Awesome Nevada marijuana initiative looking good in the polls!

[Perd Hapley]

I think I'm going to scream.  

ATTENTION, ALL POSTERS:  The next time you're tempted to compare guns to drugs, put a crack-vial, a dime-bag, or a bottle of Jack in your pocket and take a walk.  See how safe you feel.  Or make sure the bong is loaded the next time you leave your wife alone in the house.  I'm sure it will help her protect herself from home invaders.  

The comparison does not work.

Yes, I realize all manner of jokes can be made here.  

[wingnutx]

ATTENTION, ALL POSTERS:  The next time you're tempted to compare guns to drugs, put a bottle of Jack in your pocket and take a walk.

Only if I can stuff a rag in the top and carry a lighter.

[cordex]

fistful,

All analogies fall apart at some level, but that doesn't mean they're useless on all levels.  By definition an analogy compares the similarities of differing things.  The guns vs. free speech issue is another common analogy, but you wouldn't want to stick a paper critical of the government in your pocket to defend yourself or choose a rifle as the best tool to pen a novel.  Still, both are speficially Constitutionally protected freedoms, both are important in ensuring other freedoms and so forth.

Some gun/drug analogies are bad ones.  Others fit.  Of those that fit, the most interesting in my opinion is the similarity in the anti-drug and anti-gun argument structure.  The basis of each is that individuals cannot be trusted to use [guns / drugs] and so they must be taken away by the government.  The reason this is interesting is that often someone might oppose the logic of an anti-gun argument and use the same logic to oppose drugs.

[The Rabbi]

There is no comparison between guns and drugs, except maybe in the minds of liberals and libertarians.  I never saw there was a healthy use for crack cocaine.  I never saw fathers and sons bonding together over meth.  I never knew people could learn about responsibility by shooting heroin (except what happens when you don't exercise it).  There is no comparison.

[Perd Hapley]

Cordex,

Guns and free speech have their downfalls, but they are also vital to the free society.  "Recreational drugs," whether or not you include alcohol and tobacco, we can do without.  This doesn't mean we should ban them, but it does mean that the gun comparison is a stretch.

[cordex]

Fistful, the comparison is not between guns and drugs, it is between the arguments that are used by those who would prohibit each.

Rabbi, you kidder.  Always with your meth and crack.

[The Rabbi]

Fistful, the comparison is not between guns and drugs, it is between the arguments that are used by those who would prohibit each.

Rabbi, you kidder.  Always with your meth and crack.

If you make a comparison, the comparison has to be valid.  Comparing guns and drugs, even in the context of legality, is an invalid comparison, for all the reasons that you fail to see.

[Perd Hapley]

Fistful, the comparison is not between guns and drugs, it is between the arguments that are used by those who would prohibit each.

AAAAAAAAAAH!  AND THE ARGUMENT FOR GUN RIGHTS DOES NOT TRANSFER TO DRUGS, BECAUSE THEY ARE A NET NEGATIVE THAT SHOULD BE DISCOURAGED!  Guns are good, drugs are bad.  Again, that doesn't mean we should outlaw drugs, but the arguments that work for one subject do not work for the other.  I can see now why you and Rabbi are having such fun screaming at each other.

[cordex]

AND THE ARGUMENT FOR GUN RIGHTS DOES NOT TRANSFER TO DRUGS, BECAUSE THEY ARE A NET NEGATIVE THAT SHOULD BE DISCOURAGED!

There are practical considerations of your audience to be sure, but if we're discussing poor logic it can apply to both issues.  Especially when it comes to prior restraint.  That you and I feel that abolishment of recreational drugs would be a net gain to society is immaterial.

[Perd Hapley]

Cordex, forget I said anything.  On this point, you are as obtuse as Rabbi, and that's saying something.

[wingnutx]

You two are going to drive fistful to substance abuse, and then you'll be sorry.

[The Rabbi]

You two are going to drive fistful to substance abuse, and then you'll be sorry.

As long as it's legal substance abuse, that's OK.

[wingnutx]

Like drinking listerine.

[Perd Hapley]

Rabbi.  F-words.  Get to it.

[Firethorn]

I've seen poppies growing wild from northern Canada to Florida.

I'll give The Rabbi the benefit of the doubt, and simply point out that in a legalized situation, the crops will tend to be grown in ideal locations for maximum profit potentials.  IE low labor cost Afghanistan might be a good source.  Then again, it wouldn't take too many farms dedicating an acre or so to provide plenty of production, even if greenhoused.

There was widespread use of opiates until maybe the 1870s.  1890s at the latest.  The country has changed radically since then.  And all those people are dead.
But even opiates never occupied the same place as liquor, in part because people did not make their opium as poppies are hard to grow in some climates.  So while you could maybe make a valid comparison on drugs/alcohol in the 1890s, today it isnt the case.

But there are many valid comparison points.

Don't you think that many people started drinking under prohibition?  Do you think that most speakeasies bothered to check age/not sell to minors?

Ways current drug prohibitions are similar to alcohol prohibitions:

1.  Mobs -> Gangs
2.  Increased Police power and corruption
3.  Massive enforcement costs
4.  Loss of tax revenue
5.  Increased use of more dangerous drugs as compared to an unrestricted market(Liquer -> Meth)
6.  Loss of reasonably safe products (Moonshine w/methanol -> drugs cut with unsafe substances)
7.  Increased crime due to organized criminal elements defending and attacking territory, enforcing their own brand of justice

How is it not similar, The Rabbi?

[The Rabbi]

[

There was widespread use of opiates until maybe the 1870s.  1890s at the latest.  The country has changed radically since then.  And all those people are dead.
But even opiates never occupied the same place as liquor, in part because people did not make their opium as poppies are hard to grow in some climates.  So while you could maybe make a valid comparison on drugs/alcohol in the 1890s, today it isnt the case.

But there are many valid comparison points.

Don't you think that many people started drinking under prohibition?  Do you think that most speakeasies bothered to check age/not sell to minors?

Ways current drug prohibitions are similar to alcohol prohibitions:

1.  Mobs -> Gangs
2.  Increased Police power and corruption
3.  Massive enforcement costs
4.  Loss of tax revenue
5.  Increased use of more dangerous drugs as compared to an unrestricted market(Liquer -> Meth)
6.  Loss of reasonably safe products (Moonshine w/methanol -> drugs cut with unsafe substances)
7.  Increased crime due to organized criminal elements defending and attacking territory, enforcing their own brand of justice

How is it not similar, The Rabbi?

I already covered that above.  The position of alcohol in America at the start of Prohibition is in now ways similar to the position of drugs today.  That is so for historical and cultural reasons.
You could make the same comparison to anything which is currently illegal.  Therefore the comparison ceases to have much meaning.

[280plus]

You could make the same comparison to anything which is currently illegal.  Therefore the comparison ceases to have much meaning.

Not when you compare crime from the viewpoint of victimization. Who is the victim in a drug deal? Who is the victim in when gambling or prostitution acts are taking place? Yet, because these things are "illegal" (in SOME states)many many people are victimized by the attempts to cover up and control these things. So it was in the alcohol prohibition days. Friggin Kennedys got rich bootlegging. I wonder how many people they victimized along the way. I agree with cordex, the argument over whether guns and drugs can be compared at all is what is moot in this discussion. The fact is the exact same argument is being reacted to in opposite directions by the same people. You will vilify it when it is used to try and make your guns illegal but will embrace it when discussing whether drugs should be made legal. It's all about freedom of choice. Why is the govt making my choices their business? For the children? If I'm not killing or robbing or raping or even pillaging in the neighborhood, why should they be bothering me? Our prisons are chock full of men and women who might have otherwise gone on to live relatively succesful lives if THEY hadn't been victimized by thr govt for THEIR choice to use drugs etc... now they are schooled hardened criminals. So yea, the system we have now is working just fine.

[280plus]

I guess most of you have never been to a country with card carrying prostitutes. Last I knew the cards were updated monthly by doctors for checkups that certify them disease free and treat them if they are not. To me this seems a much more rational approach than what we do here, which is toss them in jail for doing what they're going to do anyways. Problem in this country is too many people pay more attention to other people's business than their own.

So with drugs, you hand out the needles free, like they're doing anyways, and that gives an opportunity to bring up rehab every time they are seen. The fair tax on the drugs would fund this and also be used to pay for those who DO seek to straighten their lives out. I mean, as it is now, the state funds the ones that need/want to be dried out and can't afford it. Where is THAT money coming from? Not THEIR pockets. Look, if someone is destroying their lives with hard drugs how are we helping by tossing them in jail?

[Perd Hapley]

How much actual prison time, not rehab time, does anyone actually do for just using drugs?

[280plus]

I imagine it depends on things like the state, perceived severity. Then there's the felony stuff where loss of voting priveleges comes into play. We have a whole society of people who can never vote. Where is their incentive to become productive citizens in a community where they have no say? Not to mention that a good portion of these people are young (and dumb) so they will NEVER have a say even if th3ey do grow up and straighten out their act. We're creating way too many permanent second class citizens with this WOD.

[Perd Hapley]

Then there's the felony stuff where loss of voting priveleges comes into play. We have a whole society of people who can never vote. Where is their incentive to become productive citizens in a community where they have no say? Not to mention that a good portion of these people are young (and dumb) so they will NEVER have a say even if th3ey do grow up and straighten out their act.

You make too much of the voting angle.  Millions of Americans are productive citizens and never vote.  The incentive is being able to live comfortably without going to court and to rehab and to the big house every so often.  Or the incentive could be a real desire to go straight and live honestly.  Or they want to be with their kids and hold their head up around Mama.  Too many morons are voting now, as it is.

[280plus]

Millions of Americans are productive citizens and never vote.

Agreed, but at least they have the opportunity if they choose to. We all know that as young uns a lot of us didn't vote but as the years went by more issues became prevalent in our lives and we began to vote because it started taking on more significance to us. How would it feel to be a never violent 40 something who has come full circle, straightened out his/her act and now wishes to participate in the legislative process but can't because of some drug related or other victimless "crime" he committed as a wee tot? Do you think he might feel a tad embittered? So how do you go about weeding out the morons fist? Anyone who doesn't vote for the same guys as you?

[280plus]

The incentive is being able to live comfortably without going to court and to rehab and to the big house every so often.

Yea, ok, but so far that "incentive" doesn't seem to work too good.

[Perd Hapley]

280, read my signature line.  Morons often vote the right way, the rest of them vote Libertarian.  

[The Rabbi]

The incentive is being able to live comfortably without going to court and to rehab and to the big house every so often.

Yea, ok, but so far that "incentive" doesn't seem to work too good.

They already have that as an incentive.  Don't do/deal drugs and you won't go.  Seems simple enough.