Mexico...

[Empty Hands]

True Zero Tolerance.

If caught with illegal drugs, you are shot on site, and hung in a cage on the nearest light pole until to decay to bones.

Then send in some stealth bombers to napalm and tri-ox the fields where they grow the ****.

I'm not clear, is this something you would support? Seems like a pretty odd position for a self-described Libertarian to take.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

My guess is he's using exaggeration to make the point that this is the level you would have to go to to make "zero tolerance" work, and thus is arguing for its impracticality/impossibility.

 

[Deaf Smith]

What's the cutoff? We know that Prohibition isn't working now. We know it didn't work in the past. We know that lives are now being destroyed because of the drugs themselves and due to the attempts to fight drugs. Seems to me, when something doesn't work for going on 80 years, you should stop doing it. Many things destroy lives utterly. Alcohol, for one. All perfectly legal. Where's the consistency?

Alcohol is no where near as damaging as drugs. No where near. Yes it has destoryed lives and families, but except for a few, it is no where near as adicting as drugs. Especially cocaine, heroin, and meth. And that's why the draconion methods of restriction as compaired to alcohol.

Hmmm, understandable sentiment, but almost, by the same logic, we should criminalise alcohol and ciggarettes, as they can either destroy families through drunken abuse, or, through the loss of loved one due to cancer.

We do. We price the ciggarettes out of existance by taxing them and lawsuits. Alcohol? Nowdays if you are caught on the road with more than .08 on the breathanalizer, it's DWI. If you even register any alcohol, you loose such as your CHL permit. And they still want to go to zero tolerance and arrest you for any drinking and driving. So we do go after those two.

So guys, you see there is a differenced between such as alcohol/smokes and drugs.

http://www.thecyn.com/drug-addiction/

"There is no cure for drug addiction. Because the brain is altered on its most fundamental levels during chronic drug use, the addictive personality will never be able to use drugs recreationally without eventually falling back into addictive, destructive behavior."

http://www.utexas.edu/research/asrec/dopamine.html

http://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/Alcohol_addiction__How_to_stop_this_agony__a85_f0.html

http://www1.wfubmc.edu/articles/Alcohol+addiction

You will see that hard drugs are way way harder to cure and most people can be hooked on them, yet alcohol is not like that. Not all, or even most, people become alcoholics if they drink some booze.

So there are differences and thus how the laws treate them are, or should be, different.

Deaf

 

[Cryozombie]

I guess we couldlegalize it and put in some rat poison. If we kill off the users then the problem gets solved right. No market, no problem.

I prefer the solution in "Prayer of the Rollerboys"

The Rollerboys made drugs laced with Sterilization chemicals, the idea was if they sterilized the users, they couldn't breed...

 

[Empty Hands]

Alcohol is no where near as damaging as drugs. No where near. Yes it has destoryed lives and families, but except for a few, it is no where near as adicting as drugs.

Do you have support for this statement? The studies I have seen put alcoholism recovery rates below that of harder drugs like heroin. Both of course have better recovery rates than cigarettes, which top the list.

Not all, or even most, people become alcoholics if they drink some booze.

Same with hard drugs. Addiction propensity is mostly a function of genetics, not the drug of choice. Your own sources put problem drinking as high as 15% of the general population.

Also, you should know that alcohol addiction goes by the same dopamine mechanism described in your source as for hard drugs.

 

[Hagakure]

Alcohol is no where near as damaging as drugs. No where near. Yes it has destoryed lives and families, but except for a few, it is no where near as adicting as drugs. Especially cocaine, heroin, and meth. And that's why the draconion methods of restriction as compaired to alcohol.



We do. We price the ciggarettes out of existance by taxing them and lawsuits. Alcohol? Nowdays if you are caught on the road with more than .08 on the breathanalizer, it's DWI. If you even register any alcohol, you loose such as your CHL permit. And they still want to go to zero tolerance and arrest you for any drinking and driving. So we do go after those two.

Deaf

Hmmm, not sure I'd agree with most of those comments. Alcohol, is a drug in itself, which, given the binge drinking culture the UK certainly has, and I can only guess the US may have causes billions of £'s worth of damage to town/city centres every year and costings in terms of policing, not to mention the massively increased levels of alcohol related violence. I'd say that was quite a poor show. But again, we don't criminalise booze?

As for ciggies becoming more expensive, tell me about it, my wife smokes, much to my annoyance. What's even more annoying is that regardless of the extra cost, she still does it. Why? Because there are certain studies that state/show that giving up cigarettes is harder than giving up herion. Again, the costs of combatting smoking related illnesses to the NHS runs into the billions of £'s per year. Yet again, we don't criminalise it.

As I've said before, the concept of altering the strategy of how we deal with drug usage would entail a whole change in cultural and individual mindset, not such an issue on the continent (Europe), but even in the UK, I've heard senior police officers and some MPs state that a change is needed. For while there is demand (and it's human nature to like things that get us sideways once in a while), there will ALWAYS be supply. Regulate the supply, you're more in control of the situation.

 

[Deaf Smith]

Empty Hands,

Read the links I posted. Plus..

http://www.drug-rehabs.com/fewer-addicted-alcohol.htm

http://www.sierratucson.com/treatment/alcohol_addiction.html

http://www.drug-statistics.com/heroin.htm


Now alcohol CAN be uses as an icebreaker to get into harder drugs (so can marijuana.) And you can trade one addiction for another. But..

Notice that far more people drink alcohol than take drugs. Yet percentage wise the number of alcoholics .vs. alcohol users is no where near the number of heroin/meth users .vs. heroin/meth addicts (that is, most users of heroin and meth ARE addicts but most of the alcohol users are not alcoholics.)

The reason this is true is because drugs like Meth/Heroin/etc... are so much more addictive than alcohol. That's the unfourtunate fact.

Deaf

 

[Guardian]

I'm not clear, is this something you would support? Seems like a pretty odd position for a self-described Libertarian to take.

Not really, even libertarians can have strong feelings on certain subjects. Being libertarian doesn't mean you give having strong feelings or ways of dealing it a particular problem.

The age old argument of alcohol vs drugs which one is worse. Look at the price and that should answer most questions. Quantity doesn't have anything to do with it either. Drugs cost more pure and simple.

This problem with the border and Mexico is going to have to be dealt with sooner or later. It's going to come to that explosive head, but as usual, it'll be a major problem by the time some in our Government figure out their heads are in their butts.

 

[Deaf Smith]

This problem with the border and Mexico is going to have to be dealt with sooner or later. It's going to come to that explosive head, but as usual, it'll be a major problem by the time some in our Government figure out their heads are in their butts.

And it's always been like that.

We waited till the British tried to round up our guns to fight them.

We waited till the Rebs opened fire on Fort Sumner to fight them (and hey, I'm a Texican!)

We waited till the Maine blew up to fight the Spanish.

We waited till the Germans sank ships with our civilians on to fight them.

We waited till the Japanese blew up our battleships to fight them.

We waited till the North Koreans almost took the entire peninsula to fight them (and then made the mistake of not trying to win.)

We got into Vietnam early but again we didn't try to win (I guess it became unsporting after what we did to Japan and Germany.)

We waited till Saddam invaded Kuwait to stand up to him (and again didn't try to win, really WIN.)

We again went after Saddam (but only after 3000 people died and the WTC towers were destroyed.) This time we won! But we till have to finish Afghanistan (and I hope we continue winning!)

Yes, our government has a huge track record of passing the buck till it's almost to late. One day, we will wait to long, just as Rome did, and the Visigoths will be at the gates.

Deaf

 

[KenpoTex]

We really need another Leander McNelly...not that that's ever gonna happen.

 

[searcher]

We really need another Leander McNelly...not that that's ever gonna happen.

Or Teddy Roosevelt. If he would have been The POTUS when 9/11 happened, all of the world would have shook with terror. Theproblem with the good ole' USA is we have become soft. The UN sticks their collective noses in our business and tell us what we can do. Are we not the baddest nation on this planet? Its time we started acting like it again.

 

[Brad Dunne]

Welcome everyone to forthcoming RANT!...................

The country, as it stands to date, can be compared to someone who has cancer. They have a listing of 4 levels\phases for cancer and in my opinion, the country is in the 3rd stage\phase. Can it still be cured? Perhaps, but not without a long and painful fight. Do I believe it's going to happen? Sadly, NO!
There comes a point in time where no matter what one may do, they still can't deter what's going to happen and I feel were at the point now with the country. Lets do a breakdown of what's going on;

1) Economy is on the verge of collapse (Many factors)
2) Crime is out of control and getting worse (Again, many factors)
3) Our borders are non-existent
4) The American culture has been replaced with individual ethnic cultures and continues to grow in that fashion as more and more come here.
5) The corruption within out government is and has been out of control for decades and it seems to be getting worse.
6) Moral corruption also has gotten out of control and that also is getting worse.

Look back into history, at the roman empire. We, the U.S. of A. are forging headlong on the same path and we all know what happened! I think that we're on the downhill portion of that path and were too far gone to do anything about it, even if the powers that be wanted to do anything. :disgust: