Drug Prohibition is Illogical

That's a complex question for another thread.

Let my buy some medical marijuana and I'll think about it.

 

Well you're either for the free market or you're not. Conservatives have reasons to oppose the free market, you have yours.

 

What is a "free market?"

 

I'm not against it, I just didn't want to derail with an incredible complex answer.

The argument against legalization makes no sense from a Free Market or social standpoint. People engage in the behavior regardless of the laws and legalization would create jobs instead of incarcerating potential contributor to a legal, economy boosting drug industry. It's not like prohibition accomplishes what it's intended to achieve.

As for Health care, I don't necessarily share the views of the DNC.

 

You'd put many thousands of well paid DEA agents, not to mention other law enforcement personnel, out of work. Then there's the entire justice system apparatus that revolves around prohibition. Many, many people would be out jobs. Since the statist believes (illogically) that any job benefits the economy, ending the drug war will harm the economy.

 

So you'll agree, food would be a great deal cheaper, more abundant, and available in greater varieties if we nationalize the food industries.

 

Just because marijuana is legal, doesn't mean cops wont have jobs. If DEA agents were to become obsolete, which I don't think they would, they could always get jobs keeping our boarders safe or engaging in other forms of Law enforcement. There are more "controlled substances" than recreational drugs and DEA agents also handle gang-related crimes.

The "entire justice system" revolves around protecting the rights of the innocent, not baby-sitting people to tell them exactly what to eat, drink or smoke. You might have heard of murder, theft or rape--I think those would keep the justice system busy enough.

That is a giant lie, it would create jobs. Law enforcement would still be necessary; and factory, delivery, sales and marketing jobs would be created. It's almost like you were intentionally being naive about how the free market works.

Except that your premise was utterly false.

 

Have you ever worked in management for a large company?

They're bureaucracies, just like most government institutions. Let me tell you something, if you believe people are 'selfish'(in the common use of the term), then that they would work to increase a company's bottom line makes no sense. Let me give you a really simplified example:


Take George. George works for his boss, who then reports to the CEO. George is not paid based on what the company's revenue is, but on what his boss thinks of her. His boss is in turn, not paid based on the revenue of the company, but on what his boss thinks of him. His boss, the CEO, may have the power to set her own wage, but she usually cannot do this without the consent of her immediate inferiors in management and the board of directors. It is the board of directors that picks the CEO. The board of directors is elected by the shareholders. Now, the shareholders unlike everybody else so far mentioned, actually DO make more money when the company makes more money. However, the most likely candidates for membership of the board of directors are people already involved in the company's upper-tier management bureaucracy, in other words, the CEO's friends.

Now, why does anybody with actual power want the company to make more money?

But even then, that supposes that management makes important decisions. The fact of the matter is, in many cases that is very debatable. Do you think it is the CEO who decides if the cows get fed antibiotics? No, he has someone with more technical expertise do it for him, and not for him even, someone who works seven or more levels under him. Do you think the CEO decides if jobs get outsourced or not? No, it is hordes of middle managers that make those decisions.

This is the nature of bureaucracies. Nobody knows how everything works, and responsibility is spread thinner than chromium on plastic. J.K. Galbraith would say that this is the way things have to be if we are going to be a high-tech industrial society, and I would disagree, but the fact of the matter is it is the way things work currently.

 

Ah, young gwasshoppas, legalization of all substances is not the answer, you must seek the middle path.

Legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, and possibly a couple other substances that have comparable low level of intoxication, addictive properties, and health effects. Consider releasing non-violent marijuana offenders who are currently incarcerated.

Make treatment a priority over incarceration for users who are addicted, or whos habitual use is causing problems for themselves and others.

No deals for the dealers.

 

Should we take a middle path between taking a middle path and taking an extreme one?

Prohibition is a great deal for dealers.

 

I was thinking along the lines of all prohibited substances, not just marijuana. That's what the thread was about and looking at your post, I didn't see anything that indicated just marijuana.

That's what it should do. But right now it exists to serve the will of the political elite, and that includes punishing people for violating prohibition related edicts.

It would be a much smaller system, no longer clogged up with endless drug-related violations and gangs fuelled by black market funds.

I'm just pointing out the typical argument regarding jobs. There's no guarantee that a huge industry in narcotics would arise. Most popular drugs are cheap and easy to make. Certainly we'd see cleaner, better quality substances which would be a good thing for those who use them, but the industry itself isn't going to bring in more money; if anything, it will bring in less as the prices drop to what would be expected in a regular as opposed to black market.

 

Legalization wouldn't necessarily end the black market. Legalization isn't a magical cure all that will make everything better.

People like to point to alcohol as an example of how prohibition has failed. I understand what they mean... but they are failing to see what has resulted anyways due to the substance itself.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6089353/ns/health-addictions/

http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/health_care_costs.htm

 

How many fully legal products can you name that have a sizable black market? Why be secretive if no one is going to arrest you?

True, but it will solve the problem it's designed to cure: that drugs are illegal.

 

Why does the size of a black market matter, if the market would expand if made legal?

Don't forget that we are talking about harmful and addictive substances.

 

Harmful and addictive to USERS. Not a group I plan on joining anytime soon.

 

Me either. But I think it's inevitable that we'd see an increase in usage through greater availability.

 

Not just users. But their spouses, their children, their extended families. Their employers who lose millions in lost productivity at work. There are huge social burdens to drug abuse.

Why do you want to make heroin and cocaine addiction an socially accepted practice? It makes no sense. Look what it's doing over in Europe! It's helping to unravel their very fabric.

Have you seen Trainspotting?

You say it's a victimless crime but it's not. There are very real social and moral costs that affect all of us in society. I don't want my kid to walk into a public bathroom and find some junkie in there OD dead on the (*)(*)(*)(*) floor or tying off his veins like they do in Europe. I don't want track-arm junkies nodding out in a Soma Coma in the gutters.

I dont' want him exposed to that kind of society. Do I not have that right as a parent and a citizen to vote for what I see are my child's best interests in addition to societies?

 

That's what happens when you make an investment, emotional or financial, in a person. Investments have risks.

What does 'socially acceptable' mean?

Whatever the hell 'society' chooses to do, I'm going to have my own standards for what is acceptable and what is not, and drug use is not among them.

Whose very fabric?

 

That's a rather heartless way to look at things, as families and such as "investments". You think a child has a choice in who he invests his emotions with?

You know, the same way it's acceptable to drink Alcohol. A common, accepted practice where no one would bat an eye becuase it's "normal."

Look, you are one of those radical libertarians I disagree with almost as much as Liberal Democrats. The Government has study after study after study backing them up but libertarians and pro-drug legalization advocates never refute the numbers, just the source and say "It's the GOVERNMENT, you can't trust anything from THE GOVERNMENT".

Do you not understand the concept of a social fabric?

Don't you ever watch shows like Cops and such when the narc cops do undercover stings? They always say the same thing to the camera. "People say using drugs is a harmless crime? Tell that to the children of drug users who are neglected".

Drug abuse increases child abuse and neglect. The proof and the studies are out there.

 

No, but adults do, and in that case the crime there would not be drug use but bad parenting.

Is the fact that people will bat an eye at you for doing something the only reason why you don't do it? What if something is just wrong?

How is that relevant to anything I said?

What is I said is that what ever "society's" standards are, I will try to hold myself to the standards that I believe are right, which are almost always higher.

No, I don't.

But not all drug use causes child abuse.

 

i think that maybe there should be a healthy, and cheap alternative to the pirvate food industry. im not for the full on nationalization of food, because most of the food we eat is a luxury.

but i would support a program where the government produces healthy essentials that dont have to look or taste too great, but get you what you need and no more, simply so people dont have to go hungry.

 

look up stalin. see how the healthy national food option worked out for the millions who starved.

 

Food stamps exist.... and the inefficiencies and corruption that have occurred (using stamps for buying beer, cigs, lottery tickets, or getting T-bone steaks when people not using food stamps can't afford it) have always plagued that nationalized style system


I know WIC (Women-Infant-Children) have only certain items they are allowed to purchase with WIC cards but I have always seen these welfare kind of systems as very noble in theory (I mean, who DOESN'T want to help hungry kids or struggling families with kids) but when rubber meets road, people learn how to work the system and merely use the money they normally would have bought food with, for extras like cigs, etc. I don't want to let you have food stamps when you drive up on $2000 rims, booming a $3000 stereo system while you are yappin on a $300 phone, smoking cigs, buying lotto tix and then complaining that you have to buy 2% milk instead of the whole milk you want.

 

game, set and match..... GREAT point!!!!!

 

How does voting give you a right to do things that you, as a human being, could not do to other human beings in other circumstances?