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Addiction
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Alienation, Anomie, Angst
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Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism
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William S. Burroughs
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Coffee House!
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Consumerism, Materialism
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PKD / Philip K. Dick
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Drugs and the War on Drugs (Page 2)
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(Page 3)
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(Page 4)
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(Page 5)
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(Page 6)
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(Page 7)
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(Page 8)
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Police and Law Enforcement
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Privacy, Secrecy, Surveillance
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Television
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Values
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from The Dubious Data 2000 Awards
The results of drug use are often evil. (If you haven't read it already, may I suggest getting hold of a copy of Philip K. Dick's
A Scanner Darkly as soon as possible. At the very least, don't miss the Afterward.)
But the results of the "War on Drugs" are obviously worse.
It's certainly incontrovertible that somebody's making a ton of money off the trade in illegal -- and therefore expensive -- drugs.
It's equally obvious that a lot of people are making a ton of money off the continuation of the "War".
"At Bad Subjects, we know why people do drugs. They want to diminish their pain; or they want to enjoy their jobs; or they want to alter their consciousness -- ultimately, people do drugs because their everyday lives do not satisfy them. We often associate drug use with a process known today as 'addiction.' However, drugs are merely one kind of object people can become addicted to..."
"The Ideal of Liberty is "the right to do whatever you please in private, so long as it places no one at involuntary risk." There is nothing about the definition of liberty which restricts it to things which are risk-free to the actor, if such things exist. ... Nor is there anything about liberty which restricts it to those things approved by the majority. ...
The War-On-Drugs is like the War in Vietnam, except that it has gone on longer. It is time to recognize not only that the war is lost, but that it should never have been fought in the first place. "
"The sad history of efforts to eradicate drug use in this country is pockmarked with recurring waves of hysteria, usually involving the association of some drug with some minority group. The Chinese and their opium dens, Mexicans and marijuana, blacks and crack -- we literally scare ourselves silly, getting so scared of the menace of drugs that we react stupidly. That politicians feed our fears, milk them for electoral advantage, is another part of the sad pattern. ...My emphasis -- ed.)
We have a million people in prison on drug charges -- more than the entire prison population of Western Europe. Federal spending has increased from $1 billion in 1980 to $20 billion on the drug war last year, and the states spend even more.
Yet drugs are as available as ever. Both cocaine and heroin have gotten cheaper and purer during the past 20 years. This is not working. ...
One of the most outrageous aspects of this is the seizure of property. During a 10-month national survey, it was discovered that 80 percent of the people who had property forfeited were never charged with a crime.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal to take property from an owner who had no knowledge of its illegal use. There is no presumption of innocence, no right to an attorney and no objection to hearsay. The burden of proof of innocence is on the property owner.
For all the money, time and hysteria spent on the problem of illegal drugs, all illegal drugs combined kill about 4,500 Americans a year -- 1 percent of the number killed by alcohol and tobacco. Rehabilitation is not only much cheaper than prison but also more effective in reducing drug use."
"One of the telltale signs of a society slipping toward tyranny is the expansion of the definition of what constitutes a crime. In a free society, criminal behavior is clear: it is the initiation of force (directly or indirectly) by an individual against another individual. * ... The use of drugs is only one such example of a "crime" in which force has not been initiated against anyone by the individual guilty of the alleged crime. ... So-called environmental crimes are (also) examples of this type of "crime." (Personally, I don't agree with this -- I'm one of those that tends to believe that trees should have standing, not to mention the health effects on humans of environmental damage.) ... there are other laws on the books today which make virtually every adult in this country vulnerable to criminal prosecution and conviction of "crimes" which do not involve the initiation of force by the individual. ... Tomorrow, it will be you … and it will be you, just give the statists enough time to get around to it.".
* The reductionist definition of libertarianism.
-- this quote from Huxtable is presented for your consideration;
I don't agree with him on all points.
"For twenty years, Dutch officials have allowed the open sale of marijuana and hashish in coffee shops. ... the percentage of Dutch adolescents who have ever used marijuana is far *lower* than in the U.S."
"Holland, which has allowed the possession of small amounts of marijuana, or cannabis, for the past 25 years, was once alone in its permissive stance. But more and more European countries are following its lead and turning their backs on Washington's war on drugs. The trend is bolstered by figures showing that Holland's radical approach has not led to greater drug use, and has improved addicts' health."
" Governments cause pain, misery and suffering by passing laws, and then point to that same pain, misery and suffering (which were caused by the laws) as the reason the laws are necessary - and even why the laws should be more strongly enforced! Nowhere is this spurious chain of "cause and effect" more devastatingly manifest than in the War on Drugs. The real cause of immigration and drug-war horror stories is the enforcement of anti-immigration and anti- drug laws, not the people forced into dangerous and degrading circumstances by those laws. (When was the last time you read about armed thugs doing battle over the distribution of Aspirin or Valium?)"
from Chapter 8 of
A GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF OBJECTIVISM
by David King
I'm not convinced about that first sentence,
but I do like that last one -- my emphasis -- ed.
"Some ideas will be rejected, some will be kept, but access must not be denied to any.
I want my children and the children of the world to become critical thinkers, to intelligently participate in making decisions for the future of our society and our planet.
As a citizen I want to support the interests of a diverse society. Diversity enhances creativity, strength of character, philosophy and tolerance."
Disclaimer: Ms. Meskis has not approved my quotation of her article,
my hyperlinks, or any of the contents or links on this site
and as far as I know is unaware of them.
"Before beginning her debate research, she says, she never questioned the illegality of the drug, assuming 'it must be illegal for a reason.' Within a few months, however, Swerdlow learned more about the effects of prohibiting marijuana, and became an advocate of legalization. ...
After almost a year of research, she has whittled down her beliefs: regulation, but not incarceration. The government should monitor marijuana, she says, as it monitors alcohol and tobacco, with a minimum age requirement (18), penalties for driving under the influence (losing your license) and a fine for underage smoking (and maybe parent notification). ...
Swerdlow's parents, now divorced, say they are proud of their daughter. They have seen her lobby for other causes before, including gay rights and feminism. She is a woman of many passions, including less politically oriented ones. ...
Swerdlow wants to focus on legalizing marijuana when she's in college rather than on gay rights or feminism because it is, she says, 'the most pressing issue in the U.S. right now. People are going to jail. . . . No one is going to jail because they're a woman'."
"... officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said the real significance of "Operation Liberator" was the unprecedented international law enforcement cooperation displayed by the more than 30 nations of the Western Hemisphere.
'This operation succeeded because of the relaxation of sovereignty issues that many times in the past had acted as barrier to law enforcement operations,' Michael Vigil, the top DEA official in Puerto Rico, told CNN."
"In the latest scandal to befall the beleaguered Office of National Drug Control Policy ... the agency was forced to admit earlier this week that it allowed an Internet data mining operation to collect information from visitors to its youth-oriented anti-drug site FreeVibe."
"The War on Drugs is a War on: Social Justice -- Public Health -- Environment -- Taxpayers -- Reason -- Democracy"
Reich may have been a quack. He may even have been a nut case.
I don't know whether that excuses the actions the U.S. government took against him.
(I'd also take "orgone" theory and the
Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory with a big chunk of salt.)
-- and see the pages on this site on / Turtle Island /, / Winona LaDuke /
"The police are not to blame for this war; they are the foot soldiers hired to do society's dirty work. We arm them with weapons and the power of coercion and then turn our backs on the battle. Police then form insular cultures and "blue walls" of silence as protection from society's indifference. ...
As long as society fights the problem of substance abuse through the criminal justice rather than the public health system, we will nurture an insular police culture that justifies brutality in the name of war."
"Is it inconceivable that some of our most important documents, say the Declaration of Independence, were written by authors who were to some degree stoned? After all, if it was good enough for Shakespeare, why not Jefferson?"
"Despite such warnings, most Americans have yet to appreciate that the War on Drugs is necessarily a war on the rights of all of us. It could not be otherwise, for it is directed not against inanimate drugs but against people--those who are suspected of using, dealing in, or otherwise being involved with illegal drugs. Because the drug industry arises from the voluntary transactions of tens of millions of people--all of whom try to keep their actions secret--the aggressive law enforcement schemes that constitute the war must aim at penetrating the private lives of those millions. And because nearly anyone may be a drug user or seller of drugs or an aider and abettor of the drug industry, virtually everyone has become a suspect. All must be observed, checked, screened, tested, and admonished--the guilty and innocent alike.
The tragic irony is that while the War on Drugs has failed completely to halt the influx of cocaine and heroin, both of which are cheaper, purer, and more abundant than ever, the one success it can claim is in curtailing the liberty and privacy of the American people. In just 10 years, Americans have suffered a marked reduction in their freedoms in ways both obvious and subtle. ...
As Peter Rodino, former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in expressing his anger at the excesses of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, 'We have been fighting the war on drugs, but now it seems to me the attack is on the Constitution of the United States'."
"By any reasonable measure, America’s “war on drugs” is a disaster. ...
The Economist has long argued that drugs should be decriminalised. ...
Now the White House is strongly hinting that it will appoint John Walters as the new drugs “tsar”.
Mr Walters is to the drugs war what first world war generals were to trench warfare. He does not lack experience (he was a deputy drug tsar under Mr Bush’s father), but his basic reaction to the heavy losses sustained so far seems to be merely to increase the size of the attack. Mr Clinton’s drug policy, in his view, was too soft. The idea that American sentences are too harsh is 'among the great urban myths of our time'."
"Until the early 1900s, the federal government did little to regulate or control the sale or use of alcohol or drugs -- except for taxing alcohol.Includes some horrible stories of people sentenced and imprisoned despite the absence of any solid evidence against them, as well as stories of politicians and family members of politicians who have escaped any serious legal consequences despite being caught red-handed.
It may be hard to believe today, but early in the 20th century a 10-year-old girl could walk into a drug store and buy a bottle of whiskey or a packet of heroin. She didn't need a doctor's prescription or even a note from her parents. Any druggist would sell to her without batting an eye; he would assume she was on an errand for her parents. ...
Because there are no victims to help the prosecution, the Drug Warriors resort to police-state tactics:- The police and prosecutors rely on informers -- who almost always turn out to be criminals bargaining for a lower sentence.
- Sting operations become commonplace. Policemen actually buy and sell drugs and then arrest those they deal with. The government trains the police to be effective liars.
- The government can no longer tolerate your privacy. Government agents routinely rummage through your bank records, without your knowledge, looking for suspicious transactions. Politicians continually lower the standards for warrants to search your mail or tap your phone, and judges rubber-stamp the warrants. Judges allow SWAT teams to invade your home to search for drugs -- based only on an anonymous tip, perhaps a tip from someone who just happens to dislike you. Your home is no longer your castle.
Policemen can stop your car because of a bad tail light, and then search for drugs because they find your statements to be "suspicious."
We aren't making America safer by violating the Bill of Rights. ...
It is the innocent -- not the guilty -- who are hurt most when the Bill of Rights is ignored."
Tea Party by Katheryn Gallant