Those people chose to commit crimes of their own free will, and drug-takers choose to support those crimes of their own free will.
It aint a crime to sell, buy or use drugs. It may be against the law but even the people who support the law refer to "crime and drugs" when talking about their ideology - thats a Freudian admission the two aint the same. And thats hypocrisy anyway, can you picture a booze drinking, tobacco smoking politician looking down his nose at a pot smoker? If "crime" is defined by what the law says, then it was a crime for slaves to runaway and it was a crime to help them even after they ran away. And what the Nazis did to Germans was "legal", not criminal, right? Thats why your argument falls apart, crimes have victims regardless of what any law says... There aint no victim if you smoke pot, drink booze, or take Rush Limbaugh's drug(s) of choice... Is Limbaugh a criminal? I didn't see many (any) rightwingers condemn him as such...
It's surprising that you seem to be defending the right to take drugs when you know the damage they cause. How ethical do you think that is?
Its about moral authority (and that certainly encompasses ethics), I dont have the moral authority to decide what you can put in your own body. I'd be one arrogant SOB if I went around announcing I did, but many/most people believe hiring a politician to be the arrogant SOB is ethical, like you. I dont agree... Freedom is ethical, or more ethical than slavery and authoritarianism. You really should drop the name, I cant imagine a fan of Ayn Rand so gleefully handing politicians the power to make our most fundamental decisions.
If that somebody else consists of the violent criminals who supply and distribute drugs, and you buy those drugs, then you are a guilty partner in the process.
What if that somebody else isn't a violent criminal? You dont make the distinction, so you wanna preach ethics? And supporters of the drug war created the black market with their laws, not the drug users - when was the last time alcohol dealers were having shootouts over market share? If my pharmacist uses the money I paid for eyedrops to hire a hitman to kill his wife, am I responsible? Of course not! A drug deal is 2 people getting together to exchange their goods. A 3rd party - you - step in with armed men to stop us, and then you blame us for the resulting chaos? You made the situation violent...
The drug war is based on the hypocrisy of drug-takers, who think the government is responsible for actions carried out by criminals. Guilty conscience?
If you create a massive black market with your law, you dont get to runaway from the results. But that statement is
the drug war aint based on the alleged hypocrisy of drug users. As for my conscience, I haven't demanded my government jail millions of people for exercising their freedom. Thats a lotta people waiting for you on judgment day
Drug takers are confused about the meaning of freedom.
Freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action.
They want freedom without responsibility, which is only possible by forcing someone else to take the responsibility for them.
Do you understand that racists use generalizations to demonize millions of people? If somebody said Brits are ugly people
you might be mad, but if they said Brits should be jailed because they're ugly - maybe you'd understand why collective guilt and punishment is immoral. The number of people who use drugs and work for a living far outnumber the addicts on welfare. Sounds like you've been living off some of those people, somebody mentioned Paul McCartney for one. But why are you blaming drug users for welfare states? For a fan of Ayn Rand you sure have a blind spot when it comes to the state's culpability for its policies.
Drug-takers even go so far as to blame the government and police for the actions of criminals who the drug-takers are supporting and funding. But then what else can be expected from people with judgement poor enough that they take drugs in the first place.
And there's plenty of violent drug cartels out there thanking you for the job. But apparently from the OP, pot helps many people with mental illness. They have better judgment, so you've "criminalized" a medicine and contradicted your own argument at the same time
So what if it does? The people doing the stealing are responsible for their own actions.
So why are you using their crimes as an excuse to punish millions of people who dont steal? Thats your argument, right? A "drug taker" stole (or killed, or raped, or whatever) therefore all drug takers must be punished. So what if it does?
You just defended prohibition based on drug takers stealing to support their addiction, but you dont care if stealing actually increases under prohibition? You were discussing irrational behavior?
If we pass a sensible law and people break it, harming others in the process, then it is not the law-makers who are being unethical, it is the criminals.
Maybe the law aint sensible, ~30-50% say it aint. So prove it... We're here in America so convince us of our successes. How many people have y'all prevented from using drugs? Why are homicide rates higher during drug wars? Why did we have more people chasing stoner Joe than terrorists on 9/11?
Anyone who takes drugs is harming all the people around them.
Small problem with that, you cant prove it in court. Why? Because you'd have to produce these victims and you cant. So you assume they're there anyway... Bearing false witness is a serious offense. Imagine telling a jury the accused is guilty of hurting everyone around them while no one shows up to press charges.
It is an offensive attack on society and the freedom and safety of communities and the rights of individuals living in them.
Individuals have rights in your ideal community? The right to let you decide what they can ingest?
No I wouldn't because I don't take drugs. You just pointed out how many people are hurt by the drugs trade yet you blame the authorities instead of the perpetrators.
I blame the state for the black market, not drug users. But do you have a quote where I said people who hurt others aint responsible for what they did? Uh uh... Nope.
You've decided taking a drug hurts others even if you cant prove it, you assume it nonetheless. I dont...
I'm not so sure legalizing drugs will immediately solve the gang problem. If only it will make them switch to other activities like racketeering or outright vandalism.
Nevertheless, homicide rates dropped 13 years in a row when prohibition was repealed. The rate was about 1/2 what it was during that drug war, and it stayed low until the late 60s. Vietnam and the social unrest was largely replaced by the results of Nixon's war on pot - traffickers switching to heroin and cocaine. In the mid 80s Reagan, Congress and a bunch of states reacted to the cocaine wars and "crack" by increasing penalties for adults in the drug trade. So, minors were recruited to avoid the new penalties and juvenile crime began increasing. Gang recruitment and warfare hits it peak as small towns all across the USA were seeing the nastier aspects of the black market come home.
please explain what the legalisation of mj has to do with the idea "free market".
The motive behind the '37 "tax" on industrial hemp (real nasty story about how this country works) was to increase market share for various industries competing with hemp. Dupont invented Nylon that year, WR Hearst owned large tracts of forest (hemp makes better paper than wood pulp), etc... It was Hearst who popularized "marijuana" because that was the word Mexicans used. It was racist, anti-market, and more indicative of a corrupt fascist regime (is that redundant?). ~30 years later the SCOTUS ruled the tax unconstitutional because you couldn't buy the stamps anyway, it was a sham. So they just called the law something else and it magically became constitutional. Booze took an amendment to the Constitution, there are no amendments for the drug war. They just make it up as they go...
Nobel prize winning John Nash was a schizophrenic. I don't think he smoked pot though.
Proven link - schizophrenia caused by not smoking pot!
Well, about the only thing this has established is that pot smoking has a lot of support at CFC. No surprise there.
But, I am going to go out on a limb here and say I dont think its going to pass in California.
I'll find a limb too, looks like you wont be responding to your own article after reading it so carefully.
