Let's look at some of the stuff Locke says;

"It therefore behooves us to remind ourselves why we are fighting and why the decent citizens of this country are under no obligation to surrender to the criminals."

Who are the "decent citizens of this country"?...Is there some certain criteria,or qualification one must have to be "decent"?...And what is a "criminal"?..Is a criminal someone who has broken a law?If that's the case,then all but those who can claim the innocence of youth,are indeed criminals...A parking ticket make you a criminal,,,removing a label from your pillow makes you a criminal.Jaywalking makes you a criminal.....you dont even need to be guilty to be a criminal,all you need to do is break a "law".,,,of course,I could go into defining what a "law" is,,but I am already being too longwinded.

Next,we can look at Mr Lockes attempt to compare the WoDs,with trying to cure aids.This is so silly that I wont even comment on it.As we move on through this weird article,we come to this strange statement;...
" Since libertarians are the ones who want big government to continue spending billions to enable them to do as they please, they squirm at this question."
What planet is Mr Locke from?

As we continue to wade through Lockes absurd CRAP,,we come to;

" If drugs were legalized, they would rapidly become socially
acceptable. The vast majority of people in this country still take
law seriously, and disapprove of drugs (and refuse to tolerate drug
use in their friends, children, or employees) in the final analysis
because they are illegal. The fact that drug use is illegal is the
only thing, in our let-it-all-hang-out society, that makes it
socially possible for people to be openly intolerant of them. If
everyone worked in offices where some of their co-workers were
snorting cocaine at their lunch hour, it would not be socially
possible to be adamant about drug use because they would have to
get along with the drug users. Given the anti-harassment and
anti-discrimination laws that already exist to protect lawful
activities, they will eventually be forced to do so. Thus because
of the social dynamic of people needing to get along with others,
what is permitted in practice will inevitably drag people's beliefs
along with it. And when the social stigma goes, the least coercive
and least governmental factor containing drug use will be gone."

This is spectacular...it speaks for itself,,,and as we continue to look into Mr Lockes insane world,we are struck by such things as;
"But the real problem, of course, will be that drug users will vote."...Why would drug users not vote?..unless they got busted in Florida...

" This is, naturally, one of the fundamental problems of combining
libertarianism with democracy: if people are allowed to do as they
please, they certainly can't be allowed to have political power or
they have an intrinsic incentive to use this power in
self-subsidizing and predatory ways. Frankly, it makes clear that
libertarianism is flatly incompatible with democracy, as the more
intellectually honest libertarians have admitted for years. It
makes clear that democracy requires virtue, not just liberty, on
the part of the people who live in it, because they will wield real
political power over their neighbors"

This is too far out there....
At this point,I will abort my incomplete critique,as I start to realize that this article is obviously too absurd,to not be an attempt at a weird joke.........

Ummmm, has prohibition stopped its popularity increase? ...no! If anything, the tabboo of something draws in curiosity and use.

Hey, if marijuana was socially acceptable and legal, they'd be less violence by club patrons and dealers.

It's kinda like saying that exposing witch-hunts as uneducated fools murdering innocent people should not have been stopped because it made devil-dealing socially acceptable.

What century is this again?

I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude for your article in Front Page Magazine; "Why We Must Not End The War On Drugs".

With your moronic rambling you have single-handedly dealt a severe blow to prohibitionists and advanced the cause of those of us who want to end the war on drug users.

Thank you so much,

I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude for your article in Front Page Magazine; "Why We Must Not End The Wae On Drugs".

With your moronic rambling you have single-handedly dealt a severe blow to prohibitionists and advanced the cause of those of us who want to end the war on drug users.

Thank you so much,

That swelling pride of what Justice, Peace and Freedom means deep in the heart?

Does Mr. Lockhead knows that some "Laws" are meant to be broken??

Only decent thing to do to this scum, an arrest without being told what he is charged with. There will be no trial.
No lawyer. No Judge. Not one bullet will be spend on you, you are not even worthy of a hemprope. Only decent thing to do to you, sir, you need to start ingesting rat poison.

You suggested in your article that those who want a stop to the drug war are being
inconsistent when they also want to continue the war on other ills. Such a
comparison (of the war on drugs with the war on cancer, AIDS, child abuse) is not
fair. Were it so, the well-meaning Christians in your country would promptly ban
alcohol, cigarette smoking, drunk driving (wait a minute...), guns, religion, poverty,
and finally, war itself. Diseases were not created by man, they are merely fellow
organisms or cell mutations completely unaware of the damage they wreak on a
human body.

Your causal relationship between legalization and social acceptability is questionable
also. Is it really the case that legality of a pastime leads to social acceptability? Have
you been able to _disprove_ the hypothesis that perhaps social acceptability
(besides varying widely from age group to age group) has little or nothing to do with
whether a particular pastime is legal or not? You don't have to answer that one, by
the way.

"This is, naturally, one of the fundamental problems of combining libertarianism with
democracy: if people are allowed to do as they please, they
certainly can't be allowed to have political power or they have an intrinsic
incentive to use this power in self-subsidizing and predatory ways."

This statement is an honorable way of defying special interest groups and their
agendas in favor of the common good. However, it has not yet been proven that the
common good has not been met by otherwise letting such groups run the country.
Furthermore, it has not yet been demonstrated that drug users even have interests in
common further than the most obvious. In other words (assuming that all drug users
are libertarian, which is _your_ assumption Mr. Locke), there is no model of a
society where a bunch of drug users have taken over and turned the infrastructure
into its own shadow. Therefore your statements here, though noble in intent, have no
basis in historical fact.

"Frankly, it makes clear that libertarianism is flatly incompatible with democracy,
as the more intellectually honest libertarians have admitted for years. It makes clear
that democracy requires virtue, not just liberty, on the part of the people who live in
it, because they will wield real political power over their neighbors. This the
Founding Fathers understood, quaint as it sounds today. Perhaps in a tyranny where
nobody cares about anybody else or has any say in governing them, the libertarian
position is tenable. "

If your intent in saying this last statement was to affirm that democracy depends
on virtue, I say to you that individual pastimes, privacy, and non-interference with the
rights of others are the bases of your democracy, not one man's or religion's
interpretation of such. Were what you say to be true actually so, there would be a
single state-sponsored religion (something Protestant, no doubt). Your argument
about virtue ignores cultures that sanction religiously controlled psychoactive use.
They worship god in their own way, and laws against their substances by neccessity
violate the constitution of your country by interfering with said worship. You cannot
prove that a libertarian nation is neccessarily a tyrannical one, unless you define
tyranny and show that it is not possible to have a non-tyrannical country that uses
drugs.

" So what happens when a majority of the population is on drugs? Well, we can
kiss goodbye the disciplined society that currently makes our way of
life possible. Call it the Protestant Work Ethic (a terribly unfair term, but we're
stuck with it) or whatever you like, but our economy and stable
civic order are the product of a certain self-disciplined mentality and culture
among the American people. They are emphatically not the product of
a nation of lotus-eaters. Or opium-smokers. Interestingly, this potential situation
is somewhat analogous to the situation in China at the time of the
opium wars of the mid-19th century. There is a reason they went to war over
drug importation, even if half of them were just fighting for a larger
share of the profits. "

You have no proof that the work ethic of a nation is dependent largely upon its
abstinence from substances. I know of no disease more prevalent and debilitating
than alcoholism, and yet people like Hemingway, Louis Armstrong, George W.
Bush, among as many others as one can name, have managed to accomplish
something with their lives despite involving themselves with both illegal and formerly
illegal substances. There are other reasons for the opium wars besides the ones you
hint at (to hear your logic on this would be interesting, if not helpful). Please draw
out the analogy, and then consider me satisfied.

Your love of country is admirable, but there are three things to consider. First of all,
there is no distinction on your part between legal and illegal drugs, which means that
you have also ignored the backlash against tobacco smoking, which, despite tighter
regulation over the years, remains as popular as ever among those between 12 and
18. Secondly, the objective of a war is to win (ie, to repel an invader, to preserve a
weak nation against an unjust larger one), unless the war is being fought for political
reasons. Your rhetoric (pardon the term) doesn't consider the possibility that there
are other parties with vested interests in this kind of a war. I have always believed
that it should be the dream of every honest and upright law enforcement agent that he
or she should someday become irrelevant. Unfortunately, your statements also ignore
the logistics of the drug war, where over half of your prison populations are
incarcerated as a direct result of the laws regarding use, sale, and conspiracy, and
where the law enforcement agencies, drug testing companies, and MIC have taken a
vested interest in the enforcement of law. The only message to the kids being sent is
that adults are hypocrites (children are smarter than you think, obviously). Finally,
your statement about the banana republics is spurious at best, since it is a
documented fact that those governments rely on American financing (which,
interestingly enough, is dependent largely upon their imitation of U.S. drug law).
Your prohibition didn't work in the 20's, and it will never work now.

Finally, your arguments do not consider the difference between legalization and
decriminalization. If you think there is no difference, then I ask you, in closing, do
you believe a parking ticket should go on a citizen's record? If you can say no to
that, then, despite your false ignorance, I think you do know the difference.

You have been flamed by...

Dave

mr. locke,
so did the founding fathers...they were pretty specific
about those things..."the common defense" and interstate
commerce...anything else should be handled at the state,
county or city level...the twisting of the interstate
commerce laws has allowed the federal government to intrude
into many areas that are Constitutionally part of "states
rights"...Vices are in that area...and whatever you call
drugs, they are vices...just as beer and tobacco and
pornography are vices...training of our children is our best
defense against those things...any other approach is
detrimental to our freedoms under the constitution...

as i've said previously, READ the constitution, and think
about it..

sincerely,
Frank L. Cowsert Jr.

mr. locke...
regarding your article "why we must not end the war on
drugs"...i didn't notice any mention regarding drinking
alcohol in the workplace...

my impression is that you are very much in favor of a large
powerful central government...

you seem to like the idea of legislating others' morality...

killing or punishing others because they don't agree with
your personal standards seems OK with you...

i had to laugh when you suggested drug testing for those who
want a welfare (government) check...find out how many
congressmen have submitted to random drug testing...ask
yourself "why not"?

you speak to many issues in this article...yet you have very
little understanding of the issues you write about...

you insinuate that ALL welfare recipients use drugs...this
makes you look like a fool for obvious reasons...

you make predictions about the prevalence of drug use after
legalization...do you think employers will sell drugs in
vending machines? i think they will treat drug abuse, WHERE
IT HAMPERS a person's work performance just as they do
now...treatment or dismissal...employers have rights too...

you call our society "disciplined"..and then you refer to it
as a "let it all hang out" society...which is it?

sir, you are a victim of fuzzy thinking...please do a little
reading, starting with the constitution...please do ALOT of
thinking...reread your article...develop the ability to see
the BIG picture...you seem to be veiwing the world from a
very narrow and inaccurate perspective...

Robert believes everyone who smokes a joint is a dope crazed criminal, but this is not the case. Many people who get high are responsible productive members of society.

First off:
"Since libertarians are the ones who want big government to continue spending billions to enable them to do as they please, they squirm at this question."

Uh, buddy, have you ever read the platform of the Lib Party? Evidently not; they are not for Big Government under any reason. Why? Because the more money you 'give' it (I should say, the more money extorted from you at the threat of jail if you don't cough it up) the more oppportunities you provide it to cause mischief in your life.

" In predicting the likely consequences of legalization, people tend to make the classic error that has dogged social policy in this country since the Great Society: they assume that if we change the rules, we will be applying the new rules to the same set of circumstances that exist now. That is to say, if there are a group of people visibly wanting to do X, then allowing them to do so simply results in their doing so."

One major problem here: this statement fails to take into account that the very laws meant to dissuade people from not using some drugs by making them illegal have not worked for the entire 87 years they've been in place.

"If drugs were legalized, they would rapidly become socially acceptable. The vast majority of people in this country still take law seriously, and disapprove of drugs (and refuse to tolerate drug use in their friends, children, or employees) in the final analysis because they are illegal."

Circular reasoning, here. Prior to 1914, people disapproved of drug use based largely upon pseudo-moralistic reasons. When you combine this with cultural baggage such as puritanism combined with Social Darwinism, you get a very interesting mix.

Back then, big-shot industrialists were considered successful because of God-given talents. Talents that made them superior to their workers, who were not successful because they were not destined to be. (Calvinism at work) In order for you to continue to be successful, you had to ride herd on every worker, infringing upon their home life in numerous ways, particularly by demanding sobriety off the job. Hence the support of Big Business for alcohol and other drug prohibition.

" If everyone worked in offices where some of their co-workers were snorting cocaine at their lunch hour, it would not be socially possible to be adamant about drug use because they would have to get along with the drug users. Given the anti-harassment and anti-discrimination laws that already exist to protect lawful activities, they will eventually be forced to do so.

Now this is a fine example of intellectual acuity...not! Show up for work drunk and see what happens. Likewise stoned. I have had co-workers show up half-blotto, after repeated warnings, and they got the boot, right then and there. But to think that anti-discrimination laws would be used to foster activity which is deleterious to the safety of the workplace is really reaching for straws.

"But the real problem, of course, will be that drug users will vote. At first, they will simply vote to be allowed to do their thing. Inevitably, they will vote to demand that society subsidize their doing so.

Hoo, boy, this guy must smell nothing but methane all day, and it's causing some major cerebral damage. News flash: most drug user's, sadly, don't vote. Simply because the deck is stacked.

At the risk of seeming elitist, most of the people whom I've known who used illicit substances had a lot going for them upstairs. They thought. They reasoned. Just look back at the comments of those who post here. Particularly with regards to matters political. The degree of political awareness demonstrated by them is much higher than among the putative 'salt of the earth' sorts...which usually wind up making policy. In short, they are anything but as naive as this author assumes. They know that there are extremely powerful interests that manipulate things from behind the scenes. So many don't vote. Which is partly to blame for the mess we are in today.

"This is, naturally, one of the fundamental problems of combining libertarianism with democracy: if people are allowed to do as they please, they certainly can't be allowed to have political power or they have an intrinsic incentive to use this power in self-subsidizing and predatory ways. Frankly, it makes clear that libertarianism is flatly incompatible with democracy, as the more intellectually honest libertarians have admitted for years. It makes clear that democracy requires virtue, not just liberty, on the part of the people who live in it, because they will wield real political power over their neighbors. This the Founding Fathers understood, quaint as it sounds today. Perhaps in a tyranny where nobody cares about anybody else or has any say in governing them, the libertarian position is tenable."

I repeat, this guy must never have read the Lib Party platform. Libbers don't want the 'right' to tell other people how to live; quite the contrary. Libbers simply want the right to be left alone by fascist dolts like this author. Who evidently does want the right to tell you how to live...and is quite happy to use the political process to undermine your Constitutional rights to achieve that goal. But what's really galling? He dares to use the Founders as justification for his scheme,all while conveniently forgetting that the very philosophy that they espoused is precisely the same one as he sneers at.

But here is where he gets to the meat of the matter. And it ties in very neatly with what I entioned earlier. Which is the real reason why the Corporate Statists are for the DrugWar as their Robber-Baron capitalist predecessors were:

"So what happens when a majority of the population is on drugs? Well, we can kiss goodbye the disciplined society that currently makes our way of life possible. Call it the Protestant Work Ethic (a terribly unfair term, but we're stuck with it) or whatever you like, but our economy and stable civic order are the product of a certain self-disciplined mentality and culture among the American people. They are emphatically not the product of a nation of lotus-eaters. Or opium-smokers. Interestingly, this potential situation is somewhat analogous to the situation in China at the time of the opium wars of the mid-19th century. There is a reason they went to war over drug importation, even if half of them were just fighting for a larger share of the profits.

There it is, in black and white. Can't let the worker drones get any ideas about control over their own bodies, as that would disrupt the control (discipline in the author's thinly veiled allusion) necessary for the maintenance of corporately controlled society. And, needless to say, the continued maintenance of the Elite at the top of the economic pyramid.

You-are-an-industrial-unit! And-don't-you-ever-forget-it!

First, these are two very different issues. Try taking one
thing at a time, but that's not the anti way, is it?

Proper drug use will eventually be taught in
schools.

And heroin is going into cereal boxes, etc, etc.
Knee-jerk moron. Let's say that booze is legal for
consenting adults (oops! how'd that one slip by?!?) to
possess, use, and even SELL!! That means proper
booze use is going to be taught in schools, yes?
Untutored blowhard.

If you don't want to believe me, fine: learn nothing
from the experience of liberalizing social mores over
the past 40 years.

Then he said - So what happens when a majority of the population is on drugs?

WELL this Person should Read insted of wiping his ass with the bill of rights.