Life sentence for pot conviction. When will the madness end?

[dtugg]

If you mean about alcohol, you're right, and I clearly explained why.

That doesn't even make any sense. Are you high now?

You're a liar. You left perfectly sensible questions unanswered. Presumably because you can't without becoming a hypocrite.

 

[Taarkin]

Calling drugs and prostitution "victimless" in one fell swoop is so absurd I don't know where to start. Go hang around some crack/heroin addicts or whores - and you may find that they don't exactly tend to specialize in having fulfilling, happy lives. And what about their families and friends? No victims? Riiiight.
And these are things you want to encourage?

Since many of those problems stem from the fact that the drugs are illegal, YOU are the one encouraging them.
Do you think everything that might have bad side effect should be illegal?

Please, point to where I said I think I "have a right to control others' lives."

"This guy was busted for breaking the law and selling illegal drugs several times over. It's a no-brainer to send him to jail. If he'd been selling muscle relaxers instead of pot, it'd still be a no-brainer."

 

[NewtonTrino]

I love this thread and want to participate more but I'm heading to Vegas and I'm NOT taking my laptop for once.

Overall I would say that I think a huge number of people in this thread are authoritarian thugs. It's no surprise to me though, I'm way into liberty

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

I actually don't mind there being a punishment for selling drugs, as long as they are illegal which they should not be, simply because they are profiting off the high prices created by a cruel and unjust drug war.

Any punishment should be proportional to the crime, however. Prison makes no sense because a pot dealer is not a threat that needs to be locked up. Seizure of drugs/cash, fines, and probation/community service proportional to the amount of money believed to be involved wouldn't be unreasonable. The whole shebang would still be immoral because the black market could be easily destroyed and many lives saved by legalization.

But punishing users or personal-use cultivators? Abominable.

 

[bigred]

You're a liar. You left perfectly sensible questions unanswered. Presumably because you can't without becoming a hypocrite.

More senseless dribblings. I neither lied nor was hypocritical in any way. Get over it, put the crack pipe down and get back to us when/if rationality kicks in. I won't acknowledge you further until such a time. Nor will I hold my breath waiting for it to happen,

Since many of those problems stem from the fact that the drugs are illegal, YOU are the one encouraging them.

Really? Me??? Golly, I don't recall outlawing any drugs. I apparently have an awful lot more authority than I thought. My memory must also be one HELL of a lot worse than I thought. Maybe someone was slipping pot into my brownies, the bastages.

Do you think everything that might have bad side effect should be illegal?

Do you always make such ridiculously gross oversimplifications?

It would seem this thread is attracting crackheads like ants at a picnic.

 

[Taarkin]

Really? Me??? Golly, I don't recall outlawing any drugs. I apparently have an awful lot more authority than I thought. My memory must also be one HELL of a lot worse than I thought. Maybe someone was slipping pot into my brownies, the bastages.

You support policies which result in or exacerbate those problems.

Do you always make such ridiculously gross oversimplifications?

You think drugs should be illegal because they have bad side effects, right?

 

[dtugg]

More senseless dribblings. I neither lied nor was hypocritical in any way. Get over it, put the crack pipe down and get back to us when/if rationality kicks in. I won't acknowledge you further until such a time. Nor will I hold my breath waiting for it to happen,

If I were an irrational crackhead, you could show it by attacking what I said rather than attacking me. But you have no rational arguments to anything I said so you you have to pretend that I am a stupid drug addict to make yourself feel better. I can't say that I am surprised.

The fact of the matter is that even if I was a drug addict (I am not although I might have a slight alcohol problem. Do you think that alcohol should be illegal because of that?), I would still be way more rational than you.

 

[Taarkin]

Please, point to where I said I think I "have a right to control others' lives."

"This guy was busted for breaking the law and selling illegal drugs several times over. It's a no-brainer to send him to jail. If he'd been selling muscle relaxers instead of pot, it'd still be a no-brainer."
Those are words that you said.

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

Really? Me??? Golly, I don't recall outlawing any drugs.

If you support said prohibition it's just as bad. If prohibition is immoral (I believe it is), and you would enact it given the chance (i.e. it wasn't already enacted for you), that would make you immoral (in my opinion).

 

[Comrade Raptor]

I'd like to wade back in and clarify my position that, while I think MJ laws are ridiculous, I do not feel the same for all drugs.

Crack, cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. should still be controlled substances, IMO. Where MJ is different is that I can't think of any good reason why it's illegal in the first place, and it is this root that gives rise to my opinion on the matter and why laws need not be obeyed merely because they are laws. A law, to be valid, ought to have a good reason for existing.

I find this notably lacking where marijuana is concerned, and thusly find the laws regarding it to be rather silly.

Even then, I'd suppose that I'd be content with decriminalization instead of legalization, or would at least consider it a form of progress if it no longer met criteria for the "3 strikes" rules.

I have a problem with sending people away for life for an act which has, so far as I have been able to tell from all available evidence, no earthly business being illegal in the first place.

I mean, jeez, in terms of destructive power on society there's a better case to be made against gun ownership than pot use, and that's enshrined in its own special amendment.

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

Crack, cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. should still be controlled substances, IMO. Where MJ is different is that I can't think of any good reason why it's illegal in the first place, and it is this root that gives rise to my opinion on the matter and why laws need not be obeyed merely because they are laws. A law, to be valid, ought to have a good reason for existing.

I could support the sale/manufacture of some drugs being a crime. If something is so quickly and permanently addictive that one could easily be tricked or pressured into a lifetime of dependence on the substance then that's a dangerous thing to be spreading around in general. Could probably make a case against at least Meth and Heroin on those grounds.

Still, the use should never be criminal unless the stuff is so bad it makes you unable to distinguish right from wrong and practically guarantees someone getting hurt. Datura would probably fit that bill, maybe PCP but I really don't know much about that stuff.

 

[Comrade Raptor]

I could support the sale/manufacture of some drugs being a crime. If something is so quickly and permanently addictive that one could easily be tricked or pressured into a lifetime of dependence on the substance then that's a dangerous thing to be spreading around in general. Could probably make a case against at least Meth and Heroin on those grounds.

Still, the use should never be criminal unless the stuff is so bad it makes you unable to distinguish right from wrong and practically guarantees someone getting hurt. Datura would probably fit that bill, maybe PCP but I really don't know much about that stuff.

I'll tentatively agree with this because it's 5 AM and not all my pistons are firing. I'll cogitate over it and elaborate/contest if additional intelligible comments pop out of my brainpan.

 

[nvidiot]

Of course the actual addiction rates amongst users of any given drug, legal or illegal, and the physical harm caused by addicition to specific substances (aside from those caused by prohibitionary policies mind), is only rarely considered by those advocating simple legalisation of cannabis while retaining prohibition on other presently illegal drugs.

If these are the criteria for legalisation of certain substances and illegality of others, then the whole system is screwed up badly and not based on a rational methodology.

Most users of drugs, in fact the vast majority of users of drugs, are not addicts.

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

Most users of drugs, in fact the vast majority of users of drugs, are not addicts.

I agree, but if it can be demonstrated that a drug causes serious physical dependency with few exposures, and especially if that dependency is permanent, the case could be made that it ought be illegal to sell for the same reason that selling cyanide over-the-counter or marketing bleach as a beverage would be illegal. If you are dumb enough to drink bleach, or get tricked into it, I see no reason for punishing you for that, you've already pretty well punished yourself.

If there's a drug that's almost guaranteed to get someone hurt when used, that can be banned for the same reason we don't allow recreational land-mining or gasoline pouring. Datura is the only drug I know for sure fits this category.

 

[Puppycow]

Percentage of this comment that is relevent to the issue: 0%

Just imagine what it would cost to throw them all in prison.

 

[GeeMack]

FYI a heroin habit is expensive because DEALERS self righteous authoritarians who support prohibition think they have a right to control others' lives - and they're right. They can charge sick amounts of money for it and get it because that's how addictive heroin the economics of prohibition is.

Fixed that for you.

 

[shuize]

I posted this earlier, but I'd be interested to hear from the OP (who is posting from Japan) how much time he thinks a defendant would get on a fourth consecutive drug trafficking conviction in Japan?

 

[BenBurch]

I love this thread and want to participate more but I'm heading to Vegas and I'm NOT taking my laptop for once.

Overall I would say that I think a huge number of people in this thread are authoritarian thugs. It's no surprise to me though, I'm way into liberty

Have Fun!

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

A just law must be balanced, fair, sensible, and necessary.

Who decides whether a law meets that standard?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

There probably is some degree of subjectivity involved, but I do think there is a categorical difference between my approach that is based on the existence of civil and political rights sufficient to ensure that the legislative process is adequately representative, and yours, which seems to require that the legislative process produce results that you happen to agree with in every instance in order to qualify as legitimate.

But I guess all I can add is that, if you're sincerely convinced that our current government is morally illegitimate rather than just substantively wrong on occasion, then you're setting the bar way, way too high. By that standard, there never has been and probably never will be a legitimate government. That really isn't a very helpful standard.

You can't just take your ball and go home every time the system, by a fair majority vote, produces an outcome that you happen to disagree with. Sure, there are conceivable outcomes that, if not corrected, invalidate the legitimacy of government and our moral obligation to respect the outcome of the legislative process. The re-instantiation of slavery would be one. Genocide. As I've alluded to a couple of times already, I'm of the view that Japanese-Americans had no moral obligation to comply with the evacuation orders that were upheld in Korematsu. But the criminalization of marijuana, while it seems pointless to me, is so far from those extremes that the comparison is laughable. I've yet to see any acknowledgement from anyone arguing on your side of this issue that there has to be room in a pluralistic democratic society to accommodate a broad range of views that one may personally find repugnant. There's too much self-righteousness in a lot of political rhetoric these days, at all points on the political spectrum-- the view that my answers to questions of public policy are not only the most reasonable, but the only morally permissible answers, and anyone who disagrees is not just misguided but, as you put it, evil. I just don't think that attitude bodes well for the longevity of our society.

This.