Drug Prohibition: On It's Last Legs?

Eight · Aug 28, 2010

Quote from Kassz007:

Great article.

Marijuana will become legal first, and then hopefully that gets the ball rolling. The notion that we need the government to make drugs illegal so that we don't all become addicted is absurd. Let us take control of our own lives for fuck sakes.

Bullshit fucking government worrying about what we smoke and running up a credit card debt of $200 Trillion dollars, let the Cartels take over for all I care... they tend to tax at about 50% and the current total tax bill is about that, but the Cartel guys are a lot easier when it comes to what you do in your personal life, they don't care what you do at all that much...

Ghost of Cutten · Aug 29, 2010

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

And when all the junkies are out of control because open drug use is legal then what...?

Tell you what, I'll agree with making all drugs legal if I also get the right to shoot every junkie, stoner or pothead that interferes with my normal activities. Sound fair to you...?

After all, why should the rest of us normal "squares" have to put up with people that have an âexpanded conscienceâ, to the point where they can no longer differentiate right from wrong?

Hey, drugs change your perception...! Ironically, drug users think that is a good thing but only because their perception has already been changed. The mind is a tricky thing! It is like saying âAlcohol makes me more sociable/likeable!â In reality, your new charm is only in your mind. Same with most drugsâ¦

I guess we could treat them the same as people who drink booze and then do something wrong. How about that for an idea?

CoolTraderDude · Aug 30, 2010

Quote from phenomena:

Same bullshit they said when trying to keep alcohol illegal.....

Err... Except it wasn't BS was it...??? Alcohol is also an addictive substance and people do become alcoholics...! When intoxicated on alcohol people's behavior changes in unpredictable ways.

Quote from Eight:

Bullshit fucking government worrying about what we smoke and running up a credit card debt of $200 Trillion dollars, let the Cartels take over for all I care... they tend to tax at about 50% and the current total tax bill is about that, but the Cartel guys are a lot easier when it comes to what you do in your personal life, they don't care what you do at all that much...

I don't actually see how legalizing drugs will enhance people's freedoms. Do you really want a bunch of corporations selling narcotics legally and openly...!!!??? I can only imagine what "DEREGULATION" will do in this case. Let's see... How has it worked out with the oil and housing industries...???

lurefo · Sep 2, 2010

You're lacking some serious drugs related history and social knowledge.

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

And when all the junkies are out of control because open drug use is legal then what...?

Your thinking is wrong...

1)Drug law reforms actually reduce the numbers of hard drug users as seen in the Netherlands. http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/67

2)Furthemore, despite a very liberal approach to cannabis, the Dutch are amongst the lowest users in Europe. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL5730185

You're more likely to see a higher number of drug related crimes during prohibition times because of the black market: expanding crime activities, prices being higher leading to more drug addicted crimes (theft), etc

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

Tell you what, I'll agree with making all drugs legal if I also get the right to shoot every junkie, stoner or pothead that interferes with my normal activities. Sound fair to you...?

Tell you what, I'll agree with letting you shoot every drug user if I also get the right to shoot every ignorant, intolerant, hypersensitive, close minded individual that interferes with my normal activities. Sound fair to you...?

Quote from CoolTraderDude:
After all, why should the rest of us normal "squares" have to put up with people that have an âexpanded conscienceâ, to the point where they can no longer differentiate right from wrong?

1)What makes you think pot smokers can no longer differentiate right from wrong? that is absolutely wrong. You coudln't be further from the truth. You seem to know a lot about it for someone who never smoked marijuana! http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2838640#post2838640 Ignorance makes people talk out of their ass like you do. You know what, smoke some weed and come back here tell us if you could'nt differentiate right from wrong. In the meantime you should refrain from making statements about what drug does to the mind.

2) In most known societies, men used drugs for meditation/introspection (besides the recreational and medicinal use). And in a number of these societies, the elders and the "wise" men used drugs for their mental activity enhancement qualities. Not really what you would call junkies who cannot differentiate right from wrong...

lurefo · Sep 2, 2010

A little laugh break in a boring market.... Bill Hicks spoke the truth.

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Ricter · Sep 2, 2010

I think we should strive to get drugs legalized, and promote their use, in competing countries.

cstfx · Sep 2, 2010

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

Tell you what, I'll agree with making all drugs legal if I also get the right to shoot every junkie, stoner or pothead that interferes with my normal activities. Sound fair to you...?

Do you currently have that right to shoot ANY alcoholic or ANY obese-clown-fed kid or adult that also interferes with your daily activity, let alone EVERY one of them?

No?

tomdavis · Sep 2, 2010

Portugal decriminalized all personal possession of drugs many years ago. The recreational use of drugs and the number of addicts has declined to the point where it is now lower than most of the rest of Europe. Norway is going to decriminalize drugs next year.

Quote from Rearden Metal:

Four years into the Great Depression, Alcohol prohibition collapsed under its own stupidity. Today, the Great Recession threatens the 'war on drugs' with an identical fate.

You can see marijuana prohibition collapsing already. Locally, there's a glut of weed on the market like I've never seen before. Personal use generally results in a non-criminal, civil fine of about $75 these days. And that's in Illinois, a relatively backward state where medical marijuana doesn't officially exist yet. Even if California voters fail to decriminalize in November, weed prohibition is on borrowed time, on a national scale.

The fate of the reefer-madness marijuana prohibitionist idiots is sealed- They're fucking done. Mark my words, marijuana prohibition is all but over in 2010. (And I'm certainly not someone who's ever been labeled an 'optimist' by anyone, ever.) The only question now is whether it'll only be marijuana that will soon be free of mass political imprisonment and senseless, needless suffering... or if the imminent collapse of prohibition laws will extend to other drugs as well. The following is one of the best articles I've seen recently on the subject: ~RM
______

WE TRIED A WAR LIKE THIS ONCE BEFORE

by Mike Gray

In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in
Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated
limos built to his specifications by General Motors.
Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had permeated everyday life that this was considered normal.

Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years
ago, the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol,
and it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we'd ever
seen. Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the
drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15
months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants off Al Capone.

Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this direction. Too late: They're already here. And they're in a good
position to take over organized crime in this country as well.

After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into
the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition,
has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever
before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved
government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed:
Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income.

At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's
attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition,
we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs.

One hint of a shifting wind came in February, when a state legislator
from San Francisco introduced a bill to tax, regulate and legalize
adult use of cannabis. This sort of grandstanding is always met with
derision, and this was no exception. But then something strange
happened: California's chief tax collector said that the measure
would bring in $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on
enforcement and incarceration. In a state facing an $18 billion
deficit, suddenly nobody was laughing.

Four days later Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who's no
legalizer, said that he, too, thinks we should take another look at
marijuana prohibition. "The most effective way to establish a virtual
barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of
it," he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

The next day, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a
minor policy shift with enormous implications: The federal government would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the 13 states where it is legal. The Drug Enforcement Administration had been raiding dispensaries routinely, and dozens of patients and growers are behind bars today despite their legal status in California's eyes. Now that threat has vanished for those who comply with state law. For California, this amounts to de facto legalization.

At his recent cyberspace town hall meeting, President Obama fielded a question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy. "No," he replied as the audience giggled. But that answer sheds no light on his actual thinking. Obama has already called the drug war an "utter failure." And since he himself is an admitted ex-toker, it's hard to believe that he'd cancel some kid's college education over a crime he got away with.

Of course, resistance to marijuana legalization remains rock solid in
Washington among those who can't face the failure of prohibition. But that has more to do with politics than science. The Department of Health and Human Services says that there are 32 million drug abusers in the country, but that includes 25 million marijuana smokers. If you strike them from the list, how do you justify spending $60 billion a year in this economy trying to stop 2 percent of the population from being self-destructive? It would be dramatically cheaper to follow the Swiss example: Provide treatment for all who want it, and supply the rest with pure drugs under medical supervision. (continued)

Lucrum · Sep 3, 2010