Who cares? Just another junkie...

hard drugs really arent "actively prohibited" in the netherlands as you keep suggesting. My brother recently spent a month there and based on his experiences, i'll remain entirely skeptical of your insistence of "actively prohibited". Additionally, i recently watched a documentary called The American Drug War and one of the segments was on amsterdam where they filmed this complete junkie smoking crack...........about 20 feet from a cop. Again, i'll remain skeptical.

you really should read up on prohibition in the states because alcohol certainly was criminalized. it wasnt just the sale and distribution that was outlawed, you so much as had a beer in your hand, here comes the law.

now the alcohol trafficking i was talking about was just any old joe, which i thought wouldve been obvious given the nature of the converstaion. Of course you can manufacture, distribute, and sell alcohol......if you have the proper licenses, convenient how you left that out. If i were to brew my own beer (and get caught) and/or distribute it or sell it, then i can be fined or worse because i do not have a liquor license or a license to manufacture or distribute. I had hoped that this was understood but guess i'll put in play doh terms so as to not confuse you.

as far as a heroin model is concerned, i dunno because im not a doctor. But i'd say a start is an age limit, say 21, purchasable through pharmaceuticals, probably require a prescription (what would warrant a prescription i dunno cuz im not a doctor), maybe have a background check as part of the prescription (ie no sale to violent offenders, same as guns, something like that) and have the same laws attached to it that everything else does. by which i mean buying alcohol for minors, public intox, etc

>> ^Payback:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/rychan" title="member since June 20th, 2007" class="profilelink">rychan
I wasn't trying to compare the crimes but rather the enforcement mechanisms -- the idea that because a reasonable person wouldn't do it, we don't need law enforcement of it. That's clearly not a compelling argument.
Child abuse is obviously terrible. So is heroin use, though. It kills 100,000 people every year...
The point I was trying to make is, he wasn't saying there should be no laws. He even mentioned that even the 1st amendment has rules, that you can't injure or defame others. He believes that your personal choices should be your own.
If someone injures another, like your child abuse analogy, then he believes there SHOULD be consequences and laws. If your heroin junkie breaks into someone's home to steal money, then he should go to jail for burglary, not being an addict. If he holds a knife to your kid's throat to get their lunch money, he should be jailed for assault with deadly weapon, not because he has a used needle in his back pocket.


How is polling the audience supporting that argument? He was making two arguments (at least), one of which was the "reasonable person" argument which I think is baloney. You could apply the same argument to a horrible crime like child abuse.

His _other_ argument which you highlight -- the right to personal freedom -- is much more persuasive. I agree it is THE fundamental argument on this topic, and nobody should believe that it's a slam dunk argument either way.

I think entr0py's argument is compelling. Drugs like heroin are an overly tempting way to ruin your life. It's not a matter of intelligence or education -- one of the most interesting anti-smoking studies found that teenagers actually OVERestimate the danger of smoking. But they still do it, anyway. Virtually everyone who smokes started as a teenager. People simply do stupid things which are against their self interests and society's interest. So I don't want to see heroin regulated the way cigarettes are. That's not sufficient. Anyway, this is the "should government protect you from yourself" argument which some people find repugnant. I take it you are one of them. You don't care if 15% of every high school class dies from heroin abuse because on their 18th birthday they get access to plentiful, cheap heroin. I'm not saying that would be the case, I'm just saying that a strict believer in personal freedom would be fine with this.

Also I think we should worry about preventing crime, not punishing it. Yes, we could offer a young mother lots of heroin and wait until her child neglect becomes actionable by the state, but why let a family be ruined? You're right, her actions would snowball to the point of being illegal without making the drug itself illegal. That doesn't really reassure me much.

Maybe such problems wouldn't be widespread if all drugs were legalized. But they're already fairly common, and I don't see how legalizing everything would make them rarer.

Are you really OK with living next door to a house full of heroin addicts? having them offer your children heroin? Watching them spiral in to filth while they lose self control? Seeing their children show up at the bus stop unwashed and starving? And having the police tell you "Well, they haven't done anything illegal yet. Clearly this situation will crash and burn shortly, but we should definitely stand at the sidelines and watch. We wouldn't want to infringe on anyone's personal freedoms". Or maybe child services is more on the ball and the children end up in state custody sooner rather than later, so it's a happy ending? So maybe children and parents aren't allowed to use these drugs but other people can? And maybe nobody who operates heavy machinery? And certainly not schoolteachers.

It just seems like a useless exercise to me to try to give people the freedom to use a drug like heroin when it will only cause terrible repercussions.

@rychan
I wasn't trying to compare the crimes but rather the enforcement mechanisms -- the idea that because a reasonable person wouldn't do it, we don't need law enforcement of it. That's clearly not a compelling argument.
Child abuse is obviously terrible. So is heroin use, though. It kills 100,000 people every year...


The point I was trying to make is, he wasn't saying there should be no laws. He even mentioned that even the 1st amendment has rules, that you can't injure or defame others. He believes that your personal choices should be your own.

If someone injures another, like your child abuse analogy, then he believes there SHOULD be consequences and laws. If your heroin junkie breaks into someone's home to steal money, then he should go to jail for burglary, not being an addict. If he holds a knife to your kid's throat to get their lunch money, he should be jailed for assault with deadly weapon, not because he has a used needle in his back pocket.

for those who can't get behind a full blown legalization of hard drugs like heroin or meth, how about simply decriminalizing them? so, they won't be for sale at your local 7/11 but we don't waste anymore money prosecuting and jailing non-violent junkies either?

i won't call addiction a victimless crime. loving/living with/caring for/being the child of/having the children of/being the parent of an addict is one of the most destructive, life wrenching things ever. as an adult its your choice and you can just leave, but as a kid you can't and as the parent, you can't. and drugs fuck up little kids lives. its not at all victimless. but locking those family members up in jail or in rehab against their will never fixed anything. the family is still broken. the addict is still broken. and legal substances can have the same consequences.


bbbuuttt.....here are some things states could do to 1. alleviate the budget shortfalls without fucking the poor and 2. create jobs while expanding civil liberties and boosting moral

1. legalize marijuana and tax it... new source of revenue plus a new industry creates new jobs
2. legalize gambling and tax the casinos .... again, new source of revenue plus a new industry creates jobs
3. decriminalize possession of other drugs, quit spending the $$ arresting and prosecuting addicts and just write up a ticket with a fine attached (say $500) .... save money plus new source of revenue
4. legalize gay marriage ...... extra revenue collected from the sale of marriage licenses, a boom in the wedding industry


i would say legalize prostitution, but i have mixed feelings about it. if it's done wrong, you get a trafficking disaster. done right and highly regulated, great. i wont say decriminalize prostitution because that doesnt make anyone safer and kind of neuters our ability to break up exploitation rings.

>> ^Payback:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/rychan" title="member since June 20th, 2007" class="profilelink">rychan "Ron Paul could make the same argument about child abuse. "How many of you are going to go beat your children unless the government tells you not to? See! We don't need those laws"."
Equating child abuse and self-destructive behaviour is a reach, don't you think? A junkie getting his fix is hardly violence against a child. Granted, it might be a cause and effect, but until the person raises their hand to the child, they are only hurting themselves. To equate a violent act against a child with a substance addiction diminshes the violence.


I wasn't trying to compare the crimes but rather the enforcement mechanisms -- the idea that because a reasonable person wouldn't do it, we don't need law enforcement of it. That's clearly not a compelling argument.

Child abuse is obviously terrible. So is heroin use, though. It kills 100,000 people every year according to this article: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-21/world/un.heroin.trade_1_afghan-opium-heroin-fund-attacks?_s=PM:WORLD

I happen to have an opinion, unpopular on sites like VideoSift or Reddit, that it is not possible to responsibly use certain drugs and that it is in society's clear interest to suppress their usage. If you want to go off to a remote island and get high as a kite then obviously that doesn't impact me. But if you're in my community, trying to raise children, using my roads and public spaces, creating problems for my police department, why should I acquiesce to your horribly destructive addiction? I think drugs like heroin should be illegal and mandatory treatment should be required of those who use them.

@rychan "Ron Paul could make the same argument about child abuse. "How many of you are going to go beat your children unless the government tells you not to? See! We don't need those laws"."

Equating child abuse and self-destructive behaviour is a reach, don't you think? A junkie getting his fix is hardly violence against a child. Granted, it might be a cause and effect, but until the person raises their hand to the child, they are only hurting themselves. To equate a violent act against a child with a substance addiction diminshes the violence.

>> ^Mazex:

>> ^Duckman33:
>> ^Matthu:
I don't follow the libertarian view that people should be left to their own devices. If they were, you'd see homeless junkies who gambled away their homes in the streets.

You mean we aren't and haven't been seeing that for years already? Wow where the hell have I been all my life? I could have sworn people have been losing their homes, families, and jobs for years due to gambling addictions...
Basically it's our lives and our money, and we should be able to spend it how we wish. If it puts us in the poor house, on the streets, etc. That's our decision to make. Not yours, not the Goverments, not anyone elses but our own. Period.

Problem is most people are so stupid/misinformed/ignorant that all their supposed decisions are really just guided by large corporations, plus humans are horrible decision makers overall anyway, our brains aren't really structured to make good decisions in modern civilization.


So you're telling me that the Government is better suited to make decisions on how to run my life than I am? They are human too, so what makes their decisions better than mine? Sure, we make bad decisions and we pay for them. Sometimes we die because of them. That's called survival of the fittest, or EIA.

>> ^Duckman33:

>> ^Matthu:
I don't follow the libertarian view that people should be left to their own devices. If they were, you'd see homeless junkies who gambled away their homes in the streets.

You mean we aren't and haven't been seeing that for years already? Wow where the hell have I been all my life? I could have sworn people have been losing their homes, families, and jobs for years due to gambling addictions...
Basically it's our lives and our money, and we should be able to spend it how we wish. If it puts us in the poor house, on the streets, etc. That's our decision to make. Not yours, not the Goverments, not anyone elses but our own. Period.


Problem is most people are so stupid/misinformed/ignorant that all their supposed decisions are really just guided by large corporations, plus humans are horrible decision makers overall anyway, our brains aren't really structured to make good decisions in modern civilization.

>> ^Matthu:

I don't follow the libertarian view that people should be left to their own devices. If they were, you'd see homeless junkies who gambled away their homes in the streets.


You mean we aren't and haven't been seeing that for years already? Wow where the hell have I been all my life? I could have sworn people have been losing their homes, families, and jobs for years due to gambling addictions...

Basically it's our lives and our money, and we should be able to spend it how we wish. If it puts us in the poor house, on the streets, etc. That's our decision to make. Not yours, not the Goverments, not anyone elses but our own. Period.

>> ^Matthu:

I don't follow the libertarian view that people should be left to their own devices. If they were, you'd see homeless junkies who gambled away their homes in the streets.
I think the easy solution is to tax the gambling industry up the wazoo. Make it profitable, but not billions of dollars profitable. When it's more profitable to open a casino than it is to open a school, you've got a problem.


Laws and the severity of the punishment has been shown to be ineffective in regulating behavior. Cultural norms determine what people feel is OK to do (studies show no correlation between laws and severity of punishment in different countries and the behavior of the citizens of those countries. There is however a strong link between the culture of each country and the behavior of its citizens). Basically laws can remove troublemakers from the general population but laws don't change people's behavior in the first place.

As for gambling and schools, I would not want schools being run for profit.

I don't follow the libertarian view that people should be left to their own devices. If they were, you'd see homeless junkies who gambled away their homes in the streets.

I think the easy solution is to tax the gambling industry up the wazoo. Make it profitable, but not billions of dollars profitable. When it's more profitable to open a casino than it is to open a school, you've got a problem.

Adrenaline junkie in training.

As someone who has spent almost zero time reading up on education policy, but who's a total junkie for reading politics, I can explain why the current merit pay/charter school/standardized testing thing is pretty transparently a load of horseshit.

Let's start with who's in favor of it. Is this a popular idea in the Washington press corps? Yes, undoubtedly. Do they ever back good policy? I've never known them to. Conservatives love it, as do the perennially "moderate" Democrats. More bad signs. As for Waiting for Superman, all my pinko-commie friends tell me it was made and promoted by big money interests. That's not good, either.

Where else in the world do they have an education system like this? How's it working for them? Not having researched it, I can't answer that question, but no one who's for it ever says "look at how well <some country>'s education system works! We should copy them!" However the people who oppose it, like Ravitch, point to Finland, and the fact that it's almost entirely the polar opposite of what the big money wants for America, and Finland is almost always ranked #1 internationally for education.

Mostly, I just hear more union-busting in a lot of this talk. Ravitch sounded like she did too -- it's all about rooting out the "bad teachers", as if our education system's sole flaw is a lousy crop teachers that are bilking the system, with the aid of the eeeeevil teacher's unions.

It can't be poverty and budget cuts, noooooo, that'd mean admitting those dirty fucking hippies are right yet again...

>> ^Peroxide:

Was that a fake, or his real license plate in his bag at the end? Is that what these Adrenaline junkies do? Switch out plates and go speeding?


Most people just get flip up plates, or mount their plates in such a way where red light camera's and/or police can't easily spot them.

Most police will not chase a motorcycle so there is no reason to have fake plates. I believe the fake plate is a much stiffer penalty than improper mounting.