Unfortunately, the Drug Prohibition crowd has bought into the (provably) false notion that if you outlaw something it will keep people – especially The Children! (if somebody’s argument is crap, the first skirts they try to hide behind are those of The Children!) – from getting them. I don’t personally do drugs. I have a lot of friends who do – not that I have any preference for that sort of thing, it’s just that a lot of people like to intoxicate themselves. I’ve lost friends to coke, meth, cigarettes, and booze. Anyone who believes that drug prohibition makes drugs more difficult to get is more deluded than the people doing them. Drugs are amazingly, stupendously easy to get. In just about any bar or nightclub (think 99.99%), you can get them. The costs of getting high are pretty much the same as the costs for getting drunk (there is cheap booze and cheap drugs, there is expensive booze and expensive drugs). If the laws of supply and demand mean anything (and to this group, they should – this isn’t DailyKos), then if Drug Prohibtion was having any effect at all, drugs should be more expensive. They’re cheap and getting cheaper.

You want to keep people off of drugs? Teach them to be happy without intoxicants. Trying to stop the supply is like trying to hold back the tide by building sand castles. The only thing it does is create more crime and violence. Alcohol prohibition built up organized crime in the US to unprecedented levels. Drug prohibition has kept it there.

ErikTheRed on June 24, 2008 at 2:44 PM

upinak on June 24, 2008 at 2:43 PM

I’m deeply sorry to hear that one of your family members suffers from drug addiction. I’ve seen it in my family, and even more among my friends. It’s a horrible thing. However, the government can’t prevent people from doing horrible and self-destructive things. I know there’s a natural tendency to believe that if we just had more enforcement that we could Win the War on Drugs. Ain’t going to happen. The Soviet Union – a police state in the most literal sense of the word, with anti-drug laws that would never pass in the United States in a million years – couldn’t control their drug problem. What makes you think it will be any different here? The only governments to have any success were the ones that simply executed everyone involved – users, addicts, dealers, smugglers, etc.

Addiction – whether it be to legal intoxicants, illegal drugs, gambling, whatever – is always horrible, but the underlying problems are psychological and not due to the existence of the particular vice in question. Some people choose to behave self-destructively, and will do so with whatever means are at their disposal. The argument here is not unlike the argument against banning guns – people will still find ways to kill each other, unless we get around to banning sharp objects, heavy blunt objects, cars, trucks, furniture, batteries larger than a “D” cell, MySpace, rope, scarves, and, of course, our own bare hands.

ErikTheRed on June 24, 2008 at 3:07 PM