The Drug War vs the Bill of Rights

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I don't have anything to do with drugs and recommend everybody on the planet do the same; every drug problem in the world would vanish within five days if the whole world were to do that...

Nonetheless that's never going to happen, hence the "War on Drugs(TM)", instituted under Richard Nixon. This is the single biggest issue I have with Republicans and there is little if anything to choose between demmy and pubby pols on the issue. The "war on drugs" leads to

"No-knock" raids, which are a clear violation of the fourth amendment and of the common law principle of a man's home being his "castle". In fact technically a homeowner who were to shoot and kill one or more government agents in the process of conducting a "no knock" raid would be entirely within his or her rights.
The incarceration of large numbers of people who would otherwise never have had contact with prison systems. For many this amounts to a career training program for serious crime.
Gang wars, drive-by shootings and the like.
Corruption, the rise of drug cartels, and outright civil wars in other nations which supply drugs to the illegal drug enterprises here.

It is that final item which some would use as a pretext to eviscerate the second amendment, which is the link pin of the entire bill of rights. Consider the following from the former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the Bush administration no less:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/17/weapons-ban-urged-to-rein-in-mexican-drug-war/

Quote:

The former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection called Monday for the U.S. to reinstitute the ban on assault weapons and take other measures to rein in the war between Mexico and its drug cartels, saying the violence has the potential to bring down legitimate rule in that country.

Former CBP Commissioner Robert C. Bonner also called for the United States to more aggressively investigate U.S. gun sellers and tighten security along its side of the border, describing the situation as "critical" to the safety of people in both countries, whether they live near the border or not.

Mexico, for its part, needs to reduce official corruption and organize its forces along the lines the U.S. does, such as a specialized border patrol and a customs agency with a broader mandate than monitoring trade, Mr. Bonner said in an exchange of e-mails.

"Border security is especially important to breaking the power and influence of the Mexican-based trafficking organizations," Mr. Bonner said. "Despite vigorous efforts by both governments, huge volumes of illegal drugs still cross from Mexico...

The problem here clearly is not guns and it is clearly a problem of economics. The drugs one of these idiots would use in a day under rational circumstances would cost a dollar; that would simply present no scope for crime or criminals. Under present circumstances that dollar's worth of drugs is costing the user $300 a day and since that guy is dealing with a 10% fence, he's having to commit $3000 worth of crime to buy that dollar's worth of drugs. In other words, a dollar's worth of chemicals has been converted into $3000 worth of crime, times the number of those idiots out there, times 365 days per year, all through the magic of stupid laws. No nation on Earth could afford that forever.

A rational set of drug laws would:

Legalize marijuana and all its derivatives and anything else demonstrably no more harmful than booze on the same basis as booze.
Declare that heroine, crack cocaine, and other highly addictive substances would never be legally sold on the streets, but that those addicted could shoot up at government centers for the fifty-cent cost of producing the stuff, i.e. take every dime out of that business for criminals.
Provide a lifetime in prison for selling LSD, PCP, and/or other Jeckyl/Hyde
formulas.
Same for anybody selling any kind of drugs to kids.

Do all of that, and the drug problem and 70% of all urban crime will vanish within two years. That would be an optimal solution; but you could simply legalize it all and still be vastly better off than we are now. 150 Years ago, there were no drug laws in America and there were no overwhelming drug problems. How bright do you really need to be to figure that one out?

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[+4] - rosborne979 - 11/19/2009I hate it when I agree with Gunga because it always makes me question my own sanity, but in the case of the "War on Drugs" we tend to agree. The War on Drugs is one of the few wars we...

"The Drug War vs the Bill of Rights"

should do away with both

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

Quote:

150 Years ago, there were no drug laws in America and there were no overwhelming drug problems. How bright do you really need to be to figure that one out?

150 years ago there were no airplanes.
150 years ago there were no major paved highways.
150 years ago there were no automobiles
150 years ago there were only 37 states in the USA
150 years ago there were no modern assault rifles with clips capable of holding more than 15 bullets.
150 years ago there were no hand guns that held more then 8 bullets.

Maybe if we only went back to that time, the drug problem would go away. You don't have to be very bright to realize that 150 years ago, things where a lot different. You also don't have to be very bright to know that someone that thinks we should go back to what we were 150 years ago is talking out of their ass.

2 Replies

@parados,

And 150 years ago there was still slavery in the United States. I suppose that means that the 13th amendment is directly linked to the rise in drug use.

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

I hate it when I agree with Gunga because it always makes me question my own sanity, but in the case of the "War on Drugs" we tend to agree.

The War on Drugs is one of the few wars we could win with the stroke of a pen, without cost of money or lives. Not only are drug restrictions questionable in their limits on personal freedom, but they are fueling massive drug cartels and rogue countries with unlimited funds (with which to wage terror and other illegal acts) and creating a black market within our society which is eating us up like cancer.

Restricted legalization (similar to alcohol laws) would solve a world of problems and save a ton of money. And it would allow us to help the addicts who need help rather than turn them all into criminals. End the "war on drugs". It's a no-brainer.

0 Replies

@joefromchicago,

Quote:

And 150 years ago there was still slavery in the United States...

You're worried about Borque Oinquebama instituting sharia law in America and re-legalizing slavery I take it? Don't worry, I doubt anybody would purchase you...

1 Reply

@parados,

Government now has NO greater jurisdiction (except as per amendments to the Constitution)
than it did 200 years ago. Any additional exercise of jurisdiction
is by USURPATION, with the same authority as a schoolyard bully.

The American Revolution was a libertarian revolution.
Even the King of England did not claim to have jurisdiction over what his subjects ingested.

David

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

Quote:
And 150 years ago there was still slavery in the United States...

You're worried about Borque Oinquebama instituting sharia law in America and re-legalizing slavery I take it? Don't worry, I doubt anybody would purchase you...

Borque Oinquebama -- that one still baffles me.

2 Replies

The "war on drugs" in this country coud be won in 30 days if the govt had any balls, and here is how...

ANY ship that enters US waters would be boarded and searched by the USCG or the USN.
If they are found to be carrying illegal drugs, the boarding party, and ONLY the boarding party, leaves the ship.
They leave the crew aboard.
Then they back off to gun range, and blow it out of the water.
The ship carrying the illegal drugs sinks to the bottom, taking its crew with it and taking the illegal drugs with it.

If an airplane is used to smuggle drugs, allow the military to track it and shoot it down, without worrying about the crew.

As for drug dealers on the streets, thats even easier.
If a dealer sells to an undercover cop, give the cop the authority to deal with the dealer.
The cop would pull his badge and ID himself as a cop, then he would pull his service weapon and "bang!!!" an automatic, instant execution of the drug dealer
on the spot.

That eliminates the dealers.
No dealers, no drugs.

3 Replies

@mysteryman,

I have a much better idea, mm. Why not just kill all the potential drug dealers in their cradles? Be a little pro-active, hmmm? Why wait for them to commit a crime? But I like the direction of your thinking, mm. You're right up there with the rest of the deep thinkers.

1 Reply

It's almost impossible for somebody under 30 living in America today to imagine how free a country the United States was in 1955, much less 1880. In 1880 you could easily have watched some farmer walk into a store, the store-keep ask him what he needed, and the man reply something like:

Quote:

Well, John, I could use a couple hunnert rounds a 45/70 ammo, bout ten sticks a dynamite to blast some stumps with, a gallon of some kinda good rum, some marijuana, and some opium fer the Mrs. Could use a whetstone too if ya got one...

I mean, even in the 1950s there was a longish list of things which were still possible which would land you in PC purgatory if not outright prison today.

The ban on marijuana in particular, as I understand it, arose from Dupont and Weyerhauser wanting to eliminate hemp as competition to their forestry products particularly for paper. Anybody claiming to want to outlaw something so totally harmless on supposedly moral grounds in 1880 would have been laughed into tomorrow-morrow land.

0 Replies

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Borque Oinquebama -- that one still baffles me.

Me too. How could he forget the "Hussein" in the middle?

Nevertheless, about the War on Drugs, he's right and you, Joe, are wrong.

1 Reply

@Merry Andrew,

Merry Andrew wrote:

I have a much better idea, mm. Why not just kill all the potential drug dealers in their cradles? Be a little pro-active, hmmm? Why wait for them to commit a crime? But I like the direction of your thinking, mm. You're right up there with the rest of the deep thinkers.

In the last battle of the Red Chinese War on Drugs,
thay just got all the addicts together in groups and murdererd them.

The War was over.

David

0 Replies

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Borque Oinquebama -- that one still baffles me.

The latter part is obviously just puerile insult. I suspect the first name was an attempt to write the word Baroque, but was mangled as the attempt did not rise above the level of the author's competence.

1 Reply

@mysteryman,

How is one to know that there are drugs aboard an aircraft before shooting it down? You didn't think that one through.

3 Replies

@Setanta,

Oh, c'mon, Set. Aren't you asking a bit much of mysteryman? I mean, like, think???

0 Replies

Gin in England is an example of a drug that makes a good case study. It was always available since the early 1600's and was cheaper than beer, but only took off during The Restoration. It is thought that the rapidly expanding East Anglia population that fueled the growing colonies was stopped by the social horrors accompanying gin. One famous case was a mother who took her son out into the woods, carefully undressed him then murdered him so she could sell his clothes for gin. Regulation followed around 1750 (from memory), and gin slowly died down in popularity though it was still used in the British Empire to mix with quinine, making the famous gin and tonic.

Any reasonable analysis will find that great social evils were caused by a legal drug. Regulating it helped, but the true remedy was in changing society and attitudes. The drug is now legal and you can drink till it kills you.

0 Replies

@mysteryman,

mysteryman wrote:

The "war on drugs" in this country coud be won in 30 days if the govt had any balls, and here is how...

ANY ship that enters US waters would be boarded and searched by the USCG or the USN.
If they are found to be carrying illegal drugs, the boarding party, and ONLY the boarding party, leaves the ship.
They leave the crew aboard.
Then they back off to gun range, and blow it out of the water.
The ship carrying the illegal drugs sinks to the bottom, taking its crew with it and taking the illegal drugs with it.

If an airplane is used to smuggle drugs, allow the military to track it and shoot it down,
without worrying about the crew.

As for drug dealers on the streets, thats even easier.
If a dealer sells to an undercover cop, give the cop the authority to deal with the dealer.
The cop would pull his badge and ID himself as a cop, then he would pull his service weapon and "bang!!!"
an automatic, instant execution of the drug dealer on the spot.

That eliminates the dealers.
No dealers, no drugs.

I don 't believe that there is jurisdiction for any of that, MM.
Indeed, it is a stretch, to say that government has jurisdiction
to have any existing police. The Founders destested the idea of police,
considering them an instrument of tyrrany.
Thay called them a "standing army" (no reference to the US Army).
In the face of this spirit, there were no police in the USA
(nor were there any in England) until the following century.
Each citizen was expected to attend to his own self defense
and to be prepared to handle any dangers thereto with his own resources.

I hate to say it, MM, but in a dispute between the schoolyard bully
and an innocent victim, u r supporting the bully.

David

0 Replies

@Setanta,

I like the thought of sinking a couple of cruise ships because a passenger is smuggling in some cocaine bought when they docked in Cancun.

MM didn't think it through is an understatement.

0 Replies

ERRATUM:

"I don 't believe that there is jurisdiction for any of that, MM.
Indeed, it is a stretch, to say that government has jurisdiction
to have any existing police. The Founders destested the idea of police,
considering them an instrument of tyrrany."

Shoud have been:

I don 't believe that there is jurisdiction for any of that, MM.
Indeed, it is a stretch, to say that government has jurisdiction
to have any existing police. The Founders detested the idea of police,
considering them an instrument of tyrrany.

David

0 Replies

The Drug War vs the Bill of Rights

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