The general decline in standards today

[BladeOfAnduril]

I'll offer the opposing view on this... why not legalize drugs? It's nothing more than the Prohibition of our age. Do I think drug use is a good thing? No. But I don't believe in regulating personal behavior. If it were legal it could be dealt with similar to the way in which alcohol now is. Are there drunk drivers? Absolutely. But that's on them, not those of us who responsibly enjoy the occasional draft or cocktail. Are there violent drug users? Absolutely. Then there are those to like to sit on their couch with a bag of chips and get high on pot who pose no threat to anyone else. It is disingenuous to suggest that people should be jailed or even put to death for using substances that the government has deemed inappropriate while having no issue with other substances that are arguably just as harmful (alcohol, tobacco, etc...).

 

[Atticus Finch]

I'll offer the opposing view on this... why not legalize drugs? It's nothing more than the Prohibition of our age. Do I think drug use is a good thing? No. But I don't believe in regulating personal behavior. If it were legal it could be dealt with similar to the way in which alcohol now is. Are there drunk drivers? Absolutely. But that's on them, not those of us who responsibly enjoy the occasional draft or cocktail. Are there violent drug users? Absolutely. Then there are those to like to sit on their couch with a bag of chips and get high on pot who pose no threat to anyone else. It is disingenuous to suggest that people should be jailed or even put to death for using substances that the government has deemed inappropriate while having no issue with other substances that are arguably just as harmful (alcohol, tobacco, etc...).

And as a career prosecutor I can tell you…I agree with you. Legalize it and control it. The ancillary crime rate would fall through the floor overnight. And it is the ancillary crime that is society’s real problem with drug addiction.

AF

 

[LizzieMaine]

As far as I'm concerned, the world would be a better place without tobacco or alcohol either -- that's the hard-boiled W. C. T. U. Methodist in me talking. I've seen enough people rendered utterly useless by alcohol abuse and enough people killed by tobacco to feel justified in taking such a view. But I'm not calling for political prohibition -- I'd rather see a society where people looked at such substances and realized for themselves that they were not beneficial.

But as far as regulating behavior goes, all laws are about regulating behavior in one way or another -- it's just a question of who decides what behavior should be regulated and why. If recreational drugs are legalized, it won't be because society has decided they're somehow beneficial to humanity. It'll be because they've decided the money to be made from them outweighs the damage they cause to society.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

I'll offer the opposing view on this... why not legalize drugs? It's nothing more than the Prohibition of our age. Do I think drug use is a good thing? No. But I don't believe in regulating personal behavior. If it were legal it could be dealt with similar to the way in which alcohol now is. Are there drunk drivers? Absolutely. But that's on them, not those of us who responsibly enjoy the occasional draft or cocktail. Are there violent drug users? Absolutely. Then there are those to like to sit on their couch with a bag of chips and get high on pot who pose no threat to anyone else. It is disingenuous to suggest that people should be jailed or even put to death for using substances that the government has deemed inappropriate while having no issue with other substances that are arguably just as harmful (alcohol, tobacco, etc...).

Ah, this comment is a breath of fresh air. Like LizzieMaine, I feel that the world would be a batter place without drugs, alcohol and other vices but these things aren't going anywhere. Prohibition does not work. I don't agree that drug users should be criminalized, it should be treated as a medical condition, because as we can see in this bogus "War on Drugs" (that phrase makes me want to vomit), the only people that get put away in prisons for ridiculously long terms are those in the inner cities who had ABSOLUTELY NO SAY SO in these drugs being dumped into their communities. People complain about inner city crime and chalk it up to the character of its inhabitants but they conveniently leave out the fact that inner city crime did not become the way it is until the 1980s when "coincidentally" during the time when the CIA was mixed up in the Iran-Contra affair that these drugs suddenly washed over these inner city areas.

 

[BladeOfAnduril]

As far as I'm concerned, the world would be a better place without tobacco or alcohol either -- that's the hard-boiled W. C. T. U. Methodist in me talking. I've seen enough people rendered utterly useless by alcohol abuse and enough people killed by tobacco to feel justified in taking such a view. But I'm not calling for political prohibition -- I'd rather see a society where people looked at such substances and realized for themselves that they were not beneficial.

But as far as regulating behavior goes, all laws are about regulating behavior in one way or another -- it's just a question of who decides what behavior should be regulated and why. If recreational drugs are legalized, it won't be because society has decided they're somehow beneficial to humanity. It'll be because they've decided the money to be made from them outweighs the damage they cause to society.

You're correct, all laws regulate behavior. I was careless in my wording, so allow me to clarify. I believe all behaviors should be lawful, provided that it does not cause harm to the person or property of others.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I always wondered why people took pain killers as recreational drugs. I was so doped up on that second pill I was glad I was sent home without a script for it. I could barely get out of bed. I swear I was still feeling it 24 hours later. I don't know how people can take these things- it was five times worse than being drunk, hungover, and having pulled 3 all-nighters at the same time.

I've always found the idea of recreational drugs to be an alien concept. As a youngster I've gotten drunk maybe once or twice in my life and simply can't see what people find so enjoyable about it. Though I don't agree with it, I do realize that there are people out there with emotional or psychological issues for whom alcohol or drug use is their only coping mechanism, but what perplexes me are the ordinary yahoos who don't seem to have any major issues whose idea of a good time is getting drunk or stoned.

This morning I was listening to the radio and there was a news story about two brothers who blew up their house. It seems that they won $75,000 in the lottery and to celebrate got hold of large quantities of pot and meth. One of the brothers suffered 2nd degree burns when the pilot light of their stove ignited butane fumes from the torches they were planning to use to light their bongs. :doh:

 

[Feraud]

^ And that's why they call it dope...

 

[jamespowers]

You're correct, all laws regulate behavior. I was careless in my wording, so allow me to clarify. I believe all behaviors should be lawful, provided that it does not cause harm to the person or property of others.

Great. Then what do you do with the burnouts who are nothing but a drag on society? Alcohol and tobacco are bad enough but add to that drugs that are clearly better used medicinally and you will foul a population in no time at all.
As the International association of Police Chiefs has said:
"The process of completing this project has led to a reexamination of my personal opinions and values on the issue of drug legalization. I assume that it is normal to be introspective when exploring both sides of a broad and complex problem. As a parent, a citizen, and a law enforcement official, I am clearly a stakeholder in this issue. I was concerned that my views in light of my police background would make me sound like an ideologue. As a public administrator, I hope that I reinforced my opinions against the legalization of drugs with sound logic and analysis.
My research allowed me to see the issue from a broader outlook. I now understand the pro-legalization viewpoint much better. Although I am still strongly opposed to the notion of drug legalization, I realize that, for the most part, they are Americans, from a broad field, who are truly committed to a cause in which they believe. Although they are pursuing a course that is dangerous for America, I respect their passion and edication. But they are woefully wrong on this issue. I encourage police executives to speak out against drug legalization, and I hope the information in this article has provided some of the resources they need as they prepare to make these speeches. "

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch once described drug legalization as “the equivalent of extinguishing a fire with napalm."

The DEA reports that six times as many homicides are committed by persons under the influence of drugs than those looking for money to buy drugs and that most arrestees for violent crimes test positive for drugs at time of arrest. Speaking to a Congressional subcommittee on drug policy in 1999, Donnie Marshall, then deputy administrator of DEA, spoke of drug use, crime, and violence. He said that there is “a misconception that most drug-related crimes involve people who are looking for money to buy drugs. The fact is that most drug-related crimes are committed by people whose brains have been messed up with mood-altering drugs.”

Going further from Police Chief Magazine:
"Legalization opponents are convinced that the violence caused by drug use “will not magically stop because the drugs are legal. Legal PCP isn’t going to make a person less violent than illegally purchased PCP.” Susan Neiberg Terkel echoes these sentiments by saying that legalizing drugs “cannot change human nature. It cannot improve the social conditions that compel people to engage in crime, nor can it stop people from using drugs as an excuse to be violent.”[SUP]9[/SUP] The belief is that drugs, legal or not, often lead to violence. Erich Goode, a SUNY professor and a proponent of harm reduction, writes: “It is extremely unlikely that legalization will transform the violent nature of the world of heavy, chronic drug abuse very much. That violence is a part of the way that frequent, heavy drug users live their lives; it is systemic to their subculture.”

In short, legalizing drugs is a ridiculous idea proposed by those who do not understand the real consequences of legalization. It won't reduce crime, it won't reduce violent behavior and criminals will not disappear overnight.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Okay, so then why doesn't the government just prevent it from crossing our border in the first place? Oh I forget, they WANT open borders, lol.

 

[jamespowers]

Okay, so then why doesn't the government just prevent it from crossing our border in the first place? Oh I forget, they WANT open borders, lol.

Who said they want open border?!

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Who said they want open border?!

Do they want a secure border?

 

[jamespowers]

Do they want a secure border?

They better damned well with the Border Patrol and all levels of government not only concerned with drugs and illegals but also terrorism. If they don't want a secure border then they better expect some more serious random acts of terrorism. I am sure they don't want that.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

They better damned well with the Border Patrol and all levels of government not only concerned with drugs and illegals but also terrorism. If they don't want a secure border then they better expect some more serious random acts of terrorism. I am sure they don't want that.

Yet illegal aliens have arrived by the millions and drugs by the billions in dollars manage to squeak through. That doesn't sound secure to me, lol.

 

[jamespowers]

Yet illegal aliens have arrived by the millions and drugs by the billions in dollars manage to squeak through. That doesn't sound secure to me, lol.

Yet you want to make it worse by adding drug abuse to the mix.

 

[Foxer55]

jamespowers,

In short, legalizing drugs is a ridiculous idea proposed by those who do not understand the real consequences of legalization. It won't reduce crime, it won't reduce violent behavior and criminals will not disappear overnight.

It will reduce crime because dopers will no longer need to steal to get money for a hit. How many criminals do you know of who steal money to get a bottle of Thunderbird? (Hint: none) It will reduce crime because criminal cartels will no longer be able to make mountains and mountains of cold hard cash by selling on the black market. It will not reduce violent behavior other than dopers will now wind up dying in the gutters because you couldn't begin to save even a fraction of them from self destruction with government run rehab even if the money for rehab was available. That's the same fate alcoholics met in the past and still meet in the real world. There just aren't the resources to solve their problems. Alcohol and drugs, drugs being merely alcohol on afterburner, are problems that may well never be solved and we will have to live with it probably forever. Continuing a war on drugs is fruitless just like Prohibition was fruitless. Are you familiar with the crime, death, and misery surrounding Prohibition? I'm not saying legallizing drugs is good, I'm just saying that sooner or later you have to accept reality.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Yet you want to make it worse by adding drug abuse to the mix.

Drug abuse is already in the mix, lol. You're late to the party.

 

[BladeOfAnduril]

Great. Then what do you do with the burnouts who are nothing but a drag on society? Alcohol and tobacco are bad enough but add to that drugs that are clearly better used medicinally and you will foul a population in no time at all.

There will always be "burnouts". Someone of that type, if drugs be their poison of choice, will use whether or not it is legal. It could be argued that they would be less of a drag on society if we weren't paying to provide so many of them with a cot and three meals a day in the penal system. Conversely, we shouldn't support them outside of the penal system with welfare checks either.

In short, legalizing drugs is a ridiculous idea proposed by those who do not understand the real consequences of legalization. It won't reduce crime, it won't reduce violent behavior and criminals will not disappear overnight.

I would not be surprised if similar sentiments were expressed during Prohibition. It may not reduce violent behavior, but it will absolutely reduce crime. Currently all users of illegal drugs are criminals, though not all of those users are violent. If those same drugs were legalized, ceteris paribus, the number of "criminals" would drop drastically overnight, while the rate of violence would remain the same.

Thank you for posting those excerpts. They were very interesting.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

This article fits right in with the vintage them of this lounge: Billie Holiday's Drug Dealer Speaks! And he makes very good points that I have always agreed with

http://jazzlives.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/billie-holidays-drug-dealer-speaks/

Speaking of the slow pace of change, I [author John H. Richardson] recently talked to Billie Holiday’s drug dealer. He said I could call him Pat. “Don’t put my last name in there,” he ask me. “I know too many people.”

Since those people had names like Frank Costello, “Johnny” Gotti, and Bugsy Siegal, I’ll oblige.

Pat was skeptical about the chances of drug reform. “I don’t think they’re going to legalize drugs in this country because of the fact that the government is behind it all,” he insists. “You go back in time during the bootleg days, the Kennedys winded up with the eastern seaboard. All the whiskey that came in, they got a percentage. And jail is big money, too — they feed you nothing but beans, rice, and potatoes, and all that money is going in somebody’s pocket.”

Pat said this is a gravelly voice with a New York accent. He’s eighty years old, retired to Florida now. He just had hip surgery, he’s got back problems. But he remembers clear as day how his life of crime began. He was growing up on the east side of Manhattan, up around 110th Street, an altar boy at St. Anne’s. “I came home from school one time, fourteen years old, and found my mother crying in the kitchen. I asked her why. She said, ‘There’s no food in the house.’”

That was the day before Thanksgiving. So Pat put his schoolbooks down and went to meet his friend Chubby. They sat on the milk box in front of the Kennedy store and made plans to rob a deli on the corner of 96th Street.

“There was one of those rotisseries spinning, so Chubby and I got the idea to snatch a turkey. I said, ‘I’ll tap on the glass with this key and tell him I want the oatmeal box on the shelf and when he moves the ladder, I’ll snatch the turkey — and when he chases me, you grab the money.”

Pat still remembers the oatmeal box, which had a black-and-white cartoon of a man in a big hat — and how the deli owner came after him yelling sonavabitch! “I ran from 96th to 110th without stopping — he was gaining on me for a while, plus the turkey was about 22 pounds.”

They cut the turkey in half and both families had a great Thanksgiving, but of course their parents found out and gave them each a beating.

A few years later, Pat started “making deliveries for different people, because they trusted me and I never ratted on nobody.” That’s how he came to meet Billie Holiday.

“I met Billie through Bumpy Johnson,” he says. “I used to go listen to jazz on the west side, at Milton’s [Minton's] Playhouse. She popped in there one day and I was introduced to her. Somebody said, ‘Pat’s your man, he can take care of you.’ So I sold her like a half-ounce of cocaine. A couple of days later, she called me and I called her back.”

He had a system. He would call her every few days, they’d meet somewhere and have a drink. She’d tell him what she wanted and then they’d meet later to make the deal. Holiday would be dressed in ordinary clothes, slacks and shirts. He liked her. “She was a very warm person. She was kind of heavy, with rosy cheeks. Then after awhile she started losing weight, started looking like a toothpick.”

He knew it was because of the drugs he was selling her, but he never said any words of warning. “No sense lying to you,” he told me. “You don’t say those things when you’re looking to make money. But when you’re sitting behind bars, in your cell-house, you think about those things.”

Pat got arrested for selling a quarter kilo of cocaine in 1950. In 1954, the day after his son was born, he went to prison on a twenty-five-year sentence. He’s also seen drugs destroy members of his own family. “I got a niece that was fooling around with drugs — she would up with a bad needle, she got AIDS, she’s ready to die in any day. I feel bad about that, but what can I do?”

And that’s why — for his dying niece, for Billie Holiday, for the St. Anne’s altar boy who fell for the lure of easy drug money — he thinks the government should finally try something different. “Frankly, I think they should legalize it all,” Pat says. “As far as the heroin, they should allow that to be taken in hospitals, so patients know it’s clean and they’re not going to use any dirty needles and they’re not going to drop dead from an overdose.”

A few years ago, Pat’s wife took all his jazz records in a divorce. But he still listens to Holiday on the radio, and whenever he hears the mournful joy of that unforgettable voice, the memories and the regrets come roaring back. “Not too long ago I was listening to blues, and she came on and sang a song — that song she used to sing about her man. She used to tear me up when she sang that song.”

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/ric...a-bills-in-congress-2010-011210#ixzz0cnxOXunq

 

[Atticus Finch]

Great. Then what do you do with the burnouts who are nothing but a drag on society? Alcohol and tobacco are bad enough but add to that drugs that are clearly better used medicinally and you will foul a population in no time at all.
As the International association of Police Chiefs has said:
"The process of completing this project has led to a reexamination of my personal opinions and values on the issue of drug legalization. I assume that it is normal to be introspective when exploring both sides of a broad and complex problem. As a parent, a citizen, and a law enforcement official, I am clearly a stakeholder in this issue. I was concerned that my views in light of my police background would make me sound like an ideologue. As a public administrator, I hope that I reinforced my opinions against the legalization of drugs with sound logic and analysis.
My research allowed me to see the issue from a broader outlook. I now understand the pro-legalization viewpoint much better. Although I am still strongly opposed to the notion of drug legalization, I realize that, for the most part, they are Americans, from a broad field, who are truly committed to a cause in which they believe. Although they are pursuing a course that is dangerous for America, I respect their passion and edication. But they are woefully wrong on this issue. I encourage police executives to speak out against drug legalization, and I hope the information in this article has provided some of the resources they need as they prepare to make these speeches. "

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch once described drug legalization as “the equivalent of extinguishing a fire with napalm."

The DEA reports that six times as many homicides are committed by persons under the influence of drugs than those looking for money to buy drugs and that most arrestees for violent crimes test positive for drugs at time of arrest. Speaking to a Congressional subcommittee on drug policy in 1999, Donnie Marshall, then deputy administrator of DEA, spoke of drug use, crime, and violence. He said that there is “a misconception that most drug-related crimes involve people who are looking for money to buy drugs. The fact is that most drug-related crimes are committed by people whose brains have been messed up with mood-altering drugs.”

Going further from Police Chief Magazine:
"Legalization opponents are convinced that the violence caused by drug use “will not magically stop because the drugs are legal. Legal PCP isn’t going to make a person less violent than illegally purchased PCP.” Susan Neiberg Terkel echoes these sentiments by saying that legalizing drugs “cannot change human nature. It cannot improve the social conditions that compel people to engage in crime, nor can it stop people from using drugs as an excuse to be violent.”[SUP]9[/SUP] The belief is that drugs, legal or not, often lead to violence. Erich Goode, a SUNY professor and a proponent of harm reduction, writes: “It is extremely unlikely that legalization will transform the violent nature of the world of heavy, chronic drug abuse very much. That violence is a part of the way that frequent, heavy drug users live their lives; it is systemic to their subculture.”

In short, legalizing drugs is a ridiculous idea proposed by those who do not understand the real consequences of legalization. It won't reduce crime, it won't reduce violent behavior and criminals will not disappear overnight.

James, respectfully, I know that you are only offering quotes from things that you have read, but much of this is fraught with error. For example, "The DEA reports that six times as many homicides are committed by persons under the influence of drugs than those looking for money to buy drugs and that most arrestees for violent crimes test positive for drugs at time of arrest." I have no idea how the DEA or anyone else could arrive at this figure since criminals are not drug tested upon arrest. Further, even if we could somehow know that violent criminals were drug positive at the time of arrest, would that surprise us given they are usually drug addicts who are robbing and burglarizing and stealing to fund an addiction?

I expect that over the last twenty years have been exposed to most of the same raw data as the experts you quote…probably much more than Ed Koch…and I have come to a much different conclusion. Most crime is drug related. When I say that, I mean the motivation for most criminal conduct can normally be traced to the maintenance of a drug addiction, the defense of a drug distribution territory, the collection of a drug debt or the defense of a drug rip off...or some other reason that has something to do with an illegal drug. Yes, there are other kinds of violent crime. Strained sexual relationships and domestic financial hardship run drugs a close second as criminal motivators…but trust me…drugs are the prime cause of most crime today. And we are losing that battle, bigtime.

AF

 

[Rudie]

jamespowers,



It will reduce crime because dopers will no longer need to steal to get money for a hit. How many criminals do you know of who steal money to get a bottle of Thunderbird? (Hint: none) It will reduce crime because criminal cartels will no longer be able to make mountains and mountains of cold hard cash by selling on the black market. It will not reduce violent behavior other than dopers will now wind up dying in the gutters because you couldn't begin to save even a fraction of them from self destruction with government run rehab even if the money for rehab was available. That's the same fate alcoholics met in the past and still meet in the real world. There just aren't the resources to solve their problems. Alcohol and drugs, drugs being merely alcohol on afterburner, are problems that may well never be solved and we will have to live with it probably forever. Continuing a war on drugs is fruitless just like Prohibition was fruitless. Are you familiar with the crime, death, and misery surrounding Prohibition? I'm not saying legallizing drugs is good, I'm just saying that sooner or later you have to accept reality.

Foxer, I agree that legalization will do more good than harm. But I disagree with your statement that there aren't resources to solve drug and alcohol addicts' problems. In fact, there is a cure that works really well. Unfortunately hardly anybody knows about it.

Nearly every alcohol or drug abuser has severe self esteem issues. I and other hypnotherapist colleagues around the world find this again and again when working with these people. Uncovering the root cause(s) for the addiction and fixing the problem in hypnosis is a powerful way for permanent change. If an alcoholic gets off the booze with a program like alcoholics anonymous he essentially stays an alcoholic because the underlying issues were not addressed. These poor people often suffer relapses. They can't even have a glass of wine to accompany a fine meal or they will relapse. On the other hand, if the underlying problems are fixed (and that's actually not a big deal with the correct hypnosis techniques), that person no longer is an alcoholic. They can then have an occasional drink without suffering a relapse.

Other drugs are essentially the same, except that the hard stuff like heroin and the works is more difficult in that suggestions not to use the drug in between sessions tend to be overridden by the strong cravings. For this reason hypnosis treatment is best combined with a detox in a closed facility where you can make sure that they can't get a shot in between session. If that problem is addressed the outcome is pretty much the same as with alcoholics. Of course, hypnosis only works if they really want to quit for themselves. Uncovering the root cause and fixing the unfinished emotional issues leads to a quick and permanent cure.

This has been done times and times again since the days of Dave Elman - and that was in the 40s and 50s. Unfortunately Elman's methods are not that well known due to the fact that he wasn't a medical professional (Even though to this day nobody has instructed more doctors and psychotherapists in hypnosis than Elman did in his time. But after his death the medical community quickly banished the notion that they could learn something valuable from lay people. They stopped learning from lay hypnotists and started teaching their own ineffective stuff, basically setting back hypnotherapy for half a century.) Luckily, a few people have upheld Elman's torch. Due to this development the medical establishment, even if they had some hypnosis background, is quite unaware of the incredible potential true hypnosis has in store for medical use.