Only The NDP And Green Party Oppose Bush & Cheney War On Drugs

[BubberMiley]

I am not a conservative. I am a registered Democrat.

Who votes conservative.

[White Doors]

What right-winger (though I'm not one) has ever advocated chidlren falling out of trucks.

It's illegal in Alberta. there goes yoru hypothesis on the right wing. lol

[Drea]

The right could care less if a child falls out of the back of an old Ford pickup on a dirt road while holding a loaded 30-30... but be damned if some hippy is going to smoke a jay

It was me who brought this up, not jbg.

I said nothing about it being legal... I was simply pointing out the hypocracy of the rightwing who want to control what peope ingest but are against laws that protect children. And I was correct, as Guyser stated "It is legal to ride in the back of a pick up. In fact you could cram 12 kids in there and no one could do a damn thing"

She basically said it's just fine and dandy to put children in the back of a pickup... but NOT okay for a person to smoke a jay.

Hypocracy at it's very finest. It's okay to let children fall out of pickups but not okay for an adult to smoke marijuana. *shaking head at the backwardness*

[jbg]

So far I haven't seen convincing evidence that would justify the present drug policies, and I would argue that even the hard drugs that everyone agrees are too dangerous to legalize, would be better fought if drug addiction was treated as a health problem instead of a crime and punishment issue.

That may be a good plan, but only if society hardens its heart and does not grant welfare, EI benefits or any help other than treatment to drug users and their dependants. I do not see that as politically possible.

What would happen is that society would become one giant enabler.

[jbg]

Who votes conservative.

I have never voted the Conservative line in New York. I have never voted in a Canadian election. Indeed, I cannot even find Canada on the map.

[White Doors]

The right could care less if a child falls out of the back of an old Ford pickup on a dirt road while holding a loaded 30-30... but be damned if some hippy is going to smoke a jay

It was me who brought this up, not jbg.

I said nothing about it being legal... I was simply pointing out the hypocracy of the rightwing who want to control what peope ingest but are against laws that protect children. And I was correct, as Guyser stated "It is legal to ride in the back of a pick up. In fact you could cram 12 kids in there and no one could do a damn thing"

She basically said it's just fine and dandy to put children in the back of a pickup... but NOT okay for a person to smoke a jay.

Hypocracy at it's very finest. It's okay to let children fall out of pickups but not okay for an adult to smoke marijuana. *shaking head at the backwardness*

Alot of provinces has made this illegal. Others will follow.

Did you freak out when they made seatbelts mandatory? Helmets for motorbikes or pedal bikes?

[WIP]

That may be a good plan, but only if society hardens its heart and does not grant welfare, EI benefits or any help other than treatment to drug users and their dependants. I do not see that as politically possible.

Are you forgetting all of the money we spend on drug enforcement and incarceration? Here's an idea: how about spending some of that money used to put drug users in prison on treatment centers for drug addiction. Then you'll have plenty of money left over to spend on welfare.

What would happen is that society would become one giant enabler.

If the present strategy was working to reduce the amount of drug trafficking and drug addiction, I would be all for the present strategy of prohibition. But so far, drug prohibition is working about as well as alcohol prohibition did in the 20's! If the plan isn't working, it's time to try something different.

The "enabler" line also betrays the religious perspective that views most of humanity as degenerate, depraved animals who need strict laws and threats of incarceration to prevent them from taking drugs, watching pornography and going to prostitutes. A rational examination of vice crimes like these that don't necessarily affect others, would show that there is always a segment of the population that have compulsive/ addictive personalities and are prone to addiction of all types. A humanist would suggest practical solutions to treat the drug-prone and help them find healthy alternatives. I get the feeling that most people who come at these issues from a religious, social conservative perspective, are more interested in punishing sinners than actually helping people!

I know you can't reach everybody! Some people are careless and have no thought for the future, but most addicts would rather put some kind of life together, instead of going into a death-spiral.

[jbg]

Are you forgetting all of the money we spend on drug enforcement and incarceration? Here's an idea: how about spending some of that money used to put drug users in prison on treatment centers for drug addiction. Then you'll have plenty of money left over to spend on welfare.

If the present strategy was working to reduce the amount of drug trafficking and drug addiction, I would be all for the present strategy of prohibition. But so far, drug prohibition is working about as well as alcohol prohibition did in the 20's! If the plan isn't working, it's time to try something different.

The fact is that alcohol use was legal and widespread for a long time before prohibition. Thus, ingrained habits and patterns couldn't really be outlawed. The situation with 'hard drugs' is far different. While it is true they were criminalized during the early 1900's prior to that point their use was rare and sporadic. Very different from booze.

The "enabler" line also betrays the religious perspective that views most of humanity as degenerate, depraved animals who need strict laws and threats of incarceration to prevent them from taking drugs, watching pornography and going to prostitutes.

No. It means I do not think that society should make something inherently unhealthy easier to do. I am not Christian. I see nothing wrong with society trying to steer people in the direction of safe activities.

[truth-now]

The DEA directives prevent the legalization for medical purposes. I oppose these laws too. There is virtually no enforcement effort on cannabis laws, even in non-decriminalizing states. Enforcement is a state function, except in airports, at the borders, and federal facilities, which are few and far between.

More name-calling? I am sometimes considered a neo-con. Being Jewish, calling me "Falwellian" would be hilarious.

What I think the (wise) ol' Dutchman meant was "Falwellian" WRT advocating a number of authoritarian social policies which *criminalize* certain non-violent consentual behaviours among adults, via the Moral Majority agenda. If a Jew (or a non-Jewish Nederlander) promotes said policies, he or she is Falwellian in the sense that promoting and/or supporting the banishing of homosexuality, pornography stores and Cannabis use are harshly incarcerative and authoritarian, biblically derived (mainly from Judeo-Christian sources) stances which are very much a part of the Neo-Conservative social policy handbook post-1980.

Or something like that.

Edited May 8, 2008 by truth-now

[truth-now]

No we won't. Nowhere to put them.

Then Harper & Co. will simply copy the Bushian private-public prison partnership - build the warehouses to jail those who use the drugs which the hypocritical elite say are not to be touched, and make it a profitable venture. There are many prison industry (pseudo-)CEOs in the states who have gotten rich from the imprisonment of adults involved in non-violent, consentual behaviour.

[truth-now]

This is another rant that I hear all the time lately, yet I've never seen any proof at all of this. Is there any proof that can be shown?

The reality would appear to be the opposite in fact. Just recently a young woman I know was busted with a 1/4 lb of weed, a set of scales and about $600 or $700 dollars. She was given a one year conditional sentence. In other words if she keeps her nose clean for a year all charges will be null and void with no criminal record. That seems to be quite a far cry from "1000's of people will be unjustly incarcerated".

The bill isn't law yet, and up to now the growing of 1-2 small plants for strictly personal use has not been harshly penalzied, at least in BC (Alberta is different).

But the bill introduces harsh Republican style mandatory minimums : 1 small plant can validate the 6 month MANDATORY MINIMUM sentence.

I'd trust nearly anyone on these boards to provide a more reasonable set of cannabis laws, including penalties for those who knowingly sell to minors, users who operate vehicles/machinery and those who employ violence of any kind.

But imo, this bill goes to a rabid & disproportionate punitive extreme.

[truth-now]

Gary Doer has run balanced budgets every year since 1999 when they took over from the conservatives who had tanked our economy to the point that practically everybody under 30 was headed for Alberta. Gary Doer has done such a good job here in Manitoba that he has been given a bigger majority in every one of the last 3 elections. Manitoba is a great place to be thanks to the NDP. Our housing is among the most affordable in the country, there are plenty of good paying jobs, and we havn't had to sell off any more publicly owned companies since we booted Filmon and his Tory thieves out of office. Every year since 99 we have had more people coming to Manitoba than leaving.

If modern, moderate, social-democratic governments destroyed economies, then Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden would be impoverished cesspools. Instead, they rank very high in quality of life indexes, have the most healthy and educated workforces on earth, have the lowest poverty rates on earth and rank in the top 10 (often beating the US, as Finland did 2 years in a row) WRT economic competitiveness ratings.

Believe it or not, all of the old school Marxists from the NDP were purged by Stephen Lewis, Ed Broadbent and now Layton.

The guy who runs this site...

http://paulitics.wordpress.com/

...is one such disenfranchised extremist, who believes in total Communism. He rails against the new-era NDP, claiming that they are capitalist.

Pure ideological socialism doesn't work at all, that's why the NDP, the Greens and the 100+ parties in Europe and Scandinavia don't advocate it. They all advocate some form of mixed economy, usually economically center-left or center.

Edited May 8, 2008 by truth-now

[truth-now]

The rightwing wants to control individual behaviour -- whether or not it affects other persons.

That's right. Mutually consenting adults involved in non-violent behaviour in private.

Why can't the right simply see that the left would fight for their right to have a triple rye & coke after work, even if that were not the cannabis users particular behavioural preference.

One could set up many other versions of drug laws which aren't so hypocritical, unscientific, harshly punitive and sweeping in scope.

[truth-now]

Looks like you had a liquid (but it's legal!!) lunch there Dancer... usually people delete their double posts, unless they are too drunk to notice

What many on the FAR right (I know many center-right conservatives who are moderate on such social issues and policies) don't understand, is that by banishing a relatively harmless soft drug, you drive it underground and singlehandedly GIVE the entire industry to the most RUTHLESS organized crime groups. Only those types of ruthless people would lace soft drugs with hard drugs. Licensed, regulated and inspected businesses would not. When do the producers and distributors of coffee or whiskey lace their product ? They don't, because they are legitimate operations..... in the transparent marketplace.

[truth-now]

Taken on its own I would tend to agree with you but as a majority of pot production is exported, legalization in Canada alone is unlikely to remove organized crime from the picture. With drugs such as heroin, crack cocaine and crystal meth, legalization is out of the question so enforcement for the suppliers and treatment for the addicted are the only real options.

Rightfully so for those hard drugs. The risk of a lethal fatal overdose is very high with hard drugs, as is the risk of violently severe addiction. The number of fatal overdoses from pot annually is zero, and it's addictiveness is rated by doctors as low (much lower than caffeine).

But most Canadian pot is grown domestically (if not, it easily could be, it's an adaptable weed), it's close to being BC's #1 industry. If you gave licensed and regulated small, medium and big businesses the exclusive right to produce & distribute it, it would wipe out nearly all of the underground organized crime operations which harvest and sell it. There certainly aren't too many organized crime versions of alcohol, coffee or even tobacco. 95-99% of people just go to the store, and provide money to the above-ground, inspected, licensed and regulated trustworthy companies.

Would anyone in their right mind trust a crime kingpin or street dreg over Molson or Nabob ? Likely not. But you are basically empowering and entrusting the crime kingpin and the street dreg with the entire industry and market when you banish it underground. Cannabis use in the USA is actually higher than in the Netherlands (with their 100's of coffeeshops). All the US has done by harshly criminalizing cannabis is made itself the world's leading jailer.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us...ailer&meta=

They have over 2.2 million incarcerated, many (close to half) for non-violent consentual drug use.

Solution ? Hand the Cannabis industry over to the transparent and legitimate business world. Tax it at 20-40%. Use those funds to reduce income tax rates and corporate tax rates and combat homelessness.

Education brought down tobacco use drastically , along with high taxes. Jailing tobacco users did not (good thing we never tried nicotine prohibition, it would have caused more damage than it would have prevented).

Edited May 8, 2008 by truth-now

[Wild Bill]

Perhaps some posters are expecting too much of Harper and the Tories as far as their attitude towards drugs. Sometimes we make things too complicated.

I suspect that he and his team simply have never had much personal experience with drugs. Like members of Ned Flanders' church (The Simpsons) what little they know has been gleaned from movies like "Reefer Madness". To them ALL drugs INSTANTLY convert ALL AND EVERYONE into a raving, slobbering addict!

Now, add to this naivety Harper's penchant for control trips. His Bill reminds me of the attitude expresses by many cops, where they have a childlike trust that if the State would only give them bigger clubs they could win the War on Drugs! They think too simplistically to realize the numbers of people involved would burst the walls out of the prisons. They would never consider the libertarian aspects of the right of the individual to go to Hell his own way. To this kind of personality, it's just a matter of getting a big enough hammer.

To them the reason Prohibition failed is because they were too faint hearted to give Elliot Ness a howitizer instead of a shotgun!

Sadly, these folks never seem to realize their initial premise was flawed. They just get in an arms race with the drug lords, except for those on the take to maintain HUGE illegal profits!

[eyeball]

Perhaps some posters are expecting too much of Harper and the Tories as far as their attitude towards drugs.

Actually its my expectations of the people who vote Conservative that have fallen the farthest.

[eyeball]

If you think that your one pet issue is the only thing that would be affected then you deserve whatever happens to you every day of your life!

My issue is with the application or lack thereof, of a principled position on something as basic as civil liberties. If people think a loose adherence to something as basic as these doesn't have the potential to affect everything, they get the governments they deserve. Like the poem says when they come for you, why should I care, as long as its not coming for me?

[Wilber]

If you gave licensed and regulated small, medium and big businesses the exclusive right to produce & distribute it, it would wipe out nearly all of the underground organized crime operations which harvest and sell it.

No way, not as long as it is still illegal in the US. You say we should learn from prohibition, well yes we should. Organized crime in Canada was doing a bang up trade in booze during prohibition in the US. It will be no different with pot. There are valid arguments for legalization but getting organized crime out of the business isn't one of them while it is still illegal in the US.

[Wild Bill]

My issue is with the application or lack thereof, of a principled position on something as basic as civil liberties. If people think a loose adherence to something as basic as these doesn't have the potential to affect everything, they get the governments they deserve. Like the poem says when they come for you, why should I care, as long as its not coming for me?

I have some sad news for you. We lost our liberty years ago when the Liberals instituted our new Constitution and Charter of Rights.

We don't even have a right to our own property.

They come for us whenever they feel like it. It happens in numbers small enough and low enough in any given area that the rest of us rarely notice, much less care.

You want me to join your bandwagon on this issue. Where have you been while I've been carping about no right to property?

Everyone wants support but the thought of reciprocating never crosses their mind. It's just the Canadian way, I suppose.

[WIP]

The fact is that alcohol use was legal and widespread for a long time before prohibition. Thus, ingrained habits and patterns couldn't really be outlawed. The situation with 'hard drugs' is far different. While it is true they were criminalized during the early 1900's prior to that point their use was rare and sporadic. Very different from booze.

The Temperance Movement was also widespread, and existed as a social movement in the U.S. right from the time the Puritans started setting up colonies in America. During the 19th Century, there were a number of attempts by individual states to ban alcohol - most were rescinded because of corruption and opposition from citizens who wanted the right to choose for themselves whether or not to drink. The ineffectiveness of the state prohibition laws should have been a warning of what would happen with the wider application of prohibition.

And likewise today, the advocates for tougher drug laws should have at least taken a look back at how this drama played out when nationwide alcohol prohibition was tried! Notice the uncanny parallels with the following findings from studies done in the 1930's and 40's:

One of the great ironies of the prohibition era was the fact, noted by the Wickersham Commission, that women happily took to drink during the experimental decade, and, what is more, did so in public. As the counterpart of the WCTU, the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform was founded, stating in its declaration of principles that Prohibition was "wrong in principle" and "disastrous in consequences in the hypocrisy, the corruption, the tragic loss of life and the appalling increase of crime which has attended the abortive attempt to enforce it" (Dobyns, 1940: 107).

Drinking at an earlier age was also noted, particularly during the first few years of Prohibition. The superintendents of eight state mental hospitals reported a larger percentage of young patients during Prohibition (1919-1926) than formerly. One of the hospitals noted: "During the past year (1926), an unusually large group of patients who are of high school age were admitted for alcoholic psychosis" (Brown, 1932:176).

In determining the age at which an alcoholic forms his drinking habit, it was noted: "The 1920-1923 group were younger than the other groups when the drink habit was formed" (Pollock, 1942: 113).

The per capita rate for the Prohibition years is computed to be 1.63 proof gallons. This is 11.64% higher than the Pre-Prohibition rate (Tillitt, 1932: 35). Based on these figures one observer concluded: "And so the drinking which was, in theory, to have been decreased to the vanishing point by Prohibition has, in fact, increased" (Tillitt, 1932: 36).

Deaths from Alcoholism. In New York City, from 1900 through 1909, there was an average of 526 deaths annually attributable to alcoholism. From 1910 through 1917, the average number was 619. It plummeted to 183 for the years 1918 through 1922. Thereafter, the figure rose, averaging a new high of 639 for the years 1923 through 1927 (Rice, ed., 1930: 122).

Total deaths from alcoholism in the United States show a comparable trend, with the gradual increase resuming somewhat earlier, about 1922 (Brown, 1932: 61, 77; Feldman, 1927: 397; U.S. Department of Commerce, 1924: 55).

Notwithstanding the various patterns of regulation, Senator Arthur Capper's words of the 1930's still seem to be correct:

We can repeal prohibition, but we cannot repeal the liquor problem (Peterson, 1969: 126).

Neither the states nor the population have yet come to grips with the problems of alcoholism and alcohol abuse. Both the monopoly system and the license system are directed at other concerns. They, no more than Prohibition, have been able to control or even alleviate the very real and dire consequences of alcohol use by society.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/LIBRAR...ies/nc/nc2a.htm

Now ofcourse these findings cannot be considered as reliable as modern statistics - especially on alcohol consumption. But a meta-analysis of all of the studies that tried to track liquor production and consumption, indicates that there may have been a drop in the first years of prohibition, but once a network of rum-runners and speakeasys was in operation, consumption started increasing again during Prohibition. Likewise, analyzing the effects of alcoholism is difficult since some cities, like Philadelphia, had much higher rates of arrest for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct than cities like New York; reflecting an obvious bias in enforcement policy. The rates of alcohol-related psychosis vary with each mental hospital, likely because so little was understood about mental illness at the time. One thing that even the prohibition advocates couldn't deny was that making this product illegal, enabled the growth of organized crime rackets that began to flourish and branched off into gambling, drugs and prostitution after Prohibition ended.

Some researchers believe that overall, there may have been fewer people consuming alcohol during prohibition, but the ones who were drinking, were consuming more to excess and starting at a younger age than before prohibition! Now, doesn't that paint an uncannily similar picture as our era of drug prohibition!

No. It means I do not think that society should make something inherently unhealthy easier to do. I am not Christian. I see nothing wrong with society trying to steer people in the direction of safe activities.

My apologies if I was jumping to conclusions, I didn't say you were a Christian, but I keep hitting the wall with social conservatives on these kind of issues because they want to punish sin regardless of whether or not they have a workable strategy!

I'm all for steering people in the right direction, but prohibition and throwing people in prison isn't working out as a very effective way of solving the problem. I hate to say it, but there is also something about risk-taking behaviour in our youth that attracts young people to things that are illegal and/or dangerous. The only reliable deterrent seems to be parents who set a good example at home. No teenager considers their parents to be cool (it's a mistake to even try to be), but they do copy the example set at home - both the good and the bad - so if mom or dad is a drunk or a drug addict, chances are most of their kids will end up with the same problem. And when they have kids, there's a whole new generation of substance-abusers.

I don't know how many people I've talked to who lived in denial until their teenage children started coming home drunk and/or high! Then they are finally serious about kicking the habit. Unfortunately, trying to convince their kids to unlearn all of the bad lessons they've taught them over the years is another matter!

Edited May 8, 2008 by WIP

[eyeball]

I have some sad news for you. We lost our liberty years ago when the Liberals instituted our new Constitution and Charter of Rights.

We don't even have a right to our own property.

They come for us whenever they feel like it. It happens in numbers small enough and low enough in any given area that the rest of us rarely notice, much less care.

You want me to join your bandwagon on this issue. Where have you been while I've been carping about no right to property?

Everyone wants support but the thought of reciprocating never crosses their mind. It's just the Canadian way, I suppose.

I don't see why a person without any rights to their liberties should expect to have any rights to their property. It stands to reason you'd have to establish the former before preceding to the latter don't you think?

I've got even sadder news for you, they got your property along with the whole enchilada when they got your liberty. I was to young to do anything about the Constitution and Charter so don't blame me for its shortcomings. I've long advocated for letting each succeding generation have a crack at amending it but that bandwagon apparently doesn't play here either.

[DrGreenthumb]

I have some sad news for you. We lost our liberty years ago when the Liberals instituted our new Constitution and Charter of Rights.

We don't even have a right to our own property.

They come for us whenever they feel like it. It happens in numbers small enough and low enough in any given area that the rest of us rarely notice, much less care.

You want me to join your bandwagon on this issue. Where have you been while I've been carping about no right to property?

Everyone wants support but the thought of reciprocating never crosses their mind. It's just the Canadian way, I suppose.

I'm right there with you on the property rights issue. I should have property rights to my bag of weed too, lol.

I've never actually heard you ask for support on you rights to property issue, so don't assume that recripocation is not there. I don't like the state having the power to arbitrarily seize my property or my person for that matter, so I'm definitely on board to pass a law to that effect.

[truthwins]

No way, not as long as it is still illegal in the US. You say we should learn from prohibition, well yes we should. Organized crime in Canada was doing a bang up trade in booze during prohibition in the US. It will be no different with pot. There are valid arguments for legalization but getting organized crime out of the business isn't one of them while it is still illegal in the US.

No, Canadians would have a legal avenue, an option AWAY from the American criminals. But you want to BAN that option. You want to TIE us to the draconian policies of the Republicans.

If you fully legalize weed in Canada, while the US has it illegal, Canadians would be able to grow a few plants for personal use, for about 10 dollars. Why would they go and buy from ruthless criminals 100's of miles away for 1000X the price ? They wouldn't.

If the US still had alcohol prohibition in 2008, and Canada had Molsons, would you bypass store-stocked Molsons to go and support Capone style thugs instead ?

[DrGreenthumb]

No, Canadians would have a legal avenue, an option AWAY from the American criminals. But you want to BAN that option. You want to TIE us to the draconian policies of the Republicans.

If you fully legalize weed in Canada, while the US has it illegal, Canadians would be able to grow a few plants for personal use, for about 10 dollars. Why would they go and buy from ruthless criminals 100's of miles away for 1000X the price ? They wouldn't.

If the US still had alcohol prohibition in 2008, and Canada had Molsons, would you bypass store-stocked Molsons to go and support Capone style thugs instead ?

I think they are talking about the other way around, of course Canadians would not buy black market pot from the US, what they are suggesting is that Americans would flock to buy weed in Canada and smuggle it back to the US to sell it for a profit.

To that I simply say, that is Amewrica's problem if they want to keep harmful draconian policies and their stupid policies should never be reason for Canada to adopt the same stupid policies. The world has suffered enough because America exports their stupid drug policies around the world. I say if America wants to have harmful policies in place then the negative results of those policies should be their problem not ours. We should not be forced to trample civil liberties here just because America does, we are supposed to be a sovereign country