should marijuana be legalized??

gungasnake wrote:

The real problem is economic.[...]


It's a good starting point for sure. Since you say the problem is economic, what do you think about the following economic solution?

• Legalize all drug sales to grown-ups.
  
• Prohibit the drugging of children, since they are too young to consent to a drug deal. In fact, I would extend your prohibition to the government's kid-drugging schemes, such as the one under which it force-feeds them ritalin against ADD.
  
• Having legalized all drugs, tax each of them according to the public health hazard it turns out to pose. Each tax would be set to make the tax on each drug cover the complete public health costs this drug causes. If you're right and I'm wrong about the dangers of heroin and LSD, the tax will turn out to be prohibitively high.
  
• Some drug dealers, no doubt, will try to sell drugs on the black market without paying their taxes. Round them up and throw them in jail for tax evasion -- just as the Feds did with Al Capone

Deal?

Civil procedures are easier than criminal and the police won't have to break all sorts of laws to enforce it. Many kids are "force fed" ritalin by parents. Micromanagement of families shouldn't be a governmental mandate [I know: too late, been there, done that]. While some parents use drugs instead of parenting, most parents find their job more manageable when their kids are medicated. Much of the behavioral problems with kids can be traced to environmental causes and most of them are outside the parents control.

One social welfare type program that would reduce reliance on these drugs would be government testing for environmental factors for kids diagnosed with ADD - at least for low income people who can't afford the testing. Of course, that might bring to light shoddy business practices and negatively impact a lot of heavy campaign contributors. Of course education about these factors would be in order. We spend billions on drug war propaganda disguised as education on TV and in our schools. We could do a tonne more good with real education about environmental causes of behavioral problems. Of course we could do a tonne more good with real education about real drug-related problems - at the expense of pharmaceutical sales [this proposal is a no starter with pharmaceutical political contributions - but I wrote such a curriculum anyway].

Many kids are "force fed" Ritalin by parents. Micromanagement of families shouldn't be a governmental mandate [I know: too late, been there, done that]. While some parents use drugs instead of parenting, most parents find their job more manageable when their kids are medicated.

Anybody questioning the thinking behind wanting to keep PCP banned might want to do a google search on "stephanie roper".

Stephanie was driving home after dark in Prince Georges County Md. one night and had a flat tire, and the two guys who stopped to check the situation out ended up killing her in some particularly hideous fashion, and what you read in the papers at the time was that these were two very ordinary young men who had never had an evil thought in their heads prior to taking PCP.

Legalize PCP, and your own daughter could be the next Stephanie Roper.

Problem is, PG County cops at the time would have agreed with the parents and shrinks at least to the extent that normal people could take PCP and do stuff like that.

In my estimation the Ropers have a real case against whoever is making and selling that stuff, and that's aside from the case against the two losers.

Problem is, PG County cops at the time would have agreed with the parents and shrinks at least to the extent that normal people could take PCP and do stuff like that.

In my estimation the Ropers have a real case against whoever is making and selling that stuff, and that's aside from the case against the two losers.

Sort of like shooting someone and the victims family pressing a lawsuit against the arms manufacturer. Drugs don't make you do anything. Drugs do not excuse peoples actions. Video games do not cause murders. Drugs do not cause murders. Drugs do not commit atrocities. People do. People are responsible for their own actions.

Doktor S wrote:

Sort of like shooting someone and the victims family pressing a lawsuit against the arms manufacturer. Drugs don't make you do anything. Drugs do not excuse peoples actions. Video games do not cause murders. Drugs do not cause murders. Drugs do not commit atrocities. People do. People are responsible for their own actions.

And alcohol doesn't cause drunk driving, but it certainly helps. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "cause."

And alcohol doesn't cause drunk driving, but it certainly helps. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "cause."

I have a legal question about drunken X-ing, pretty much independent of what the X stands for. If somebody gets drunk, commits a tort or a crime, and tries something like the insanity defense because he was drunk when he did it -- would this defense work in America?

If it does, that would be a plausible reason for making some laws against drunken X-ing and the like. People might be insane when they're drunk, but they're normal and accountable when they decide to drink.

Legal sellers are held accountable to a certain extent for disclosure and quality control. The standard "stands behind its products" is a status symbol and source of pride for many business people. Street dealers don't stand behind their products because if they stand around they go to jail - whether the product delivers as advertised or is inherently defective. There is no incentive to produce a better product for consumer at a reasonable price or to cater their product to consumer niches.

There was no "beer and wine" option available to consumers during latter days of alcohol prohibition; there are few nonsmokeable options available to asthma sufferers or low dose options for children or those with low resistance to drugs.

Thomas wrote:

If it does, that would be a plausible reason for making some laws against drunken X-ing and the like. People might be insane when they're drunk, but they're normal and accountable when they decide to drink.

I'm not sure I understand your point.

Street dealers don't stand behind their products because if they stand around they go to jail - whether the product delivers as advertised or is inherently defective. There is no incentive to produce a better product for consumer at a reasonable price or to cater their product to consumer niches.

I was asking because as I understand it that defense would work in Germany, within limits. (I am not a lawyer, and I don't know what precisely the limits are.) Moreover, being drunk in public is legal in Germany. So what happens if you get drunk and beat somebody up in Germany? For this case, we have an extra law: If you get drunk, misbehave, and the "drunkenness" defense applies in your case, you're still guilty of having gotten drunk in the first place. It's a Rube Goldberg variety of justice, and I can't swear I have all the details rights, but that's how I understand it to work.