Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SPINOZA]

[twg]

I feel that all narcotics should be government controlled and taxed.

Good ol' "sin taxes"

[mithridates]

Prohibition isn't something I give much thought to because logistically it's nearly impossible. The reason for that is that when one country chooses to do away with it other countries that share borders with it are strongly affected so it only works where small amounts of non-addictive drugs are made legal like in the Netherlands. With Canada for example there's no way the US would let prohibition be thrown away and then have US citizens driving across the border to shoot up legally for the weekend. It's like a hydrogen-based economy, only island countries like Iceland are in a good position to try it out because nobody is going to come driving in from the next country over hoping to fill up their tank. But then again, with an island country you can just do what Korea does and get rid of them all (or as close as a country can possibly get to completely removing them).

[SPINOZA]

Terribly sorry about the delay in replying to Mith. A rather annoying social and work activity diverted my attention from my beloved Daves all day thursday!

[SPINOZA]

The poll results are somewhat unsurprising. The intelligence of Daves (believe it or not) is quite high, certainly higher than the average internet forum.

There is no way that 3-in-4 people in non-Daves society believe in ending prohibition. Were they to be educated about drugs - were they to have a clue - perhaps they might.

Governments and law enforcement are well aware of the justification for ending prohibition but continue to not wanna. Why is this? Why do our politicians seek to maintain current crime levels? Why do our governments seek to continue to burn billions of dollars that clearly have worthier causes? Why do alcoholics get the flattering title of disease-suffers, implying they had no choice but to destroy their lives with booze, yet heroin addicts are not entitled to such a claim? What about nicotine addicts, chocolate addicts, hamburger addicts? Why are these people not also disease-sufferers? Why is it one's right to own a gun in the US constitution yet not one's right to possess opium?

And why oh why do 5 folks who've voted in my beloved poll wish to continue the War on Drugs when all the evidence available suggests it's unwinnable and wildly unprofitable?

Please discuss. There's plenty of provocation for prohibitionists in the previous two paragraphs - I want an argument. Go! Bite! Can't you even try?

[huffdaddy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061222/ap_on_fe_st/ex_cop_s_drug_tips_2

[thepeel]

[Moldy Rutabaga]

Hehe--I'm guilty.. I'm one of the deviants who voted to continue the war on drugs. But I would perhaps change my vote now.

As I wrote earlier, I'm in favor of 'the war on drugs' in the sense that society should continue to strongly discourage the use of dangerous narcotics. I already qualified that I don't count marijuana as a dangerous drug, and I stated that 'the war' should be fought through education, early intervention in trouble groups, and border interdiction. This would still inevitably result in some drug use, but to me that would be small potatoes compared to the massive expense of meddling in producing countries, police force, and the tremendous personal and social waste of jailing petty users. But maybe a third option was needed and I shouldn't have voted for war.

I guess, yeah, from a libertarian view it's my body to inject in it what I like. But in stupid reality, there's all the issues of keeping it from minors and preventing people from working or driving or bothering other people when on certain substances, for example. That's difficult enough with alcohol already, but I suppose it's one root reason why many of these substances are prohibited. But interesting question, then; should suicide be legal if it's my body? In a certain way, don't we have some responsibility not to destroy ourselves when other people in society depend on us? Just a question to throw out...

Ken:>

[SPINOZA]

http://www.briancbennett.com/

"What I've atempted to do here is to create a level playing field in the drug war debate. As it turns out though, the data is actually more of an atomic bomb against continuing the drug war than a "level" playing field. In the face of the data itself, there is simply no contest and no excuse to continue the drug war -- look at it yourself." (from the section entitled 'The Anti-Drug War Arsenal')