Obama

[aardvark baguette]

Making drugs illegal wasn't radical. It was racist. Because it was the blacks doing drugs when drugs were first made illegal. It was also to protect domestic synthetic rope makers against the external hemp rope makers. And the paper industry. It became a fund raising opportunity for police departments and prisons. And protected intoxicants as being the realm of big tobacco and the alcohol industry, while protecting the medical pharmas from self medication. So yah, not radical.

The result is immoral. The result of the drug war is a police state, rampant drug gangs, "gateway drugs", meth lab toxic impacts, etc. The war on drugs doesn't benefit the people.

...Guess we can't do anything about it then.

All I can honestly say is that I'm anti drugs. Regardless of who initially made drugs illegal, and regardless of their motivation or purpose. Even if it was rope companies, rail road companies, Microsoft, martians or my next door neighbor's cat. To make drugs legal for the purposes of eliminating the legislated morality once imposed on our nation, to me seems ludicrous. I don't deny there was legislated morality, sometimes there is little you can do about that. And yes, I'm sure I support it when I don't even realized I'm doing it. But I believe its in the best interests of the majority of Americans. I don't believe my intentions are quite as severe as the Nazis genocide of the Jews, or any of those other crutches people fall back on. I truly believe keeping drugs illegal has more benefit than legalizing for the purpose of morality purging, for lack of a better term.

[saint.panda]

Freedom aside, legalizing soft drugs actually works:

http://www.csdp.org/ads/dutch2.htm

[aardvark baguette]

Freedom aside, legalizing soft drugs actually works:

http://www.csdp.org/ads/dutch2.htm

Since I know nothing of this report, are they basing numbers on percentage of population, or just numerically compared to USA?

I also noticed that they said "not normally arrest"...what are the differences when they do?

Also, marijuana is a long way from crystal meth. I don't really care about that, its the harder drugs that scare me the most.

[aardvark baguette]

Functional government is impossible when all of your citizens are goddamn stupid. They'll either vote stupid people into office that make stupid decisions or be stupid and overthrow a good government for stupid reasons, because they're stupid and have no foresight, or ability to think about the whole instead of themselves. On average we're "more intelligent" than the average person from a few centuries ago, but all of that raw material is wasted, it seems. I'd expand on this but I'm stupid and need to think about it more.

So, yeah. Which candidates support eugenics, retard holocaust, isolationism, self-sufficient economy, birthing licenses, drastically reducing carbon footprint, and demoting Oregon to occupied territory?

People's political opinion's don't make them stupid. Isn't everyone entitled to have an opinion? I thought democrats were supposed to be 'open minded', but so far all I've seen is childish name calling towards those that think and feel differently.

I never heard anything about Oregon. Whats the story there?

[laxx]

I'll vote for whoever lets me park in front of a Church (I don't know if that's a NYC thing or if it's nationwide). That and Giuliani passing the DOT clergy pass really pissed me off.

[luvdunhill]

You're actually the first person to ever point the Oregon thing out. It's an alternate version of the "6 million Jews, 1 clown" joke. Beautiful state, it is.

are you referring to the legalized live sex acts in Oregon?

[Dusty Chalk]

Freedom aside, legalizing soft drugs actually works:

http://www.csdp.org/ads/dutch2.htm

That's deceptive as hell -- what were the populations of the two countries at the time of the study? The Netherlands is a much smaller country than the US. Per Capita would be much more useful.

[saint.panda]

That's deceptive as hell -- what were the populations of the two countries at the time of the study? The Netherlands is a much smaller country than the US. Per Capita would be much more useful.

I also think a legend wouldn't have hurt, but I'm pretty sure the numbers are relative. If not, regardless of when the study was taken, the Dutch would be serious drug addicts considering that the population is less than a 10th of the US.

Also, marijuana is a long way from crystal meth. I don't really care about that, its the harder drugs that scare me the most.

As for hard drugs

Now, I'm sure there are also other variables involved but at least legalizing soft drugs doesn't seem to have a huge negative impact on hard drugs abuse.

A short exceprt from an Economist article in 2002:

Over the years many other countries, notably America, Britain, France and Sweden, have condemned this Dutch regime wholesale. Yet by its own lights it has been remarkably successful. Cannabis use has admittedly risen a little, but surveys show that it is still less widespread in the Netherlands than it is in Britain and America, and about the same as in France and Germany. Among schoolchildren, cannabis use in the Netherlands has actually been going down over the past few years. And the regime has been tightened up: the amount that each person was allowed to buy was reduced from 30 grams to the current five grams five years ago, and the number of coffee shops cut back, especially in border regions where they were encouraging drug tourism.

As for hard drugs, notably heroin and cocaine, the evidence supports the Dutch approach of looking on their use as health problems. Treatment is available through methadone and even medical prescription of heroin, together with clean needles. Yet heroin abuse is now much less prevalent in the Netherlands than it is in Britain and most other European countries (see chart 7). Indeed, the population of hard-drug addicts as a whole has barely grown in the past ten years, and it is ageing fast, suggesting that younger people are not joining in. The lesson is clear: partial decriminalisation, and treating drugs in general as a health rather than a justice problem, seems to work.

Full'>http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TDJRTSP"]Full article.

The difference is that the Netherlands started to think of drug addiction as a public-health problem rather than merely a crime. Without wanting to quote more, there's another article on this issue that I found worth reading:

If enforcement doesn't work, what are the alternatives? - The Swiss and Dutch model

Imo, there are two cases to be made for or against drugs, the moral one and the practical one. Fortunately, both the case for individual freedom as well as, to a lesser degree, practical evidence shown in the Netherlands speak for the legalisation of soft drugs. As for hard drugs, it may be a different story, although not necessarily.

[Icarium]

Yeah I agree too. I mean I don't have a lot of stats/practical figures, but I tend to think that if soft drugs and maybe hard drugs were legalized at least a lot of the violence associated would go away. I'd rather money spent on the war on drugs go towards helping addicts really.... if taxes were like that of cigarettes it'd be potentially a big source of revenue too.

[Dusty Chalk]

...the federal government simply has no right regulating what people willfully put in their bodies ...

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Your judgment is impaired, which also means that your judgment to judge whether or not your judgment is impaired is impaired. There are some drugs that are so strong, that once taken, the recipient will do anything to get more of it -- including become a non-productive member of society, nee, a destructive member of society -- you sure you want to say that people have a right to take that in an uncontrolled manner? I'm not sure I'd go that far.

[Dusty Chalk]

So people should be allowed to commit suicide if they like?

[JBLoudG20]

So people should be allowed to commit suicide if they like?

It's their life. Yes they should be able to choose that.

[grawk]

So people should be allowed to commit suicide if they like?

Is there any way the state can stop that?

[Dusty Chalk]

if the states or localities wish to create ethical resources to help people who develop severe drug problems, that is their right, and more power to them, as state constitutions are separate from the federal constitution, as long as the state constitutions do not grant the states in question powers and rights enumerated to the federal government.

So now I have to pay for their stupidity? Fuck that.

Is there any way the state can stop that?

I don't think you guys understood that that question was "leading" -- the next question is "so they should be allowed to take recreational drugs that have the side-effect of being fatal, merely for recreation? Despite the fact that the drug itself undermines their ability to judge whether or not the drug is "fatal"? Again, I'm not sure I'd go that far.

Still, the answer to grawk's question is obviously "No", but they can limit it by limiting the ability for their access to lethal recreational drugs.

Notice I have not stated my own opinion on whether or not I agree with most of these things, I'm just asking questions for the most part. So fuck you, you fucking name-calling hippies.*

*For those of you who still don't "get" me: Yes, the irony is intentional, and yes, I know that "fuck that" counts as stating an opinion.

[JBLoudG20]

So now I have to pay for their stupidity? Fuck that.I don't think you guys understood that that question was "leading" -- the next question is "so they should be allowed to take recreational drugs that have the side-effect of being fatal, merely for recreation?

Why wouldn't they be? We are allowed to smoke cigarretes, which do nothing BUT that.

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, but that takes longer.

[JBLoudG20]

Yeah, but that takes longer.

Doesn't matter how long it takes, its the same idea.

[hungrych]

All I can honestly say is that I'm anti drugs. Regardless of who initially made drugs illegal, and regardless of their motivation or purpose. Even if it was rope companies, rail road companies, Microsoft, martians or my next door neighbor's cat. To make drugs legal for the purposes of eliminating the legislated morality once imposed on our nation, to me seems ludicrous. I don't deny there was legislated morality, sometimes there is little you can do about that. And yes, I'm sure I support it when I don't even realized I'm doing it. But I believe its in the best interests of the majority of Americans. I don't believe my intentions are quite as severe as the Nazis genocide of the Jews, or any of those other crutches people fall back on. I truly believe keeping drugs illegal has more benefit than legalizing for the purpose of morality purging, for lack of a better term.

Why?

[Thelonious Monk]

Isn't everyone entitled to have an opinion?

Humanist wailing. Plebians shouldn't be making any decisions in regards to society. We don't vote doctors or astrophysicists into their jobs; I think it's ridiculous that government positions are any different. People that know how power works should be the decision-makers. Ren? Gu?non called it "mindless rebelliousness .... against the higher possibilities of the human person," and he was absolutely right. My favorite Traditionalist author. The Crisis of the Modern World is a truly insightful book. It's Plato's Republic of the 20th century.

[Dusty Chalk]

if these aren't your opinions, then you are wasting my internets.

Says the man with 10,256 posts, some of which are, in their entirety, " ".

[JBLoudG20]

a wink is still an opinion; an opinion that something is wink worthy. my point is that, if you don't state your opinion in a political thread that is about opinions, then you're wasting my internets in that thread. i could be using that bandwidth for pirating porn, or something.

[Dusty Chalk]

Okay, then I'll stop. I'm not sure I'm ready to get into it with you guys, and my opinions are not so strong and well-formed, and I am not so eloquent to convincingly phrase them that I feel like posting them for your evisceration.

HTML bandwidth << pirated porn bandwidth.

[Thelonious Monk]

assuming TM is serious, i had no idea this forum had so many totalitarians. Plato's Republic was one of the most harmful books in the Western canon, from an individual liberty perspective. fuck that shit right to hell.

Why are you so vehemently against enlightened leadership ("fascism")? Failed experiments like National Socialism and Stalinism aren't what I'm talking about.

[Thelonious Monk]

Don't be a hipster, tell me why you think I'm completely wrong.

You aren't one of those people with three adopted third-world babies and a SAVE DARFUR bumper sticker, are you?

[Dusty Chalk]

that isn't even worthy of a response.

Lamest response ever.