From: rjl+@pitt.edu (Richard J. Loether)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Invade Colombia ?!?
Date: 13 Apr 92 13:21:44 GMT
Followup-To: alt.drugs, talk.politics.drugs
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <1992Apr10.153510.6603@pimacc.pima.edu> ppugliese@pimacc.pima.edu writes:
>In article <1278@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>, rjl+@pitt.edu (Richard J. Loether) writes:
>> In article <1992Mar31.202638.2542@vax1.umkc.edu> molaughlin@vax1.umkc.edu writes:
>>>
>>>	Recently, I've been thinking that perhaps we could put some of this
>>>military surplus and extra, dormant conventianal weaponary to some use. For,
>>>example, a very major problem in the U.S. is drugs. Living in the inner-city, I
>>>know drugs is the root of many social problems like crime, illiteracy, gangs,
>>>etc. ----
>> 
>> Living in the inner-city, you've now doubt heard about the evils of
>> drugs many times.  Surprise - you've been lied to.  We have major
>> problems with exactly two drugs in this country, alcohol and tobacco.
>> Everything else is small potatoes.  Alcohol causes the most social
>> problems and tobacco the most medical problems.  And they're both legal.
>> 
>> Maybe you've heard that we tried to eliminate alcohol once.  Maybe you
>> know the outcome of that experiment.
>
>Anyone who livs in the inner-city *knows* about the evils of drugs, no
>matter what people who live elsewhere think. 

So what exactly do you know?  That people are getting shot in the
streets?  That people are dying of overdoses?  That gangs are
terrorizing the neighborhoods?  If you'll look, you will probably see
that these are problems steming from prohibition rather than the drugs
themselves.  It doesn't take too much to tell that the War on Some Drugs
has been an utter failure in reducing drug availability but has been
quite successful in keeping profits to merchandizers high, keeping
purity iffy, and generally pumping lots of cash into criminal hands.

The people who use various drugs responsibly are no threat to you and
the ones who get into crimes to pay for their supply can be adequately
handled with laws against such things as robbery, theft, etc.  If the
jails weren't full of "druggies" there would be lots of room for the
truly dangerous people.  Look in your history books.  The "drug related"
violence we see today has a direct counterpart in the violence we saw
during prohibition.  The ODs are a modern day answer to the problems of
people drinking bathtub gin.  The differences are those of technology.
Today it's UZIs instead of Tommy guns.

>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).

>Besides, I suspect
>that if the other drugs were legalized the problems they would create
>would rapidly dwarf the present ones. Making things worse is no solution
>to me.

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.  

Perhaps we should move this thread to alt.drugs or some other
appropriate newsgroup. 

>
>PHIL
-- 
Rich Loether (rjl@unix.cis.pitt.edu)
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