The Argument FOR Drug Prohibition

[RainDog]

[Capitalocracy]

1. I see what you did there... nt

[iscooterliberally]

2. ...is the pro crime fiscally irresponsible argument?

Prohibition is the addiction. We need to vote all prohibitionists out of office.

[hifiguy]

5. I second that motion! nt

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Agreed!

:thumbsup:

[Boojatta]

4. Should all drugs be over-the-counter drugs?

Is the classification of some drugs as prescription drugs a by-product of unwarranted government intervention in the marketplace?

[Boojatta]

6. Some colonial powers wanted to sell opium in China.

I presume that some people in China put into words some arguments against the selling of opium in China. Perhaps you ought to do some research.

[gratuitous]

7. The destruction of lives through addiction?

I'm not in favor of total prohibition, but I'm not in favor of unfettered access, either. As it is, appalling numbers of people flush their lives away chasing the dragon. The damage to themselves is bad enough; the damage they inflict on friends and relatives is exponential. Full legalization? Another exponential jump, methinks.

[Fumesucker]

8. How many people "flush their lives away" with alcohol addiction?

Why is that OK but other addictions are intolerable?

[gratuitous]

10. Far too many there, as well

But didn't we start off with drug prohibition, commonly understood to be narcotics rather than alcohol? Or are the lives destroyed just the price to be paid so some folks can smoke pot without being hassled by The Man? Ah well, omelettes, broken eggs, what's the diff? Reality's just there for the straights who can't handle their substances.

Should there be any societal provision at all for people who become addicted?

[Fumesucker]

13. An addictive drug is an addictive drug..

The false division between alcohol and everything else is designed to cloud the issue.

Alcohol and tobacco together kill far more Americans than do illegal drugs and yet the idea of adding those two to the the current roster of illegal substances never arises.

[Romulox]

27. Alcohol Prohibition (1920-1933) came well before widespread cannabis prohibition (1936). nt

[Sheepshank]

19. I may be wrong, but this argument soundes way too much like

my mom asking me about the "if others are jumping off a cliff..." scenario.

Everyone else doing xxxxx wasn't a good arguement when I was a kid and isn't an effective argument now.

[Fumesucker]

22. Then we should make alcohol illegal, no?

Anyone who wishes to become addicted to a powerful mind altering substance already has all the legal opportunity to do so that they wish.

Evidently you think this is a bad idea.

Making alcohol illegal will stop people from becoming addicted to it.

[Sheepshank]

31. are all illegal drugs created equally? Should all drugs be treated the same?

using your agrument you would think that I would also want to regulate cough syrup the same way as a bottle of burbon. So the "everything is the same" argument is just as ineffective as the argument that xxxx is legal so yyyy should be too.

And this is not just about the right to chose. In addiction, "chosing" is no longer part of the equation.

My principal concern is that this be about business (legal and illegal) and corporations that find ways to bilk the public to fill their coffers...bilking the public by introducing them to addictive substances. Substances that the consumer can no longer deny or refuse and will themselves find unhealthy and illegal ways to satisfy. I don't agree that those people running these "businesses" get to have free reign on a population.

[Fumesucker]

34. Nicotine is at least as addictive as heroin..

Are all mind altering substances created equal?

The fact of the matter is that there are a number of mind altering substances that are completely illegal and yet less addictive than either alcohol or nicotine.

The addictive potential of mind altering substances has little or nothing to do with the legal status of such substances.

[Sheepshank]

43. So your solution is to legalize all of it?

great.:sarcasm:

The fact of the matter is that many addictive products were not recognized as such in enough time.

For those businesses that prey on kids and the unsuspecting until they are already screwed...I'm glad they are not given free reign. Look how hard it is to reign in the tobacco companies. How many decades they hid they addictive nature of their products. Pigs....all for the almighty buck...and here you are telling me that is all just fine to do that. Well no thanks.

[Warren Stupidity]

45. yes of course - legalize all of if.

What is your goal here - harm reduction or morality enforcement? Opiates were known to be addictive and were completely legal for a long time - and we did not collapse as a nation.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

20. Far fewer as a fraction of alcohol drinkers than among e.g. heroin or cocaine.

Alcohol obviously does more social damage than hard drugs, because it's so much more widely used, but for exactly the same reason it also gives far more pleasure.

Only a relatively small fraction of people who ever drink have their lives ruined by alcohol. A much high fraction of people who ever use heroin have their lives ruined by heroin, making the cost-benefit analysis very different.

[Fumesucker]

23. No doubt you have citations for your claims..

Yes?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

41. Since it's true by so many orders of magnitude, I don't need them.

You can't seriously be doubting that a lower fraction of people who use alcohol have their lives ruined by it than is true of heroin, and if you're going to pretend to do so I'm not going to waste my time digging up numbers, or let that stop me pointing it out, any more than the fact that I don't have a citation for the fact that more people die of cancer than lightning is a reason not to point that out.

[Fumesucker]

46. If it is so true by many orders of magnitude..

Then I'm sure you will have no problem at all documenting your claims.

[U4ikLefty]

69. "true by so many orders of magnitude" = pulled out of your ass.

you have some truly ignorant posts on this thread

[Romulox]

28. That's misleading at minimum, since very few people sample cocaine and heroin, while nearly everyone

samples alcohol. If you were being honest, you'd admit far more people have their lives ruined by alcohol than all other "drugs" combined. :hi:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

40. Since I am honest, I didn't say that wasn't true, and so can't "admit" it.

Please try to avoid perjoratives like that when they're not necessary.

But the statistic that is relevant to how dangerous a chemical is is not "number of people harmed" but "percentage of users harmed".

[Romulox]

49. Absolute tripe. Who are you to declare whose suffering is "relevant"? It's a ridiculous argument.

:eyes:

[RainDog]

50. now y'all play nicely with one another. it's the holiday

we all, in the end, want the same thing - a better nation that looks at good ways to deal with issues that concern us.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

54. That's not logic, it's just words!

To determine the probability of being harmed by using a given substance, the calculation one performs is

(number of people harmed) / (number of users).

The raw value (number of people harmed) is the measure of "amount of harm done at present", but not relevant to calculating the risk a substance poses, or to how much harm will be done if the number of users changes.


It's nothing to do with "declaring people's suffering irrelevant". That's not an attempt to discuss or think, it's just an attempt to avoid logic by using emotive language.

[eridani]

76. If something is illegal, how do you determine the number of users?

Phone surveys?

[Sparkly]

59. I agree. nt

[sarcasmo]

39. +1

[iscooterliberally]

11. Addiction destroys lives on many levels.

I'm not for unfettered access. If you are an adult over 21 years of age, you should be able to present your ID and buy what you need in the same manner as you would by alcohol or tobacco. I fully understand how addiction can destroy lives. Alcohol took my father, and ripped my family apart. This doesn't mean that other folks can't drink responsibly and enjoy themselves without getting into trouble. Drugs are dangerous, let there be no doubt about that, but illegal drugs are even more dangerous than legal ones. When there are no legal options it causes people to break the law. The war on drugs the way it's waged now, creates more crime and funds criminal organizations. It also causes our government on all levels to behave in a criminal manner toward our citizens. Ever since the controlled substances act was passed our country has slowly militarized our local police forces and turned them against us. Many cops are crooked because drug cartels can pay them way more than what they get in salaries. Yes, drug abuse is bad, but the way we are doing things now only makes the problem worse. We should fight for full legalization not because we all want to sit around and get high, but because we don't want our government trampling all over our constitutional rights.

Here's the link to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

http://www.leap.cc/

Here's another link that shows some of the people who are victims of the war on drugs.
One was the mayor of a town.
http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/drug-war-victim/

[redqueen]

21. Oh so very well said.

:thumbsup:

[duhneece]

29. I'd prefer a system similar to Portugal's

A heroin or cocaine addict goes to a special medical clinic where you're told of options available for treatment (detox, residential treatment, outpatient), your blood pressure etc. is taken and you're given your dose. I can see the need for a community/family committee for those cases where an addict is using so much that he/she is neglecting their children, can't work, is in immediate health risk and forced treatment should be one tool in the toolbox. Some addicts brains are too befuddled to make any choice at all, except to keep using.

No one should ever be locked in a cage like a dangerous animal for what they chose to self-medicate with.

[RainDog]

32. health problems should be treated as health problems. agreed.

addiction is a health problem.

if money were spent on addiction treatment rather than a war on drugs, we would save billions of dollars.

but, of course, some people would lose a revenue stream.

and they are committed to a pov b/c it's in their financial interests to view the issue in a particular way.

[duhneece]

33. Yup, we need to treat addiction from a public health pov

instead of from a criminal justice point of view.

We need restorative justice, not punitive 'justice'.

Please consider joining us at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Denver Oct 2013, Rainman & all. We need you.

[RainDog]

36. lol. rainman. RainDog is the name of a Tom Waits song and album

and I was listening to something from that when I joined DU - which is why I have this particular name. I think I was listening to Jockey Full of Bourbon, but thought that was a little too.. not me. lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7LqgIefUNI&feature=related

just for the record - I'm a female.

and, since you'd mentioned it earlier, I am thinking about attending that conference if I can swing it. the only time I've been to Denver is a layover in the airport.

[duhneece]

37. Lordy, lordy am I ever redfaced-

RainDog, so sorry that I was not paying attention! FlyByNight, another DU'er I had met before when he flew to New Mexico for a medical marijuana hearing, and I rode the same elevator at the Conference in LA...really nice to see another DUer there. It would be really great if several DU'ers really interested in ending the War on Drugs could be in Denver in 2013.

[Occulus]

61. "Drugs are dangerous, let there be no doubt about that, but illegal drugs are even more dangerous...

Untrue as a blanket statement. There are at least two illegal drugs I can think of that are in fact not dangerous at the normal dose, and I can think of one very illegal street drug offered to children and adults via prescription.

The two drugs that are safer than many prescriptions are cannabis and MDMA. The third is Desoxyn, the trade name for meth.

All of our drug policies are terribly out of whack, right up to and including those that are legitimately Schedule I.

[iscooterliberally]

77. Well I guess I learn something new almost every day.

Where I live there is no legal version of cannabis, so I didn't really consider that as an option. I do know that dealers in my area have been know to shoot each other fatally over a couple of bucks though. The drug isn't dangerous but those who deal are. I have heard of MDMA, but don't know much about it. I had no idea that there was a legal version of meth either. My point is that if drugs are legal and regulated so that they actually are what they claim to be they would be safer. I know that dealers cut cocaine and heroin with all sorts of nasty things like cement and rat poison. Yet both these substances have legal variations used in hospitals. Thanks for the input Occulus. It is appreciated! :fistbump:

[RainDog]

35. I think we're capable of regulation to limit access

we do this with cigarettes and alcohol and driving a car, with medicines...with all sorts of things in this society.

California Prison Focus: “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.”

We put more people in prison than does China - per capita and in basic number. The U.S. has created a situation in which we hold 25% of the prison population of the planet, but only 5% of its population.

What does this say about our claim to be the land of the free?

Rather than approach health issues like addiction as a criminal act, we would spend less money, disrupt fewer families, create better options for those who have problems with addiction by treating addition as a health issue and putting money into treatment programs.

I don't want people to use heroin, ever. or meth. or who knows what other substance someone will come up with next. but I don't see that our current policies have worked to deal with the problems you mention. Our current system creates just as much damage - and, personally, I do have to wonder about all those shipments of drugs into the U.S. by our own govt. agencies that use this money to fund black ops, etc. This is documented. It's another way the war on drugs makes govt less accountable for its actions.

[Warren Stupidity]

38. Almost all of this damage is a direct consequence of prohibition.

If your intention is actually harm reduction rather than morality enforcement, the results from nations that have taken the other course clearly demonstrate what has been blindingly obvious for decades: prohibition is the problem. tolerance and treatment are the answers.

[Sheepshank]

64. nope, the damages are a result of ingestion and addiction.

My argument is against the unrestricted access of the cartels who will of course encourage the ingestion of something they know will continue to fill their coffers by the addicted.

Do you think the addicted person will have unlimited funds to satisfy the addiction? What happens when they run out of money? Companies, cartels, corporations legally supplying the heroine have one goal in mind...money. They don't care how the purchaser gets it or how much they supply. The more the merrier. Legalizing drugs, doesn't solve the ultimate illegalities that will occur to satisfy the addiciton.

[Warren Stupidity]

80. opiates and cocaine derivatives are very cheap

'access to funds' is a non-issue if the stuff is legal.

The crime associated with drug users that is driven by the need to purchase drugs would be reduced proportional to the reduction in cost of these drugs once they are legally available. There is a tipping point where the cost is low enough that almost all crime associated with users seeking to fund purchases would disappear - for example there is little or no crime associated with nicotine users despite the fact that nicotine is one of the most physically addictive substances known.

We could of course allow addicts free access - but we won't because that would 'wrong'.

There is some actual medical harm in chronic use of opiates, but much less than most people think. (Again this is because we prejudice our beliefs with a morality based view of the subject.)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

65. Nonsense.

Take a look at the opium dens back when it was still legal...

[Warren Stupidity]

73. Ok your assertion is that there was great harm to society

when opiates were legal. Please provide some evidence for that assertion.

[killbotfactory]

78. And prohibition has stopped people from getting addicted... how? nt

[MadHound]

9. You create a vast revenue stream for government departments, the police, and certain private groups,

Like lawyers, police equipment manufacturers, bailbondsmen, the prison industry, etc. etc.

That is, after all, the unsaid reason for drug prohibition, it benefits a few greatly at the expense of the many.

[iscooterliberally]

12. +1 !!! n/t

[RainDog]

14. cui bono?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6t1EM4Onao

[RainDog]

15. 2007: CIA Torture Jet Wrecks With 4 Tons of Cocaine

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/12/420107/-CIA-Torture-Jet-wrecks-with-4-Tons-of-COCAINE

This Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA crash landed on September 24, 2007 after it ran out of fuel over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula it had a cargo of several tons of Cocaine on board. (N)ow documents have turned up on both sides of the Atlantic that link this Cocaine Smuggling Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA that crashed in Mexico to the CIA who used it on at least 3 rendition flights from Europe and the USA to Guantanamo's infamous torture chambers between 2003 to 2005.

[Uncle Joe]

16. 1. Organized crime and the cartels need jobs too.

2. As we create more prisoners the number of people covered by universal health care increases as well, the ideal goal would be for all Americans except 1% maybe a little more or less to be prisoners, despite having a world record breaking number of prisoners here in the land of the free, we have a long way to go.

3. I believe fellowship is created and we as a nation become closer when we can inspect and approve of each other's pee, I believe the founders would have fought and died for this right, had they known it could be done.

Thanks for the thread RainDog and have a Happy Thanksgiving.:hi:

[RainDog]

26. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Uncle Joe

((((hugs))))

[hunter]

17. Profit$$$$$$

How else would violent criminals and money launderers make a living?

And what devils would our heavily armed internal security apparatus fight?

:shrug:

[FarLeftFist]

18. Well played.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

24. It's the addictiveness.

The "let people make their own decisions" argument loses some of its force when you're dealing with things that take away people's ability to make their own decisions.

The "it doesn't work" argument is an absolute clincher when it comes to marijuana, but not when it comes to things like heroin. Arguably the state should supply limited quantities of heroin to addicts, but no-one should be allowed to sell it for a profit.

[Romulox]

30. The overwhelming majority of drug prosecutions are for pot. 100% not addictive. Try again. nt

[Donald Ian Rankin]

42. Try what again?

Please *read* and *think about* my post before being snide about it. I know it's less fun, but it makes you look less of a fool.

Also you're wrong to be so confident about pot being "100% not addictive" - it's significantly less addictive than e.g. alcohol or nicotine, but there's non-trivial evidence that it can have mild withdrawal symptoms in some cases. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_dependence is only a wikipedia article, but has a number of links to more authoritative sites.

[Romulox]

47. You chide me for mistaking you for a Drug Warrior, then you launch into a defense of the Drug War.

Admittedly, quite a lame one, but I certainly have made no mistake about you. :hi:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

52. No, no I don't. Once again, please *read* and *think*, rather than just assuming and spouting.

I refuted a specific, false, claim about the non-addictiveness of cannabis. I didn't go any further than that.

Any false assumptions you make about what that implies about my views on the drug war are your fault, not mine.

To avoid you being wrong any more, my view on the drug war is that cannabis should definately be legalised and that harder addictive drugs like heroin and cocaine should definately remain criminalised, possibly with an exception involving the state supplying addicts with small quantities as part of a harm-reduction strategy. I'm less certain about dangerous but less addictive substances like LSD and ecstasy; I'm inclined to err on the side of legalising but tightly restricting supply, but I'd need to study their effects more for that to be an informed opinion.

Political discussion is much harder, and rather pointless, if you respond to what you'd like me to have said and thought, rather than what I actually say and think.

[Warren Stupidity]

44. alcohol and tobacco are both addictive, pot isn't.

so it clearly isn't the addictiveness that determines policy. Is your goal harm reduction or morality enforcement?

[Romulox]

48. Oh, contraire! (wikipedia link to follow!)

:silly:

[Warren Stupidity]

56. whatever - and where is your alleged link?

pot is only addictive in the non-medical sense, it is not physically addictive but individuals may develop an obsessive behavior issue around its use, as they may do with many other substances that are perfectly legal.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

58. I'm afraid you're probably wrong about that.

Here's the link (usual disclaimer: this is only a wikipedia article; it links to more authoritative sources).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_dependence

There's non-trivial evidence that Cannabis can have withdrawal symptoms (although I don't want to overstate my case here - it appears the jury is not completely in yet).

[Occulus]

62. That's actually funny

We get to the "meat" of the "withdrawal" "symptoms" just a bit down the page:

Characteristic withdrawal symptoms from the substance, such as insomnia or difficulty falling asleep, cravings, restlessness, loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating, sweating, mood swings, raise in tempature, depression, irritability, and anger.<33>

What a joke. I get those same damn feelings when I'm short on coffee, sleep, decent food, or just having a shitty day.

Let's call the cannabis "withdrawal" "symptoms" what they are: fucking bullshit.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

53. It isn't, but it should be, with an exception for nicotine.

A strategy based purely on the effects of the drug would probably involve legalising cannabis and alcohol and criminalising heroin, cocaine and also nicotine. However, the vast number of pre-existing nicotine addicts means that criminalising it would do far more harm than good. I would like to see all forms of tobacco advertising banned, though.

The answer to your question is, of course, the former; the only way "morality enforcement" comes into it is the number of crimes committed by addicts (mostly to alcohol as an absolute number, but probably a higher fraction of users for hard drugs) to fuel their habits.

[Warren Stupidity]

55. but it seems your morality influences your perception of 'harm'

Mortality
Number of alcoholic liver disease deaths: 14,406
Number of alcohol-induced deaths, excluding accidents and homicides: 23,199
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm

And yet you perceive alcohol as harmless - in the same category as marijuana. You are not alone in your misperceptions. I claim that it is an underlying moral prejudice that drives this common bias.

And I don't know what to make of your last statement. It is prohibition itself that drives almost all of the crime related to the drugs you would, it seems, continue under the prohibition regime. Again, this odd disconnect seems to me to be driven by some moral precept that addiction is 'bad' and must be prohibited regardless of the social cost of doing so, despite the massive addition harm to people and society that prohibition causes. If morality is not driving your view on this subject, then why not simply allow adults to use heroin cocaine and any other addictive substance as they choose?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

57. The figure you're omitting is "amount of use".

The measure of how dangerous a substance is is *not* "amount of harm caused", it's "amount of harm caused, divided by number of users".

Of course more people die of alcohol than other drugs, but if other drugs (with a possible, but only possible, exception for cannabis) were used as widely as alcohol, this would not be the case.

Alcohol is also different to most other drugs in that harm done is function of rate of consumption over a short period, not just total consumption. If I drink a glass of wine a day for 10 years, I'll suffer no adverse effect; if I drink that much alcohol in a short period I'll be in serious trouble. If I smoke a cigarette a day for 10 years, the chances of damage to my health will be fairly close to the amount of damage caused by a short binge of smoking the same amount. So there's a much bigger difference between responsible and irresponsible use of alcohol than there is for e.g. nicotine.



>And I don't know what to make of your last statement. It is prohibition itself that drives almost all of the crime related to the drugs you would, it >seems, continue under the prohibition regime.

Did you overlook the passage where I mentioned that I said that I thought the state should supply small quantities for addicts, for precisely the crime-prevention reason?


>this odd disconnect seems to me to be driven by some moral precept that addiction is 'bad'

Yes, I think that people becoming addicted to dangerous and expensive (even if prohibition ends, they will remain expensive) substances is bad; minimising the number of people who do is part of harm reduction, and nothing to do with morality.


>why not simply allow adults to use heroin cocaine and any other addictive substance as they choose?

Because it will lead to a larger number of people having their lives ruined by them.

[RainDog]

51. agree. remove the financial incentive

for drugs that cause addictions. engage in needle exchange for addicts and make treatment accessible at the same place that people would get their drug. adult remedial education to provide other skills. deal with the issues that give rise to addiction in the first place - heal the sick, when it is within our power to do so.

I also agree that the issue of marijuana and the issue of hard drugs are two different things. That's why it's so bizarre that marijuana is scheduled in a way that's so whacked compared to other substances. this scheduling undermines efforts to disassociate a relatively harmless substance from harmless ones. It sends the wrong message; it's not just that the information is inaccurate.

But I honestly have to question the bait and switch of federal agencies that claim they are entirely anti-substance abuse then make money from importing just such substances. It's to the benefit of the profit margin to keep drugs illegal when certain agencies make money from this practice. Four tons of cocaine is a lot. Maybe that was for the Wall Street financiers. I hear that's their drug of choice. I wonder how many of them ever face any consequence...at all...for anything.

Matt Taibbi's recent article on OWS got to the heart of the drug war, too.

What happened at UC Davis was the inevitable result of our failure to make sure our government stayed in the business of defending our principles. When we stopped insisting on that relationship with our government, they became something separate from us.

And we are stuck now with this fundamental conflict, whereby most of us are insisting that the law should apply equally to everyone, while the people running this country for years now have been operating according to the completely opposite principle that different people have different rights, and who deserves what protections is a completely subjective matter, determined by those in power, on a case-by-case basis.

Not to belabor the point, but the person who commits fraud to obtain food stamps goes to jail, while the banker who commits fraud for a million-dollar bonus does not. Or if you accept aid in the form of Section-8 housing, the state may insist on its right to conduct warrantless "compliance check" searches of your home at any time – but if you take billions in bailout aid, you do not even have to open your books to the taxpayer who is the de facto owner of your company.

The state wants to retain the power to make these subjective decisions, because being allowed to selectively enforce the law effectively means they have despotic power. And who wants to lose that?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/uc-davis-pepper-spray-incident-reveals-weakness-up-top-20111122#ixzz1ecwbsAgL

The war on drugs was pivotal to militarizing the police and giving the govt despotic power.

1. Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

2. Drug Courts

3. Drug Testing

4. No-Knock Warrants

5. Restrictions on Speech

6. Property Seizure

The issue is of concern for both left and right.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for example, denounced compulsory urinalysis of Customs Service employees "in the front line" of the War on Drugs as an "invasion of their privacy and an affront to their dignity." In another case, Justice John Paul Stevens lamented that "this Court has become a loyal foot soldier" in the War on Drugs. For his part, Justice Thurgood Marshall was moved to remind the Court that there is "no drug exception" to the Constitution.

But these have been futile dissents. In a rare majority opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared that

he drug crisis does not license the aggrandizement of governmental power in lieu of civil liberties. Despite the devastation wrought by drug trafficking in communities nationwide, we cannot suspend the precious rights guaranteed by the Constitution in an effort to fight the "War on Drugs."

In that observation, the court echoed a ringing dissent of the chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court:

If the zeal to eliminate drugs leads this state and nation to forsake its ancient heritage of constitutional liberty, then we will have suffered a far greater injury than drugs ever inflict upon us. Drugs injure some of us. The loss of liberty injures us all.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-180es.html

And, since the war on drugs is waged most often on minorities, Taibbi's recognition of despotic power should be changed a little bit to note this despotic power is used most often to target specific ethnic groups.

[Sparkly]

60. Exactly.

It's too easy for people to say "drugs" and want to consider pot the same as heroin.

Kids can "experiment" with pot, and people can use it recreationally.

"Experimenting" with heroin can destroy lives forever, and it's generally not used recreationally.

[RainDog]

25. Private Contractors

http://www.voiceofmexico.com/articles/the-business-that-is-and-could-be-the-drug-war

Private contractors in the United States have sold millions in know-how and technology used in the fight against organized crime groups. Much of the money comes from the Mérida Initiative, a 1,3 billion dollar aid package to the governments of Mexico and Central-American nations, intended on deterring transnational crime and drug trafficking. Analysts already indicated that much of the money from the Mérida Initiative never actually reaches Mexico or Central-America, and instead is paid to US firms.

...In Mexico’s case, the use of contractors is relatively new and so far limited to ‘war technology’. However, this may change in the near future. As one analyst put it: “Private security firms are dying to leave Afghanistan and Iraq, and move into Mexico.”

Dyn-corp, a private military contractor, is the largest benefactor of the war on drugs.

[Enthusiast]

63. I am VERY close to this issue.

A dear family member is lost in drug addiction. It started with pain killer abuse. Young people crush pain pills and snort them up like cocaine. This is highly addictive. Because the drugs are illegal the street price is through the roof. This is a more expensive habit than the classic heroin addiction.

You cannot imagine the ends an addict will go to acquire their drugs. There is no question that the illegal status (expense) of these drugs is worse than the addiction. Also, these users cannot work. If the random drug tests don't interfere with employment their inability to perform on the job will.

At the very least, our objective should be to provide drugs to these addicts until they can be persuaded to enter a GOVERNMENT program for rehabilitation. Parents and family members simply cannot FIX this problem. It is an epidemic.

[RainDog]

71. sorry to hear about your family problems

one reason this issue resonates with me is that I was married to a very intelligent person who had a family history of both bipolar disorder and alcoholism. many times addiction is a secondary issue to mental health issues - the common wisdom is that people need to deal with the addiction in order to then deal with the mental health issues underlying the impulse that leads them to substance abuse.

because he was considered a "high status" person whose life was worth saving, and because his workplace was progressive in its view of health issues, every effort was made to help him get beyond the problems he faced, and still faces, and to deal with them in ways that did not destroy his life.

He has been able to deal with those things in much better, healthier ways. It took a long time. It was a struggle. It created a lot of pain and hardship. But he wasn't just discarded by society because he had a health problem, and society overall and people in his life are better off for the way in which people with authority over him and his family members dealt with his problem when dealing with him.

He was fortunate that he had enough insurance to get the help he needed. Even so, there were times I had to argue with insurance gatekeepers that wanted to deny him emergency medical care because they didn't pay for people to go to "spas." (That was really what some asshole said to me when I was sitting on the floor in my kitchen, crying, calling them while my preschool children napped b/c my ex needed to be admitted to the psyche unit. Later I spoke to someone b/c of a class action suit that was ongoing just b/c of this same sort of crap.)

His addiction is to a legal substance, so issues of obtaining it and potential backlash from illegality were never part of the equation, thankfully. It would have made treatment that much harder if there had been yet another societal issue to overcome.

I've never had an issue with alcohol. I could take it or leave it. I have Stella Artois sitting in my refridge that's been there for more than a year, vodka in my freezer that's been there for more than two years... but if I were still living with him, that wouldn't be the case (and, when we were together, I simply stopped drinking altogether to remove some of the temptation for him.) I guess chocolate is my drug of choice. It's not illegal either.

Coffee was once viewed as a dangerous substance that could not be safely used by the population, too. I'm glad we don't imprison coffee drinkers, even if they are addicted, and make it possible for them to obtain their drug of choice in a safe and inexpensive manner. I'm glad we don't ostracize them and tell them they are worthless to society if they develop an addiction to coffee. I think our society is better off not spending money to criminalize coffee drinkers.

[Enthusiast]

75. Thank you for sharing that with me.

That coffee thing -I would have been a candidate for prison. I fresh roast and grind mine every morning. It's beyond sad that more people don't understand this issue as we do.

[RainDog]

79. I hope your family member can get some help

because, honestly, if my ex had been in another situation, the outcome would have been a lot different. but he had people, including me, who believed it was possible to deal with the problems.

but all of it did, ultimately, break our marriage apart and hurt others. nevertheless, because of our children, I've always tried to take his health into consideration. unfortunately, those things aren't always reciprocated. but you do things because they're the right thing to do. lots of regrets, but not about the way I handled this issue.

[NashVegas]

66. We Need Laws To Separate Stupid, Self-Indulgent Wankers From the Rest of the Population

At least the brighter wankers are less likely to wind up behind bars.

[RainDog]

72. so, prison is a way to weed out the stupid?

then why is George W. still walking free?

the real issue is that if you have the money you can buy freedom.

just ask Mitch Daniels. He sold drugs in college. He was caught with a shoe box full of drugs on campus (that included more than just marijuana.) He never spent a day in prison. He now puts others in prison by backing laws to harm people who did the same thing - or less harmful things - than he did.

Dan Burton's son sold LSD across state lines. Bought his way out of any conviction.

our justice system isn't supposed to be for sale to the highest bidder or the best connected asshole. but that's what we see every day. it's enough to make you think none of it deserves to be preserved.

[roman7]

67. some people screw up no matter what

but ive smoked pot on and off since 1969 and i never had any problems stopping . i would just get bored and quit.in 2003 i was ran over by a pickup truck while riding my night train motorcycle and got hooked on fentenal (sp) it took a long time to get off that patch but guess what finally got me free... REEFER.it is the best at relieving my pain & getting a smile back on my face after about 4 years of wishing i was dead.ps i started smoking cigs. in 1967 and tried to quit for 20 years finally made it when i was 45 now thats an addicition. im 58 now. happy thanksgiving to all.

[varelse]

68. Clever :)

[JoeyT]

70. The same argument the pro-lifers make for controlling the bodies of others.

Either we have bodily autonomy or we do not. Even if you aren't allowed to control anything else in this world, what you deliberately do to your body should be your choice and yours alone.

[RainDog]

74. via The Root

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/supercommittee-failed-legalize-drugs-and-save-billions/2011/11/23/gIQAn2ipoN_blog.html

Ending the war on drugs—pragmatic, sensibly humane and post racial—would alone save our nation billions of dollars.

...Not swayed by dollars and cents? Then think about Rocrast Mack, of Alabama, who has become a poster child for everything that’s draconian and wrong about the drug war and our nation’s non-rehabilitative penal system. Mack, 24, was serving a 20-year sentence for a petty drug crime and savagely beaten to death by prison guards after a minor disciplinary infraction. Prior to being killed, Mack appealed to the sentencing judge for greater leniency, citing the birth of his son. His appeal was denied.

Mack was raped by a family member as a child, abandoned at the age of seven and shuttled through foster care and group homes. Poor, under-educated, and under-resourced, Mack became a minor drug offender. In 2009, he was sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to selling $10 worth of crack cocaine to an undercover officer.

To have a young man waste away and deteriorate in prison until middle age for a minor, non-violent drug offense is disproportionate, cruel and unusual punishment.

f our best and brightest were being subjected to prison, we’d hold town hall meetings and super committees in efforts to fashion an agenda that would bolster education and employment as an alternative to mass incarceration. It happened in 1933 when the “great experiment” with alcohol prohibition ended after leaders realized that it had fueled organized crime, murder and mayhem.

[mick063]

81. It is OK

For drug companies to legally sell their patented, approved poison. Poison that requires "rapid speak" at the end of every advertisement to warn of "side effects."

The only reason pot isn't legal?

The big drug companies can't patent it.


I recall a day when I never, ever saw drug advertisements, nor was I ever asked to "urge" my doctor to write a prescription.

There is only prohibition on drugs that the big pharmaceutical companies can't make a fortune on.