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Saturday, October 04, 2008
Canadians question Harper Conservatives' drug strategy
If Stephen Harper is serious about reducing violence and organized crime, he should be working towards repealing marijuana prohibition, not imposing minimum sentences for possession.
Red Deer's CHCA News has the story:
Posted by Kalim Kassam on October 4, 2008 in Crime | Permalink
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Comments
That news cast speaks for itself. The prohibition laws on Marijuana are assinine and inneffective. Just another form of control from the friendly folks in Ottawa.
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-04 3:48:09 PM
What the libertarian position on making your moonshine?
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-10-04 4:10:35 PM
That's why I will not bother to vote for Harper and he's the best of the bunch. The others are all hacks and commies on the other side.
I am 65 years old and I occasionally smoke pot because it helps me sleep and makes it possible for me to deal the usual aches and pains that come with old age.
I will not stand for going to jail even for a minute to please some idiotic social conservative agenda. And I am further to the right than Ronald Reagan on most issues. My right of center support stops where my personal freedom to choose what I ingest into my own body for my own well-being is being denied.
I am sure the big drug companies hate that they cannot corner the market on THC, but then god gave us that very useful drug for free now didn't he?
I prefer you don't legalize drugs, but just don't put good citizens in jail for the little social crime of smoking pot.
Go and take on the really bad drugs like crack, heroine, and the one that turns people into thieving zombies ... crystal meth.
This little bit of stupidity on your part will cost you the majority you need. And I am still pissed about the income trust lies you told us.
If a woman can have the right to kill her baby unchallenged, then I have the right to smoke a fucking joint.
Posted by: John V | 2008-10-04 4:34:43 PM
Moonshine? Well I would think you can just go right ahead and make all you can drink. However if you share it with someone and it kills them...
Your're going to jail.
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-04 4:35:01 PM
Actually Stig, let me qualify that a little better. If you give it to them without warning them that its home made hooch...you're responsible. If you tell them and they take it anyway....that's their choice.
Posted by: JC. | 2008-10-04 4:36:31 PM
Actually, John, the first drug company that could bring to market a legal, stink-free, easily administered form of THC--probably in an inhaler-type device similar to those now used for asthma--would make an absolute mint. But despite all the noise bruited about concerning medical marijuana, the great majority of pro-legalization advocates are baby-boom recreational users like yourself. Sorry, dude, Woodstock's over.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-04 5:47:50 PM
the great majority of pro-legalization advocates are baby-boom recreational users like yourself. Sorry, dude, Woodstock's over.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 4-Oct-08 5:47:50 PM
It isn't about Woodstock. Its about choice.
Something you seem to be dead against. Is it possible you are a die hard socialist and statist? What is it that makes you think you have any right whatsoever to control others?
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-04 6:22:11 PM
Jeez, I didn't know there was so many pot legalization supporters! Do you guys believe in age restrictions for pot use or is the idea of a 5 year old lighting up in sync with the libertarian viewpoint? On youtube, they had(about 1-2 months ago) a video where a 6-yr old was being given pot. Your thoughts? If you want to cut crime then(besides pot legalization) I have some suggestions. 1.) Let law-abiding citizens carry concealed weapons, 2.) Have the Canadian parliment pass a castle doctrine law(allows you to kill a home invader without being required to retreat first), 3.) Hang murderers and rapists, 4.) Long sentences and lousy prison conditions. Reintroduce chain gangs and put criminals to work on difficult public works projects(their work schedule can be six 12-hr days a week, any money they earn from these tasks is applied to the cost of their keep). The most troublesome can be sent to work in the territories or arctic region in particularly difficult jobs. Marijuana legalization doesn't make things better. Even the Dutch government is starting to rein in pot use. The real problem is that no previous prime minister(liberal or conservative) has really made an effort to attack crime. Instead, both the liberal and red tory prime ministers(that dominated the PC's like Mulroney,Clark, and Diefenbaker) have largely bought into the society's to blame garbage(more social spending). Theory is nice but true freedom is the right to walk the public streets without fear from anyone(criminals or dictatorial government).If the government ends its drug war but I still have gangs like MS-13 controlling my neighborhood streets and schools then in reality what personal freedom do I really have?
Posted by: jacob | 2008-10-04 7:15:32 PM
>>Actually, John, the first drug company that could bring to market a legal, stink-free, easily administered form of THC--probably in an inhaler-type device similar to those now used for asthma--would make an absolute mint. <<
If they would make an absolute mint, that implies that it would be very desirable. So why restrict the use of a plant that people obviously find useful and valuable and would be able to have without needing insurance, public health funding or debt-financed medical care, even if you don't believe self-ownership is reason enough to legalize?
Posted by: Janet | 2008-10-04 7:24:38 PM
>>Jeez, I didn't know there was so many pot legalization supporters! Do you guys believe in age restrictions for pot use or is the idea of a 5 year old lighting up in sync with the libertarian viewpoint?<<
No. It's not at all in sync with the libertarian viewpoint. Children are not rational decision makers, which is why they need to be cared for. Whether or not you'd want to treat giving pot to children as negligent or criminal behaviour or simply bad parenting is a different question altogether.
Posted by: Janet | 2008-10-04 7:27:55 PM
Jeez, I didn't know there was so many pot legalization supporters! Do you guys believe in age restrictions for pot use or is the idea of a 5 year old lighting up in sync with the libertarian viewpoint?
Posted by: jacob | 4-Oct-08 7:15:32 PM
This would fall under parental authority, decency and moral law. Since the child can't possibly know that it is being given a drug it might be fair to say it is a victim of both force and fraud. Two of the factors necessary to the commitment of any crime.
but I still have gangs like MS-13 controlling my neighborhood streets and schools then in reality what personal freedom do I really have?
Posted by: jacob | 4-Oct-08 7:15:32 PM
This is not the way it would stay if we as private citizens held the right to self defense.
I would suggest that if law abiding private citizens were able to carry a firearm for personal defense in a situation which demanded it, that the Darwin effect would soon kick in.
And "I'm guessing" crime in general would see all time lows within a 5 year period.
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-04 7:30:52 PM
>>1.) Let law-abiding citizens carry concealed weapons,<<
Absolutely.
>>2.) Have the Canadian parliment pass a castle doctrine law(allows you to kill a home invader without being required to retreat first),<<
I'd be careful here. Imho you should have reason to believe that your life is in danger without action before you can morally justify putting another's life at risk by taking that action.
>>Marijuana legalization doesn't make things better. Even the Dutch government is starting to rein in pot use.<<
The first sentence likely has very little to do with the second. I have a hard time thinking of any action that takes away a good reason for kids to associate with real criminals as anything but better than the current situation.
>>Theory is nice but true freedom is the right to walk the public streets without fear from anyone(criminals or dictatorial government).If the government ends its drug war but I still have gangs like MS-13 controlling my neighborhood streets and schools then in reality what personal freedom do I really have?<<
You have a different definition of true freedom than I do (public streets?? haha, sorry - I had to), but I see your point. There is plenty of evidence, though, that the MS-13s toted by gangs are largely paid for by drug trafficking. While ending the war on drugs might not end all gang violence, it would certainly make it harder to fund.
Posted by: Janet | 2008-10-04 7:44:22 PM
So why restrict the use of a plant that people obviously find useful and valuable...........
Posted by: Janet | 4-Oct-08 7:24:38 PM
A guy down the street from me has a ruptured disc in his back and is quite often in lots of pain. What do you think of him growing opium poppies to extract the opiate content for his bad back?
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-10-04 7:48:33 PM
I think about that Stig, the same way I think about this guy using prescription pain killers.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-10-04 8:05:36 PM
JC wrote: "It isn't about Woodstock. Its about choice. Something you seem to be dead against. Is it possible you are a die hard socialist and statist? What is it that makes you think you have any right whatsoever to control others?"
That's what abortionists say. I think we've established pretty definitively that the pros for marijuana are outweighed by the cons. And please don't use the tired device of comparing it to alcohol and tobacco, because neither is a psychotropic agent. Alcohol is a primitive depressant, but that's it.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-04 8:14:54 PM
Janet wrote: "If they would make an absolute mint, that implies that it would be very desirable. So why restrict the use of a plant that people obviously find useful and valuable and would be able to have without needing insurance, public health funding or debt-financed medical care, even if you don't believe self-ownership is reason enough to legalize?"
For that matter, Janet, why not legalize the opium poppy, the coca plant, and the curare tree? And whence this twisted idea that the best way to achieve self-ownership is to get completely stoned and thus totally at the mercy of whatever ne'er-do-well who chances by? I could find constructive uses for rocket-propelled grenades and a .50-calibre machine gun, I am sure.
Marijuana is a psychotropic drug; it is not the willow-bark equivalent of bottled Aspirin, or like using tea tree oil instead of iodine. And society has determined that it is in its best interest to minimize the number of people hopped up on mind-bending substances. To which the stoners can't seem to come up with any better response than "It's my body, and I'll toke if I want to, TOKE IF I WANT TO!!!"
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-04 8:25:33 PM
Right Shane: We can't have a free society. We can't have people doing whatever they want. We need a regimented, obedient-to-government society don't we? You and Hitler would've been good pals.
Posted by: attitude | 2008-10-04 8:30:21 PM
Janet wrote: "There is plenty of evidence, though, that the MS-13s toted by gangs are largely paid for by drug trafficking."
Unwittingly, you've touched on the heart of the matter, Janet. Because even if we legalize the weed up here, it will remain illegal in the U.S., and since most of the pot grown by organized criminals is destined for export anyway, and therefore the guns would continue to come north and the violence would go on as before.
By the way, there is no such gun as an MS-13. MS-13 is the name of a gang, not the name of a firearm. (Guns are my hobby.) Most gang-bangers pack .25-calibre pocket pistols because they are easily concealed (and have been illegal throughout most of North America since 1968, so don't think to resolve the matter with more gun control). A few of them have Glock 9-mms or even .40 S&Ws, but these are rarer because they can't be concealed as easily.
Janet wrote: "While ending the war on drugs might not end all gang violence, it would certainly make it harder to fund."
Stepping up enforcement would also work. Look what Guliani did for New York in the 1990s. In the 1970s, any lifelong New Yorker would laugh if someone told him that New York would one day be like it is now.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-04 8:34:14 PM
Janet wrote: "Children are not rational decision makers, which is why they need to be cared for."
Neither are many adults, Janet. Drug users being among the least rational of all. Unless you can come up with a logical reason to smoke a completely useless substance with the potential to destroy your life with absolutely no chance of improving your life, health, or security?
If you're using it medicinally, that's one thing. But most of the people advocating for legalization are stoners, not sick people.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-04 8:36:40 PM
I think about that Stig, the same way I think about this guy using prescription pain killers.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 4-Oct-08 8:05:36 PM
So the guy that said he smoked pot to relive aches and pains can't use Tylenol? Or is it an excuse to get stoned?
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-10-04 8:37:51 PM
Janet, MS-13 is a gang(originally composed of Latin American immigrants) that started in the United States but is now setting up shop in Canada's cities. My point was that in neighborhoods and towns that are infested by MS-13, biker gangs, or large numbers of individual criminals what true freedom do I have if they control the space outside of my home? I am a tax-paying citizen who has a right to be able to walk outside of my home free of fear or harrassment. My tax money pays for the upkeep of the street, sidewalk, streetlight, and nearby park. Therefore, I feel that I am more than entitled to walk through these places whenever I feel like. If the government legalizes drugs but I still live in a warzone am I really any more free than I was before parliment's vote?
Posted by: jacob | 2008-10-04 8:41:00 PM
This is such a load of BS that the crime will end if we just legalize pot. What then of the distribution of herion and cocaine and crystal meth.
Oh let me guess we need to legalize that too eh?
Where dos it stop folks?
Posted by: Merle | 2008-10-04 8:41:14 PM
That's what abortionists say. I think we've established pretty definitively that the pros for marijuana are outweighed by the cons. And please don't use the tired device of comparing it to alcohol and tobacco, because neither is a psychotropic agent. Alcohol is a primitive depressant, but that's it.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 4-Oct-08 8:14:54 PM
You've completely avoided the question.
What makes you think you have a right to tell anyone how they should live? Are you a socialist?
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-04 8:51:59 PM
This is such a load of BS that the crime will end if we just legalize pot. What then of the distribution of herion and cocaine and crystal meth.
Oh let me guess we need to legalize that too eh?
Where dos it stop folks?
Posted by: Merle | 4-Oct-08 8:41:14 PM
It stops when we get pro active. It will never stop the way it is now. That's been proven over and over and its proven again every day.
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-04 8:54:05 PM
You actually asked two questions, JC.
First: I have the right to tell someone how to live if their choice of lifestyle negatively affects me. As the saying goes, your right to swing your fist stops at my head.
Second: No, I'm not a socialist. Just someone who doesn't like selfish, immature nihilists who would rather fund organized crime, along with all the murders, grow-rips and electricity thefts, than give up a ludicrously minor piece of their lifestyle. If you don't believe in blood for oil, JC, why do you believe in blood for pot?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-04 8:57:56 PM
JC wrote: "It stops when we get pro active. It will never stop the way it is now. That's been proven over and over and its proven again every day."
I guess we should give the war on crime up as unwinnable too, eh? That's the problem with the legalization movement--its advocates have clearly not put much depth of thought into their musings. Instead they think up something that would be "really cool" and then try to come up with quick rationalizations. If you look fast, they look lucid. But scratch the surface and you'll find a whole lot of nothing.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-04 8:59:39 PM
"So the guy that said he smoked pot to relive aches and pains can't use Tylenol? Or is it an excuse to get stoned?" -- The Stig
It might be an excuse, but none should be required.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-10-04 9:15:43 PM
Matthew wrote: "It might be an excuse, but none should be required."
Says who and based on what?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-04 9:17:44 PM
Shane, I'll be in Northern Ireland next week to scatter my father's ashes. He was born in Belfast and lived on and off throughout his life in a tiny fishing village called Annalong, where his ashes will be scattered and a headstone erected in a family plot. After a lifetime of alcohol abuse that robbed him of literally everything -– his health, family and career -- he died this year in Edmonton late in the summer of alcohol toxicity. The coroners report revealed he had 3 times the legal blood alcohol level in his body.
Alcohol may be a primitive sedative, but it is a devastating drug, especially compared to marijuana, which is relatively benign with no known toxicity level. But benign or not, I don’t use marijuana – and the case against prohibition doesn’t rest on the dangers associated with any particular drug, at least not for me. It rests, in part, of the assumption that the harm associated with these drugs can be reduced by bringing the trade and consumption within the law. Ending prohibition will reduce the harm associated with drugs, harm both to users (overdose, disease, exposure to violence) and to non-users (exposure to crime, misallocation and corruption of law enforcement, draconian laws like asset forfeiture that hurt everyone).
Regardless of how I feel about the devastating impact of alcohol on society (I don’t normally offer personal anecdotes), you won’t hear me come out in favour of the prohibition of this or any drug.
Drugs are bad. Prohibition is worse.
I wrote that opposition to prohibition rests, in part, on the harm reduction principle. It also rests on the idea of self-ownership, which assumes that what you do with your body is your business, even if you insist on making tragic decisions. (And "no", our public healthcare system does not nullify the right to self-ownership. That would make slaves of us all.)
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-10-04 9:33:21 PM
Merle wrote: "This is such a load of BS that the crime will end if we just legalize pot. What then of the distribution of herion and cocaine and crystal meth.
Oh let me guess we need to legalize that too eh?
Where dos it stop folks?"
Keep in mind that hard-core drug dealers often use pot to hook young kids onto other more harmful drugs, which (unlike pot) are quite physically addictive.
Removing marijuana from the criminal sphere would be devestating to criminal gangs and the drug trade.
Posted by: Jeremy Maddock | 2008-10-05 12:30:36 AM
“I am 65 years old and I occasionally smoke pot because it helps me sleep and makes it possible for me to deal the usual aches and pains that come with old age.”
Let me tell you John V,
A government wishing to send 65 years old taxes payers to jail for smoking pot should not have the right to even exist. Who do they think they are?
I would like to offer my condolences to the Johnston’s family.
Posted by: Marc | 2008-10-05 7:21:03 AM
Which political party is in favour of legalizing pot? If it's such a critical issue and so urgently needs to be made legal one would expect one of the parties would use it to ride to power.
Posted by: Liz J | 2008-10-05 7:37:43 AM
...just a question to all the pot smokers here.
How do you intend on controlling the smoke so it doesn't invade my privacy at home?
Please don't mention about BBQ's or farting, you toke more than I expunge.
Posted by: tomax7 | 2008-10-05 8:53:48 AM
Attitude (predictably) wrote: "We can't have a free society. We can't have people doing whatever they want. We need a regimented, obedient-to-government society don't we?"
In an absolutely free society, Attitude, I agree, you'd be free to smoke marijuana. And you must agree I'd be free to lop your head for smoking it.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-05 9:18:39 AM
I guess we should give the war on crime up as unwinnable too, eh? That's the problem with the legalization movement--its advocates have clearly not put much depth of thought into their musings. Instead they think up something that would be "really cool" and then try to come up with quick rationalizations. If you look fast, they look lucid. But scratch the surface and you'll find a whole lot of nothing.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 4-Oct-08 8:59:39 PM
You know, even on a good day you are a moron. Who said anything about giving up on fighting crime...YOU did. Just YOU said that.
Pro active doesn't even begin to imply "giving up". What a tool.
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-05 9:33:38 AM
I think about that Stig, the same way I think about this guy using prescription pain killers.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 4-Oct-08 8:05:36 PM
So the guy that said he smoked pot to relive aches and pains can't use Tylenol? Or is it an excuse to get stoned?
Posted by: The Stig | 4-Oct-08 8:37:51 PM
Another moronic, small minded argument.
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-05 9:37:08 AM
Second: No, I'm not a socialist. Just someone who doesn't like selfish, immature nihilists who would rather fund organized crime, along with all the murders, grow-rips and electricity thefts, than give up a ludicrously minor piece of their lifestyle. If you don't believe in blood for oil, JC, why do you believe in blood for pot?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 4-Oct-08 8:57:56 PM
Your actually insane aren't you?
Its rare that I get to see such twisted statements and arguments.
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-05 9:39:59 AM
Matthew,
First things first—I’m sincerely sorry to hear about your dad. I’m not sure how I’ll feel when mine goes (we haven’t spoken in years). But my sincere condolences. Now then, to work.
1. Yes, it’s possible to drink yourself to death using alcohol, which is legal. It’s also possible to kill yourself in just one session of huffing gasoline (especially if it catches fire). Why is gasoline still legal? Because it’s an invaluable fuel; modern society could not exist without it. It’s harder to make a case like that for alcohol, but in small doses it is beneficial, and it is amply supported by tradition throughout most of the world. And let us talk plainly—alcohol did not rob your dad of anything. He robbed himself of those things through the abuse, not mere use, of alcohol.
2. Alcohol is as devastating as you make it. It is perfectly possible to use it in moderation and suffer no ill effects whatever (and not even get drunk). That is, in fact, the way most of us use it. As for harm reduction, there’s no such animal. A drug’s physical properties do not change with its legal status, nor those of its method of ingestion. Overdose and disease would be just as rampant, if not more so, if drugs were legal. And with narcotics especially, the true danger is not to yourself, but to your others—not what the drug does to you, but what you’ll do to get more. Since even legal heroin would come with a price tag, and since many addicts are down-and-outers without a job, property crime would continue.
3., 4. Before deciding that drug prohibition is worse than widespread legal drug abuse, Matthew, I suggest you read about the Opium Wars. It is amazing how few advocates of legalizing drugs have read about them, or even heard about them. But it is essential to understanding why the entire world pulled narcotics off its drugstore shelves in the early 20th century, and why it would be unwise to change their status back.
5. Harm reduction, as you define it, sounds like giving up and paying tribute (free injection sites, free drugs, giving in to the whims of the irascible and self-destructive). You argue that we should do it however much it rankles, on the grounds that the alternatives are worse. But I don’t mind putting pushers, growers, and smugglers in jail. The world is better off—and safer—with such filth behind bars. If enforcement is not effective, that means it needs to be stepped up. Half-hearted enforcement is essentially the same as no enforcement. It is not enough that the criminal face the possibility of being caught; he must face the INEVITABILITY of being caught.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-05 9:44:11 AM
JC wrote: "Your actually insane aren't you?
Its rare that I get to see such twisted statements and arguments."
Getting testy, aren't we? Now either explain why they're twisted and insane, or shampoo my crotch.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-05 9:45:25 AM
JC wrote: "You know, even on a good day you are a moron. Who said anything about giving up on fighting crime...YOU did. Just YOU said that."
Using exactly the same logic you would use to justify giving up on the war against drugs: that it is ultimately unwinnable.
JC wrote: "Pro active doesn't even begin to imply "giving up". What a tool."
When describing a "war" as a failure, JC, pretty much the only course of action consistent with that viewpoint is to hoist the surrender flag. You do understand boolean logic, do you not? Pity if you don't; your wristwatch does. How does it feel to be outclassed by a timepiece?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-05 9:47:28 AM
Marc wrote: "A government wishing to send 65 years old taxes payers to jail for smoking pot should not have the right to even exist. Who do they think they are?"
But sending 35-year-olds to jail would be okay, would it? Otherwise why bother mentioning the offender's age at all? And who are you to deny anyone's right to exist?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-10-05 9:49:10 AM
Legalization, for the record, is the only government harm reduction strategy I support. While safe injection sites save lives, taxpayers should not be asked to pay for such things. (Private facilities? Of course. And Harper should stay out of provincial jurisdiction over healthcare and leave the Vancouver safe injection sites alone, by the way.)
You make a crucial point, Shane. "And let us talk plainly—alcohol did not rob your dad of anything. He robbed himself of those things through the abuse, not mere use, of alcohol." I agree. Drugs don't kill people, drug abuse kills people. You seem to be arguing for the responsible use of drugs, rather than the prohibition, at least when it comes to alcohol.
I'll read Opium Wars if you read Saying Yes by Reason Magazine columnist Jacob Sullum:
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use
http://www.amazon.com/Saying-Yes-Defense-Drug-Use/dp/1585422274
Dualling book reports due by the end of the month? We can publish the results right here.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-10-05 10:05:09 AM
Another moronic, small minded argument.
Posted by: JC | 5-Oct-08 9:37:08 AM
For your benefit I was trying to keep it as simple as possible. Even that seems above your comprehension level.
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-10-05 10:21:55 AM
Put it to a national vote.Let the people decide. Now there is a novel idea.
Posted by: peterj | 2008-10-05 11:26:33 AM
Shane Matthews,
You are such a judgemental fool, that I am only partially into bothering to tell you so.
This is about freedom of choice vs a restrictive controlling government abusing it's citizens for minor crimes.
Woodstock happened when I was all grown up. I was about five years older than the average hippie boomer of the day. I have heard many of the bands who played at Woodstock and most of them sucked. Many were quite original though.
I know a lot about that era because I was a musician in the USA during that period. It was a humble career but I did get to open a lot of concerts featuring many of those Woodstock bands. I met many of them personally. Most were pretty good people who were interested in making money.
I never did hard drugs nor did I even drink alcohol. However, much later in life I did decide that Marijuana was a good analgesic and a good tranq. No bad side effects worth worrying about since you can eat it for similar effects if you don't like to smoke it.
So Shane ... piss off kid you don't know what your are talking about.
Posted by: John V | 2008-10-05 12:35:12 PM
Shane:
You hit on a good point when you said, "It is not enough that the criminal face the possibility of being caught; he must face the INEVITABILITY of being caught." You are exactly right about this. The deterrent effect of a law is dependant on the degree of the likelihood of getting caught perceived by the person contemplating breaking the law. If people are sure they are going to get caught they are far less likely to commit the crime than if they think there is only a tiny chance that they'll get caught. That's the problem with trying to stop marijuana use with law enforcement.
Most marijuana smokers, even frequent users who use it for years, never get caught. They'll smoke marijuana thousands of times maybe without getting caught. A murderer, a rapist, a thief even, stand a much greater chance of getting caught because these crimes will come to the attention of the police. There will be victims and quite possibly witnesses helping them solve the crime. There will be evidence they can gather, etc. But most "pot smokings" occur without ever coming to the attention of law enforcement. You can step up enforcement all you want but that will never change. Most pot smoking goes on behind closed doors, as do most pot sales. Most would continue to go on under the radar without the police ever knowing they occured.
I'm from down South. The Southern part of the U.S. I'm a lawyer who has both prosecuted and defended far more drug cases than I can count. I've handled literally thousands of pounds worth of marijuana cases, both as a prosecutor and a defense attorney. I've handled all sorts of other cases involving drugs and alcohol as well. And just as an aside, I can't tell you how many times I've had a woman tell me that her boyfriend or husband is a gereat guy until he gets drunk and beats on her. I don't know what makes you think marijuana is so much worse than alcohol. It's nowhere even in the same league as alcofhol when it comes to contributing to violent and/or sstupid senseless criinal behavior. Back to the point I was going to make, where I live people get arrested all the time for drug crimes. People do get arrested for marijuana and won't get out of jail unless they can post bond. A second offnse of simple possession is a felony that can get you up to six years in prison. The thrid offense can get you up to ten years, and I'm just talking about possession of a joint, and it doesn't matter how long it has been sinece your last conviction. Does all of this work down here? Of course not. Pot smoking is rampant down here. A pound of Mexican on the streets will only cost you $400. Quarter ounces go for $20 or $25. Even though people are facing arrest and the prospect of sitting in jail if they don't have the money to bond out, even though a conviction will stay on their record forever and they'll lose their driver's licenses for six months and be put on probation for a year where they'll have to take expensiev classes and visit a probatuion officer every month and take drug tests, even though they'll have to pay close to a thousand dollars in fines and costs to the court, people smoke it anyway because nobody thinks they'll get caught. And the vast majority won't get caught unless they indiscreet and do stupid things like drive around smoking from a three foot bong or something. If they stay away from people that are trouble and leave their pot at home for the most part the chance of getting them caught is very slim indeed.
Increased enforcement is not going to make a difference in the number of people who smoke marijuana. No amount of enforcement will make marijuana go away. It's a plant that grows just about anywhere. A guy can grow enough in his closet to supply himself and several of his friends. Bigger far more lucrative grow ops run by organized crime can supply a lot more people. Demand for marijuana is high, and as long as that demand remains there will always be people willing and able to supply that demand because there is so much money to be made.
Some battles are worth fighting. This one isn't. We aren’t talking murder or even theft. We aren’t talking about extremely dangerous addictive drugs prone to causing horrible problems in society like meth or heroin or cocaine. We’re talking about marijuana. Marijuana is certainly not a harmless drug. It’s an unhealthy habit. It's a waste of time that people ought to leave alone. It's really not good to be a heavy user. Heavy users tend to be scatterbrains with no short term memory. Most people who smoke it though aren't heavy users. In fact, most people don't smoke marijuana and I don't think its' legal status has much to do with that. Look at places like the Netherlands where they allow it to be sold from shops that have permits. Per capita use in the Netherlands is lower than it is in the States and in Canada. Why don't all the Dutch smoke marijuana since it's legal? Are Canadians so much weaker than the Dutch that they could not handle as much freedom? Canadians are just as much on the ball as the Dutch, as are we here in the States. Even when it's legal the vast majority will leave marijuana alone because of all the good reasons to avoid marijuana not related to its' legal status.
I think that in time we'll see marijuana legalized and regulated similar to alcohol throughout North America. My bet is it will happen in Canada and/or Mexico first, and we'll do it in the States soon after that. As we go through the process, we'll have a lot of people panicking thinking the sky is going to fall in or something, but as time goes on we'll find ourselves for the most part wondering why we hadn't done it years ago.
Posted by: Bill G | 2008-10-05 4:19:41 PM
I didn't proofread or spell check my last post before posting it. Sorry about all the typos. I don't do much of my own typing.
Posted by: Bill G | 2008-10-05 4:25:41 PM
Bill G.......Good post, but rest assured that Shane is working on the last word on this subject.
Posted by: peterj | 2008-10-05 6:00:48 PM
First off Matthew Johnston, I loved your personal anecdote. You gave us a bit of your emotions and life experiences that we should be using to base reasoned pragmatic solutions on. Thank you it touched me deeply.
Bill G, is giving us pragmatic insight into the reality. As I said before I was in one of Canada's most exclusive private schools when the entire number of marijuana convictions were around 50. If there was anytime that having a Prohibition law in place in a country might be shown to have a beneficial effect on keeping the substancew out, it would have been at this time.
The laws were strong, in place, and adhered to for the large part. So now we should have reaped the benefits of having had such a law in place if there were benefits to be had by such a strategy.
Is that what we see?
Therefore as a scientist not some ethereal blogger with no identity, I must conclude by evaluating the evidence before me that Prohibition as a model for keeping drugs out of a society does not work. Even in closed societies drug use and addiction problems exist.
This seems to be a legitimate part of the human condition. There is no proof that marijuana used is in any way as detrimental as alcohol. In fact the marijuana user can not be picked out of a crowd of people by any observable behavior. That is what frustrates the cops so much is that you can't pick out any one from subjective observation.
So that requires more deception. Where in Hawaii it is a misdemeanor to be drunk and drive (here it is serious crime and should be) in Canada now they are trying vodo to convict innocent people of "impaired driving simply because they have THC in their blood.
So show the definitive peer reviewed tests that show Cannabis impairs anyones ability to operate a motor vehicle.
This plant is the most innocent yet maligned living entities ever.
As a Lawyer, Bill B, why is it that there is no rule of law?
I caught the top officials of my government on video tape and they stay away from an organized hate crime without facing the same kind of "justice" they make others face?
Five minute podcast on my personal involvement in the Mayerthorpe tragedy where 4 police officers were slain in Alberta March 2005. The guy had a small grow op on the place.
These links to true stories aren't working today. And they want us to believe that the troops are dying to keep us free?
It's all about censorship and controlling freedom of thought so that the right can control us.
Posted by: budoracle | 2008-10-05 6:13:51 PM
Maybe the website is down? I can't seem to click on the links and get any to come up.
Try my website for them later.
I've travel through the states often and marveled at the super secrecy of tokers and how personable they all were. I've done some hang gliding in the Blue Ridge Mountains at Henson's gap, then as I got in the motor home to head further south eventually in the Ocala national forest during winter of 1993, the strident voice of Rush Bimbo came on, inciting hatred.
I'm tired of the fraud and hate of others tolerated and encouraged through the Law.
It's Organized crime and oppression on the grandest of scales and kept in place by the sentiments of the hateful whom we see here.
These people could not pick a taker out of a crowd through behavior or any observable thing except through blood test. Therefore under what right does the state presume that it can make a criminal out of them?
I don't understand the principal behind the law?
This is a natural state of being for my body since the receptors for this active ingredient have been in my biological record for a million years or more.
I resent anyone of the religious controlling bovines setting themselves up to second guess nature.
I've toked daily for about 40 years retired an unblemished professional driver's license, flew hang gliders for 27 years and am still here making my way. I would do much better without the legal persecution and denigration/marginalization.
There is no reason for it whatsoever except prejudice caused by myopic idiocy layered on and woven into the muck of our society.
Really, besides the breaking of the prohibition laws, can anyone point to a single criminal thing for which marijuana smokers are responsible for?
Marijuana makes you more aware and is not impairing in any way so it is a threat to the status quo. Oh yeah it is very dangerous to consumerism, because people tend to find their meaning and joy in the simpler more creative things, shunning their predetermined role as mindless consumers, polluters, addicts of materialism. The preferred Canadians are of course non aware tax slaves who don't ask questions of the government and always believe the lies told them.
Yes marijuana is dangerous to the status quo, who would fund the military machine, the wall street rip off, the phony drug wars if people opened their enlightened eyes and wake up? Who supports all this nonsense which is all about quadrillion dollar wars, these bail outs of corporate rapists?
It's the bovine taxpayer, jailed and harassed by a government of a people whose forefathers rebelled over the freedom to be free of the King's tax on tea, who is the recipient of all this institutionalized idiocy and lawlessness and well they should be, for they fund it.
Posted by: budoracle | 2008-10-05 6:58:58 PM
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