From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: Re: Repost from alt.beer(Beer laws in Texas)
Date: 21 Jan 93 17:15:43 GMT
Distribution: tx
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

Fred McCall writes, in part, in answer to me

>>
>>The same is true of marijuana consumption.  Purely in terms of effectiveness,
>>the argument can be made that the increase in pot usage during the sixties
>>and seventies was as much due to the change in the way the pot laws were
>>enforced as to the impossibility of "regulating morality".  For example,
>>penalties for personal possession went unenforced, in favor of a futile
>>"war on drugs" targeting the suppliers and sellers.  It was clear to me
>>at the time that the penalties for possession were too severe, and they
>>needed to be adjusted.  But the total abandonment of posession  enforce-
>>ment was at least in large part to blame for the increase.
>
>You must be looking at a different "sixties and seventies" than the
>ones I lived through.  I certainly don't recall any "total
>abaondonment of possession enforcement" anyplace that *I* lived.  The
>"War on Drugs" approach didn't start until MUCH later, when the folks
>running the show realized the futility of trying to arrest as many
>people as they would have had to to strictly enforce possession laws.

>Besides, isn't this the 'barn door' philosophy that you were espousing
>in another note?  Suddenly fostering disrespect for the laws by having
>foolish or unenforcible laws doesn't seem so "wise"?

Enforcement wasn't totally abandoned, this is true.  But possession 
enforcement was relaxed and the emphasis placed on suppliers and 
distributors, a hopeless task.  In many communities, penalties for
possesion were made token misdemeanors (e.g. Ann Arbor's $5 pot law).

The rapid increase in marihuana use (as well as the use of other drugs)
was countered by laws and enforcement methods that were not designed
to handle this trend.  The enforcement for possession was, in my mind,
too severe and often arbitrary.  The result was that, under tremendous
pressure from trendy intellectuals (and, needless to say, libertarians),
enforcement became lax and sporadic.  More seriously, attention was
focused on suppliers and dealers rather than users.  The alternative,
to enforce possession laws with milder, but nevertheless uncomfortable
penalties, was not seriously tried.  As with the Prohibition era, the
sixties and seventies were a time of tumultuous social and cultural
change.  To say that the increase in marihuana use was attributable
to its being illegal is overly simplistic.

Here is exactly a case where the "barn door" approach may well have
been successful.  In the "old days" punishment for getting caught
smoking was swift and measured.  Also, from time to time Dad would
wander behind the barn door and catch the boys.  The would get it then
too.  So it is not as if there were an official policy that made it
OK behind the door.  The point is that it was not OK, even behind the
barn door, but the grownups were not going to follow your every step 
to assure that you complied.

I am inclined to favor continued prohibition of marihuana, enforced by
serious but not overly severe penalties for possession for personal
use.  Would legalization mean the end of our civilization?  No, but
neither would continued prohibition mean the end of our democracy.

>Quite right, which is why your views struck me as 'right-wing
>religionist'.  Generally, they are the group that wants to move that
>line about what kinds of behaviour are to be regulated or prohibited
>to an extreme.

Fred, statements like this were very common during the McCarthy era. It
is called guilt by association.  In this case, it is guilt by association
of ideas.  If person A entertains an idea that (the Communists/Right Wing
Religionists - pick one) advocate and which I am against, then A must
be a (Communist/Right Wing Religionist) and, therefore, his ideas are
ipso facto subversive and also nonsensical.  End of discussion.  Call in
the (FBI/Thought Police - pick one).

Apparently you missed my repeated disclaimer that I am not seriously pro-
posing the reenactment of prohibition, but only suggesting that one of the
arguments against it, the claim that prohibition not only failed but
caused an increase in drinking and other Bad Things, has not been well
enough established and that most likely a really serious and unbiased
study of the period and the times preceding and following it would 
yield a picture that was much more complicated than the, shall I say,
fundamentalist simplicity of the rhetoric that goes, "Prohibition failed. 
It caused people to drink and criminals to commit more crime.  This
is obvious because you can't legislate morality."

By the way, as far as I know the "Religious Right", however that is
supposed to be defined, is not agitating for banning booze.  And
there are more than a few non-Religious-non-Righters who are against
the legalization of drugs, for enforcement of posession, etc.

Truly, Fred, I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the WCTU
(soon to be changed to the PTU).  Yes, I admit, I once attended a
fundamentalist church, and I even prayed and put money in the plate.
But that was a gesture of youthful idealism.  I truly had no intention
of ever subverting the Constitutional Rights of all Americans.  I'm so
glad to get it off my chest.

This whole thing started when I suggested raising the drinking age to
the speed limit.  55 might be a bit much, but how about 25?  The advo-
cates of lowering the age to eighteen made a big deal about the arbi-
trariness of 21.  Well, if we can lower it for that reason, then we
should be able to raise it too.  But no, no, Fred.  Let's leave it
at 21.  Wouldn't want to violate the constitution.

Cheers,
Gerry Palo (73237.2006@compuserve.com)

       "Machine guns don't kill people. People kill people."