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News & ArtsFriday, December 18, 2009
Drugs What He Said
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 2:00 PM
Conor Friedersdorf guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish reacts to this story in today's NYT:
Perhaps it isn't worth keeping drugs illegal if the cost is the corruption of our border agents, murderous turf wars in our cities, billions of dollars spent jailing non-violent offenders, children of non-violent offenders growing up without their parents, the rise of paramilitary drug cartels destabilizing multiple Latin American countries and capable at any moment of using their smuggling channels to help terrorists, no-knock raids in American neighborhoods that regularly terrify innocents and sometimes kill them, and addicts who overdose more than they would if dosage and quality were controlled.
Perhaps.
2
Prohibition never works.
And, technically, most homicides are done in a fit of rage, so laws against them are fairly useless for the most part, unless people are allowed to carry semi-automatic or automatic weapons around, which thankfully few civilized nations permit ... except ... oops.
And, technically, most homicides are done in a fit of rage, so laws against them are fairly useless for the most part, unless people are allowed to carry semi-automatic or automatic weapons around, which thankfully few civilized nations permit ... except ... oops.
5
You expect rational government? We're on the verge of bankruptcy and we still pour hundreds of billions into wasted effort. It must be working for somebody.
6
@1: Please expand on your comparsion of killing others to drug use, it makes zero sense to me. How are they the same?
7
And don't forget the loss of tax dollars on the sale and the problem of the balance of trade. The government doesn't count the loss of money abroad when calculating the problem of the balance of trade.
8
But if we end the war on drugs, then all those harmless pot smokers would have been slung into jails in vain!!!
12
@11,
Um, ok. I'm just going to quit while I'm ahead/behind/whatever. Jokes that need to be overexplained are worse than just standing around picking your butt.
Um, ok. I'm just going to quit while I'm ahead/behind/whatever. Jokes that need to be overexplained are worse than just standing around picking your butt.
13
@1: It seemed at the time that making a law against homicide would be a good idea because its is morally wrong to commit murder, and preventing murder is a pretty righteous cause, given that it might keep you and me alive until we are old.
It seemed at the time that marijuana should be illegal, but they had no moral justification: there is no natural law that states "possession of certain plants is bad"... so they invented some.
It seemed at the time that marijuana should be illegal, but they had no moral justification: there is no natural law that states "possession of certain plants is bad"... so they invented some.
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