Over the last two years, I have repeatedly blogged about how the War on Drugs is undermining the War on Terror in Afghanistan (see, e.g., here, here, here, and here). Recently, the Boston Globe had a good editorial summarizing the issue, and holding out a small ray of hope that the Obama Administration might change things:
The Obama administration is committing 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Yet as the United States works to stabilize that country, the most important decisions don't just involve troop and funding levels. Also vital is ending the prohibition on growing opium poppies - for the policy is a key factor in Afghanistan's economic and security crisis.
Since the US invasion in 2001, the American and Afghan governments have made the poppy-growing areas of Afghanistan, which produce 90 percent of the world's opium, a major front in the war on drugs. Yet despite eight years of efforts to eliminate the crop, farmers keep growing poppies, and the crop still reaches the black market....
Eradication is not just an ineffective strategy, but also hurts the security interests of Afghanistan and Western governments. While the United States invests $1 billion in eradication efforts each year, the Taliban profits by purchasing poppy from farmers who have no one else to sell to, and selling it to the black market. Also, the eradication policy fuels anti-Western hatred when farmers become sympathetic to insurgent groups after the US and Afghan governments burn or spray their only source of income.
The eradication policy remains in place even though it is widely recognized as a failure. Richard Holbrooke, Obama's new envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, last year called the eradication program "the single most ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy."
Holbrooke is the Admnistration's point man on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I'm not holding my breath on this. But maybe, just maybe, he can persuade the President to finally end "the single most ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy" and get on with winning the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The administration has often emphasized that winning the War on Terror in Afghanistan will be its highest foreign policy priority. If it really is, Obama should be willing to prioritize it ahead of poppy eradication. As the Globe points out, a strategy of partial legalization has successfully deprived terrorists of income from illegal drugs in Turkey, a policy enacted with US and NATO support.
Perhaps Obama can get the War on Drugs out of the way of the War on Terror in Afghanistan as well. That would be a good example of real change we can believe in.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Public Policy and the Role of Principles:
- Can Pragmatists Be Practical About the Drug War?
- And Then Maybe He Can Save Mexico:
- Will Obama End the War on Drugs' Undermining of the War on Terror?
Europe, by way of opium trade, provides such a base.
One way or another, the Taliban must be denied that base if we are to be successful.
Well! I can see why this commentary string stopped at 4!
Actually they double-crossed us. Clinton gave them billions in aid for making poppy cultivation illegal, which boosted the price of the drug until they dumped the huge caches that they seized on the market for extra profit.
We can (but chose not to) and we can (but there aren't really any).
"We can (but chose not to) ."
Well ok, so why don't we? Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to control our borders then to fight an expensive war on foreign soil?
" ... and we can (but there aren't really any)"
The are no Muslims in the US that cause trouble? Was Ramzi Yousef a Morman?
As I pointed out in previous posts on this subject, the Taliban was against poppy growing when they were in power before 2001. But they are very supportive of it now - because our poppy eradication campaign gives them an opportunity to make money and win popular support.
But that has nothing to do with an immigration policy. It pertains to religious freedom for people who are already citizens. It would be useful for you to read Thomas Jefferson on Islam. I fail to see how it would violate the US Constitution to stop Muslim immigration.
Suppose the Taliban were back in power, would they still be against poppy eradication?
This "poppy for medicines" program would do several things. First, it would deny funding and political support to the Taliban. Second, it removes a source of opium for illegal heroin. Third, it would create a village-based (capitalist) economy that would provide funding for economic diversification. Fourth, it would give incentives for the village to defend the arrangement against the Taliban. Fifth, it would
free coalition troops from protecting eradication efforts to actually fighting the Taliban. And sixth, it would improve the "hearts and minds" relationship between the Afghan people, the Afghan government, and the
coalition forces so the farmers would not view the coalition troops (and the Afghan government) as their enemy, destroying their only source of income.
It is time that NATO adopt a more innovative strategy to fighting the Taliban, as victory is not possible
without proving to the Afghan people that they have a secure economic future.
I like your idea. There may be problems with it that we don't know about, but the biggest problem with it is that it makes too much sense.
Thanks. I also should have mentioned that it will reduce government corruption, which is one reason it might never get implemented. This is the same program Ilya references; not only has it been implemented in Turkey but also India.
As for militant Islam, maybe if the Afghan farmers had some income, they would be less likely to support the Taliban, which I gather few Afghans really want back in power, so the Afghan government might be able to handle the problem if we were to sell them weapons and ammo - but no troops.
It's kinda disgusting really.
I've read reports on how the war on drugs is helping the war on terror, and how they're almost symbiotic, for instance increase the presence along the boarder with UAV's, both to stop terrorist, and drug dealers. If we removed the drug war, it would be much harder to fiscally justify the UAV projects, and it would allow more immigration, something the proponents of the drug war are very concerned about.
We need a bigger army.
Bush also "funded the Taliban," according to the same rationale.
I like the idea mentioned above about heating the Capitol and White House with the drugs. We can't get worse government than we have now and maybe it would help.
Who do you think got us into this mess? Or right, President Obama. In the last thirty days.
1. Obviously we have to try harder-- much harder. You know very well that we make compromises in the interests of commerce with regard to the southern border. Many trucks are let through without any inspection whatsoever.
2. If hundreds of thousands of Mexicans can sneak across the border, then tons of drugs can. Need I spell it out? A fence. If necessary a deep trench. If necessary land mines. We are not really serious enough about stopping the smuggling of drugs and people. If people can get through then so can terrorists.
Let me tell you how bad things are. One way to detect nuclear weapons being smuggled in rail cars is by using active interrogation. You shine a beam of neutrons and then detect the fission products. Only the US government is worried that the smugglers might get dosed with radiation, so very strict limits are put on the beam intensity. Your government is more worried about the safety of foreign criminals than US citizens.
Outrageous! Criminals should have no rights whatsoever, just like suspected criminals. This sort of nonsense cannot be tolerated -- I'll be sending a telegram to the right people, explaining my position.
Why not start here? No government in the history of the world has ever been able to shut down a black market by use of force, including border blockades. See: Smuggling. Then drugs will come in via Canada. If we put up a second fence the smugglers will come by sea, or under it, or fly. (Most countries in the world can’t afford submarines.) The more costly you make it to smuggle drugs in the higher the profit will be and the more people will try to earn that profit.
I can see how you would deal with a home invader. Yes he broke down my front door and has a knife in his hand, but he's only a suspect, and I can't do anything.
A little old testament for me but you are on the right track.
If you wanted to get a nuclear weapon in this country, no means of fences or inspections is going to stop it. The best thing we could do is pray that our enemies are stupid. The goal in the WOD is not to stop drugs from entering the country, it's only to prolong the war, same with GWOT.
Mind you, A. Zarkov, the vast majority of terrorism throughout the entire history of mankind has generated from it's own population. Why would a terrorist try and sneak across the boarder when they could just get a student visa? The idea of terrorists smuggling themselves into this country is only supported by those who want tougher immigration policies and people who watch too much television. Illegally crossing the boarder is just not the intelligent way to come into the country if you weigh the risks.
That is very much the point of GWOT and WOD, impose an imaginary threat so asinine legislation can be fear-mongered through the federal government. Look at the abundance of ridiculous laws that have been passed that would have no other leg to stand on if it were not for the GWOT and WOD.
Barney Franks, Chuck Schummr, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters for starters.
Bill Clinton claims he tried to get Congress to regulate Fannie and Freddie but Franks stopped him just as he stopped Bush. Republicans are to blame, too. However, Bush gave 17 speaches since 2002 warning about F &F. Congress refused to act. McCain tried to get a bill through in 05-06 to regulate same. No luck.
There is a lot of blame to go around and most of it lies in the Halls of Congress on both sides but the Republicans didn't get sweetheart mortgage deals from Countrywide like the Democrats did including the first 3 mentioned above. Angelo's Friends, I believe they were called. Angelo referring to the CEO of countrywide. Why can't Dodd find those mortgage papers, anyway? He's had about 6 months. As on Wall Street, a lot of the very people who got us into this mess are now working to get us out of it. Doesn't that inspire confidence?
Totally. I'd offer him a cup of tea because his nerves would probably be pretty raw after thinking he'd been locked out of his house, broken in, then discovered it wasn't his house in the first place! Besides, there's no such thing as home invaders, only lifelong friends you haven't met yet.
Now you know why we don't legalize drugs.
Prof. Somin, your post addresses one side of the equation, but have you given any thought to the likely costs that would be associated with the legalization of heroin and morphine? If heroin and morphine are made cheaper and easier to obtain, presumably more Americans will use them. What level of increased opiate addiction in this country is worth the trade-off for a more stable government in Afghanistan?
(I don't intend that to be snarky; I'm taking your post seriously, and I mean it as a serious question.)
Vinnie,
I hadn't realized the double entendre when I wrote that. Now that you mentioned it, you may have the solution. Thanks. I really needed a good laugh
Vinnie,
I hadn't realized the double entendre when I wrote that. Now that you mentioned it, you may have the solution. Thanks. I really needed a good laugh
What explains this? Are Americans today less interested in liberty than their predecessors? Dumber? More tolerant of injustice? Is there another reason?
*other than drugs abused by the well-connected, of course
Tom Tildrum:
That is a very good question. We know greater use will increase domestic violence including violence against children and neglect because so much of it now is related to drug use. More impaired drivers on the roads causing more deaths. More hospital costs for the drug users. Probably more on the job drug use which can be very costly and dangerous depending on what you do. I am sure there is much more that I haven't thought of.
I don't know the domestic costs of greater drug use vs the cost of not legalizing drugs. It would be an interesting and vital study for someone to do before we made any changes.
"Who do you think got us into this mess?
Barney Franks, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters for starters.
Bill Clinton claims he tried to get Congress to regulate Fannie and Freddie but Franks stopped him just as he stopped Bush. Republicans are to blame, too. However, Bush gave 17 speaches since 2002 warning about F &F. Congress refused to act. McCain tried to get a bill through in 05-06 to regulate same. No luck.
There is a lot of blame to go around and most of it lies in the Halls of Congress on both sides but the Republicans didn't get sweetheart mortgage deals from Countrywide like the Democrats did including the first 3 mentioned above. Angelo's Friends, I believe they were called. Angelo referring to the CEO of countrywide. Why can't Dodd find those mortgage papers, anyway? He's had about 6 months. As on Wall Street, a lot of the very people who got us into this mess are now working to get us out of it. Doesn't that inspire confidence?"
Talk about black helicopters.......Barnie Franks more powerful than the pre-indictment Tom Delay!
good idea. but the war on drugs won't go away, since it gives the pols power over people.
Tom,
if more people grow it, the price will become lower.
Wonder what all those gang members would do if there were no illicit drugs to sell? Somehow, getting a job is probably not it.
At least, if the Government sold the drugs that might be one way to pay for TARP I (Bush), TARP II (OBAMA), and however many more TARPS (OBAMA) and the billions of dollars in the Spendulous Bill (Pelosi/Reid).
Long term this would be an expensive boongdoogle. But if we did it for ten years to starve out the Taliban, it would be cheaper than continuing the current policy for ten years.
"Why would a terrorist try and sneak across the boarder when they could just get a student visa?"
He doesn't get a student visa in the first place.
"The idea of terrorists smuggling themselves into this country is only supported by those who want tougher immigration policies and people who watch too much television."
How do you know the number of terrorists being smuggled in is zero? The whole idea is to come in without leaving a visible trail. Not only that, strong border control sends a clear signal that we are serious.
Don't you think that bombing people in Afghanistan looks like aggression? Protecting your border is quite a different matter. I don't understand why so many people have trouble with the idea of border control. Isn't that a lot better than war?
"Look at the abundance of ridiculous laws that have been passed that would have no other leg to stand on if it were not for the GWOT and WOD."
If you want to take the position that WOD and GWOT are not serious problems that's a different matter. We can debate that separately. But if you think one or both merits attention, then why resort to war? War is expensive in many ways. Border control, deporting people and tracking aliens is a lot cheaper. Do the easy things first.
I said there is a lot of blame to go around. You are aware that Democrats controlled Congress since 06 aren't you? Also, remember Obama was there as a Senator. He didn't do anything but take a lot of contributions from F &F exec's. He was number one or two, no? Republicans did, too, just not as much as Obama and, I think it was Dodd, who were top money winners.
Hey, when I suggested they be stoned one way and Vinnie suggested stoned another way, you didn't hear either one of us say only the Democrats, did you?
Did you see the nice bash they had at the White House tonight? The Governors and Obama and Joe. On the taxpayers dime, of course. Talk about the CEO's using tax money on lavish things. This was our tax money, too, RPT. So glad they can whoop it up on our dime. Warms the cockles of my heart. Are our Congressmen and women back from their taxpayer financed trips to Italy and Greece and so on, yet? Yup, those evil CEO's.
The war on drugs won't go away because it enjoys overwhelming support from the population--and for a very good reason. Drug abuse, like alcohol abuse, has enormous social costs. Are those costs higher than the costs of keeping these drugs illegal? Heck if I know. But the costs are very real, either way. Pretending that this is all some Machiavellian scheme for the government to hold onto power over people's lives shows that someone needs to grow up, and spend a little time in the real world--where a lot of people abuse alcohol, marijuana, meth, cocaine, heroin, PCP, tolulene, and everything else under the sun--and leave a path of wrecked lives behind them, not just their own.
Mr. Cramer, I respect very much your ideas, but since the GWOT isn't preventing terrorism and the WOD isn't stopping drug abuse, then what's the point of either?
I don't mean to debate you on the success or failure of the GWOT, but if it was the population/government/society's real goal to stop terrorism and stop drug abuse, is the GWOT and the WOD achieving, or going to achieve, those goals?
Like I proposed in my earlier comment, the point of both wars is only justifying things through fear mongering.
A. Zarkov, I think our conversation is going beyond the scope of post, but I'll prepare some formal thoughts on the matter and send them your way.
And, it would not have been a politically popular thing to do.
You are correct, I imagine. Sigh!
Can we go back to stoning Congress, one way or the other? I think that's the best answer.
Clayton, you are right about the drugs, too. I mentioned a few of the issues. There isn't an easy answer. If we legalized drugs, we could save a lot of money. On the other hand, it would cost a lot of money to deal with all of the problems. What would those gang members do?
You know where else we ought to keep drugs out of? Jails. We ought to put walls around our prisons. And search people coming in. That will keep these places drug-free.
As Clayton Cramer says, the WOD enjoys wide popular support. Since we live in a democracy, that counts for a whole lot.
And I agree with him that it isn't clear which is worse - the WOD or its alternative.
It has been clear for decades that the WOD conflicts with other national security issues, including secure borders and stable countries in drug trafficking areas. Right now, the greatest WOD threat to the US may be the potential collapse of Mexico, not the Taliban. Here in Phoenix, the Mexican drug war is being waged in our streets (along with a violent war over human trafficking). We are now #2 in the world in kidnappings, and the west (immigrant) side of town is a free fire zone.
Furthermore, even if we made all drugs legal here (in violation of some international agreements, maybe treaties), there would still be immense demand from the rest of the world.
You'd think someone who had written about the racist impulse behind gun control would know that it was the same mindset behind the war on drugs. (And Prohibition, for that matter.) The war on drugs has always been about fear of what happens when minorities (with prohibition, those minorities were Catholic immigrants) use drugs.Well, then, it seems pretty silly to say that there's a "very good reason" why people support the war on drugs, don't you think? If the costs of illegality are much higher than the costs of drug abuse, then the reasons would be very bad, not "very good."Yeah, we all saw the afterschool specials. Setting aside the fact that nobody's life has ever been wrecked by marijuana, "a lot" of people do not abuse these substances (except alcohol), but few are dumb enough to propose banning alcohol anymore.
What a charming, democratic sentiment.
Nonsense. Marijuana has gotten people killed in car accidents, and has driven people insane - just like any mood altering substance will do.
It looks like you can't make a serious comment so we might as well quit. But I can tell you from my personal experience with INS (now ICE) officials that they are frustrated. They told be point blank the politicians won't let them do their job, and I could get quite specific. But I see that would be useless for someone who just wants to cough up various strawmen.
Now, on the other hand, you need to try marijuana, and not just one joint passed around the room back in your college days. It's an off point, and I mean no offense, but you have no idea what you're talking about, and placed in perspective, more people die from common prescription drugs each day than have ever died from marijuana.
First, as Clayton Cramer noted there is a great deal of support for prohibition. Its along the same grounds as those who call for prohibition of alcohol, guns, fur coats, hunting, references to god in Presidential speeches and the soon to be prohibited fireplaces here in California. All have a rational reason for it- saving the world- and bringing a better society. As recently noted in Today's news reports, some states still have Blue laws prohibiting the purchase of alcohol on Sundays. Thus, you will always find people supporting some form of ban or another based on their believe that its for the best.
As for whether ending the war on drugs will solve anything, please take note. The Taliban was against the cultivation of Opium until it became profitable for them. To take that from them we would have to either buy the entire crop or find away of destroying the whole crop. Either costs money, but which is the least expensive.
We know that the war on Opium has had an effect. Prices are up and the amount being shipped to Europe and America is down. But because the amount of Opium drugs is down, cocaine use has increased. This has increased the wealth of the Mexican cartels that deal in Marajuana and Cocaine and funded the violence we are seeing south of the border. Thus, anything we do to reduce Opium, whether by buying the crop ourselves or destroying what we can, simply allows for an increased market for other drugs.
In short, ban Japanese Saki and people will just start buying more Tequila. Have all grape vines destroyed, people will start drinking fermented Potatoes.
Something like this actually happened to one of my friends circa 1990. He had a long-standing drinking problem and one night he came "home" terribly sloshed and plopped into bed next to his sleeping "wife." A few hours later, in the morning, his female bed partner woke up to find a perfect stranger snoring next to her in bed. No cup of tea for him, however. The police rousted him. If memory serves, the system was merciful. I believe he copped a plea to a misdemeanor and got a fairly short jail sentence plus a write-up in the Los Angeles Times. He was just a drunk and had no criminal intent.
Alligators with laser beams attached to their heads!
Do you therefore support reinstituting alcohol prohibition? If not, why do you support only selective prohibition, expecially when some of the substances involved (e.g., marijuana) are not, unlike alcohol, potentially lethal?
What about tobacco prohibition? What about prohibiting use of any substance that results in enormous social costs? Any number of things fall into that category once you calculate into the equation medical concerns and the social costs of supporting families once their income-earners are incapacitated or die.
The reason for selective prohibition is plain: Entire state and federal bureacracies rely on it for their very existence. Entire swaths of those bureaucracies would lose their salaries, profits from asset forfeitures, and other profits regularly from black market corruption (e.g., bribes, etc.). They are not about to consent to loss of that personal profit.
Further, at this point, selective prohibition has been in place so long that people cannot remember what society was like before it. They are therefore easily terrified by fictions peddled by those determined to maintain their share of black market profits that controlled substances are guaranteed to generate.
Really? I wonder if you could offer citations to substantiate that factoid.
I wonder if this is one of the speeches you're thinking of (text, video):
Or maybe you're thinking of what Bush said in 2006:
Or maybe you're thinking of this proclamation that Bush issued on 5/29/08:
That proclamation was made not long after Sen Chris Bond (R) said this:
So I hope you can help us find those "17 speaches … warning about F &F."
cramer:
You're drastically understating the situation. As I have shown, Bush went out of his way to promote the idea that "the low income homebuyer can have just as nice a house as anybody else."
Information about some famous pot-smokers like Richard Branson, Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg, Steven King and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those sure are some "wrecked lives."
Just think how much more successful those people would be if they hadn't been held back by pot.
More famous pot-smokers listed here.
And every time you eat food, you eat food that was partially fertilized by - you guessed it - oil byproducts, which ultimately came from oil wells scattered around the Mid East, which indirectly funds terrorists. So you should stop eating anything grown.
Really, if you want to legalize drugs, argue to legalize drugs. But fighting drug use and abuse is not contrary to the War on Terror. This juxtaposition is idiotic. You've been trying for years, and it hasn't stuck. There's a reason it hasn't stuck.
Sk
This is true. And given the Saudi role (in particular) in supporting terrorism, it's not very "indirectly."
We should indeed "eradicate the use of gasoline" as much as possible, and the connection to terrorism is one of several important reasons.
So you're not making much sense.
Wasn't the thread about heroin though?
I realize the larger point about the costs of the war on drugs, but If one considers heroin abuse (at least if you diffentiate it from legally used morphine, if one can make the difference) has a far smaller percentage of people that "occasionally use heroin and are otherwise successful."
Although, even as I write this I can think of a couple people I know who developed painkiller addictions of one kind or another and managed to lead successful lives. The chemical effects aren't that different there.
Yes, but not for the reasons you think.
Suppose you're a sole-proprietor liquor store owner. If your store is allowed to be open all the time, you must keep it open all the time so that you don't lose sales to your competitors. If you close on Sunday, the store down the street will sell the case of beer that suddenly became necessary at someone's Sunday barbecue.
That sucks, because it's nice to have a day off. Your competition probably agrees: Sundays off are nifty. But there's no way to agree to close all the liquor stores in town - someone's going to cheat. What to do? Lobby your government to pass a law banning alcohol sales on Sunday.
Fair enough. I realize it's not the same thing. But to a great extent, the WOD is a war against pot.
=============
video:
Why would your analysis not apply to any other product that's sold in a retail store? Why not outlaw gasoline sales on Sunday? Don't gas-station attendants deserve "to have a day off?" What about clothing stores? Hardware?
I realize you're not necessarily saying you agree with Blue laws. But I don't follow what you are saying.
More people die from prescription drugs than die from falling into volcanoes too. This doesn't make falling into volcanoes a low risk activity.
Comparing absolute numbers of people without considering how many people do the activity in the first place is a well known way to distort statistics. (Moreover, prescription drugs are used to treat conditions that are more likely to kill than the prescriptio n drugs, so it's a tradeoff.)
Don't you suppose that, just once, he could have listed some useful things, of which the first would be
DON'T DO DRUGS!
I know the effect would have been minimal, but, geeesh, couldn't have at least said it out loud.
mac,That's easy to say, but so much harder to do in any meaningful sense that it's probably not worth doing. It's not like such a "study" could resemble any kind of scientific, controlled experiment.
It's quite another thing casually to presume to impose upon other individuals regarding what they can do with their own bodies, on the basis of collectivistic notions like "social costs." That is one of the paths down toward tyranny, and it is one that we have been trodding for some time. Stop. The flip side of the coin is that individuals don't get to impose coercively on others to take care of them or make allowances for their behavior if they harm themselves or seek to harm their neighbors.
It's not clear to me how much of the correlation between drug use and (objectively) criminal, irresponsible, or anti-social behavior is due to the drugs themselves or just that irresponsible people are likely to be irresponsible in many ways. By analogy, it should be clear to all by now that studies showing a correlation between gun possession and violent crime are just picking out that violent criminals are most likely to have guns; we learn nothing thereby regarding purported dangers to ordinary, law-abiding folks who keep guns for self-defense.
But surely it IS clear that if we stopped clogging the courts and filling the jails with pot smokers and growers and others drug users and producers, we could focus on catching, prosecuting, and locking up people who actually engage in violence and larceny, directly for those objectively criminal deeds.
It boggles my imagination to hear otherwise seemingly sane, sober pro-gun-rights conservatives supporting the drug war. By providing the incentives for criminal gangs to fight over turf, the drug war induces so much of the violent crime that the benighted left points to in their campaign against those very rights. By putting vast financial resources in the pockets of organized crime, it empowers criminals in so many ways, not the least of which is in corrupting public officials.
Prosecution of the drug war is directly at odds with the right of people to defend their homes against violent intrusion. We had a case of this in the Pittsburgh area a couple of months back, where FBI agents used a battering ram to break into a home in a pre-dawn raid, to deliver an arrest warrant for an alleged drug dealer. A mother of two children fired a shot down from upstairs where she was with her children, killing one of the agents. What in God's name are heavily armed cops doing, busting through people's front doors in the dark, when they know children are present? Trying to keep drugs from being flushed, maybe? Meanwhile, they had the house surrounded and the object of their warrant was arrested as he tried to duck out the back. Am I the only person who sees the insanity in this episode?
It seems to me that we live in a fairly consistent universe. Aggression is wrong, or at least, highly suspect morally--and, aggression generally has bad outcomes. The drug war is aggression on a massive scale. And the outcome has been generally pretty bad--bad for peace and security at home and abroad, bad for the Bill of Rights and the integrity of the judicial system. The answer is not some socialistic program. The answer is to stop aggressing and start focusing on prosecuting aggression while affirming the right of individuals and families to defend themselves.
How about "citizenship"? Is that enough of an explanation for you?
Zarkov wants to kick US citizens who are Muslims out of the country.
Lovely libertarian values there, guy.
I heard that one of those kids from Slumdog Millionaire is Muslim. I can't BELIEVE they let him come here to take an Oscar. An AMERICAN Oscar!
It is time for the folks who have access to microphones to press for decriminalization. Resources will be better spent on education, treatment of addiction, funding of forms of economic activity that can attract the talents of young people in our poorest communities who go into the drug trade and end up doing hard time in jail.
Why would your analysis not apply to any other product that's sold in a retail store? Why not outlaw gasoline sales on Sunday? Don't gas-station attendants deserve "to have a day off?" What about clothing stores? Hardware?
The same prisoner's dilemma appears in every retail sector, but we don't see universal blue laws for at least two reasonss:
(1) To the extent that support of the general public is required, it's easier to convince people to restrict Sunday alcohol sales than Sunday clothing sales. I concede that a sentiment of "you shouldn't be buying demon rum on Sunday" does help to get blue laws passed. I don't know if it would happen, though, in the absence of a request from the retailers.
The best example that I can think of this is Pennsylvania. You can't buy beer, wine, or spirits on Sunday, but you can go to a bar and drink. If puritanical concerns were what really drove Sunday liquor store closures, bars would be closed, too. But they're open, because there's too much money to be made when the Iggles or Stillers are playing.
(2) It's comparatively easy to get the government to ban Sunday alcohol sales. Alcohol sales are already heavily regulated. All you have to do to get the government to close liquor stores on Sunday is to convince the Alcoholic Beverage Commission (or whatever) to issue a new regulation or directive. It doesn't take nearly the effort that banning gasoline, clothing, or food sales does.
Google "blue laws" "prisoner's dilemma" for more.
Most people that smoke marijuana don't destroy their lives. (Just like most people that drink alcohol don't become alcoholics.) But there is a 40% increase in psychosis in later life among those who smoke pot. That still means the vast majority of pot smokers won't end up insane. But the social costs of those who end up with schizophrenia or severe bipolar disorder is substantial.
I realize that for a lot of pot smokers, it is a religion. It makes them feel good, and they get very cranky when you point out that for some, it is a very destructive drug. That doesn't make it untrue, however.
Get back to us when you have a libertarian society. Republicans won't support this level of heartlessness, and Democrats certainly won't.
Under the ICOS proposal (see my post above at 2.22.2009 8:24pm), opium would be refined into morphine for medical purposes, sold to pharma companies, international agencies, or governments. This isn't drug legalization, so there is no question of trade-offs. It is taking a commonly farmed product and diverting from an illegal market into a legal market. Americans wouldn't have access to the morphine as addicts, presumably the morphine would be comsumed in the local medical network. See also my post above at 2.22.2009 8:57pm for links to reports on how the program has worked in Turkey and India.
Well put, I’m still nominally pro-relegalization (although it’s still pretty far down the list of policy changes that are important enough to warrant support) but quite a bit less so than when I was in college and the tradeoffs meant less to me than they do now. I still think that the costs of criminalization (somewhat) outweigh those of a regulated relegalization scheme but in terms of priorities, it’s not nearly as important as health care reform, dealing with the entitlement mess, eliminating farm subsidies, school choice, reducing the taxation, regulation and litigation burden on small businesses, etc.
(1) a nearly empty Oxycontin container
(2) a $10,000 check payable to "Church of Scientology"
(3) an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting schedule
(4) an enlistment agreement specifying infantry
(5) a letter describing the child's plan to leave school the following week and reside in an Opus Dei facility
(6) a doctor's note ascribing the child's diabetes to a three-times-a-day McDonald's habit
(7) a marriage license application bearing the child's name . . . and an unfamiliar name
(8) the remnants of a marijuana cigarette
(9) an ACLU membership card
(10) an expulsion letter from the dean
Demon weed indeed!!
Is the check drawn on his account or my account?
A nearly faded custom among Pennsylvania beer distributors has been to close for one day (in addition to Sunday, when Sunday was off-limits). In most observant parts of the state, the additional day was Monday. In some, it was Wednesday. In at least one, it was Tuesday. Few (if any)distributors would have chosen Sunday -- a shopping rather than working day for most customers -- as a day off.
(One side benefit of legalization might be that the people of Colombia would appreciate it very much if it reduced the wealth and power of the drug cartels and the guerillas that protect them.)
One of my college roommates went insane after smoking marijuana...insane for Cheetos!
/rimshot
Here.
It is actually all over the place if you care to look. It is juvenile to blame one party only in this mess and even infantile, with all of the facts out there, to blame only Republicans. You do not seek truth, you cherry pick data to support your ideology.
Now, we are off topic and I am not commenting on this subject any further on this thread.
Here.
gatewaypundit.
blogspot.com/2008/09/bush-called-for-reform-of-fannie-mae
Kirk,
You are probably quite right. Also, the study would probably be done by a sociologist which would mean that he would get whatever result his pre-study prejudice wanted.
So, in a sense, I guess we tried it and decided it was not such a good idea.
Agreed – no ADA protection, no limitation of civil or criminal culpability for torts or crimes committed while under the influence, and no welfare benefits including federal financial aid.
Some of the problems that we see because of the WoD:
- high levels of violence in Mexico and Columbia as drug lords fight it out.
- Some of that overlapping into this country.
- a huge prison problem, with many states paying ever increasing amounts to jail those directly or indirectly involved. (I am presupposing that a lot of the gang related violence has some drug connection).
- Esp. the Black community has a large percentage of their young males in prison or having served time there.
- Even harder to control our borders, given the amount of money involved in smuggling drugs into this country.
I still don't see why alcohol is legal, but not marijuana. I know almost first hand some of the problems with long term pot usage - but short term or limited usage seems more benign. Going to college while Nixon was in office, I know very few in my generation who did not smoke pot, at least at some time in their lives. Yet, almost all have turned out just fine. It is only those who have continued their usage for decades that seem to have really suffered.
I am so old, I remember that there were objections to spraying Paraquat on illegal marijuana plants because they might be harvested anyway and then the people who illegally smoked the marijuana would damage their lungs.
You would suppose, I think, that for the sake of consistency all the gun nuts, concealed carry folks etc. around here would have been on the side of Paraquat.
But, you know what, I bet not.
LANCET STUDY indicates marijuana may increase chance of psychosis
Using marijuana seems to increase the chance of becoming psychotic, researchers report in an analysis of past research that reignites the issue of whether pot is dangerous.
The new review suggests that even infrequent use could raise the small but real risk of this serious mental illness by 40 percent.
Doctors have long suspected a connection and say the latest findings underline the need to highlight marijuana’s long-term risks. The research, paid for by the British Health Department, is being published Friday in medical journal The Lancet.
“The available evidence now suggests that cannabis is not as harmless as many people think,” said Dr. Stanley Zammit, one of the study’s authors and a lecturer in the department of psychological medicine at Cardiff University.
The researchers said they couldn’t prove that marijuana use itself increases the risk of psychosis, a category of several disorders with schizophrenia being the most commonly known.
There could be something else about marijuana users, “like their tendency to use other drugs or certain personality traits, that could be causing the psychoses,” Zammit said.
The study itself makes clear how tentative and limited the study was. From the study itself, as quoted by MoT:What the study showed was that currently available data does not contradict the hypothesis that cannabis increases risk of psychotic outcomes. That's a far cry from "cannabis causes psychotic outcomes", as the study authors admit in their own roundabout way.
MoT's conclusion on media reportage:Naturally, sensationally oriented reporters and the usual prohibitionists, chose to conclude far more than the study actually showed. If Lancet changed their editorial policy because of such a limited finding, they're as idiotic as the popular press.
Tolulene? Yuck. One would have to be on drugs already to want to abuse that stuff...
OK, I thought maybe you meant something like this, but I wasn't sure. Thanks for explaining.
==============
cramer:
A very helpful review of the science regarding that statement is here. But not as detailed as what Fub cited.
A detailed summary of the study is here.
Just about everything in life can be "very destructive … for some." Especially when there is a lack of moderation. This includes not just things like alcohol and nicotine, but even caffeine, chocolate, hamburgers, motor vehicles and skiing. Lives and families can be destroyed when people become addicted to activities that are nominally healthy, like work. The word 'workaholic' is not a joke.
So it's rational to ask why we regulate certain allegedly self-destructive behaviors and not others.
==============
mac:
What you said earlier is this:
The source you are now citing (a chronically unreliable righty blogger) says this:
Does he document those "17 Times?" No. And anyway, the crisis was well-underway in 2008. You implied Bush had done so (issued "warning[s] about F &F") much earlier. But mostly what he did earlier was to promote the idea that "the low income homebuyer can have just as nice a house as anybody else."
In the post you cite, which was based on a defensive memo issued by Bush, the first example of Bush himself making a statement "warning about F &F" was in 8/07 ("President Bush emphatically calls on Congress to pass a reform package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac"). Before that time, most of the references are vague statements buried in White House budget documents.
By the way, it was mostly the GOP that tried to block such a "reform package" in 5/07.
I have not done what you have accused me of doing. Nice job with the straw man, though. Here's what it looks like you're doing, however: inventing your own facts. Like you did here.
And an astute comment about that:
Unfortunately, for many that is a feature, not a bug.
What I do know:
1. Alcohol is a poison. Every year, inexperienced frat boys die from drinking way too much way too fast. (It's the same thing as a heroin OD.) In contrast, there is no lethal dose of MJ. The smoke might kill you in the long run, but for the most part it's smoke, not a particular source, that is toxic (carbon monoxide, for example) and carcinogenic (smoke particles). The same research methods that convicted tobacco show little or nor increased cancer or death from smoking MJ, but the dosage of smoke matters and no one smokes joints by the pack. I don't know how one could manage to keep lighting up joints one after the other... OTOH, there are several ways of ingesting MJ and tobacco besides smoking.
2. Alcohol kills brain cells. Not sure about MJ.
3. A significant percentage of drinkers turn belligerent under the influence, causing quite a lot of domestic violence, assault and battery cases, and some homicides. If you've ever seen pot-heads, you know that MJ usually has a mellowing effect instead. (Not always, but due to the WOSD, purity of the pot isn't guaranteed - it might have been sprayed with pesticides, or stretched with other leaves plus something like PCP...)
4. Many drinkers also drive under the influence, as fast as or even faster than they do when not impaired. You all know the sad statistics that result from that. Under MJ, you're impaired, but you probably don't get illusions of competence, and you really won't want to do something difficult such as reckless driving.
5. OTOH, I knew a successful small-town banker who never drank during business hours and was never sober after 6 PM. It's hard to imagine a pothead finding the motivation to get up in the morning and go do his job. (On the gripping hand, I think this guy's children might have been better off if he'd abandoned them entirely and went begging for quarters on a street corner. Money for fancy prep schools and therapists doesn't really make up for being totally fscked psychologically.)
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