What is Digg?165 Comments
- nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -6/+77"There is untold billions upon billions of dollars tied up in illicit narcotics the world over. Everybody from the gigantic banks down to the crack addict in the alley have their hands dirty. If we were actually stop the drugs from coming into America, the economy would take a massive hit. So it will never happen. And therefore people like my sister (who was an addict) will continue to die."
Prohibition makes it obscenely profitable. Every nickel spent on the war on drugs only raises the prices.
Prohibition makes it dangerous. Addicts die because dosage and quality of black-market drugs are unregulated. - ulcards2033, on 10/12/2007, -7/+60So let me see if I'm understanding your point correctly. We, a nation supposedly about freedoms and protecting them, should not only continue to deny freedoms to our own citizens, but also force these restrictions on others? It's not anyones fault that your sister became an addict except her own.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+55The whole concept of "waging war" on abstract concepts - terror, poverty, drugs, christmas - is fallacious.
That's why all such wars are unwinnable (or, if you're defending, unlosable). - drjones78, on 10/12/2007, -3/+51Doesn't matter how many cocaine fields you napalm, people will find a way to get high. Theres plenty of ways to do it with over the counter products and drugs, as well as many other things found in nature, that you will never be able to possibly control. Its time to stop all this nonsense. People like to get high, and will risk jail and lives to do it if you dont let them do it legally. Its futile.
- BenSerwa, on 10/12/2007, -2/+38Heroin is now 300x cheaper than when the war on drugs began. It's also turned from 5% pure drug to 95% pure drug. If your sister died of an overdose, blame the war on drugs, which caused overdoses like that to be possible. Napalming the fields might put a small dent into it for the short term, but the long term truth is, people who want drugs are always going to be able to get drugs, no matter what anyone does (including if you stick them in prison).
There's also the matter of the sovereignty of those countries, of course. What happens when those countries go, "Hey, your laws don't apply here?" If the US is worried about being the target of terrorism, flying over the borders of other countries to napalm them is not the way to go about helping that situation. The world would be pissed. They'd basically be ***** all around. - mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -10/+46You are insane. Did you even read what you wrote? You're advocating mass murder to save lives.
- signal15, on 10/12/2007, -4/+31The war on drugs isn't all about a war on drugs. A good portion of it is about social control. Certain groups of people are more likely to deal and use drugs, and the government can use the war on drugs as justification to control these groups to a degree by putting them in prison.
- mugenkeiji, on 10/12/2007, -8/+35Yes, we should do that because the drugs, by themselves, reached out and strangled your sister *rolls eyes*
As callous as it might sound, your sister killed herself by her own voluntary action. If she, knowing the dangers associated with drug use, could not or did not take appropriate steps to limit her use and/or the danger, then the blame lies with her and not the availability of a substance. A drug cannot be of harm to any person until that person actively decides to begin using it, and decides the quantities in which it will be used.
There are many more who have the sense and prudence to enjoy recreational use of drugs without being so foolish as to become ensnared in highly addictive ones, or taking hazardous combinations or quantities. - dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27I live in the netherlands, by no means a perfect but in this case a most certainly enlightened country. In our country a policy of tolerance has worked and has produced the consistently lowest addiction and death rates and very low convinction rates. And we would get petty crime under control too if we would be able to release police resources from still having to go after the addicts - who are effectively the victims.
On a different note:
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2382/
http://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedonist.htm
If someone's sister dies, she dies because she was sick and her brain had a deficiency that made her crave a different neurological balance - not because her soul and free will somehow led her astray, seduced by some externalized evil that needs to be eradicated. She was sick man, honor her memory. Respect who she was and acknowledge her disease. - zephc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21There's no drug problem - there's enough for everyone!
- ulcards2033, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Reagan? Every president since Nixon?
- BenSerwa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19Wrong. Blatantly false. Do the research and try again.
- ixtapalapaquetl, on 10/12/2007, -10/+25You couldn't be more wrong, my brother.
The problem does not lie with the producers. It lies with those who create the demand. When you limit the supply without addressing the demand, you only create scarcity. Such scarcity is what fuels crime and violence due to the enormous profit potential.
The only meaningful way to fight the drug problem is to go after the American users. Eliminate the demand, and all those fields in Colombia will start producing corn within a month, guaranteed.
We are the problem, not them.
- Mullinator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16I never could understand why people are punished for making mistakes that affect their own minds and bodies rather than the minds of bodies of other people. If I smoke marijuana in the privacy of my own home what exactly is the negative effect this will have on anyone other than myself?
I completely agree with Milton Friedman when he said that treating drugs as a health issue rather than a criminal issue is the way to go. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16[chong]someone waged war on drugs? oh man, i hope drugs win[/chong]
- ulcards2033, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17And what exactly are they protecting us from with the prohibition of marijuana?
- dpk87, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Nixon?
- mugenkeiji, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17Jagdhund:
You are contemptible. You are presumptuous in the very strict meaning of the word: without having ever tried any of the more popular illicit drugs (and perhaps not even alcohol), you presume to be able to pass 'moral' judgment on the use of those drugs.
Immoral by whose authority? For what reason?
Your authority? hah. Jagdhund the arbiter of contemporary morality. You do not even give no reasons, other than for one solitary and quite disappointingly inane observation: you have seen 'how it ends up'.
For whom? People who resorted to drugs to evade dealing with problems in their lives? People who never had the money or stability to support casual, recreational use? I suspect that you are inventing experiences which you have not, in fact, had. Even if you are being truthful, what you describe is but a small, visible subset of total drug use.
Do you think that all drug use inexorably leads to perdition? I would observe a massive number of individuals, of every age and socio-economic class, who are capable of using illicit drugs in a manner no different to alcohol; that is, as an infrequent casual indulgence, without any impact whatsoever on any other aspect of their lives. What do you say to them? They curiously defy your presumptous sanctimonious 'moral' nonsense. - Phatt138, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Jagd-
"Harmful substances such as opium and cocaine are originating in only a few locations really, and if we had the political will, we could sanction those countries until they do more to help."
For one thing, remember that this is a supply and demand issue. Even if you managed to totally annihilate the cocaine trade, it'd be replaced by synthetic substances that could be produced anywhere in the world. Technically, any of this is already feasible - it just costs a lot more to maintain a huge chemical facility than it does to terrorize Columbian farmers who have no other way of making a living. As for opium, not only are there synthetic variations on it as well, but poppies can be grown indoors just like anything else. You could grow opium-producing poppies in your windowbox, if you so desired. The only reason that 'all' the opium comes from one place is that - again - it's cheaper to get it where it grows naturally than to create a suitable environment elsewhere. The bottom line is this: when there is demand, there will be supply. It's just the reality of the situation. Hell, there are whole industries waiting in the wings for a chance at taking over the illicit drug trade. If you take coke off the market, you'll just see a surge in other 'party' drugs.
Finally, we've done this before, if you'll recall. In the 1980's, we fueled an inter-cartel war in Columbia ostensibly to stem the cocaine trade but in reality to secure ready access to Venezuelan oil. We chose a side that would 'play nice' with us in the end, gave them old Soviet helicopters and AK's, and let them loose on their competitors. Burned fields, stormed farming communities, shut down hundreds of processing facilities. In return we chose to focus our energies on one cartel rather than the other. A kind of "you scratch my back..." deal. Well, we both scratched some backs, but the cocaine trade continues, and Columbia is a more dangerous and violent place than before.
The only possible path to control is through legalization, as we saw with the alcohol prohibition. Unfortunately, we live in a bureaucracy where a government program's most important goal is to avoid obvious obsolescence, and the War on Drugs is worth its weight in Columbian Gold. - hambend, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Protect who, now? Throwing users in prison isn't protecting them. Taking away their lively hood and turning them into bottom-feeding lowlifes with zero career prospects, newfound criminal friends and a healthy hatred for the state doesn't protect anyone else, either.
The only thing getting protected by the war on drugs is the profits of those who sell them. - BenSerwa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11As if the government couldn't make money off of drugs if they wanted to...
- Ystig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10It's the simplest of legal principles: a law which is unenforceable should not exist within a properly functioning system of criminal law.
And it's the simplest of rights theories: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - not the life the government wants you to lead, restricted to liberties the members of government feel comfortable with, pursuing a sort of happiness that legislators consider appropriate.
So how can it possibly be illegal to grow a plant in the privacy of your own home, whether it be cannabis or magic mushrooms or what have you, and consume it for one's own gratification.
What utterly mad conception of personal liberty believes this activity to be outside the rights of the individual, and surpassing an extreme at which government must intercede to limit and control the life of the private citizen on his own property?
What hairbrained legal system believes that it can function as Houseplant Police in a nation of millions?
Frighteningly, most of them. - nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@Jagdhund
"I can agree with the safety, but I don't believe people need to be experimenting chemically."
a) People do need to experiment chemically, and they will never stop. It is part of human nature. There are tribes in South America who don't know how their wives get pregnant, but they know that if they peel several bushels full of bark off a particular kind of tree, scrape the inside of it out, mix it with water and boil it down to form a paste, dry the paste to a powder, then blow the powder far up into each others nostrils with a hollowed out stick, they have visions. How'd they figure that out? We have it in our nature to seek out consciousness altering experiences.
b) People who use drugs, legal or otherwise, are not all "experimenting". Do you drink coffee? Think it should be illegal? Consider coffee drinking as "experimentation"? People use drugs, legal and illegal, to acheive a desired effect.
"In any case, nepawoods, how do you do dosage for someone who craves the substance over anything else, and will lie/cheat/steal to get more than your small, safe dosage? How do you manage such an addictive substance as cocaine and meth?"
People don't overdose because they crave unsafe dosages. They overdose because they end up taking more than they thought they were.
"If you want to disagree morally, please shoot back with an arguement other than 'it feels guud!'."
Prohibition doesn't work. Education does, but not in a repressive atmosphere. How do you morally defend relegating the production and distribution of drugs that people will inevitably take to an unregulated black market? How do you morally defend making millionaires of petty thugs?
"'It's my body and I'll do what I want' holds slightly more weight, but we still have laws in place to keep people from harming themselves, so, I don't want to hear that, either."
The drug laws don't keep people from harming themselves, they make it more likely. And the most popular illicit drug, marijuana, is virtually harmless anyway. - fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@mogus
But you don't call your struggle for life a war on death. Calling it a war is just a way to reduce a complex set of problems to a simple concept, i.e. drugs are bad, let's fight drugs. - Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Here, take this pill instead.
- carltonsmith, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10And why do you think napalming the fields will get rid of it? Of course, we could foment more hatred against America by the small farmers in Central and South America and in Asia. Then they will simply grow the same stuff elsewhere. If there is a demand, people will provide a supply. Money talks...[you know the rest of the statement]
- TBagwell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@theblooms
congratulations on missing the point entirely. win = you - mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10You're right, just because it isn't winnable is no reason to quit the War on Drugs. We should quit because it's stupid. The WoD causes far more injury than drugs do, or ever would.
Most people nowadays favor legalizing marijuana. That would be a good start if we could ever bring it to a referendum. It has been brought to vote in Nevada and Colorado, where it lost. But if we keep pushing it, it will win one of these days, and then we'll start to see some positive changes. - Lewie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Jagdhund,
How far are you going to go to keep people from "hurting" themselves? And how do you define "hurt"? Marijuana seems to have little, if any, long term physical effects. But if you want to keep people from hurting themselves, why not outlaw boxing, or sports on the whole. More people have died from playing football than smoking marijuana. Mountain climbing is risky, why not outlaw it? Hell, too much cholesterol will kill you. Outlaw twinkies?
Or is the problem with super-hard substances that are addictive and dangerous with repeated use? Occasional cocaine use won't kill you (why Charlie Sheen is still with us). So should cocaine be legal, but crack not?
People like taking risks. It's an adrenaline rush. People choose to get their fix in many ways. Sure, some are drugs. But some are skydiving, sports, or gambling. Whose morals should we use to justify a nation's laws? Perhaps the Amish? Maybe Howard Stern? Personally, if I'm not restricting anyone else's freedoms, I don't see why MY PERSONAL ETHICS are not good enough to rule me. - dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Killing those who don't believe in god used to be the right thing to do. They'd burn them actually. Well, times change.
- Mworthin, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15Bulls*#@t!
We will NEVER stop drug abuse in the US by attempting to stop production. Americans like to get high and as long as the demand it there, drugs will flow into this country.
The drug war is a fool's errand.
Legalize it all and tax it like tobacco.
That way we might be able to pay off the huge deficit that Chimpy has allowed to grow while he has been in office, in forty or fifty years.
The war on drugs,,,policy that is ineffective, costly and hopeless. Sounds rather like Iraq! - flashboy131, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@Azur2
I think Jr. was following the example or Sr. ... Drugs, Terror. I think the concept on paper is ... noble?, but like you said, too vague to win. Success can't be measured. - nonannystate, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@broomett...I'd sure love to get my hands on whatever made you so high you could believe that lie. Study after study after study shows all people do is switch hit; LSD in the 60s, free basing in the 70s, coke in the 80s, ecstacy 90s, etc etc etc. There is absolutely no difference in the level of drug abuse. In the 50s, housewives (and Elvis) had their Bennies. The rate of use is the same. Illegalizing drugs, however, has caused people's homes to be raided in the middle fo the night by mistake, countless murders on the streets, and for our prison population to be the largest in the WORLD. LARGER THAN CHINA. Now theres something to call a win!
- outbreakofevil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Prohibition is retarded. All these stupid teenagers get high simply because it is illegal, and the idea of doing something that is morally (and legally) unacceptable just makes it all the "cooler".
"In any case, nepawoods, how do you do dosage for someone who craves the substance over anything else, and will lie/cheat/steal to get more than your small, safe dosage? How do you manage such an addictive substance as cocaine and meth?"
@ Jagdhund
Well, they wouldn't exactly be craving the substance over anything else given that they were given more managable doses from the beginning. Sure, dosage won't work for junkies. It's like giving someone any amount of money that they want whenever they want, and then telling them they can only take $5 a day. - spartan777, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8supporting a war against drugs, and voicing that support, will win votes.
- nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@Jaghund
"Yes, the war on crime is also unwinnable, we may as well legalize burglary and tax the hell out of it. This is because people like to kill and steal, they always have. You can't stop people from committing crimes, they will always find a way."
Bad analogy. The vast majority of people do not kill or rob or commit crimes other than drug crimes. The vast majority DO commit drug offenses at some point in their life. And society, really, doesn't care. A Presidential candidate may have used illegal drugs in the past, and nobody considers it an issue with regard to his fitness to lead the country. If he were a burglar, murderer, rapist, etc. it would be altogether different.
"Yes, I despise your defeatist attitude towards such things."
Defeatist? Here is defeatist for you: Education can not work, so we must give government the authority to imprison people for their own good, regardless of whether they have done something that hurts anyone at all. - ChrisDeBurg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Just one question:
If i choose to:
1. Plant a seed on MY property
2. Grow it in MY soil
3. Harvest MY crop
4. Process MY produce
5. Enjoy the bounty of MY labour
Where the f*#k do YOU come into the equation?
Answers please - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7
http://leap.cc/
even a good number of narcotics officers think th war on drugs is insane.
Of course some people will tell you there are only two choices
either we are totally hard core on drugs or we force our population on heroin.
Many decriminalized states are still very hard on drugs, just the people are forced into rehab instead of jail
they actually ave a higher success rate and the people coming out of rehab dont have a criminal record which would make their lives situations even worse.(which is often why they are on drugs in the first place) - nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Marijuana should be completely free and unregulated. Farmers should be able to sell it at roadside stands like they do sweet corn and melons.
- tyho, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The drug war is a complete failure. The reason there is so much crime associated with drugs is because of the illegality.
The reason we can't legalize is there are too many people making a profit on both sides of the war. It also doesn't help that the old timers have had the negative stigma drilled into them for a generation. I hope we have a chance to correct this farce when they all die off. Let people be free, even if they kill themselves. - nonannystate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Jaghund is a moron; I can't reply to its replies, so I'll just post here. Why not just legalize burglary? Because, moron, burglary is a crime committed against someone ELSE. Using drugs, if they were just legal, has NO victim. That's the point. Personal drug use is victimless; you fools who think you can tell me what to do and what's good for me, and make illegal everything you think is good for me would call for anarchy if we outlawed religion because we think it brainwashes too many baffoons who ruin our lives with idiocy. Yet there you go cruising along thinking that DRUGS are our problem, while we think your BRAIN is OUR problem.
That's probably the least logical thing I've submitted but I just can't think straight; either I'm stoned (hmm, not right now) or too enfuriated by the notion that the government gets to tell me what's good for me. Frightful. - dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Bull *****
If you are not a coward, watch this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3653114296815352489
A prohibition of a highly desired commodity will cause the growth of criminal syndicates, the product to be used with no quality/safety control, and a massive development of distribution infrastructure. I SHIVER in terror just how much pain our society will have to endure before we learn this lesson.
In a few years we will have chemical sequencers, able to synthesize chemicals with desktop devices, in the privacy of your own home, and generate literally millions of different psychoactive chemicals in effective strengths as to have an effective dose in the milligrams. Imagine microtabs with designer drugs more addictive, arousing, longlasting that any of the existing drugs existing today. In a few years we will see users move away from old narcotics such as crach, heroin, cocaine to new substances that are as easy to produce as you desk top publishing and printing a grocery list. Just download the chemical formula, run it through a chemical synthesizer and print a tab. These technologies WILL exist and WILL be obiquitous.
When that times arrives, do you want to prosecute? Sentence? Send all who break the crimes to prison? Even if you'd have to send 10 million to prison? Or 20? Even if you'd have to become WAY worse of a police state than you are now?
Oh yeah, I forgot, the frog is already medium done and can't jump out of the boiling water anymore. Or maybe the frog simply doesn't give a ***** anymore and wants to die because he knows what's ahead. - TheChihuahua, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7But who will protect the citizens from the government? Enough of this hand-wringing 'think of the children!' attitude, people NEED to be held responsible for their own actions. All those examples you've given are examples of behaviour that is illegal, and rightfully so - but why should, for example, marijuana be illegal? Are people not intelligent enough, in this day and age, to make their own informed choice as regards to such substances, do we really need government controlling EVERY aspect of our lives?
The problem with phrases such as "War on Dugs" is that it turns a complicated issue into a simple, black and white situation, same as "War on Terror". The Bush administration seems to have cultivated this "Good guys vs Bad guys" attitude on so many issues, and all too many people seem more than willing to lap it up. - gothsquirrel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The article entitled "Drugs Win Drug War" from The Onion just about encompasses it for me.
- Mr.Ortiz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7If drugs were legal, they would be taxed as heavily as cigarrettes. The government's profits would be HUGE. Unfortunately, you can't win an election (yet) if you say drugs should be legal.
- BuffalOBisoN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Why is marijuana illegal? Look : http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html
- ViktorVaughn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@spartan777
"Fighting against drugs is the right thing to do. The government has the responsibility to protect its citizens."
So I take it you're for gun control, anti-smoking legislation and anti-trans-fat legislation, Social Security, welfare and other social safety-net programs.
How far would you take the government's role as protector? How many non-violent users need to be turned into criminals for us to be safe. The ones that use coke? How about heroin? OK, psychedelics? Pot? Caffeine? Alcohol? Cigarettes? Where do you draw the line? Cigarettes kill more people every year than alcohol, heroin, coke, and meth combined. Why hasn't tobacco been classified schedule 1 if it really were about protecting people and saving lives?
It's your opinion that the war on drugs is the "right" thing to do. I think the right thing to do is not put non-violent people in jail because what substances they chose to use to relax or enjoy themselves differs from you.
And don't give me the whole "dangerous criminal element that is associated with the drug trade" argument. You know just as well as I do that the only reason aspects of the drug trade are dangerous is because it is a black market. You don't see people shooting each other in the streets anymore over the alcohol trade, do you? - kanemano, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7There will always be drugs, until there is a cure for pain
- elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Aha, there you go.
You are 100% right. In the (Paraphrased) words of John Stuart Mills, there should NEVER be a law 'for your own good'
Anything that's not addictive shouldn't even be an argument. It should be legal, PERIOD.
The actual argument comes with the addictive drugs (Not saying which side I'm for), it's that someone taking an addictive drug is much, MUCH more likely to engage in behavior that will damage someone else who is not addicted to any drugs. That's when there's the problem. Addictive substances are usually not very good for society at large. - salivalnz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@archer75 -
You're ***** ignorant. As far as I read, no one's advocating driving while stoned, or working with machinery while stoned.
We're talking about smoking a joint in the comfort and privacy of your living room and playing Wii Sports like an unco spaz. It's a bit of fun and it's harmless.
Putting people behind bars for doing that is not going to solve anything.
People who drive while high should face the same consequences as those who drive while drunk. And the consequences need to be more severe.
(Anyway, there was a video on digg recently about how pot use doesn't affect your ability to drive. Although the tests weren't scientific in any way, it was an interesting example. People I've driven with while high have always been heaps more cautious than they would be normally and tend to drive slower, but I still agree that any true conscious-affecting drug doesn't mix with driving.) -
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