The difference is that nobody is arguing that laws against murder are unjust. In addition, the laws regarding drug use incarcerate people for victimless crimes, a category that murder, by definition, cannot be in. You keep likening nonviolent drug users (the people I argue should not be jailed) to murderers when the analogy just doesn't hold up. Murderers have been convicted of killing another person, nonviolent drug users are hurting nobody but themselves.
Andy... things are unjust are just "because we say they are." right? i mean you say they're unjust...but there are millions of others who say they're very just. while i tend to agree that we have overcriminalized the drug trade...i don't think it's necessarily unjust. unwise? sure. though, even that's opinion. but unjust? says who? me?? you??
No. There is an extremely LARGE body of literature concerning the poor/minorities and their rates of prosecution for murder vs that of rich/whites. Its the exact same argument. Further, more of the arguments you make, like police lying etc, are duplicated on this subject. Its really simplistic to argue that NV drug users hurt no one but themselves when they are passing $ to criminal organizations that do engage in violence. Without that cash the organizations, which engage in substantial violence, would wither away and disappear. In addition it is ridiculous to say that most incarcerated drug felons are people who got caught smoking bowls in the living rooms. Not true. Besides which, arguments of scope (murder is worse than illegal drug trade) are irrelevant to the justness of the law. Either it is or is not ok to ignore the law if it is unjust. The principle you advocated earlier is that an unjust law (which you define as a law unfairly and unequally enforced) should be ignored. If this were true then the laws on murder are also unjust (unfairly and unequally enforced), and should be ignored (according to you). I disagree.
Injustices created by prohibition: 86% of the people incarcerated for drug crimes are black or brown. People in excruciating pain cannot get pain medication prescribed because doctors fear that the DEA will raid their practices and shut them down without so much as a trial. City deputized officials arrested for distributing mar1juana to sick and dying patients under medical mar1juana laws passed in the state. Eradication programs that fumigate vast swaths of Columbia and Peru with fungicide not approved for use in the US due to dangerous and deadly side effects. Interdiction programs that shoot down planes over Brazil, Columbia, Bolivia, and Peru without warning or proof that the planes carry drugs. This program claimed the life of a missionary and her infant child just 18 months ago. There were no drugs on board. One-third of the African-Americans between 18 and 24 in the US are under the supervision of the criminal justice system (in jail, on parole, or on probation). People are forced to work with no pay while the prison where they work makes profit from their labor. Drug addicts sent to jail to become criminal drug addicts instead of treatment facilities where they can actually be helped. Corrupt police, judges, prosecutors, Customs officials, and DEA agents planting evidence, arresting innocent people, taking payoffs, and killing people. Politicians making laws that criminalize behavior that the politicians themselves have engaged in. Overdoses and cross reactions that could be avoided if the products were regulated and the taking of those products was not a criminal act, making people hesitant to go to the hospital. DEA trying to expand its rules to ban food products specifically exempted by Congress from the Controlled Substances Act (hemp food and oil). Thousands of people accused of drug crimes murdered without trials in Thailand since February. Laws passed that criminalize ownership of several perfectly legal off the shelf products that could potentially be used to make methamphetamines. DEA agents threatening the owners of an Elk Lodge with a quarter million dollar fine and jail time if a single person is caught with drugs at a medical mar1juana rally. Hundreds of people killed because of no-knock raids in which the wrong door was kicked in. Assets seized without trials and kept despite the lack of any criminal indictment or conviction. Judges who limit the defense a person can use, disallowing "medical necessity" defenses. Marines shooting and killing American citizens without so much as a warning shot and without finding any drugs. Racial profiling. US funding of a Columbian civil war despite the scathing indictment of the Columbian government's ties to right-wing death squads. Federal officials breaking state election laws to help defeat voter initiatives for medical mar1juana and decriminalization. Poor students denied federal aid for drug law violations. CPS attempting to seize children because the mother smokes mar1juana. Widespread AIDS and Hepatitis outbreaks due to lack of needle exchange programs and, in some cases, criminalized syringe sales. 55 people arrested for selling parephernalia over the internet. People indicted and arrested for educating potential jurors as to their right of jury nullification. Prosecutors seizing money brought in to bail out a prisoner based on an alleged "smell of pot." And all of that is from scanning news stories collected THIS CALENDAR YEAR. Unjust may be in the eyes of the beholder, but if you behold this list, how can you claim the drug war is a just policy?
andymoon So you are saying that HUNDREDS of people have been killed due to no-knock raids and that this info has been gathered from news stories in this calendar year? Do you have a link to this stat? I understand there was a high profile case in which an elderly woman suffered a heart attack as a result of a no-knock raid, but I find it hard to believe that HUNDREDS have been killed due to this, especially in this calendar year as the last line of your post indicates.
You are missing my point here. Nobody would claim that criminalizing murder is unjust. A murderer is someone to be punished in virtually everyone's eyes, with the possible exception of the murderer. In addition, nobody would argue that the murderer has not hurt anyone and by the same token, almost no one would claim that a murderer shouldn't be punished. Police lying to gain a conviction in a murder case are relatively few and far between these days as the forensic evidence has reached the point that police testimony and eyewitnesses generally take a back seat to DNA, fingerprints, and ballistics. In drug cases, the defendant is almost always convicted solely based on the testimony of the undercover cop who busted them. There is much more potential for abuse in drug cases than murder. Of course, this is just one more example of the idiocy of prohibition. Prohibition cedes control of the vast profits available in drug sales to criminal organizations. With a regulated market, the cash from the drug sales would be taken out of the hands of criminals and would be given to the government and legitimate businesses. The argument of the scope of the law does come into play when you look at the vast numbers of people incarcerated by prohibition vs. the miniscule number of people incarcerated for murder. In addition, there is a justifiable reason for wanting murderers off of the street as opposed to the nonviolent drug user whose mistake was buying a rock from the wrong guy. Murderers are violent, predatory animals who should be off the street just like rapists, child molesters, burglers, embezzlers, and con artists. Drug users are people who have made a bad choice as to the intoxicants they use and would be better served by drug treatment and education than prison. Prison only teaches them to be a criminal.
Sorry, the headline was from this year, but hundreds have not been killed this year. Since we have started the drug war, however, hundreds have been killed in no knock raids and if you want them documented, I can do so when I get home. There is a book called "Shattered Lives" that documents hundreds of innocent people killed by drug warriors. BTW, out of that whole list, you are picking out one example? I guess that since you found one misstatement, the rest of the list is moot.
No the list is not necessarily moot, I have not yet carefully considered or looked into any of the other items. That one just stuck out like a sore thumb, especially considering that none of the articles I saw concerning the woman who died of a heart attack mentioned this seemingly unbelievable number. It would seem to me that this number would be mentioned prominantly in any article concerning a no-knock raid fiasco.
You do the crime, you do the time. Pure and simple. Original by Hayes. Andymoon, I'm with you on the whole drug war bs. I'm embarrassed that when I repeated Hayes little ditty (which I'm sure he regrets) that you thought I was agreeing with it. That will teach me to be clearer when I'm quoting someone.
I decided I would make my own list. These are things that would not happen if people did not chose to break the law and participate in drug ingestion, distribution, etc. 100% of the people incarcerated for drug crimes would not be incarcerated for drug crimes. Not even the black, brown, or blue ones. Eradication programs that fumigate vast swaths of Columbia and Peru, that take place with the permission of the sovereign governments, with fungicide not approved for use in the US due to dangerous and deadly side effects would not happen as there would be no market for illegal drugs. Interdiction programs that shoot down planes over Brazil, Columbia, Bolivia, and Peru without warning or proof that the planes carry drugs would cease. There would be no need as there would be no market. People would not be forced to work for free in prison. They wouldn't be in prison. Poor students wouldn't be stupid enough to risk their financial aid by getting caught with drugs. Mothers would be stupid enough to risk custody of their kids by getting caught using ILLEGAL drugs. Overdoses and cross reactions that could be avoided if the products were not taken since they are illegal. Also they are dangerous apparently, furthering the justification to make them illegal. The Grand Pooh-Bah at the ol Elk Lodge would not have to worry about a large fine because he wouldn't be holding a rally where people are engaging in illegal conduct. These are just a few of the things you would not see if people did not make the conscious choice to break the law. Is that all drug related? Drug addicts sent to jail to become criminal drug addicts instead of treatment facilities where they can actually be helped. Corrupt police, judges, prosecutors, Customs officials, and DEA agents planting evidence, arresting innocent people, taking payoffs, and killing people. So if a politician speeds he shouldn't vote for a speed limit? If you're talking about Bush, this behavior was criminalized long before he came along. Who cares! So you can't have your hemp nougat bar. Don't you have anything better to complain about? Most hemp food tastes like crap anyway. It was the black helicopters, wasn't it? I'm sure no one used them to make methamphetamines before this effort was launched. Which the Supreme Court has ruled is Constitutional, as it is in RICO cases. Like the NJ State police who handed out tickets to blacks disproportionally? I guess that wouldn't happen if drugs were legalized? US supporting the government against FARC, a leftist terrorist group is hardly a bad thing. Is it a good thing for people to tell jurors to ignore the law? I don't think so. No, you are missing the point. I took your criteria for deciding whether a law was 'unjust' and hence 'should be ignored,' and applied it to another law to see if it was something that would make sense to use or not. It wasn't. You criteria was that a law that is 'unfairly or unequally applied' should be ignored. The case with murder clearly shows that your criteria is not one we should should use. The majority does not believe that the drug user/dealer/grower is not hurting anyone, nor that they shouldn't be punished. That is why its still illegal. Wrong. Eye witness testimony is still the number one factor in conviction. AND IRRELEVANT. Statistically the problem of conviction rates being higher in murder and drug cases (and probably all other cases as well) makes them a good for comparison of your criteria. Irrelevant. The question is whether or not someone who contributes to the criminal element is contributing to violence or not. The answer is yes, hence, your arguments about 'non-violence' go away. In addition, there are plenty of laws that are necessary that do not involve violence. The absence of it (although I'm not conceeding that) is not justification for ignoring the law. In your opinion. In the majority opinion they do not want the drug user buying, selling, or growing drugs. In the system we are in, that is the way it goes. You, like many other people with many other causes, think you can ignore a law you don't like, and THAT is the deathknell of our system. So you say. Can't the same argument for education and rehabilitation be made for EVERY criminal? But again that is IRRELEVANT to whether or not it is 'just' for them to be in prison. Who DOESN'T know using, dealing, or growing/making drugs is illegal? It is 'just' for them to be in jail because they knowingly ignored the law, an embodiment of what society says is, and is not acceptable. As such society is justified in punishing them.
Thank you for proving the point I make regularly that people who support prohibition have no justifiable arguments. You have taken the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people and turned it into a joke, which is what your list is, a joke. The fundamental law at play here is the law of economics. Simple supply and demand, a concept most of us heard of in 8th grade and learned something about in college dictates that as long as you have demand, the supply will be there. Thirty years of the WOD policy and 2 million people incarcerated proves that we are not going to jail our way out of this problem. People are going to choose their intoxicants themselves, despite the sanctions leveled against them and the only way to change that is by changing the way we approach this problem. People. in general, get addicted to drugs when they are young and impressionable, during the years when they do not have the capacity to make rational, informed decisions. Add to that the mixed messages young people get, hearing that pot will ruin your life and drive you insane from DARE officers and then seeing their friends apparently having fun and not going insane. Continue by adding in the black market that would rather sell to kids for a variety of reasons and you have half of our children trying illegal drugs before they leave high school. The vast majority of the increase in our criminal justice system is related to drugs so yes, the majority is drug related. You are talking about the difference between a speeding ticket and going to prison here. If a politician has done drugs, I think it is highly hypocritical to then go on to support laws that would have put them in jail had they been caught. I love it when people prove how ignorant they are on this subject. The hemp food ban is only one in a huge list of abuses perpetrated in the name of prohibition. FYI, hemp oil is one of the most nutritious oils in existance, it can be processed easily to run deisel engines, and could be a potential replacement for petrochemical based plastics. If you expand the discussion to hemp as an agricultural product, it makes textiles that are much sturdier and longer lasting than anything made of cotton, it is a totally renewable resource that actually puts nitrogen back in the soil to help replenish after growing corn or wheat, and 1 acre of hemp makes as much paper every year as 10 acres of 10 year growth timberland. If we allowed industrial hemp, we could stop giving farm subsidies and instead allow those farmers to raise a crop that is profitable ($600 per acre for the seeds alone). The above was in reference to the Thai government's new policy of murdering drug users and dealers without a trial. BTW, our government just gave them drug war money to help them kill more, too. Over 2000 Thailanders (what is the proper reference, Thai, Thais???) have been killed since February. It has been out in the open and reported by Amnesty International, among other human rights groups. http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/291/thaidemos.shtml It is when the death squads funded by US dollars go into a village alleged to have ties to FARC and kill everyone, including women and kids. It has happened over and over again and despite being lambasted by our own internal investigations for human rights abuses, we continue to fund their war. This year, however, they can use the money we give them to directly fight the civil war instead of being limited to anti-drug operations. Wasn't it you earlier in this thread that claimed that if society didn't want drug use to be illegal that the juries should just rebel and not convict people? If so, then the juries should be aware that they have that right. EDIT: It wasn't you, so I am going to add to this. Jury nullification is path that juries have used in our legal system since the 1700s, when John Peter Zenger was charged with printing seditious libels of the Governor of the Colony of New York, William Cosby in 1735. "Despite the fact that Zenger clearly printed the alleged libels, the only issue the court said the jury was open to decide as the truth or falsity of the statements was ruled to be irrelevant, the jury returned with a verdict of "Not Guilty." Jury nullification appeared at other times in our history when the government has tried to enforce morally repugnant or unpopular laws. In the early 1800s, nullification was practiced in cases brought under the Alien and Sedition Act. In the mid 1800s, northern juries practiced nullification in prosecutions brought against individuals accused of harboring slaves in violation of the Fugitive Slave Laws. And in the Prohibition Era of the 1930s, many juries practiced nullification in prosecutions brought against individuals accused of violating alcohol control laws." Information quoted from http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/nullification.html More details at http://www.njweedman.com/history_of_jurynullification.htm No reasonable person would ever attempt to make the claim that a law against murder is unjust. I said that the drug war is unjust and that is ONE of the reasons that the LAWS NEED TO BE CHANGED. The majority doesn't know what the true harms of drugs are because if we had a true honest comparison of the harms created by drugs versus the harms created by prohibition, the law would change in a hurry. This response makes no sense at all. You have not addressed the serious problem of testi-lying in drug cases (so well illustrated by the Tulia case) or in the fact that police corruption has reached proportions seen in our country's other failed experiment with prohibition. You can say irrelevant all you like, what it comes across as is that you don't have a logical argument to counter with. The point is that the black market and violence that goes with it is a harm caused by PROHIBITION, not by the drugs themselves. You seem to think that I use drugs, a mistaken assumption. I hardly even drink alcohol (though I may put that on hold since we will be in Vegas next week...I'll drink FREE alcohol). It has very little to do with ignoring, most people who use drugs, especially the hard drugs that get you felony convictions, are hooked when they are kids and so have very little actual CHOICE in the matter. It is proven by every study done on the topic. Education is the one thing that is proven to have a positive effect on rates of drug use. High school graduates are 3 times less likely to use illicit drugs than non graduates and college graduates are 10 times less likely to use than high school graduates. Society is not justified in punishing criminals that are created by that same society. We have prohibition, which guarantees a black market. We tell teens not to use ANY drugs because they will all kill you (and we even have special commercials about how evil mar1juana is). Once the teens see their friends smoking pot without killing themselves or anyone else, it becomes OK for them to do it. Unfortunately, the only place to get pot is the same guy who would rather that their customers buy cocaine, heroin, or meth because the profit margin is better. With this policy, our children will get addicted and die at the same rate every year until we wake up and create a rational drug policy for this nation. It has been the same for the last 30 years and it will remain the same for the next 300 if we continue to be duped by the propaganda. You think deficits are bad now, wait until we have 10 or 20 million in jail.
Thank you for proving the point I am making, which is that you refuse to recognize any contradictory points of view because you've made up your mind and have tunnel vision on the subject. Several times, in this thread alone, I have said prohibition was counterproductive. Yet you insist on dismissing my points because I 'support prohibition.' You are simply wrong. Uh, yes. Part of the WOD is education, no? That would target the 'demand,' right? DARE, Just Say No, those were education campaigns, right? (spare me the 'its unsuccessful' response, since that is not relevant to your condescending 'eighth grade' crack - no pun intended). That could be true. I have staunchly supported the end of the WOD in its current form. However, that is irrelevant to whether it is 'just' for someone who breaks the law to be put in prison. My point is that it IS just to put someone in prison for breaking the law. You simply cannot come to grips with this. This is too gross a generalization to respond to. The average suburban kid has a much different life experience than the average inner city kid, for example. The suburban kid, like yourself, probably has a pretty good idea of the effects of drugs, despite whatever mixed messages they get. The average inner-city kid probably has some first hand view of what a crackhead looks like. They might not think pot is bad for you, but that does not mean they can disregard the law because they are young. You make my point. The stat you used is NOT attributable to prohibition. You've just slopped together statistics from different sources. Life is full of hypocrisy. That doesn't mean we disregard laws that politician break, nor that we don't make law society wants because politicians also make mistakes. I love it when someone assumes they are the only person to has read up on the subject. Take of your Jack Herer t-shirt off and wake up. Your complaint was that certain foodstuffs were being banned (attempted bans). I answered that. Allowing industrial hemp is a different point altogether. And the assumptions you gloss over are telling. Even if prohibition were reversed, there is no propensity for hemp to replace petroleum, nor other cash crops. Even if WOD was totally dismantled, other market forces would prevent this from happening. Wow. We gave them money and said 'go kill some more people?' I don't think so. But once your in this deep its hard to see policies with any objectivity. Glynch has the same problem. It doesn't really do your credibility any good, and it doesn't advance your argument. If you do research on FARC you'll find they are worse than the death squads. The greater of two evils. They kill just as the death squads do, and they do it just as ruthlessly and heinously. They also destroy infrastructure, among other things, that cripples the daily lives of everyday Columbians. Not just oil export related infrastructure either. Things like electricity plants, water facilities. Even glynch doesn't support FARC. Interesting but irrelevant. Supporting jury nullification is illegal because it undermines society’s right to make the laws. The jury's function in society is to decide whether or not a citizen has broken the law, not to make law. That is the legislatures job. If a law is unpopular in the eyes of society then the solution is to retract the law, not to subvert the system and abuse the process. You can requalify your criteria if you want. No problem on that. But let us not see you say again that a law unequally applied is an unjust law, and therefore should be ignored. As I have pointed out, the people you talk about still committed their crimes. Someone else getting off does not exonerate them from their crime. It makes no sense to you because you don't want to see any contradictory points. You claimed eye witness testimony was not prevalent in murder cases because DNA etc. I said you are flat out wrong. And you are. That makes sense as a counterargument, no? You say X. I say X is not true, therefore you are wrong. Get it? If the standard to ignore a law is that the enforcement is unequally applied (by whatever method, be it letting the rich go, or lying to convict the poor), then we would also be justified in ignoring practically ALL of our laws. THAT is not a desirable criteria. Understand? Your criteria is bad. Uh, no. You just ignore the argument. Does prohibition contribute to violence? Certainly. Does giving your money (not you Andy) to a drug dealer contribute to violence? Yes. Both of these can be true at the same time. You don't see it because the evil of prohibition blinds you to any counter argument. Where do I say anything about you using drugs? Where do I insinuate that? You don’t get to use your stock answers on me, my friend. You might think like someone who used too many drugs, but I never said that (before now). In other places you say most of the use starts in their teens, when they see their friends smoking pot. Your timeframes are massively skewed according to which point you are arguing. Nice advantage. First you say they get hooked when they see the education is really misinformation. Then you say its when they are kids and don’t have a choice, don’t have the capability to ‘make a rational choice.’ I’m afraid you’re selling high school’ers way short. I thought most people got hooked on drugs early in their childhood? Would high school come AFTER that? This is a good example of you mixing and matching your answers. How is it that with all this misinformation education (DARE/Just Say No) people still use drugs LESS the MORE the are exposed to society’s misinformation? Oops. Sorry, but again you create a criteria that if used is a recipe for disaster. Is it not true that our capitalist society creates the classes, and that the socio-economically disadvantaged are in prison because of their poverty, lack of education etc? Should we release all those in prison that are from low income areas, for example? No is the answer. Again the method you use to decide whether WOD is just or not is flawed. This is contradictory to your statements about (a) use starting early – now you say its in their teens, and (b) that high school education is a determinant in staying away from drugs. My answer to you has two components. Neither of which is that prohibition is good. First, society has the right to make laws prohibiting actions of the individual that is determines is wrong, or bad for society. Individuals within that society may ignore those laws, but also must be held accountable if they do (you do the crime, you do the time). Second, buying/selling drugs is not a right. Why you buy those drugs is irrelevant to the ‘justness’ of the law. All but those ‘hooked’ as a ‘child’ fall outside your defense. Dealers and growers break the law for profit. Many of those end up in prison. Their actions are bad for society. It is not ‘right’ for those people to ignore the law. It is not ‘unjust’ to put those people in jail.
One very important point. If young white kids of around high school and college age were to be suddenly incacerated at the same rate as beaners and negros. The drug laws in this country would dissapear overnight. Any politician would be committing political suicide by supporting WOD. But since they aren't, then it won't, and we can keep on with the glorious american way of life. Carry on.
