From: rjl+@pitt.edu (Richard J. Loether)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Invade Colombia ?!?
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:47:37 GMT
Followup-To: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

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:
>> 
>> 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
>
>These drugs cannot be used responsibly IMHO. 

Exactly which drugs are these that cannot be used responsibly?  You've
made a fairly widely sweeping statement there.  Why do you think so?  If
you're speaking strictly from a moral viewpoint, we have no further
basis for discussion.  If you have some evidence that some drugs cannot
be used responsibly, I'd like to see it.

>                                              Who still has to pay when
>the user needs medical treatment. 

Who has to pay when the coffee drinker needs medical treatment?  Who
pays when the bacon and eggs eater needs medical treatment?  Are you
implying that YOU have to pay?  Why would that be?

>                                   For crack babies? 

We discussed crack babies here some weeks ago.  It turned out that one
researcher took some figures from one hospital and extrapolated them
into X thousand "crack babies" born each year.  A closer look showed
that the affected babies were really victims of fetal alcohol syndrome
and that the researcher had conveniently neglected to control for other
variables such as poor nutrition, multi-drug interactions, poor maternal
health, etc.  I'll try to find the details if you wish.

>                                                      For your information
>the current violence in the drug scene goes back quite a ways before
>prohibition. 

I suppose you have some information to support this claim.

>              The 'drug-using' (any drugs) part of cities have been very
>violent area for centuries if not millenia.

The less affluent parts of cities have been quite violent areas over
much of history.  The residents of the less affluent parts of cities
have long used alcohol and other drugs for quite a while too.  Alcohol
has been shown to predispose many people to violence.  As for the other
drugs city people choose to use, you haven't given anything but a vague
implication of cause and effect.  Do you have anything more definite?
>
>> 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.
>> 
>
>Pretending that the laws are the problem is like suggesting that all crime
>be eliminated by rescinding all laws. 

I didn't claim that laws cause all crime.  I was saying that in this
case (the WoSD) the laws have made something that isn't criminal in and
of itself into a crime.  If we didn't have our drug laws, which we
didn't for most of our history, smoking a J or using cocaine wouldn't be
a criminal or antisocial activity at all.  Killing your neighbor or
stealing his property would.  One has a victim and the other doesn't.
It doesn't hurt me or you for someone to use MJ or cocaine or LSD any
more than it hurts me (or you) for them to sip a beer or play tennis.

>                                      Intoxicated people are dangerous &

Well, depending on what they're doing, I'll agree with you on this one.
Intoxicated people shouldn't be driving or doing lots of other things
that endanger other people.  But that doesn't seem to be what the WoSD
is all about.

>making more drugs avail. in purer forms will just make the situatiom worse.

Funny, that didn't happen at the end of prohibition.  If anything, is
allowed people to know what they were getting and stay away from bad
stuff.  And, lest we forget, the machine gunnings in the streets
stopped.

>> 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.

Did you think that perhaps the WoSD had reduced access to something?  If
so, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.  It HAS pushed the entire
industry underground where it is actually further away from responsible
controls.  Suppose for a minute you were addicted to cocaine and needed
to get you hands on a gram a day.  How many TV sets would you have to
steal to pay for your coke at $100/gram?  How many at $2/gram?  Now tell
me again how high drug prices help to fight crime.

>PHIL


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