Prohibition?

[Erock83]

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?

1)non-unique: if someone is broke and can’t buy food they my be motivated by hunger to steal food
2)non-responsive: does not address the fact that the USFG(united states federal government) spent upward of $2 billion on the “war on drugs” this does not include the money spent by states, counties, and local government on their own efforts

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

1)no warrant: you provide no proof that by making durgs and the use of drugs unlawfull decreace the use of them
2)non-discript: even if we believe that more people are going to use drugs you don’t tell me what drugs and what type of increase thus i’ll reject your claim because there is no reason to prefer or agree
3)no impact: you claim that more people would use drugs but you don’t tell me what that is bad or why i should care
4)if you make them legal you can tax the heck out of them and make a killing

 

[ChristianCenturion]

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.

Aside from the Sunday driver being too slow... the comparison of the one "choice" to the other "choice" that impairs driving, work, reaction, etc. abilities is simply a forced comparison.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm

The claim that it is a breach of freedom and people should be able to do so in the privacy of their own home is a bogus attempt at best. The fact is that people DON'T do or stay in their home while doing or under the influence and others must pay the cost... even with their lives. If it WERE a legitimate claim of privacy, there wouldn't be a need for law and there wouldn't be innocent victims.

 

[Spinrad]

Aside from the Sunday driver being too slow... the comparison of the one "choice" to the other "choice" that impairs driving, work, reaction, etc. abilities is simply a forced comparison.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm

The claim that it is a breach of freedom and people should be able to do so in the privacy of their own home is a bogus attempt at best. The fact is that people DON'T do or stay in their home while doing or under the influence and others must pay the cost... even with their lives. If it WERE a legitimate claim of privacy, there wouldn't be a need for law and there wouldn't be innocent victims.

I forced and it fit. Both are a detriment to society. Driving under the influence is illegal, so make under the influence encompass the other drugs as well. No one is saying make taking drugs and operating heavy machinery legal. And hell and sin corrupt and destroy young minds, leaving them unable to reason out which laws are of value to a society and which ones are mere reactionary fluff.

 

[ChristianCenturion]

I forced and it fit. Both are a detriment to society. Driving under the influence is illegal, so make under the influence encompass the other drugs as well. No one is saying make taking drugs and operating heavy machinery legal. And hell and sin corrupt and destroy young minds, leaving them unable to reason out which laws are of value to a society and which ones are mere reactionary fluff.

I'm familiar with the aggression and paranoia some people have towards religion.

If a "freedom speech" is going to be given and secular concepts exalted, there is the constitutionally protected right of religious expression while there is no such Amendment for the recreational use of mind-altering and impairing drugs.

 

[Spinrad]

I'm familiar with the aggression and paranoia some people have towards religion.

If a "freedom speech" is going to be given and secular concepts exalted, there is the constitutionally protected right of religious expression while there is no such Amendment for the recreational use of mind-altering and impairing drugs.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I realise that religion was as important in their society as food and water, and that this caused them to be very careful about how they decided to separate the church from the state. TYhey didn't come to america to escape the tyranny of prohibition, AS SUCH. But the life liberty and pursuit of happiness holds at least as much implied weight as their fear of religious governing. But I would wager that if they were aware, as we are, of the ravages and price of prohibitions against substance use they may well have included more specific language regarding these ideas.

But, regardless, I used the "I" for a reason. Drugs ARE prohibited. No one is contending they are not. I am saying all kinds of practices, substances and beliefs are dangerous to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but only some are prohibited, and so far no one has presented a reasonable explanation for this that stands up to criticism. It doesn't mean no one can or will, and it doesn't mean the laws are going to change. I am not stupid.

 

[Cerberus~]

Illegal drugs are still illegal despite people continuing to attempt to legalize it.

You have a knack for stating the obvious.

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

So I guess, because they're criminals, people in Saudi Arabia who are charged with the crime of Christianity, they aren't good people. Right.

Aside from the Sunday driver being too slow... the comparison of the one "choice" to the other "choice" that impairs driving, work, reaction, etc. abilities is simply a forced comparison.

Same as dozens of legal alternative. Same as dozens of prescription meds. We're not trying to legalize public intoxication, or driving under the influence. Just private consumption of a mind-altering substance, like beer.

If it WERE a legitimate claim of privacy, there wouldn't be a need for law and there wouldn't be innocent victims.

And what about the victims of the drug war?

Evidence please.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_(drugs)#Early_Drug_Laws

 

[Helo]

I am against alchahol with all my heart and soul. My father is an alchaholic and I have to spend every night wondering if he's going to come in my room and beat the living hell out of me. It causes accidents, destroys family, and is at the center of an amazing number of violent incidents.

However, our previous experiment with banning alchahol failed dismally as will every subsequent attempt. Whats a quick way to make money? Sell someone thats in low supply but in high demand. People would make FORTUNES off of selling bootleg rum and whiskey, one of my cousins has a small fortune that came from a company that was founded by money that his father and grandfather earned by making and selling moonshine.

We would see a fallback into the 1920s, the violence, the organized crime, people going to jail for taking a drink.

 

[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?

What, no takers? Come on, there has to be somebody who thinks I'm wrong.

 

[419gam]

What, no takers? Come on, there has to be somebody who thinks I'm wrong.

I think you will continue to find moral objections or claims that if drugs were legalized then there use would skyrocket and society would fail. However I doubt anyone can come up with legitmate arguements to prolong prohibition.

People that arn;t exposed to it don't realize how drastically the drug war has failed. Within a minute walk from my apartment I can buy heroin, cocaine(powder), crack cocaine, marijuana, oxycontin, and opium blatantly and on the street. The harder it becomes to import and sell drugs the more money can be made by those who do so. Essentially as drug interdiction efforts increase so do the profits made by the dealers. Its a scale you can never get to balance.

While prohibition might lead to a miniscule increase in comsumption I really doubt that there are many pepople who are interested in drugs that refrain purely for legal reasons. Also prohibitionist propaganda overstates the euphoria asociated with drug use.

 

[Spinrad]

Also prohibitionist propaganda overstates the euphoria asociated with drug use.

And that is such a wonderful point I had to comment.

 

[Koz]

Marijuana and hash shoudl definitely be legalized. Throwing people in jail for smoking a plant that makes you happy and eat is so stupid.

 

[Moros]

Prohibition wasn't funny. It gave rise to a most powerful organized crime influence which the government has spent countless billions from the thirties on down trying to get rid of, which still persists even to this day. Prohibition was an exercise in futility, government tyranny, and outright stupidity. Not to mention lack of foresight.