Pot Wars!

[Wolfbeckett]

I guess I need to clarify that I was only talking about prohibition on drugs that you use personally. Anything that serves primarily to facilitate victimizing others is a completely different thing.

 

[onejayhawk]

I guess I need to clarify that I was only talking about prohibition on drugs that you use personally. Anything that serves primarily to facilitate victimizing others is a completely different thing.

That is not a valid distinction, which is why your statement was too strong. So called recreational drugs are extensively used to victimize and control others.

J

 

[warpus]

Well, date rape drugs are designed to facilitate rape. Rape is never, under any scenario, going to be moral or legal.

 

[onejayhawk]

Well, date rape drugs are designed to facilitate rape. Rape is never, under any scenario, going to be moral or legal.

Neither is sexual slavery. Hard drugs are often used to enforce control over prostitutes.

The point is that the issues are not simple and that it is easy to over-generalize.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

While I generally agree, this is too strong. Prohibition does work if the public condemnation is strong. For example, date rape drugs.

I really like how well this was phrased.

Both Rohypnol and Ambien are most commonly used as recreational drugs more than anything, but they're both associated with date rape. I don't think the public minds that they're kept as 'illegal' drugs. I think users and dealers probably exercise greater concern about hiding their use than you'd see with (say) marijuana. In fact, if you find out someone is buying them, there're strong odds you'll judge them morally very different than if someone was buying (say) heroin.

OTOH, the most common date-rape drug, alcohol is completely resistant to prohibition. We even try to convince each other to take this drug! And the public contempt for trying to trick a person into drinking too much isn't wildly strong, though the molesting of a too-drunk girl is condemned. But, trying to get her right to the edge of inappropriately drunk? Kinda encouraged.

 

[Farm Boy]

But, trying to get her right to the edge of inappropriately drunk? Kinda encouraged.

So screwed up.

 

[Zelig]

Slippery slopes arguments are however rarely valid.

Well the continuum fallacy is the real problem, so I guess my issue is with the lack of recognition that other people's arbitrary distinctions between laws that ought to be obeyed might be as valid as my own.

 

[El_Machinae]

So screwed up.

I have to be careful, because my visceral contempt for the idea is aberrant.

 

[Farm Boy]

I have to be careful, because my visceral contempt for the idea is aberrant.

We can drop it. Mulling it also puts me in a foul mood. Plus if I get too into it odds aren't bad somebody might wind up feeling like I'm stepping on their toes and judging their sexual ethics. Which is probably accurate in some cases. :shrugs:

 

[Borachio]

Prohibition period doesn't work, soft drugs or otherwise. The whole exercise has been a monumental failure. Unless someone is in the camp that thinks it was all done on purpose to prosecute minorities or enrich prison owners, in which case I guess they'd see it as an unqualified success.

The thing is, we really don't know whether, or how much, prohibition does work.

Evidence from places like Portugal would seem to indicate you're right, but the Portuguese experience may not be transferable to other countries.

My feeling on this is that it wouldn't be politically prudent for anyone seeking office to condone blanket legalization. I just don't think they'd get themselves elected.

Then again, I'm really not in favour of normalizing drug-taking anyway. (Even alcohol; but the ship sailed on that one long ago.) And I think legalizing it would do exactly that.

Just because, for historical reasons, we have to tolerate alcohol, is no reason to also tolerate heroin and crack. I think prohibition could work. But it would have to be effective prohibition; and not the half-baked measures that are taken now, coupled with a general atmosphere of "cool" associated with (some) drugs. At the moment, I think we've got the worst of all worlds.

What's the point in a prohibition that no-one really wants, is the message from 1920s prohibition, isn't it?

Still, on reflection, I'm probably more rambling on to myself and approaching the issue from several confused directions at once, rather than responding to your post.

 

[bhsup]

Am I the only one most interested in the state vs state angle of this?

 

[Tahuti]

I'm going to smoke pot in support of Colorado!

 

[Kaitzilla]

Nebraska and Oklahoma sue Colorado over legal marijuana



The war on drugs just got interesting. Because it is state vs state, it goes straight to the Supreme Court. No working its way up the food chain with this one. Personally, I hope Colorado wins.

"But B, I thought you were a law and order guy!"

Well I am, and pot is against federal law, but I don't see anything in the Consititution that gives the federalies the right to legislate mary jane.

"So then you agree with people that smoke pot now? They should be able to do it and frak the federalies?"

No, they're criminals. You will not find one instance of me advocating breaking the law because I happen to disagree with Supreme Court rulings that allow the feds oversight in areas where they don't belong. The S.C. is frequently wrong, but the way our system has evolved, they gave themselves the power to do this, so it sucks but there you go.

"That makes no sense, man! You're contradicting yourself."

Your mama's a contradiction. ( Worst your mama joke ever, amirite??)

Uh oh!


I'm rooting for Colorado.

 

[Zelig]

Am I the only one most interested in the state vs state angle of this?

Can we make the legislators duel to determine the outcome?

 

[Berzerker]

Correct. Slavery is indefensible and unethical. It's pretty much the poster boy for those. Laws against pot are not in any way comparable. My issue with pot laws lies in the realm of federalism, not that they are unethical or indefensible.

Slavery ended, room and board now provided by drug prohibitionists

I dont see how you can create loopholes in your "obey the law" position based on morality and then ignore morality while millions of people are forced into cages for using pot.

As for the state angle, the prohibitionists will win.
But I imagine that goes for medical pot too... The feds dont allow it either. Now that'll be interesting, a bunch of states allow medical pot.

Neither the SCOTUS nor the Republican party gives a damn about the 10th Amendment. I'm sure my state will join the lawsuit, we'll be in court one day trying to nullify federal law and the next we'll be there begging for the feds to stomp on our neighbors.

If you find a knife in your back, it was probably a Republican who put it there.

 

[bhsup]

I dont see how you can create loopholes in your "obey the law" position based on morality and then ignore morality while millions of people are forced into cages for using pot.

Don't smoke pot if you don't want to be shoved into that little cage. It's really that simple. There is nothing at all unethical about the government mandating that pot smoking is illegal (let's limit this to recreational and not delve into the so-called medical side of it) in any way. You want to disagree? Fine. You're wrong, but fine.

So you see, I am not ignoring morality. You are trying to pretend there is some great moral high ground in toking on a doobie. Spare me. I really should have made this [RD] with the express intent of discussing the state vs state / federalism angle of all of this so as not to have to deal with reefer addicts pretending they are on a moral crusade.

P.S. -

Personally, I hope Colorado wins.

 

[CaptainF]

Republican troglodytes at it again.

"States rights! Except when gays are eloping and pot is getting smoked, becuz that offends jeebus."

As for the state versus state angle, I think the AG of Colorado made a good point:

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said in a statement that he will defend the state's legalization of marijuana, saying that the lawsuit is, "without merit."

"Because neighboring states have expressed concern about Colorado-grown marijuana coming into their states, we are not entirely surprised by this action," Suthers said. "However, it appears the plaintiffs' primary grievance stems from non-enforcement of federal laws regarding marijuana, as opposed to choices made by the voters of Colorado."

Don't smoke pot if you don't want to be shoved into that little cage. It's really that simple. There is nothing at all unethical about the government mandating that pot smoking is illegal (let's limit this to recreational and not delve into the so-called medical side of it) in any way. You want to disagree? Fine. You're wrong, but fine.

So you see, I am not ignoring morality. You are trying to pretend there is some great moral high ground in toking on a doobie. Spare me. I really should have made this [RD] with the express intent of discussing the state vs state / federalism angle of all of this so as not to have to deal with reefer addicts pretending they are on a moral crusade.

Pot and "toking on doobies" aside, people of sound mind have long known that prohibition as a concept itself is deeply immoral, hypocritical, fanatical and destructive:

"Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud.

It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil.

It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives.

It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance.

It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens.

It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments.

It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness.

It comes to bring us evil --only evil-- and that continually.

Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs."

-Roger Q. Mills, US Senator (1887)

...

You're trying to pretend that throwing people in a cage for engaging in behavior that harms no one but themselves, if at all, is somehow moral.

I'm sorry, not all of us have a slave mentality of "yessah, nossah, whateva you say sah".

 

[Lay_Lay]

Prohibiting the consumption of MJ across the whole country is a highly immoral prohibition.
Not as immoral as slavery, true. But much more immoral than prohibiting a dangerous synthetic compound.

 

[CaptainF]

I think prohibition could work. But it would have to be effective prohibition; and not the half-baked measures that are taken now

How "effective" do you want to be? How far are you willing to go to ensure no one does any drugs, ever? Ho much of a totalitarian society are you willing to impose on everyone to prevent drug use and abuse by a comparatively small minority?

It should be noted that even in countries where people are executed for drug sale and possession, like Afghanistan and China amongst others, there are still very high rates of drug use and abuse.

 

[bhsup]

@Dawgphood001: I take it your quotations of a Confederate officer mean along with your attempt to tie pot to slavery mean you acknowledge that the civil war was not about slavery?

Protip: That was a rhetorical question. It just amused me, who you chose to quote, that's all, given your comment after the quote.