Asset Forfeiture: ACLU Sues DEA Over Trucker's Seized Cash

And I will keep saying it as long as you keep proving it. You haven't given any good reason for the continuation of this failed policy, but defend one of the most egregious wrongs that it has committed.

BRAINWASHED

 

EXCUSE ME?!?!?

I have spent the better part of two decades studying this issue dating from the time I was 17 and decided I could do the most good in this world helping addicts recover. I spent six years holding their hands while they suffered from delerium, tremors, and all manner of nasty behavior while they floundered, trying to recover from a condition that is not easy to deal with, either as a user or as friends and family.

I have seen this war from every perspective and, based on facts and available evidence, have decided that prohibition is the wrong way to approach the issue of drug use and abuse in our society.

I would match my programmed "drivel" against your slogans any day. I do note that you are not even trying to touch the larger issue of prohibition, instead choosing to make assumptions and dispute the definition (the very definition for Christ's sake) of "property."

It is not about this guy. It is about the fundamental shift in our collective mentality regarding the freedoms that some of us still hold dear.

It is about supporting a program that has had zero positive impact on our society after spending over a half trillion dollars.

It is about having the society with the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the world, in the country that claims to be the "land of the free."

It is not about MY ability to use drugs, I was offered jobs in both Amsterdam and Alaska and if simply using drugs was my agenda, I could easily have gone to either place, both of which at least tolerate the use of the only substance I think is safe enough to use.

Why don't you stop dishing out the insults that you are constantly blaming on "left wingers."

Why can't you realize that, though uncommon, it is not yet illegal to carry any amount of cash. You can make all the assumptions you like and cast all the aspersions you can think of, but all you are doing is assuming.

Who are you to judge someone else's choice of lifestyle? Who are you to judge a man guilty of wrongdoing based on the fact that he chooses to keep his money on him, as he has every right to do? It is interesting, but I thought that conservatives wanted to limit the reach of government into our private lives. At least, that is what I believed about conservatives at the same time that I voted for Bush's father.

Times have changed, so have conservatives.

He has PROOF in the form of pay stubs that the money is his. How can you possibly leap to the conclusion that his money is derive from illegal sources?

By the way, get back to me when you want to stop throwing insults, stop making assumptions, and start talking about the bigger issue.

 

That is part of it. Helping addicts ("junkie" is a pejorative usually applied to heroin users specifically, so I will use a more correct term) recover helped me to see that our drug policy should be centered around the healthcare system, not the criminal justice system.

What is sick is your ridiculous straw man. I want a system of strong regulation (like I described in this thread) that makes it somewhere beween difficult and impossible for kids to get drugs. I believe he primary law enforcement focus should be going after people who provide drugs to kids. Adults should be allowed to purchase and use based on the regulations that are appropriate for the substance in question.

Really on the insult roll, huh? Did you run out of any semblence of intelligent discussion?

More insults and straw men. I have not defended a single drug dealer in this thread or anywhere else that I know of. I have defended a man who you ASSUME is a drug dealer, despite significant eidence to the contrary.

How about 20 years of study, going throgh the classes to be a drug abuse counselor, doing a 500 hour internship on a gay/lesbian drug abuse unit, working on several drug abuse units over the corse of five years, reading 100+ books on the topic, and reading virtually every study about drug use and abuse that has been done over the last century plus?

Yes, they do. In fact, if we were basing our drug policy on how many people drugs kill, mar1juana would be regulated while alcohol and tobacco would not.

What we need is to minimize the harm done to our society by drug users and abusers. The only way to do that is to regulate a least some currently illegal drugs. Prohibition causes far more harm than drug use ever could AND it guarantees that our children will have ready access to drugs, as we have seen since over half of our young people have used illegal drugs before they leave high school in every year since that survey started in 1973.

They do make a difference. A negative one. Our massively stepped up enforcement efforts have resulted in no net drug use reduction as evidenced by the satistics that SAMSHA puts out. Over hlf of our young people use drugs before they leave hig school and that has been the case since Nixon coined the term "War on Drugs."

I challenge you to show any evidence whatsoever that interdiction and incarceration has had any positive impact at all.

When you don't have facts, I guess you can always fall back on insults.

I have provided plenty of facts and evidence and you have responded only with insults and "everybody knows" myths.

Come back and see me when you have a fact or two to discuss.

 

That is simply the tip of the iceburg. We only relatively recently started going after drug users with the "gusto" you say should be reserved for dealers and as a result, we have the highest rates of incarceration in the entire world (remember, this is the "land of the free").

In the system I would create, this would still be the case, but we would be going exclusively after people who deal to kids. Adults, once they have been educated as to the effects of drugs, should be allowed to purchase at least some of the currently illegal substances.

When you remove the VAST majority of drug users (adults) from the underground market, particularly for mar1juana, you will see the market for kids start to become minimized as well. This has been proven pretty conclusively in Holland, where their level of teen mar1juana use is half what we see here despite similar usage rates for adults.

I think that we have proven pretty conclusively, after thirty years and more than a trillion dollars, that interdiction will not work as a strategy. We need to find ways to minimize the negative impacts that drug use and abuse have on our society rather than continuing to tilt Quixotic at the "drug menace" windmill.

In the system I would create, if someone started purchasing quantities of drugs that indicate abuse, they would be offered treatment that would be paid for by the taxes on the very drugs they are consuming.

The taxes would also pay for a real system of education about drugs (way more than the "Just Say No" crap we have now) and efforts to reduce drug use by kids. One of the biggest statistical correlations between drug use and addiction is age of first use. The older one is when they start using psychoactives (alcohol included), the less likely they are to experience problem drug use later in life.

My startegy would be to concentrate on creating an environment where kids find it somewhere between difficult and impossible to acquire drugs, raising the average age of first use and over the course of time, reducing overall drug abuse.

Employers already know this. Just about all businesses (short of restaurants or other low-end jobs)do some kind of pre-employment background checks. As I mentioned above, in the system I would create, a problem drug user would be given treatment that would be paid for by the taxes on the very drugs he or she is consuming.

It is not my experience as a counselor that convinced me that drug interdiction is ineffective, it is my ability to analyze the facts.

Some facts:
Half of our young people use drugs before they leave high school and have every year since SAMSHA started the household use surveys in 1972.

Drug prices have fallen and purity has increased since Nixon coined the term "War on Drugs" in 1972. If interdiction was effective, price would be increasing, not decreasing.

We cannot keep drugs out of our maximum security prisons, which are supposed to be the most secure environments we can conceive of. That does not bode well for a 2500 mile border with Mexico, the thousands of miles of shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico, or anyplace else where drugs make it into our country.

In a study a couple of years ago, the students at a high school in Michigan reported that it is easier to get illegal drugs than alcohol.

Every study since the late 1800s that has taken on the issue of mar1juana (including the one that Nixon commissioned in 1970, only to ignore its findings) has suggested that it should be handled like alcohol and tobacco.


The facts are out there, NewYorker, and I encourage you to investigate them. When I started my career as a drug abuse counselor, I was firmly in the "kill all drug dealers and lock up the users until they clean up" camp. I studied the issue and found the strategy lacking and I suspect that if you investigate the issue, you will find the same.

I would be happy to suggest a number of resources if you are willing to open your mind just a little bit.