Everybody laughs. The guy suggesting “joint” is embarrassed, but in an amused and unconcerned way. He doesn’t fear social scorn, outcast, or legal investigation.
So why are drugs illegal? Remind me?
Required fine print: I don’t use drugs. Don’t sell them. Never have. But, in light of the costs we face in keeping them illegal, and because I basically don’t care what you do to yourself, I’d prefer they be made legal.
Report your neighbors!
Obama’s lawyers say it is okay for the government to put a GPS tracker on my car and track my travels without a warrant. They claim I have no privacy in public:
The administration, in urging the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse a three-judge panel’s August ruling from the same court, said Monday that Americans should expect no privacy while in public.
So, again, I’m confused about this “Constitution” thing. I have the “right” to kill a baby. But I have no right to most of my paycheck. And being tracked constantly by the government is perfectly fine. These liberals sure are weird thinking.
I don’t mind if a government agent looks at me in public and make fun of my clothes. But tracking my travels isn’t “public” that is scrutiny and it shouldn’t be legal without a warrant with probable cause.
But Ken… wouldn’t you support tracking Muslims? Well, sure, if they aren’t citizens, or if citizens then they have given a judge good reason to authorize such tracking.
This is another example of where the War on Drugs is really a War on our Rights. Time to end both.
Yea, it’s good stuff.
If you’ve had a back or neck injury, you know what I’m saying.
Sheriffs in North Carolina lobbied to have access to a state database of those prescribed controlled drugs (painkillers and narcotics).
My first, and only, question is… if the Sheriff had it, what would he do with it?
Naturally the article, written no doubt by an uncurious Journalism graduate, provides no insights as to this OBVIOUS question.
What would the Sheriff do with the info?
People overdose and die from prescription medications. That is sad, but I’m not ready to give up privacy so some idiot doesn’t take too many pills. I might be interested in stopping thieves using crime to fund their oxycodone habit, but I don’t see how a database would help because they probably don’t have a prescription.
The only obvious use is testing for multiple prescriptions, but isn’t that better done by a Doctor prescribing, not the Police?
Random testing might be better here. For instance, when you get your drivers license, or any other kind of government service, you might be randomly required to test for drugs. If illegal, you can’t get a license. If legal, you better have a prescription.
Random testing requires no database. No privacy intrusion. And need not be done extensively as long as the penalty is strict.
I’d rather let people alone to live as they see fit. But if we feel we HAVE to control what people do with their body, focus on THEM not everybody.
The real problem
You wouldn’t know it from the main stream press, but the United States doesn’t supply 90% of the guns Mexicans use in crimes. It supplies 90% of the guns they can TRACK the origins of:
OF COURSE AMERICA IS THE ONLY ONE WHO APPEARS IN THE PAPERWORK YOU BOURGEOIS BOOB! We’re the only ones who keep paperwork! Mexican gangs get their guns from South Korea, China, Spain, Israel, Russia, South America, Guatemala and yes, The Mexican Army. Good luck tracing anything back to any of those groups. When all the untraceable guns are factored into the total, America’s input goes down to a whopping 17%.
My source for the above is an interesting article on the drug war in Taki’s Magazine. The author describes two ways to end the violence in the Mexican drug trade – legalize drugs or just let them fight it out. He says we will accept the default of let them fight it out. I suspect he is right. But there is another way that he hasn’t considered, probably because he doesn’t mind drug use.
We could punish drug users. They are, after all, the ones causing the problem. The dealers are just servicing a market, not making it.
For instance, we could require drug testing for a drivers license, including random checks throughout the 5 year validity for the license. We could require drug testing before any benefit from the government.
There are lots of things we could do to not have to fight a drug war. I favor legalization generally, but would gladly accept a mix of legalization of marijuana and aggressive testing for more dangerous drugs.
The default, of continuing to create American police forces that look and act like military forces, and the continuing erosion of rights is something I’d prefer to avoid.
Thanks YOU America for keeping our product prices high
John Stossel correctly believes that the war on drugs is worse than drugs:
I understand that people on drugs can do terrible harm — wreck lives and hurt people. But that’s true for alcohol, too. But alcohol prohibition didn’t work. It created Al Capone and organized crime. Now drug prohibition funds nasty Mexican gangs and the Taliban. Is it worth it? I don’t think so.
I’ve never used them. I’m high on life! But if you want to, I don’t care.
This war is lost. Know how you can tell? Watch Leno, Conan, or Stewart and listen when they mention pot or cocaine. The audience hoops and hollers. Drug use is acceptable, even cool, amongst a generation of young adults that were born 20 years AFTER the “war on drugs” started.
The war is lost – and it was wrong to fight it in the first place.
I’ll never use drugs. I hope my kids never do either. But that is my and their choice, not some stupid government weenie who wants to “protect” us and is willing to “destroy our village” of rights to save it.
Endless wars should be avoided
An unintended consequence of the Confederacy’s fight for states rights is that it ended up building a large central government:
Although southerners rebelled against growing centralization of the federal government, they had no qualms about establishing a strong national state of their own. Scholars have classified the Confederate central government as a form of "war socialism." The Confederacy owned key industries, regulated prices and wages, and instituted the most far-reaching draft in North American history.
War causes large government growth. Permanent war, like the War on Poverty, War on Drugs, War on Terror…. leads to permanently larger governmental roles.
I favor strategies that fight wars away from America and that lead to short wars. As Afghanistan drags on for 8 years now, I can’t help but wonder what just the length of the effort costs us, over and above the casualties and military spending.
Be careful… thinking this way leads to very un-PC steps… like not letting Muslims into the U.S., legalizing drugs, and having states and cities – not our federal government – address poverty.
For freedom, think small, be practical, and make your wars short.
An inspiration to gangs? Maybe.
A new trend is on the rise… Black gangs attacking whites while videoing the assault for resale later.
"They knock a young white guy out with one blow to see if his knees will wobble and surround them and take their money," said the Rev. Leon Kelly, who runs a Denver gang-prevention program. "It’s a joke."
I’m not sure what he means by joke… but if this happens to me, or near me, I intend to respond very seriously. Fifteen of them are going down, permanently. Why 15? That is how many .45 ACP rounds are on me at the moment.
I wonder if Obama’s election has something to do with this trend? If he can inspire militias, maybe he can inspire gangs too?
I noticed, for instance, when in D.C. recently, that many black people were rude to me. I’d lived there in years past and found that, except in the case of the criminal element, black people were polite, family oriented and quite kind. I don’t recall any rudeness the years I lived there, except during pick up basketball games – when I gave as good as I got.
But in the days I’ve been in DC since Obama, I’ve been treated rudely by blacks several times and in oddly mundane situations.
Perhaps his election empowered regular blacks to act out repressed dislike for my race? And perhaps the same effect has been magnified by the criminal element within black culture and channeled into gang assaults on whites?
I don’t know. Am I even allowed to talk about it? Can I say that a surprising number of black people were rude to me my last trip to D.C.? It is true. It happened. Dare I speak it?
I recall wondering where it was coming from. Since the town was adorned with Obama everything it wasn’t hard to think of him as a possible source. Since I traveled all over the country this year, including recently to Atlanta, and the rudeness was not encountered again - I suspect it was a DC thing.
Well, more power to them, they can find out the benefits or drawbacks from being rude to people. And I can handle a little rudeness from folks feeling their oats.
But I draw the line at gang assaults.
I think not…
As of June 1, 2009, everybody visiting Canada needs a passport. This includes even good honest non-terroristic Americans driving around to see the other side of Niagara Falls.
This, of course, is stupid, over-reaction. The government lets anybody come in from Mexico, but makes it hard to visit Canada on a day trip.
We had thought we might make a run from Niagara Falls across Canada to Detroit on part of our expected summer tour of America. But I guess not now.
That plus gun regulations means I’ve got to say “Sorry Canada”.
A man who causes disasters. Look for him Janet!
Maybe our esteemed head of Homeland Security should spend more time fighting terrorism and less time thinking of euphemisms for it:
NAPOLITANO: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
Uhmmm… yeah. Maybe if we don’t’ speak it it will go away. Good plan Janet.
Democrats didn’t ahve a deep well of talent to draw from, but some REALLY stupid people seem to have been attracted into Obama’s web of idiocy.
It would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous.
H/T/ Ace
Let’s take a look at the war on drugs today.
Eight of the forty one people booked into the Washington County, UT jail in the last 48 hours were there for drug related charges – mostly paraphernalia (not even the actual drugs).
In Atlanta, 3 police officers were sentenced to jail for lying to get a warrant for a no knock raid, killing the occupant when she fought back against the mystery intruders, and then covering up that she had nothing to do with drugs by stashing seized drugs in her apartment.
American citizens sued a Swiss bank to keep their names private from the US Government. They have to bank abroad for privacy since the US no longer has private banking, because of laws done in support of the “war on drugs” but that are unfortunately used as well in the “war on the productive”.
Police now dress like this not this. Courtesy the war on drugs.
The Supreme Court is finally hearing a case on abuses of property seizures done in support of the “war on drugs”. Alverez v Smith debates whether police can seize property they believe involved in a drug-related crime and hold on to it for 187 days without any court test of the validity of their claim. These seizures are used by police to feather their budgets and motor pools.
All in all, I’d say it is time for us to stop fighting the “war on drugs” and start fighting against the “war on us” caused by the war on drugs.
Caveat: I’ve never used drugs, never will, but if you aren’t related to me, I don’t care if you do.