legalize weed

[Preechr]

Sure, it's an old game... but that doesn't make it any less reprehensible. I agree that the War on Some Drugs is entirely about the money involved. Thick-headed morons that think that we could possibly punish drug-users straight... or shame homos straight for that matter... are being used by the Drug Warriors. They are not the cause of the War.

What I am saying is that THIS is Democracy at work. We were not meant to be Rome, for God's sake! The Founding Fathers knew full well how THAT turned out when they were debating the Constitution. America was founded on the principles of a Representative Republic featuring an extremely weak federal government body that was to be tightly constrained in scope and power. The most powerful force in the original America, at least in theory, was the law-abiding, moral individual. In modern America, those guys get thrown under the bus on a daily basis. We traded our Republic for a Nanny State, and Nanny's exist to discipline and constrain you as much as they do to coddle and feed you.

Here's a nice little exercise. I'm gonna give you a CSpan link to a search page. The first video is John Edwards' Town Hall in NH yesterday. Load it up and fast forward to 34:34 to see Little Miss America's Future and her expectations of her Nanny Dream State. She's looking for a Daddy, not a President.

http://12.170.145.161/search/basic.a...&image1=Submit

It's not just about the old fogeys anymore, Toto...

[derrida]

Originally Posted by Preechr

It's not just about the old fogeys anymore, Toto...

No, you are right- going down the line we have those "greatest generation" people of the state, their great society hippie progeny, and an enormous alphabet soup cohort saddled with daddy issues plus an extended childhood thanks to the "Everybody goes to college!" mentality.

Still, I'm not totally sold. At the same time people were all about "government is the problem" and all acquiescing to the Welfare Reform Bill, the rhetoric on drugs was firmly in support of three-strikes and zero-tolerance. Why? Why was the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which vastly extended the field of potential convicts to include drug users, passed in 1986 and not 1996? Why is it that in Canada, nanny-state par excellence, the main impedence to wholesale legalization is pressure from the US? (I am most curious about this last question)

[kahljorn]

most industries don't like anything that will cut into their profits, and they will use practically any method to eliminate competition or possible infringements of their finances.

Somebody might want to argue that, but it's true, and it's not very "Free marketish" when an industry can stay at the top because of political lobbying or whatever they do.

While we're discussing weed, why not opium? Opium obviously has medicinal benefits and grows like crazy in almost any garden. It could be effective for minor ailments and pains, rather than having patients relying on vicodin or tylenol or whatever.

Ant, sorry, I didn't see your question. I'm from California.

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by derrida

No, you are right- going down the line we have those "greatest generation" people of the state, their great society hippie progeny, and an enormous alphabet soup cohort saddled with daddy issues plus an extended childhood thanks to the "Everybody goes to college!" mentality.

Still, I'm not totally sold. At the same time people were all about "government is the problem" and all acquiescing to the Welfare Reform Bill, the rhetoric on drugs was firmly in support of three-strikes and zero-tolerance. Why? Why was the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which vastly extended the field of potential convicts to include drug users, passed in 1986 and not 1996? Why is it that in Canada, nanny-state par excellence, the main impedence to wholesale legalization is pressure from the US? (I am most curious about this last question)

It seems you're trying to draw a line between the Democrat version of the WOSD and the Republican version... They are pretty much the same at the national level. Even as the kids these days grow up, the ideological split on the issue will most likely stay mostly similar to what it is now and what it has been for 100 years. I was at a customers house the other day, and there was an episode of Little House on the Prairie on the tube that addressed opium addiction stemming from treatment in the Civil War, so you can tell just by that this has been a problem for a while, right?

Seriously, though, narcotics were only classified and outlawed at the beginning of the last century. In the larger sense, you are correct that this sort of thing has been a tool of governance for basically forever, but only modern government styles have become powerful enough to realize the dream of actually effectively outlawing and profiting from this sort of extensive regulation.

As for our pressure on Canada, I don't see why that's so hard for you to understand. It seems obvious that we are protecting our racket. The War on Some Drugs is big business, yo.

I'd love for this to open up to some real conservatives. There really are some here on the board. El Blanco? IS? I bet there some of you out there with kids that have developed some pretty old fashioned attitudes about drug legalization. Let's hash this out, so to say...

I see a lot of integrity in the pure conservative ideological stance on the issue: There are some mistakes not worth the risk of making. I wonder where the line lies exactly, and who draws it.

Just to put it out there, while I've done drugs before, I don't now and probably won't be. I take Aleve, and that's about it. Mine is what I consider to be another sort of pure ideological stance.

[derrida]

Originally Posted by Preechr

It seems you're trying to draw a line between the Democrat version of the WOSD and the Republican version... They are pretty much the same at the national level. Even as the kids these days grow up, the ideological split on the issue will most likely stay mostly similar to what it is now and what it has been for 100 years. I was at a customers house the other day, and there was an episode of Little House on the Prairie on the tube that addressed opium addiction stemming from treatment in the Civil War, so you can tell just by that this has been a problem for a while, right?

Seriously, though, narcotics were only classified and outlawed at the beginning of the last century. In the larger sense, you are correct that this sort of thing has been a tool of governance for basically forever, but only modern government styles have become powerful enough to realize the dream of actually effectively outlawing and profiting from this sort of extensive regulation. They outlawed the regulation? TALK GOOD my man.

As for our pressure on Canada, I don't see why that's so hard for you to understand. It seems obvious that we are protecting our racket. The War on Some Drugs is big business, yo. No, I was more asking about why, under your model, the political climate in Canada strongly favors legalization, despite widespread support for nanny-state type shit.

I'd love for this to open up to some real conservatives. There really are some here on the board. El Blanco? IS? I bet there some of you out there with kids that have developed some pretty old fashioned attitudes about drug legalization. Let's hash this out, so to say...

I see a lot of integrity in the pure conservative ideological stance on the issue: There are some mistakes not worth the risk of making. I wonder where the line lies exactly, and who draws it.

Just to put it out there, while I've done drugs before, I don't now and probably won't be. I take Aleve, and that's about it. Mine is what I consider to be another sort of pure ideological stance.

Personally, I'd rather risk a few more people struggling with drug addiction (or not, considering that for people who can afford a pure supply and don't make dosage errors, heroin is a remarkably safe drug) than to put huge sums of money in the hands of criminals (and the people we pay to arrest, try, and incarcerate those criminals' footsoldiers and couriers). Kind of far from being a pure ideological stance...

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