ever.
Get over the recreational drug worshiping folks, you look foolish trying to defend it.
This is most certainly a liberal attribute, nothing conservative about recreational drug use.
A guy getting drunk every night is out of control, just as someone using recreational drugs would be.
Recreational drug use is a venture into stupidity, not conservatism.
Agreed. But the legal leviathan constructed against it is destructive to liberty and used by politicians and bureaucrats to empower themselves.
I think it’s logical to assume that you support the WOD as is.
Here’s what’s wrong with your “logic”.
I don’t support half-assed efforts.
If we’re serious about fighting a problem then we should prove it with results.
Get rid of the corrupt officials who benefit from drug profits.
Get tough on countries that supply the drugs or traffic in them.
Throw the dealers in jail and the users in controlled treatment programs.
Legalization is simply a road to ruin for generations to come.
Our official objective in the WOD, according to the ONDCP is to "create a drug free America".
I seriously doubt if anyone ever gave any serious thought to the consequences of what it would take to actually make that happen.
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