Keep Drugs Illegal

Ms Christine Flowers has a lovely little article defending the continued illegal status of Marijuana and other currently illegal drugs. This has been a somewhat pet issue with me for some time. Allow me to expand in bullet point fashion. Ms. Flowers’ article is l

-This is my greatest beef with Libertarians…it doesn’t hurt me, let them do what they want to themselves. Hemingway and Donne both explained it well…’For Whom [does] the Bell Toll’? ‘It Tolls for Thee.’ Everytime a member of our league, that is humanity, is lost we all lose something. As father Klein once said…if he is still addicted to drugs or alcohol then you don’t really have him back…meaning that someone who is addicted to such controlling substances is not free to be a part of society. They may be high functioning at times, but an addicted soul is not a free soul. A man who is always acting under the spell or compulsion of drugs is not himself. If someone is addicted to drugs then it is a long slow toll of the bell for thee!

-Let’s say the congress legalized marijuana…that’s commonly accepted as the least dangerous drug on the list. How many people can drink a beer and then safely drive a forklift…I ‘d wager most all of us. How many can smoke one joint and then safely drive a forklift…it’s not a bet I want to take, though neither is prudent. A considerable amount of my research activities in DC at the think tank/lobby group FRC were dedicated to the issue of medical marijuana. I think people need to keep in mind that current strains of the plant yield more than 30% of the active ingredient THC, while the stuff the “hippies” were smoking in the 60’s averaged only around 3 to 5%. If you are an old hippie, or just from that age, or foolishly romantic about that age, then you should be very aware of the new state of the plant and its wildly expanded potency!

-If you want to use THC as a drug…make a pill. Actually a suppository is quicker in delivering the active ingredient than is inhaling the smoke…which one coroner told me is significantly more damaging to lungs than is simple cigarette smoke-and just think of the bans states have place on cig. Smoke! It’s not like states are legalizing opium production for the diseased and disabled the way CA and others have done with ‘medical cannibis.’ Why? That’s my next point.

-Recall the Opium Wars of the history books…Imagine something like 8 of every 10 people in the country being addicted to a drug…that was China at one time. Britain defended their right to engage in free trade (read: selling addictive drugs) to the people of China and militarily defeated China’s government to preserve this ‘right.’ How much harm was done to China by doing so? I’ve read that entire villages ceased to function…as everyone hung out in the Opium Den all day. Gangs of thugs roamed the streets to get money for the legal ‘goods.’ And gangs sent by merchants prowled the streets to lure more customers…image the billboards that would be on the freeway to recruit your kids like a cool-hip new rendition of the Marlboro man with a syringe wedged in his hat bank-sure such a comic lure would be made illegal, but there would undoubtedly be advertising. Even well-raised kids with everything going for them would find it tough to resist peer pressure when it is legal. Some kids would certainly resist, but how many good kids have experimented with alcohol and then turned away…you can’t just turn away so easily with highly addictive stuff.

-Some argue that a more cleanly refined product would be less dangerous…but morphine is exactly that, well-refined opium…it remains one of the most addictive substances on earth. The body physically craves the stuff forever, once it is tried. Imagine legally experimenting with the stuff, just for kicks when you’re young…The rest of your life could be a constant struggle to fight addiction.

-The documents, articles, and figures, I read and reviewed at FRC about eight years ago as regards the Netherlands’ experiments with drug legalization were severely disturbing…they tried and continue with a narrow legalization, all is ‘fare’ and legal in the red light district. Drugs of all shapes, sizes, potencies, and qualities were legalized in one small area so that those who do it anyway would be clear of the rest of society. The story that disturbed me above all others: prostitutes, all addicted to heroin, lined the streets, sat in a chair behind a clear glass door, naked for the world to use. To think that drug use and addiction doesn’t lead to sexual exploitation of young women who experimented and became addicts is preposterous. Drug experimentation, especially if it is legal and thereby more common, will lead to junkies who are incapable of functioning…imagine your sister or daughter, addicted to drugs because of foolish college experimentation being abused by prostitution so that she can get the next dose she craves. Now imagine the source of that addiction was legal and you hand no recourse to intervene for her good and for her life.

-Some time back PBS did interviews with drug addicts in Europe, who, thanks to their society’s permiscuous goodwill gave them clean needles and cleanly refined heroin. Though they were no longer in the same danger they were in in the streets from gangs and unclean product, they were still addicts, incapable of being the people they were raised and capable of being.

-I was shocked to see that Pat Buchannon even endorsed drug legalization. Of course Buchannon also argued that the US would eventually bring in Quebec as the 51^st state, and Greenland as well. Good grief. Of course, if the US thinks it is well and good to allow mothers to abort, or terminate, the lives of their young, forming children then allowing profit maximizing companies to peddle addictive, mind-altering drugs is not unreasonable.

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/20090327_Christine_M__Flowers__Legalize_drugs__Far_out__dude___