Stephanie said:
What do we do with all these POOR souls,(DRUG ADDICTS) who can't or won't work for their money to buy all these legalized drugs?
You see, this is the kind of gross stereotyping that really does not "see" the actual issue.
The *cheap* drug of choice among those "POOR" "ADDICTS" is
ALCOHOL
ALcohol is among the MOST DANGEROUS drugs we have. Alcohol kills 110,000 people a year just from health effect - In AMerica 2,000 people die from alcohol overdose. And homeless people beg in the streets for spare change to get a bottle of Tbird to stay plastered.
Yet we tolerate the very dangerous drug alcohol well as a society, with its above board regulation, and available treatment and education. Moreover, we learned from alcohol prohibition that trying to treat alcoholism with a prohibitionary law actually made matters worse. The same social failure of alcohol prohibition is present in the prohibition of most other recreational drugs.
http://www.DrugWarFAQ.com
Q: Aren't you ignoring the effects of drug-related crimes? What about the stoned people who are mugging grandmas because of their drug habits, to pay for their next fix?
A: Prohibition keeps the street price of drugs very high, creating excellent profits for the drug dealers, and desperation for the addicts, who commit crimes like muggings to find the money to buy their drugs. In Switzerland, where they issue heroin to addicts, the illegal drug trade has all but vanished, as has drug related crime.
Yes, drug addiction (including alcohol addiction and tobacco addiction) is a terrible thing. But if, post-prohibition, an addict can get his or her next dose for the price of a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of wine, it no longer becomes necessary for him to mug a grandma. Yes, he will still be an addict, and his addiction may well take a serious toll on his health or productivity, but he will no longer be a serious danger to the rest of society.
It doesn't matter whether you are for or against people using drugs. What does matter is that we need to lower the costs of drug use to society, not increase them. Spending over 45 billion per year on a policy that has not only failed, but makes matters worse, makes absolutely no sense at all.
Q: I've seen crime increase with alcohol use too, especially violent crimes like wife beatings, sexual assaults, shootings, etc., not to mention thousands of terrible accidents every year. Legalizing alcohol didn't stop the crime related problems it causes. Why do you want to increase those problems? Isn't it bad enough that we have people high on alcohol, causing problems?
A: This is an excellent point, and a "sticking point" for many people who might otherwise oppose prohibition. There is no doubt that a small percentage of the people that use alcohol abuse it. This is true of many drugs, and especially true of an extremely disorienting potentially addictive drug like alcohol.
However, if you study history, you'll see that the thirteen-year era of alcohol prohibition actually made matters much much worse. In fact, prohibition was an unmitigated disaster. Crime skyrocketed, corruption spread through government and police forces, gang violence soared, riddling our streets with bullets. Poorly distilled and unregulated "bathtub gin" blinded and killed people -- both "addicts" and "casual recreational users".
But most importantly, Prohibition did not stop people from drinking alcohol. While there was a drop in usage the first year, by the third year usage was greater than the year before prohibition. See this link for a handy chart:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html
Our point? Prohibition policies are based on fiction. They destroy society by creating an environment of crime and corruption, as well as giving government "Big Brother" powers over the lives, recreational habits, and choices of all citizens.
And prohibition policies create vast bureaucracies. And the lies and propaganda which these bureaucracies must create and disseminate, in order to prop up their fiction, can cause aware and thinking people to develop a tragic deep and permanent distrust of the government, of the hardworking people in law enforcement, and of the political process.
Prohibition and the forces that support it are enemies of liberty and domestic tranquility. While there may be issues with the use, and sometimes abuse, of various recreational drugs like alcohol, those issues and those people that abuse should be dealt with directly, instead of creating an unregulated black market that feeds the mouth of crime. That is all prohibition has ever done, and will ever do.
ANdy
:bat:
:cof: I guess that is about as close as I am going to get for an apology from you....you were wrong....sorry Charlie!
