Narco Terrorism - The attack on the soul of a nation.

Well I naturally would not expand to something artificial whose intent is not really to reduce the numbers of dealers and drugs flowing around, but merely to be part of the theatre of it all.

It would take a massive revamp of your entire law enforcement.

No pain no gain. It would have to be a revamp so large that it had no precedent in all US history.

Only then would anything that law enforcement do be worthy, because your law enforcement as it is, it is so corrupted that adding more money to it serves no purpose.

 

Freedom of choice seems like a much cheaper and more realistic pursuit.

 

Good point.

Moreover, at least here, it has been done by stealth.

Ergo;

Serco: the company that is running Britain

From prisons to rail franchises and even London's Boris bikes, Serco is a giant global corporation that has hoovered up outsourced government contracts. Now the NHS is firmly in its sights. But it stands accused of mismanagement, lying and even charging for non-existent work


http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/29/serco-biggest-company-never-heard-of

The solution I would have to that is to nationalise everything again.

End of and no appeals to the contrary.

I would include phrama companies and medicine. If were are speaking "what we would do", I would simply not permit them to operate as they do, there would be no Glaxo Smith Kline etc, all drug production would be nationalised, and brought under strict scrutiny, and everything would be made transparent for the people that wanted information on what was what.

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What about the freedom to not live in a society like that?

 

What a very fascist solution, JN. It's interesting to see how some of your other political opinions seem to dovetail nicely with your main political obsession. Too bad the Nazis aren't around anymore for you to admire.

 

While I agree with you that nationalizing prisons makes sense, the freedom to live in a society without drugs is kind of like wanting to live in a society without religion.

The desire is something that would be better served by moving to a country like that rather than trying to make your own country that way.

At best, you can educate people about the dangers of drugs, but ultimately, the decision to use or not use drugs is a personal one.

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I wouldn't say nationalizing prisons is a bad idea at least.

 

The unhappier and more dysfunctional a people are, the more they incline to a world of drugs.

 

Drug use is down or maintaining steady and has been for a while now.

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Yes, Exactly.

 

And you think they are not easily available now?? One phone call and I could have anything my heart desires. FFS, we can't even keep drugs out of prison, you REALLY think we can keep them off the street? That's delusional.

As for "proof" that the war on drugs is worse than the drugs themselves, fully half the murders committed in the country are as a direct result, and the violent cartels EXIST because of the WOD. When legitimate businesses are controlling the market, they'll settle their disputes with lawyers, not bullets.

 

Quote where I said they are hard to get now.

 

In general, you can say that.

People do drink more during a recession. Alcohol is one of the few things that benefits from recessions. The same goes for gambling.

And there are surely things we can do to improve the quality of life, which will reduce the desire to use drugs.

However, you'll notice all of it is indirect in approach.

Bans don't generally work for most things, whether it's guns, drugs, etc.

 

You desire to keep them illegal based on your assumption that use will "go up" if drugs are "easily available". First, that assumes facts not in evidence, as it is my experience that pretty much everyone who wants to use drugs already is. Second, if you admit that they're easily available now (which you just did), it means the laws are powerless and another approach is needed.

 

It's really not too hard.

There are very few countries on the entire planet in which drugs like coke, heroin, crack etc are legal.

Ever wondered why that might be?

Are you suggesting they ALL have it wrong, while a few casual drug users on an internet forum have it all figured out?

 

For many Muslim countries it's a religious thing. For much of the rest of the world, it's because the USA strong armed them into falling into line. It's an indisputable fact that marijuana was first criminalized based upon false and racist testimony. That was the beginning.

Not to mention the fact that it's actually Unconstitutional. When the Feds wanted to ban booze, they needed a Constitutional Amendment. Since nothing in the Constitution gives them the power to ban weed, they really need one for that, too. That's just ignored, as the Constitution too frequently is.

Yes.

 

[video=youtube_share;facg5prt6uM]http://youtu.be/facg5prt6uM[/video]

 

I think it depends. It probably won't reach any more of the population. People who don't smoke and hate smoking don't buy cigs, nor do their kids. The problem I see with legalization is that younger kids will have access. Kids start drinking in Jr high (about 12) -- and it's pretty easy to see why they start that young and with alcohol. The stuff is available at their house. They raid the liquor cabinet, they grab a few of dad's beers -- all very easy, and probably the only drugs that a kid could get before they have a job or a car. Why is it in the house -- because it's legal. That's something unavoidable about legalization -- anything legal will be available to kids because parents keep it around.

I could possibly see marijuana, but not hard drugs.

 

Interestingly, I'm trying to read this while I myself am trippin' my tits off.. I think it goes way beyond a cultural issue. It's about human greed and lust for power, and how to obtain it. Drugs, like religion, are merely tools used and abused to drive people to kill or die. But they aren't the cause of the problems at all.

People will be naive whether medicated or not.

 

Okay I give up.

I continually want to speak about Krok, coke, heroin, crack etc and for about the tenth time in this thread I get someone going on about marijuana.

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Yup.

See these are things I try not to get into personally.

Again, they are very ego based.

 

That ridiculous! I can't use drugs, under penalty of GOING TO JAIL because some irresponsible parent might leave some where their kids have access to them? I don't have kids! And if I did, I'm not stupid enough to leave them laying around. Are we basing our laws based upon only the dumb asses amongst us??

 

Because that is where the WOD started, and that's when the Fed exceeded their authority by banning a substance without the Constitutional authority to do so. And, in fact, the testimony given to congress was completely false and racist. They were told that marijuana caused black jazz musicians into raping white women. They were told by one person that he witnessed one person turn into a bat after smoking.

 

So I didn't say they were "hard to get now".

Okay.

Cheers.

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I have covered marijuana.eleven times now.

I am not covering that, smoking, drink, or jazz.

If those are things that interest you, can you start threat on them?

 

I agree that the war on drugs has been an utter failure. But central to your premise is that there has been any concerted effort on the part of governments' to win the war in the first place. Jack makes a very good point in that regard. The legalization of alcohol has been an utter disaster in terms of the negative consequences its widespread use has had on society. If you are suggesting that prohibition would have resulted in the kind of widespread levels of accessibility and therefore by logical extension the widespread social alcohol-related problems that we see today, then I'm sorry but that is just nonsensical. Any responsible government worth their salt would not have legalised a known damaging drug like alcohol had they known of its devastating effects. What appears to be central to your argument is the notion that governments' ought to concede to the laws of supply and demand unconditionally, irrespective of the consequences on society. Just because demand for alcohol has always, and will always be, high is not a sufficient enough argument to warrant its legalization. Equally, this logic applies to all harmful drugs. Why add to an already disastrous mix? This is essentially a moral question. Can it ever be morally right for governments' to legally sanction the use of harmful drugs on the population it is responsible for overseeing, and thereby in so doing, legitimize such use? I say, no. For me, the argument ends there.

 

Only the right could be that cognitively dissonant; Our War on Drugs not only sacrifices the end of our War on Poverty, it also requires a War on Crime.

 

I'm not sure who that cryptic message was directed to. On the vast majority of issues I lean heavily to the left. On social issues like the drugs I do not take the libertarian perspective. If you want to call it right-wing, so be it. Let me be clear, I do not believe in unconditional freedom.

 

Since when is Commerce well Regulated through central forms of planning, unconditional freedom?

 

Anybody over the age of 18 in the UK can walk into a supermarket, which as recent as two decades ago only sold foodstuffs, and legally purchase as much alcohol - which these supermarkets sell as loss-leaders for a fraction of the 'regulated' price - as their financial situation will allow. The costs to society is astronomical. The reality is, there is limited regulation.