From: andersom@spot.Colorado.EDU (Marc Anderson)
Subject: Re: Invade Colombia ?!?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 19:16:41 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.183834.6608@pimacc.pima.edu> ppugliese@pimacc.pima.edu writes:
>In article <1282@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>, rjl+@pitt.edu (Richard J. Loether) writes:
[...]

>These drugs cannot be used responsibly IMHO. Who still has to pay when
>the user needs medical treatment. For crack babies? For your information
>the current violence in the drug scene goes back quite a ways before
>prohibition. The 'drug-using' (any drugs) part of cities have been very
>violent area for centuries if not millenia.

What drugs do you speak of that cannot be used responsibly?  And what's
your point about drug treatment?  We'll have to pay if the drugs are legal
or not -- illegal drugs are not regulated and their impurities are usually
the REAL cause for medical problems.

re. crack babies:  Don't you mean mean alcohol babies?

re. violence in cities:  Oh, so L.A. is any better off now then 50 years ago
as far as violence is concerned?

[...]

>Pretending that the laws are the problem is like suggesting that all crime
>be eliminated by rescinding all laws. Intoxicated people are dangerous &
>making more drugs avail. in purer forms will just make the situatiom worse.

Your logic is plain wrong.  There are certain laws that NEED to be in place --
ie., murder, theft, etc.  But by smoking a bowl before going to bed or with
some friends on a weekend, am I hurting anyone else?  Am I <gasp> DANGEROUS
after smoking a bowl?  To what?

If intoxicated people are dangerous, do you advocate the criminalization of
alcohol?  (involved in 65% of all traffic fatalities and 60% of all murders?)

>>>The major problems in the
>>>inner-cities are quite different than the major problems elsewhere in
>>>the country, as any inner-city resident knows also. 
>> 
>> A matter of the same problems distributed differently rather than
>> different problems (IMHO).
>> 
>
>Inner-city residents would differ on this, IMHO.

Never classify people the way you just did.  Many of my friends live in 
'the inner-city' who support drug legalization more than I do.  

>> The current prohibition under the War on Some Drugs is the root of the
>> problems you are seeing.  People want to buy various substances for
>> their own reasons.  They want them badly enough that making them illegal
>> just pushes the entire industry underground.  It is the underground
>> nature of the recreational drug industry (except for alcohol and
>> tobacco) that causes the problems.  
>> 
>
>yeah, we should get rid of all laws & then all crime would disappear too
>wouldn't it? The problem is that when access to powerful drugs becomes
>cheaper & easier the problem will get worse not better.

It depends on what you mean by crime.  The crime of buying and selling drugs
WOULD DISAPPEAR.  The crime of gang A shooting at gang B because gang B is
selling dope in the wrong part of town WOULD DISAPPEAR.

What makes you believe that pure drugs will cause more problems?  Certainly
you don't believe the government shouldn't regulate the purity of substances
(ie., alcohol, aspirin, etc.).

>PHIL

-marc
andersom@spot.colorado.edu