Tipsy said:
Which is exactly why I have been saying, "...until alcohol and tobacco are actually reasonably controlled, it would be crazy to consider adding more recreational drugs."
How would you control them anymore?
You seem to think that legalizing drugs would "add" them to society. You seem to forget that drugs are everywhere. In any city in America, you can find just about every drug out there if you know where to look. Drugs are readily available to society as it is.
Legalization would allow us to regulate their usage. Regulate it like tobacco. That's why it's easier for a 13 year old to get crack, than it is to get tobacco or alcohol. Prohibition makes it easier for kids to get drugs.
All boarders need to be secured. If a guy with some drugs makes it across the boarder illegally, couldn't it have just as easily been a guy with a container of anthrax or lewisite? We shouldn't be tightening the boarder just for drugs, but for our security. Stopping or largely diminishing the supply of illegal drugs crossing the boarder should just be a side effect.
I agree, but stopping the borders won't stop drugs. There are still the oceans, and the skies. Not to mention domestic drug production. Marijuana, acid, meth, ecstacy, and many other chemical drugs are produced here. Completely seal off both borders, and drugs will still get in.
The idea would be to use some sort of technology that would be able to detect illegal drugs (along with other substances), many of which are already being developed and some of which already exist that can detect some illegal drugs. It is to make it so that they are no longer hiding it from searches, but attempting to hide it from something that no matter where they put it on them or in their belongings it will be detected.
Such a device would most likely face serious Constitutional issues. Not to mention that such a device would be manufactered to fool the drug machines. You under-estimate what billions of dollars and determination can do.
And I disagree with our policies. That happens a lot. As for the 'non-existent harm', it is quite existent and has been shown.
There are harms and risks involved with everything. I've proven that the harm caused by drugs is dwarfed in comparison to the harm from prohibition.
I don't believe my studies have portrayed that at all. The studies have shown that drugs cause crime to increase. Claiming that the studeis show Amsterdam as the crime center of the universe is an absurd exaggeration.
Your studies make claims, nothing more. You have no link to them, you've shown no other studies, and the ones you have provided simply claim that crime rates rose, without explaining why.
We can persue our happiness until it infringes upon the rights of others. Increasing crime infringes on the rights of others. As for freedom of religion, we have the right to do that until it infringes on the rights of others.
To increase crime, you have to commit crime. Now I agree commiting crime violates ones rights, but getting high in your house does not increase crime, nor does it violate anyones else's rights. It doesn't even affect anyone else.
You keep making this hollow claim, over and over again, but you continually neglect to show just how using drugs violates someone elses rights, or even harms society.
Now if someone commits a crime while high, punish them, just like you'ld punish a sober guy that commits a crime. Why punish someone just because they get high, and don't hurt anybody?
The War on Drugs has helped more than complete legalization will in regards to crime. However, a competent way of stopping drugs, which I support, will work vastly better than either of these.
I've shown, and explained just how prohibition increases crime. You've not shown one way that prohibition decreases crime, or the legalization increases crime.
And that in what way addresses the example? You not only miss the entire point of it (crime rate can go up with the crime rate still being lower than the crime rate of the US), but miss the note of "...these numbers are not directly related to actual crime rates and are just here for the example."
Not just America, but Europe too. And probably a vast many other countries too. Now maybe they just have a naturally low crime rate, but you'ld think Amsterdam, the drug Mecca of the world, would be crawling with crime. All those addicts running around commiting obscure crimes, violating people's rights left and right.
You'ld also think that they, who give heroin addicts heroin, and allow tokers to stone themselves silly, would have more addicts of these substances than us, but they don't.
Any lifetime use of cannabis by 15 year olds (in 1995):
29% in the Netherlands;
34% in the U.S.;
41% in the U.K.
(Sources: Netherlands Institute of Health and Addiction, U.S. National Institute for Drug Abuse; Council of Europe, ESPAD Report)
Heroine addicts as a percentage of population (in 1995):
160 per 100,000 in the Netherlands;
430 per 100,000 in the U.S.
(Sources: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport;
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy)
http://www.marijuananews.com/marijuananews/cowan/drug_czar_lies_about_the_dutch_a.htm
The studies have clearly shown that.
In the Netherlands:
"Proponents of legalization almost certainly would cite Amsterdam as the drug Mecca of the Western world. Anyone may go into the restaurants in this city and order marijuana and hashish from a menu; further, heroin and cocaine have been decriminalized for all practical purposes. The police simply leave the users alone. Consequently, health officials estimate that Amsterdam has 7,000 addicts, 20% of whom are foreigners.58 These addicts are responsible for 80% of all property crime in the city, thus necessitating that Amsterdam maintain a police presence far greater than those of cities of comparable size in the United States.59
The Dutch have not raised one dollar in tax revenue from drug sales, and drug violators account for 50 percent of the Dutch prison population, a higher proportion than in the United States.60 The Netherlands is the most crime-prone nation in Europe and most drug addicts live on state welfare payments and by committing crimes.61 Nationwide, the number of reported crimes increased to 1.3 million in 1992 from. 812,000 in 1981.62 Faced with public disgust at home over soaring drug related crime and pressure from other European Community countries to strengthen drug laws, Dutch authorities are implementing an aggressive program to reduce drug-linked crimes and disturbances and show new teeth in combatting illegal drug sales.63 Eberhard van der Laan, leader Of the Social Democrats in the Amsterdam City Council says, "People are absolutely fed up with all the troubles caused by drug addicts - car windows broken, noise, whole streets almost given up to the drug problem."64 Legalization advocates claim that marijuana use in Netherlands has not increased since the laws were liberalized, but the number of Amsterdam drug cafes rose from 30 to over 300 in one decade. They also fail to note that daily marijuana use by U.S. youth has declined by 75 percent.65"
The
facts are that the Dutch policy regarding drugs, which is actually quite far from complete legalization, reduce drug use, and reduce drug-related crime.
Here's your alternative to prohibition.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n600.a05.html/all
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n655.a05.html/all
The actual Dutch policy on drugs.
http://www.minbuza.nl/default.asp?CMS_TCP=tcpAsset&id=175A6D3F70164607A386D43B61DC135FX2X42819X14
In Switzerland:
"Much like Amsterdam, Switzerland until recently followed a policy of decriminalization. Indeed, a city park in the town of Zurich for many years was allowed to be a haven for drug users - police simply would ignore the problem by claiming that it was better to have all the addicts in one place rather than having them roam throughout the entire city.
I doupt those numbers, but if they are tue, I can explain why. You don't legalize drug use in just a park. Then you have everyone that uses drugs in that park, the peaceful stoner, and coked-out Hell's Angel at the same place. That's just asking from trouble. Instead, if drug use had been allowed in their homes, then there wouldn't have been this problem.
I consider the lesser of two evils the one that does less harm. As complete prohibition helps society more than it hurts it as has been shown very clearly in the studies in the aspect of crime lowering, it is the lesser of two evils.
You apparently aren't aware of the atrocities commited by America in other countries because of the drug war. "Plan Colombia" is a prime example. Among hiring mercenaries to kill drug lords and their sympathizers, the government engages in chemical warfare. We fly around and spray coca, marijuana, and poppy fields with an industrialized version of "Round-Up", made by the same company. Like crop spraying, they just dump it out, on everything.
They spray people, legal crops, food crops, livestock, houses, and wildlife. This shit poisons the animals, the birds, insects, everything. It gets in the rivers, the wells, in the gound, ruins the fields for years and poisons the water supplies. Land can't be used for decades. Takes years just for the grass to come back, and you couldn't eat anything out of that ground anyway. This shit gives you rashes, boils, serious respiratory problems. These people cough blood after these sprayings. It doesn't kill adults, but babies aren't so lucky. And you just know something like this gives you cancer.
What about he harm to them?
Not to mention, we're really the ones responsible for the drug cartels and the the violence, corruptions, and destruction they bring to their countries. We gave them a market. A market that we could take away at the drop of a dime. Might not destroy them, as they've gone international by now, but at least they wouldn't be able to sell to their biggest costumer anymore.
Because there is a clear distinction between this drug prohibition and alcohol prohibition as I have pointed out:
"There is quite a difference between the drug prohibition and the alcohol prohibition. During the alcohol prohibition it was not illegal to consume alcohol unlike the drug prohibition where it is. There is also that most people have a social acceptance of alcohol, which has a much longer history in western society than currently illegal drugs. The second one just showing it is harder to enforce something that a large percentage of the population disagrees with. On the other hand, a large majority favors keeping the currently illegal drugs illegal.
Alcohol prohibition did also work in lowering the use of alcohol. By the time federal prohibition started 36 of the then 48 states had already made alcohol illegal. This had lowered the rate of alcohol per year from 2.6 gallons per person to 1.96 in 1919 due to states starting prohibition, and even lower during the federal prohibition. In 1934, the year after alcohol prohibition had ended, the alcohol rate was at .97 gallons per person. Alcohol rates are now around three times as high as after alcohol prohibition.
Partially because of the drug war. You think so many people would drink when they could smoke, or at least drink so much.
Alcohol prohibition still failed though, and it did lead to many more problems than it solved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition
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?
As for why do I think it can work? I think it can work when the policies are changed and competent leadership is put into place.
Like the Netherlands?
More hollow claims.