10-01-2003 10:02									#481
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So where are the 19th Century drug usage numbers?

	10-01-2003 10:06									#482
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quote: So you just asked me for detailed correlation studies but now you don't want to read enough to find details?

That's right. I asked you for something you said you had, and you didn't deliver. I'm sure I can find web pages with all the "statistics" I need, but it doesn't mean anything if the methodology is faulty. It's been my experience that most studies don't do appropriate regression analysis. Particularly those that don't mention anything about regression analysis.

Another thing to keep in mind is that drug markets by nature lead to more crime precisely because they are not legal. People can be disciplined by violence if they don't pull through with business deals, etc. Obviously, you're going to reduce this crime if you reduce the drug trade, but the same thing will happen if you legalize the drug trade.

As for your links, I'll get back to them later, but frankly I don't have the capacity to do it now. I just skimmed through them again, and couldn't find anything.

If they're so easy to find, why aren't you able to quote them?

quote: WHAT? The whole point of the argument was that opium was judged by the entire world community to be harmful.

No it wasn't. I was writing that the real problem with the conclusion of the opium wars were the one-sided trade barriers, you responded that opium was part of those agreements, I asked you to clarify, and then you were saying that opium was extremely addictive, etc. and so it was de facto force. Then you went on a tangeant on the dangers of opium.

quote: Why do you think I posted all those links about the dangers of opium?

Because you were confused?

quote: hahahahahahahahahahahahaha I could respond in so many ways to that one but I think it speaks for itself.

Riiiight.

	10-01-2003 10:10									#483
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Ted -

quote: So you just asked me for detailed correlation studies but now you don't want to read enough to find details?

The studies you cited weren't about 1990's America and crack cocaine, they were about opium use.

quote: WHAT? The whole point of the argument was that opium was judged by the entire world community to be harmful.

No it wasn't, you've cited several countries, not the world.

quote: Actually, the Chinese were probably the first ones to realize the danger.

Quite amazing since opium has been used for more than 5,000 years. It took a Chinese emperor to discover opium needed to be banned? Yeah, those caring Chinese emperors.

quote: It was devastating Chinese society.

Acording to him, a slaveowner.

quote: Chinese said they didn't want the opium in their country and the British forced the market back open.

No, Chinese dictators said they didn't want Chinese people using it.

quote: Why do you think I posted all those links about the dangers of opium?

Because you seem to think people should not be allowed their freedom if people like you decide they are destroying society.

	10-01-2003 10:17									#484
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Ted - look at the end of page 20, in response to your request, Obiwan cited numbers for 1900 and I cited numbers for 1914. The links he provided also cited numbers from the post Civil War era. They corroborate that addiction rates were not higher when all drugs were legal.

	10-01-2003 10:18									#485
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo I asked you for something you said you had, and you didn't deliver.

Again, you asked me for a source. I gave you 2. I know the game you're up to though.

quote: If they're so easy to find, why aren't you able to quote them?

Why should I have to repeat myself when you can read them yourself?

quote: No it wasn't. I was writing that the real problem with the conclusion of the opium wars were the one-sided trade barriers, you responded that opium was part of those agreements, I asked you to clarify, and then you were saying that opium was extremely addictive, etc. and so it was de facto force. Then you went on a tangeant on the dangers of opium.

I really don't have any idea what the point is you're trying to make.

1) Opium was devastating to Chinese society
2) Chinese wanted to ban it
3) British forced the markets open

	10-01-2003 10:21									#486
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Ted - No it wasn't, you've cited several countries, not the world.

Those countries just happened to be the most powerful in the world.

quote: Acording to him, a slaveowner.

No, according to pretty much any historical account of the time that you read.

	10-01-2003 10:28									#487
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Ted - look at the end of page 20, in response to your request, Obiwan cited numbers for 1900 and I cited numbers for 1914. The links he provided also cited numbers from the post Civil War era. They corroborate that addiction rates were not higher when all drugs were legal.

Well, alot of those numbers include wounded Civil War soliders hooked on morphine, as the post indicates. Morphine, by the way, is a by product of Opium. That shows the power of its addiction.

The study with every single stat at 1.3% is pretty good, though it does puzzle me how the stat is magically at 1.3% EVERY TIME. If it was like 2% one year, 6% the next year, then like 3% the next, that would make it sound more legitamite.

By the way, Ramo do these statistics count, since they don't have regression studies with "all of the proper variables" (whichever ones those are, though I have a feeling only Ramo can decide which variables are "proper")

	10-01-2003 12:00									#488
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quote: Again, you asked me for a source. I gave you 2. I know the game you're up to though.

You asserted a cause-effect relationship. You've only cited a coorelation. And what game am I up to?

quote: Why should I have to repeat myself when you can read them yourself?

You wouldn't be repeating yourself as you've never posted this information in the first place. You've posted several links, one of which might have the information you're referring to, but have never actually quoted that information.

Can you at least tell me what the distribution of opium use in 19th century China across socio-economic levels looks like?

quote: I really don't have any idea what the point is you're trying to make.

**** it.

quote: By the way, Ramo do these statistics count, since they don't have regression studies with "all of the proper variables" (whichever ones those are, though I have a feeling only Ramo can decide which variables are "proper")

Do you know what a regression analysis is? Do you even realize that poverty is connected to both crack use and overall crime?

	10-01-2003 12:09									#489
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Ted -

quote: Well, alot of those numbers include wounded Civil War soliders hooked on morphine, as the post indicates.

True, although Obiwan's last link (straightdope) has a link in it disputing if the "Soldier's Disease" was true or inflated for political reasons, but I'm sure there were plenty of people ravaged by the war using a variety of drugs to drown their sorrows just as Vietnam had that effect. The numbers he had said 400,000 opiate addicts I believe shorty after the Civil War but only 200,000 in 1900 so either the numbers are askew or there was a jump after the Civil war followed by a decline. I wonder if WWII saw an increase since morphine was used extensively, but I've never heard that it did.
Maybe post war addiction depends in part on the morality and success of the war. A Civil War would produce the most addicts because even with a winner, there is a loser too.

quote: The study with every single stat at 1.3% is pretty good, though it does puzzle me how the stat is magically at 1.3% EVERY TIME. If it was like 2% one year, 6% the next year, then like 3% the next, that would make it sound more legitamite.

It's hard to know the accuracy, when drugs are illegal, many drug users won't admit their behavior, and when drugs were legal, who was doing surveys? It's amazing how hard it is to even track down any numbers for that period, I'm having a tough time finding numbers for today. But I'm sure that 1.3% is an estimate and not ~exact, but the numbers for 1900 are well within range since 200,000 was roughly 1/3 of a percent of the population which would approach 1.3% as other drugs like cocaine were included. Obviously drug consumption and addiction fluctuates, but American Heritage magazine did an analysis a few years back on drugs in American history and noticed that consumption swings back and forth from one generation to the next and that social sanctions/temperence movements, not government rules, had the biggest effect. The biggest decline in tobacco use has been over the past 3 decades as people began speaking out. I guess it's the pendulum effect, one generation gets bombed so to speak, the next tempers consumption, and back to getting bombed.

	10-01-2003 12:21									#490
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Btw, the decline in crack consumption can be the result of more crack users in jail, but if drug consumption overall - every drug and every user - didn't decline, then many crack users may have switched to other drugs. That's the problem with isolating trends for one drug and making conclusions about overall use. We often hear cocaine use declined in the 80's and early 90's, but how many people just switched to X or heroin...

	10-01-2003 21:13									#491
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Posts. Too. Long. And. Boring.

Post that USA Britney-like softcore shot, D2K.

	10-01-2003 21:37									#492
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quote: would you murder 100 people to prevent the murder of 101 people?

Of course, if there was no better alternative, wouldn't you? Sure 100 deaths is real bad, but 101 is worse.

	11-01-2003 04:28									#493
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"The study with every single stat at 1.3% is pretty good, though it does puzzle me how the stat is magically at 1.3% EVERY TIME"

Ted Striker

Let's assume the stat is correct. What can we conclude from this statistic?

We can go 'round and 'round in circles otherwise.

	11-01-2003 05:56									#494
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Agathon -

quote: Of course, if there was no better alternative, wouldn't you? Sure 100 deaths is real bad, but 101 is worse.

So you would murder 100 people to prevent someone else from murdering 101 people? YIKES!!!!!!! Sorry, but chastising David for not wanting to commit murder to prevent a holocaust when you would commit a holocaust to prevent a slightly worse holocaust displays a strange view of morality. I'm of course assuming that if murdering 100 people is preferable to someone else murdering 101, then you'd murder 10 million to prevent 10 million and 1 from being murdered.

Obiwan -

quote: Let's assume the stat is correct. What can we conclude from this statistic? We can go 'round and 'round in circles otherwise.

The conclusion seems to be that drug laws, at least in this country, have little or no effect on addiction.

Ted -

quote: By the way, Ramo do these statistics count, since they don't have regression studies with "all of the proper variables" (whichever ones those are, though I have a feeling only Ramo can decide which variables are "proper")

The numbers Obiwan and I provided are raw data estimating the number of addicts for a given population, Ramo's question requires a more in depth analysis since he's asking why there was a fluctuation within a segment of the drug using population.

	11-01-2003 06:21									#495
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Berzerker, I was looking for Ted's response. He seems strangely quiet.

(+0)

	11-01-2003 06:40									#496
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He usually signs on a bit later. I think he's out on the west coast. Hope I didn't give anything away, lol.

	11-01-2003 07:33									#497
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Agathon - So you would murder 100 people to prevent someone else from murdering 101 people? YIKES!!!!!!! Sorry, but chastising David for not wanting to commit murder to prevent a holocaust when you would commit a holocaust to prevent a slightly worse holocaust displays a strange view of morality. I'm of course assuming that if murdering 100 people is preferable to someone else murdering 101, then you'd murder 10 million to prevent 10 million and 1 from being murdered.

Which is worse, numbnuts? If two are worse than one, and three are worse than two, and generally speaking, x+1 murders are worse than x murders, then, by the power of mathematics, 10 million and one murders are worse than 10 million. After all, 10 million will die no matter what I do, but if I do the killing, then I've saved someone.

From the victims' point of view I also make the better choice because, other things being equal, the odds of becoming a victim are slightly less likely to die if I kill 10 million: because 10 000 000 / P is less than 10 000 001 / P (P being the population at risk of death.)

A strange view of morality would be one that preferred a worse outcome to what it admitted was better one: in other words, Libertarianism (or at least on David's view of it, which secretly smuggles a religious doctrine in the back door).

Anyway

What I really want is for David to answer me these simple questions:

"Do Libertarians think that rights-violations are bad because they cause loss of liberty; or do they think that loss of liberty is bad because it is caused by rights violations?"

And:

"Do Libertarians think that the correct explantion of the badness of murder is that violating the right to life is bad because it causes death; or because death is caused by violating a right?"

	11-01-2003 07:44									#498
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And another thing, you seem to be behaving as if I were making some arcane, evil and impractical criticism of Libertarianism when the same criticism goes for any other rights based moral system.

For example, Liberals are committed to the value of tolerance. If we were to understand this according to David's model then I could never ever act intolerantly. But there is a problem which every liberal state has had to face: intolerant people. If we tolerate the intolerant and the intolerant affect the lives of others then we are compromising the value we originally placed on tolerance. In fact, if we understood rights as David understood them and behaved that way, we may well end up with a society ridden with intolerant people whom we have to tolerate to avoid being accused of intolerance. In other words our committment to tolerance, David style, is compatible with the existence of a largely intolerant society

But that's not what Liberals want - they say they want a tolerant society.

Similarly, if Libertarians want a free society in which there are a minimum of rights violations, they had better be prepared to violate the rights of a few bad people or face the prospect of a free society going down the tubes - and that's not what they want.

	11-01-2003 08:07									#499
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This is almost 2 500

	11-01-2003 08:18									#500
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo You asserted a cause-effect relationship. You've only cited a coorelation. And what game am I up to?

You're up to the game of "going around in circles" that obiwan is referring to.

quote: You wouldn't be repeating yourself as you've never posted this information in the first place. You've posted several links, one of which might have the information you're referring to, but have never actually quoted that information.

That's not true, I cited the figure at 2,000,000 ADDICTS, and that's across ALL classes. One article even put that number at 30 million. But I think the 30 mil is an exaggeration.

	11-01-2003 08:20									#501
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quote: Originally posted by obiwan18 Let's assume the stat is correct. What can we conclude from this statistic?

Assuming the stat is correct, we would assume that drug usage as a percentage has never changed. Like ever.

But that's assuming the stat is correct.

But where is Ramo's regression analysis with all the "proper" variables.

	11-01-2003 08:27									#502
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker It's hard to know the accuracy, when drugs are illegal, many drug users won't admit their behavior, and when drugs were legal, who was doing surveys? It's amazing how hard it is to even track down any numbers for that period, I'm having a tough time finding numbers for today. But I'm sure that 1.3% is an estimate and not ~exact, but the numbers for 1900 are well within range since 200,000 was roughly 1/3 of a percent of the population which would approach 1.3% as other drugs like cocaine were included. Obviously drug consumption and addiction fluctuates, but American Heritage magazine did an analysis a few years back on drugs in American history and noticed that consumption swings back and forth from one generation to the next and that social sanctions/temperence movements, not government rules, had the biggest effect. The biggest decline in tobacco use has been over the past 3 decades as people began speaking out. I guess it's the pendulum effect, one generation gets bombed so to speak, the next tempers consumption, and back to getting bombed.

I will agree that those numbers can pendulum back and forth. Though I don't think either of us have any sort of accurate statistics that prove it one way or the other.

Sometimes anecdotal and empiracl evidence can be a good measure along with other related factors such as crime, but that again is a whole other debate. Of course, I will still offer the hypothesis that crack-cocaine consumption and violent crime are very much symbiotic.

Regarding the decrease in violent crime, yes, one part of that is in fact that most of the worst offenders (crack dealers) were either thrown in jail, others were killed off. However I still feel that interdiction efforts to break the backs of some of the dealers has had a huge impact on the situation.

In LA for example, some of the gangs have made a comeback because the CRASH units aren't out there intimidating them. (That's only one factor but the CRASH guys certainly have a big impact). I'm sure you remember the purpose of CRASH when you were here. Basically they go out and harass gang bangers to keep them off the streets.

	11-01-2003 08:29									#503
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quote: Originally posted by GP Posts. Too. Long. And. Boring. Post that USA Britney-like softcore shot, D2K.

Anything for you Navy!!!

USA! USA! USA!

	11-01-2003 08:29									#504
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quote: You're up to the game of "going around in circles" that obiwan is referring to.

I believe you're paranoid.

quote: That's not true, I cited the figure at 2,000,000 ADDICTS, and that's across ALL classes. One article even put that number at 30 million. But I think the 30 mil is an exaggeration.

That doesn't mean anything. Are you saying that the opium users are distributed uniformly across all social classes (i.e. the propensity for the rich to use opium is the same as for the poor)? I don't recall that you posted those statistics before.

quote: But where is Ramo's regression analysis with all the "proper" variables.

Take a probability course before you continue making an arse of yourself.

	11-01-2003 08:32									#505
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo That doesn't mean anything. Are you saying that the opium users are distributed uniformly across all social classes (i.e. the propensity for the rich to use opium is the same as for the poor)? I don't recall that you posted those statistics before.

2,000,000 addicts doesn't mean anything? Take a basic math class and they say that 2,000,000 is a big number. By they way, the addiction again was across all classes. I haven't seen the data on the distribution of it so I can't yet say what exactly that distribution is.

	11-01-2003 08:35									#506
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By the way, why are you quoting someone associated with a murderous bastard like Tamerlane?

Have you done the regression analysis of his death count numbers?

	11-01-2003 08:36									#507
	Inflate your Upload Space

Just thought I'd get a post in before this thread closed... I never thought I'd see the day when Speer would start a 500+.

	11-01-2003 08:39									#508
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Well, I am done. Berzerker if you want to have the last post feel free.

It's the weekend and I have to pick up some fly biatches. GP lets me have some of his leftovers sometimes.

	11-01-2003 08:39									#509
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quote: 2,000,000 addicts doesn't mean anything? Take a basic math class and they say that 2,000,000 is a big number.

That's irrelevant. I've never disputed that there was a large number of opium users. If anything, that'd hurt your point (the proportion of opium users among the poor must've been extremely large).

quote: By they way, the addiction again was across all classes.

And? I'm sure there are crack users among all social classes today. That doesn't mean that the distribution of users is uniform between rich and poor.

quote: I haven't seen the data on the distribution of it so I can't yet say what exactly that distribution is.

Isn't that the whole point? You asserted you had this evidence. No wonder I couldn't find it.

	11-01-2003 08:40									#510
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Pimpin ain't easy.


Now where is that Hot Widow?

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