Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Perd Hapley on September 27, 2010, 12:11:15 AM
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Since joining this board some years ago, I don't recall if I've ever voiced (or typed) support for anti-drug legislation. I have said I was undecided, and I've criticized drug-legalization arguments (and will probably continue to do so). But I am ready to say now, that I no longer support drug prohibition, at least as we know it today. I've said this a time or two in passing, but I really appreciated it when CAnnoneer made an "official" announcement about his own re-evaluation of the abortion issue. So here I am.
My anti-drug stance was just one that I acquired along with my other conservative views, which I picked up from my parents and my church friends while growing up. While I've given a lot of thought to other planks of the conservative movement, and feel confident about most of them, the issue of drugs was never one that I spent much time on. For many years, I wondered if it was consistent with the libertarian impulse of modern American conservatism. And probably, I felt repulsed by the image of drug legalization as a political doctrine of pot-heads and other dirty hippies. And maybe I just felt more comfortable being in agreement with most of my friends and family on a fairly important issue.
Then again, it really doesn't seem that important to most people I know. We don't talk about it much. I think a huge segment of the population is OK with drug prohibition, because it doesn't affect many of us, at least directly. And I still wouldn't say it is in the top tier of problems confronting the nation. But even so, I think many would be surprised to find that even the Bible-thumping crowd is not uniformly in support of drug laws.
My church had a visit from an Alabama evangelist last week, a man that many in the congregation praised for his "old-time religion." And in my church, you've got to be a real, rock-ribbed, hard-shelled, old-school type of guy, to get that accolade. We got to talking, after the last revival service, and he surprised me by coming out against drug laws. You can read more about him here: http://www.crawfordcampaign.com/
He lost the run-off election.
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The anti drug laws ruined my life, thanks to God I am completely sober, I no longer want or need any mind altering substance, way back in 1977 in Boot Camp I admitted to an overzealous DI that I had smoked weed, got a ding on my record that ended up me losing my security clearance :mad:
It seemed unfair and I ended up running with the liberals for a long time afterwards.
I hate the stuff and most pot heads/stoners seem awfully dumb, but equally hate all the attacks on civil rights too.
funny enough, as a pre weed kid I was prolife -as a weed smoker I wasn't, now that I'm drug alcohol free I'm prolife again.
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And I still wouldn't say it is in the top tier of problems confronting the nation.
Given that the majority of those incarcerated are there for violation of drug laws, and that the USA has an incarceration rate in the top 5 world-wide (I'm too lazy to see if we are still #1 oe have sliped to #3), I wonder how you arrived at that conclusion.
Had you said the issue was not in the top tier of problems most folks even thought about, I probably would agree with you.
And for fun, let's all play a "suppose" game: Suppose drugs were leagalized and the criminal element currently engaged in the drug trade just vanished, as the liberals probably imagine would happen post-legalization. 1)What happens to all that money that the criminals had already stockpiled? 2) What happens to all that money that was being diverted into the illegal drug trade? 3) What happens to all those folks who were not actively seeking employment because their lives were so messed up by drugs?
Y'all have fun for a while.
stay safe.
PS - for the record, I think the "War on (some) Drugs" has done and continues to inflict far too much damage on society for the returns we get. However, I remain without a comprehensive, integrated plan that has a tinker's damn of a chance of sucessfully resolving the issue.
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And probably, I felt repulsed by the image of drug legalization as a political doctrine of pot-heads and other dirty hippies.
That made me laugh. I live in hippie central. You can tell harvest season is upon us by the annual influx of dirty people with backpacks and dogs.
And for fun, let's all play a "suppose" game: Suppose drugs were leagalized and the criminal element currently engaged in the drug trade just vanished, as the liberals probably imagine would happen post-legalization.
The "suppose" game that has been going on here in Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte and Lake counties has been "suppose they legalize pot this fall" and now the growers are, rumor has it, hoping that it doesn't get legalized because they are worried about the bottom falling out of the market. It will be interesting to see what happens if Proposition 19 passes and what the effects will be.
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As I've said before, it takes a lot of guts to re-evaluate a position one has held virtually since birth and has been reinforced by one's peers, the press, one's pastors, and which one has parroted all one's life.
Congratulations.
Many comparisons have been made to Prohibition, yet the lessons learned then seem to be universally ignored.
Many laws have been passed on the basis of "the cost to society" without considering the cost to society when these laws are implemented. How much does it take to house and keep a prisoner --$20,000, $30,000 per year? More?
Many folks, including some above, have said they'd like to see drugs legalized but cannot come up with a plan for implementation. I'm thinking a "plan" is secondary. To my mind, the first step is to de-federalize its regulation and see what happens in the states.
Let this "Grand Experiment" in Liberty work itself out. I discovered a long time ago that sometimes it does not pay to over-cerebrate a plan of action, but to "just do it" and worry about the "yeah, buts" later.
A rash position?
Yeah, but...
Terry, 230RN
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And probably, I felt repulsed by the image of drug legalization as a political doctrine of pot-heads and other dirty hippies.
Aye, that is a hard step to get over. But using a flamethrower on dirty hippies while wearing a "End the War on Drugs" button will make you feel a lot better. Try it. Seriously, it's a great stress reliever.
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The problem is not whether drugs are legal or illegal. The problem is there are those who wish to control by force of law, behavior that they either are opposed to simply because they insist others are to behave as they believe, or see that money and power is to be gained and kept by criminalizing or controling human behavior.
Americans, and most humans, have an au priori yearning for freedom. When the powerful stamp certain behaviors as illegal, humans tend to resist. This is more true with freedoms that are associated with recreation.
Think about it.
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The problem is not whether drugs are legal or illegal. The problem is there are those who wish to control by force of law, behavior that they either are opposed to simply because they insist others are to behave as they believe, or see that money and power is to be gained and kept by criminalizing or controling human behavior.
Americans, and most humans, have an au priori yearning for freedom. When the powerful stamp certain behaviors as illegal, humans tend to resist. This is more true with freedoms that are associated with recreation.
Think about it.
This. Times 10 and divided by pi.
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I, too, was opposed to legalization, but the libertarian types here have turned me around.
I just don't think we're going to see it anytime soon. Maybe someday with pot, but anything harder would be a tough sell.
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So... now we find out that fistful was just a dirty hippie pothead all this time :P
Congratualations at being "born again" on this issue :cool:
first step is to de-federalize its regulation and see what happens in the states
That would be the Constitutional way to do it. ;)
I think the "War on (some) Drugs" has done and continues to inflict far too much damage on society for the returns we get. However, I remain without a comprehensive, integrated plan that has a tinker's damn of a chance of sucessfully resolving the issue.
There's an old saying: when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
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I used to be pro-legalization, but have grown into having strong doubts.
I've worked with the DOJ [hurrah internships] in the fight against international drug cartels and I've done in depth reports on drug rehab programs in college and law school [visitations, interviews ect]. I've seen a fair number of lives ruined by drug abuse; even ignoring the criminal side of that equation. One of the brightest guys I knew in HS is/was a drug user and is now a cafeteria worker at that same High School.
I would be in favor of a massive change in policy, maintaining the illegality, but on the individual level making it a petty offense with a focus on non-draconian rehabilitation; essentially a health issue. And of course, lets move the no knock swat team response to folks known to be violent offenders with automatic weapons, not the guy in apartment 420 rumored to keep a few roaches about.
Acknowledging my imperfect knowledge, I think this works in my scheme as its a move away from a bad/non-working system towards liberty.
I don't think making it a state issue would work due to the state spill over.
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And probably, I felt repulsed by the image of drug legalization as a political doctrine of pot-heads and other dirty hippies.
Aye, that is a hard step to get over. But using a flamethrower on dirty hippies while wearing a "End the War on Drugs" button will make you feel a lot better. Try it. Seriously, it's a great stress reliever.
This.
The great thing about Liberty is that one can still despise the despicable without requiring they be incarcerated and washed at taxpayer expense.
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Ned:
I agree that folks do a lot of damage to themselves with currently illegal drugs. Legalize them and that will continue, but with less profit for organized criminal enterprises.
I don;t expect gov't to be able to fix all ills and "make people better."
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What was it that caused you to change your position, fisty? Was it just that a respected evangelist leader told you he was in favor of legalization, or were there specific reasons and arguments that won you over?
I had a similar experience to yours, only in reverse. I was raised conservative, but didn't much care about politics until I was in college and took on strong libertarian leanings. My parents were against drugs and their legalization, but I never much cared about the issue until I went libertarian and thought that it was a huge outrage that others might deign to tell me what I can put in my body. So I basically started out pro-drug and thought the pro-criminalization folks like my parents were stupid.
Then I grew up. Got out into the real world, got some experience. Saw first hand what drugs can do. After arguing again and again that drug use was a personal issue, I had my nose rubbed in the fact that drug use often damages people other than the user himself. People that never have used and never would use drugs are still subjected to the harms of drug use, and subjected to it against their will. People like me. I was forced to re-evaluate my opinions on drug legalization, and I reluctantly began to see that my parents were right and I was wrong.
I am curious, though, what kinds of reasoning leads people to change their minds on issues like these. What was it for you, fistful?
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I am curious, though, what kinds of reasoning leads people to change their minds on issues like these.
Crackbabies, Classmates, Narco-terrorists
Pretty much that order/timeline.
For the thought of legalization cutting off funding, that would be just jumping into a radically different cultural position and I don't see that happening. Scaling down, legalizing this and that, lowering penalties, I think is much more doable.
Having met an international cartel leader and studying him, I think they would just move onto some other illegal focus and largely continue status quo.
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Ned:
I agree that folks do a lot of damage to themselves with currently illegal drugs. Legalize them and that will continue, but with less profit for organized criminal enterprises.
I don;t expect gov't to be able to fix all ills and "make people better."
Ditto, + eleventyone.
Drug using street-trash have no relationship to narco-crime other than the fact that they fund it.
If [crack/heroine/pot/lsd/ecstacy/whatever] truly was eliminated, they'd huff magic markers or eat mushrooms or something. You can't stop the despicable from being disgusting.
But you can stop the economic incentive for organized narco-crime to profit off that group.
And if the price of narcotics drops, then drug-incentivised crime (opportunistic smash and grabs to pawn your wife's jewelry) also drops.
The War On (some) Drugs is fighting the despicable, with our tax money, and the despicable will never be rehabilitated. If they can get by with less money, they will have less criminal impact on our society until they kill themselves via recreational drug use and are no longer a problem. The easiest way to win The War On (some) Drugs is to take the financial motive away from the narco-criminals.
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The anti drug laws ruined my life, thanks to God I am completely sober, I no longer want or need any mind altering substance, way back in 1977 in Boot Camp I admitted to an overzealous DI that I had smoked weed, got a ding on my record that ended up me losing my security clearance :mad:
Fyi, the DEA's current policy is that "youthful experimentation" with mj may be acceptable in their employees' backgrounds.
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Even if you won the war on drugs completely - eradicated every marijuana plant, every poppy seed, ever LSD pill in the world - the universe would shrug and go on to sniffing gasoline.
The use of mind-altering substances and practices is such a culture- and time-transcending practice it's hard to imagine it will ever be eliminated.
The reason why drug prohibition is horrible is not for what it is, but for what it stands for: namely that we feel empowered, morally, to go up to our neighbors, shove a gun up their nose, and demand they cease consuming something because it's bad for them. Then, when they refuse, we pull the trigger and claim it's their own fault - after all, we warned them.
Should we strike a powerful blow against this mindset here, the consequences would reverberate through the entire culture.
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I agree that folks do a lot of damage to themselves with currently illegal drugs. Legalize them and that will continue, but with less profit for organized criminal enterprises.
I don;t expect gov't to be able to fix all ills and "make people better."
Ditto +eleventytwo.
Let's not forget the unintended consequences to medical care. Wasn't there a thread recently about police departments seeking access to individuals' medical and prescription records? The DEA of course, already has that access. Should one use a drug on the list of morally ambiguous drugs as determined by the federal government, life can get complicated. I've never had any problems getting narcotics when I needed them, but people do. Especially people who really need them, have developed tolerance, and are therefore on high doses, beyond that which the fedgov and its representative may arbitrarily decide are reasonable. Woe be unto the doctor who has one too many patients on dosages the DEA decides are too high.
I recently learned, to my chagrin, that there is no manufactured-sponsored reduced cost program for a drug I am taking because it is a controlled substance. It's too risky and they won't do it. Apparently they don't supply samples to doctors' offices either. The War of Drugs has resulted in some conditions and treatments being morally ambiguous--and I'm not even talking about medical marijuana, but ordinary prescriptions drugs.
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I remain without a comprehensive, integrated plan that has a tinker's damn of a chance of sucessfully resolving the issue.
i think darwin has it covered
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Suffice it to say here that I have ample experience with friends and family screwing themselves up with drugs. My views are known to everybody on this forum.
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People that never have used and never would use drugs are still subjected to the harms of drug use, and subjected to it against their will. People like me.
And prohibition is stopping this ???
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Hooray for Fistful!
It's long past overdue for an reformation of our drug laws. Last time I checked the stats something like 50% of people in prison are in there for a drug related offense and of that 50% something like 75% of them is for marijuana. I think the best way to legalize drugs would to be experiment (hehehe) with marijuana, making that 100% legal, regulating it and licensing like tobacco, and then see what happens to the criminal element that mainly profits from marijuana.
Personal quantities of up to say 5 plants / 10 ounces would be legal to have, but for retail sale it would have to be regulated and you could still get arrested / fined for unregulated sale of marijuana such as with alcohol and tobacco.
It's the least harmful of the illegal substances, less harmful that alcohol IMO, and the best way free up prison space, clean court dockets for more important crimes, and open up a billion dollar revue stream for the gov that people would actually be HAPPY about.
Check results, repeal more laws as necessary, rinse and repeat.
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of that 50% something like 75% of them is for marijuana.
no
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I remain without a comprehensive, integrated plan that has a tinker's damn of a chance of sucessfully resolving the issue.
i think darwin has it covered
I have parts of the issue covered pretty well. Even got to show that some of them actually worked - at least as long as the grant money kept the program running. Never got to the point where I could demonstrate it was absolutely the program and not the force of personality, but came close.
I have a deep, burning insane curiosity as to what would happen if the DEA, DOJ, DOD and other federal initials just up and quit spending on the War on (Some) Drugs. Where would the money be directed? What would the rationale(s) be for doing so? Would a social ill actually be cured, even accidentally? (OK, that was a cheap shot. I admit it, but I'm not going to retract it.)
And even more preverse - what happens to all the money the cartels have warehoused now that they would not face penalties for putting it into circulation? My mind keeps coming back to that talk my father always tried to have with me about how having too much money to be able to spend would not make me happy.
stay safe.
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Well, one of the biggest reasons the DOJ down to the locals focus on drug enforcement is because that is where the money is. A disturbing amount of prosecutorial focus is based on nothing more than the potential for cash/property seizures.
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of that 50% something like 75% of them is for marijuana.
Ok now I had to go and check. I couldn't find the same stats I saw before but here are some that are almost identical to what I saw a while ago. Yea my memory did mess up that 75% stat was for all possession offenses not solely for marijuana.
in 1980 there were 581,000 drug law arrests, climbing to a total of 1,846,351 in 2005. 81.7% of these arrests were for possession offences, and 42.6% of arrests were for marijuana offences.
(page 3)
19.5% of State prisoners are drug offenders.
53% of Federal prisoners are drug offenders.
(page 7)
http://www.idpc.net/php-bin/documents/Beckley_Report_16_2_FINAL_EN.pdf
Can't find the marijuana specific stats so I'll check later but yea I was wrong 53% of Federal prisoners are drug offenders.
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very few folk in prison for pot unless they were selling and even that usually means multiple offenses or some other form of egregious behavior. never forget that what finally gets on the sheet under "convicted of" often bears lil resemblance to what the offense actually was.
a good case in point? i fired a shop steward for failing to disclose his aggravated assault conviction on app. the arbitrator was gonna rule against me till i let her read the police report. he'd stabbed a previous boss to death while he was asleep. stabbed him 60 times while they were on a pcp binge
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very few folk in prison for pot unless they were selling and even that usually means multiple offenses or some other form of egregious behavior. never forget that what finally gets on the sheet under "convicted of" often bears lil resemblance to what the offense actually was.
a good case in point? i fired a shop steward for failing to disclose his aggravated assault conviction on app. the arbitrator was gonna rule against me till i let her read the police report. he'd stabbed a previous boss to death while he was asleep. stabbed him 60 times while they were on a pcp binge
Like having a firearm. Your right to defend yourself goes out the window if you have drugs.
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and in some cases it should
dope does not make you smarter sadly it can make you think you are
ine of my least favorite things to hear from the man in the long black dress was "mr newell! what were you thinking?!" and then snickers from behind me in court it was never good
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And prohibition is stopping this ???
'Stop' as in 'completely eliminate'? No.
'Stop' as in 'reduce' or 'decrease'? Yes. Definitely.
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'Stop' as in 'completely eliminate'? No.
'Stop' as in 'reduce' or 'decrease'? Yes. Definitely.
i believe based on my experience and that of those i know that prohibition has increased the harm
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i believe based on my experience and that of those i know that prohibition has increased the harm
I figure there are two prime sources of harm related to drugs, the harmful collateral damage due to someone's drug use, and the criminal harm associated with the black market trade in drugs.
At first glance it's an either/or proposition. Criminalizing depresses harm from use, but that comes at the cost of increasing the black market trade. Decriminalize and you reduce the harm due to the black market, but at the expense of more usage harm.
Upon further thought, I don't think legalization would reduce overall crime levels much. It would certainly reduce the crime associated specifically with the drug trade, but those gangbangers aren't going to turn into choir boys just because the local Walgreens starts selling meth.
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Maybe, but consider drug deaths.
A lot of what is attributed to 'drug deaths' is actually deaths due to impure/misproduced drugs.
Remember that millions of amphetamine and cocaine users fought on the fronts of WW2. They came home and became citizens in their respective countries.
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What was it that caused you to change your position, fisty? Was it just that a respected evangelist leader told you he was in favor of legalization, or were there specific reasons and arguments that won you over?
Neither one, really. The thing with the evangelist was just a week ago. I stated at least a few months back that I favored legalization. Here it is: http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=24901.msg484609#msg484609
It's just the logical conclusion of my view of politics, in general. I don't believe in victim-less crimes, or that govt. should stop people from screwing up their own little lives. Like I said, I would have probably come to this point of view quite some time ago, if I had thought about it more.
Somebody said something about it being hard to reverse oneself on a position one has "parroted" for a long time. I wouldn't quite put it that way. I don't think I've ever been much of a drug-war cheerleader or "parrot." It's just something I've tacitly agreed with up until a few years ago.
I had my nose rubbed in the fact that drug use often damages people other than the user himself. People that never have used and never would use drugs are still subjected to the harms of drug use, and subjected to it against their will. People like me. I was forced to re-evaluate my opinions on drug legalization, and I reluctantly began to see that my parents were right and I was wrong.
That's definitely something to keep in mind, and mine is not totally closed on the subject. I could still be persuaded. But I think that's similar to one of the arguments against the War on Drugs; that it is responsible for a general loss of Fourth Amendment freedoms, due to overzealous enforcement. I'm not sure either argument is very cogent, at least for me, because they deal with secondary effects. For good or ill, I tend not to base my politics on a lot of statistics and pragmatics. For me, it's a moral issue. Can I justify the use of force against someone who wishes to harm themselves, or someone who sells drugs to those with self-destructive tendencies? I don't think I can.* But can I argue that drugs should be legalized, because law enforcement and legal authorities have gone too far in their enforcement efforts? I don't think I could do that either.
*That doesn't mean I couldn't see fit to prosecute those who sell drugs to minors, or cut their cocaine with rat poison, or maybe some other caveats.
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Crackbabies, Classmates, Narco-terrorists
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Classmates, Organized Crime Syndicates controlling major American city governments
Point to ponder: crackbabies manage to recover and have fewer long-term effects than babies with FAS
Heres the wiki link to FAS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome
"Fetal alcohol exposure is the leading known cause of intellectual disability in the Western world."
1/100 births in the West are damaged by FAS, is the estimate.
Here's the crack baby link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_baby (AKA, Prenatal cocaine exposure)
"No disorders or conditions have been found to result for people whose mothers used crack while pregnant.[1] Studies focusing on children of six years and younger have not shown any direct, long-term effects of PCE on language, growth, or development as measured by test scores.[3] PCE also appears to have little effect on infant growth.[4] However, PCE is associated with premature birth, birth defects, attention deficit disorder, and other conditions. Cognitive, motor, behavior, developmental, and language problems also appear to result from PCE. The effects of cocaine on a fetus are thought to be similar to those of tobacco and less severe than those of alcohol."
If we could only get severe alcoholic pregnant women to give up cold ethyl for cocaine, we'd all be ahead.
of that 50% something like 75% of them is for marijuana.
no
Yes.
For all intents and purposes, the War on Drugs is the War on Marijuana. MJ is where the big numbers are and is what gets most drug users/dealers in prison.
If the WoD were WWII, Marijuana would be Nazi Germany + Japan, all the others combined would be Italy.
If the WoD were WWI, Marijuana would be Imperial Germany + Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and all others combined would be...Italy.
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Quote from: cassandra and sara's daddy on Today at 15:53:44
of that 50% something like 75% of them is for marijuana.
no
Yes.
sorry no
i go into prisons weekly to do volunteer work with drug addicts and alcoholics
its not pot putting folks in there don't believe normls hype
http://www.californiapolicechiefs.org/nav_files/marijuana_files/files/CDP_Paper08132005.pdf
not even close
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Interesting interview at PBS with Mr. Eric Schlosser on the War On Some Drugs, focusing on marijuana: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/interviews/schlosser.html
It appears to date from 1997, and I understand that marijuana imprisonment rates have gone up since then - but one stat he mentioned early on was that 1 out of 6 inmates in federal prison is there for marijuana (as of 1997), and that with murderers serving sentences averaging 6 years, there's little to no reason to have non-violent marijuana users clogging up the system. I'd have a hard time arguing against that, even if I was not already in favor of doing away with the War On Some Drugs, I think.
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for possesion? or moving weight? i know several hundred inmates currently inside maybe a dozen tops are in for any kinda pot crime and those are for moving weight
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i read the article he talks about montana law providing for a life sentence for growing one pot plant? is that true? they have medical marijuana in montana!
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Elsewhere in Portugal:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html
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but did portugal have several multi billion dollar industries that depended upon a war on drugs to survive? thats one of the driving forces here
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As a former recreational drug user, I can say that the substance isn't the problem, it's the person and personality type.
Take away the drugs, and the addictive-personalities will find something else to medicate their sorrows.
Cocaine for me was fun. Then I decided to stop. And once I made that decision, I immediately stopped, and never touched it again.
Willpower is all it takes. Those without it will find something to abuse, always, no matter what's available, legal, or illegal.
That said, i'm in favor of attempting to eliminate the black market for it, regulate production, tax the hell out of it, and honestly I don't care much if someone of weak constitution overdoses or can't quit. In the meantime, let's try to eliminate the incentive for narco-terrorists to kill and profit off it.
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of that 50% something like 75% of them is for marijuana.
Ok lets stop quoting these figures as facts, I was recalling from memory a stat and I was wrong. But I did post accurate facts in my next post.
very few folk in prison for pot unless they were selling
That's inaccurate. They can charge you with intent to sell if you have your personal stash in more than one baggie, or if your personal stash is deemed to much for one person.
See look it's divided up for re sale! :police:
No, that's so I don't smoke my whole stash in one night man :dirty hippy:
According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses.
police arrested an estimated 786,545 people on marijuana charges in 2005 -- more than twice the number of Americans arrested just 12 years ago. Among those arrested, about 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses, even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.
http://www.nowpublic.com/pot_prisoners_cost_americans_1_billion_a_year
Sorry but all the stats refute this anecdote / assertion that "you don't go to prison for possession of pot only."
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I figure there are two prime sources of harm related to drugs, the harmful collateral damage due to someone's drug use, and the criminal harm associated with the black market trade in drugs.
You left out #3: the harm caused by the drug prohibition enforcement =(
Upon further thought, I don't think legalization would reduce overall crime levels much
So you don't think legalization would increase the crime rate either ;)
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very few folk in prison for pot unless they were selling
That's inaccurate. They can charge you with intent to sell if you have your personal stash in more than one baggie, or if your personal stash is deemed to much for one person.
its very accurate come down thursday nite we can go inside let you count heads
did you read the report i posted a link to that broke down the numbers from the doj?
and even the doj claims 12%
in your imaginary world the percentage of folks popped for possession correlates directly to that number doing time for possession? really? i was a wake and bake stoner for 2 decades have 8 possession arrests and never even one conviction. they don't care about possession. the only guys i know pulled time for possession copped a plea down or snitched and getting to cop to possession let em serve a couple months and go back out to snitch more. take a look at the police chiefs report and analysis. don't get me wrong i'm pro legalization just anti bs. if you bs folks seize on the obvious falsehood and you lose credibility as does your cause
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You left out #3: the harm caused by the drug prohibition enforcement =(
That was not an omission. I wanted to comment on the two prime sources of harm, not any of the lesser secondary issues.
So you don't think legalization would increase the crime rate either ;)
I said crime rates wouldn't go down, not that they wouldn't go up.
;)
That's a question worth discussing, though. Would increased drug use increase overall crime?
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That's a question worth discussing, though. Would increased drug use increase overall crime?
1. I doubt you'd see much increase in drug use. Any increase would be minor relative to different use patterns and shifting use rates of particular drugs relative to one another. Less ethyl, more MJ, less crack, more powder cocaine, or some such.
This assumes we consider ethyl alcohol a drug, which is reasonable.
2. Any increase would likely be among non-addicted recreational users. The addicts are already using. The addicts are really the users who matter, from a crime /social ill POV.
3. For addicts, if the price drops 75%, that is 75% fewer TVs to steal to get a hit.
4. For those in chronic or terminal pain, fewer broken laws to get the painkillers and/or anti-nausea meds they need to function or tame their terminal pain.
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Another side effect of prohibition is the type (and danger) of drugs being used. Markets ALWAYS seek alternatives.
If powder Cocaine were legal, would you have ever seen crack?
If medical grade amphetamines were legal/OTC, there never would have been Ice or crystal meth.
If all the other drug enforcement that really got going in the 60's hadn't happened, would anyone have bothered with PCP?
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the price could drop more than 75%
and you need to remember a junkie with a 300 dollar a day habit steals close to 3 k a day to feed it since they get a dime on a dollar for what they steal