So, should we bring back Prohibition? :munchin

Isn't that what we have with drugs?

TR

Isn't that effectively what we've got now? Legislated morality, powerful crime syndicates, corrupt officials, an indifferent public, an illegal economy, and the blatant erosion of constitutional rights? The only difference I see is the name. The people pushing the "war on drugs" are smart enough to realize that the title "prohibition" still has negative overtones. Cincinnatus has some valid points. I don't necessarily agree with everything but it's a good start. Decriminalize it, tax it appropriately (they call it a "sin tax" for a reason), spend the money on treatment for those who want it, put the excess into healthcare, and treat use as an aggravating circumstance in any crime. Get law enforcement back into catching and punishing real criminals. Malum in se vs. malum prohibitum. Only idiots and tyrants try to regulate morality. Peregrino

It was a rhetorical question. Peregrino, I couldn't have said it any better myself.

"Did repealing Prohibition reduce the number of alcoholics or alcohol related crimes? "

Maybe not the number of alcoholics, but certainly the number of alcohol related crimes, if only by virtue of the fact that simply consuming alcohol was no longer illegal. I would hazard a guess, though admittedly it's only a guess, that other alcohol related crimes went down as well. Oh, I've no doubt that the stupid shit that drunks do was largely unaffected, but the violence between gangs of bootleggers almost certainly dropped off, and the bribery and corruption had to take a hit.

"I am not dissatisfied with the number of Americans incarcerated."

Really? I'm not baiting you, but I'm surprised if you really mean this. If I have it correctly, the US has a greater percentage of its population incarcerated than any other developed nation. I find it troubling that the land of the free should have so many locked up. Not that the goal should necessarily be to have the lowest incarceration rate, but rather to have the most just society.

There are certainly SF guys who retire, grow their hair, buy a Harley, and start smoking dope. I don't know how widespread this is, but it would apply to at least one or two of my accquaintance and I suspect that you probably know a few who meet this description. Should they be jailed?

Again, I'm not baiting you or trying to score rhetorical points off you, just get you to look at things a little differently.

"I think there are many more who should be off the streets."

There are certainly people walking around who should be in prison. I'd like to see mandatory minimum sentences for armed robbers, not dope smokers. Nor am I deluding myself that some of those who use drugs aren't thoroughly despicable creatures. If a mother smokes crack and neglects her kids, I don't have a problem with child services taking the kids and the mother getting locked up for endangering them. Some tweaker loses it and attacks someone, I hope they get shot and if they survive, get tried, convicted, and locked up.

I just believe that drug use is an attempt to self medicate and that this should not be a crime, in and of, itself. Further, I think something along the lines of what I'm recommending is more just and far less expensive.

Right and shooting someone is just a way to left off steam, robbing folks is just a way to redistribute wealth, selling drugs is just a way to help others self medicate themselves, rape is just a form of propagating the race, and then breaking the law is just a form of self-expression. We can pontificate all day long on how to solve the drug problem and share opinions but the bottom line is that drug use is illegal and as such it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. You want justice, I'll give you justice. Someone gives my kids/grandkids drugs I will beat them justifiably senseless. You hurt someone in my family because you are "attempting to self-medicate" yourself I will beat you justifiably senseless. You do anything that puts my friends or family at risk because you are on drugs I will beat you justifiably senseless. I have seen what drugs do to families up close and personal and I have absolutely no tolerance for anyone that uses drugs and even less for those that sell the stuff.

Jack Moroney-unemotional, simple, uncomplicated, and mild point of view on this subject

If I understand what you're saying, Jack, you can't lend your full support to my proposal at this time.

Sir,
I can take that to an even more BASIC level !!! Quite simply put, A WARNING SHOT THROUGH EITHER TEMPLE will suffice !!! As we say in Texas, there is NO JUSTICE like HOT JUSTICE !!!

Standing by to stand by !!
Martin

Dad and I still agree - you have at least one talent.

i'm not sure, but the POG might be looking for help....

Sorry - It's one of my hot buttons. I worked source interdiction in Bolivia and did some program work in SOCSOUTH in the late 80's - early 90's. I have a fair (though dated) understanding of the problem and no tolerance for the current "solution". I do not think the answer is anywhere near as complicated as the pundits want us to believe. As others have noted it's a consumption problem - no demand, no reason for the market. Fix the demand - deglamorize drug use and remove the economic incentives that exist because of the prohibition economy, and the problem becomes much easier to address. I recommend one of two approaches - either decriminalize it and treat it like we do any other form of intoxication (and rigorously enforce the existing DUI laws) or start summary executions for selling any quantity. The middle road we insist on cleaving to is the practical and moral equivalent of giving a cancer patient placebos.

Please don't misunderstand - I do not condone drug use/abuse (that includes alcohol and tobacco, let's not forget them in our haste to condemn - they just get the benefit of a better lobby). I personally do not care what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home - I firmly support the broadest definition of the "castle doctrine". My key is "consenting adult" - there are specific legal concepts that define the term fairly well. Society has a well recognized responsibility (though not necessarily a duty) to protect persons incapable of consent for whatever reason. So long as the actions of the supposed consenting adults do not infringe on the rights of others let them do as they please. Just don't expect me to feel sorry for them, nor expect me to pay for their stupidity. On the other hand - as soon as they step out the door and rejoin the rest of us, all bets are off. Especially if they mess with me or mine. COL M and AM have the right of it. Sadly, society is more afraid of the vigilanteism inherent in the concept of self defense/personal responsibility than they are of the drugs and the failures of the current system to protect them in the first place. (Somebody once said something about sheep not liking the sheepdog - even with the wolf breathing down their neck.) Enough rambling - I'm getting frustrated. Peregrino

I kind of regret my last post, as it was flip and this is a serious subject. My overarching issues are two.

The first is philosophical. I think what someone wants to put in their own body is their business. I support the notion that an individual has the right to take their own life, so it would be hypocritical (sp?) for me to say "but you can't poison yourself a bit at a time."

Jack was incensed by my "self medicating" comment, but I was serious. People in pain from chemo, or the woman who just lost her case in SCOTUS who's been suffering from back pain, find relief smoking pot. I just can't see that it's anyone else's business. Now I think that a lot of people medicate when they shouldn't and I support education, intervention, and other methods to get and keep them off drugs, but feel that the decision is their own.

My second objection is purely pragmatic. What we are doing hasn't worked. When I was in college a gram of cocaine went for $100 and I'm told, was generally about 25% pure. When I asked, while having a discussion not dissimilar to this one, what that same gram of cocaine would run today, I was told (by a narcotics officer who works an interjurisdictional task force [I think Sneaky knows who I'm referring to]) that it would probably be LESS than $100 and would probably be closer to 40% pure. So in twenty five years the price has fallen, pretty dramatically when one adjusts for inflation, and the quality has gone up!

We've spent untold millions, lives have been lost and others ruined and we're no better off than when we started. So even if I didn't have severe philosophical reservations about "the war on drugs" I have grave practical reservations.

I don't kid myself that my proposal solves all the problems, but this is something that I've thought a great deal about and it's the best that I've been able to come up with.

The thing about freedom is that if you want to be free you have to support other people's right to be free even if you know they're going to do some really stupid shit.

Effective if not necessarily elegant. You make valid points. What gets overlooked in the rhetoric is that freedom also entails responsibilities and limits - a concept not popular with a vocal percentage of the legalization crowd yet something most of us here acknowledge and support. A civilized society operates on a "code of conduct". We have all of us, constrained our public personas within society's rules, written or otherwise, in order that we might participate more fully in that society. The "counterculture" (drugs, criminals, etc.) seeks to derive benefit from society yet avoid overtly conforming to the norms for selfish purposes. Life doesn't work that way. What's worse, a lot of the "really stupid shit" you obliquely refer to crosses the line between liberty and liscense. I personally refuse to grant liscense for idiots to impinge my liberties. And yet between the threat posed by the criminal underclass, the users they prey upon, and the overbearing government combatting the drug "problem" that's exactly what has happened. (Let's not forget the "War on Terrorism" either.) I (and everyone else in this country) am now less free than any previous generation of American. All because some selfish bastard wants to get high and expects to be able to do it without paying consequences and some other power mad bastard wants to control everybody's life. That infuriates me.

BTW - The "self medicating" argument isn't a very good one. Medical THC has been available by prescription for years - my father's second wife used it in the 80's to control pain and nausea for chemo. My mother used it for the same reasons in the early 90's. So relief is available without resorting to illegal consumption of controlled substances. The current "medical marajuana" craze is mostly politics. Though the SCOTUS needs to remember the 10th Ammendment the next time it deliberates. My .02 - Peregrino

Edited to add: Back to the original thread - If they sic moths on the Colombian coca crop what will the ecologic impact be? Rabbits to Australia? Snakes to Guam? Snakeheads in the Potomac? You would think we had learned by now - don't mess with Mother Nature!

got to say....Peregrino, I am your biggest fan, and I think that Thomas Jefferson, were he still with us, would feel likewise.

I am fascinated by the approaches taken by other countries in confronting this behemoth problem. Here in the Kingdom of Thailand, the Prime Minister last year declared "war" on drugs. At the end of it, I want to say that over 2,000 ostensible drug dealers had been summarily shot dead on the streets, typically while "evading arrest." Maybe it was over 4,000 dead. I forget.

But anyway, the point was made. You sell drugs, and you get caught, you just might be shot down in the street like a dog, and never make it to the police station, much less a court.

Thai public opinion was overwhelmingly favorable.

No doubt, abuses....violations of due process....mistakes....abounded. But overall, the primary complainers were overseas NGOs. Thai public opinion supported the bloodshed.

There have been two further "wars" declared since then, both with dramatically lower body counts.

I do not have access to statistics which can inform an assessment of the efficacy of these measures, but I can tell you that simple street trafficking has been significantly curtailed.

Well I don't think you are going to get much of an argument from folks here, most of us have stood in harms way to defend the right of others to enjoy the freedoms paid for in blood that many now take for granted. The thing that makes us free is that we are a country of laws and all have an obligation to follow and support those laws until they are changed. You are not free to do anything that impinges on the legal freedoms of others regardless of what label you wish to give it be it "really stupid shit" or otherwise.

Jack Moroney