Tancredo: Prohibition funds terrorists

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 5:08 pm

i don't usually enter into discussions on this subject. for the simple reason that 'reason' itself rarely seems to apply to any of the arguments against; ie. it is unwinnable.

but for the record, i am a long-time 'recreational' user of chemicals, with no regrets and no harm, to myself or to anyone else.

all i see, over the past 50 years or so is the same bunch of people deciding what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' for other members of society to be doing to their own bodies and in their own private lives. it is a form of blind, ignorant fascism; nothing more and nothing less.

it seems many on the 'prohibition' side of the argument need to be reminded that until very recently (and in some instances, is still the case), that homosexuality was 'illegal', that abortion was illegal, that blacks and colourds walking/sitting in 'whites only' areas was illegal, that teaching the facts of Darwinian evolution (over creationism), was illegal, that people could be 'locked up' for attempting suicide or preaching 'contrary' political ideas; the list goes on.

and just as (in most cases), we look back now at those 'historical injustices' and see them for what they were, so too, in time, future generations will look back at such examples of prohibition today and regard them in very much the same light. at least, that is my hope.

and whilst i might sympathise with the 'pragmatist' arguments that the 'war on drugs' should be abandoned on the grounds that is is too expensive and doesn't produce the desired results, i fear those arguments too are somewhat flawed. for example the same could be said for the fights against child abuse, war, or armed robbery. the fact that they are difficult (if not impossible) to win, does not mean they are not worthwhile causes, per se.

there comes a time when such arrogant and prescriptive thinking has to stop, and undergo some serious re-evaluation. for such people to realise that their attitudes are the result of a lifetime of 'brain washing' by those with a vested interest in holding onto political power by promulgating the irrational fear and loathing of others.

there comes a time when the greatest risk that is faced is the loss of the basic human right of self-determination and free will. themselves oft cited as amongst the greatest merits of a free and democratic society and the most desirable of ('American' - sic.) values.

by contrast, if the debate must continue (for surely it must), what is wrong and improper about applying a principle of 'harm reduction' as a more rational alternative?

rant over. out.

paperburn1 · Post by **paperburn1** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 6:32 pm

"Nothing" in answer to your question.
once that becomes law and policy I will support it. But based on personal experience I do not see this happening in the near future. You see I have the unique perspective of seeing what most people do not see. The bottom line effects of what happens. If you will , read my rant and then sit back and consider. A Friend of mine and of the family opened a pawn shop business. for the past year I have been helping out on Saturdays as they have an employee that has a chronic illness and by hiring me for one day a week they can keep her on the payroll and off of the welfare roles.( darn nice of them) I get to see what unregulated drugs do to a portion of our society and it's not a pretty picture. I would say that one out of ten rope smokers have no effect on their lives at all. two out of ten mildly and six out of ten have some major effect on their lives and one out of ten gets trashed and ruined. In my humble opinion it runs about the same as alcohol abuse. The percentages for harder drugs are a lot worse. and yes you can very easy tell the drug of choice by the physical and physiological reactions of the person using at the time.
Perhaps government regulation of those recreational drugs would limit the harm by controlling potency and dosage. But until that happens I feel and recommend that avoidance it better than usage on any day of the week.

Betruger · Post by **Betruger** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 9:58 pm

Culture before legislation.

hanelyp · Post by **hanelyp** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:10 am

Betruger wrote:Culture before legislation.

Good point there. Without backing from the culture, legislation is ineffective. We are loosing the culture war against drug use.

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:19 am

Agreed on that as well.
That, IMHO is that main issue. And with the minority pro-drug use crowd controlling the media, that significantly drives the issue.

palladin9479 · Post by **palladin9479** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:50 am

Teahive wrote:
ladajo wrote:The key issue is to get them in the door to a professional. In the military in particular, as well as society as a whole, there is some stigma associated with walking in the door. The military, in particular, has made some large strides in the past few years to remove the stigma, and as a result has seen a growth in seekers of treatment, as well as success in such.
No doubt social stigma is an important factor, but I suspect other factors such as an unwillingness to admit the severity of the problem, or fear of the treatment itself, to be bigger hurdles.
Cost might play a role, too.

To borrow from Dr. Kraft and her collegues, "it is ok to not be ok".
Why not "it is ok to use drugs", then? (Note "use", not "abuse".)

Depends on your definition of "DRUGS!!!!". If it's a chemical cocktail cooked up by a pharmaceutical company then it's "A-OK!", even if it has severe side-effects including death. But the death is ok cause you take the purple pill to prevent the death. If it's a natural substance that accomplish's the same effect as same chemical cocktail and it's not on the local church's approved list then its "da DEVIL!".

It's always been a matter of perspective and that's the reason this argument can't be won. Perspective is reality and there are many people who've convinced themselves that "DRUGS = BAD" and thus in their reality they are bad. Their subconscious will perform some amazing mental gymnastics to protect that reality. I'm expecting D to show up soon and do three to four posts in a row telling all of us how "EVIL" his pastor says those drugs are. Right after he ingests drugs approved by his local church of course.

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 3:07 am

And, in the meantime, reality intervenes again to tell us drugs are ok...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/29/73 ... latestnews

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 1:55 pm

rather than meaningless anecdotal evidence - here are a few hard statistics - for the UK at least:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... wales-2009#

i'm sure the US has similar published figures somewhere.

zoom in on the chart, under 'Mental and Behavioural Causes'. So, sure, people die because of drugs (though from what i read mostly of the 'prescription' variety) - they are still much more likely to die of any other single cause out there - often by many orders of magnitude.

so, know the risks, make your choice, get help if you need it (assuming 'help', rather than simply a jail sentence is available to you).

Priorities.

ps. to the original subject 'Prohibition funds terrorists': that is also true, unfortunately - historically in the UK, the IRA got heavily involved in the trade for that precise purpose during the 70's - though they would never publicly admit it at the time.

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:47 pm

I posted on the US stats before. As well as discussed the shortened life spans documented for users.

I have even built a full spreadsheet that combines all the national tracking data for the entire last decade and analyzed it by age, usage rates, and trending to include multidimensional trending plots.

You can do a simple check yourself, or go read on the previous threads where I discussed this data.

One o fthe interesting points is that there is a "boomer" hump of "Lifetime" and "Past Year" users that begins at age group 50+
That said, those that report use after age 50 (Be it any during life, or past month) show a precipitous drop in reporting. This is assessed to be related to end of life. And when compared to national age distribution curves, a noted difference in terminal age is seen. Those who report drug use stop reporting (ie not around to report any more) much sooner than the national age distrubition aggregates.

Another interesting hump in the data corrosponds to the "boomers" kids (those that run about 20 or so years younger). They also show a raised usage rate over the aggregate.

Overall, for the past decade US national usage rates are trending down.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 7:59 pm

palladin9479 wrote:
Depends on your definition of "DRUGS!!!!". If it's a chemical cocktail cooked up by a pharmaceutical company then it's "A-OK!", even if it has severe side-effects including death. But the death is ok cause you take the purple pill to prevent the death. If it's a natural substance that accomplish's the same effect as same chemical cocktail and it's not on the local church's approved list then its "da DEVIL!".

It's always been a matter of perspective and that's the reason this argument can't be won. Perspective is reality and there are many people who've convinced themselves that "DRUGS = BAD" and thus in their reality they are bad. Their subconscious will perform some amazing mental gymnastics to protect that reality. I'm expecting D to show up soon and do three to four posts in a row telling all of us how "EVIL" his pastor says those drugs are. Right after he ingests drugs approved by his local church of course.

What an incredibly stupid and ignorant person you are. Somehow you've got the notion I have a "Pastor". I don't. Haven't been to church in something like 25 years. Don't even believe that stuff anymore. Somehow you think my opposition to blanket drug usage tolerance stems from some sort of religious conviction. Did I mention you are an idiot?

The things you say demonstrate such an incredible lack of understanding, I am at a loss as to where to begin in even attempting to steer you back to something resembling reality.

My main argument against drug usage has been the real world experiment of China. Drugs MURDERED China. Do you get it? Drugs absolutely DESTROYED CHINA. It wrecked their society, destroyed their economy, and made them so weak they could not suppress a Japanese invasion. It created the instability that gave rise to the Dictatorship of Mao.

Obviously this is some sort of religious argument put forth by a bible thumping true believer or something. Did I mention you are an idiot?

My next main argument is my own personal experience with Crack and Meth Addicts. I've known several that died as a result of drugs, I've known several that spent years in prison because of drugs, i've known those that robbed and stole, and threatened and conned to get drugs, i've known people who didn't take care of their children because they were on drugs. I've seen the damage that drugs caused to people OTHER THAN THE DRUG USERS.

Drug addicts are not trustworthy. They lie, steal and con, or do whatever else it takes to get their fix when they are jonesing. They will engage in literally insane behavior to get their fix. Usually they do a three day binge (if they can find the stuff and the money to buy it) and then they collapse for a couple of days.

But guess what? According to you, this must be some sort of religious argument espoused by some bible thumping pastor. Did I mention you are an idiot?

I could go on regarding my third and fourth arguments, but you seem to be convinced that there is some sort of bible based morality imposition or something, so I don't really see the point in trying to set you straight. Some religious loons think the devil is behind everything that is bad in our lives. You're the same sort of loon, but you think the problems are being caused by kooky church people. Did I mention you are an idiot?

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 8:11 pm

rcain wrote:i don't usually enter into discussions on this subject. for the simple reason that 'reason' itself rarely seems to apply to any of the arguments against; ie. it is unwinnable.

but for the record, i am a long-time 'recreational' user of chemicals, with no regrets and no harm, to myself or to anyone else.

all i see, over the past 50 years or so is the same bunch of people deciding what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' for other members of society to be doing to their own bodies and in their own private lives. it is a form of blind, ignorant fascism; nothing more and nothing less.

And what about China? Was the 100 million murdered people a good enough reason to oppose drugs?

I'm all for liberty, but with such a massive bodycount, how do you justify a "liberty" that results in such a thing?

palladin9479 · Post by **palladin9479** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:01 am

Haha,

And there he is. Thought only two posts instead of the predicted three to four. Maybe we should of whipped him up more.

I like how they at least attributed ODing on alcohol as drug-related, gives a good benchmark to compare against. (A 100% legal dangerous to health recreational drug).

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:36 pm

paperburn1 wrote:"Nothing" in answer to your question.
once that becomes law and policy I will support it. But based on personal experience I do not see this happening in the near future. You see I have the unique perspective of seeing what most people do not see. The bottom line effects of what happens. If you will , read my rant and then sit back and consider. A Friend of mine and of the family opened a pawn shop business. for the past year I have been helping out on Saturdays as they have an employee that has a chronic illness and by hiring me for one day a week they can keep her on the payroll and off of the welfare roles.( darn nice of them) I get to see what unregulated drugs do to a portion of our society and it's not a pretty picture. I would say that one out of ten rope smokers have no effect on their lives at all. two out of ten mildly and six out of ten have some major effect on their lives and one out of ten gets trashed and ruined. In my humble opinion it runs about the same as alcohol abuse. The percentages for harder drugs are a lot worse. and yes you can very easy tell the drug of choice by the physical and physiological reactions of the person using at the time.
Perhaps government regulation of those recreational drugs would limit the harm by controlling potency and dosage. But until that happens I feel and recommend that avoidance it better than usage on any day of the week.

Funny you mention alcohol. Chronic drug use is mostly polydrug use. People switch back and forth depending on the desired effect and availability. And the condition of their bodies. Alcohol being one of the hardest drugs known to man. In states with legal med pot alcohol users switching to med pot caused a 9% drop in highway fatalities (could have been accidents) - the number was teased out from a study of highway accidents.

Basically we are stuck with a certain minimum amount of drug use in society. Pot is less harmful to the user and to society than alcohol. Which is legal.

Look at the brown eyes/blue eyes experiment. It is easy to teach people to hate on the word of authority. And the hate will be rationalized. "I have proof." But authority is not always successful. When that happens a spirit of resistance arises and authority loses most of its power. Or more concretely - prohibitions eventually erode respect for law.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:52 pm

I posted on the US stats before. As well as discussed the shortened life spans documented for users.

Well you must have missed this:

http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/02/w ... ic-deaths/

Marijuana Users Really Are Smart People, According to Study

Researchers looked at 8,000 Brits and pulled out those who scored high on IQ tests as 5 and 10-year-olds.

Men who scored high on the tests as kids were 50 percent more likely to have experimented with a variety drugs including amphetamines and ecstasy. Smart women were more than 50 percent likely to have tried marijuana and cocaine.

http://gaia-health.com/gaia-blog/2012-0 ... es-longer/

and finally:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_drug_theory

Further research has shown that people with a disposition to resort to cannabis use are more likely to live longer and healthier lives than users of other "social drugs" such as alcohol.[20]

...a man hears what he wants to hear. And disregards the rest. ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKjEHfHINQ

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 7:47 pm

...a man hears what he wants to hear. And disregards the rest. ...

You should make that a T-shirt and wear it every day.

You can quote and misrepresent all the silly blogs you want, the data I analyzed is from hard national numbers taken (and still being done) over years.

You are (poorly) conducting a campaign that is founded on indoctrination techniques and then furthered by weak propaganda. Classic approach. I would rate your skills as mediocre at best. But you get an A for persistence. However in this case, persistence will probably not equal success.

Please seek your "PTSD" treatment, you may become enlightened enough to join the rest of us in the real world where people are responsible for their actions, and do not blame others constantly while seeking escape.