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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (324394)	9/15/2009 10:45:17 PM
From: alanrs	Respond to of 793955

Remember, the People enforcing the drug laws are making their living doing it. Yeah, that was part of my longer post. Predators and prey, ended up referencing eastern european gypsies. All in my head. Too much work. ARS

To: LindyBill who wrote (324394)	9/16/2009 4:07:13 AM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793955

Not to mention those in the business of supply: <the People enforcing the drug laws are making their living doing it. They will fight repeal tooth and fang. > If marijuana was just another plant, it would be not much more expensive than lawn clippings. That would NOT be good for people earning a living from growing it down the distribution chain. Heck, it wouldn't even be that great for the users. There is some "cool" factor in smoking dope - expressing a bit of daring and defiance and along with getting a tattoo, showing some "individualism" = giggle. With penalties not being too big for users, it's good all around. Bad luck for the few who get serious trouble, but they are relatively few and even that might be a bit of a badge of honour on the street. The main loser is the taxpayer, as usual, who pays the bills. Consumption might even drop if it was made as legal as lawn clippings. Same with cocaine and heroin. There is always some demand as seen in the Melbourne library a couple of years ago which showed documents from the 19th century of various imports which included opium in some significant quantity, along with whisky and whatnot. It was just another item on the schedule of imports. No big deal and nothing to get excited about. As a taxpayer, it's annoying to pay for the whole ridiculous business. As a traveler, it's annoying to have drug chasing custom officers wasting my time. There's plenty of other actually harmful contraband to intercept so border problems wouldn't go away, but it might reduce the intensity and total waste somewhat. There would also be crime reduction because people could poison their brains at a cheap price and not have to rob and burgle to fund their desires. It might even be worth providing the stuff for no charge to keep them numbed up and off the streets out of the way. There's also the fundamental principle that it's not my business if somebody wants to play with their brain by consuming plant toxins which are self-defence chemicals produced by plants to make their predators vulnerable to other predators. A stoned monkey would be likely to become dinner for an eagle, a chimp, a leopard, snake or something. Insects would go wonky too and be picked off by wasps. Mqurice