Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The War on Drugs
In response to Mark A. R. Kleiman's latest post, I will re-post here an article I posted to usenet (ah, those were the days!) back in the early 1990s.
We would like to join in the public outcry against Surgeon General Elders' recent advocacy of studying the idea of drug legalization.
We want to point out what Surgeon General does not seem to understand-- that there are two kinds of drugs: Legal ones and illegal ones. And that the people who decided which are which back in the first half of [the last] century were very nice men, and very smart, too, even if they weren't doctors or scientists, but politicians. And that we should simply do as they say, without any of this questioning.
Secondly, we are tired of hearing people say that just because the War On Drugs has been going on for over 20 years, and just because its budget doubles and doubles and doubles again, and just because it never dents the supply; that we should consider another strategy.
We're tired of hearing them say that we should quit putting users in jail. They say jails are overcrowded, and that overburdened police and courts should concentrate on stopping violent crime. And that the money would be better spent on creating jobs, and building hospitals. They say we should take drug profits out of the hands of gang members and mobsters. That it's bad enough that people get addicted, that forcing them into a life of crime to support their habits is counter-productive, and ends up hurting otherwise uninvolved innocent people.
They are wrong. Very, very wrong. And they should be ashamed of themselves for even thinking such things.
Just because a strategy doesn't and can't work is no reason to give it up. Instead we should double the Drug War budget again. And again if necessary. And build more jails. We need to make room for the entire ten percent of the American population that smokes marijuana, for instance. And for those who have been suggesting that drugs be made legal, I might add. We need the Army on the border, and big Navy gun boats off the coast of South America. We need to test the urine of every American. And we need to give police the right to stop and search, or search the home of anyone they even suspect of having drugs. We need to seize and sell the property of suspected drug dealers, and give the money to the police so that they can eventually search everyone. Rather than whittling away at it, we should outright suspend the Bill of Rights. (They don't have much of a drug problem in Indonesia, you know.)
In short, we think we speak for the majority of Americans when we say we prefer rampant violent crime and a police state to allowing someone to smoke heroin or snort marijuana legally.
And as for those very cynical people who would point out that thousands of people die because of tobacco and alcohol use for every one who dies from using all of the illegal drugs combined: How could they bring up such statistics? It's disgusting.
C. Thompson, President, People Who Can't Sleep at Night Because They Are So Worried About Possible Losses in National Productivity Due To Illegal Drug Use (PWCSaNbtaSWaPLiNPdtIDU), a public education group.
Now, shut up.
We would like to join in the public outcry against Surgeon General Elders' recent advocacy of studying the idea of drug legalization.
We want to point out what Surgeon General does not seem to understand-- that there are two kinds of drugs: Legal ones and illegal ones. And that the people who decided which are which back in the first half of [the last] century were very nice men, and very smart, too, even if they weren't doctors or scientists, but politicians. And that we should simply do as they say, without any of this questioning.
Secondly, we are tired of hearing people say that just because the War On Drugs has been going on for over 20 years, and just because its budget doubles and doubles and doubles again, and just because it never dents the supply; that we should consider another strategy.
We're tired of hearing them say that we should quit putting users in jail. They say jails are overcrowded, and that overburdened police and courts should concentrate on stopping violent crime. And that the money would be better spent on creating jobs, and building hospitals. They say we should take drug profits out of the hands of gang members and mobsters. That it's bad enough that people get addicted, that forcing them into a life of crime to support their habits is counter-productive, and ends up hurting otherwise uninvolved innocent people.
They are wrong. Very, very wrong. And they should be ashamed of themselves for even thinking such things.
Just because a strategy doesn't and can't work is no reason to give it up. Instead we should double the Drug War budget again. And again if necessary. And build more jails. We need to make room for the entire ten percent of the American population that smokes marijuana, for instance. And for those who have been suggesting that drugs be made legal, I might add. We need the Army on the border, and big Navy gun boats off the coast of South America. We need to test the urine of every American. And we need to give police the right to stop and search, or search the home of anyone they even suspect of having drugs. We need to seize and sell the property of suspected drug dealers, and give the money to the police so that they can eventually search everyone. Rather than whittling away at it, we should outright suspend the Bill of Rights. (They don't have much of a drug problem in Indonesia, you know.)
In short, we think we speak for the majority of Americans when we say we prefer rampant violent crime and a police state to allowing someone to smoke heroin or snort marijuana legally.
And as for those very cynical people who would point out that thousands of people die because of tobacco and alcohol use for every one who dies from using all of the illegal drugs combined: How could they bring up such statistics? It's disgusting.
C. Thompson, President, People Who Can't Sleep at Night Because They Are So Worried About Possible Losses in National Productivity Due To Illegal Drug Use (PWCSaNbtaSWaPLiNPdtIDU), a public education group.
Now, shut up.
Friday, January 06, 2006
He's the president!
Boy, has it really been over a year since I posted here?
Call it outrage fatigue. Them durn librals keep me too mad to post.
Well, I'm back. And this is what I have to say:
What part of "He's the president, and he can do anything he pleases including throwing your sorry ass in jail forever without charges or access to a lawyer if you so much as whimper about domestic spying, outing CIA agents, croneyism, cutting services to the poor, cutting taxes for the rich, or lieing us into a war" don't you understand?
Now, shut up.
Call it outrage fatigue. Them durn librals keep me too mad to post.
Well, I'm back. And this is what I have to say:
What part of "He's the president, and he can do anything he pleases including throwing your sorry ass in jail forever without charges or access to a lawyer if you so much as whimper about domestic spying, outing CIA agents, croneyism, cutting services to the poor, cutting taxes for the rich, or lieing us into a war" don't you understand?
Now, shut up.
