Ending the Failed War on Drugs

[benzocaine]

We all seem to be forgetting the limits on governmental power here in the Republic.

Gene

Such a small statement can cover a very large area. None of us have degrees in political science... (at least I don't think so ) .. do you mean that the federal gov't couldn't tax these drugs because it isn't within their juristiction or limits? If so.. good point.

Regardless, the individual states could tax the substances.

[Gene DeMambro]

The US Federal Government does have the power to to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises as well as to lay and collect taxes on incomes.

What I was refering to the proposition that, oh oh, we are having our freedoms taken away by the the illegal usurption of power by the state and federal governemnts. Over the years courts have consistantly overturned state laws that have no legitimate state interests or do not have a sensible construction, as well as certain federal laws that overstep Congress's authority. They have also held the converse for certain laws as well. Much has been written about the rational basis test, sctrict scrutiny and the limits on Federal power for further research, should anyone choose to do so.

As I said, in my mind, owing to the deliterious health and safety effects on both individuals and society as a whole, public policy demands that drugs of abuse be banned. Whether punitive drug laws with long sentences are the answer....I dunno.

Gene

[Dana Sheets]

Alcohol, tobacco, coffee, nutrasweet, benedryl as a sleep-aid, nasal spray,...

We live in daily contact of potentially abused substances. Does banning them work? Prohibition seems to say not. Marijuana use rates staying steady no matter what the legal consequences. People abuse - take away everything you think they can abuse and they'll still abuse (spray pain, rubber cement, freon, etc.)

Making them illegal just doesn't work. It's time to look at other models and other possibilities and develop a new model that is more successful and represents an overall reduction in the amount of harm caused to our society.

Dana

[Arnisador84]

The cofffe tax is kind of a funny thing... in order to get money for daycare, they decided to propose another tax, because that's what liberals do. Coffee didn't have a tax focused on it, so they had a vote on it. Turns out that Seattlites consider their morning brew too sacred for special taxation. A proponent of the tax stated that the tax was a great idea because it wouldn't be much affected by the economy- sales are pretty constant no matter how people are doing financially.

[IJ]

Lookingglass seems to be saying he is annoyed because people who never use pot are trying to change the laws just to find something to do. He hasn't been reading this or other forums, then, since the emphasis is generally on minimizing government and getting it out of our bedrooms and lives. The government that makes pot illegal for kicks also likes to make x, y, and z illegal for kicks and that DOES directly impact me. There have also been a variety of other good reasons cited to remove prohibitions on drugs:
--shifting taxpayer $ to more effective programs
--not destroying lives and families over a little weed, etc with property seizures, long sentances, etc.
--preventing deaths related to fear of repercussions
--making drugs safer
--reaching drug users to provide other services, treatment options, etc
--the fact that prohibition doesn't work

There are lots of reasons for a citizen to want pot and other drugs legalized besides a desire to get high. Pointing out that there are other drug options (cigs and alcohol) as a reason to keep pot banned makes about as much as saying the government should ban m+m's because we have peanut butter cups and marshmallows. Did you READ the first post?? Coherent and thought out posts are preferred.

It is the (overall) opinion of everyone involved in treating drug addictions in both a medical and a psychiatric setting that I've worked with that the users and the country would be better off if we stopped trying to fight users and started to help them. Providing safe drugs, with supervision and education, tied to rehab and recovery programs with no fears of retribution for seeking them, should be doable at the same or less cost than a losing war on producers and users from evidence that I've seen (not able to cite off the top of my head at the moment however).

I am getting tired of there being a huge burden of proof on the medical / nonpunitive approach to drug use. Someone publishes data that needle exchange prevents hiv without causing drug use, and the pols refuse to support it anyway because they want to maintain their image and keep it in line with the nazi announcers on COPS who relish every tackle and drug related breakin. Why don't we ask someone to JUSTIFY the intrusion (legally, practically) instead of coming from the other direction?

Gene, since your argument is that drugs have deleterious effects on individuals and society and that requires their being banned, should we not also ban:
--tobacco
--alcohol
--fast food?

I think the question is not whether drugs are harmful or not but rather what is the policy associated with the best outcomes and the least affront to our liberties. And I doubt its the current one.

[Gene DeMambro]

As a non-smoker who has been known to liberally indulge in the fine technology that creates beer, liquor and other alcoholic concoctions, I would have no problem whatever if tobacco and alcohol were banned. But that is an issue for the states themselves to decide. Since we already ban tobacco for those under 18 and alcohol for those under 21, there seems to be general agreement that such things do have deliterious effects on individuals and society as a whole. And any state that wishes to ban tobacco or alcohol, or anything else for that matter, MUST show that what they are doing has a legitimate state interest, and that the ban is rationally related to that interest. No state can make x , y, and z illegal for kicks. There must be a legitimate, rational reason. Check out the recent Supreme Court ruling regarding same-sex intercourse for reference.

The fast food argument is completely ridiculous. Come back with something more reasonable, and I'd be happy to oblige.

"I think the question is not whether drugs are harmful or not but rather what is the policy associated with the best outcomes and the least affront to our liberties. And I doubt its the current one."

'Tis my point as well.



Gene

[Kevin Mackie]

But that is an issue for the states themselves to decide.

Exactly! Not the Feds!! The States Rights include public safety, not the feds.

Check out "theantidrug dot com" for why pot is soooo bad. Its ridiculous. Alcohol and tobacco are far more detrimental to the health and welfare of users and family members affected by abuse (alcohol, second hand smoke)

If we start banning things that are dangerous to our health, how about skydiving, rock climbing, body piercing, driving, unprotected promiscuity?

And on a side note, why if I get disabled in the circumstance of the last issue does the federal gov't pay all my medical expenses, yet if I fall from a cliff and break my neck, I'm on my own?? (More Rhetorical than anything I guess.), so answers are not really required.

Kevin

[IJ]

"And any state that wishes to ban tobacco or alcohol, or anything else for that matter, MUST show that what they are doing has a legitimate state interest, and that the ban is rationally related to that interest. No state can make x , y, and z illegal for kicks. There must be a legitimate, rational reason. Check out the recent Supreme Court ruling regarding same-sex intercourse for reference."

1) I don't think banning tobacco, alcohol or drugs would be RATIONALLY promoting that legitimate state interest. We have prohibition to look to as an experiment, and it failed. People drank, crime flourished. Rationally, needle exchange should be promoted. Rationally, interdiction is not working; the price of drugs has fallen to very low levels and they can all be obtained at will. To point it out one more time, while lung cancer from smoking is our number one cancer killer, and cirrhosis from alcohol is top 1 or 2 on the liver transplant ist of diagnoses, pot kills, to my knowledge, no one (except via smoking effects presumably--avoidable via the brownie method, and intoxication related accidents, which we accept routinely as a cost of legal drugs).

2) How long in coming was that supreme court ruling? People lived out their whole lives under oppression from anti-sodomy laws. They were used to deprive parents of custody. They formed part of the justification for job and housing discrimination, military and civilian. They were supported by the Supreme Court (Bowers v Hardwick) and many state courts. They were, in short, a tool of oppression for many, many decades and the fact that they are FINALLY gone after the SCOTUS members got used to concept of Ellen and Will & Grace becoming part of our national culture is no comfort to me. The government did, can, does abuse us with nonsensical laws. Case in point: a midwestern young man (Limon) received a 17 year sentance for oral sex with a male partner when he was 18 that would have cost him 15 months if that person was female. How relieved am I that the playing field is now level? Depends on the outcome of his ongoing appeals, in part.

Regarding fast food, it's not ridiculous. It can be used without health consequences, just like alcohol or pot; obsessively or responsibly. Unhealthy foods contribute directly to the two top killers of Americans, cancer and the #1, heart disease. In fact our diets are primarily responsible for an epidemic of diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks, heart failure and a billion fat-related diseases that are costing this country billions and billions of dollars and straining our hospital systems to the limit. What did pot do, give us the munchies? Food may only be psychologically addictive while tobacco and alcohol are physically addictive, BUT both may be used without addiction as well, and we license tons of substances that cause tolerance--antidepressants and seizure drugs among them. Come back and tell what makes pot so dangerous and fast food so harmless. I'm unclear on why the comparison is "ridiculous."

[Gene DeMambro]

You're completely correct, Ian, as to why it took the Nine Wise to act in the manner they did. I share your disgust. It finally took the West, in the dawn of the 21st Century, to cast off certain laws whose genesis had no basis, other than moral disapproval of same sex liasons or of certain sexual actions. Shameful. Especially shameful if peoples lives were ruined over this legal bigotry. If anyone would like to discuss this more, I look forward to your PM.

"I think the question is not whether drugs are harmful or not but rather what is the policy associated with the best outcomes and the least affront to our liberties. And I doubt its the current one."

My response?

'Tis my point as well.

Here it is again, in case you missed it:

'Tis my point as well.

For future reference, as well:

'Tis my point as well.

How many more damn times do you want me to write it?

Massachusetts has their own drug laws, completely separate from Uncle Sam's.

Fall off a cliff and break your neck and left twisting in the breeze? There's Medicaid and Medicare, as well as Social Security Disability options as well. And if the injury was caused by the actions, negligence or malpractice of another, then there's also litigation.

There's nothing to prevent the state for banning rock-climbing, skydiving (but we might run into interstate commerce issues), body piercing (many already regulate it), driving (many already regulate it, but then we also run afoul of the Constitutionally protected Freedom to Travel). As for unprotected promiscuity, courts have already ruled many times over that intercourse between two consenting adults is a fundamental right and no governmental interest exists to infringe or restrict that right, including the use/non-use of prophylactics and birth control and the qualified right to terminate a pregnancy. If anyone would like to discuss this more, I look forward to your PM.

Fast food? Maybe the state can regulate or ban it.... But such laws or regulations would be uncommonly silly, irrational, serve no interest legitimate enough to infringe upon a persons right to nurish his/her body in the manner he/she sees fit, and in no way would they have a sensible construction, in my book. If anyone would like to discuss this more, I look forward to your PM.

Information regarding the health effects of marijuana and other drugs of abuse are readily available (try a Medline search to start). If anyone would like to discuss this more, I look forward to your PM.

Government abusing use with nonsensical laws? Write your state representatives in the two house of the Mass. legislature. Write your US Seantors and Representatives. Write the governor and see what he/she says. File a lawsuit to get the law overturned on due process grounds. The next time a candidate comes knocking on your door, asking for your vote, tell him/her what you think about certain laws and tell him/her that your vote is dependant upon his/her support for overturning said nonsensical laws. Join a PAC and/or donate money to the cause, as the moderator of this forum does from time to time with issues that are near and dear to his heart. What else do you want me to tell you?

Gene

[IJ]

Gene, I misread your posts apparently. I got the wrong impression: that which "'Tis [your] point as well" was:

"As I said, in my mind, owing to the deliterious health and safety effects on both individuals and society as a whole, public policy demands that drugs of abuse be banned."

... which was the idea I have been taking issue with. The medicalization approach seems much more fruitful to me than the criminalization approach, given that prohibition had its chance, wasted a lot of $ and ruined some lives, bred crime, and basically failed. Fast food causes demonstrably greater harms to users than some "drugs of abuse," and the associated harms to society are astronomical and orders of magnitude higher. Since this thread is about ending the war on drugs and one way to do that would be show that there is no valid distinction between "drugs of abuse" and legal abusable drugs and abusable foods, I think this distinction is important and worth discussing ON the thread. Additional points of view are welcome.

[Gene DeMambro]

The difference between illegal drugs of abuse and legally abusable drugs? One type is illegal, and another type isn't. That's about it. Totally arbitrary. And the fact that the lawmakers decided that one demonstrable harm be made illegal and yet others go unbanned or perhaps only regulated is solely the determination of the sitting governemnt and is a legitimate exercise of governmental power. And there certainly is no legal requirement that the states make alcohol or tobacco illegal. Got a problem with the fact that heroin is illegal and Jack Daniel's isn't? Write the governor or the State House and see if they'll change the law.

But just because alcohol is legal and heroin isn't doesn't make the law making heroin illegal invalid, or bad public policy. And even if fast food causes demonstrably greater harms to users than some "drugs of abuse," and the associated harms to society are astronomical and orders of magnitude higher, does not make the laws making these some "drugs of abuse" illegal invalid or bad public policy.

One time again on fast food: Perhaps the state can ban fast food. Just because they don't, is solely up to them. Write the Governor and see what he says. But it is my opinion, which will remain unchanged by anything anyone says or writes on these forums or other venues, that any such law won't pass the "reasonable test". No one ever demonstrated cognitive changes after eating a Super Sized MIckey D's meal and crashed their car into a busload of school kids. Can't say the same thing about pot, or heroin, or cocaine. Fast food vs. speed? I remain unconvinced that whatever risks posed by fast food, even when "abused", comes to the level of risk that the aforementioned drugs of abuse pose.

And then again, maybe fast food is protected, as perhaps a person's right to nurish his/her body with sustanence is a fundamental one, and this includes the right to eat as much fast food as one wishes. I am unwilling, nor will I ever be willing, to say the same about a person's right to smoke crack.

Yes, you did misread my posts. And you misquote me as well. The ENTIRE quote was:

" As I said, in my mind, owing to the deliterious health and safety effects on both individuals and society as a whole, public policy demands that drugs of abuse be banned. Whether punitive drug laws with long sentences are the answer....I dunno know." Notice the missing part?

Here it is again, and perhaps a little discussion on it as well:

"Whether punitive drug laws with long sentences are the answer....I dunno know."

I'm all for rehabilitation treatment for all who need it. I am saddened and I hang my head in despair whenever I hear of neighborhood opposition to drug treatment programs or outreach efforts. I am also saddened, in these difficult economic times, of less and less funding for said drug treatment programs or interdiction efforts, but there are only so many dollars to go around and there are perhaps more pressing needs. Take away some of the punitive nature of certain drug laws, and perhaps it might lessen the drug problem. But my qualified opinion that drugs of abuse be banned, continues to hold, and will remain unchanged by anything anyone says or writes on this forum or any other venue.

I'm not aware of how comparing drugs of abuse to legal abusable drugs and to abusable fast foods somehow makes the case that drug laws have no place today.

Gene

[benzocaine]

I've lurked through this subject for the past few days and thought it best that I stay out. I didn't really have anything more to contribute. Some wise people have said if you want to avoid an argument don't talk politics or religion as people tend to have pre programmed responses and rarely back away from their beliefs. Some people get down right ugly damnit! . Then I told my self "this is the "Tough Issues" forum so what the hell, so what if I offend someone.. so long no one gets personal.. so what.. this is debate right?".

I still think my idea is best(tounge in cheek)... legalise pot.. and (to quote myself)"tax the hell out of it". Maybee use the money for health clinics? Like Ian has said
"should we not also ban:
--tobacco
--alcohol
--fast food? " .. which I think he asked simply to prove a point.. which is that many things have to potential to be abused. If Big Brother wants to protect us poor mindless sheep from drugs why not from those substances listed above?

I'll admit it.. about once a year I over indulge in alcohol and want a cigarette. It doesn't mean I'm going go out and buy a pack of ciggarettes and a bottle of thunderbird the next day. Conversely, someone who decides to take a toke of pot doesn't necessarily turn into Tommy Chong. Another point to make is that if you eat a Big MAC You don't get overweight from just one right?

[Thaws]

I gotta totally agree w/Ij on Fast food(culinary Crack). True no one gets nutty after a Mcfat burger, but sooner or later yours and my taxes are paying for the medical bills due to their declining health, in part due to their pathetic diet. Some sort of regulation is needed to save these people who either can't or don't care to save themselves. I really don't want to pay for someonelses medical treatment because they chose to eat crap or feed it to their kids. A tax on Fast food crack would be great too. Best of all though would be to establish cafeterias in the projects, staffed by those who live there(job training), offering 3 nutritionaly balanced meals with the rawproducts supplied by local farmers. This would also cut the bottomless pit of welfare spending.

[Thaws]

Add highschool cafeterias to that list too. A captive audience.

[IJ]

Gene, I didn't misrepresent your quote. You said you wanted the drugs banned; that's all I said you said. That you would ban them in a slightly different way was immaterial to my point. I am well aware that our discussion here will have no effect on your opinion (it seems to have been sealed), or law. There must be some reason you continue to read and post to it, however, and that must be because it's entertaining. No one here needs to be disabused of the notion they're writing public policy, and admonishing us to write our legislators in support of crack legalization doesn't forward the debate or entertain. Some points:

First, there may be a decent distinction between crack and lunch, but there's a lot of gray beween these extremes. There are a lot of substances which blur the distinction between plants/foods and mind altering chemicals, with alcoholic drinks, tobacco, coca leaf, certain mushrooms, ephedra (speed) containing teas and plants among them. There isn't a clear distinction between nourishment and drug use. There also isn't a prevention of nourishment associated with banning certain foods; after all, the point would be that it would be MORE nourishing after mandating healthier diets, and if its the CHOICE you value, then value choice, and let people make their own decisions, bad ones (drug use), or good ones both included.

Second, since you were curious ("I'm not aware of how comparing drugs of abuse to legal abusable drugs and to abusable fast foods somehow makes the case that drug laws have no place today."):

My opinion, which I suspect is shared by some, is that our laws ought to be logical and consistent and not just what-governments-CAN-do-or-go-write-your-legislator. If we start with the premise that food should be legal (accepted by most americans and legislators) and we add a dash of common sense (things should be more regulated or banned along a continuum to the extent they are amenable to useful regulation and present a need for it), and then we make a good case that foods do more damage to our country than drugs and that many drugs can be or usually are no more harmful than foods, then we've got a good case that at least some drugs are over regulated.

There's that nagging second point that prohibition has demonstrably failed and that we could probably do more good for users and nonusers alike if we switched to a medicalization rather than criminalization model as well.