Rough night!

[Aglifter]

Umm...well, usually things stay pretty civilized here...but living in a podunk Texas county that has ended up with the biggest drug corridor in the country going through it...as long as anything is illegal, it will be smuggled, and the people involved with it will be BAD.  
     I really think the least a prosecutor or cop is worried about is that crime might drop so low they'd be out of a job -- do you have any idea how LITTLE a prosecutor or a judge is paid relative to an attorney in private practice?  And then they have those little Mexican cartel %&% put bountys out on them, on top of being paid about half of an average salary.
   The war on drugs did not make the smugglers violent, or criminal -- the possibility of large profits with little investment, and an amoral mentality created them.  If drugs were legal, they'd switch toward human smuggling, or weapons, or kidnapping or extortion, or something else.

[riffraff]

Aglifter,

I think things are very civilized on this forum.

Now on your writings about drugs and smugglers etc.  It is my opinion that it is not necessarily the drug that causes all the problems, it is the MONEY that can be made that causes most of the problems.  Take the money away(legalization and regulations and inspections etc.)  You know another big government beurocracy, so that people can purchase their hashish at the liquor store instead of haveing to go to the bad part of town and deal with the wrong kind of people and most of the violence associated with drugs would go away because there is no MONEY to be made.  Except by the goverment of course.
You say if drugs were legal they would switch to human smuggling, well that is a whole nother topic and comparing smuggling drugs to illegal immegration is like comparing apples to oranges.  As far as kidnapping of extortion goes, I think even the dope smokers would be all for our law enforcement and judicial system to put a hammer to that stuff fast.  The U.S. ain't Mesico yet and kidnappings are one thing that get a lot of attention here real fast.

As far as smuggling weapons goes. I am sure that there are people in this country who would pay a lot of money for crates of AK's and RPG's but I have not heard of any for sale and I can't go to the bad part of town and buy any either.

My opinions only,  Mike

[PursuitSS]

The most abused drug in the U.S. is alcohol. So you think that legalization is the answer. Pull the lifeless body of a four year old girl out of a car wreck that is the result of being hit by a drunk driver. Then try and explain to the mother of the little girl where her daughter is when she regains consciousness in the ambulance. Look at the picture the local paper prints of a State Trooper completely breaking down in tears. Then you tell me that ANY drug is "victimless".

We have WAY TOO MANY LEGAL DRUGS!!!!!!!!!!

Rant mode off.

PursuitSS

[riffraff]

Pursuit SS,

I understand exactly where you are comming from but what is your solution?  Make alcohol illegal?  That was tried once and it gave rise to the Mafia because there was money to be made.  
In my opinion the solution to the alcohol/drug problem is do what you want but do it at home.  If you do it out on the roads you will be hammered.
I agree with you alcohol is a problem.  In contrast you don't see to many people who are just high on pot involved in a lot of terrible motor vechicle accidents.   And you won't see any people on Cocain involved in many traffic accidents because these people are if anything are very ALERT.   Now Meth is a different story and should be illegal as well as Narcotics because they are physically addictive.

My opinions only,   Mike

[PursuitSS]

No problem...............if we adopt Bulgaria's punishment for driving under the influence.

First offense is YOUR LAST OFFENSE!!!!!!

You blow .08 on a Datamaster, you get a blindfold and cigarette. The same for ANY level of cocaine, pot, meth, etc.  And if you think that pot, hash, coke, doesn't effect your reaction times do a check with your local MADD chapter. This has been tested in laboratory tests.

The last stats I saw for Bulgaria was TWO DWI's for a year.

PursuitSS 1*

[BillinPittsburgh]

Any profession is going to have good and bad.

There is a huge difference between alcohol and many other drugs - that difference being that the level of addictiveness of alcohol is low enough so that we don't see friends of 15 years killing each other over 1 gram of it.  Still, I rarely drink at all (typically 3X per year), limit myself to 2 drinks per occasion when I do, and think we treat drunk drivers way too gently.  I will never understand why some people place so much importance on the waste product of the metabolism of a single celled organism.

There is an entire class of people who don't use drugs simply because they are illegal.  That is why those places that have legalized drugs have turned into cesspools.

[riffraff]

Bill,

I reject your premis that "those places that have legalized drugs have turned into cesspools".  Could you be more specific?

Mike

[BillinPittsburgh]

Hi Mike,

Exhibit A:  Amsterdam.

While the first article is a bit off topic, it does a good job of revealing just what a cesspool a society that legalizes drugs can become.  While the article points to a wide range of other problems, I submit that any society that legalizes drugs also has a lot of other basic values problems that will lead to these consequences.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50472

Here is another article that describes the drug problem in Amsterdam a bit better:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21583

It would appear that those who support legalizing drugs have quite a bad example to overcome.

[Aglifter]

Now I know why I've always had good luck with Bulgarian employees...
 

Any employee that accepts totalitarianism works out just fine

Maybe I'm finding myself too humorous at the moment -- don't have to be back to work until Monday...spent the last few days visting friends, fishing, shooting, cooking -- no more chocolate for at least a few more days...

[riffraff]

Bill,

I had a feeling you were going to say Amsterdam/Netherlands.  I did not go to the links you posted.  I don't have to.  Amsterdam and the Netherlands is not a cesspool.  Would I rather live in say Saudi Arabia or Mexico, or the Netherlands?,  I would pick the Netherlands any day.   But of course these are just my opinions.

Mike

[tracker]

Netherlands, Mexico, or Saudi Arabia for a residence as an
American? That is a no brainer. First of all, you as amercan
can only be a guest/worker in Saudi Arabia.
I became engaged with two medical students in the Riyadh
Marriott coffee shop a few years ago and they told me that
their justice system was superior to ours because they had
few prisoners and not too many lawyers.
That is a tough argument and the only thing I could come up
with is that we pay a price for freedom; they may have their
version of justice but they have few freedoms inside the king-
dom. The conversation shifted to another subject.

[Richard S]

Worked in all of those places.  Glad to be here now.  What Tracker said!  

[BillinPittsburgh]

Hi Mike,

That is quite a list of bad options.

Can you point to an example of legalization of drugs working?

[dfsutton]

I just though I'd let you know that using such a right-wing Conservative source as http://www.worldnetdaily.com to support a right wing conservative argument really does nothing to support that argument. Maybe if you found an article or story about the dangers of legalized drugs on from an NPR affiliate, it might have a little bit more swaying factor.

[riffraff]

Bill,

Certainly,  the repeal of prohabition right here in the U.S.  Of course the Mafia was already loaded with money and organized by that time and so they just diversified  and so it has taken us many decades to pretty much minimalize the U.S. Mafia.

Mike