Just prohibit it. Why not? It's used for basically the same thing as drugs are, to have fun, and it causes a great deal of harm to society. So why not give prohibition another go?
It’s the only solution I have seen to successfully regulate it, so yes, let’s give a competent prohibition a go.
Everytime the government does that, all that happens is more people end up in jail, even more lives ruined, and still plenty of drugs to go around.
What makes you think we should send groups of drug users to jail? As for the second part, the idea behind this (and what is proclaimed by our department of justice but widely ignored) is to rehabilitate the person and help society. As for the third party, I can’t be sure if there will or will not be drug because what I want hasn’t been tried before.
Alright, please explain to me a competent prohibition that not only stops the crime created by current prohibition, stops drug usage, but is humane to the drug users.
And how would you stop pushers from pushin to kids?
Well it would basically entail a complete change in the strategy for drug prohibition. The biggest issue is that this needs to be addressed as a domestic policy rather than a foreign policy. I have no problem with people in other countries growing all the drugs illegal in this country all they want because I really don’t think we as a country have the right to go into another country and meddle with all of their affairs, especially when not even asked to. To put it simply, much of the drug war is aimed at ‘them’ rather than ‘us’, that needs to change.
Instead of stopping the drugs from being grown in other countries, stop them from entering the country. Route all traffic through harbors, airports, and checkpoints (for land), and create a working system that detects illegal drugs. A fast, easy, and simple check such as what could be considered a metal detector for drugs.
The next part would be to do what the site you denounce as flawed states, “…call upon the US President and Congress to admit that there are serious problems with our drug policy which deserve to be openly and honestly examined, in full view of the American public. We ask the President and Congress to form an objective Federal commission to examine all of the evidence and to make recommendations for changes. It is only through open and honest examination of the evidence that we will resolve the many controversies with respect to drug policy, and move toward a better policy.â€
Open examination is needed. Instead of this paranoia of what is being told by the government, instead of this widespread use of propaganda, instead of all of these so called ‘easy solutions’, the truth is needed. Factual education is needed. We do not need a quick fix that simply minimizes the, but a long term solution.
Uh, drug trafficers don't use airports, and they can find a way around the harbors.
The idea would be to seal off anybody from getting into the United States from anywhere other than harbors, airports, checkpoints (for land), etc. This would not only be for stopping drugs but for our national security’s sake.
As for the borders, the government does have that right, but the people also have a right to privacy.
I don’t see any problem with the idea of something like a device that scans for drugs (along with other illegal things preferably). Think of it like a metal detector.
They need to be gotten rid of.
I agree, those people do need to be gotten rid of.
Lovely, a link to the flawed study.
Listen, the DEA has a long history of lying to get what they want. Their citations in that "study" are shakey at best.
I provided the official Dutch drug policy and it's effectiveness. A DEA talking points which is based, largely, off 10-15yo articles and commentary isn't going to cut it.
Where exactly is the DEA quoted in that article? As for why it won’t cut it, I must disagree, those are plain and simple facts.
Nowhere in the Constitution does the government have that power or responsibility. In fact, our Constitution structures the government in such a way as to make such a government impossible.
The Supreme Court has given the Federal government the power to prohibit drugs in a string of cases. You may or may not agree with them, but as it stands, they do have the power to prohibit drugs, whether, you, myself, or anyone disagrees that it is constitutional or not.
The government was never meant to be a nanny-state. Otherwise, where does it end? Alcohol, tobacco, fast food, red meat, salt, the list goes on. How far is the government supposed to go to protect us from ourselves.
This nation was founded on freedom and liberty, not safety and mother hennery.
Tobacco, fast food, red meat, and salt all are not as healthy to the user as other things – I couldn’t care less. You can screw up your body as much as you want to short of suicide with our rights. Where I draw the line is where these things hurt others. Drug usage increases crime (whether or not it creates less or more than the ‘drug war’ is not a response, I want to eliminate both). Increasing crime hurts the people around that person. The government has a right to protect the people from themselves.
A dispelled myth. Prohibition artificially inflates crime rates by creating a billion dollar black-market, instantly making millions of other-wise law abiding citizens into criminals, and inflating the prices of addicting drugs driving hooked users to steal and commit other crimes to pay for their habit.
Drugs may cause an increase in certain crimes, but that will be vastly outweighed by the end of prohibition created crime.
Are you claiming that drug prohibition creates more crime than legalization of drugs? I don’t see that written in my post. I claim that drug usage increases crime. More or less than drug prohibition? It doesn’t matter, that statement is a fact, not a muth.
And what about the drug user that has their life ruined, if not ended just because they enjoyed pot?
Jail sure as shit doesn't protect them.
Why do you keep wanting to send them to jail?
Like chocolate? I mean, it's not a required food, and is very risky to people. People eat too much chocolate just because it tastes good, for fun, and we have to pay for their new hearts when their old ones clog up with chocolate.
It is on the grounds of hurting others, not the actual user, that it should not be legalized (unless regulated in a way that would stop this). Chocolate tastes good, it isn’t the healthiest food, but the risk of someone hurting someone else ‘while on chocolate’ (I don’t think there is a way to phrase that without sounding stupid) is minimal and nearly nonexistent in comparison to using the currently illegal drugs, alcohol, etc.
What about medicine. Pot is a known medicine for many different ailments. Not to mention it's industrial uses.
I have already stated that I have no problem with marijuana used for medicinal purposes and for industrial purposes, as long as it is regulated (as in making sure doctors are giving it to the people who need it and not just selling it, making sure the marijuana purchased by people for industrial usage actually use it for industry, and so forth).
And you wouldn't happen to have a study showing that high drivers are bad drivers, would you? The studies I've seen show accidents occuring with people who were high at only 10% of all accidents, and many of them had also been drinking.
Unfortunately I forgot where that study is. I'll try to find it.
“While it is illegal in all states to drive a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, drugs other than alcohol, or a combination of alcohol and other drugs, there is no consistent method across states for identifying drug impairment. As a result, we do not know the full impact of illegal drug use on public safety.â€
And, having to do with an actual response on how marijuana hurts driving abilities, it is “Marijuana… slows a driver's perception of time, space, and distance.â€
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/driving_drugged.html
I don't even know what a competent drug prohibition looks like, that isn't inhumane to the drug user.
How bout not sending them to jail?
Except their crime rate hasn't gone up.
You’re reading between the lines. Let me make it clearer:
“For example, let’s pretend the crime rate in the x is 2 and the crime rate in the y is 4. The x legalizes drugs and their crime rate goes up to 3, and y’s stays at 4. Though drugs are legalized, y’s crime rate is still higher. As a side note, these numbers are not directly related to actual crime rates and are just here for the example.â€
There is no hidden meaning behind this. It is simply saying that crime rates in one place can go up and still be lower than in another.
Do you have a citation for this, because I can't find anything about it on google.
It’s in the study I quoted earlier.
Or perhaps look to them to see what's working?
I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying here. Look at our current drug prohibition officials to see what is working?
What makes their system incompetent? They have fewer addicts than us. They must be doing something right.
They are doing something right, it is just they need to prohibit drugs to do a bit more right.
Yes, but you said that you'ld prefer our incompetent drug war that an end to prohibition.
Mostly because the transition between incompetent drug prohibition to competent drug prohibition would be a lot quicker and easier than the transition between legalization and competent drug prohibition.
I have show you how prohibition creates crime. I have shown you how prohibition results in countless lives ruined or ended all over the world, because of a drug war that we initiated.
You have shown that an incompetent drug prohibition does not work and that many of our policies are screwed up. Good thing I don’t support either.
You've shown me biased, bogus studies based on 15 year old articles.
You mean a true, factual, 15 year old study. History doesn’t change.
All I want is a concise explanation of how legalizing drugs increases crime more than prohibition does.
I can’t show you one and you can’t show one that proves otherwise because there can’t be a study to show the effects of something that has never happened. You have shown incompetent drug prohibition raises crime. I have shown legalization raises crime. Let’s use neither.
I'm not saying it would be perfect, nor denying that certain types of crime might go up.
But murder will go down. There will be no more street dealers, no more cartels, far fewer gangs, and not nearly as many kids hooked on drugs. No system of drug enforcement will stop it. Pushers always push to the kids, because they're most vulnerable, and you can't regulate them. Legalization bring it into the realm of control.
And what I am saying is I want to solve both issues that raise crime, not just switch over to the better of two evils.
Why? Because you want it to be?
Because the facts I have shown state otherwise. My opinion has no power over facts. The facts just happen to show what I am claiming.
According to the image, crime nearly doubled to it's highest point in 1933, when prohibition ended, and then fell in the 40's and 50's, and started to spike again in the 70's, when the war on drugs was announced and hasn't ever returned to "pre-war" conditions. In fact, we're right about the same as we were in '33.
It seems to back up what I'm saying. That prohibitions increases crime far more than it reduces it.
And you change the entire subject on the graph. Let’s look at what has been said:
The argument that alcohol prohibition ‘spawned’ organized crime is completely untrue as well. Homicide rates, for example, rose more in the span of 1900 – 1910 than during all of prohibition. Not to mention organized crime was already firmly established in cities before the start of alcohol prohibition."
They did? And where did you get this information from? Do you deny that organized crime grew during prohibition, that Al Capone would have become as powerful and big as he did even if prohibition never happened, that gang related violence didn't go up during that era?
To go back to your source from wikipedia, “in the United States, Prohibition was accomplished by means of the Eighteenth Amendment to the national Constitution (ratified January 16, 1919) and the Volstead Act (passed October 28, 1919). Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect.â€
Now what’s look at what I said and see that it is correct. Don’t assume anything, just read what I say, I only mean what I say.
Because they don't ban pot? That one of the biggest problems with the current drug war, it groups a popular, and harmless drug in with heroin, and even above cocain. It's like making aspirin a controlled substance.
More people smoke pot than every other drug combined. Making pot illegal just multiplies the customers that the peddlers have to market their harder drugs too.
I don’t think you see what I am saying, read it again – “Last time I checked they didn't have a competently run drug prohibition, so no.†How can they have a competently run drug prohibition if they don’t have an actual drug prohibition.
Yes, which is exactly what any type of drug prohibition will do for the cartels and gangs.
Which is why you stop their ‘network’ from working by reducing both supply through tighter boarders and domestic policy and demand with education.
Well that's funny, because you seem intent on ignoring the multitude of ones that show drug legalization reduces crime. Even you own statistics back up my arguements.
You seem to be intent on ignoring my actual argument and making me look like I support what I have said doesn’t work in every single post. You may have hundreds of arguments against our current incompetently run drug prohibition. But they don’t work against someone who doesn’t support it.
Millions of drug uses are completely responsible with their drug use.
And quite a few aren’t.
