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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (66174)	11/7/2002 4:47:38 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 82486

And have the social ills associated with alcohol use disappeared as well? If you consider organized crime and poorly distilled rum a social ill your answer is YES.

To: one_less who wrote (66174)	11/7/2002 4:52:25 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

We do not have people imprisoned for it, as we did during prohibition. The social ills associated with alcohol impurities (cases of blindness and death) which can be compared to your OD cases, have disappeared for the most part. Why take the risk making impure alcohol, when safe cheap alcohol is available at the liquor store. Make sure you compare ill to ill. I am most concerned about the percentage of our population we are incarcerating because of drug crimes, and the criminal element that has built itself up around the drug trade. Users will use, legal or illegal. I doubt very much that use will mushroom with legalization. So the evils attendant to use may stay the same. Finally, people will stop flouting the law in all those homes across the country where people use substances that are illegal. It cannot be good to have so many people in the country disobeying the law as far as pot is concerned. We see pot in almost all movies. Everyone seems to be smoking it. It is a joke to have it illegal, and that illegality makes a joke of the law (imo). that may be one of the most serious problems with the illegality of drugs.

To: one_less who wrote (66174)	11/7/2002 5:09:54 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

And have the social ills associated with alcohol use disappeared as well? No. But the crime has. And people kept drinking during prohibition, as we know well. Didn't stop the use. Just made enormous profits for criminals and diverted the attention of law enforcement from protecting the public to chasing bootleggers. And, of course, the enormous profits in alcohol then and drugs now are a problem in keeping police forces clean and uncorrupted. That's an issue we havn't raised yet, but we read regularly of reports of police officers who succumb to the lure of drug money, whether stealing drugs themselves, accepting protection money, or whatever. That is less likely to happen with crimes which are less well organized and less lucrative, and where the amount of cash flowing through the system and the easy transportability of drugs makes it easy for cops to slip a bit into their own pockets when they make a bust. I'm actually surprised how little that happens. Or, at least, how few get caught, which may not be the same thing at all.