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Old August 8, 2006, 12:31 PM   #76
Eghad
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Say that addiction has to do with a persons mental makeup also. There are addictions to PC and video games, sex, porno, alcohol, ect, ect.
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Old August 8, 2006, 04:06 PM   #77
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Old August 8, 2006, 11:19 PM   #78
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Understandable about the idea behind addiction...

Yes ANYTHING can be addicting, and mack59 you made a good point. Once again, drug use boils down to personal choice, if a person is going to use it without letting it interfere with their lives, or if a person will let it be their ruin is their choice good or bad.


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Old August 9, 2006, 12:34 PM   #79
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Yes ANYTHING can be addicting,
Again, there is a huge difference between a psychological addiction and a physical addiction. Marijuana is not physically addicting, and yes, it should be decriminalized. In Ohio, possession of marijuana for personal use is a minor misdemeanor, same as a traffic ticket.

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Once again, drug use boils down to personal choice, if a person is going to use it without letting it interfere with their lives, or if a person will let it be their ruin is their choice good or bad.
Epyon, that's only partly true. With physically addicting drugs, a person only has a choice the first couple of times he uses. Once he's addicted, he has no choice.

These drugs are insidious demons. Early on, they caress you and whisper everything's OK. Quite literally before you know it, you're hooked, with escape being impossible without help, and the true demon reveals itself. You say you love freedom, but you couldn't be more of a slave.

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If one is not addicted it is almost impossible to truly understand it.
Truer words were never spoken, Mack59, and here's my dirty little secret. I was a full blown addict. (And that is was, and not am.) I hesitated to post this on an Internet forum, but I once swore the truth needs to be told.

A little over a decade ago, things weren't going well here. I experienced the death of several loved ones, and the near death of another after he intentionally shot himself. There were family problems, financial problems, and problems at work, and I was a total wreck. I couldn't sleep, and my performance and judgment at work were declining.

I went to my doc and told him this couldn't continue. He prescribed a drug called Ativan. It's a tranquilizer, and it seemed the perfect answer at the time. My concerns just seemed to melt away and I was finally sleeping well. The little label on the bottle that said "Warning, may be habit forming" didn't seem like a big deal. After all, a "habit" is picking your nose or biting your nails, right?

Months later, I noticed that the drug wasn't quite as effective, and I told my doc. He upped the dose, and once again, bliss enfolded me. This repeated itself several times over until I was at the max dose, and I was looking for ways to find more. Friends and family tried to tell me that something was wrong, but I didn't listen. After all, the drug caressed me and said everything was OK.

Finally, I sat back and took stock of myself, and decided it was time to stop this stuff and get on with life, so I quit.... cold. In less than 24 hrs., I found myself in the emergency room in life threatening convulsions, and after a couple of days in ICU, they shipped me to a detox ward, where I spent two weeks.

You cannot possibly imagine how sick I was. It was like the worst case of the flu you can imagine and I couldn't even walk without help. On top of that, I experienced wave after wave of terror, panic, and paranoia. I can't picture any hell being worse, but I grit my teeth, clenched my fists, and determined to beat the demon..... and I did, but it was easily the toughest fight of my life. NO ONE can know what it's like, unless you've been there.

The experience left me with an empathy and sympathy for addicts, and a pure hatred for those that deal drugs solely for financial gain.

The road to addiction is a pleasant and deceiving drive down a wide and smooth highway, but the road to recovery is an impossibly steep, rough, and long one, and were I able, I would spare anyone that trip, by any means necessary.

So when someone says to me, "It's my choice", I have to say, Choice? Slaves have no choices.
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Old August 9, 2006, 01:44 PM   #80
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A great post that took guts. Thanks, Capt.

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Old August 9, 2006, 03:01 PM   #81
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Ok, since the thread has evolved from 'great article in SWAT', into the merits of the WOSD, here we go:

Mr. Mack59 speaks much truth on page 1:

1. The first, and most important point to realize, is that those of us who advocate decriminalization of pot and other drugs, WANT THE EXACT SAME THING THAT THE PRO-WOD FOLKS WANT! We want to REDUCE DRUG USE and ADDICTION in our society, not increase. Yes, for your information, I HAVE seen time and time again the devastating effects of alcohol and other drugs on people. Drug addition is a scourge on society, and must be reduced - particularly meth/crank/ice addition (there is no 'use' of that stuff; only addiction). Make no mistake about it, many like me despise drug use & addiction, and most certainly do NOT use ourselves. I don't even drink anymore, to speak of; there's a bottle of whiskey on my fridge that has been there for almost a year, and I haven't touched it. So get this through your heads, please: people who think that those who favor ending the WOD are people who use themselves, or wouldn't mind increase drug use overall are flat wrong, wrong, wrong!

2. The second, and equally important point to realize is that the war on drugs IS NOT WORKING, DOES NOT WORK, AND CANNOT AND WILL NOT EVER WORK, to accomplish its stated goals; i.e. reducing drug use/addiction in our society. I wish it did work. I really, really do. But it doesn't. There are more drugs coming in now to our country than ever before, even with the massive amounts of law enforcement money spent on attempting to stop it. Like the man says, if you're a boxer, and get thumped over and over again using the same tactics, it's time to try something different, which maybe WILL work.

3. Third, IN ADDITION TO not working, the WOSD has the added component of several severe negative consequences on society. First, there is the enormous cost in tax money to run the many, many, many thousand of LEOS, state, federal, and local, and specifically, the drug law enforcement parts of their budgets. Whether in domestic law enforcement, customs/border agencies, and interdiction money. Next, there is the enormous cost in lost civil liberties which are a direct result of the war on drugs and now the "war on terror" (which is a complete farce). It is unbelievable how the supreme court has allowed politics to erode the civil rights of the accused, allowing such things as traffic check points, no-knock raids, all kinds of intrusive searches, incredibly invasive and unfair seizure laws against people who weren't even dealing drugs, etc. Without the WOD (which isn't working, remember), we would have a far higher degree of civil rights left. Next, the war on drugs greatly INCREASES violent crime associated with drug-dealing activity. It is indisputable that this violent crime would disappear virtually overnight, as the legal companies would take over and put these gangs out of business. Next, the WOD provides very high incentives for LEOAs and individual LEOS to commit fraud, crimes, and other wrongdoing, due to the seizure laws, such as planting drugs on suspects in order to get their property, etc. And unfortunately, although in the minority, a certain pecentage of LEOs are in fact, corruptible, to their shame and the credibility of the majority of fine upstanding LEOs. It also causes an unholy union or alliance between the LEOAs, particularly the alphabet soup federal LEOAS, and the drug dealers. Clearly, LEOAs have a massive conflict of interest here. They obviously don't want to end drugs being smuggled into our country, or they'd be out of a job. They have to catch just enough bad guys and their drugs to show that we the taxpayers are seemingly getting something for our money, but allow just enough bad guys to slip through to keep the drugs in the country, to justify their existence and getting yet larger and larger budgets. This would all disappear if drugs were legalized.

Quite clearly, I think, we are on the wrong path. Prohibition of drugs cannot work any more than did prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s.

The solution is to slowly begin legalizing them over time, beginning with pot. Ultimately pot would be sold in liquor stores ("pot stores"?), and the harder more addictive drugs will require a doc's prescription, or at least the permission of a gov- run or gov-approved drug rehab center. They won't be an over-the-counter proposition. We must vote for a radical change in political leadership in Washington on this issue, so that the federal LEO alphabet soup budgets can be greatly reduced (gradually over time, so that we don't put large chunks of them out of work all at once). Cutting budgets is painful and fight-intensive, so it will be difficult, necessating the radical change in leadership views on the issue. Finally, let's TREAT the dadgummed addicts into getting their asses of of the drugs, and back into being contributing members of society. This goes for current addicts and for the slight increase of addicts ultimately (initially) created by legalization. But if we took the entire drug-policy-enforcement budgets of federal, state, and local LEOAs, and cut it by 3/4ths, that would save us the taxpayers billions upon billions upon billions of dollars. Now, take this money, and give HALF of it back to the taxpayers in the form of a tax cut, and take the other half and spend it on government-sponsored drug addict treatment facilities, then you would have the following results over time:

1. LESS actual addicts and thus costs to society of drug abuse
2. Far MORE civil liberties
3. Far LESS violent crime (related to drug dealing)
4. Far MORE money in our pockets (from reducing taxes)

The KEY to making it work is providing treatment facilities for drug users to get off of drugs and back to contributing to society. It has been PROVEN that every dollar spent on drug treatment facilities is on the order of several times more efficient at reducing drug addition rates than that same dollar spent on local law enforcement activities, near 10 times as effective at same as that dollar spent on border/customs drug enforcement, and something like 20 times as effective in reducing drug rates as an interdiction dollar (ya know, raiding columbian drug lords with our paramilitary groups).

So keep in mind that almost all LEOs, and those who run prisons have a strong vested interest financially in keeping the WOD going (that war that doesn't and won't ever work). So take what ANY LEO says with a grain of salt. They don't *necessarily* have the same goal as you or I have, which is REDUCING DRUG USE AND ADDICTION RATES most importantly, and secondly, taking back some of our civil liberties. Some do (most in fact - most the LEOs are good guys); some clearly do not.

YMMV.

Cap'n Charlie, that is quite a harrowing tale - thank you for sharing, and you deserve a huge florida attaboy for having the determination to kick the habit. Kudos to you.

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Old August 10, 2006, 02:01 AM   #82
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...and the harder more addictive drugs will require a doc's prescription, or at least the permission of a gov- run or gov-approved drug rehab center.
We don't have prescriptions for alcohol, which is addictive and ruins plenty of lives. Why do we need prescriptions for hard drugs?
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Old August 12, 2006, 11:10 AM   #83
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because they are FAR more psychological addictive than alcohol, and physically addictive, unlike alcohol.
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Old August 12, 2006, 12:01 PM   #84
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Nothing is more addictive than nicotine.
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Overall, more than one-third of all regular cigarette smokers, many of these still in middle age, will be killed by the habit. Smokers lose an average of 20-25 years of non-smoker life expectancy. Tobacco also causes excess morbidity. Up to 14% of all preterm deliveries in the U.S. may be attributable to maternal smoking. Children whose parents smoke experience more respiratory symptoms and have an increased frequency of bronchitis and pneumonia.

source: http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/...te/hrn001.html
It would be relatively easy to Police illegal use.....far easier than marijuana, since the tobacco "doper" reeks of the stuff and needs a "fix" every 15 minutes. It's difficult for me to imagine that anyone in favor of the War on Some Drugs would be opposed to criminalizing tobacco use. Tobacco addiction brings into play every single societal concern of legalizing marijuana or cocaine use: it kills the user, robs him of years of "productivity" and directly injures his children and all those around him.

"Well, tobacco's different from pot", you say? "After all it hasn't generated an entire class of violence and crime." The only reason it hasn't spurred formation of criminal smuggling syndicates and "territories" is because it's legal.

If there is anything I value in public debate, it is intellectual honesty and consistency. No one could possibly refuse to countenance the legalization of marijuana (as one example) while turning a blind eye to the "evils" of tobacco. (And all you Fat People will be next! )
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Old August 12, 2006, 01:36 PM   #85
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Nicotine

Rich, you are exactly right. Tobacco is highly addictive and wreaks untold havoc on productivity and health. BUT, the reason that is hasn't been banned by the ban-happy gov't is because the many millions addicted to this drug are still able to retain enough mental sobriety when using it, to perform and function in society- hold and perform well in jobs, run their families & homes, etc. And the effects last just minutes, not hours. So people can function. It is actually far more addictive than most other drugs, but it doesn't wreak the *immediate* havoc on productivity/functioning, like alcohol and other drugs. Some habitual drunks can perform while under the influence of alcohol, but MOST cannot, unlike tobacco, and so their careers and families eventually go to hell in a handbasket. But, yes, one thing is clear, that IF one buys the reasonings behind the war on drugs, then most certainly, alcohol should be banned much sooner and with more severe restrictions than pot, because the effects of violence-causation and other ills are far worse than with weed. Nicotine has equal or worse long-term effects, arguably, but people hooked on nicotine can still undertake high-stress jobs that require a high level of mental and/or physical performance. Not true of the habitual daily pothead. They typically can perform menial/ manual labor jobs, at least until the stuff fries them long-term. Make no mistake - alcohol pickles your brain longterm too, however. But smoking doesn't pickle you or make you unable to perform work. It just makes you have to take a lot of breaks to smoke, and then bathroom breaks - nicotine is a great laxative. And then eventually makes you sick and kills you.
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Old August 12, 2006, 02:54 PM   #86
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FF-
You're arguing "degree" in Public Policy, when you should be arguing consistency in same. If it is .gov's role to ensure that we all live productive lives under threat of imprisonment, then certainly tobacco should rate extremely high on the Hit List:
- It significantly increases morbidity and, thus, productivity.
- It directly and adversely affects the children in your family
- It significantly reduces the number of years you will be on the planet and, thus, your "productivity".

No, I don't think that .gov should be the arbiter of whether we become productive or not. But, that does seem to be the argument when it comes to TWoSD, doesn't it? If so, then wage that "War" consistently, or tell us what the REAL motives are. Because, thus far, I see nobody winning anything, unless we were to measure .gov's insatiable appetite to co-opt our freedoms and rights and call that a "good" thing.
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Old August 12, 2006, 03:29 PM   #87
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I'm still wondering why we all want to pick and choose what we want to be free about when everything should be legal until it is used to harm others, following the line of thinking in this debate. Why can't I own a nuclear device as long as I store it properly so that the radiation does not harm others? If we're going to have this discussion then picking and choosing what we want to be legalized is pure hypocrisy unless you apply the same principles to everything.
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Old August 12, 2006, 07:43 PM   #88
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I'm still wondering why we all want to pick and choose what we want to be free about when everything should be legal until it is used to harm others, following the line of thinking in this debate.
Brother, Jeff-
Spurious argument compared to mine. I only argued for logical consistency....ie: if you find the scourge of marijuana and cocaine to be so harmful, why on earth would you not speak out for the criminalization of the more harmful substances, tobacco and alcohol?

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Why can't I own a nuclear device as long as I store it properly so that the radiation does not harm others?
I call foul on that one. It's as spurious as "Well then you must favor allowing people to operate motor vehicles while intoxicated". It begs an obvious answer: because no rational person would be willing to argue that playing with a nuclear device (or drinking and driving) can be done safely, for personal satisfaction or without harming others. OTOH, these same people ARE willing to accept the fact that millions of Americans can take a drink or a cigar without turning into Reefer Madness baby killers; they ignore the "terrible" addiction, abuse, loss of "productivity" and family endangerment that accompanies use of alcohol and tobacco (And I still haven't started on FAT PEOPLE).

Despite the fact that the vast majority of marijuana (and even cocaine) users are really no more addicted than the social drinker and use the drugs no differently, this same crowd demands their imprisonment based on what they "might" do.

That is neither balanced nor consistent; therefore, it is (by definition) a visceral or emotional position. In fact, it's specifically what you call "pick[ing] and choos[ing] what we want to be free about". I don't claim to want to make those decisions, either for the responsible or the irresponsible. What they do to their bodies is their business....that, at least, is consistent. And the argument that they put the rest of us "in danger" is similarly flawed....we're in danger, daily, from criminals, low lives, moving buses, aneurysms, carcinogens in our food and water, police raids, heart disease, firearms accidents, drunk drivers and people who smoke in bed.

If you can protect me from one you should, as a matter of consistency, be willing to protect me with the same vigor from all. Because, I assure you, the government IS willing; and when you justify .gov's intervention in one such behavior, it's just a question of time before they get around to your own favorite past time. History teaches this. There simply is no freedom when the watchwords of the day become "control of crimes that 'might' happen". The Right to Keep and Bear Arms (as ONE example) is doomed in our lifetime under that type of citizen demand....just ask the people of Europe or Australia.
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Old August 12, 2006, 08:40 PM   #89
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One thing a lot of people don't think about when it comes to "harmless" drugs like Marijuana is what's involved in bringing it into the country. Come down to the AZ/MEX border where we arrest violent drug smugglers who we frequently get into gunfights with. I'm talking about guys with armored trucks and AK-47s that drive through the border. These guys have killed and injured Border Patrol Agents. I never thought pot was very bad either until I started this job and now I realize these guys will kill anyone getting in their way of bringing it into the country.
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Old August 12, 2006, 08:47 PM   #90
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One thing a lot of people don't think about when it comes to "harmless" drugs like Marijuana is what's involved in bringing it into the country. Come down to the AZ/MEX border where we arrest violent drug smugglers who we frequently get into gunfights with.
symr00-
Thanks for what you do on the Border....honestly. But this is persactly my point about "visceral and emotional" argument. It's also myopic, without reference to the lessons of history:

Q: Why aren't they getting into gunfights with LEO's to smuggle tobacco and alcohol shipments?
A: Because tobacco and alcohol are legal.

Q: Why were they getting into gunfights with LEO's during Prohibition?
A: Because alcohol was illegal.


Some of the major benefits of legalization were proven after repeal of Prohibition....legalization takes all profit and incentive from organized crime; it allows us to do away with entire bureaucracies of enforcement; it allows thinly stretched, Good Men like you to focus on REAL crime, like Human Smuggling.
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Old August 13, 2006, 01:45 AM   #91
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I would think that legalizing drugs and using the money we spend on the WOD on rehab for anyone who wants to quit. (As well as tax revenue on legal drugs.) I don't have any numbers, but that has to be MUCH cheaper in the long run than spending all this money on WOD, courts, jails, etc. Heck, just legalizing pot and letting the people who are in jail for pot out would save a ton of money.
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Old August 13, 2006, 09:59 AM   #92
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symroo - you have ironically stated one of the best reasons I know FOR LEGALIZING marijuana. I'm sure you realize the violence is not caused by those individuals being high on marijuana, but is caused by the threat of jail and the money involved.

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Old August 13, 2006, 11:44 AM   #93
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symroo...

That is unfortunate, you have to deal with modern day bootleggers. I firmly agree that there should be a crackdown in human trafficking.


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Old August 13, 2006, 12:25 PM   #94
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I agree that legalizing will stop most of the drug smuggling like it did with alcohol. But you're also going to get people who will make their own or smuggle it in from Mexico (meth) because they may not want to pay retail for it. Personally, I think doing so would hurt the crooked drug companies and they own many of the politicians. As far as human smuggling goes, you would have to allow EVERYBODY a free pass to the U.S. w/o being checked to stop that. Thank you for your support.
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Old August 13, 2006, 02:11 PM   #95
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Well from what I know...

I think if marijuana was legal, more people would just grow it privately in order to control the quality of what they smoke, on top of knowing what's in their plant. Simlar to those who brew their own beer or grow their own tobacco. Stoner/hippie culture would probably reject mass marketed marijuana and only support local growers. If anything, local growers would probably just sell it at farmers' markets, organic markets, distribute it to convenience stores, and if the government taxed it the money could go towards rehab programs for hard drugs such as coke, meth, heroin etc. Though knowing capitalism, the cigarette companies will still probably sell marijuana cigarettes if legalized.


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Old August 14, 2006, 01:45 AM   #96
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In my opinion they should outlaw alcohol and cigarettes. Far more damage has been done by them than by a little weed once in awhile. And they are addicting,hard as hell to quit . Some can't.
Look at all the cancer,emphyzema,lung damage,heart problems.kidney damage,brain damage etc caused by smoking cigarettes and drinking the hard stuff.
Why worry about pot when we got alcohol and cigarettes?
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Old August 14, 2006, 07:57 AM   #97
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I disagree. It's still hypocrisy if we are following the recreational drug spin: "as long as I'm not harming others it should be legal." Again, I'm sure I'm off-topic here but this debate to me is not about choosing the particular thing/substance we want legalized, it's about freedom. Government, in it's true form should only exist to settle disputes or harms between individuals, states, foreign invaders, and other entities, not for restricting individual freedom ON ANY LEVEL. The Individual is the most important component in any society or culture, not government. If a man chooses to own or do anything and does so without harming or costing others then government should have no say-so.

In actuality, this thread IS about those who wish to use their recreational drugs, be it alcohol, tobacco, cocaine, or other. And when you further this line of disillusioned "Free" thinking to something else that's not the smoker/pothead/drunk's idea of being good, then these "freedom seekers" are always the first to say "we should have a law against that." It's hypocrisy. I'm a hypocrit as well.

Now, with all that said, the current laws are the current laws whether I agree or not. And until government steps outside the illegal bounds of being welfare agencies, then I stand by my points in the article. It should not cost me when the drunk or doper casues harm to others, or when the smoker (like myself) kills himself with lung cancer. Legalize everything and you will increase costs to taxpayers in my opinion because of government being in the welfare business (which it has no right to be in), even though keeping the war on drugs is costing me as well.
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Old August 15, 2006, 07:55 AM   #98
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Legalize everything and you will increase costs to taxpayers in my opinion because of government being in the welfare business (which it has no right to be in), even though keeping the war on drugs is costing me as well.
Yet there in lies the problem. You already pay the costs for the drug culture. Those likely to use currently illegal drugs either already do so, or use alcohol and tobacco. It's part of the mentality. So, you pay for both the war on drugs and the costs of the current drug culture. The point being made by others is that once we admit that the war on drugs was lost long ago, we stop paying for the war, and only pay for the drug culture.
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Old August 15, 2006, 01:00 PM   #99
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Good job buzz_knox of shrinking one of the best arguments in favor of ending the WOD into such a simple statement.
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Old August 16, 2006, 10:22 AM   #100
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I agree with you buzz knox, but that's not my argument. Paying for the war on drugs or the costs of the current drug culture are equally wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right. My whole position on this particular thread is about freedom and it seems many people have a limited view on true freedom and government's role in society - and that's hypocrisy if we're discussing individual freedoms. I've even heard the argument that we should legalize drugs and tax it. I don't buy that either. All that will do is put the government in the drug business and increase government control as it did with alcohol and tobacco. Government has no business taxing or controlling anything that is free trade among individuals - even though they already do that with just about everything in our lives.
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