From: ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat)
Subject: Re: This Time Around, DON'T VOTE !!
Summary: Taken in by the propaganda, aren't we...
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 15:38:37 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.174409.16332@cbnewse.cb.att.com>
eisaman@cbnewse.cb.att.com (thomas.h.eisaman) wrote the following--except I
substituted 'alcohol' for 'drugs', 'rumrunners' and related terms for 'drug
dealers', etc.  See how it reads now...

>Oh yeah, I think legalizing alcohol is a good idea.    NOT!!!!
>
>What do you think this will accomplish?  Do you acually think that
>rum runners are going to say, "Oh, it is legal now, I guess I will
>sell my stuff through the govenment now.  I have always wanted to
>pay taxes on my income before."  No, the bootleggers are still going
>to be doing the exact same thing that they are doing now.  Only
>if it were legal, then they can sell some liquor legally, and more
>illegally.  This way if any trouble pops up, they can always show
>how their books say everything was legal.  Among other things,
>there are liquors that are blackmarketed now, why would
>legal beer, etc. be any different?  I have heard, and would expect
>that legalizing liquor would increase government spending.  Just
>because they would have to try to curb the blackmarket.
>
>I didn't realize that Braun was for legalizing booze.  That just
>gives me all the more reason not to vote for her.
>
>
>Tom

How much moonshine have *you* seen lately?  Heard about any new Valentine's
Day Massacres in Chicago over the street battles for control of illegal
liquor sales?

You have the same formula for most drugs that you had with booze during
prohibition--a commodity that *large* numbers of people want and will pay
for, that costs virtually nothing to produce and as a result nets far more
profit in a black market situation than the equivalent retail situation
would render.  And the more the government tries to stop it, the more valuable
it becomes, making the risks greater--but the profit even more lucrative.
It's a lose-lose situation for the government.  Worse, the whole purpose
is to protect people from themselves--the government has decided that drugs
are bad, all drugs.  Er, except alcohol.  And, of course, tobacco, which we
subsidize.  In the meantime, any effort is acceptable to eliminate this
threat--including rapid and drastic erosion of Constitutional rights and
freedoms granted by the Bill of Rights.  This self-righteous crusade is
destroying our country from within more than any previous threat has ever
been able to do.  From Prohibition, we turned what had been disorganized
street gangs into the largest, most powerful and wide-reaching extra-
governmental organization the world had ever seen--what is collectively
called the Mob.  From the new Prohibition, we've already seen an entire
country at the mercy of the drug lords that were created by that self-same
Prohibition; it's already too late to get rid of *that* effect.

"But if they take drugs, they're hurting themselves!"  So?  Since when did
I ask the government to hold my hand?  I prefer to go to hell in the hand-
basket of my own choosing, thank you.  (My drug of choice is alcohol,
incidentally--no white powder can compete with a fine Darroze La Bastide '42,
and I believe it costs about the same!)  If you're justifiably concerned
about those for whom indulgence is a problem, fine; mandate the
tax revenues from drug sales to rehab programs and *accurate* anti-drug
information, not the half-truths and flat-out lies that are currently
promoted.  Tobacco use in this country is dropping continually, despite
subsidies and lobbying from the tobacco industry, due to more accurate
and directed anti-smoking ads, and we haven't had any tobacco-related
shootings in the streets of Raleigh lately.

I can't go on.  The whole thing is enough to make me either cry or barf.

		Dave Ihnat
		ignatz@homebru.chi.il.us (preferred return address)
		ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us
Newsgroups: chi.general