Prohibition?

[Cerberus~]

Does prohibition ever work? Most people look back on alcohol prohibition and laugh. A failed experiment. We think we learded our lesson. But here we are, 70 years later, making that same mistake again.

Prohibition of drugs has produced the very same fruits as our prohibition of booze. The issue driven underground. Creates a very profitable black market that appeals to the poor, and rich alike. Good people, good citizens are pointlessly turned into criminals. Prohibition spike the cost of the substance, increasing the crime rate as addicts are forced to steal to support their habit, and fuels the black market.

Billions of dollars a year in federal and state money is blown while the government wars against it's own people. The police are too busy now to watch for terrorists, are go after murders violent offenders. Instead, they arrest half a million pot smokers a year. I'm not sure the numbers of other drug users, but I do think that prohibition on all drugs is not the solution to stopping hard drug use. I don't the thought of people throwing their lives away on crack, or heroin, but giving them 20-life isn't the answer either.

Not to mention the atrocities we commit abroad in the name of drug prevention. Gassing people with round-up, destroying the enviroment, hiring unscrupulous mercs to find drug lords, ect.

Can anyone defend this failing strategy, and it's consequences?

 

[butterfoot]

Does prohibition ever work? Most people look back on alcohol prohibition and laugh. A failed experiment. We think we learded our lesson. But here we are, 70 years later, making that same mistake again.

Prohibition of drugs has produced the very same fruits as our prohibition of booze. The issue driven underground. Creates a very profitable black market that appeals to the poor, and rich alike. Good people, good citizens are pointlessly turned into criminals. Prohibition spike the cost of the substance, increasing the crime rate as addicts are forced to steal to support their habit, and fuels the black market.

Billions of dollars a year in federal and state money is blown while the government wars against it's own people. The police are too busy now to watch for terrorists, are go after murders violent offenders. Instead, they arrest half a million pot smokers a year. I'm not sure the numbers of other drug users, but I do think that prohibition on all drugs is not the solution to stopping hard drug use. I don't the thought of people throwing their lives away on crack, or heroin, but giving them 20-life isn't the answer either.

Not to mention the atrocities we commit abroad in the name of drug prevention. Gassing people with round-up, destroying the enviroment, hiring unscrupulous mercs to find drug lords, ect.

Can anyone defend this failing strategy, and it's consequences?

What is to say though that by legalizing drugs the crime rate would go down? If drugs are legal and the person wanting the drugs doesn't have money would they still not be willing to steal to get the drugs?

By having drugs illegal it keeps more people off of them. If you were to legalize drugs then more people would do drugs, get addicted to them and possibly either become burdens of society or hurt someone while on the drug.

-cw

 

[419gam]

By having drugs illegal it keeps more people off of them. If you were to legalize drugs then more people would do drugs, get addicted to them and possibly either become burdens of society or hurt someone while on the drug.

-cw

I really don't think this is true. I think people that want drugs use drugs inspite of thier legality. In fact if drugs were legal they would be easier to keep out of childrens hands. WHen I was underage alcohol was much harder to obtain the drugs were.

Not to mention the billions of dollars spent on the drug war could be used for treatment centers and educational programs as well as other social services.

If drugs could be manafactured legally it would also put third world cartells out of buisness. We would clean up a lot of columbia and mexico.

 

[Spinrad]

Well, all past prohibitions contradict you, Cameron. What is to say that if we legaise them the entire country will experience a sudden and total tranformation into the greatest and most perfect politcal organisation ever seen? What is to say I am not a sasquatch? What if whatif what if? If you want to simply ignore what evidence we do have about the effects of prohibition, then anything - Any Thing - you say is within the realm of possibility.

 

[Cerberus~]

What is to say though that by legalizing drugs the crime rate would go down? If drugs are legal and the person wanting the drugs doesn't have money would they still not be willing to steal to get the drugs?

The price of the substance would decrease substantially which would be a crippling blow to the gangs and cartels that fund the exploits with drug money. It would allow the police to tap into the funding and man-power currently used to target drug users and dealers. Dealers would disappear when the profits went away, and trafficing would lose it appeal.

Just as alcohol prohibition increased crime, so has drug prohibition, in many ways.

By having drugs illegal it keeps more people off of them. If you were to legalize drugs then more people would do drugs, get addicted to them and possibly either become burdens of society or hurt someone while on the drug.

No it doesn't. Since when does having a law against something stop someone intent on doing it? Instead, drug dealers push to kids, because they're the most vulnerable. Because there are no regulations on it, because the issue is driven underground by prohibition.

What about all the lives destroyed by the drug war? You talk about the horrors of drugs when the horrors of the drug are far more prevalent.

 

[Harlan Norris]

Does prohibition ever work? Most people look back on alcohol prohibition and laugh. A failed experiment. We think we learded our lesson. But here we are, 70 years later, making that same mistake again.

Prohibition of drugs has produced the very same fruits as our prohibition of booze. The issue driven underground. Creates a very profitable black market that appeals to the poor, and rich alike. Good people, good citizens are pointlessly turned into criminals. Prohibition spike the cost of the substance, increasing the crime rate as addicts are forced to steal to support their habit, and fuels the black market.

Billions of dollars a year in federal and state money is blown while the government wars against it's own people. The police are too busy now to watch for terrorists, are go after murders violent offenders. Instead, they arrest half a million pot smokers a year. I'm not sure the numbers of other drug users, but I do think that prohibition on all drugs is not the solution to stopping hard drug use. I don't the thought of people throwing their lives away on crack, or heroin, but giving them 20-life isn't the answer either.

Not to mention the atrocities we commit abroad in the name of drug prevention. Gassing people with round-up, destroying the enviroment, hiring unscrupulous mercs to find drug lords, ect.

Can anyone defend this failing strategy, and it's consequences?

While I'm personally against drug use because of personal experience,I'll agree with you that the war on drugs is a fruitless effort.However it's not going to stop.It's big business.There's big money in administration of the effort.They can confiscate home cars businesses.I see adds in the paper for drug property auctions all the time.Prison is also moving into the public domain.Private prisons subject to govenment authority,built with private money but run on public money.Just another business venture.Lucerative no doubt.So, whos in prison?No doubt a large portion are drug offenders.You can't have a business if you don't have a product.In my heart I know the war on drugs is designd to fail.

 

[Cerberus~]

Asset forfitures are a means that the government uses to justify the vast amounts of money it flushes does the drain. The homes and cars the government seizes doesn't come close to the 18 billion dollars a year the DEA gets in funding.

Though I completely agree that someone's profiting from drug prohibition.

 

[butterfoot]

Well, all past prohibitions contradict you, Cameron. What is to say that if we legaise them the entire country will experience a sudden and total tranformation into the greatest and most perfect politcal organisation ever seen? What is to say I am not a sasquatch? What if whatif what if? If you want to simply ignore what evidence we do have about the effects of prohibition, then anything - Any Thing - you say is within the realm of possibility.

Really!! I can't look it up right now but do a search on Opium trade and the people of china. In fact also look up drug use history in the United states. Some drugs didn't used to be illegal but they were made illegal and remain that way.

-cw

 

[Cerberus~]

Really!! I can't look it up right now but do a search on Opium trade and the people of china. In fact also look up drug use history in the United states. Some drugs didn't used to be illegal but they were made illegal and remain that way.

Only though racism, ignorance, and fear did drugs become illegal in this country.

 

[butterfoot]

Only though racism, ignorance, and fear did drugs become illegal in this country.

It also had to do with people becoming lazy and only doing drugs and the effects it had on society as a whole.

 

[trunks2k]

It also had to do with people becoming lazy and only doing drugs and the effects it had on society as a whole.

No, it had more to do with racism and ignorance.

 

[butterfoot]

No, it had more to do with racism and ignorance.

Please explain how drug abuse has to do with racism?

 

[Spinrad]

Really!! I can't look it up right now but do a search on Opium trade and the people of china. In fact also look up drug use history in the United states. Some drugs didn't used to be illegal but they were made illegal and remain that way.

-cw

"In 1729, when the foreign import was 200 chests, the Emperor Yung Ching issued the first anti-opium edict, enacting severe penalties on the sale of opium and the opening of opium-smoking divans. The importation, however, continued to increase, and by 1790 it amounted to over 4,000 chests annually. In 1796 opium smoking was again prohibited, and in 1800 the importation of foreign opium was again declared illegal. Opium was now contraband, but the fact had no effect on the quantity introduced into the country, which rose to 5,000 chests in 1820; 16,000 chests in 1830; 20,000 chests in 1838, and 70,000 chests in 1858."

from http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/om/om15.htm

Suggesting prohibition made things worse, and even allowed the British to use prohibition to start a trade war.

[See Opium Factory: The stacking room at an opium factory in Patna, India. Opium smuggling upset the balance of trade and destroyed China's economy.]

from http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/heroin/opiwar1.htm

Again, suggesting that prohibition made a bad situation worse.

"From that time, raw cotton and opium from India and Burma had become the staple British imports into China, in spite of the fact that opium was prohibited entry by imperial decree. The opium traffic was made possible through the connivance of profit-seeking merchants and a corrupt bureaucracy"

from http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/ted/opium.htm

All the articles I had time to read, while certainly no endorsment of Opium as a recreational drug - and I am not either - show that now only does prohibition not work, it makes things worse, so much so that foriegn powers can use prohibited drugs as LEVERAGE against the prohibitors.

Be aware, I am not saying drugs are good or that I think anyone ought to be taking them. I am saying, very specifically that prohibition does not work as advertised and in fact again and again is shown to have the opposite effect. And frankly, considering where China is at right now and where they were right after WWII I would auggest that such draconian government restrictions on persnal liberty, given enough time, can lead to a population inclined to bow to the wishes of an overly powerful regime than to stand up and fight for their rights.

 

[trunks2k]

Please explain how drug abuse has to do with racism?

I was reffering to the roots of drug prohibition, not abuse.

 

[ChristianCenturion]

Does prohibition ever work? Most people look back on alcohol prohibition and laugh. A failed experiment. We think we learded our lesson. But here we are, 70 years later, making that same mistake again.

Prohibition of drugs has produced the very same fruits as our prohibition of booze. The issue driven underground. Creates a very profitable black market that appeals to the poor, and rich alike. Good people, good citizens are pointlessly turned into criminals. Prohibition spike the cost of the substance, increasing the crime rate as addicts are forced to steal to support their habit, and fuels the black market.

Billions of dollars a year in federal and state money is blown while the government wars against it's own people. The police are too busy now to watch for terrorists, are go after murders violent offenders. Instead, they arrest half a million pot smokers a year. I'm not sure the numbers of other drug users, but I do think that prohibition on all drugs is not the solution to stopping hard drug use. I don't the thought of people throwing their lives away on crack, or heroin, but giving them 20-life isn't the answer either.

Not to mention the atrocities we commit abroad in the name of drug prevention. Gassing people with round-up, destroying the enviroment, hiring unscrupulous mercs to find drug lords, ect.

Can anyone defend this failing strategy, and it's consequences?

Illegal drugs are still illegal despite people continuing to attempt to legalize it.
Alcohol is still prohibited by some local laws pending location, situation and/or time of day and week.
http://www3.madd.org/laws/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_county
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=sale+alcohol+prohibited


I do find humor in your attempt at painting criminals as "good people" though.

 

[ChristianCenturion]

Only though racism, ignorance, and fear did drugs become illegal in this country.

Evidence please.

 

[flicka]

I think 'good people' can be made criminals by poor laws. What exactly makes the recreational pot smoker a criminal? Is it because they are breaking the law? Consider what would happen if chocolate were made an illegal substance tomorrow. Today you can eat and enjoy it and still be a 'good' person but tomorrow you will be a criminal. That logic doesn't wash. We are not ment to follow instructions/laws blindly(look to history to see how that turns out). We need to question authority and make sure the laws we pass actually do more good than harm to society.

 

[Spinrad]

Yeah, there are no good people or bad people. Just people, and people do all kinds of things I do not agree with,whether it's drugs or God. I see both as equally dangerous, and I see both as a personal decision I have no right to interfere with. ANd that means I have to live with the results of these horrible choices, but personal liberty trumps persnal comfort.

 

[Skydancing]

My husband is of the opinion that all drugs should be legalised and stop one source of crime straight away. I am not too sure about it.

 

[Spinrad]

The consider the sources cited above.