From: news@isc-br.isc-br.com (news user)
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles
Subject: Re: Flame Bait (was: Re: Drag racing)
Date: 14 Oct 92 19:01:03 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: ISC-Bunker Ramo, An Olivetti Company


In article <1939@shaman.wv.tek.com>, harmons@.WV.TEK.COM (Harmon Sommer) writes:
|> >>"Victimless crime" is an oxymoron.
|> >
|> >Not true.  Smoking dope is a victimless crime, many times.

Not "many times" : ALWAYS.  Almost exact analogy to riding a
motorcycle without a helmet.  If anyone else is harmed, it's because
a) side-effects of bad law (huge drug profits create turf wars)
b) side-effects of bad law (government pays your medical bills)
c) illegitimate claim on your productivity (relatives impoverished
   by your death or unproductive lifestyle)
 
("victimless" assumed to mean "no victim except the smoker", and
victimhood of your own actions is a dangerous concept)

|> I wonder if the people who care for crack babies would agree with you.

1) This belongs in talk.politics.drugs.

2) "Dope" above obviously refers to marijuana.

3) The opinions of "people who care for crack babies" are neither
   objective nor relevant to public-policy-making.

4) The notion that a phenomenon called "crack babies" EXISTS AT ALL
   (outside government propaganda) should be viewed with _intense_
   skepticism.  Not one scientific study has been done which shows any
   identifiable medical complication linked exclusively to cocaine.
   Vanishingly few, if not zero, of the mothers involved have used
   cocaine to the exclusion of alcohol. Essentially all of the
   symptoms commonly attributed to "crack babies" are indistinguishable
   from symptoms of FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome).

   If "crack babies" even exist, they are certainly no large burden
   on society, at least relative to alcohol-abused babies.

5) George-Ross-Bill (the indistinguishable candidates; they share one
   brain among them) all claimed to have sympathy for "crack babies"
   and therefore eschew legalization/liberalization.  They know not
   whereof they speak, but they know whose pockets are lined by the
   Drug War (government) and they know which words they must mouth
   to get elected.  Wanna guess where they/it stands on helmet laws?

6) If indeed the unborn are harmed by crack, it should be argued that
   the drug LAWS are at fault, since mom would most likely have been
   using marijuana if it didn't cost as much or more than crack.  The
   price is a result of simple drug-war economics:  it's easier to
   find big bulky smelly products like MJ in smugglers' boats, so
   customs people concentrate on it.  Smugglers know both these
   things, so they concentrate on easier-to-smuggle, higher-profit
   items like crack.  Less available MJ means higher prices, which
   makes crack a budget-conscious alternative.  Use of cocaine was in
   a 20-year decline until Reagan/Bush War on Some Drugs, though
   marijuana use was steady or increasing.  Guess what?  MJ use is way
   down, but cocaine/crack are climbing steadily.  Even though CRACK
   is not the evil that propaganda says it is, it's certainly more
   harmful than MJ - another great drug-war success.
--
Carl Paukstis, RRR&RSG           | "Good men must not obey the laws too well"
 ISC-Bunker Ramo / Spokane, WA   |    -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Phone: +1 509 927-5439          |  
 Mail: carlp@frigg.isc-br.com    |  My employer accepts no responsibility...
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles