What the Obots think of anybody who disagrees with them

[hanelyp]

I ask: Why do you like prohibition?

Answer: It keeps kids away from bad stuff.

I respond: What it actually does is make the bad stuff MORE available to kids.

HOGWASH!

Prohibition may not make something completely unavailable, but it does make it harder and more expensive to obtain. And does tend to reduce consumption. Prohibition of alcohol may not have halted drinking in the US, but it did greatly reduce it. Whether the reduction was worth the price may be subject of debate.

I see drug pushers selling to addicts as predators exploiting persons of diminished capacity. Predatory behavior and being of diminished capacity both have long histories of being cause for reduced freedom, though in different ways.

[KitemanSA]

I ask: Why do you like prohibition?

Answer: It keeps kids away from bad stuff.

I respond: What it actually does is make the bad stuff MORE available to kids.

HOGWASH!

Prohibition may not make something completely unavailable, but it does make it harder and more expensive to obtain. And does tend to reduce consumption. Prohibition of alcohol may not have halted drinking in the US, but it did greatly reduce it. Whether the reduction was worth the price may be subject of debate.

I see drug pushers selling to addicts as predators exploiting persons of diminished capacity. Predatory behavior and being of diminished capacity both have long histories of being cause for reduced freedom, though in different ways.

Sorry to disagree with you, but the data support MSimon on this one. Back when opiates were legal and available in pretty much every drug store, kids had a harder time getting them due to responsible handling by the adults who sold them legally; adults who were and wanted to remain part of the community. Now drug are sold by outlaws who bring them to the kids and push them at the kids. Prohibition has made every playground an un-self regulated push-market for drugs.
"But there are police that regulate," you say.
But the police are not ALWAYS there. And like all political entities, police are inherently corruptable. Self regulation is a 24 hour a day regulation. Others regulation only happens when the others are there, and care.
Self regulation works better, but doesn't create political hay.

[tomclarke]

Yes Kiteman.

Also -

There was a time when opiates were not considered so harmful. Just as now alcohol is socially acceptable.

We know of cpourse that alcohol & opiates are both very harmful to some people (who becomes alcoholics, addicts). Alcohol has the additional disadvantage that it makes violence andother undesirable behaviour much more likely 9as do some of the illegal drugs, but not heroin).

Ah - you say - but heroin is highly adddictive.

Absolutely. So is nicotine. We would be better off without tobacco, without heroin. we have both. Both have undesirable long-term health consequences. People can like perfoectly normal lives indefinitely on either, if they are lucky.

I am not saying that illegal drugs are good, or that I want my children on them. But prohibited addictive drugs are a much worse social and individual problem that legalised and controlled addictive drugs. It is mostly the vicious crime that prohibition causes whioch does the harm.

Without it, more people would experiment with drugs. Perhaps more would get addicted, though I am not sure. But less harm would result.

[pfrit]

HOGWASH!

Prohibition may not make something completely unavailable, but it does make it harder and more expensive to obtain. And does tend to reduce consumption. Prohibition of alcohol may not have halted drinking in the US, but it did greatly reduce it. Whether the reduction was worth the price may be subject of debate.

I see drug pushers selling to addicts as predators exploiting persons of diminished capacity. Predatory behavior and being of diminished capacity both have long histories of being cause for reduced freedom, though in different ways.

Actually the data suggests that use of alcohol during prohibition declined for a short time and than returned to normal
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/facult ... for_el.pdf
I have read studies that suggested that per capita use actually increased during prohibition. Certainly more alcohol was purchased in aggragate in the US during prohibition. Violence surrounding acohol cunsumption increased off the chart as well.

[ravingdave]

I'm comforted by the fact that Conservatives were once against Jazz and more recently against Rock 'n Roll. I remember growing up and hearing TV sermons about Godless Rock Music Destroying Our Youth. It seems so quaint now.

I wonder how that turned out ? Hmmm.... could be those guys were RIGHT !



David

[ravingdave]

It is about not making changes to existing laws, customs, and cultures without a good reason for doing so.

Well I'm all for that Dave. So is it your opinion that racism was a good reason for making marijuana illegal in 1937? Because Dave the history shows that that was the reason.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

In fact the whole deal about outlawing certain drugs was never about health and safety. It was covert racism. Pure and simple.

That is not very nice Dave. Not very nice at all.

I take the conservative position on the issue. I say go back to what worked. Re-legalize.

I have read some if not all your references to the origins of pot prohibition, and I think you play the racism note with too much vigor. The idea that people would show up in someones town smoking a strange narcotic that they know nothing about is scary enough to some people. (if they did know anything about it, they probably knew it was called "Loco Weed" or some such. Not particularly reassuring.)

The fact that it was a different race from another country just increases the concern.

Of course if it were Scotsman drinking wiskey to the point of rowdiness or insensibility, no one would be concerned about that ! On the other hand, didn't they try that alcohol prohibition stuff ?

As far as I can see, the racism angle is just a red herring. (or straw man, if you prefer.)



David

[ravingdave]

Dave,

I still can't figure out why you believe "prohibited" means unavailable when the evidence shows that is not true.

I no more believe that, than I believe laws against Murder stop it from happening. People break laws, whatever they are.

Do you want Wal Mart distributing drugs or criminals?

I don't want Wal Mart Distributing drugs(illegal narcotics) OR Criminals. We have enough criminals already without Wal Mart providing us more.

Are we better off with packaged goods stores or was Al Capone the better choice?

By all means, I prefer packaged goods to Al Capone. I'm not sure what I would do with an Al Capone if I had one.

Because we have been at this prohibition thing for some 70 years and every year drugs are more available and cheaper.

That's because the drug trade is run by Capitalists, and the Interdiction system is run by Government ! If we could only get liberals to run the drug trade, it would fall apart in a few years or less. (till the money ran out anyway. )

Do you want to finance sustained attacks on our Southern Border or would you prefer those attacks be reduced?

I would prefer that there be no attacks on our Southern Border, but you are offering me a False Hobson's choice. You are trying to get me to concede that there are only two possibilities, and that one of them is intolerable. (the violence in Mexico) At this time I'm not convinced that either of them is absolutely true. It may be possible to keep drugs illegal AND stop the violence in Mexico. ( which at this time really doesn't affect me to any discernible degree. )

Milton Friedman called prohibition "socialism for criminals."
Should our government be supporting vast criminal enterprises.

What, you mean like TARP, or ACORN or Social Security or something ?

No, i'm not in favor of the Government Supporting Vast criminal enterprises, but as long as the public is foolish enough to keep electing Democrats, it's a problem we'll just have to live with for awhile.

If alcohol prohibition is any predictor it takes about 50 years for the criminal networks spawned by government price supports to die out.

See My above idea. (get liberals to run it.)

The sooner we end these price supports for organized crime the sooner we will be done with these criminal enterprises. We will have a hell of a hangover though.

You might have an argument that they may be defunded, but odds are they will likely remain and try to get into whatever lucrative business they can find. Even if that were a positive outcome, I believe it would be more than offset by the catastrophe of making recreational drugs more available.

"We have indulged ourselves in a kind of blind optimism in Holland concerning cannabis. [Use of] this stronger THC cannabis has stabilized at too high a level. We see young users with psychological problems who use it as a form of self-medication. It can and does produce a chronically passive individual...someone who is lazy, who doesn't want to take initiatives, doesn't want to be active - the kid who'd prefer to lie in bed with a joint in the morning rather than getting up and doing something."

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/200 ... is_is.html


David

[ravingdave]

OK Dave,

I've come around to your way of thinking. Allowing people to use drugs that were recently made illegal is bad.

Now how do we get the government to go after white people with the same zeal that they go after people of color.

We know that the rates of dealing and using among all segments of the population are approximately equal. How do we get the government to go after whites?

I think you are getting the cart before the horse. I don't see any evidence that the Government is specifically going after Minorities. I see the Police going after the easy catches, and most of the time those are the minorities.

White people tend to prefer powdered cocaine, while Black people tend to prefer Crack. Crack is far more addictive and the High is far more powerful. The high on powder lasts longer, but the High from crack only lasts 20 - 30 seconds. That's why you have to keep puffing it.

As a result, the powder users go through the drug more slowly, and aren't nearly so desperate to get "hooked up" when they run out. They are far more circumspect in obtaining their drugs, and often do it through long term connections that are established through mutual friends.

On the other hand, Minority drug dealers will sell off the street corner or in their mobile "Pimpmobile". They hang out or often go to Apartment complexes creating what is called "Traffic" in and out of specific residences. They also tend to be ostentatious in their demonstration to their peers and the public of their New found wealth obtained from their drug dealing.

Their white counterparts tend to keep a low profile, and therefore invite far less attention.

Nowadays, black culture romanticizes the "Gangster" stereotype. In many neighborhoods, the young boys aspire to grow up to be Gangster drug dealers and pimps, so they can manage all their "ho's", carry a "burner" and show out in "da club."

I know what i'm talking about. I've known people that lived this lifestyle. I've known people that got caught, and i've known people that never got caught. I know their tricks, I know some of their secrets, I know a lot more about this subject than most people, and maybe one of these days I might write a book about it.

To sum it all up, the police catch mostly minorities because they are far easier to catch than whites. Nowadays with the massive increase of Methamphetamine use among whites, the whites are starting to get caught in greater numbers.

In any case, equality based outcome is a liberal idea, and the only way to achieve it is with an affirmative action program of some sort. Yeah, that's what we need. Another government program.


David

[ravingdave]

So Dave,

What do we have to do to get the rates of white incarceration for drug crimes up?

Here is something interesting:

For the first time in a quarter century, the number of African-Americans incarcerated for drug offenses in state prisons has declined more than 20 percent while the number of white imprisoned drug offenders has increased more than 40 percent.

The decline took place over a six year period from 1999 to 2005 and reflects fundamental changes in the so-called "war on drugs" – how it's targeted and prosecuted....

According to the study, the number of blacks in state prisons on drug-related charges dropped from 144,700 in 1999 to 113,500 in 2005. The number of white drug-offenders in prison increased during the same time from 50,700 to 72,300.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0414/p02s01-usgn.html

I have always said that if whites were imprisoned at the rates blacks are support for the drug war would decline. You don't suppose the above is responsible for the recent change in sentiment re: the drug war?

No, not at all. If you first consider that so many Black drug dealers are already imprisoned, those people are off the street, leaving the pool of White drug dealers as a larger percentage of the overall pool. Couple that with the fact that Methamphetamine use among Whites (especially rural Whites) has in fact exploded, and likewise the fact that Methamphetamine Dealers and Users are incredibly stupid, and the trend makes perfect sense.

We still have a long ways to go to get the white rates proportional to population. But it is a start.

A majority of Americans, in a poll released Wednesday, say it "makes sense to tax and regulate" marijuana. The Zogby poll, commissioned by the conservative-leaning O'Leary Report, surveyed 3,937 voters and found 52 percent in favor of legalization. Only 37 percent opposed.

A previous ABC News/Washington Post poll found 46 percent in support. In California, a Field Poll found 56 percent backing legalization.

Responding to the poll at a press conference Tuesday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for an open debate on legalization.

If it could be kept out of the hands of irresponsible users, it would probably work out fine. Perhaps Alcohol like regulation would prevent it from having too major of a negative impact on society.



David