None of my challenges have been inflamitory. The statements to samfisher were in response to some of his childish comments. Please point it out to me if you feel otherwise. I am asking a simple question, one that has yet to be answered. Sure, it may be a one sided question, but no more so then the other half of the "drug war" posts in the D&D. Thank you for you condolences. However, I did not know this man or his family. I did lose a close friend recently who was a firefighter, but that is not what I want to debate here (as I stated in my first post and several times since). Firefighter funerals, in most cases, are open to the public. If you can make time in your day, it will mean a lot to the family and I assure it will be something you never forget.
You challenged people to debate the merits of a policy you feel is wrong about drugs, while posting about a dead firefighter. If the guy had just been homeless and not a crack addict, would you still have posted the story?
Maybe not, but Jorge probably would have taken up the slack. He hates those bloodsucking homeless. Especially the homeless veterans.
Originally posted by rvolkin If this crack-head had gotten arrested, three children would still have their father and a wife would still have her husband. Andymoon, and others who think drug users dont need to be seperated from society, can you comment on how many more innocent deaths will occur under your proposed programs? How could anyone interpret this as inflamatory? It's obviously just a sincere request for information.
Based on this, I would argue that you have not actually had conversations with them about this issue. So far, I have encountered exactly one person (in person) who has said that we should continue on our present course of action. I have talked to literally hundreds of people from all walks of life, judges, police officers, criminal justice professors, firefighters, EMTs, teachers, and lawyers, and the only person who advocated for our current course of action was a politician (a Democrat). Out of 300 of the police chiefs surveyed, including chiefs of police of the top 50 cities (by population), 86% said we were not pursuing an appropriate course of action. If you count the chiefs of police of every single city, town, and village in the US, 300 would STILL be more than "1% of 1%." (1% of 1% would mean that there would be 3 million chiefs of police in the US, which I think is a bit high) I will not argue that the source of the article I posted was biased, I mean it did come from stopthedrugwar.com. However, I am quoting again from that same article: "While some may find these figures surprising, they are supported by a larger annual survey conducted by the National Association of Chiefs of Police (http://www.aphf.org). In one of a series of questions related to drug policy, that survey sent out to more than 22,000 police chiefs and sheriffs asks: "Has the national war on drugs, which has been ongoing for at least 15 years, been successful in reducing the use of illegal drugs?" In the last annual survey, a whopping 82.3% of respondents said no. Association spokesman Dennis Ray Martin told DRCNet that the latest annual survey, which is about to be released, will show a similar figure." That was a survey of 22,000 chiefs of police and it was conducted by the National Association of Chiefs of Police, not exactly the biggest bastion of anti-drug war propaganda that you are making it out to be. EDIT: Upon looking at that survey again, the 86% was mistaken. 84% of the 300 surveyed said that the drug war needs either "major changes" (47%) or a "fundamental overhaul" (37%).
In case you missed my answer: As to this particular event, it most likely would not have occurred in a regulated market. Let me explain. When cocaine was legal for anyone to buy, there were no such occurrences for a myriad of reasons. One reason was the methods that people used to ingest it. Most of the cocaine consumption was in beverages like Coca-Cola and Vin Mariani (a wine mixture). Crack cocaine was created by and for drug dealers so that they would have an easily measured, transported dose. The welcome side effect (from the dealer's point of view) is the increased high and the resulting higher incidence of addiction and craving. In a regulated market (talking purely about cocaine), we would see users revert to alternative, safer methods of ingestion over time (remember that it has taken a century for us to get to this point, so we will be talking about a long-term trend here, not an overnight change) and incidents like this would not happen.
I'm trying to figure out the argument here because it keeps changing to just barbs, let's try a means-ends analysis. specific desired ENDS: Stop idiots who start fires expanded desired ENDS: Stop catastrophes that occur due to poor judgement. rvolkin's argument for the MEANS is: Remove crackheads from society. Lets look at it from a cost benefit analysis 1) How many negligent acts that result in deaths, are directly caused by illegal drug use? I don't have the figures, but i think it would be a fair assumption to say definetly not the majority of illegal drug users. In the case at hand, how do we know that the crack addiction was the direct cause of the negligence? I've read that drug use in the US is actually not as high as some may be lead to believe. While some drug users may not have the best reason, how do we know that the drug use was a direct cause of their bad reason? Those who argue that drug use is a moral wrong, using their logic, the fact that they even started taking drugs, doesn't that mean that they had poor reason to begin with? 2) Is the cost of removing ALL the crackheads greater or less than all the damage that they COULD cause due to negligent actions directly caused by addiction? again, barring any constitutional argument about removing someone's life liberty and property, what are the direct monetary costs of removing them? places need to be built, maintained, people need to be arrested and then put to trial. So, how does this look like on paper on a cost benefit? If we look directly at lives lost, the average American is worth about $80,000 a year to the United States in productivity, taxes whatever, this is also assuming that the average person loses their life in such occurances. I don't like putting $ amounts on the life of a person, but if you are making a policy argument, this is how the government works. So, in order for rvolkin's proposal to work, the damages caused by losing the people must be greater than the cost of locking up all crackheads. X=average number of people's lives lost to due to negligent drug abusers Y equals cost of building all the facilities and maintaining it. Also equals lost opportunity costs in ventures that could have been pursued instead. (X*$80000) must therefore be greater than Y in order for policy to logically pass the cost benefit analysis. I have great doubts that that will be the case. Cost and maintenance alone will be larger than the damage. with so many questions unanswered, it doesn't seem to pass the end/means analysis nor does it pass the cost/benefit analysis. It also brings the question about if there are other better means to stop negligent deaths that pay off more or are cheaper to implement. If rvolkin can make this argument with the numbers, then he should write a letter to his congressman (actually he should write to him anyway). I'll be very interested if he can address all the concerns in the affirmative and show that society will truly benefit from his proposal. Until then, IMO, I think before the tragedy, rvolkin already had an opinion about the drug war, simply that its a moral wrong and those who partake in it should be removed from society. That's an opinion that he has the right to have and its not an unpopular one at all. However, its apparent that he has used this tragic event to argue that his belief is the right one without going through the proper logical steps to reach it. I think his intention is good, but the reasoning behind it doesn't quite follow. Here's an example of a similar argument: Girl X just got an STD from Guy Y because Guy Y contracted the disease from a prostitute. Therefore, to prevent the spread of STD's, prostitutes should be all be locked up for life. Drunk driver kills dear friend of Person X. If we bring back prohibition of alcohol, such accidents will never occur again. Policeman is killed by prostitute, crackhead with a gun. If we locked up all prostitutes, drug addicts and banned the use of firearms, three children would still have their father. In conclusion, are drugs a problem in society? yes, there are many that have moral issues with it, and there is direct evidence to show that some drugs are a contributing factor to some harms in society, both moral and direct. However, removing them from society is not a reasonable method that can be implemented in our current system.
Great response nyquil. Legalization and regulation of illicit drugs would save taxpayer money, remove a great burden upon our justice system, and deflate economic incentives in organized crime. However, with the government echoing paternalistic views from family groups, I doubt the majority of Americans will realize the consequences of taking highly addictive substanes. Places in Europe that experiment in legalization and to a certain extent San Fransisco hold a highly liberal and progressive environment that allows open education and research into these drugs. In other words, they know what they're getting into and can choose whether or not to get into it. Even with legalization and education on the national level, there is still a moral stigma that prevents unhindered education. Refer to sex ed for reference. My condolences to the fireman who died performing his duty.
