The War on Drugs page 2

yes, i am.
what about those who are not rich?
who have no other chance to make enough money to live and support a family?
whose only motive is to secure the life of his famliy?
who are we to deny him his earned money?
and dont say that nobody sells drugs for the sake of thier children, bacause i know for fact many people in africa and and south america,whose only income(that comes from drugs), goes to feed their children. if it wasnt for this income, many of these familys would struggle to survive.

Originally posted by jjuanksta:

yes, i am.

what about those who are not rich?

who have no other chance to make enough money to live and support a family?

whose only motive is to secure the life of his famliy?

who are we to deny him his earned money?

and dont say that nobody sells drugs for the sake of thier children, bacause i know for fact many people in africa and and south america,whose only income(that comes from drugs), goes to feed their children. if it wasnt for this income, many of these familys would struggle to survive.

The legalisation of drugs would bring many more job oppurtunities within the new clinics set up in these areas. They could still be drug dealers, just over the counter dealers.

thus providing more jobs, a stronger economy, and a better opportunity for all.

That’s a stupid argument. Drug dealing is only lucrative because it is illegal. The risks involved with drug dealing make it increadibly retarded for a poor person to take on. The assumption that drug running is the only legitimizing business is why young black ghettos in America are overrun with crack. Yes, you have to be sensitive to why they do what they do (and why it shouldn’t necessarily be criminal) but you can’t honestly suggest it is a support system of any kind.

yes, i am.

That is just ridiculous. What about the poor man who sells his 6 year old daughters virginity to live? That isn’t an argument and you know it. The market will change and he will find something else to sell. Something that isn’t currently destroying countless lives.

Originally posted by TheBSG:

That’s a stupid argument. Drug dealing is only lucrative because it is illegal. The risks involved with drug dealing make it increadibly retarded for a poor person to take on. The assumption that drug running is the only legitimizing business is why young black ghettos in America are overrun with crack. Yes, you have to be sensitive to why they do what they do (and why it shouldn’t necessarily be criminal) but you can’t honestly suggest it is a support system of any kind.

Drug dealing is lucrative because there is a massive demand for it, and because there is a monopoly on the trade.

Originally posted by TheBSG:

That’s a stupid argument. Drug dealing is only lucrative because it is illegal. The risks involved with drug dealing make it increadibly retarded for a poor person to take on. The assumption that drug running is the only legitimizing business is why young black ghettos in America are overrun with crack. Yes, you have to be sensitive to why they do what they do (and why it shouldn’t necessarily be criminal) but you can’t honestly suggest it is a support system of any kind.

Freakonomics actually covered this pretty well. Low lever drug dealers make less than minimum wage.

I’ll post the PDF as soon as I can.

what risks?
is the government going to throw the homeless man into prison?
is his punishment going to be better living conditions?
for surely being feed at a prison and haveing a roof over your head is far better then what the homless man had before. so he has nothing to loose, but only gain.

I take it you have never been in or seen a prison.

^ Giant text wall!

Originally posted by Aaron_:

Originally posted by TheBSG:

That’s a stupid argument. Drug dealing is only lucrative because it is illegal. The risks involved with drug dealing make it increadibly retarded for a poor person to take on. The assumption that drug running is the only legitimizing business is why young black ghettos in America are overrun with crack. Yes, you have to be sensitive to why they do what they do (and why it shouldn’t necessarily be criminal) but you can’t honestly suggest it is a support system of any kind.

Freakonomics actually covered this pretty well. Low lever drug dealers make less than minimum wage.

I’ll post the PDF as soon as I can.

The main point made about that in Freakonomics was that because the dealers at the top were making so much money, the very large risk being involved in being a drug dealer seemed worth it to the low level people, if they could one day get to the top. In the same way that people want to become famous actors or sports stars, even if there is a high oppurtunity cost in chasing that dream. So, you see, it’s not much different from many other legal careers.

Formatting didn’t come out right D: I’ll fix it lol it’s ugly!

oh yes the prisoners all have regular showers, a bed to sleep, free food to eat, and in certain states are even granted a telivison set. I think that that sounds better then to not know where your next meal is going to come from, having to beg on the streets for money every day, sleeping on a bench in the cold of night, and haveing no chance to stay clean.
i mean sure maybe some correctional officer will yell at you, but you still have your rights.

I’m glad our understanding of prison experience is based entirely on television dramas or whatever. Don’t let me stand in the way of your blind optimism.

I mean:

Forget the gangs.
Forget the regular abuses.
Forget the lack of health care.
Forget the widespread sexual abuse.

It’s all sunshine and rainbows in your fictional world.

I love how it only comes out as a blob…

The main point made about that in Freakonomics was that because the dealers at the top were making so much money, the very large risk being involved in being a drug dealer seemed worth it to the low level people, if they could one day get to the top. In the same way that people want to become famous actors or sports stars, even if there is a high oppurtunity cost in chasing that dream. So, you see, it’s not much different from many other legal careers.

Exactly.

Heres the PDF I promised, although you have to do some searching for the specific chapter I mentioned.

http://web.iiit.ac.in/~karthik_ravikanti/pdf_doc/freakonomics.pdf

Homeless people are actually known to commit minor crimes and then turn themselves in in order to get a meal and place to sleep, especially around winter time. I can’t find any specific news articles about it, but I’m sure I’ve heard of it happening.

Originally posted by unproductive:

Homeless people are actually known to commit minor crimes and then turn themselves in in order to get a meal and place to sleep, especially around winter time. I can’t find any specific news articles about it, but I’m sure I’ve heard of it happening.

Violating a federal law is not the same as loitering or whatever. In the latter case you are talking about a night or two in a local precinct.

Originally posted by Kapowshazam:

Why would you want to do that?

So let’s talk about why I support legalizing all drugs, yes all of them. A couple of reasons: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Legalizing drugs would destroy the black market thereby destroying drug-gang violence. All these people that are for the war always say “We must fight because every dollar spent on drugs goes to terrorists” Well I agree, let’s stop sending money to Mexican cartels and the Taliban’s opium and hash trade. There’s three ways to do that: a) destroy all drugs and/or drug usuage b)destroy all cartels and gangs c)destroy the black market. The way I see it there’s only one option, c). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Legalizing would destroy the taboo. In the US kids drink a lot and at young ages. Go outside of the US to a place with a lower age and it’s hard to find kids that play beer pong and slam 14 beers a night. Many say that taboo’s only serve to increase use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Legalizing would increase quality control thereby decreasing overdoses and deaths. Also it would decrease the rate of HIV/AIDS and other blood transmitted diseases. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Legalizing would stop ruining peoples lives and decrease prison population (though those that are in jail now would stay most likely because they would be grandfathered in). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Legalizing would stop many wrongful murders by the police. (http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/08/... ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Legalizing would save tax dollars and would enable police to focus on other crimes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Legalizing would help to start to heal the mistrust of police and increase respect for law. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) Legalizing would help some for US’s world perception by stopping US spraying posionus chemicals over villages and fields (not all of them drug fields, many food ones). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) Legalizing would make drugs taxable and make drug sales taxable too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) Legalizing would free up many promising drugs for research that are currently stopped because of the near-impossibility of obtaining a license for research. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh and the big one, legalizing would DECREASE drug usage. Yep you heard right. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080 check it out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, if your interested there’s a criminal defense lawyer who made a quality article on legalization http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/victor/victor... it’s a good read. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the end I would love to find someone for the drug war to see what they think.

It's obvious that the status quo isn't working. No matter what your view on the war and on drugs ,it's a very hard hill to defend to say that there have been _any_ improvements since it's conception. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A simple search on google news for war on drugs brings up not a single positive article on it’s accomplishments. http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=war+on+drugs&cf=all&start=30 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The only recent article I have seen is this one http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/may/20/james-g-harpring-pro-con-america-winning-war-drugs/ . Which is written by a sherrif but more than that it reads like yellow-journalism. It repeats “America is winning, America is winning…” but lacks a single number or constructive statement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let’s forget about wither drug usage is wrong or right for the moment and focus on wither usage is increasing or decreasing. Fox news says (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518399,00.html )that drug use among only the young has decreased 25% from 2001-2008 (at the end of the article they go on to say a whopping 50%... :/ )but these statistics disagree http://www.drugabuse.gov/infofacts/HSYouthtrends.html . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So the numbers say that usage is level or increasing. Let’s consider now the ethics of the policy. The war on drugs is a war on people and a profit machine. The reason why drugs were outlawed wasn’t because the government cared about your health but rather it was created as a racist policy and later on in the Nixon administration the controlled substance act was created because of Jews, commies and radical demonstrators (power trip anyone?), not mention it provides a nice way to turn a large profit for a lot of companies. Check out the now declassified Nixon tapes on this http://www.alternet.org/story/12666/?page=2 . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marijuana was propagandized in the early 1920’s to make it look like it caused black men to rape women and it was associated with those dirty Mexicans, evil Jews, demonstrators, gays and commies. Alcohol prohibition was started because it was the reason for all of societies ills. Opium caused those yellow folk to become uppity and we were scared that the china-towns of the US would uprise and overthrow our government. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If the drug war was founded on something more than just racism, profit and a power-trip maybe I could support it. That said it wouldn’t have started if it were based on logic and facts. The original commission on marijuana found that there was no reason to criminalize it and the team was promptly fired by Nixon. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prison companies are making gold from the war. The US has 5% of the population and 25% of the prison population http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1209-01.htm and some say it’s rising! That’s higher than Russia and China who lag behind in 2nd and 3rd place… Of course not all those are because of drugs but a sizable amount is. The prison complex has seen huge growth, there isn’t enough room for all of our criminals (1 in 32 americans are in prison). It’s gotten to the point that non-violent drug offenders are taking the place of violent criminals (who are released early). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I believe that the government has no place in deciding what goes in or out of my body. The state is not my nanny nor my mother. The governments function is to protect it’s citizens, yes, but it does not have the right to control me. We spend billions a year on an epic failure and ruin many of our citizen’s lives. Those are some of my views and this is the short list lol.

Also I know it’s a TV show but it’s a really damn good TV show

And how are you so sure that my thoughts of prison are all from these television dramas?
pray tell, have you ever know what its like to have to live off of drug money?
no, you had at least one perant or gaurdian to buy you food and cloth and shelter.
have you ever wondered where you were going to get your next meal because you didnt have the money to get food?
most prison systems
are heaven compared to the lives that certian people live.

Originally posted by unproductive:

Also I know it’s a TV show but it’s a really damn good TV show

I was literallly just thinking about the paper bag reference. The Wire is awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2fV-_eiKxE

(sorry, don’t know how to embed)

Originally posted by SaintAjora:

I’m glad our understanding of prison experience is based entirely on television dramas or whatever. Don’t let me stand in the way of your blind optimism.

I mean:

Forget the gangs.

Forget the regular abuses.

Forget the lack of health care.

Forget the widespread sexual abuse.

It’s all sunshine and rainbows in your fictional world.

i never mentioned any of that……….
dont put words in my mouth that i did not say.

Originally posted by jjuanksta:

And how are you so sure that my thoughts of prison are all from these television dramas?

pray tell, have you ever know what its like to have to live off of drug money?

no, you had at least one perant or gaurdian to buy you food and cloth and shelter.

have you ever wondered where you were going to get your next meal because you didnt have the money to get food?

most prison systems

are heaven compared to the lives that certian people live.

Slinging rock on the corner is a great way to get killed or go to jail. Then who is going to provide for your family? So your argument only supports stopping the war by decreasing the chance of a poor family’s provider getting killed.