John Stossel: End The Drug War

[Thiebear]

Im a Libertarian but there needs to be SOME common sense.

Certain drugs are no different than alcohol and or prescription.

there are others that are a harm to everyone around them.

[SkinsHokieFan]

Im a Libertarian but there needs to be SOME common sense.

Certain drugs are no different than alcohol and or prescription.

there are others that are a harm to everyone around them.

Of course. Heroin should be 100 percent banned, and dealers put to death in my opinion.

Cocaine as well.

Pot? No way

[ACW]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Medical_use

[thebluefood]

I totally get what you guys are saying; but to me, no matter what your drug of choice is, it is your decision. We live in a country where we have access to information about what substances can do to us. When you choose to take a drug, you're accepting personal responsibility for your what it does to you and to other people. You can choose not to do it just as you chose to do it. As far as I'm concerned, a person is ALWAYS responsible for their actions (unless they are, somehow, manipulated into doing something or are mentally ill).

Though it's a cliche, life is all about making choices.

[ACW]

I totally get what you guys are saying; but to me, no matter what your drug of choice is, it is your decision. We live in a country where we have access to information about what substances can do to us. When you choose to take a drug, you're accepting personal responsibility for your what it does to you and to other people. You can choose not to do it just as you chose to do it. As far as I'm concerned, a person is ALWAYS responsible for their actions (unless they are, somehow, manipulated into doing something or are mentally ill).

Though it's a cliche, life is all about making choices.

:chestram:

[SkinsHokieFan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Medical_use

Believe me I understand the "medical" uses of heroin.

But I have seen the destructive force it is right in front of my face. I really have no sympathy for heroin dealers.

Pot, I got no problem with. Heroin is a completely different story

[NavyDave]

You do realize who you're talking to, there?

Somebody who doesn't think Morals isn't a 4 letter word unlike people who say it in a bad way.

[ACW]

Somebody who doesn't think Morals isn't a 4 letter word unlike people who say it in a bad way.

Please, your "morals" are equivalent to those of Fred Phelps.

[NavyDave]

NavyDave's ignorance is FAR worse than marijuana (which, BTW, has NEVER directly killed anyone.

Yeah somehow we are supposed to believe pro Potheads of the Generation of Twits can think clearly while under the influence.

Oops yeah those 8 people killed in NYC because the driver was high on marijuana was an isolated incident. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/26/new.york.fatal.crash/index.html

Just like the ferry boat driver or the 11th and 12th graders in Md and Va with crosses and teddybears marking where they met their demise with philly blunts and other paraphernalia found inside the cars.

[NavyDave]

Please, your "morals" are equivalent to those of Fred Phelps.

Fred Phelps is black? Who would have thunked it.

Funny how I even defended gays when that group started with their wicked attacks and even Larry can vouch for that, son.

[mojobo]

I'm all for drug users killing themselves by willing ingesting narcotics, etc as long as my tax dollars don't have to pay for their medical bills, housing, rehab or unemployment.

When society is culled of unproductive substance abusers or relocated to hippie villages it will be a beautiful place to be a part of.

When drugs are criminalized, your tax dollars are paying for their medical bills, housing, rehab and unemployment when they are imprisoned. If drugs are made legal then the drug users pay taxes and benefit you. The "ban" shifts the responsibility/consequences from the users themselves to the taxpayers. It is pointless for a government to try to forcibly correct an adults behaviors which affects nobody else, not to mention very expensive.

[wilsonian]

"If one abolishes man’s freedom to determine his own consumption, one takes all freedoms away."

- Ludwig von Mises

[PeterMP]

One of the few times I agree with the hard-core libertarians on this board.

And for once Stossel just presents his argument fairly, instead of doing his usual strawman routine. Good read.

Yeah, like there aren't all kinds of reasons to explain this:

"Many people fear that if drugs were legal, there would be much more use and abuse. That's possible, but there is little evidence to support that assumption. In the Netherlands, marijuana has been legal for years. Yet the Dutch are actually less likely to smoke than Americans. Thirty-eight percent of American adolescents have smoked pot, while only 20 percent of Dutch teens have. One Dutch official told me that "we've succeeded in making pot boring.""

Beyond legalization.

And he's wrong.

(Well not entirely. The problem isn't legalization. It is commercialization, and I've posted the studies on it before too. And you see the samething if you look at the end of US prohibition. Legalization doesn't increase use, but comericialiaztion does.)

There's also the epigenetic issue, which may or might not be inheretiable.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753378/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

[Bostic Hog]

When drugs are criminalized, your tax dollars are paying for their medical bills, housing, rehab and unemployment when they are imprisoned. If drugs are made legal then the drug users pay taxes and benefit you. The "ban" shifts the responsibility/consequences from the users themselves to the taxpayers. It is pointless for a government to try to forcibly correct an adults behaviors which affects nobody else, not to mention very expensive.

Funny how medicare/caid pay for a HELL OF A LOT of smokers' conditions -- where is the personal responsibility with the smokers? If you only knew the amount of care/caid $$$ goes to dealing with smoking-related conditions, you'd realize that the lack of a ban does NOT shift squat.

[BadKarma]

I would support the legalization of pot and I am generally right wing, mainly because I would prefer the government get its share of the revenue and fix this damn economy rather than users continue to have tax free transactions, plus I would imagine the relief on the prison system for future pot associate criminals would be a major help in stopping the economic bleeding.

I think you would have to treat it like alcohol and make it either a home usage / bar type thing and also develop some sort of test to insure that people who are driving are testable and not under the influence. Other than that I see a lot more good being done from the legalization of pot than in continuing to allow foreign gangsters to continue to lurk around making money of the american people.

My only question is what to do regarding the millions of Americans already in prison for trafficking or selling pot? Do you grandfather them in? What did they do in California for all the prisoners in jail for pot crimes when they made it "legal" out there?

[thebluefood]

I'd leave that up to the govenors, if I were the president.

Then again, I'm a big 10th Amendment guy.

[PeterMP]

IMy only question is what to do regarding the millions of Americans already in prison for trafficking or selling pot? Do you grandfather them in? What did they do in California for all the prisoners in jail for pot crimes when they made it "legal" out there?

"The idea that our nation’s prisons are overflowing with otherwise lawabiding people convicted for nothing more than simple possession of marijuana is treated by many as conventional wisdom.

But this, in fact, is a myth—an illusion conjured and aggressively perpetuated by drug advocacy groups seeking to relax or abolish America’s marijuana laws. In reality, the vast majority of inmates in state and federal prison for marijuana have been found guilty of much more than simple possession. Some were convicted for drug

trafficking, some for marijuana possession along with one or more other offenses. And many of those serving time for marijuana pled down to possession in order to avoid prosecution on much more serious charges.

In 1997, the year for which the most recent data are available, just 1.6 percent of the state inmate population were held for offenses involving only marijuana, and less than one percent of all state prisoners (0.7 percent) were incarcerated with marijuana possession as the only charge, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). An even smaller fraction of state prisoners in 1997 who were convicted just for marijuana possession were firsttime offenders (0.3 percent)."

http://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/pdf/whos_in_prison_for_marij.pdf

I've known quite a few people arrested for possesion, and several that have been arrested for intent to distribute, I don't know a single person that went to jail on a first offense (I do know some that did for violating probation by doing various things).

[ACW]

I'd leave that up to the govenors, if I were the president.

Then again, I'm a big 10th Amendment guy.

Even THAT would be a MASSIVE improvement.

And ND with his Generation of Twits :blahblah:

Funny, Snoop Dogg seems to've done fine for himself. And smoking pot sure didn't seem to stop Phelps.

[Hubbs]

I've known quite a few people arrested for possesion, and several that have been arrested for intent to distribute, I don't know a single person that went to jail on a first offense (I do know some that did for violating probation by doing various things).

Well, ****, as long as we're arresting someone for a really stupid reason at least twice, I'm all for it.

[techboy]

Do you suppose that this...

One of the few times I agree with the hard-core libertarians on this board.

... might be coloring this...

And for once Stossel just presents his argument fairly, instead of doing his usual strawman routine. Good read.

In any case, on topic, I am not cool with legalization, but I do believe that a European approach treating drugs (especially the harder ones like heroin) as a health issue instead of a criminal issue makes a lot of sense.

[Larry]

Legalization doesn't increase use, but comericialiaztion does.

Then perhaps we should consider:

Legalizing drugs.

And prohibiting their advertising.

[ACW]

Then perhaps we should consider:

Legalizing drugs.

And prohibiting their advertising.

1st Amendment though...

[Bliz]

1st Amendment though...

The 1st Amendment applies where and how we say it applies

Have you ever seen a commercial for cigarettes?

[PeterMP]

The 1st Amendment applies where and how we say it applies

Have you ever seen a commercial for cigarettes?

Well, commercialization is more than tv. Essentially, if you have "brands", you will have commercialization (there was no tv at the end of prohibition).

And it wouldn't make some people happy, including John Stossel.

I think clearly what we have been doing is broken. I have no issue moving to a Portugese (selling drugs is illegal and a criminal offense, possession isn't, but you have to in front of a panel and treatment or fines (or nothing) can be required) or Greek (selling drugs is illegal, if you are guilty of possession, then a determination is made if you are an addict. If you are an addict, you are shunted into treatment, if not, you are shunted into the criminal justice system with minor penalities) system.

[thebluefood]

I can't see why we don't just let people put the poison in their body. We're fine with people smoking and drinking, which have dire consequences on their own. Let people make their own decisions and if they screw up, hold them responsible for what they've done and punish them.

It's all about personal responsibility. If you can't handle it, don't do it; lest you do something stupid/horrific while under the inflluence.