"Malum Prohibitum"

[GIThruster]

I'll leave it to the specialists to figure out how to make rehab work in those situation where it can work, but the fact some are ambivalent about drugs being socially acceptable is what does most of the damage. Last night I met a cute redhead and in two minutes she was talking about getting high. In five minutes she was talking about dropping acid. Obviously, she thinks drug use is normal. And this is what people inside the drug culture do not understand--they are involved in criminal activity and most people are NOT sympathetic. We should not be sympathetic. And yet there are folks who just don't get they have made themselves criminals for the sake of their chosen drug or drugs. They set themselves apart as lawless. This really does make a difference and whenever we legitimize the conversation by pretending drugs don't have all these negative consequences, we muddle the issues.

[TDPerk]

@ Ladajo

GIThruster is abjectly wrong, which is no shock, and you, Ladajo, partly correct.

"he is saying that right now the system supports users in not holding them accountable for personal actions"

If the government were focused on actual crimes, "Personal actions"--which are solely and necessarily those against people and their property--then those actual crimes could be better controlled.

That someone chooses to become high with alcohol, pot--or PCP for that matter--it is solely in and of itself their business.

If, without regard to it's being in any way under the influence of any intoxicant*, they commit any crime against people or their property, land on them like a ton of bricks.

*"maybe both need to be even harder" Harder would be their losing the right to purchase intoxicants once they have demonstrated by crime while under that influence that they cannot use them responsibly...but not before they have been convicted of a actual crime.

"I say being a dealer is a death sentance."

Why? In and of itself it's as honorable a profession as running a bar and no different.

@GIThruster

"They set themselves apart as lawless."

To be lawless to an unjust law is to metaphorically stand on Lexington Green on April 19th, 1775, whether your purple stained finger is in Baghdad in 2004, or you're staring at tanks in Tiananmen in 1998...or whether a badly incentivized, militarized police force is breaking down your door on the basis of falsified warrants

And for that matter, if you are selling a shotgun to a neighbor with a barrel 1/2 too short, or an herb that has been successfully demonized.

" we muddle the issues"

The issues are muddled when you pretend the use of whatever intoxicant always has the same issues, regardless of any actual individual outcome. The issue is has anyone's person or property been harmed, if it hasn't nothing which should be illegal has happened.

[GIThruster]

Shallow thinkers like you, Perky; make up their own lists for whatever they decide is unjust and excuse themselves for breaking those laws. Count me completely unimpressed. If you cut the barrel on your shotgun so short it violates the law, you're a lawbreaker. If you let folks know you're violating that law, you identify yourself with the lawless. This is precisely what dopers do. It doesn't matter that you think using drugs or practicing prostitution are supposedly "victimless" crimes. They are crimes, and those who get caught should go to prison. Those who identify themselves with these lawless activities have made themselves enemies of the state and society. If some law is a particular hardship, you can try to change it or move to another state, but you are not free to violate the law and consider yourself justified in so doing--at least not in a democracy where you have a life full of choices. That you are unable to see the difference between selling illegal drugs and working as a bartender clearly demonstrates you are incapable of thinking like an adult on this issue.

[ladajo]

Although Alcohol and drugs share similarities, they are abjectly not the same. It is a sham that the pro-drug crowd has misrepresented this in seeking legitimacy and gain in their purpose.

Alcohol is not the same. It functions differently in your brain, and its addictive mechanism is much less permanent, and less physically and psychologically damaging than drugs. It is easier to come alcohol uses than drugs. Take a look at the relapse rates. Drugs also have a stronger self advancing spiral towards higher highs. Another statistic that is easy to look up.

It is very much incorrect to compare the two with full equality. That speaks to not being informed on the bio-physical and psychological aspects of the issue. Or, it speaks to doing it on purpose to seek propgandist advancement. Please remember that propaganda does the best work in the world of half-truth and the partially informed. It seeks to warp truth away from reality and create a new false reality. In this case that is the one where alcohol use and drug use are exactly the same problem with the same effects.

They are not equivilant by any means. Similarities, yes, equivilant no. And in this inequality, you can not draw direct meaningful comparisons. Apples and Oranges.

The drug war is not about drinking. If anything, drinking got caught up in the drug war, not the other way around.

[paperburn1]

I understand what TD is implying here but it is a fallacious argument.
If you are going to have any social intervening via community with bad behavior after an event, that then also makes controlling any bad potential bad event permissible. The only question left is when your community does so. That is the primary foundation of social law.

or break it down this way
1 person in 1,000,000 commits a crime after using his drug of choice...Acceptable? Most likely.
1 person in 100,000 commits a crime after using his drug of choice...Acceptable? Likely again
1 person in 10,000 commits a crime after using his drug of choice
1 person in 1,000 commits a crime after using his drug of choice
1 person in 100 commits a crime after using his drug of choice.
1 person in 10 commits a crime after using his drug of choice.
1 person in 2 commits a crime after using his drug of choice.
At some point the community must step in to regulate for the good of the community.
Just like they did with alcohol.
At one time in the not to far past everyone that could put a bottle to their lips could drink.
then because of behavior issues you were required to be 13
then it became 18, then it became 21 and during that time they also developed punitive laws for actions associated with that behavior. And so it goes with drug use. At some point in time people saw bad behavior and that is when it was ruled against.