cannabisnews.com: Is The World Ready for Legalized Drugs?





Is The World Ready for Legalized Drugs?
Posted by FoM on September 13, 2000 at 21:41:18 PT
By Leo Morris
Source: News-Sentinel
Not until we take care of the children and accept some responsibility. In last week's Interactive Forum, we gave conservatives a hard time for supporting the continued wasting of billions of dollars on a war on drugs that is no closer to being won than it ever was. This week, it is time for the liberals to shoulder their share of the responsibility for our failed drug policies. Even conservatives who think the war on drugs is misguided shudder at the thought of cutting it back -- even something as defensible as legalizing marijuana -- because they fear what a mess liberals would then make of things. 
For if conservatives are too judgmental of people's behavior -- they often are -- liberals are much too forgiving of it. And that could be disastrous for America's longterm health. Even the most passionate of drug-legalization supporters should hope two things happen if their dreams ever come true. 1. That we do everything possible to keep the stuff out of the hands of children, reserving the harshest criminal penalties for those who help get drugs to young people. Society's job is to protect children from harm until they are old enough to make their own decisions. Helping them impair their already unformed judgment does not protect them. 2. That all bad behavior is appropriately punished whatever causes that bad behavior. It is one thing to get trashed at home, quite another to do it in the public arena. Someone who causes a traffic accident because of drugs should be punished. Fire those whose work suffers because of drugs. But the problem is (take a bow, liberals) that we have created possibly the most child-unfriendly society in history. A whole generation has been effectively abandoned by adults, being guided mostly by peer influences as they try to navigate today's often-poisonous culture. Do we really believe, in today's atmosphere, there will be a serious attempt to keep kids drug-free? And how many are willing to take responsibility for anything today? We live in an age of self-indulgent forgiveness in which any behavior -- no matter how selfish or destructive -- can be explained or "understood." What will happen when we throw legal drugs into a "nothing is ever anybody's fault" world? Making all drugs legal would work in a rational world where people acknowledge that actions have consequences and are willing to accept those consequences. Drug-legalization advocates talk as if that rational world is already here. It isn't -- not by a long shot. By Leo Morris for the Editorial Board Published: September 13, 2000Source: News-Sentinel (IN) Copyright: 2000 The News-Sentinel Contact: nsletters news-sentinel.com Address: 600 West Main Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Website: http://www.news-sentinel.com/ns/index.shtml To visit the forum click this link then The Forum:http://www.news-sentinel.com/ns/editorial/index.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Legalization:http://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=legalization
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on September 14, 2000 at 17:18:50 PT:
Coming down to the crunch
When you strip his diatribe of all the basic a priori - and seemingly obligatory - assumptions that you must be either this or that, but not soemthing in between, Mr. Morris is in essence favoring the status quo.Because he believes that you, we, the entire bloody nation of the US of A... is inherently, congenitally, hopelessly stupid.Never mind the fact that for over a century there were no regulatory bodies in this country decreeing what you may put in your bodies and what you may not. Our forefathers would have had the tar and feathers ready for any such bureaucratic worm who summoned the gall to suggest such. Were they any less intelligent than we? Were *their* ancestors any less gifted than they? They *did* know about the more dangerous of drugs; they knew for *centuries* that opiates in sufficient concentrations led to addiction and sometimes killed. They learned *real* fast about cocaine. And all the herbs in between, the nightshades, aconite, belladonna, etc. They KNEW. Because without that knowledge underpinning modern pharmaceutical research, we wouldn't have gotten as far as we have so quickly.So, what it really comes down to is this: will we continue to allow government, which is composed of people who in the end are no more enlightened than we are, to continue to dictate to adults as though they were children? Mr Morris says we have no choice.But then Mr. Morris no doubt believes that he is among The Chosen who is capable of rational thought. Such conceit is endemic to those in power; King George the 3rd had it in spades, and look where it got him. 60 years ago, the early environmentalist/sci-fi writer Philip Wylie, in his classic "Generation of Vipers", warned us of the trend he called 'Momism'. Of a government so hell bent on 'taking care of you' that it suffocates the life out of a free people in the same way an overprotective parent can, crippling a child's ability to stand on it's own two feet. His prophecy has become chillingly evident in the DrugWar. But the antis have gone one step further; they actually *kill* the children they seek to protect.The last time such twisted State endorsed-and-applied logic was used, we were hip deep in rice patties, taking casualties and burning villages in order to save them. When enough people *said* "Enough!", it stopped. Pray that the people of this country give the lie to Mr. Morris' opinion of them and do as was done before some 32 years ago.
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Comment #9 posted by i_rule_ on September 14, 2000 at 16:04:16 PT
How bout them democrats?
On June 10, the Washington State Democratic Party endorsed the complete legalization of marijuana, advocating pot sales in cafés and bars for anyone over 21. Tax revenue would be "spent in the fulfillment of health and human needs." The party also endorsed the right to possess two plants and one ounce of marijuana, and called for the end of drug testing in the workplace, unless the job is safety sensitive. The pot-related planks of the platform were introduced by Timothy Crowley of the Washington Hemp Education Network. • Washington State Democratic Party: (206) 583-0664; website: www.wa-democrats.org• Timothy Crowley: (206) 442 9404
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Comment #8 posted by Tim Stone on September 14, 2000 at 14:57:20 PT
What a Silly Article
How astounding that the author still thinks the drug war is a "conservatives support" vs. "liberals oppose" neat, surgical scalpel cut to tell-all and explain-all. How quaint. How fatuous. It's "conservative" opposition to the drug war from the likes of Milton Friedman, W. F. Buckley, George Schultz, and the heroic - literally, in the mythic, Joseph Campbell sense - Gov. Johnson of New Mexico that have kept the issue of drug policy on at least the back page of the local daily newspaper, if not yet the front page. With occasional rare and saintly exceptions like the worthy Barney Frank, there are _no_ "liberals" who fundamentally question the drug war and its excesses. Joe Biden? The horrifically demagogic Diane Feinstein? Can you name a "liberal" in the Senate who stood up to oppose Plan Columbia? With the possible exception of Wellstone, nary a one. This Leo Morris, straw man liberal/conservative aside, does make some good and useful points about a potential "legalization" regime, namely, that any illicit drugs that are candidates for "legalization" should be held to the precise same rigorous standard that has worked well enough for alcohol for about seven decades now. And then this curious fellow fouls his argument nest yet again by equating all presently illicit substances as "drugs,' thereby equally tarred with the brush of moral evil. Just when his words suggested there might be some hope for this fellow, he closes with the following:"Making all [sic] drugs legal would work in a rational world where people acknowledge that actions haveconsequences and are willing to accept those consequences. Drug-legalization advocates talk as if thatrational world is already here. It isn't -- not by a long shot."The model is so right-between-your-eyes obvious, Mr. Morris can't see it, apparently hypnotized by the propaganda of "drugs" having magical qualities of evil not possessed by alcohol. The model _is_ alcohol, Mr. Morris. That's where we allow adults to go _this_ far - drinking in the privacy of the home - but no further - as in driving drunk. By this model of regulated, controlled "legalization," the state seeks on the one hand to respect adults as adults, by allowing them to drink, only stepping in and punishing them when they cross a clear line involving likely harm to somebody else. The important point here is that the alcohol policy, by giving adults choice, and punishing only bad, problematic choices, thereby teaches responsibility. You may go this far, but no further: That's an adult decision.The national drug policy, on the other hand, condemns _all_ disapproved drug use and denies everybody, adults and children, the ability to _choose_, and to thereby learn from one's choices. With alcohol, an adult may drink, but has not yet crossed the line into criminality, so long as he follows certain clear guidelines that are only capable of being learned because alcohol is regulated and controlled, and not illegal. This window of personal responsible with adult alcohol use is very important, because it's lacking with the illicit drugs. Once you cross the line and use an illicit drug at all, you're already beyond the pale. If you're beyond the acceptable limits just by using at all, where is there, Mr. Morris, any incentive built into the system to learn responsibility and personal limits?This any-use-is-bad policy needlessly infantilizes and criminalizes all adults and denies children the necessary stepping stone process to learn to use presently illicit drugs responsibly, when they are adults, just as they are now taught, for the most part, how to use alcohol responsibly, and are taught the penalties for using alcohol irresponsibly, thereby teaching - wait for it - responsibility!To learn responsibility, one must have choice, the freedom to make a bad decision, and learn therefrom. Drug prohibition, by its very nature, denies all choice. Therefore, Mr. Morris, it denies all hope of teaching responsibility. 
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Comment #7 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on September 14, 2000 at 09:47:30 PT
Give pot to kids already!!
  I was watching MSNBC this weekend, and they were airing a Dateline undercover special about Raves, and the use of things like Ketamine and Nitrous Oxide. They went into lengthy detail about Nitrous, because the undercover camera caught graphic pictures of a girl (already on some other drug) inhaling from a balloon and passing out. They warn that Nitrous is deadly unless mixed with oxygen, like your dentist does - straight from a balloon can cause your brain to suffocate.  Well then - why do we continue to ensure that children don't have easy access to safe and relatively harmless marijuana? It's a fact that some (but not all) kids are going to try to intoxicate themselves by any means necessary - and if we take away the relatively safe and effective intoxicants like cannabis, we leave them with things like solvents and paint and nitrous. Something to think about...
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Comment #6 posted by observer on September 14, 2000 at 09:06:36 PT
re: Is Leo Enjoying Cheering Prison Rape?
Q: Is The World Ready for Legalized Drugs?A: "Legalized?" Only to the extent "the world" is "ready" for "legalized" skydiving. Or "legalized" swimming, etc. (Drowning kills many of Our Children each year.)Notice how this one also just happens not to mention prison, jail or incarceration. That's the real issue. What changed about people, religion or morality such that using cannabis wasn't a sin before 1937, but suddenly became a prison-deserving sin on par (or worse) than rape or murder after 1937? Did Leo mention prison? No? Maybe that little detail just accidently happened to slip Leo Morris' mind. It is said that drugs cause memory loss; this happens regularly with prohibitionists when they forget history, jail and anything else not supportive of their lust to throw adults in prison for using cannabis.For more on prison, see: http://www.spr.org Read about the intentional state-inflicted RAPES of men and women, rapes they are receiving at the hands of the system Leo Morris and other Good Germans Americans support. ...And how many are willing to take responsibility for anything today?Like the prison RAPES and other abuse cannabis smokers recieve? Willing to take your share of responsibility, Leo, for cheerleading this? Forgot? Oh, I see: that's not the kind of "responsibility" you had in mind, was it?We live in an age of self-indulgent forgiveness in which any behavior -- no matter how selfish or destructive -- can be explained or "understood."Yeah ... like the way you and your ilk happen to forget prison and prison rape that you inflict on each other, on your sons and daughters for using cannabis. That's on your head, Leo, and the heads of other prison-lust prohibitionists and chemical McCarthyites. Thanks for standing up for freedom, Leo. Thanks alot. 
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Comment #5 posted by Lehder on September 14, 2000 at 07:12:42 PT
To the drug warriors:
 Would you want your heart operated on by a police officer? Do you want your illness diagnosed by a judge? You claim that "we should do everything possible to keep drugs out of the hands of children". What have you done? You have relinquished your personal control of drugs and given it to criminals - who are happy to sell your children drugs. Do you give your kid booze for lunch? If you could buy heroin would you teach your kid how to shoot up? A drug dealer will - so why do you give control of dope to criminals? Do you think the government is in control of drugs? Why have you abrogated your responsibilities as a parent? Why is your kid on dope?
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Comment #4 posted by Dan B on September 14, 2000 at 06:38:19 PT:
They Are Not Listening
Zion, thank you for posing the question as to why "the message is just not getting across." I believe that the message is not getting across because those in power do not care to listen. I have sent many letters to my congresspersons in Washington, and I always receive responses indicating that nobody has bothered to actually read what I have written. I received a letter a while back from Larry Combest (R-TX) stating that he had no intentions of ever legalizing marijuana. I don't remember asking him to legalize marijuana. I have sent numerous letters regarding his mishandling of many drug-related issues, but never have I requested outright the legalization of marijuana. If I did, it must have been a minor statement within the context of a larger argument.The worst offenders in my state are Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Phil Gramm (R-TX, see a pattern here?), who had the gall to tell me (among other things) that they are not in favor of restrictions to Fourth Amendment rights in the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act that they both, in fact, voted for this past year as a senator. The letter I sent to both referred to the restrictions to the First Amendment the MAPA called for, and neither responded to those restrictions.The same goes for newspapers (most of them; thank God for Canada) and other media sources. Most of the media are in a kind of symbiotic relationship with the government, each feeding off the other, using their powers to create faulty--sometimes deadly--policy, all in the name of saving the children. Both are driven by money and power, and neither truly cares about the effects of their policies on children or anyone else. When it comes to the issue of drug policy, the "Powers that Be" prefer to cover their ears and pretend everything is going swimmingly. Very few have any courage whatsoever. That is why the message is not getting through.Peace,Dan B
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Comment #3 posted by zion on September 14, 2000 at 03:47:00 PT
Same old arguments
Dan B. writes:>I have read thousands of letters, opinion articles, research articles, legal articles, etc. from those who wish to legalize (ordecriminalize) everything from just medicinal marijuana to all drugs, and I have never--not once--encountered asingle opinion from any of these people that did not affirm the notion that we need to be responsible if we are going tolegalize. Without exception, everyone I have encountered in this movement is concerned about the welfare of childrenand the responsibility we all share with regard to driving while intoxicated. Apparently this has fallen on deaf ears, because the ONDCP and other political drug warriors continue to push the "sending the wrong message to children" emotional button in people with GREAT SUCCESS. They also push the "would you want your heart surgeon high before operating on you" button, again WITH GREAT SUCCESS.So how come such obvious hyperbolic arguments engender so much resonance in the people? In spite of the rational approach to MJ legalization by proponents, the message (adults only & responsible use) is just not getting across. How come?-z
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Comment #2 posted by Dan B on September 14, 2000 at 02:50:00 PT:
Give Me A Break!
I have read thousands of letters, opinion articles, research articles, legal articles, etc. from those who wish to legalize (or decriminalize) everything from just medicinal marijuana to all drugs, and I have never--not once--encountered a single opinion from any of these people that did not affirm the notion that we need to be responsible if we are going to legalize. Without exception, everyone I have encountered in this movement is concerned about the welfare of children and the responsibility we all share with regard to driving while intoxicated. The author of this article is using circular reasoning: drugs are bad, therefore they must be illegal. All those who think drugs should not be illegal are wrong because drugs are bad. This approach fails abyssmally when subjected to the light of logic. The matter is not so simple as the bland statement of South Park's Mr. Mackey: "Drugs are bad." Yes, some drugs are harmful, and some drugs can kill a person. But the drug laws themselves are more harmful and kill many more people. Furthermore, making drugs illegal causes habitual use: one is more likely to buy large quantities under prohibition to reduce the chances of being caught making a series of smaller purchases, and having the drug present at all times increases the chances that one will use the drug as soon as the craving begins, thus fostering habitual use.The loser who wrote the above article needs to learn a thing or two about the legalization movement. He needs to learn a thing or two about logic, as well.
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Comment #1 posted by legalizeit on September 13, 2000 at 23:40:07 PT
Thinly veiled prohibitionism
>Making all drugs legal would work in a rational world where people acknowledge that actions have consequences and arewilling to accept those consequences. Drug-legalization advocates talk as if that rational world is already here. It isn't -- not by a long shot.Inverting this sentence, as: Making all drugs illegal would work in a rational world where people acknowledge that actions have consequences and are willing to accept those consequences. Drug-prohibition advocates talk as if that rational world is already here. It isn't -- not by a long shot.Obviously, instead of having the intended effect (the part about consequences), drug prohibition has spawned the biggest black market in history. Consequences go out the door when big bucks are in the making.>A whole generation has been effectively abandoned by adults, being guided mostly by peer influences as they try to navigate today's often-poisonous culture.Not entirely. Our friendly D.A.R.E. officers are trying to brainwash them into knowing how horrible MJ is, but the kids are wise to them, which is why D.A.R.E. is on thin ice in many places. When they find out they've been given a false alarm about MJ, like the boy who cried "Wolf", they don't listen when warned about really bad stuff like meth.These people don't seen to remember that a powerful, mind-altering, sometimes violence-inducing drug was prohibited in the 20's, creating a hideous black market, then made legal and has been legal ever since. And, though it is more dangerous than many of the illegal drugs, people can and do use it responsibly and are held accountable when they don't. And who ever heard of a Budweiser-smuggling ring? The only "smuggling" that goes on is a 21-year-old buying booze for an underage drinker.If the braindeads in Washington would just look at some 20th century history, they would see that prohibition JUST DOES NOT WORK and that legalization of drugs could and would work, just as alcohol legalization does today.
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