OTOTOTOTOTOTOT
jim,
As a Rambus thread, we're a great "Social Issues" discussion group! <G> We're not even calling each other names! <VBG>
Drug use needs to be discouraged and controlled indirectly.
That hasn't worked so well for alcohol (our leading cause of traffic deaths) and cigarettes (our leading cause of all deaths). I'm not convinced that legalizing drugs would "discourage" their use.
Making them illegal increases the street price and make peddling them in the streets a lucrative business. We should have learned from the American experience with prohibition. I understand your concerns but we have created powerful drug cartels with our current policies and I suspect that the drug using population is far higher than it would have otherwise been without the war on drugs.
You'll have to explain that one to me?! I can't fathom how higher drug prices and the risk of going to jail actually encourage more people to try drugs.
Personally, I believe that drug use is less than it would be if it were cheaper, legal, and you could buy it at Safeway (or Winn-Dixie or A&P or CVS or ...) when you bought your eggs and milk. "Did you want a Pepsi with that Coke, ma'am?" <G>
What if we just reduced the penalties for users (unless their use causes harm to someone else), but maintained our "war" against the importation and/or manufacture of drugs? I'm not sure I support this, but I have the sense that most supporters of decriminalization are worried more about the penalties on users, not on dealers.
I just have a problem with legalizing more ways for people to impair their mental and physical capabilities when that can lead to even more tragic results for innocent bystanders. We have enough already, I think. I recognize that we'll never be able to stop people from wanting to escape their lives, even for a short period (nor would we want to), but I'm not a big supporter of "enabling" people in their destructive habits, either.
Moreover the prisons are becoming a gulag.
I don't know -- I've never been inside a working prison. My father worked for a short time as a correctional officer after he was rehabilitated from his stroke. I didn't get the sense from him that the two places where he worked (for your average, run-of-the-mill inmate) were like that. I'll ask him more about it.
Something needs to be done differently.
Probably, as long as it doesn't make things worse. An unacceptable solution is for my wife and children to be killed by someone who's higher than a kite with a cigarette pack full of joints in his pocket. I just don't think, in this case, we need to take huge, untried steps.
And using an analogy from my preferred political environment, the fact that we can't come to agreement on a solution tells me that most of the suggestions maybe too extreme at this point. (I also disagree with the capital punishment route as well).
But, again, I'm arguing unfairly since I don't have a definite proposal to give you back. Sorry.
Dave |
