Mister George Kapland
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Tipsy Lover
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- Posted: Sat, 04 Sep 2010 21:13:44 +0000
Legalize All Drugs. You heard me, all drugs should be legalized. Not Decriminalized.
Legalized. Drugs aren't by-themselves harmful. You put that in the hands on the individual.
"I don't favor decriminalization. I favor legalization, and not just of pot but of all drugs, including heroin, cocaine, meth, psychotropics, mushrooms and LSD.
Decriminalization, as my colleagues in the drug-reform movement hasten to inform me, takes the crime out of using drugs but continues to classify possession and use as a public offense, punishable by fines.
I've never understood why adults shouldn't enjoy the same right to use verboten drugs as they have to suck on a Marlboro or knock back a scotch and water.
Prohibition of alcohol fell flat on its face. The prohibition of other drugs rests on an equally wobbly foundation. Not until we choose to frame responsible drug use — not an oxymoron in my dictionary — as a civil liberty will we be able to recognize the abuse of drugs, including alcohol, for what it is: a medical, not a criminal, matter." -A Former Police Officer
This man, this crusader, is essentially correct. Why should we treat people who could easily be treated, fixed, as criminals.
It is just as absurd as let's say... Placing a man in Prison for the rest of his life, because he has Lupis. Addiction, if I may quote Mitch Hedberg, is the only Disease that a man can be yelled at for having.
"Damnit Mark You're an Alcoholic" compared to "Dammit Mark, You Have Lupis" - Mitch Hedberg.
MONEY
A Federal study showed that 20% of Americans, 18-25 had taken an illicit drug in the month prior to the Study.[x]
According to MSN Money
" * Savings on drug-related law enforcement -- FBI, police, courts and prisons -- of $2 billion to $10 billion a year if marijuana were legalized, based on various estimates, or up to $40 billion a year if all drugs were legalized, based on enforcement costs from the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy. That's before the cost of overseeing the new drug regulations.
* Increased productivity as fewer people were murdered, drug offenders were freed to find work and those stripped of their criminal record found it easier to get jobs (including running drug boutiques). "
The numbers alone are promising, promising enough to even get us out of this Economic Slump.
Milton Friedman a Nobel Prize winning Economist states: " I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, ten thousand fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there's a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts not being subject to becoming criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they're sure of the quality. You know, the same thing happened under prohibition of alcohol as is happening now.
Under prohibition of alcohol, deaths from alcohol poisoning, from poisoning by things that were mixed in with the bootleg alcohol, went up sharply. Similarly, under drug prohibition, deaths from overdose, from adulterations, from adulterated substances have gone up. "
EDUCATION
Drug Education.
A wealth of disinformation about drugs and drug use is given to us by ignorant and prejudiced policy-makers and media who peddle myths upon lies for their own ends. This creates many of the risks and dangers associated with drug use.
Legalisation would help us to disseminate open, honest and truthful information to users and non-users to help them to make decisions about whether and how to use. We could begin research again on presently illicit drugs to discover all their uses and effects - both positive and negative. [x]
Imagine a world, where people are no longer persecuted by their own personal choices. Like the Smoker, the Casual Drug User, is being bastardized.
I remember a time, in my youth, that I thought.. Mostly due to DARE, that Pot-Smokers where dangerous perverts that would stop at nothing to get you to smoke "Mexican Killer Weed". A Substance that would get you hooked with one use, and leave you a slave.
If every, man, woman, child, had the knowledge imparted on me by such websites as Erowid I wouldn't have to be stuck in nightly debates about
"LSD forming crystals in your spine", nor about "Cocaine being chemically addicting" (It's not)
I propose an Education System that shows both the Negative, and the Positive effects of particular drugs used by our Society.
Coupled with Legalization the amount of addicts would drop dramatically. As rehab, and knowledge would be plentiful. Instead of fear of prosecution, addicts would be free to seek rehab.
The system works in the Netherlands.. Why not here?
It Worked Before
If all drugs were legal, our prisons would be emptied of hundreds of thousands of non-violent "offenders" who's only crime was "Smoking a Joint".
If all drugs were legal, law-enforcement resources would be available to fight violent crime, instead of being used to chase people who's crime amount to sticking themselves with a needle and sleeping the day away.
If all drugs were legal, much of the street violence would end - as it did when Alcohol Prohibition ended - because gangs of thugs would no longer be fighting over drug territories, their money supply cut off.. They would wither and die like leprous tendons.
If all drugs were legal, the government could no longer use the Drug War as an excuse to tear up the Bill of Rights and pry into your bank account, strip-search you at an airport, tear your car apart, monitor your e-mail, or seize your property without even charging you with a crime.
We know the States would be better off because That's how it worked before the War on Drugs
The War, if I may, is nothing more then an excuse for an old, dead, Right-Wing Politician to keep the Liberal, Anti-War Masses of the late 60's and Early 70's from threatening his Agenda.
Well it didn't work. The War is nothing more then a Cancerous Tumor on American Society.
It Needs to be Stopped.
NOW.
EDIT:
Portugal Experiment, Seeming Success: Source
EDIT 2: My Plan:
I propose we have the social programs that help drug users and abusers who wish to quit.
A mandatory 6 week course on drugs to get your license, with testimony from current and past users and doctors. You must get your license renewed every 2 years.
If you commit a crime, while on drugs, your license is revoked you go to mandatory rehab. If it was found that drugs were a factor in your crime, you get community service, and your license is revoked for a period of 3-50 years depending on the crime. Bear in mind this is on top of whatever sentence you get because of of your crime.
To sell/produce/grow drugs, you must take a mandatory 18 week-2 year course (depending on the drug), mandatory federal inspections, mandatory federal purity tests, and you must consent to random searching and inspection of your place of business. Any violations and your grower/seller/producer licenses is revoked permanently.
You can only buy drugs from certain stores that specialize in the selling of the product, to minimize underage buying. Anybody caught selling to a minor or to those with out a license, get's theirs revoked. Permanently. With a 500,000 dollar fine, and up to 15 years in Federal Prison.
EDIT3:Child Services taking kids after minor possession charges
That's right. He lost his daughter over a doobie.
This s**t needs to end, now.
EDIT #20,453: UK wants to decriminalize all personal drug use
Legalized. Drugs aren't by-themselves harmful. You put that in the hands on the individual.
"I don't favor decriminalization. I favor legalization, and not just of pot but of all drugs, including heroin, cocaine, meth, psychotropics, mushrooms and LSD.
Decriminalization, as my colleagues in the drug-reform movement hasten to inform me, takes the crime out of using drugs but continues to classify possession and use as a public offense, punishable by fines.
I've never understood why adults shouldn't enjoy the same right to use verboten drugs as they have to suck on a Marlboro or knock back a scotch and water.
Prohibition of alcohol fell flat on its face. The prohibition of other drugs rests on an equally wobbly foundation. Not until we choose to frame responsible drug use — not an oxymoron in my dictionary — as a civil liberty will we be able to recognize the abuse of drugs, including alcohol, for what it is: a medical, not a criminal, matter." -A Former Police Officer
This man, this crusader, is essentially correct. Why should we treat people who could easily be treated, fixed, as criminals.
Quote:
It is just as absurd as let's say... Placing a man in Prison for the rest of his life, because he has Lupis. Addiction, if I may quote Mitch Hedberg, is the only Disease that a man can be yelled at for having.
"Damnit Mark You're an Alcoholic" compared to "Dammit Mark, You Have Lupis" - Mitch Hedberg.
MONEY
A Federal study showed that 20% of Americans, 18-25 had taken an illicit drug in the month prior to the Study.[x]
According to MSN Money
" * Savings on drug-related law enforcement -- FBI, police, courts and prisons -- of $2 billion to $10 billion a year if marijuana were legalized, based on various estimates, or up to $40 billion a year if all drugs were legalized, based on enforcement costs from the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy. That's before the cost of overseeing the new drug regulations.
* Increased productivity as fewer people were murdered, drug offenders were freed to find work and those stripped of their criminal record found it easier to get jobs (including running drug boutiques). "
The numbers alone are promising, promising enough to even get us out of this Economic Slump.
Milton Friedman a Nobel Prize winning Economist states: " I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, ten thousand fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there's a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts not being subject to becoming criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they're sure of the quality. You know, the same thing happened under prohibition of alcohol as is happening now.
Under prohibition of alcohol, deaths from alcohol poisoning, from poisoning by things that were mixed in with the bootleg alcohol, went up sharply. Similarly, under drug prohibition, deaths from overdose, from adulterations, from adulterated substances have gone up. "
EDUCATION
Drug Education.
A wealth of disinformation about drugs and drug use is given to us by ignorant and prejudiced policy-makers and media who peddle myths upon lies for their own ends. This creates many of the risks and dangers associated with drug use.
Legalisation would help us to disseminate open, honest and truthful information to users and non-users to help them to make decisions about whether and how to use. We could begin research again on presently illicit drugs to discover all their uses and effects - both positive and negative. [x]
Imagine a world, where people are no longer persecuted by their own personal choices. Like the Smoker, the Casual Drug User, is being bastardized.
I remember a time, in my youth, that I thought.. Mostly due to DARE, that Pot-Smokers where dangerous perverts that would stop at nothing to get you to smoke "Mexican Killer Weed". A Substance that would get you hooked with one use, and leave you a slave.
If every, man, woman, child, had the knowledge imparted on me by such websites as Erowid I wouldn't have to be stuck in nightly debates about
"LSD forming crystals in your spine", nor about "Cocaine being chemically addicting" (It's not)
I propose an Education System that shows both the Negative, and the Positive effects of particular drugs used by our Society.
Coupled with Legalization the amount of addicts would drop dramatically. As rehab, and knowledge would be plentiful. Instead of fear of prosecution, addicts would be free to seek rehab.
The system works in the Netherlands.. Why not here?
It Worked Before
If all drugs were legal, our prisons would be emptied of hundreds of thousands of non-violent "offenders" who's only crime was "Smoking a Joint".
If all drugs were legal, law-enforcement resources would be available to fight violent crime, instead of being used to chase people who's crime amount to sticking themselves with a needle and sleeping the day away.
If all drugs were legal, much of the street violence would end - as it did when Alcohol Prohibition ended - because gangs of thugs would no longer be fighting over drug territories, their money supply cut off.. They would wither and die like leprous tendons.
If all drugs were legal, the government could no longer use the Drug War as an excuse to tear up the Bill of Rights and pry into your bank account, strip-search you at an airport, tear your car apart, monitor your e-mail, or seize your property without even charging you with a crime.
We know the States would be better off because That's how it worked before the War on Drugs
The War, if I may, is nothing more then an excuse for an old, dead, Right-Wing Politician to keep the Liberal, Anti-War Masses of the late 60's and Early 70's from threatening his Agenda.
Well it didn't work. The War is nothing more then a Cancerous Tumor on American Society.
It Needs to be Stopped.
NOW.
EDIT:
Portugal Experiment, Seeming Success: Source
EDIT 2: My Plan:
I propose we have the social programs that help drug users and abusers who wish to quit.
A mandatory 6 week course on drugs to get your license, with testimony from current and past users and doctors. You must get your license renewed every 2 years.
If you commit a crime, while on drugs, your license is revoked you go to mandatory rehab. If it was found that drugs were a factor in your crime, you get community service, and your license is revoked for a period of 3-50 years depending on the crime. Bear in mind this is on top of whatever sentence you get because of of your crime.
To sell/produce/grow drugs, you must take a mandatory 18 week-2 year course (depending on the drug), mandatory federal inspections, mandatory federal purity tests, and you must consent to random searching and inspection of your place of business. Any violations and your grower/seller/producer licenses is revoked permanently.
You can only buy drugs from certain stores that specialize in the selling of the product, to minimize underage buying. Anybody caught selling to a minor or to those with out a license, get's theirs revoked. Permanently. With a 500,000 dollar fine, and up to 15 years in Federal Prison.
EDIT3:Child Services taking kids after minor possession charges
Quote:
Hundreds of New York parents are entangled in child neglect cases after being found with or admitting to using small amounts of marijuana.
Despite the fact that these parents face little or no criminal charges, New York’s child welfare agency is pursuing these incidents and in some cases taking children from their homes.
In one particular case a father lost custody of his 1-year-old daughter over a $5 bag of marijuana.
Despite the fact that these parents face little or no criminal charges, New York’s child welfare agency is pursuing these incidents and in some cases taking children from their homes.
In one particular case a father lost custody of his 1-year-old daughter over a $5 bag of marijuana.
That's right. He lost his daughter over a doobie.
This s**t needs to end, now.
EDIT #20,453: UK wants to decriminalize all personal drug use
Quote:
Possession of any drug for personal use should be decriminalized, the UK government's official drug advisers have recommended.
Tens of thousands of people caught with drugs ranging from heroin to cannabis would go on drug education courses rather than being punished in the courts under the proposals, The London Times reported Friday.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/10/14/uk-governments-official-drug-advisers-want-to-decriminalize-all-personal-drug/#ixzz1bAUugk37
Tens of thousands of people caught with drugs ranging from heroin to cannabis would go on drug education courses rather than being punished in the courts under the proposals, The London Times reported Friday.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/10/14/uk-governments-official-drug-advisers-want-to-decriminalize-all-personal-drug/#ixzz1bAUugk37
