Debate with parents on legalizing drugs

[VIDEODROME]

I just point out the parallel with Alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s.

 

[sync]

I had a Christian family member use the argument that 'drug use is a sin, so it should be illegal'. I asked them if we should put adulterers and fornicators in prison as well. What about people who divorce without an act of adultery happening? Then went on to ask them if we should then make over-eating illegal, since gluttony is also a sin. Should we put people in jail for saying g**dammit? What about atheists. We have the freedom to worship under the 1st amendment, but atheists don't worship anything. Should we make atheism illegal too?

They got the point.

 

[sratiug]

...

They are against the gov takeover of health care, but they are convinced that things like the FDA are necessary. Maybe mismanaged, but necessary. Could you explain how the war on drugs was the beginning of that takeover?

Products of the poppy and coca plants, and alcohol, have been used by doctors for a very long time and are still used today throughout the US. Our constitution does not allow any person to be granted more rights than any other person. The constitutional prohibition against titles of nobility disallows that practice. A doctor's or pharmacist's license cannot give them any more power over your health treatment choices than you yourself have, or any greater right of possession of drugs. Dr. Paul opposes the licensing of doctors and pharmacists.

By unconstitutionally outlawing illegal drugs (alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment and applied to all persons) only for commoners and not for everyone the government has created a corrupt government/corporatist monopoly on health care. So called illegal drugs are not illegal, they are used in hospitals throughout the country and no one I've ever met wanted all drugs to be illegal for everyone everywhere at all times.

 

[dannno]

To answer your mom's question, specifically, when drugs are legalized they will fall drastically in price. So if a crackhead has to steal 1 purse every day on average to continue their drug habit, legalizing drugs will make it so they only have to steal 1 purse every 20 days to continue their drug habit. Using this example, crimes that addicts commit to continue their habit would be reduced 20 fold. End minimum wage laws and they'll be able to get a job and fund their own habit without committing crimes. Most drug crime, however, has to do with the war on drugs itself, which would be eliminated completely.

She's also assuming that drug use would increase if drugs were legal. The legality of drugs isn't stopping very many people from doing them. Most people don't do drugs because most hard drugs are very bad for you. Also, legalizing drugs and letting the states regulate them would help keep them out of the hands of kids. Most drug dealers are in high school, so it's easier for kids to obtain drugs than alcohol and alcohol is legal. Legalizing drugs will help keep them out of the hands of kids.

 

[Working Poor]

Pot, cocaine, and heroin are all natural medicines and have been used through out history as such.. By giving these commodities over to the black market cocaine and heroin thru refinement are much more addictive and dangerous than in their more natural pure states. Bayer used to sell heroin OTC and addiction was not very common back then yes some did become addicted but not like they do with street heroin. Dr. back then knew how to help people addicted and also preserved their reputations while they got well now a heroin addict must face prison and all the humiliation and damming that society can push on them. Addiction is a disease but, people are programed to think they are bad and even sinful, it is really hard to get past the programing that addicts are criminals.

Addicts are sick people not bad people. They need a doctor not a warden.

Can you imagine what it would be like if diabetes became illegal and people went to jail because they possessed insulin or cinnamon a known blood sugar regulator?

Hemp ought to be legal because of it's usefulness it is evil that it has been banned.

Pot too Christians need to wake up a little more.

 

[dannno]

^Opium is a natural medicine, heroin not so much.. They had syrums back in the day that included both. I would steer away from heroin because it destroys your red blood cells and makes you physically ill, making a come-down off the drug that much more difficult to deal with.

 

[enjerth]

I'd ask my mom, do you have the right to demand, with the threat of violence, that I do not drink alcohol when I'm an adult? How about smoking tobacco? Do you have the right to demand, with the threat of violence, that I do not smoke marijuana when I'm an adult? How about the neighbor? Do you have the right to demand, with the threat of violence, that they do not smoke marijuana?

Supporting prohibition is asserting that you do, in fact, have that right. The government derives it's power from the consent of the governed, and hence, cannot have any authority that a person does not inherently possess.

 

[NickOdell]

Thanks everyone! I totally get it now makes perfect sense.

New issue with my parents though-- my dad is supporting Romney now, and I'm trying to help him see how much better Ron is.... I posted this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJgfg3I_E6A&feature=player_embedded On my dads facebook wall, so we will see what he says.

Could you comment on my thread for this? http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?293477-Reasons-NOT-to-vote-for-Mitt-Romney

And I also made him watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/user/NickOdell5?feature=mhee#p/a/f/0/2xNI7cx3FMk

Any other tips on converting a Romney supporter?

Thanks so much. If I could get responses half as good as they were on this thread, on the new one, that would be fantastic.

Nick

 

[low preference guy]

I prefer drugs to be legal because it causes guilty people (those who do drugs) to suffer the greater part of the consequences of their actions, unlike under prohibition, where a great number of innocent people suffer and are killed due to the confrontation between gangs and the police, which not only never ends, but gets more and more brutal as time goes by.

Good point. Thanks a lot!!

Another innocent victim of the war on drugs:

Tucson SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Vet 60 Times

 

[S.Shorland]

http://www.leap.cc/

L.E.A.P Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Very interesting in the 'cops say legalize drugs' video on the video page on that site.No drug was illegal before 1914.There were 1.3% of the population drug addicts.In the 1970s at the start of the drug war: 1.3% drug addicts. Now after a $trillion dollars (he says) and countless deaths: 1.3% drug addicts. Around the 7:00 mark. Watch that video,please.It's an apocalypse for blacks!

P.S It sounds like you have very nice,loving parents.

 

[Black Mamba]

So your dad says drugs should be illegal because we should follow whats written in the Bible? You should ask him what he thinks about the welfare state. Because a lot of (mostly left-wing) Christiatns use Jesus' teachings of "help the poor" to mean that the government should be the one to do it. I don't agree with that, I don't think the gov. is the one supposed to be doing it, but I also don't agree with the war on drugs. If that is the argument your dad is going with, you should say that the Bible gives these commandments to individuals, not the state.

 

[NickOdell]

I've had this debate with people a few times sense I originally posted this.

I'm not sure how to respond to this argument:

Legalizing drugs may put the drug dealers out of business, but what about Target? Wouldn't they then be able to sell drugs, and advertise the drugs and push people to use them, so they buy more?

Isn't this the same thing with alcohol and tobacco? You see Bud Light commercials all the time, but you don't really see any tobacco advertisements.

I think that ^ is because society now has a negative view of tobacco. My high school may be unique, but overall there are very few people who smoke and most people consider it disgusting. And it's not a small private high school or something. 2600 kids.

Thoughts/input?

 

[libertygirl2]

This may have been mentioned already, I didn't go through the entire thread...

But from a philosophical/moral standpoint, check out what Doug Husak has to say about the idea of liberal neutrality and the legalization of drugs.

His argument is basically that government should be neutral among "conceptions of the good", or different ways of life. Theoretically, using drugs could be a part of an individual's conception of the good; therefore, the state should be neutral, UNLESS using drugs poses a direct risk to others.

 

[moonshineplease]

Fucking damnit. I typed up a long response and before I could hit post, Windows powered down on me to install some stupid update. I really can't type the whole thing again, just too pissed to do so.

So long story short there are a number of economic reasons why the black market drug industry is so correlated with crime, and all of those reasons germinate in the banning of the drugs. So it is their prohibition that causes the correlation with crime. Drugs have adverse effects for sure, but they don't have some specific go-out-and-commit-crime effect on the brain like some people just seem to assume. I'd typed up quite a few explanations for this, but I'm sure you can find them elaborated upon in great detail at mises.org or on some article at lewrockwell.com if you do some searching. And if you want to be cool like me, go buy the book The Economics of Prohibition by Mark Thornton, after reading it you will be able to pwn anyone in an argument over the subject.

Also if you want to put your parents on the defensive, ask them why they don't think alcohol should be made illegal. After-all, some people do commit crime under the influence of alcohol. Most people obviously don't however, and alcohol is safely sold in stores by law-abiding and respectable businesses. That wasn't always the case however, in the 20s and 30s alcohol was illegal, and it was sold by the fucking mafia.
Al Capone and his gang loved alcohol prohibition, it was the cornerstone of their criminal syndicate and of their profit. Alcohol then was strictly correlated with crime and violence. Banning it didn't eliminate the demand for it, or people's wish to make a buck selling it, it just dirtied the market up a whole lot. That is one clear cut lesson from history, that applies to the drugs banned today and the modern gangs that sell them.

The rights argument and moral arguments are all well and good, but its amusing those arguments never seem to be good enough for people, on any subject not just drugs. They always get in to utilitarian objections, which just goes to show how concerned people are with morality and other people's rights. Out of ignorance they try and use the state to make the world safer and healthier, but only succeed in creating adverse effects that were the opposite of their intentions. Bitter irony. Its why every libertarian (or libertarian leaning person, if you don't go by that title) should familiarize themselves with the utilitarian arguments for liberty. They are good arguments, might as well learn them. People will ask you for them, they don't want to beat around the bush with the more abstract stuff.

great response.

 

[enoch150]

I've had this debate with people a few times sense I originally posted this.

I'm not sure how to respond to this argument:



Isn't this the same thing with alcohol and tobacco? You see Bud Light commercials all the time, but you don't really see any tobacco advertisements.

I think that ^ is because society now has a negative view of tobacco. My high school may be unique, but overall there are very few people who smoke and most people consider it disgusting. And it's not a small private high school or something. 2600 kids.

Thoughts/input?

I believe certain kinds of tobacco advertisements are banned. The argument made by the statists was that cartoon characters like Joe Camel enticed kids to smoke. The largest tobacco companies supported it because they believed it locked their market share in place. They didn't believe their advertisements affected who chose to smoke or not so much as the ads affected what brand was purchased.

In any case, your response might be something like "What difference does it make how much cocaine costs? If it suddenly becomes 50% cheaper, are you going to start using it? If not, what makes you think you're so special? Almost any high school kid in the country can get any drug they want, if they wanted them. The War on Drugs has utterly failed at preventing people who want drugs from getting them. Running up the cost of drugs doesn't stop people who want drugs from buying them, it just leads them to commit criminal acts in order to get the money to pay for them."

I don't use the economic arguments anymore. It's been my experience that the economics of drug prohibition doesn't change minds as readily as the moral arguments. Lysander Spooner's is a good one to start with:

Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime --- that is, the design to injure the person or property of another --- is wanting.

It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practises his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.

Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.

Punish the crimes, not the vices.