The War on Drugs is Unconstitutional, immoral, and a complete failure

Very well put preachefred! You are the third person I have put this argument to, with this thesis, and you are the first to overcome my first argument, that the WoD is absolutely unconstitutional. In the language I put forth, I cannot support my argument on constitutional grounds. I will have to change the language in my future battles on this subject, and I thank you for showing me the fault in my logic. When the constitution was first concocted, many of the issues we face today like abortion, gay marriage, environmental protection, the War on Drugs etc. were simply not around to be addressed. The framers did not offer specific answers to many of the hot-button issues that we struggle with in modern politics, and we must do our best to infer, from the spirit of the document, what follows suit, and what does not. A framework of morality and justice was built to guide the law making process, in the interests of reducing tyrrany in the absolute best way possible. The Supreme Court and congress have not seen sufficient momentum within public opinion to be pressured into overturning the current prohibition, although it would seem, in my opinion, that the spirit of the document would certainly be inconsistent with current prohibition laws. "Spirit" is not a clearly definable word though, and I cannot technically use it to defend my case on legal grounds. I think that public opinion, however, has a very good chance of being swayed in the decade to come. In fact, two of our presidential nominees, Mike Gravel and Ron Paul, are totally for decriminalization. Their numbers in the polls may not be high, but I think that, especially with more and more power being weilded through the internet, the day will come when drug users are helped instead of persecuted. It is another thing to say that the constitution SHOULD be interpreted to protect citizen's rights to whatever state of mind they choose on themselves. The ninth ammendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." To paraphrase-The bill of rights lists ONLY the most basic rights, that are cardinal in importance. Other rights, that are not as important as, say, the right to a fair trial, should not be disparaged just because the framers didn't list every single right that shall not be denied. You have defeated my first argument, preacherfred, but remember this: If we had a constitutional debate in the year you were born, you could have defeated a thesis of "It is unconstitutional that black citizens be forced to give up their bus-seats to white citizens" in the same way you defeated my current thesis. I want you to think about that, and the fact that even though I would have lost that argument in 1950, and I will lose this argument in 2008, your general stance on the WoD's constitutionality is just as morally wrong, in my personal opinion, as the constitutional stance on black's rights in 1950. I didn't disagree with the ten person theory, I agree that drugs are a generally negative thing, just like an abortion is a generally negative thing. But there exists a point, in which there are negative consequences on both ends of a decision, and you have to weigh the implications of each to see what to do. The WoD and abortion are both issues like this, and there is a reason I take the liberal stance on each of them. I believe that both issues represent cases where citizen's implied civil liberties are threatened in an unjust way, in order to justify the ends that "we are better off in society as a whole". No abortions, no worries about killing human fetuses; no legal drugs, no worries about widespread drug use and the associated social detriments. When you take away a person's civil liberties, in this case, a person's right to the mental state he or she deems fit for themselves, you are opening the door for further civil liberties abuse, not to mention taking away from the very essence of life itself. Freedom of expression, which is diminished by the WoD, is deeply affected by prohibition, as the hippies demonstrated in the 70's with the acid trips and the like. How I raise my child, yes the one that deserves a chance preacherfred, is my freedom of expression and has NOTHING to do with what you think is the way I should raise my child. You imply that drug users are ruining the lives of their children and not giving the children a "chance". You seem to imply that your definition of chance means something physical, like not being beat up by a drunk father or something, but your definition of "chance" in my eyes, as I read it, is "Preacherfred's concept of a good family". You would not like to see a generation born that is indifferent to prohibiting drugs. You want to see the WoD perpetuated indefinitely, while we spend $1 Billion a week (and rising) paying drug warriors that are probably more corrupt than Rudy's police chief to fight a losing battle against drug lords, while the people's civil liberties are curtailed in the process. Politicians in the fifties were very mad to see negros let into schools, and prayer taken out of schools, because it affected what their opinion of a good family should be. Your concept of a good family is shared by congress for the moment, as you said. But I think that a new era of reasoning is on the horizon, in which we are going to recognize that the pride-laden reasoning of the past, in which people seek to embelish their own lifestyle and force it on others, whether it be their religion, family values, or skin color, is simply not in accordance with the spirit of our constitution, or the spirit of liberty and justice. Pain medication doesn't HAVE to be satisfying, but I think the people have a right to satisfying medication even if you don't. The federal gov't's right to overrule a state law is not questionable; what was questionable was drug warriors raiding cancer patients and the gov't's general ability to discriminate against drug users. You see, when there is injustice in a society, what happens is you tend to see questionable "legal" practices conducted, like this. Just like how the police hauling Rosa Parks off a bus in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white man would look questionable to bystanders and make you go "hmmm", this looks questionable and gives people like me food for thought about how the same injustices of old are still affectingg our nation, but in different form. Are you sure, preacherfred, that your logical line of thinking in this case would not put you on the wrong side of the debate if you were alive in the forties? Does it not seem that a radical moralist like me might be arguing a stickler to the law and family values like you in this same fashion? Your story about the rehabilitated junkie is inspiring, but I cannot justify the WoD based on an example like this. I can give you plenty of examples of the system ruining junkies lives as well, as I think a third of current prison inmates would agree with me on. It is a good story, but drug users, on the whole, are not looking to being arrested as their saving moment in life. As to the WoD's success, I think all it does is kill children's chances of RESISTING the drugs. Drugs are hidden from society while illegal, and despite programs like DARE(drug abuse useless education, one of my biggest druggy friends from HS used to love wearing his DARE shirt while he got high), children often encounter drugs for the first time, in seclusion, in the exlusive company of other drug addicted children. If we weren't forcing drug users to the margins of society, they would be exposed and no child would ever be confused about the implications at hand. Furthermore, the "mystery", the innate curiousity that drives the hearts and souls of all children would not be attracted to such a well-known and easily-referenced phenomena such as the vice of drug abuse.