Is the war on drugs worth losing all our freedoms?

[mikey2much]

Hi guys,

It might come as a surprise to some on this board to know that I consider myself to be good American. I have served in combat killing at least three people. I have had two good friends shot down right beside me. I say this to let you know that as a young man I took my duties to my country very seriously.

Since that time I have come to see my country in a different light. The generation that Tom Brokaw called the “Greatest Generation” While insuring freedom for much of the world in WW2 came home and decided that their children couldn’t handle that freedom and passed the laws that have filled our prisons and taken so much of our freedoms away.

Those laws were and remain the drug laws, or as our leaders like to call it, “The war on drugs”. The constitution states that we have certain rights that include life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Can anybody here tell me what drug use is if not the pursuit of happiness?

This ill advised ‘war’ has filled our prisons with non-violent people who would have lived out their lives pretty much in peace with their neighbors if not for the ‘drug laws’.
It has taken away your privacy in your home, bank and in you child’s school.

This ‘war’ has put judges in the position of having to give harsher sentences at a time when we can’t afford to house all the people that we lock up now.

Many of you may not be aware that selling drugs is considered a form of terrorism by our government and all these laws that you are passing to stop the terrorist may very well be applied to your own children someday.

I would be interested in hearing what you think of my point of view.

mikey

PS, I have a child who has sat in jail for eight years for something that didn't harm anybody.

 

[cloudy]

I agree.

Just another reason I'm damn glad I won't be calling this country "home" for much longer.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I would be interested in hearing what you think of my point of view.

mikey

PS, I have a child who has sat in jail for eight years for something that didn't harm anybody.

I'm sorry about your child.

I don't think drugs themselves are inherently bad... I don't think guns are, either.

It's what people do with them...

I can't speak much to the political aspect of the drug trade... and I don't know if legalizing drugs is a good idea or not.

But I do know that drugs are addictive... and that they ruin people's lives. Does outlawing them stop that? Nope. Would more people be addicted if they were legalized? Maybe... but I doubt it. Our addictive substances seem to choose us.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I'm sorry about your child.

I don't think drugs themselves are inherently bad... I don't think guns are, either.

It's what people do with them...

I can't speak much to the political aspect of the drug trade... and I don't know if legalizing drugs is a good idea or not.

But I do know that drugs are addictive... and that they ruin people's lives. Does outlawing them stop that? Nope. Would more people be addicted if they were legalized? Maybe... but I doubt it. Our addictive substances seem to choose us.

Well put.

Personally, I don't believe in the War on Drugs, it's a monetary blackhole and should be stopped. I believe the use of drugs should be left up to the individual and once they take that road their life is their responsibility.

And I do believe the criminalization of use and distribution should be abolished and become just like any other commodity in our economy thus eliminated the need for smuggling thereby reducing the costs of the final product.

Would I use drug if they were legal? No.

Have I used drugs in the past? Yes. And if I had been caught I would expect to have been tried and judged according to the laws of the land that were in effect at the time.

Do I use drugs now? No.

And while I do feel sorry for anyone who decides to use drugs and then becomes addicted, it's their choice to take that path in life and they must deal with the consequences of their decision.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'm sorry about your child.

I don't think drugs themselves are inherently bad... I don't think guns are, either.

It's what people do with them...

I can't speak much to the political aspect of the drug trade... and I don't know if legalizing drugs is a good idea or not.

But I do know that drugs are addictive... and that they ruin people's lives. Does outlawing them stop that? Nope. Would more people be addicted if they were legalized? Maybe... but I doubt it. Our addictive substances seem to choose us.

certain drugs ruin lives simply by being ingested- meth, crack.
other drugs ruin lives because they are illegal. Pot ruins no more lives than alcohol does- vis, it's due to the individual. Even heroin addicts can be perfectly productive people if they do not have to go to the dangerous and time-consuming routes that illegality enforces, nor if they have to rely on the wildly varying qualities of a supply that has no regulatory control.

 

[rgraham666]

To many people the 'War On Drugs' is the 'War On Evil'. You do not surrender to Evil.

Plus, there's a lot of money to be made, and that's just by the Good Guys. If the War on Drugs ended, they would have to find a new enemy, if just to keep their jobs.

So the War on Drugs will go on. And on.

And on.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

It's Prohibition all over again. Plain and simple. I have deep respect for the Greatest Generation, since it included all of my grandparents. Both of my grandfathers fought for this country, one in the Army and the other in the Navy. However, that is beside the point.

It wasn't about one generation or another. It was about politicians selling a horseload of crap to people and pressure groups (though this time, different ones from the Temperance Movement) pushing for absurd laws that do no damn good. The same arguments were used against alcohol. Yes, it is potentially addictive. Yes, it can ruin lives. Yes, it can destroy families. But it will do so even more on the black market than sold openly, taxed, and regulated. And there are people who can consume it without long-term harmful effects.

The war on drugs is Prohibition repeated, and proof positive that humanity is very slow to learn lessons from history. It's taken even longer this time to drive the lesson home. How much expense must there be, how much more waste, how many much creation of black markets, before people get the message that the war on drugs is a losing one? Best to admit defeat now, because you can't win this war. All that you do is accumulate casualties.

The biggest casualty is the Bill of Rights, I might add.

 

[SeaCat]

A while back the Bloom County Comics, (Does anyone here remember this one?) ran a strip that said it ever so well.

Opus and the cat were running for President when they were visited by a representative from the Drug Cartels. This rep wanted to give them a campagn contribution to thank the U.S. Government and it's war on drugs for keeping the price of drugs propped up.

It was too funny but it is so true.

Cat

 

[rgraham666]

A while back the Bloom County Comics, (Does anyone here remember this one?) ran a strip that said it ever so well.

Opus and the cat were running for President when they were visited by a representative from the Drug Cartels. This rep wanted to give them a campagn contribution to thank the U.S. Government and it's war on drugs for keeping the price of drugs propped up.

It was too funny but it is so true.

Cat

Yep, I remember that comic and that particular strip. Hilarious.

I just got all my books that were in storage back from my parent's place. First book I read? Tales Too Ticklish To Tell. That's the one where the aliens trans-reversed Steve's brain with a process known as "Gephardization".

 

[Boxlicker101]

I pretty much agree with everything that has been said here, except that "Life, liberty and the pursuit" are not mentioned in the Constitution. Those words appear in the Declaration of Independence.

The war on drugs is as big a disaster as Prohibition, maybe even bigger. The only people who benefit are the drug pushers because the laws keep their profits up, and political hacks who get elected by lying about it. The result of the criminalization is more laws of other sorts being broken because of drug gang wars and addicts stealing to pay the inflated prices. It crowds our prisons and jails with people who have never harmed anybody, and results in actual violent prisoners being released that much sooner, to commit more violence. The laws themselves ruin more lives than they help by sending people to prison who have never harmed anybody. And I mean anybody, not even themselves, because marijuana harms nobody.

As far as I'm concerned, all the anti-mj laws should be repealed outright. Other anti-drug laws should be either repealed or made to concur with common sense.

Edited to add: I remember "Bloom County" quite well, including that strip. I wish it were back.

 

[Liar]

To many people the 'War On Drugs' is the 'War On Evil'. You do not surrender to Evil.

Any time something is officially labelled "war on" something, it's an attempt to own the definition of what's going on, in order to excuse all kind of crap. If it's war, all bets are off. Jucidiary safety and common decency be damned.

When Turkey wanted to control the budding Kurdish separatist movement, they denied them a language and cultural identity. The main weapon was through schools and official places, like in the media and even in privare stores, where the Kurdish language was strictly forbidden. And they called this a "war against illiteracy".

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

The answer to the thead title is "no." It's not worth losing any/I] freedom. Drug prohibitions are themselves a loss of freedom.

You don't have the history quite right, though. Drug prohiition was imposed by the two generations previous to the so-called "Greatest." The real abdication and cowardice has been from the baby boomers. They all used drugs as youth, turned out to be overprotective parents hoping to insulate their childen from all possible danger, and so have consented to braodening and deepening this absurd and destructive public policy. It is not only destroying freedom, it destroys many more lives than the drugs themselves, and even destroys nations that are corrupted by it.

All drugs should be legal. Soft drugs like pot should be subject to the same sales restrictions as alchohol. Hard drugs should be available upon request, from "behind the counter." The personal tragedies that arise from drug abuse are far less than the social tragedy of prohibition, and are amplified by it, not eliminated by it.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I saw something on the History or Discovery Channel (or something similar) describing how the war on drugs got started. It was very interesting. It all goes back to a bill passed to keep doctors from prescribing medications for people who didn't need them. Sad really how far it has been taken.

 

[TxRad]

To win the so called war on drugs is an easy thing.

Take the drugs you confiscate and open a government controlled drug store in the area where they were captured. Sell the drugs for ten cents on the dollar. At that point you take the profit out and drive the prices down. war over.

The only problem is we have no one in Washington with balls enough to even put the idea forward much less put it into practice.

 

[Boxlicker101]

The answer to the thead title is "no." It's not worth losing any/I] freedom. Drug prohibitions are themselves a loss of freedom.

You don't have the history quite right, though. Drug prohiition was imposed by the two generations previous to the so-called "Greatest." The real abdication and cowardice has been from the baby boomers. They all used drugs as youth, turned out to be overprotective parents hoping to insulate their childen from all possible danger, and so have consented to braodening and deepening this absurd and destructive public policy. It is not only destroying freedom, it destroys many more lives than the drugs themselves, and even destroys nations that are corrupted by it.

All drugs should be legal. Soft drugs like pot should be subject to the same sales restrictions as alchohol. Hard drugs should be available upon request, from "behind the counter." The personal tragedies that arise from drug abuse are far less than the social tragedy of prohibition, and are amplified by it, not eliminated by it.

The first federal laws against marijuana were signed into effect by FDR in 1937, the same year "Reefer Madness" came out. That would put it right in the middle of "The Greatest Generation". The Volstead Act would have been under the previous generation. In the 19th Century there were few if any laws regulating drugs, and maybe there should have been some.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

The first federal laws against marijuana were signed into effect by FDR in 1937, the same year "Reefer Madness" came out. That would put it right in the middle of "The Greatest Generation". The Volstead Act would have been under the previous generation. In the 19th Century there were few if any laws regulating drugs, and maybe there should have been some.

OK.

I thought a bunch of laws were passed around 1900 or so on cocaine and stuff. Do you know if there were state pot laws?

A quibble - The "Greatest" were just coming of age in 1937, so wouldn't it have been their parents who passed that? (Not trying to defend the "greatest" - they have many other sins in my book.)

 

[dr_mabeuse]

You don't have the history quite right, though. Drug prohiition was imposed by the two generations previous to the so-called "Greatest." The real abdication and cowardice has been from the baby boomers. They all used drugs as youth, turned out to be overprotective parents hoping to insulate their childen from all possible danger, and so have consented to braodening and deepening this absurd and destructive public policy. It is not only destroying freedom, it destroys many more lives than the drugs themselves, and even destroys nations that are corrupted by it.

*L* I'm a baby-boomer and so are all my friends. Yeah, a portion of us were radical and used drugs like crazy - maybe 10% of us or so - but we're not the ones who became terrified of them and became overprotective parents and went on to pass these hysterical laws. Those would be the other 90% who never used them and bought into all the government propaganda and conservative backlash values.

See, we know what drugs are and what they do and what they don't do. We know that smokling a joint doesn't make you suddenly leap up and run out to find some crack or get addicted to heroin. We know which ones are truly dangerous and which ones are relatively benign, and we're able to pass our knowledge on to our kids honestly. We've seen our friends lives ruined much more often not by dope but by dope laws. You're not going to pin your Coulterian stereotypes on us. I was there, darling, Summer of Love and everything. I saw it happen.

It was the boomers who didn't use, the people who don't know, who buy all the horror stories about acid flashbacks and "gateway drugs", who urine-test their kids and search their rooms - they're the ones who buy into the anti-drug hysteria. The Moral Majority and Family Values crowd. The conservatives. A parent who's smoked dope doesn't have to check his kid's pee to know if he's high, and he probably knows it's no big thing as long as the kid doesn't get caught. After all, the parent survived, why shouldn't the kid? And if you can open an honest dialogue with your child about what drugs he's fooling with, then maybe you can tell when he's really getting in trouble.

It's the nation's puritanism run amok that's to blame - the same thing that makes sex a sin and frowns on any kind of pleasure. The old protestant work ethic - life's not an experience, it's a job, and the only thing that matter is money and possession, and anything that interferes with production and consumption is ipso facto morally wrong.

Mikey, my heart goes out to you. This country now has half a million drug offenders in prison, which is more than all the prisoners in jail in all of Western Europe for all offenses combined. Drugs can be terribly dangerous and harmful, but probably 80-90% of the people in jail are guilty of nothing more than a little recreational use or nothing more. We're just fucking insane over here and it's got to stop. The liberals keep trying to get the laws relaxed but the conservatives just won't budge. When it comes to drugs, this country is worse than some repressive Islamic Republics.

And now Roxanne wants to blame that on the radicals?

That's good. That's very good. 9.8 for degree of difficulty.

 

[Boxlicker101]

OK.

I thought a bunch of laws were passed around 1900 or so on cocaine and stuff. Do you know if there were state pot laws?

A quibble - The "Greatest" were just coming of age in 1937, so wouldn't it have been their parents who passed that? (Not trying to defend the "greatest" - they have many other sins in my book.)

This is the link I found:
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/cocaine/index.html

You may disagree with their opinions, as most of us do, but the dates are probably correct. Prohibition, probably the worst idea in the history of the US, was passed in 1920, apparently by some of the same lamebrains.

I think the label "The Greatest Generation" was bestowed on those who survived the great depression and whipped the Axis, so that would have been from about 1930 through 1945. The problem is that those who fought the Axis would have been in their twenties or thirties then, making many of them children in 1937, and too young to vote. The minimum age was 21 at that time. So, yeah, it would have been those born about the turn of the century who were responsible for the anti-mj laws, and they were pretty much the parents of "The Greatest".

The roblem with naming generations is that people keep getting born, and it's usually hard to pinpoint when one generation starts. An exception is the start of the Baby Boomers, which is 1946, after the end of WW2, but the end of that generation is pretty hazy.

Personally, I am too young to have been part of "The Greatest" and too old to be a Baby Boomer.

 

[amicus]

It is far too much to hope for one supposes, that an issue on this forum could ever be discussed without a political agenda attached.

How about an historical and philosophical approach to the question of government regulation of human actions in general?

As far back in time as history was recorded, 'governments', be it War Lord, Chief, Priest or King, all have acted to control human behavior by the use of force.

It is only in 'modern' history that the question of 'individual rights' has arisen, wherein an individuals right to act according to 'individual' choices superseded the right of the 'state' to regulate human action.

Another level of discussion might deal with the concept of 'right and wrong, good and bad', and acknowledge that every society bases a moral and ethical foundation on some aspect of 'faith', call it what you may.

One of the continuing deep divisions on this forum is the debate over 'universal' or 'absolute' ethical and moral premises. Most say there are no absolutes; everything is relative or subjective or merely personal choice and opinion.

If that is so, then what standard on anything, should be applied to a population at large, where-ever it may exist?

If there are no axiomatic moral premises, then I suggest that a 'practical', utilitarian approach has been employed more often than not, in terms of regulating and controlling a society, to achieve a desired goal.

Alcohol diminishes productivity, ban it.

Tobacco is harmful, ban it.

Some drugs are harmful and addictive and diminish productivity, ban them, regulate them, control them.

Run the gamut from the 'Moral Majority' nuts, to socialist nuts, each wishes to impose moral and ethical sanctions and controls on human action, according to their world view.

The one thing everyone seems to run from in absolute fear is the concept of individual rights and liberties, protected, but not granted by the powers that be.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was a magnificent beginning, a first attempt at establishing individual human freedom.

It was and is flawed as the concept of 'god', as an absolute moral authority still lingers. The flaws have been magnified over time as the powers that be determined they had a 'moral' right to use force to confiscate your wealth to achieve desired ends.

If you grant government the moral right to tax your property to support mandatory public education, then you grant the right to the powers that be to regulate your life in any way they choose to achieve their desired ends.

Simple as that.

amicus...

 

[mikey2much]

thanks for your responses

Thank you for taking the time to post your views on this subject. It is kinda hard for me to believe but I think that we all agree that the drug laws are wrong. Can this be right? It would seem that we have people who are usually on different sides of any debate, yet we all agree on this.

It restores my faith in America a bit.

thank you,
mikey