From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Drug testing and welfare
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 12:11:17 BST
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

cs226a030@husky1.stmarys.ca writes:
> In article <a5qkoB16w165w@mantis.co.uk>, mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> writes:
> >Jenni Sheehey <JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
> >> First of all, nobody's sending anyone to prison.  They're merely giving
> >> them a choice: enroll in drug treatment, or stop receiving handouts.
> > 
> > Has it occurred to you that people might want to choose to take drugs?  Tha
> > they might do so occasionally, without becoming addicted?
> 
> The truth is, some druge are *highly* addictive (cocaine and crack) for
> example.

And nicotine, to give another example.

Even so, it is perfectly possible to take cocaine or crack several times and
not get addicted.  Outside of science fiction, I know of no drug which is
strongly physically addictive after one dose.

>          And whether or not someone wants to do something illegal is
> irrelevant. Illegal is illegal.

Fine.  So let's have mandatory inspections to make sure nobody breaks any
laws regulating sexual intercourse, shall we?  

>                                 If people choose to do drugs, they should not
> be doing it with money given them by the government to live on.

Why not?  George Bush and John Major are given money by the government to
live on, and they spend it on all kinds of things I consider irresponsible.

If you're so damn concerned about people spending welfare money on things you
don't like, don't given them welfare money.  Give them somewhere to live and
something to eat instead.

> > If drug use weren't illegal, you'd have Drug-users Anonymous alongside
> > Alcoholics Anonymous.  You wouldn't have to force people to get treatment,
> > they'd walk in and ask for help of their own free will.
> 
> SOME would. Many would not.

Many alcoholics don't.  So?  Often their friends persuade them to go along.

Whatever happened to the idea of personal responsibility, anyway?  If I drink
a bottle of bleach, it's my own damn stupid fault.  Surely the same principle
applies if I choose to take dangerous drugs?

Naturally, if I were misinformed about the consequences, it wouldn't be my
fault.  But I find it hard to believe that there are people starting to take
dangerous drugs who don't know what they were getting into.  If anything, the
drug war propaganda has exaggerated the dangers of drugs.  But if you can
show that there are misinformed people out there, and if you want to spend
more money on education as to the dangers, that's fine by me.

There are plenty of people around who started smoking in the full knowledge
that it causes cancer.  Are you suggesting that I should feel sorry for them? 
That it isn't their fault they're addicted?  Sure, I'll help them quit.  But
it's their stupidity that got them into the mess, and if it kills them then
it's their fault.

Of course, victims of passive smoking are a completely different matter.

> While I agree that more rehabilitation centres are a good idea, I wonder if a
> better idea wouldn't be to transfer inmates in present prisons around, so tha
> the addicts are all in one prison.

Maybe, but unfortunately I believe the prison systems in the UK and US are
already full to bursting point.  What's the situation in Canada?

Personally, drug users are way down on the list of people I'd like to see
locked away.

> > Yeah.  Let's jail all those law-breakers who engage in oral sex or sex
> > outside marriage.  They have no right to have sex, so lock 'em up.
> 
> Actually, here in Canada, I think both of those are legal.

They're legal to do, but are they legal to watch?

>                                                            If they aren't,
> then "they" DON'T have a right to have those forms of sex.

And if blacks aren't legally allowed to walk down the street then they DON'T
have a right to do so, yeah?  So I take it you're dead against civil
disobedience in South Africa?

>                                                            Just because you
> *think* that something should be legal, dosen't mean you have a right to do
> it.

Actually, I think it does.  The only force legality has is the force it is
given by virtue of its enforcement.

For example, what does "55 mph speed limit" mean?  It certainly doesn't mean
that I don't have the right to travel at a faster speed, or that it's immoral
for me to travel at a faster speed.  All it means is that I travel at a
faster speed under particular circumstances, I will be punished by the state.

Law is not morality, nor is it necessarily right.  It's dangerous to think
otherwise.

> In the same token, just because something is illegal, dosen't mean it's moral
> wrong. It *IS* illegal, though. If you do something illegal, you risk
> punishment. It is that simple.

Yes.  "You risk punishment" is the beginning and end of it.  Because if you
don't believe that "rights" are orthogonal to "law", then we may as well
bring back slavery.


mathew
-- 
"Even the most bizarre of the unions (probably that between a cat's gall
 stone and a single note 'G' from CNN's ident theme) managed to convey a
 sense of rampant impropriety."  -- 'Fortran Five', Simon G. Lawrence Leonard