Save our Children End Prohibition

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 8:37 pm

That is so ironic...
It was angry women who started prohibition trying to save their children.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 8:54 pm

ladajo wrote:That is so ironic...
It was angry women who started prohibition trying to save their children.

The alcohol pushers were destroying the kids. It might amuse you to read about child drunkenness during alcohol prohibition. The complaints about kids coming to school drunk.

The kids were also employed as runners because they could escape most penalties. The same happens today with illegal drugs. The incentives are to employ kids in the trade.

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 9:08 pm

It might grow you to understand and consider that other people may also have read and learned about the same or similar things but view it and understand it differently from you. And, most importantly that does not mean in any form they they or you are right or wrong.

The problem with your argument is that you keep rolling out the same repetitive selective cherry picks over and over, hoping that if you say you big idea enough times eventually it will become true. It really is an immature approach. And I do not mean that in an Ad Hominem way. It is meant as an honest critique.

You would do much better to mature your argument technique into a proper and defendable thesis. I am not sure you can. It really does show that you have not been through higher education, but stopped essentially at high school. I posit that you really do not get the difference between education and training. You are approaching your "anti-drug war" as a training problem.

Beh.
Standing by for the next well worn repeated sound bite.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 11:37 pm

ladajo wrote:It might grow you to understand and consider that other people may also have read and learned about the same or similar things but view it and understand it differently from you. And, most importantly that does not mean in any form they they or you are right or wrong.

The problem with your argument is that you keep rolling out the same repetitive selective cherry picks over and over, hoping that if you say you big idea enough times eventually it will become true. It really is an immature approach. And I do not mean that in an Ad Hominem way. It is meant as an honest critique.

You would do much better to mature your argument technique into a proper and defendable thesis. I am not sure you can. It really does show that you have not been through higher education, but stopped essentially at high school. I posit that you really do not get the difference between education and training. You are approaching your "anti-drug war" as a training problem.

Beh.
Standing by for the next well worn repeated sound bite.

I understand people see such things differently. But it can very well mean one point of view gets better outcomes generally than another.

I find it interesting that very very few who believe drug prohibition is efficacious wish to bring back alcohol prohibition. I find that odd. If prohibition works certainly prohibiting alcohol which causes roughly 20X as much damage to society as the currently illegal drugs is even more worthy of prohibiting. And yet so few suggest it.

These prohibitions tend to run about 50 years. It takes that long for a society to get used to a new drug culture. We are just about there.

Since prohibition is a vector for spreading drug use it wonders me that those against drug use favor prohibition. It is not hard to see why. People are easily fooled by words. They think ah "prohibited" - that means the stuff is hard to get. A good thing. When what prohibited means is "distributed by criminals" i.e. easier to get. The reports for the last 30 years are quite consistent. Kids find it easier to get illegal drugs than alcohol. Prohibited means easier to get. As I said people are easily fooled by words. And once fooled by words nearly immune to actual evidence.

And then you have actual statistics - illegal drug use (pot mainly) peaks in the 15 to 25 age cohort and then declines. And what do we know about that age range? It is often called the "high anxiety years". Any surprise that anti-anxiety drug use peaks in those years? And then falls off as the anxiety recedes?

Government can declare tides illegal. It doesn't mean it can stop them. And the effort will cost a LOT of money for little, no, or negative results.

The generations brought up on reefer madness are dying off. New generations who - thanks to prohibition - are intimately acquainted with the drug are replacing them. Change is coming.

And in time drug prohibition will be seen the same way alcohol prohibition is seen (after the fact) an obviously terminally stupid idea. And the people who held it obviously didn't have a lick of sense. We are not there yet. But that time is coming. Why am I so sure? Because I can read history.

BTW all you are saying is that I'm not making headway with you. I wouldn't expect to. Very few people can change their general attitudes after age 25. (I have done it twice). I am making headway otherwise.

Look at the change in numbers of those favoring an end to prohibition over the last 40 years. You are now out numbered. Soon the politics will be going my way as well. The numbers have gone from 70-20 favoring prohibition to 50 - 40 against. Quite a swing. And the swing keeps moving in my direction.

As more old folks find out about the efficacy of pot for various debilitating conditions the numbers even in the old cohort will swing further in my direction. Pain and death faced continuously and personally are powerful motivators. So why don't they make prohibition work? Because the lifetime risk is about 1 in 10. If you will die or lose some other function or be in continuous pain without a drug the risk is 100% and it is immediate.

Prohibition can't work without a police state. If you really want it to work the best way is to convince Americans that having Big Brother watch their every move is a really good idea. Good luck with that.

Stubby · Post by **Stubby** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:38 am

I don't know. Seems like a well written text to me.
Funny how people here can be so sure prohibition works when past history and current statistics would trend otherwise,

let me re-write that

Funny how people here can be so sure E-Cat works when past history and current statistics would trend otherwise,

Strange dichotomy, don't you think?

Guess this proves that other thread where IIRC it says something about people picking the the side they are biased towards

(I hope i used dichotomy correctly

)

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 2:30 am

Stubby wrote:I don't know. Seems like a well written text to me.
Funny how people here can be so sure prohibition works when past history and current statistics would trend otherwise,

let me re-write that

Funny how people here can be so sure E-Cat works when past history and current statistics would trend otherwise,

Strange dichotomy, don't you think?

Guess this proves that other thread where IIRC it says something about people picking the the side they are biased towards

(I hope i used dichotomy correctly :oops: )

It looks like you used dichotomy correctly. At least colloquially:

A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, meaning it is a procedure in which a whole is divided into two parts. It is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets) that are:

jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts.

Such a partition is also frequently called a bipartition.

The two parts thus formed are complements. In logic, the partitions are opposites if there exists a proposition such that it holds over one and not the other.

=================

So there is evidence that substance prohibitions don't work and yet people believe that prohibition of substance X can work.

The dichotomy is:

1. Substance prohibitions don't work
2. This substance prohibition can work

They are mutually exclusive.

I believe the Red Queen had a word on the subject

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Alice in Wonderland.

palladin9479 · Post by **palladin9479** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 2:38 am

And in time drug prohibition will be seen the same way alcohol prohibition is seen (after the fact) an obviously terminally stupid idea. And the people who held it obviously didn't have a lick of sense. We are not there yet. But that time is coming. Why am I so sure? Because I can read history.

This has been my point of view. From a purely rational sense prohibition of Alcohol and prohibition of Cannabis are the same thing. The state attempting to regulate the production, distribution and purchase of a recreational drug. They both started the same way, through good-intentioned efforts by individuals seeking to protect their culture from changing, and they both will end the same way, as bad ideas.

The laws of free market will not alter themselves just because their inconvenient for the state. There is a demand and thus a supply will be created.

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 3:24 am

palladin9479 wrote:From a purely rational sense prohibition of Alcohol and prohibition of Cannabis are the same thing.

The same except that cannabis is a psychotic, and that anyone who uses it has a 5,000% higher chance of suffering a psychotic episode. Alcohol doesn't cause hallucinations and delusions. Cannabis does.

Well there's that and the proven effect that it destroys ambition. So you get people like Simon who are satisfied with failed lives and living off the hard work of others so they can sit around, blog and smoke pot all day.

Well, that and that other, and that it's a more powerful carcinogen than tobacco.

What did you think cannabis and alcohol had in common? And what could possibly pass as rational about your screwy misrepresentation of the facts? There's nothing at all rational about your statements above. They're completely irrational.

And this is why it's not worth answering such dopes as these above, because they've heard all this before and they know it is true, and yet they will continue to pretend it is not because they want to smoke pot. Some people never learn.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 4:18 am

GIThruster wrote:Well there's that and the proven effect that it destroys ambition. So you get people like Simon who are satisfied with failed lives and living off the hard work of others so they can sit around, blog and smoke pot all day..

So now we see the REAL reason for the two prohibitions; the drunk man (stoner) won't do to work I think he should do, prohibit it so he will be a good little productive unit.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 4:37 am

Workers of the world work. Or else.

Actually there is no proof that drugs destroy ambition because due to prohibition only those without ambish come to the surface. The ambitious stoners stay hidden. For good reason.

I worked in the engineering dept of a large aerospace company. Not very many slackers there. I'd estimate that 40% to 60% of them were stoners. If pot destroys ambish haw was what I saw possible?

Does alcohol destroy ambition? If so why aren't you clamoring for a return to alcohol prohibition?

In my family every single member as far as I can tell has loads of ambition. It seems to me that ambition has more to do with genetics than drugs.

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 5:20 am

MSimon wrote:I worked in the engineering dept of a large aerospace company.

And now you're a parasite who hasn't worked a day in the last 12 years.

I rest my case.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 9:51 am

GIThruster wrote:
MSimon wrote:I worked in the engineering dept of a large aerospace company.
And now you're a parasite who hasn't worked a day in the last 12 years.

I rest my case.

I had some other things to do. You object to me doing them because I wasn't paid? I lived on my own money and did several paid projects for other engineers. Plus made eqpt for that large aerospace co. And tried my hand at some other things.

My writing adventure is paying off:

http://www.ecnmag.com/tags/Blogs/M-Simon/

I wrote something every day for 4 or 5 of those years. It improved my writing skills. I learned Polywell. Well enough to become moderator of this blog. Dr. Bussard thanked me personally for my work on getting Polywell refunded. Did he ever thank you for your efforts?

Polywell is something I could never have done had I had a "job".

I haven't had a regular job it is true. But I have never been idle. I have never stopped contributing.

I designed the I/O board for the worlds first BBS in one of my "idle" periods. And as you well know BBSes led to this here internet. Randy and Ward were friends of mine in Chicago at the time.

You just want to run my life. You are worse than any idle doper could ever be. You are a control freak. Those kind of guys tend to be much worse for civilization than any doper could ever be. They kill millions in order to see that everyone is working according to THEIR plan. It always turns out badly because of a lack of information.

You are aware of control and the information problem are you not? A very popular topic in libertarian circles. Hayek won a Nobel Prize in economics for it. You have read his Nobel lecture have you not?

You see one of the things I done with my "idle" time is educate myself. It has come in handy. Repeatedly. You never know when something you have learned will come in handy.

The desire for control makes people stupid. It is also possible that the stupidity is innate and is evidenced by a desire for control. More research needs to be done in that area.

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:25 pm

As I recall, you said that your Aerospace career was shorted lived due to your inability to pee in a bottle for drug testing.
So how could 40-60% of the Engineers working at an Aerospace Defense Contractor routinely pass drug tests?

Simon,
Rational folks agree (as do I, stated many times) that the current approach is not working. But complete legalization is not the right answer. The issue with drugs is that they are addictive and judgement imparing to the point that use puts others at risk. Combing the two factors means that over time the average person will increase use, and as a result incur higher involuntary risk to others. And the sprial will continue.
Stop cherry picking the same misrepresented (and sometimes outright wrong) factoids over and over and see the forest. I would suggest that you first understand my point about knowing the difference between education and training. It really can help you. Then move on from your cheesy indoctrination tactics, and worn out repetative propaganda and build a real argument.

"I have a buddy who was a cop and he is against <the great evil> 'prohibition'".
"Pot use is good for you, it makes you more healthy"
"Pot use while driving makes you safer"
"Drugs are not addicitive"
"Alcohol is way more dangerous than drugs"
"More people support <total> drug legalization"
"I am winning, because I am still talking"
"I am powerful because I blog, and the whole world reads it"
"I am educated because I read the internet every day"

You would have fit in well in the marketing arms of the early days of the Russian Communist revolution, or early 1930's Nationalist Germany.

I understand two things at the foundation of this entire topic, one is that what we as a society are doing is not working well, and that is for many interelated and complex reasons, some of which are not well understood at all by anyone, the other is that providing complete unrestrained access to drugs would be the move of a selfish idiot child.

You would not live long at all in the Anarchist society you propose. You would soon be killed by someone that valued your existence less than his own. I am also guessing that your death would be somewhat sloppy and probably painful given that odds are that who does it wouldn't be all that skilled, nor really care.

Bold new world that you seek...oh, wait a minute, it is an old world that we have been trying to leave behind for some time now...but you wouldn't really understand that it seems. The idea of value in others, what a concept to consider.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 2:03 pm

As I recall, you said that your Aerospace career was shorted lived due to your inability to pee in a bottle for drug testing.

Pisser isn't it? I don't do drugs and the drug war put me out of a job.

So how could 40-60% of the Engineers working at an Aerospace Defense Contractor routinely pass drug tests?

As long as you don't switch jobs you only get tested on initial employment or for cause. At least that was the case in the place I worked. If they had tested regularly they would have lost 1/2 their high end workforce. They couldn't afford it. So they didn't do it.

Being a contractor I got tested when I switched jobs. I managed to evade that until 2000.

Just another minor casualty of the drug war. It turned me from a mild anti-prohibitionist to a rabid one.

Dr. Strangelove wasn't fiction. It was a blueprint. Purity Of Essence is now a requirement for most regular jobs. I will never have one of those for the rest of my life. It does give me time for other things. Like supporting Polywell and ending Drug Prohibition. I intend to revenge my hurt on the people who hurt me by ending their wretched exercise in Power and Control. I look to put half the law enforcement bureaucrats and minions out of a job. Just my little way of getting revenge on the bastards who put me out of a job. I'm totally enjoying it. I look forward to the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I will LOVE to see those bastards and all those who support them in pain. Just seeing it on the horizon brightens my every day. I get glee in watching prohibitionists squirm. I look forward to their extreme agony. If not this November, the next. Or the one after that. Won't be long now.

Anyway. It has forced me to find a way or make one. I have some plans.

Keep your eye on this space:

http://www.ecnmag.com/tags/Blogs/M-Simon/