Legalzing guns and drugs

[JWarren]

JesseL,


Is ANYONE here suggesting that having drugs illegal is preventing what I mentioned?

I fail to see how legalizing Meth and Crack would somehow make the world a happy place where blue birds flutter around your head (I mean REAL ones, not the ones that they may see.)



-- John

 

[Sans Authoritas]

The absence of a militarized police force justifying its existence by no-knock raids and kicking down doors for voluntarily-consumed chemicals would be all the "bluebirds fluttering about" I need.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Cel]

It will never be a perfect world but continuing to waste money on this already lost "War" is illogical and leading to more legislation that is infringing on MY rights.

 

[Soybomb]

I fail to see how legalizing Meth and Crack would somehow make the world a happy place where blue birds flutter around your head (I mean REAL ones, not the ones that they may see.)

Happy doesn't necessarily mean people cease their destructive behaviors. It might mean that we can free up some jail space and keep robbers, rapists, and child molesters in jail longer. It might mean that that big trash bag of pot isn't worth nearly what it is now and the violence associated with the black market for drugs would decrease. I'd be thrilled if we could keep the people who actually do harm or try to harm other people in jail longer. Maybe we could cut down on the gun violence statistics that make it hard for us to keep the rkba.

Isn't the number of homicides related to drugs like 50% now? What if we could conservatively say cut that in half by making the drug trade worthless to the bad guys? What if we could keep armed robbers in jail longer at the expense of letting out the guy who is harming himself only? Isn't that a real benefit? Wouldn't we have an easier time in our struggles with the rkba if we could get these guys that commit gun crime off the streets longer?

 

[JesseL]

Is ANYONE here suggesting that having drugs illegal is preventing what I mentioned?

You must think it's doing some kind of good to counter the harm it's causing.

I fail to see how legalizing Meth and Crack would somehow make the world a happy place where blue birds flutter around your head (I mean REAL ones, not the ones that they may see.)

I believe that if recreational pharmaceuticals were legalized most people inclined to use them wouldn't choose to use overly dangerous, unpredictable, and excessively potent drugs like crack, meth, and heroin.

Given inexpensive and readily available choices, I think most users would probably stick to the kind of drugs that were used before we started banning them. Things like laudanum, coca leaf infusions, and factory rolled marijuana cigarettes. Alcoholics drink a lot more beer than bootleg moonshine.

The pressures of drug prohibition have forced producers to make their products as potent as possible. This spurs higher addiction rates, more dramatic behavior shifts, and more overdose deaths.

 

[JWarren]

Sans,

Valid point.

However, are you suggesting that we do not have a problem with drug addiction destroying lives, families, and affecting the rest of us?


Understand this please... I've no illusions about the impotence of drug laws. I also have no illusions about addiction-- or about people, for that matter.

We will live in a world where savagery can visit itself upon anyone at any give time. Its no different than it ever was, or ever will be.

I see no redeeming qualities for drugs, but does that mean that they should be banned? No. Plenty of things have no redeeming value. My wife may disagree, but this includes 90% of the things on Lifetime Movie Network. This includes EVERYTHING on the Soap Opera Channel.

Where I find myself stopping short of legalization is the ease of addiction of people who are not mature enough or aware enough to realize what they are getting into.

I saw this quite commonly in my fraternity days. We used to look forward to all the niave freshman girls to come over every spring. I saw a lot of bad things occur and I saw some lives take very bad turns.

But I find myself at odds with my own personal viewpoint of blaming the person.

Perhaps I am not fond of the idea of them visited upon the niave. But then again, I am a sucker for puppies, too.

Because I see no redeeming value in the drugs, and because I recognize that addiction can ruin lives, I ALSO feel very little sympathy for the person who is selling drugs and gets caught, or the guy who is giving them to a freshman in college.

If lives have to be ruined, I am quite OK with the opportunist finding ill rewards as well.

That's about as introspectively truthful as I am capable of at 12:02 AM. And with that, I wish you all a good night, and a good discussion.


-- John

 

[Sans Authoritas]

The pressures of drug prohibition have forced producers to make their products as potent as possible. This spurs higher addiction rates, more dramatic behavior shifts, and more overdose deaths.

Jesse, precisely what happened during alcohol prohibition. The alcoholism rate increased.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

The absence of a police force would be all the "bluebirds fluttering about" I need.

FTFY.

Until you get killed by gangs and no one cares because they're too busy trying not to die themselves.

 

[Sans Authoritas]

JWarren, I absolutely understand your viewpoint, and I once felt exactly the same way. The risks are scary. There are some kids who might have not gotten tangled up because of a regulation. But that which is required to preserve liberty is scary. And the only things that will ever truly keep kids away from drugs and crime are good parents and a good upbringing. Because the drugs and crime will always be there.

I hate to see anyone suffer when it might have been preventable. But when you go down that road, you can also start saying, "If it saves just one life... we should ban X."

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Sans Authoritas]

Quote alleged to have come from Sans Authoritas:

The absence of a police force would be all the "bluebirds fluttering about" I need.

taurusowner wrote:

Until you get killed by gangs and no one cares because they're too busy trying not to die themselves.

Taurus, playing a little light and loose with the editing of my statement, aren't you? What I said was:

The absence of a militarized police force justifying its existence by no-knock raids and kicking down doors for voluntarily-consumed chemicals would be all the "bluebirds fluttering about" I need.

FTFY.

Until you get killed by gangs and no one cares because they're too busy trying not to die themselves

And what organized crime are you talking about? The gangs whose business is made lucrative and which use violence only because their business is prohibited by regulations?

You might as well pretend to protect me from the frying pan by throwing me into the fire.

Well-intentioned as you may be in your actions, you're no hero for prosecuting the war on drugs. You, if you are a police officer, are enabling the infliction of the real damage that is grossly disproportionate to the perceived good. The war on drugs is nothing more than a band-aid on gangrene. It just helps make the problem worse, just like alcohol prohibition did.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Cel]

Sans - Well said.

 

[sanglant]

Man i didn't know they had roads in subways now :banghead:

 

[Sans Authoritas]

Sang, please elaborate. Whose words are "low road?"

-Sans Authoritas

 

[sanglant]

changin quotes so you can "try" to make a point just hit me BAD tonight , i tried to do the quote thing but it just looked like a word jumble

 

[Sans Authoritas]

"You" as in "me, Sans Authoritas," or "you" as in "one?" I didn't change anyone else's wording, or my own post, #127. And the only thing I changed in #135 were a couple of word choices: namely, "causing" to "enabling," and adding the sentence concerning "a band-aid on gangrene" and following.

Was I wrong in assuming you meant "low road" when you said, "roads in subways?"

-Sans Authoritas

 

[sanglant]

aye, as in someone, am i doin that bad typing tonight?



P.S.
headaches suck:banghead:

 

[Sans Authoritas]

am i doin that bad typing tonight?

Ehhh.... : )

-Sans Authoritas

 

[cowssurf]

I would only agree partly. There are some drugs I wouldn't mind seeing legalized, and others that I don't think should be legalized.

 

[Kind of Blued]

FYI: Guns are legal.

I feel the same way about both. They should be legal. If you do anything illegal with a gun or do anything illegal while under the influence of drugs, you should pay the penalty.

 

[JWarren]

Sans,

Your arguement is compelling. Ironically, I used to believe the same as you. Perhaps on an ideological level, I still do.

Realistically, however, my life will not be altered in any way from either the status-quo or with their legalization. I have no interest in becoming an advocate for something that I KNOW destroys lives and families. If, by some chance, there was a sucessful effort to legalize them, I would go on with my life.


-- John

 

[qwert65]

I think a lot of the disagreement here comes from lumping all guns together and all drugs together. Most people here seem to think there should be some regulation(minimal) of both.

I reiterate my previous post about people disscussing this scientifically and rational as oppossed to emoitionally. For some reason posts seem to go back and forth with I believe- you believe and as this is an opinion poll that is all well and good.


However, once a discourse starts and someone attemps to introduce evidence to their point of view it amazes me that both sides disregard it and make the same argument.

This is exactly what we blame the antis of! not using logic, ignoring facts, misinterpeting the BOR

I urge the sides in the spirit of actually wanting to solve something(even if this is pointless learning to debate logically is helpful)

I would like those who think all drugs should be legalized to go to the library and look up say 5 drugs in a Pharm reference book. also look up the different classes of drugs from the FDA/DEA and try and say they should all be legal. also for those who say it is their will that makes/dosen't make them do something one night when you won't drive/touch firearms get drunk- I mean really drunk and set up a camera and just watch your behavior(not scientific but if you don't want to take my word for it take LSD/Heroin and do the same thing -no need to worry about addiction it's all will right?)

For those of you on the opposite side look up drugs as well-they are not all the same and do not all turn people into zombies

Also disscussing the war on drugs is moot whether something should be legal has nothing to do with the way the goverment tries to control something it won't save money it's the goverment they'll spend it somewhere else
Thanks-Joe

 

[Sans Authoritas]

also for those who say it is their will that makes/dosen't make them do something one night when you won't drive/touch firearms get drunk- I mean really drunk and set up a camera and just watch your behavior(not scientific but if you don't want to take my word for it take LSD/Heroin and do the same thing -no need to worry about addiction it's all will right?)

Does having that alcohol present get you drunk? Or do you have to choose to get drunk? Aye. You have to will to get drunk/high in the first place, and then continue to use drugs because there's something missing from your life and you want to fill that void. Does an addiction weaken the will? Sure. Lots of things do. It does not lessen the fact that the one who abuses the drugs or alcohol ultimately wills to continue using them. A being that is not volitional is not human.

Also disscussing the war on drugs is moot whether something should be legal has nothing to do with the way the goverment tries to control something it won't save money it's the goverment they'll spend it somewhere else

For me, it's not about the money. Everyone knows individuals in government never really "save" money, as nobody who has a virtually unlimited income stolen from a coerced third party really cares about being a "good steward" with that money.

No, for me, it's about having police in armored vehicles and ninja black kicking down doors. And the less of that there is, the better the world will be.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[qwert65]

SA You're right your will determines if you start, my point is and it is fact(remebering that different people have different tolerances) you lose your will it becomes a need-like water

You might be strong enough but laws are made for populations not the few-plus how strong willed do you think kost people are. it is the weak ones who are affected the most as they are the ones who try it in the first place(and the ones more at risk with legalization-)
thats why alcohol isn't availible in schools/ they cut off consumption at ballparks after 3rdQ/7th inn. because most people CAN'T STOP. -difference being the next morning most people don't crave alcohol-not so with a lot of drugs(but not all)

 

[ScottyT]

The war on drugs is a huge waste of money that only benefits governments and criminals.

+1

At the very least Weed should be legal, but I am no fan of the government deciding what people can or cannot put in their bodies to any degree.

I have personally seen Marijuana (taken for medicinal purposes) work miracles on a member of my family suffering from chronic pain (Fibromyalgia). One weed lollipop on the bad days makes the pain go away more effectively and with less harmful side effects than with prescription narcotics.

We need to eliminate the DEA and BAFTE! There is a great chunk of change that could be put towards border security and education (which will now include teaching kids that even though crack is legal now, doesn't mean you should use it -- oh, and firearm safety).

 

[Sans Authoritas]

Do you really want the government teaching morality to your kids? Or gun safety?

Not with my money, sir.

-Sans Authoritas