🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2eqf39$6kg@krakow.osc.edu>, berry@osc.edu (Robby Berry) writes:
> I think legalizing drugs is an excellent idea, for several reasons.
> 
> 
> 1.  Violence in America would drop dramatically.  As I understand it, most
> drug-related violence does *not* consist of somebody becoming violent after
> shooting up.  Most drug-related violence consists of (in hypothetical order):
> 
>     a.  People who use violence while stealing to support their habit.  With a
> free market in drugs, prices would drop dramatically, thus making it possible
> for most addicts to support their habit via lawful work.

Let's make it free.  Then nobody will ahve to steal for drugs
> 
>     b.  Drug deals gone bad.  When a deal goes bad in an open market, there are
> peaceful means of recourse for the victim.  One could complain to the Better
> Business Bureau or Consumer Reports; one could file a lawsuit; one could just
> do business with somebody else.  These options aren't open to black market
> dealers, so they are far more likely to resort to violence when a deal goes
> bad.
> 
>     c.  Gangs and syndicates who battle over turf.  Open market competitors
> also battle over turf, but their weapons are advertising, sales gimmicks,
> and just plain providing a better product at a lower price.  At their most
> violent, they might use lawsuits or government regulations to protect their
> turf.  Any of these options is preferible to the weapons of choice that black
> marketeers use when fighting over turf.  Legalizing drugs would put an end to
> turf wars.  (Some claim that drugs dealers would continue to use violence even
> if drugs were legal, but I doubt it.  After all, alcohol was once illegal; when
> was the last time you heard of a turf war over alcohol?)
> 
Then we should legalize gambling as well.  Even "respectable businesses" have
resorted to illegal activities in their pursuit of turf.  

>     d.  Criminals out on the street due to lack of prison space.  Prison space
> is a finite resource.  When you put a drug user in a cell, you have one less
> space for a murderer, or a rapist, or some other violent criminal.  By
> legalizing drugs and granting amnesty to all prisoners whose only crime was
> drug use (or possession or trafficking), we would have plenty of space to put
> the violent criminals-- without raising taxes or building new jails.  More
> violent criminals in jail means fewer on the streets, and fewer on the streets
> means safer streets.

I will agree that if jail space is limited for whatever reason that the most
dangerous criminals should be locked up preferentially to less dangerous ones
and for longer periods.  I also agree that the sentencing for possession (which
is a minor crime IMO) is out of whack relative too other crimes and likely also
on an absolute scale.  However, that does not lead to the conclusion of
legalization, only to more rational sentencing.
 
>     e.  Dealers who use violence to avoid being caught.  Currently, dealers
> have to use violence (or at least the threat of it) to prevent citizens and
> police from interferring in their trade.  If drugs were legal, there would be
> no need to do so.
> 
All these arguments are variations on a theme.  Legalize drugs to reduce drug
related crimes.  I still don't believe that is a reasonable rationale to
legalize an activity.

> 2.  Legalizing drugs would help to make drug use safer.  The War on Drug Users
> has two side effects that make drug use even more dangerous than it would
> normally be.  They are:
> 
>     a.  The Drug War makes it difficult to obtain pure, high-quality samples
> of the drugs in question.  For one thing, the clandestine nature of drug
> manufacturing makes it impossible to build a high-quality facility for making
> drugs.  Instead, drug makers must do their work hurriedly, leading to careless-
> ness in the manufacturing process.  There is no time for quality control
> procedures or product testing.  Another problem is that high profits that come
> from the drug trade, coupled with the fact that most dealers have a near mono-
> poly on their turf, encourages dealers to dilute their drugs with impurities
> to increase the number of "servings" that can be made from the same amount of
> raw drug.  These impurities are often responsible for drug-related deaths,
> since a) The impurities may be themselves toxic, b) the impurities may react
> with the drug to form toxic substances in the body, and c) it is impossible to
> know how much drug (or even which drug, if the dealer uses other drugs for the
> dilution) one is taking.
> 
Well that means that the government must *regulate* the drug trade if it
legalizes it (which will probably lead to more bureaucracy then the current
drug war)  Taxes to pay for drug inspectors, etc.

Seriously though, yes that is a cost and why you can't make bootleg alcohol
(among other reasons).  You do have to consider whether drugs in their "pure"
form (as would be obtained through whatever governmental regulation you desire)
are harmful and the extent of that harm.  I believe that harm exists and varies
for variuos drugs. 

>     b.  The Drug War has halted all progress towards the creation of safe
> recreational drugs.

So we should legalize things that are dangerous in the hope that something
safer comes along?

> 3.  The Drug War hinders the economy.  Hiring police officers, purchasing new
> weapons, printing up propaganda-- These things cost money, and that money comes
> from taxes.  Any money I spend on taxes is money I can't spend on food, or
> clothes, or education, or CDs, or any of a thousand things I might purchase.
> That lowers my standard of living, and it also lowers the standard of living of
> the farmer, or the tailor, or the teacher, or the musician, or whoever makes
> the products I would have bought.  Now multiply that by 240 million Americans
> and you get *thousands*, perhaps hundreds of thousands of farmers, tailors,
> teachers, musicians, and others who cannot enjoy the standard of living they
> otherwise might have had.  Since *they* now have less money, *they* can't
> afford to purchase as much, and so the people *they* buy from are now worse
> off, and so on ad infinitum.  And of course, corporations and businesses are
> also taxed, which leaves them with less money to create more jobs, or to do
> research to improve their product, etc.  Not to mention that legalizing drugs
> would also create thousands of new jobs, thus helping many of the currently
> unemployed, and making it possible to cut taxes further as there would be fewer
> people on welfare.

Yes it does.  There is an economic cost to every action that the governemtn
takes, be it enforcement of drug laws, environmental regulations, tarriffs,
maintanance of an army, etc.  You must ceratinly balance these costs against
whatever risks you take by letting things go unchecked.
> 
> 4.  The Drug War is endangering freedoms Americans once took for granted.  By
> far the scariest is the current search and seizure policy, in which the govern-
> ment can confiscate your property *without* first finding you guilty (or even
> charging you) of a crime.  All they have to do is arrest you on a drug-related
> charge, at which time they can confiscate your property.  If you are later
> found innocent (or released without ever going to trial) you have to sue the
> government to get your property back.  The burden of proof is now on you to
> prove that your property was wrongly taken.  This hits the poor especially
> hard, as they a) can't afford to lose what little property they have, and b)
> can't afford to hire lawyers or take time off work to go to court.  Less scary,
> but still disturbing, is the way the criteria for legal searches has been
> broadened over the last few decades.  These changes were made primarily to
> accomodate the people who complained that the police "had their hands tied
> behind their backs" by laws that protected a person's right to be free from
> unreasonable searches and seizures.
> 
The Supreme Court has recently declared the confiscation of property in that
manner unconstitutional and I applaud that decision.  I support either of the
bills icurrently in Congress (though I prefer the Conyers bill) to establish
much stricter criteria for property confiscation.

> 5.  The Drug War has turned drug users, most of whom are ordinary people "just
> like us", into second-class citizens.  We have enough artificial distinctions--
> race, gender, sexual preference, religious affiliation, etc.-- to divide
> us against ourselves and keep us hating one another for years to come.  So why
> bother adding yet another useless prejudice to the list?

Its only a useless prejuidice if you feel there is no reasonable criteria for
making drugs illegal.  If there is then it is not an artificial distinction. 
Many criminals are "ordinary citizens"  (in fact, most ordinary citizens are
criminals in some way or another.)  That does not mean that their particular
crime should be eliminated.
> 
> 6.  The Drug War is likely to keep expanding to cover drugs that are currently
> legal.  You may find out you don't like the Drug War so much once they come for
> *your* drug.

Why will it expand?  Can you support this claim?  The next round of large use
legal drugs are alcohol, tobacco, and caffiene.  I see no serious move to make
any of them illegal.
>
> For the record, I don't use recreational drugs-- not even politically correct
> drugs such as alcohol, tobacco or caffeine.  I like the feeling of knowing my
> mind is functioning at peak capacity, without being disturbed by any alien
> molecules in my bloodstream.  But I really don't feel like paying more taxes
> for somebody else's holy war, and I *certainly* don't feel like losing my life,
> or the life of a loved one, to the violence which that holy war causes.  If
> you don't like drugs, don't use them.  If you don't like drug users, don't
> associate with them.  But trying to control the bloodstreams of everybody in
> America is worse than useless-- it engenders violence, causes death and injury,
> drags down the economy, endangers freedom, and promotes hatred.  All without
> even achieving its goal.
 
Fine, I don't use drugs except for alcohol and caffiene.  I have friends who do
use them and use them responsibly.  There are legitimate arguemnets for the
legalization for *some* drugs, but these arguements are complicated and do not
rely on the "if we legalize it, it will reduce crime" arguement.

One must balance the right of the individual to control one's own body versus
the interest of the state in protecting its citizens (from themselves and
others).  Then one takes into account the addictiveness and side effects of the
drug in question, coupled with its main effects and detectability (to prevent a
pilot from flying while stoned for example, no Exxon Valdezes)

Frank
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank R. Chloupek                      CHLOUPEK@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu 
Department of Physics -- *The* Ohio State University
(Not just any Ohio State University) 

"Tea was one of the ten daily meals eaten during the nineteenth century 
when it was fashionable to be fat (the other nine were breakfast, elevenses
, lunch, luncheon, tiffin, high tea, dinner, supper, and midnight snack).  
Tea is still popular in Washington, D.C., where any sort of useless and 
silly activity can always find a place."	   	   --P.J. O'Rourke

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