18-12-2002 14:15									#1
	Drug War Disaster Support Apolyton

Here is the disaster wrought by the drug war pushers:

1) It's immoral - punishing the innocent because of the actions of the guilty is immoral and non-drug users surely don't want to be punished for the crimes of other non-drug users, but "we" are punishing all drug users because some drug users hurt others. Look at the arguments in favor of drug prohibition, they are all based on the immoral proposition that millions of people should be punished because of what others do.

2) It's unconstitutional - on several fronts.

2a) The 1st Amendment guarantees us religious freedom, and the drug war violates our religious freedom. Yes, some people use drugs as part of their religions...

2b) The 2nd Amendment guarantees us the right to keep and bear arms, but not for drug users, or even people who use prescription drugs assigned to others. Yup, if you own a gun and use a prescription painkiller belonging to someone else, you're a criminal subject to a very harsh sentence.

2c) The 3rd Amendment guarantees us that soldiers will not be quartered in our homes during peacetime. That was added to the Bill of Rights because King George sent his troops to stay in the homes of "suspected" dissidents to keep an eye on them - spying. Now, technology allows government to spy on us without actually placing troops in our homes, but the spirit of the 3rd Amendment has been destroyed by the drug war.

2d) The 4th Amendment - no-knock raids. The cops can literally break down your door in the middle of the night. It was a no-knock raid with a deceitfully obtained warrant (based on the allegation of a meth lab) that caused the tragedy at Waco. An elderly couple in Minneapolis was killed in a fire started by cops using a "flash grenade" to break in at night. The number of dead and wounded is enormous, but government won't publish stats on how many they kill and wound in pursuit of the drug war.

2e) The 5th Amendment - no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. This amendment presumes we had life, liberty, and property after the laws were written. For example, what if Congress decided they didn't like you and wanted you dead? Could they simply write a law saying you can't live and then execute you for violating the law? No, the 5th assumes future laws have not deprived us of our inalienable rights before due process.

2f) The 6th Amendment - you have the right to a speedy trial by a jury of your peers. But the courts have become so clogged with drug trials, drug courts that don't have juries have been set up to deal with these. Of course, the accused can opt for this set up, but they are coerced into giving away their right to a jury trial. They are told if they go with a jury trial, they'll face a tougher sentence thereby punishing people for requesting a trial by jury. That's how drug users are coerced into "rehab" only for the drug war pushers to then use the number of people in rehab as proof of some new problem they need our money to fix. Furthermore, jury nullification, one of the checks the Founders believed in has been done away with. In the past, juries could acquit the accused, not because of their innocence, but because the law was either immoral or violated the Constitution. Juries are now told to act as robots computing guilt or innocence, not judging the law/government as well. Also, in some urban areas, drug cases have caused such a backload, civil cases can now take years to be heard. If you need to sue someone and find out the court can't get to your case for a couple years, you'll know why.

2g) The 9th Amendment - we have many rights, and as Madison wrote, the enumeration of certain rights in the preceding amendments shall not be used to deny the other rights we retain. But the 9th has become a dead letter...even some "conservatives" who claim to support the Constitution argue that if a right does not appear in the Bill of Rights, it doesn't exist.

2h) The 10th Amendment - re-states that the Constitution strictly limits what the feds can do and that all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. Congress has the power to regulate commerce with other nations and inter-state commerce, but not intra-state commerce and non-commerce. And the latter power was meant to create a free trade zone within the USA, not to allow Congress to ban or micro-manage trade among Americans. Those are the only powers Congress have concerning drugs or any other product. But Congress has hardly limited itself to these powers. That's the rub of the matter, no supporter of the drug war can point to any power to wage the war.

3) Lost productivity? - C'mon! You think wasting 100's of billions of dollars to catch and house/jail millions of people is a productive use of resources? And for what? If the drug war actually reduced drug use by an enormous amount, that might offset wasting all that money while taking millions of people out of the economy, but the drug war side will not and cannot show that their war has achieved such a reduction in consumption... because it hasn't. Drug consumption when all drugs were legal was not higher than now.

4) Asset Forfeiture - makes a mockery of the 4th and 5th Amendments. The cops don't even have to convict you of a "drug crime" to take all your property, they only have to allege that your property was "involved" with drugs. The standard for "convicting" property is much lower than convicting a person, and often, the property owner is not even charged with a crime. Donald Scott lived north of LA on some nice land. The BLM and National Parks administration wanted his property but he rejected their buy out offers. So what happened next? Well, a helicopter cop claimed he saw pot plants hanging upside down in trees on his property. The cops launched a late night no-knock raid, broke in, Scott's girlfriend screamed and he awoke from his slumber to defend her and was shot dead. No pot was found.

Motorists have been stopped and robbed, not by street thieves, but by cops claiming the money was "drug-related". And you, the owner of that money, has to prove the money was yours and not involved with drugs. And even then, there have been people robbed of thousands by cops even though the rightful owners could and did prove the money was "legit", but still can't get their money back even after judges have ordered the release of the money. This happened alot down in the SE USA, especially Florida.

5) A nation of suspects - which is what we've become. Because drug possession has no victim, there is no one to go to the cops to complain about being robbed or to provide a description of the thief. So the cops have to view nearly all of us as suspects, hence the expansion of illegal searches. And to add to that, government officials go into schools to convince children to turn their parents in for using drugs. Ever hear of the "Brownshirts"? Of course, the kids are never told what will really happen to their family because of the induced betrayal of one of the most sacred of trusts - the trust between parent and child. The families are often broken up with the kids sent off to live in foster "care" while the parents are carted off to jail.

6) Hypocrisy - alcohol by far causes more harm to "society" than all the illegal drugs combined, but we keep that one legal - votes. How many people die from alcohol and tobacco every year? Maybe 500,000? How many from ALL the illegal drugs combined? Maybe 30,000 if that? Hell, processed sugar kills far more than all the illegal drugs combined, maybe even more than alcohol and booze. And how do the hypocrites defend this sin? They don't, they can't...

7) Immoral laws create dis-respect for the law - You may not think the drug laws are immoral, but millions of drug and non-drug users do. They know they have the moral authority to live their lives as they choose, it's called freedom. And when laws make such blatant attacks on freedom, millions no longer respect the law or government. What do you think would happen if guns were outlawed? Millions of people would refuse to obey the law and there might even be a rebellion with many gun owners feeling justified in killing government agents trying to enforce the ban.

8) It's for the children - that's what we hear. But is it true? Nope, the black market created to supply adults with drugs has spilled over to supply children too. Pot use among teens in Holland is lower than here, but pot is legal in Holland. In the mid-80's, the Reagan administration and Congress followed by the states enacted much harsher penalties for adults convicted of dealing. What was the result? Any economist worth the title could have told us before the laws went into effect. Many adults, seeking to avoid the harsher penalties, recruited minors into the drug trade. Gang recruitment exploded and so did juvenile crime and it's been climbing ever since. Yeah, it's for the children.

9) Murder - if the drug war is such a blessing, why did the homicide rate over the last 30 years double over the rate from 1945-1965? And if you say liberal policies, then explain why the homicide rate doubled during alcohol prohibition too? And why did homicide rates decrease 13 years in a row once alcohol prohibition was repealed? Take a look for yourself:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer...y/graphs/10.htm

Is it just a coincidence that homicide rates reached their zenith in the 20th century twice, both during drug wars?
And because of improvements in medicine and paramedics and their response times, murder rates would be even higher now than if we were living back during alcohol prohibition.

10) Crime in general - property crime (theft) has increased greatly, but while drug war supporters call these "drug-related" crimes, I call them drug war related crimes. One goal of the drug war was to dramatically inflate the cost of drugs. Well, what a surprise! Increase the cost of a product in great demand, and the result is more stealing. If a heroin addict could get his fix with only 1-2 dollars a day, he wouldn't need to steal 100-200 dollars a day. Just imagine the crime wave we'd see if basic food staples were banned with a corresponding inflation of cost...

11) The expansion of government - does this need further explanation? We now have government trying to micromanage our economic lives (no, not the corporations, they get a free pass) so it can catch us making money "illegally". Banks are required to spy on customers, and so on...I've already run down some of the abuses of the Constitution, but the drug war is a never ending war which will require an ever expanding government to control more of our lives. A statist's wet dream...

12) Corruption - J. Edgar Hoover rejected repeated requests from Presidents wanting to get the FBI into the drug war. Why? He knew the drug war would eventually corrupt the FBI just as it is doing to so many other police departments.

13) Foreign Affairs - while the government has put out ads blaming drug users for 9/11 (more demonization of drug users), the ads were both hypocritical and dishonest. Only Opium (heroin) comes from Afghanistan, but the ads intentionally made no distinctions among drugs. That's like blaming caffeine users for the behavior of alcohol suppliers during prohibition. And prior to 9/11, Congress was sending our tax dollars to the Taliban because they were actually waging a war on opium. Tha Taliban were true believers and opium was a big no-no to them. It was their opponents like the Northern Alliance that were involved in the opium trade. But we didn't see any ads blaming tax payers or Congress for 9/11 even though our taxes were supporting the Taliban. And then, of course, there's the oil and diamond money that helped fund OBL. We don't hear politicians accusing us all of supporting terrorism because we buy oil.

14) More foreign affairs - we're pouring money into Latin America to wage our drug war. If drug wars were so good for "society", why has Colombia seen horrific crime rates? Because we blackmailed them into waging our drug war and that drug war has created massive crime rates! And since drug producers cannot rely on government to protect their participation in the marketplace, they have to seek out those who will provide protection. And in Colombia and other areas of S America, that happens to be leftist rebels who profit from the drug war.

15) Overdoses - yeah, drug war supporters point to this too, God only knows why. But just as alcohol poisoning deaths increased under alcohol prohibition because of poor quality control, drug overdoses have increased under the drug war for the same reason.

16) What has the drug war solved? That is a question consistently avoided by it's supporters. They cannot identify any problem solved by the drug war and usually ignore all the problems the drug war causes.
All they can do is offer "Chicken Little" predictions about how drug use will sky rocket, but when all drugs were legal in this country, consumption rates were not higher than now. And in those countries where certain drugs are legal, consumption rates are comparable or lower.

17) Pot is a "gateway" drug? Nope, that's another falsehood. People who love playing sports started out with one sport, does that mean the sport they started out playing was a "gateway" sport? Even the medical analysis commissioned a few years ago by the federal government concluded that pot is only a "gateway" drug because of it's illegal status, not because pot somehow magically instructs the brain to desire other drugs the brain has never experienced.

18) The drug war has promoted the use of harder drugs. How? Back when Nixon began his war on pot, traffickers were given the incentive to reduce the risk of getting caught with pot which is much harder to conceal. Many switched to more concentrated, more easily concealed drugs like cocaine and heroin. Drugs that also became more profitable because of their illegality. So, many pot users who could no longer get pot from their dealer now had access to the harder drugs. The ban on cocaine led to the introduction of "crack" cocaine - the poor man's cocaine.

19) Freedom - the absence of coercion or constraint in choice or action. If I use pot or cocaine, I've imposed no coercion or constraints on others. But those who ban these products are imposing upon me constraints. Then to add insult to injury, they claim they are doing this because some other drug user might impose upon them a constraint. Hypocrisy and immorality have become virtues under the drug war.

20) Taxes? No, it's called stealing, more accurately, armed robbery. That is how supporters of the drug war pay for their attempt to legislate "morality". Apparently legalised stealing is a moral endeavor. Consider the reality: you use pot in your home. I steal money from others to hire people to break into your home and put you in a cage because your personal behavior offends me. Then I accuse you of immorality? Lol. If the weapon called "government" was not there to hide behind, would I (you) risk our necks stealing money from others and breaking into other people's homes to cage the owners for smoking pot? Would we claim the moral authority to commit these acts? Nope, but in the mind of the drug war pusher, government magically transforms immorality into a moral crusade.

21) Communism - yeah, taking the position that the state can decide what we ingest is communistic. Supporters of the drug war are effectively claiming they and the state under their control owns us. But when they have to share power and other leftists with a different agenda use the state to exercise "ownership" of those who support the drug war, that is when we hear hypocritical platitudes about freedom.

22) The cost - government seemingly tries to hide the cost so we won't know what is being spent. They do this by speaking only about the cost of federal enforcement, but they ignore what the states spend and the costs for military interdiction, foreign bribes and aid, courts, "education", treatment, and jails, etc. The costs are enormous, roughly a trillion dollars for the last 30 years if not more.

See any errors? Flaws in logic? How about a list of drug war successes? I've posted this several times at other political forums and can't get any drug war supporters to offer a rebuttal or a list of successes.

	18-12-2002 14:21									#2
	Increase Your PM Length

wow!

i know who i'd vote for in 2004 if i could

but seriously, i agree with you

	18-12-2002 14:55									#3
	Inflate your Upload Space

That post is far too long for me to read, probably because I have limited attention span from being off my tits on Smack.

	18-12-2002 14:56									#4
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Hey a fellow liberal Kansan! We are truly a rare breed, my friend.

	18-12-2002 18:24									#5
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I'm glad I live in holland where we don't have to put up with the stupid "drug war" because we have a logical drug policy.

It's quite insane that in california you can't smoke tabaco in the streets but with a perscription you can do weed and I could mention a million other ways a "secular" legistlation impose moral standards, but I can't be bothered...

The only flaw I see in your argument berserker, (at the moment) is that "taking the position that the state can decide what we ingest is communistic". The state should put limmits on what we ingest because most of the populance have no idea what a drug or new food can do. You can't have a new product come on the market without the state checking if its dangerous because few consumers do check. If more money was spent on education and there ween't so many idiots around maybe it would be a different story. Anyway, the point is any form of government from fascist to fundamentalist can ban what we ingest (I'm not saying its right, I just mean they all have that nature) and it is not an intriniscally communist trait. Ofcourse, this is really a semantics critiek about what communism is.

	18-12-2002 18:39									#6
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Why don't you Americans just elect somebody like Alvaro Uribe (President of Colombia)? The drug problem will disappear quickly. Because I know people, right-minded people, don't want to see stinking drugs on their streets.

Also you should instate Singaporean like laws. The basis of my entire belief system. Drug abuse is low there isn't it? Because for possession it is a life sentence (or was it death?) and for selling it is punishable by death. That is Singapore for you. One of the most developed and civilized countries in the world.

	18-12-2002 18:42									#7
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Here is a more accurate representation of Singaporean Law:

quote: Drug abuse is viewed seriously in Singapore. The death penalty is mandatory for those convicted of trafficking, manufacturing, importing or exporting more than any one of the following: - 15g of heroin 30g of cocaine - 30g of morphine 500g of cannabis - 1.2kg of opium 200g of cannabis resin Possession of such quantities is deemed as prima facie evidence of trafficking. Those convicted of unauthorised drug consumption face maximum imprisonment of 10 years, fine of S$20,000 or both.

http://www.getforme.com/Info_Singapore%20law.htm

	18-12-2002 18:54									#8
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Bezerker

and for #4. Did the heads roll for that?
If they didn't they should have.

	18-12-2002 18:56									#9
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Fortunatley Singapore is not more than a city In Stalinist Russia drug use was low

	18-12-2002 19:02									#11
	I'm seriously starting to doubt Fez is for real. Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Fez Also you should instate Singaporean like laws. The basis of my entire belief system.

Singaporean laws are the basis of your entire belief system?

	18-12-2002 19:09									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Osweld Singaporean laws are the basis of your entire belief system?

Well not exactly. I also have elements of Uribe's drug policies mixed in too. BTW, Uribe is the right-wing candidate who was elected President of Colombia. I say hit hard, hit with all the force possible and declare a national emergency. Also militarize the police force.

That will work. Singapore has one of the lowest drug usage rates in the developed world.

	18-12-2002 19:51									#13
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Hello Berzerker! Ahh, I remember back when I used to try to make compendium posts like this one in my teens. They're quite fun to make, and certainly can make interesting threads, so to stimulate debate I'll post counter-arguments to your points, from the perspective of an idealised War on Drugs rather than the current American one. After this I won't return to the thread, knowing myself, but I've actually managed to work myself up this once so I can muster the requisite strenght. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I'll do it based on the points, scroll up if you want quotes.

1) Surely "punishing" drug users would involve letting them continue with what they do? The point of fighting drugs, after all, is to empower the drug users and getting rid of this limiting influence on them and their freedom.

2 a) So do murder laws, rape laws, kidnapping laws, etc. etc. Silly argument.
b) The second amendment allows you to carry arms in order to form a well-organised militia. Allow me to doubt your ability to do so under the influence.
c) Hmm, no, as far as I'm aware that ammendment was added because of the extremely common practice in europe at the time to quarter soldiers in any local farm, etc. Hardly a relevant connection.
d) I fail to see the connection, but then I know little about the complex interpretation of your laws.
e) Stringent drug laws save lives, enhance liberty, and only confiscate property illegally obtained. So no problem there.
f) More money to the courts, then, surely, rather than caving in to crime. As for Jury Nullification, surely it's the fault of the legal system rather than the law?
g) Nothing says these right include the right to take drugs. When will you americans learn to ennumerate properly?
h) Drugs are not a legally traded commodity.

3) There's been a considerable change in culture since then. One of the key aspects in any war on drugs is for society to stand together and defy the evil that is drug-use... The US is unable to do this because of the emphasis on so-called individuality (conformity with a different set of ideals, more like), complete lack of a decent power-balance in society and letting your own people die rather than treating them as proper citizens. It's also the fault of people like you, pushing crass drug propaganda onto other people. You should be ashamed.

4) Practice, not theory.

5) Of course drugs has victims. The drug users themselves. Who says you can't commit a crime against yourself? And are you really suggesting a child is in a good home where the parents are using heavy drugs? Jesus.

6) See answer 3 above, but move the goalposts another few steps ahead. There's so little cultural support for a sensible move like alcohol prohibition, that such a law would be impossible to enact. Therefore such a law cannot be passed, as the collapse of the last attempt clearly shows. It's an unfortunate state of affairs, but nevertheless true.

7) It's an incentive to try to make people understand move towards a prohibitionist culture, certainly. Unfortunately, again, it's incompatible with the simplistic american view of freedom (see below). If we do not act soon, the evil, power-to-the-already-powerful side, ie. you, will win. And that cannot be allowed.

8) Pot use is even lower, by a significant degree, in Sweden which has stronger drug-prohibition laws than any other country in Europe and a 97% support for keeping Marijuana illegal. Relax drug laws and you relax culture, and you allow the weak to drop through the net and quite frankly die.

9) Frankly, this is your silliest argument so far. Loads of things can be "proved" through statistical correlation of completely unrelated complex factors, like the fact that countries with high HDI also score highly on the FIFA world rankings. I'd attribute all these changes to cultural changes, each out of gear with the legistlative. Like I said, I find your drug culture reprehensible and think you need to do something about it.

10) Hardly an "aim", more of a by-product of stopping smuggling to a greater extent. Surely all this shows is that we need to redouble the cultural efforts rather than give in to the drug bosses?

11) The government needs futher expansion in the sense that more people at a grassroots level need to get involved and make their voices heard, so you're not governed by some elite clique. This, ultimately is what the War on Drugs should be all about- empowering the weak and giving them more freedom.

12) You're putting forward J. Edgar Hoover as a paragon of non-corruptability?

13 + 14) The "Drug War" is nothing but a thin smoke-screen that, much like many other motives, is used to mask the true intents of the US in fighting or supporting wars abroad. In Colombia, the US pours billions into shady paramilitary organisations that support corporate and strategic interest by murdering all legitimate left-wing activists, leading to the world's highest rate of murder. And indeed, it is the leftist Guerillas that benefit.

15) Yup. Let's stop drugs entirely then.

16) Loose statistical-cultural connection. Anyway, I'm not going to discuss the current US drug war, which obviously is having the wrong effect. All I can say is, in Sweden drug use has been kept well below the european average...

17) I've seen medical studies pointing both ways. Anyway, it's largely irrelevant, Pot weakens and stupefies the populace anyway and makes them less active and thus needs to go.

18) I love the way you make logical connections. How many people can you point at who started with cocaine because they couldn't find pot, or crack because they couldn't find blow?

19) An extremely simplified, liberal view of freedom that seems to have permeated american culture, sadly. Freedom is about the ability to rule over yourself, something an addiction is clearly stopping you from doing. A truly free society is one in which all citizens and social groups are able to influence the leadership, not one where people are allowed to withdraw from light, Thoreau-like, and be ruled over by whatever dictator happens to be in place. As such, only a participant is free and a drug-user has far less power in society because he uses drugs. Therefore they must be stopped.

20) More silly liberal propaganda. Taxes are a necessary part of freedom, if you're to rule over society you should also be able to decide how to fund it. The government ideally is you and me and everyone else, it should be an instrument of our freedom and our rule over ourselves. If it is not, as you libertarians want it to be, if it is a remote elite that has no connection to society then that society is not free. Self-rule is a prerequisite, nay the key component, of freedom. None of you ****ing libertarians are going to take that freedom away from me.

21) As you can see I'm using Civic Republican, rather than communitarian, arguments to support drug prohibition. I believe we, together, are doing this so that you will have more freedom and power in society and you can fulfill your freedom (and duty, as it is a prerequisite for freedom) to be an activist. Try to connect that to ****ing communitarianism! In fact, libertarianism and communitarianism, with their emphasis on conformity with markets and states and societies and fighting diversity, are considerably closer to each other than either is to Civic Republicanism.

22) What's money compared to FREEDOM?

	18-12-2002 20:03									#14
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by aahz_capone I'm glad I live in holland where we don't have to put up with the stupid "drug war" because we have a logical drug policy.

Yes, according to Interpol your country was the largest exporter of synthetic recreational drugs (Ecstasy, PCP, LSD, etc. ) in the world last year. What a truely enlightened policy. Take my advice- if those pesky Brits, French, or Germans resist your trade in drugs you should send your fleet to their shores and up their rivers, spreading death and mayhem as they go. Spare no one. Make them bleed. When the savages surrender make them accept treaty ports in their country and make them allow you to dictate their customs policy to them so long as they see fit. After all, they're only ignorant yellow heathren.

	18-12-2002 20:06									#15
	Inflate your Upload Space

It's great, otherwise where would we get all our drugs from!

	18-12-2002 20:07									#16
	Put an end to popups!

On a more cheerful note please take a moment to appreciate the fact that this year the drug legalization movement received a stunning defeat at the polls. Looks like people are wiseing up to the lies of the pro-drug crowd. What will they try next?

So, yeah, there was a disaster of sorts this year. For your side.

	18-12-2002 20:10									#17
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quote: Hypocrisy - alcohol by far causes more harm to "society" than all the illegal drugs combined, but we keep that one legal - votes.

This is one point I agree with. Of course it sort of refutes that legalizing drugs would make them less harmful to our society doesn't it?

	18-12-2002 20:12									#18
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Obviously the lesson from the prohibitoion was not enough, I am wandering why don't US goes and bans alchohol again, under Ashcroft it might as well happen, if they win the elections .

	18-12-2002 20:12									#19
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And what happened when alcohol was made illegal in the US?

did it create crime?

If so, is it fair to assume that the current drug prohibition also creates crime?

	18-12-2002 20:15									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson quote: Hypocrisy - alcohol by far causes more harm to "society" than all the illegal drugs combined, but we keep that one legal - votes. This is one point I agree with. Of course it sort of refutes that legalizing drugs would make them less harmful to our society doesn't it?

No, people who want drugs will get drugs regardless, your society won't collaps as the one in the Netherlands doesn't. You wold save billions of $$$, get even more in taxes, lover criminal rates, be able to control the problem instead of promoting murder, deception, black market, local gangsters and Columbian drug lords. All in all you would have a safer and better society.

	18-12-2002 20:16									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Fez Also you should instate Singaporean like laws. The basis of my entire belief system. Drug abuse is low there isn't it? Because for possession it is a life sentence (or was it death?) and for selling it is punishable by death. That is Singapore for you. One of the most developed and civilized countries in the world.

Absolutely hilarious, because Singapore is also one of the more socialist states around. Welcome to the left, Fez.

	18-12-2002 20:27									#22
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Youre preaching to the choir...

	18-12-2002 20:33									#23
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Alcohol is not a more dangerous drug than any illegal drug from a chemical standpoint. It's use is so widespread that it's effects are greater on our society though. Legalizing drugs would increase the usage of those drugs by teaching that their usage is ok.

Sure there would be less drug related crime. The acts of distributing and using them would now be legal. The question is if there would there be less drug related problems. Would addiction decrease because we make it legal? No, it would increase due to wider spread use and more availability. Would drug induced crimes (of the type that would survive) decrease? No, they would increase due to wider spread use and more availability.

Believe it or not, some people do follow laws out of respect for society, or fear of punishment. In the absence of a moral or educational aversion to drugs (which in the US is severely lacking), law is the only restraint in those cases.

I would be all for legalizing drugs if the populace was educated well enough on the subject. The problem with learning through personal experience in drug related matters is often once you've learned, it's too late to apply that knowlege. Addiction.

	18-12-2002 20:38									#24
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Hmm, also forgot to mention that Singapore has strict laws against gay sex.

	18-12-2002 20:47									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Kontiki Hmm, also forgot to mention that Singapore has strict laws against gay sex.

There are states in the US that still have laws like no oral sex if not married and some states ban anal sex entirely, lets see them enforce that one!

	18-12-2002 20:52									#26
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quote: in all you would have a safer and better society.

There are a few main reasons why I find alcohol destructive.

1. It impairs judgement, vastly increasing the chances of injuring someone else. Especially when driving/operating machinery or handling weapons. It also hinders the reasoning necessary to know not to do those things while under the influence.

2. The affect alcoholism has on the developement of children who are raised in such environments. Also the effect alcohol can have on an unborn child when taken by the mother.

3. It's addictive. An uninformed choice to try the drug can result in a lifelong struggle (in cases where the person wants to quit) that no one would willingly choose.

In two of those cases, the victims of the drug had no part in the choice whether or not to use it. The third case, the victim didn't know what they were getting into. Many illegal drugs have similar effects, impairing judgement, affecting the fetus, or bringing out abusive/violent qualities in people.

Making drugs legal would just increase the incidence of these problems. It has nothing to do with crime rates.

	18-12-2002 20:52									#27
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quote: Originally posted by aahz_capone There are states in the US that still have laws like no oral sex if not married and some states ban anal sex entirely, lets see them enforce that one!

Oh, this has nothing to do with enforcement or anything like that, I'm just enjoying the fact that Fez said that Singapore law was the basis for his entire beliefs system when it seems a good chunk of Singapore law goes against what he purports to believe.

	18-12-2002 21:09									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson quote: in all you would have a safer and better society. There are a few main reasons why I find alcohol destructive. 1. It impairs judgement, vastly increasing the chances of injuring someone else. Especially when driving/operating machinery or handling weapons. It also hinders the reasoning necessary to know not to do those things while under the influence. 2. The affect alcoholism has on the developement of children who are raised in such environments. Also the effect alcohol can have on an unborn child when taken by the mother. 3. It's addictive. An uninformed choice to try the drug can result in a lifelong struggle (in cases where the person wants to quit) that no one would willingly choose. In two of those cases, the victims of the drug had no part in the choice whether or not to use it. The third case, the victim didn't know what they were getting into. Many illegal drugs have similar effects, impairing judgement, affecting the fetus, or bringing out abusive/violent qualities in people. Making drugs legal would just increase the incidence of these problems. It has nothing to do with crime rates.

Some people would get on that train that is for sure, but don't they get there now? Maybe some more would, but exposing those on TV, and educating about it would have kids think twice before they do that.
There would be legal way to help them if they want help, and not like now.

Billions spent on drugh war could be spent on education so could tax dollars, and advertising the dangers should be made compulsary on the products themselves, in the same way as it says on tobacco boxes that it causes cancer, so should the drugs have "addictive" or other properties displayed. People would know. Make it illegal for under 21's like it is now for alchohol in some states.

And you are talking above about the effects of alchohol. I do not question that - however what are the effects of a war on alchohol.

Well you could have seen it during the prohibition times. Certainly much worse than controlled sale of alchohol as it is now.

The most important part is education. Educate don't ban.

edit: however if someone took that stance billions saved on the drugs war and billions earned in tax from sale of drugs leggaly, would not be spent on education, but would be used for the next "star wars project" or "Iraq war" , now that is sad, but it doesn't make war on drugs any better.

	18-12-2002 21:09									#29
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quote: Originally posted by MikeH And what happened when alcohol was made illegal in the US? did it create crime?

Does the name Al Capone sound familiar?

quote: Originally posted by MikeH If so, is it fair to assume that the current drug prohibition also creates crime?

That's one of the arguments of the "Legalise Drugs" movement

	18-12-2002 21:11									#30
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quote: Originally posted by monkspider Hey a fellow liberal Kansan! We are truly a rare breed, my friend.

Berz is a libertarian. Close, but not quite.