Drug Legalization

Blackflag: That crime being drug possession.
Do you have stats to back this up in any way? Because this sounds like BS. Drug prosecutions have steadily decreased in the USA. http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/347/

What the hell!? Read up on US history. The first drug wave happened in the 60's and Reagan was a president in the 80's. I have called you out on making up false history in the past, but my god man.
Two things:
1) Reagan was governor of California in the 70s. I checked this just now and I was right. I explicitly stated he began his campaign in California and introduced it east in the 80s.
2) In the last post you said 80s, not 60s. Social movements in general can go by different names and so I expect we're probably referring to different things - not sure what you're referring to in the 60s though.

Fighting a war on gangs causes civilian casualties and mayhem in our urban communities.
It doesn't have to.

The War on Drugs has already cost 50,000 non-combatant lives in Mexico.
So? This figure includes basically anybody killed by a drug gang or cartel in modern modern history in that country. Its allowed to continue because it's profitable, and that's largely because druggies exist in America. Remove the druggies from the equation, gangs earn no money, Mexico has less violence. Simple.

You shift their power to corporations, which means less money and less power for them.
Corporations, once again, are not competitions for gangs. Gangs can outcompete corporations if they want to.

Anything can be used positively or negatively. What don't you get about that?
How would you use a drug positively?

If someone wants to have positive experiences with drugs, you have no right to deny that right.
Sure I do. Exactly the same way as I'd prevent other experiences that are clearly not positive, such as discouraging people from committing suicide.

At least you will have the luxury of being raped and not remembering it, cry me a river.
You think that's a luxury? Honestly? Do you want to be raped?

Nope, that is not scientifically supported. Your judgement returns to you, not that it was impaired to begin with, after a period of time. Sort of like if you have a hangover.
What part of that has no scientific support? You've made a LOT of claims without support, such as regarding the usage of drugs, which I've proven time and time again to be wrong. THC hangs around from one use for up to 21 days, and remains in the blood for several days. http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/marijuana-how-long-does-it-hang-out-body

Again though, no one cares about your opinions on our personal choices, because you have no say in our lives. Make sense?
Nope, as I proved on the other thread, I affect other people's lives all the time. I'm affecting your life right now because this website exists.

If every state legislature in America allowed a referendum on cannabis legalization for 2016, then only 10 out of the 50 states would still have marijuana illegal by 2017.
1. So what?
2. The court case we were talking about regarded same-sex marriage, not cannabis legalization. It's you who's getting confused.

Cool, then countries that produce opiates such as Afghanistan should legalized drugs as well.
1. So you support violent gangs making more money in those countries too? If legal there, the gangs can't be touched there either for anything more than tax fraud at best.
2. How would this reduce the problem of drugs, exactly, that has wrecked those countries even more than America? Why do you think they are in poverty?

Give me a break, you know this is bullshit. Singapore will execute you for using illegal substances. If you are a Singapore citizen and smuggle drugs into the country, they will stone you to death. That is ruling out of fear.
And? It worked. Very well.

And just so you know, countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore have the most expensive markets for drugs. You can get triple the buying price for successfully smuggling in drugs to these countries.
Obviously. That's because the drug is rare and hard to get in those countries. Simple supply-side economics. That's a successful policy because it achieved its aims. Less drug supply, and less drug demand.

But yeah, let us learn from Singapore and start executing those who use drugs. That is pretty much the only trick they have up their sleeves.
I have other tricks too. I don't think a country should have to get that extreme if they do it right. But you were saying it's impossible to cut back drug use through public policy, when this is CLEARLY incorrect.

That bill is supported by bullshit rhetoric and fabricated science, I can guarantee you.
Well then show me your "science" saying that it's harmless. The Dutch have PLENTY of stats showing that it's not.

No it isn't. I made sure to look it up to verify I was correct in the claim. In Rome I could get a whore on the streets. In New Zealand that might be "unhealthy."
You sure you looked it up? Since 2003 it has been legal. Prostitution Law Reform Act 2003. Look it up.

Libertarianism is the belief that social liberty should be protected at all costs according to Oxford, and the belief in free will according to Merriam Webster.
Oxford is right. Merriam Webster is referring to its related philosophy as opposed to a social policy.

Your graph is simplistic and gets a lot wrong.

Liberalism by definition has nothing to do with social liberties. It refers strictly to the level of economic freedoms citizens should be granted.
Liberalism as a modern political philosophy all stems from the French Revolution. The motto of the French Republic used to be all there was to it. To achieve liberty, fraternity and equality, there are a variety of economic ends.

Ideals like liberalism or conservatism are ENDS. Authoritarianism is a MEANS. Libertarianism is both a means and an end. Which is why your graph is so wrong.

Blackflag: Haha, nobody said anything about being "mindlessly" controlled. Or being controlled at all actually.

All I'm saying is that society, and life, is better with rules. I'm more than happy to sacrifice personal freedoms in exchange for better quality of life.

No it isn't. I made sure to look it up to verify I was correct in the claim. In Rome I could get a whore on the streets. In New Zealand that might be "unhealthy." Screw nanny states. Neo-fascism is more predominant than ever.
One of my favourite things ever is when you tell me what is and isn't true in my country.

nzlockie: One of my favourite things ever is when you tell me what is and isn't true in my country.
Sorry, next time I'll be sure to tell you specifically the truth about your country and not admin.

Blackflag: Ah yes, the "truth".

Do you have stats to back this up in any way? Because this sounds like BS. Drug prosecutions have steadily decreased in the USA.
The amount of arrests have fallen by 400,000 since 2007, which means there were 1,400,000 arrests in 2012. That is 1,100,000 more arrests than before the drug war began.
I wouldn't call people more qualified on the subject than you out as bullshitters.

Reagan was governor of California in the 70s. I checked this just now and I was right. I explicitly stated he began his campaign in California and introduced it east in the 80s.
Yeah, my question is what is this wave you are talking about? I am 90% sure you were talking out of your ass and made up some hypothetical event.
Why would you even need to look that up? It just shows that you were talking out of your ass...

In the last post you said 80s, not 60s. Social movements in general can go by different names and so I expect we're probably referring to different things - not sure what you're referring to in the 60s though.
You have no scope of US history. Drugs became extremely popular in the 60's, which coincided with the sexual revolution. The second drug wave was much later into Reagans term, and it dealt with a rise of cocaine markets in the United States.

It doesn't have to.
Now you are being a hypocrite. Wars kill people. Do not contradict your own beliefs.
There is violence in the streets of Detroit every day between cops and gangs over a drug war which wouldn't exist if drugs were legalized.

So? This figure includes basically anybody killed by a drug gang or cartel in modern modern history in that country. Its allowed to continue because it's profitable, and that's largely because druggies exist in America. Remove the druggies from the equation, gangs earn no money, Mexico has less violence. Simple.
You cannot remove drug addicts from America. We have put billions of dollars into the drug war only to see minimal changes in drug use and a lot of fathers go to prison because they use marijuana in their recreational time.

Corporations, once again, are not competitions for gangs. Gangs can outcompete corporations if they want to.
No they cannot and they never will. A regulated corporation can sell you drugs legally, or a shady street dealer can sell you drugs illegally, which are usually just holders filled with laxatives. Wow, I think I'll go for the corporation. A street dealer pays his gang 60% of everything he earns, and the gang gives 75% of what his street dealers make to get product from the Cartels. They also have to spend money smuggling drugs and trying to keep their organization intact while being hounded by the cops. Corporations win any day of the week.

How would you use a drug positively?

WTF! Oh, I get it............ you have never done drugs before
No wonder you are so brainwashed.

What part of that has no scientific support? You've made a LOT of claims without support, such as regarding the usage of drugs, which I've proven time and time again to be wrong. THC hangs around from one use for up to 21 days, and remains in the blood for several days. http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/marijuana-how-long-does-it-hang-out-body
You really haven't proven anything. You have made equally shoddy claims. If you have fooled yourself into thinking you can be high for more than a couple of hours than that is really naive. I am starting to realize that you don't interact with stoners that much, so I am excusing you for being ignorant. This isn't something you can disprove, especially when a larger portion of my life has been defined around those who use illegal substances.

The simple fact of the matter is that a large percentage of adults are using cannabis and going about their daily routines completely successful. It isn't extremely good for you, but neither is drinking or smoking and people get along fine with their lives without their nanny taking away that privelege.

The court case we were talking about regarded same-sex marriage, not cannabis legalization. It's you who's getting confused.
Yeah, I got a little mixed up there, sorry. Still, you did make three different claims, so that makes two of us.
You always go off on these sideline tangents to distract me from the crux of the issue.

So you support violent gangs making more money in those countries too? If legal there, the gangs can't be touched there either for anything more than tax fraud at best.
Crime rates decrease in accordance with legalization. Disagree? Well how about you back it up?

And? It worked. Very well.
How would this reduce the problem of drugs, exactly, that has wrecked those countries even more than America? Why do you think they are in poverty?

It is you who is trying to convince the majority of the liberal progressive world that marijuana should be illegal. I do not accept drugs as a problem, nor has it wrecked any countries in reality. If anything, keeping it illegal is suppressing the overall happiness of the nanny fascist countries which keep it illegal.

And? It worked. Very well.
Oh, so you don't see any problem in executing those who do drugs? That defeats the whole purpose of why you are arguing drugs should be illegal, because removing productive members from society is a bad thing. This is a sad kind of hypocripsy because you have to be 100% aware you are being a hypocrite.

I have other tricks too. I don't think a country should have to get that extreme if they do it right. But you were saying it's impossible to cut back drug use through public policy, when this is CLEARLY incorrect.
You don't have all the answers, as you have made very clear, but how about you make an attempt to give me one answer. How would you control the so called non existent "problem" of drugs?
I'm sure your solution hasn't been tried before.

You sure you looked it up? Since 2003 it has been legal. Prostitution Law Reform Act 2003. Look it up.
Yeah I looked it up. You look it up. I am reading the direct text and nowhere does it say that sex outside of a licensed brothel is legal. Rome is more progressive than New Zealand on prostitution.

Well then show me your "science" saying that it's harmless. The Dutch have PLENTY of stats showing that it's not.
Will you show me these statistics, or will you beat around the bush for another three posts?

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/netherlands_v_us#sthash.tHS22I9e.dpbs
The Dutch have some statistics. They have it legal the US doesn't. Lower rate of prevalence. Less crime. Less people in prison. Admin, it sounds like the Dutch have actually done something that works better than the war on drugs. Amazing!

Here is the truth of the matter admin. Marijuana is done by so many young kids because it is "Cool" to do something illegal. Having it illegal encourages the practice more than you might think. The other thing you are not picking up on, is that most people can live productive lives and do not remain on marijuana their whole lives. It is a recreational activity, that people do for fun, and when they are ready to get serious about their lives they will or will not choose to stop. It really doesn't matter, because no one should care what they do.

You are not a liberal. That is a lie. A liberal defends personal freedoms at all costs. I am disgusted that you keep trying to label yourself as a liberal while supporting several fascist-esque viewpoints on controlling society. It is for the whole you say? It is for the stability of the state, welfare of the people, and productivity of the economy you say? Why not just call yourself a communist and call it a day.

admin: Better believe it. You sent me on a goose chase just to confirm what I have told you. When you are wrong you are wrong. In this case you are wrong. It is like debating a dictionary, you just can't do it.

Blackflag: The amount of arrests have fallen by 400,000 since 2007, which means there were 1,400,000 arrests in 2012. That is 1,100,000 more arrests than before the drug war began.
Sure, but that tells you nothing about proportions. The proportion of people incarcerated for drug-related offences is decreasing, and the vast majority of the 1,400,000 are in there for more than just drugs. The proportion incarcerated for drug-related offenses has always been fairly steady at about 20%. http://web.archive.org/web/20090830192737/http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/dudsfp04.pdf

Yeah, my question is what is this wave you are talking about?
And my answer is Reagan's war on drugs in the 70s and 80s. Now tell me which one YOU are talking about that you said happened in the 60s.

Why would you even need to look that up? It just shows that you were talking out of your ass...
Because unlike you, I don't make assumptions on the basis of something I think I remember. My memory is fallible, just like all people. That's why I use external sources to confirm it.

Drugs became extremely popular in the 60's, which coincided with the sexual revolution.
So what? We're talking about waves of the war against drugs, not waves of drug use, right?

Wars kill people. Do not contradict your own beliefs.
It's a semantic issue. I'm referring to it only as the war on drugs because you are. Personally I don't think the war on drugs is a war any more than tsunami relief efforts are a war on tsunamis. It's about ending the hold that drugs have had on so many communities for far too long, for the social betterment and freedom of those people.

There is violence in the streets of Detroit every day between cops and gangs over a drug war which wouldn't exist if drugs were legalized.
Just because the cops lay down their guns does not mean the gangs will. The violence on the streets will continue so long as the gangs earn money via drugs.

You cannot remove drug addicts from America.
That's like saying you cannot remove murderers from America, so why ban it? The harder a line you take on something, the more you disincentivise doing it. When you see law as an incentive system, laws against murder still make sense even though people still murder. It's the same with drugs.

A regulated corporation can sell you drugs legally, or a shady street dealer can sell you drugs illegally, which are usually just holders filled with laxatives. Wow, I think I'll go for the corporation.
That's fine. The problem is that this has literally never happened. Even in Amsterdam, the cannabis supply is still largely controlled by the gangs. You don't exactly see Maggi or Mars Corporation sell cannabis there. In your ideal world you'd see "Bloods Drug Supply Store" become a common retail chain in America and police could never prosecute them for what they sell. The money they make would get used to launch secret raids against the "Crips Drug Megamart" next door.

A street dealer pays his gang 60% of everything he earns, and the gang gives 75% of what his street dealers make to get product from the Cartels.
Then all you're incentivising is for gangs to change their business model. The tax rate is constant and predictable. That's something gangs historically have always been able to exploit.

The problem with cartels is they are cheaper. This is why Arabian Crude is so cheap. The whole point is to flood the market with product below market rates to drive out competition. Gangs can afford to make short term losses to kill potential competitors to the market, even if violent intimidation wasn't an option. In every case, the economics supports the gangs.

They also have to spend money smuggling drugs and trying to keep their organization intact while being hounded by the cops.
No they don't, because you've just legalized smuggling drugs. And I don't know what exactly you referring to, but keeping an organization built on "if you leave then you'll be shot" together rarely takes regular expenditures. So what exactly will the cops hound them for?

Oh, I get it............ you have never done drugs before
And I think anyone who does is an idiot. Plus it's an ad hom. It's like saying to me "oh, you've never tried cutting your arm off before? Well then how do you know it's not positive?"

If you have fooled yourself into thinking you can be high for more than a couple of hours than that is really naive.
I didn't say "high", I said affected by the drug. Cannabis affects users longer than stoners realize it. They may feel like the effect has completely worn off, but it hasn't.

I am starting to realize that you don't interact with stoners that much
I remember having exactly this same argument almost a decade ago, when I was 14 with my roommate in boarding school, who was a pretty heavy stoner. He got really into that argument though. He even quit cannabis for two years to prove to me it was fairly non-addictive.

Funny thing is, today I agree that it's relatively non-addictive. And today, he agrees with me about virtually everything else I said. He played around with drugs a bit in his last few years in school but he's matured and moved on now, and realized that the cannabis didn't help him at all.

The simple fact of the matter is that a large percentage of adults are using cannabis and going about their daily routines completely successful.
Yeah. Which just makes me mad to think how much more successful they'd be if they didn't use cannabis. I'd probably have a jetpack and real holograms by now.

It isn't extremely good for you, but neither is drinking or smoking and people get along fine with their lives without their nanny taking away that privelege.
I agree smoking is extremely bad. People who smoke or drink excessively do face heavy difficulties. Just ask anyone in rehab for alcoholism, or anyone trying to quit smoking. It's extremely hard to live with. How our society lets these things slide but also agrees cannabis is bad is beyond me. It's a double standard. All should be outlawed.

Still, you did make three different claims, so that makes two of us.
Nah, you just misinterpreted me the first two times. I was being vague, you read something into that vague statement, and I corrected you vaguely.

Crime rates decrease in accordance with legalization. Disagree? Well how about you back it up?
1. You have the burden of proof. You're bringing the claim.
2. Remember my previous source in this thread about Colorado drug use? Also has some interesting stats about the crime rate of certain offenses commonly linked to cannabis. Worth a read.

Oh, so you don't see any problem in executing those who do drugs?
All I said is that social policy can change drug use rates. There's your proof. We both disagree with the means. I think we ought to treat drug users like we treat pedophiles. Ostracise them from our society for the protection of children. The point is, though, that social policy like this can be effective.

I am reading the direct text and nowhere does it say that sex outside of a licensed brothel is legal.
Where?

I quote section 7: "No contract for the provision of, or arranging the provision of, commercial sexual services is illegal or void on public policy or other similar grounds". In other words, you can contract to have sex with somebody for money wherever you want, whether that contract is made in a licensed brothel or elsewhere. "Small owner/operators" are specifically excluded in the act from requiring any license or permit to work.

You can trust this is true when both New Zealanders on this site, including one who took 3 papers in law, confirm it, ok? You probably know US law better than me, but I know NZ law pretty darn well.

Will you show me these statistics, or will you beat around the bush for another three posts?
I've never beaten around any bush. Anyway, sure, I'm happy two. Here's two very good articles on the topic:
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2014/2/21/netherlands-cannabislessonscolorado.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3997943/Pressure-to-reform-Dutch-drug-laws-as-gang-violence-grows.html

And a nice case study on the Netherlands Antilles:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTHAITI/Resources/CaribbeanC&VChapter7.pdf

The Dutch have some statistics. They have it legal the US doesn't. Lower rate of prevalence. Less crime. Less people in prison.
Correlation. You can't compare across countries like that. It's better to look at historical rates before and after decriminalization. Right now the Dutch have some serious problems, and they criminalize everything related to cannabis except a very small amount of possession and personal use. Over 50% of the Dutch prison population is in there for drug use, which is easily more than double the USA. ( http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/debate/myths/myths4.htm )

Having it illegal encourages the practice more than you might think.
Smoking is legal for adults and kids still do it. If you want to implement the same with cannabis, and expect kids to do it any less, prepare to be disappointed.

It is a recreational activity, that people do for fun, and when they are ready to get serious about their lives they will or will not choose to stop.
I can imagine there were Chinese people in shantytowns saying the same about their opium dens a century ago.

A liberal defends personal freedoms at all costs.
You just defined exactly what you said in your previous post what a libertarian is, according to the Oxford dictionary. Proving that you're still confused.

My liberal beliefs are social enlightenment era liberalism, which saw equality as a necessary part of achieving true substantive freedom. I quote from the introduction to liberalism on wikipedia:

"Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality . The former principle is stressed in classical liberalism while the latter is more evident in social liberalism. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programs such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion,civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, and international cooperation."

Why not just call yourself a communist and call it a day.
Communism and fascism are means, liberalism is an end. In general, however, I think liberals would have a hard time justifying anything other than democracy and anarchy. Communism MAYBE if realized correctly. I'm sure it could be done, it would just require a lot of logical leaps. I'm a simple old democratic liberal.