I'd be looking for the "smoke easys".

 

How much have we spent so far, and where has it gotten us?

There's a word that describes that - trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

 

Prohibition doesn't work. There is a prohibition against murder and rape for example...and people still murder and rape. Why bother enforcing it, it's a waste of time and effort because you can't stop murder and rape. People want to murder and rape other poeple, they always have, and they always will. Prohibition doesn't work.

 

Murder and rape by definition involve a victim. I thought this thread was if prohibition 'works' as to personal choices in diet. How does prohibition prevent or even lessen needle sharing, street crimes, and dangerous unregulated, uninspected, clandistine commercial activity? It seems that prohibition only fuels these social ills. With a huge 'big government', privacy and freedom hating anti-American Federal program, at that. Oh you utter-libs and your social engineering . By the by, drug choices ARE the fabric of the USA, from tea being so important as to warrent revolution over taxes, to a civil war fought over slave produced tobacco, to the rise of political dynasties and crime families distributing alcohol when prohibited, to the drug and numbers and prostitution trades today. Even 'ocy-cotin Rush' wouldn't be such a laughing stock if prescription meds, something that seemingly should be between patient and doctor, wasn't subject to Law Enforcement Scrutiny, like they are heroes for dictating how a private citizens' back problems should be dealt with. Dictating diet hardly seems reconcilable with individual freedom and responsibility for one's own choices, but lets face it most neo-con babble is just as deep and honest as are any other social engineering schemes.

 

thanks for the replys
I'm not sure how I feel
I don't believe in prohibition, but in the last year I've lost my best friend to speed addiction, so I'm torn.
I think that education has created problems by lying to kids about pot being as bad as herion or coke. kids aren't stupid, and many try pot and realize they've been lied to, so they figure they have been lied to about the dangers of other drugs.this is only compounded by the fact that potentially lethal substances like tobacco and alcohol are legal. of course we tried outlawing booze, and created more problems than we solved.

another thought is alcohol is legal, and when I was under 21 it was easier to buy drugs than liquor, so maybe legalization would help keep drugs away from kids.
some advocate "well, just shoot all the users", most of those people will prolly tell you the war in Iraq was nessicary because of human rights violations commited by Saddam. I bet his anti drug policys involved murdering users.
some cite Amsterdam as an example, where drugs are legal, and don't cause crime.
I don't have the answers, but I do think the socialogical aspects of drugs are very interesting.

 

Drug abuse, a victimless crime. Yeah, march on Washington with that on your t-shirt.

 

With some four hundred thousand premature deaths annually atributed to tobacco abuse/addiction, I am not saying drug abuse doesn't have very real consequences for many people, call them victims of their own personal choices if you must, by why criminal? How does that help anything? And what gives anyone the right to dictate anothers diet, what exactly, besides the might of ' the law', gives the state this right over individuals. And yes I love visiting Amdam, great place and so very friendly and safe, at least that has been my experience.

 

I don't think the effect of this misinformation should be underestimated. I could be the driving force behind experimentation with actual "hard" drugs. It was for me.

 

There are indeed collateral victims of drug abuse to be sure but I feel it's a social issue not a criminal one. Family dysfunction caused by drug abuse or alcoholism or neglect or violence or any other form of abuse require treatment not necessarily incarceration. Having your parent in prison doesn't exactly heal family wounds.

 

Quite simply, it's a criminal issue because they're abusing an illegal substance. If we want to legalize it, then it won't be criminal. We need to start differentiating between the substances that we are allowed to "ingest" and those our government says we can't. Alcohol and cigarettes for all their faults are legal and every citizen is entitled to "use" them when they reach legal age. Obviously the fact that drugs are illegal has little effect on their usage. I'd hate to see what percentage of our crime rate is attributable to getting, selling, or using drugs. Like every other "value" that is instilled in a growing child, I think parental guidance is the best way to combat addiction.

 

OK since this has gone from a prohibition thread to a drug enforcement thread I have something to say. We have the means to all but snuff-out our present drug problem, however we as a people don't have the collective stomach for it. If you want to see how to deal with the drug cartels just rent th movie "Clear and Present Danger." In a nutshell a major plotline follows a special ops team in Columbia. Needless to say they raise hell with the cartel and do a fair bit of damage to its ability to do buisiness. We have the bombs, the bullets, and the manpower the only thing we are lacking is the public support. When the trafficers use boats, we have sonabouys if we could watch every move of the Soviet Navy we can monitor the comings and oings of a few speedboats. When they use planes, we have AWACS and a lot of F-16's, F-18's, A10's even Apaches. When the local governments argue, we can just have them ask the Taliban boys we have in Git'mo what happens when you protect people we don't like. What an I forgetting... oh yes, the production plants and the fields. Hmmm, as I recall we have a bunch of S.E.A.L. teams and Force Recon teams, a whole bunch of napalm, and a few squadrons of AC-130 gunships. To get the leaders we have Predator drones that can carry Hellfire missiles (its really ugly when one of those things hits a car, armored or not). I don't see why we just don't quit *****footing around and start treating the "War on Drugs" like a real war... Oh yeah, it's because the liberal media would only report on the dead children that were working in the cocane plants and the one soldier that got killed during a firefight where his squad was outnumbered 20:1 and won, or the lucky RPG that hits a Blackhawk (if the cartels don't have them, they can get them). A few weeks of that and people would start raising up to bring the troops home and to stpo the killing of "innocent" people, or of the U.S. and its "imperialistic" goals. The only way to stop trug trafficing is to make it utterly suicidal to consider producing, trafficing, or selling it. Drugs will continue to be a problem untill we decide to really deal with them.

 

They can't legislate morality or social behavior.

I have smoked two, maybe three joints in my life, have never tried any hard drugs (or any non-generic or illicit non-prescription drugs for that matter), and probably drink too much wine.

What I don't understand is what the big issue is with the government's BFD against marijuana. There has never been any plausible justification for their paranoia against any use, including prescribed medicinal use, of MJ. There has to be some big money somewhere in this equation. Makes me wonder if the Prison Guard's unions aren't paying our legislators to keep up the 'good fight' against the use of pot. More convictions mean more convicts, means more prisons, means more jobs and jobs for overpaid prison guards who otherwise might likely be unemployable.

Like, who wants to be a night watchman for minimum wage when you can be a prison guard (and union member) watching over a bunch of really dangerougs toke smoking criminals (who were housewives, teachers, accountants, crosing guards, and sales persons before their arrests) and get paid 10 times as much plus pensions and benefits , all at the taxpayers expense.

Can anyone explain to me why the feds neurotic fear of marijuana is right or justified. And why not the same heavy-handedness against tobacco?

 

As I said in a previous post, the Feds needed something to do with all the Prohibition officers after prohibition was repealed. Marijuana was at the top of their list.

 

For a fun and fact filled romp through the annuls of modern prohibition look for Jack Herer's The Emperor Wears No Clothes, available at Amozon, and elswhere

 

Odds on 21,
....Maybe in Ca the prison guards are over paid, but not in Wa or Az...especially for what they have to deal with on a everyday basis....
Az Dept of Corrections Officer I....starting salary $24,950
Wa Dept of Corrections Officer I...........................$27,393