"Then your position should be to ban the current addictive destructive drugs, and anything which is habit forming and reduces quality and lenght of life.

So MacDonalds will be the first to go, then tabaccoo (but we're already on board the slowly grind tabaccoo use out of existance) then alcohol.

Then we will ban cars, not because they kill people in accidents but because the first 30 minutes of exercise you get each day has a bigger impact on your health than giving up smoking (risk factors, no exercise is worse than smoking)"

That is my position. You are looking for inconsistency where none exists. I have no love of cars or any of the other stuff you mention to deflect from the issue at hand. Some potentially habit forming drugs like pain killers have their role but we already try to regulate their usage to a high level. They at least have some kind of purpose other than forming destructive habits. You can rail about how other things are harmful all you want, but when you support unleashing destructive drugs on people and society then all your complaining about this other stuff rings completely hollow. Your tactic of saying there are other unhealthy things out there therefore we should legalize even worse ones doesn't make a shred of sense. And does it make sense that everybody is board with restricting tobacco use yet they at the same want to make it more and more legal to smoke marijuana? What is the logic in that? Replacing one habit forming unhealthy addiction with another one?

"I'd prefer to make the rant and let people make up their own minds then tell them i know a solution"

But that's not at all what you're doing. You went so far as to compare the status quo with supporting Nazism. You insist that the status quo needs to be changed because it is 'causing damage', although how you can know that when you dismiss the idea of an evidence based argument here is beyond me. Evidently you're allowed to make statements about cause & effect but nobody else is, even if the latter have evidence.

"But of society doesn't know what is best for people why not let people make up their own minds?"

People don't get to destroy society for their own personal convenience. That's not how society works. This ethos of self-absorbed individualism is really maddening.

"This ethos of self-absorbed individualism is really maddening".

I have to +1 this ...... I don't know what it means but it sounds really cool :-)

"This ethos of self-absorbed individualism is really maddening"

I know its madding, but in this community of social workers where I live have gone to the opposite extreme. Religous groups and psychologist and the like have taken it upon themselves to observe and interfer in peoples lives. When they see what they define as unusual behavior they will intervene. They will not intervene personally but get their "patients to spy" on the subject. The "care givers" have become the Stasi, and they dont even know it.

It's probably assisted living. They intervene for a purpose. Social work is a thankless job. Anyway that's a different subject.

your right. There is alot of "assisted living individuals" around here, but its like social workers dont have enough work to do so they go looking for trouble

(mostly at Putin)It is not a different subject, it is entirely the subject of how and why we should attempt to coerce the behaviour of our population.

It is wha level of risk associated with a given activity we are prepared to allow and when we should incarcerate, section, or execute the deviants, it is bow we should exploit the incarcerated for private profit to make up for the cost to society.

This is a one topic. You are taking an authoritarian stance while i oppose from an anarchistic one. Empowered education individuals are all we can hope for, the internet is a great leveller (for those rich enough to afford it) to distribute knowledge and thus power...

I associate your position with those views to suggest either you are inconsistant or you are crazy. Sure, try Banning fast food, cars, and tabacco. See how well that works.

As for legalizing marjuana while discouraging he use of cigarettes; just because you choose to make marjuana legal with a behaviour tax to discourage use, doesn't mean it is in appropriate - this is simply a question of tactics and psychology.

The state can and should offer a viable means to contribute to the cost of your choices. Taxing marjuana moves from a scheme where anti-social drug gangs earn large profits into a new scheme where the end users pays some tax whih cam be used to treat potential medical consequences down the line. This discourages blackmarkets essentially subverting society, while minimising the damage to society AND respecting the free choices which society can NOT actually prevent.

It is not possible to stop people making their own choices; it is possible to offer them easy alternatives which involve less risk.

The music/film industry has realsied that they must offer a service which is comparable to the service provided by pirating. On-demand media for a nominal cost. Otherwise they will fail to win the minds of content consumers.

The morality is not my driving concern, neither is any 'self absorbed individualism'. I take a practical realist's stand. Your position is stupid and unsustainable because you are unwilling to allow that other people disagree with you - a democracy can only function based on concensus building, and your failure to see any value in the compromises offered paints you for the extremist you like to portray yourself as.

So you think its moral to tax peoples addictions? And how are you allowing for disagreement or not being extreme with your antigovernment proposals for everything?

If you think the internet distributes knowledge I have the tea party to introduce you to. The democratization of knowledge has killed any possibility of an informed public.

Im also a practical realist. You whine about inconsistency but such bans arent feasible. However maintaining the prohibition on drugs is. Your solution is just surrender. Like giving in to a spoiled child because discipline is too hard. Swedens policy is humane and works very well. They arent an authoritarian society. But slogans are easier than solutions.

No, maintaining the prohibition on drugs merely continues the process od supporting the black market which contributes nothing to society.

I'm not talking about taxing people's addictions, i'm talking about using taxation to discourage these addictions forming in the first place - you will still retain individuals whose quality of life suffers, but that taxation can be spent treating those suffers who ask for help.

Perfectly moral and responcible if you ask me.

Your solution is to decide you know best for all and to treat those who evidentally disagree as dangerous, lock them away, and then use them as slave labour to decrease the cost of incarceration... That is the moral position you take?

Such bans are entirely as feasible, and will likely create a similar host of problems. The only difference is they don't have enough public support that there is any political capital to be gained by trying them.

I'm glad you compared my ideas to those of a spoiled child, because your version of society is paternalistic and is the very essence of hundreds of years of exploitation and colonisation. It is this view of society as being the father, whose duty is to care, protect and punish, which leaves the citizen-children in rebellion; or the colonists in the Americas overthrowing their defenders and champions, or the US military sending citizens to die for the promotion of economic goals, which will of course benefit all in the long run...

Your paternalistic government is not of, by, and for the people, it is

Of the vested interests, for the state, by the upper class.

Right, because corporations wouldn't kill for the chance to sell yet more legalized addictive substances to people. Because they don't love to do that with tobacco, opium, over-the-counter meds, caffeine, etc.

"No, maintaining the prohibition on drugs merely continues the process od supporting the black market which contributes nothing to society. "

How do you know that? You already ranted extensively about there cannot be any evidence. Once again you never hold yourself to the same standard.

How did the crack cocaine epidemic get overcome. Oh that, that's through drug prohibition. Why has drug use declined in countries where it is aggressively prohibited? I guess it's just magic. Why haven't drugs declined in Portugal or the Netherlands? Why has medical marijuana led to increased crime in California?

Your solution helps nobody. But it soothes your conscience about the big bad government ever doing anything.

"No, maintaining the prohibition on drugs merely continues the process od supporting the black market which contributes nothing to society. "

Black markets under legalized 'regulated' substances are an even greater problem. Look at the Netherlands & California. Who are the suppliers for these legal marijuana distributers? The black market. Look at the cigarette black market.

"Your solution is to decide you know best for all and to treat those who evidentally disagree as dangerous, lock them away, and then use them as slave labour to decrease the cost of incarceration... That is the moral position you take?"

Except people aren't in prison for simple drug possession. Which I've already talked about countless times and to which you've produced no evidence to the contrary. You harp about logic but dabble in straw man arguments, because that's all the legalizers have. Just shout slave labor and incarceration for 'victimless crimes' over and over again and that somehow makes it true. Legalization is an imposition of your will over the rest of the society whether you admit that it is or not. Let's stop pretending you're about letting people make up their own mind.

"'m glad you compared my ideas to those of a spoiled child, because your version of society is paternalistic and is the very essence of hundreds of years of exploitation and colonisation."

Gee I'm glad you're not demonizing those who disagree with you. Drug prohibition is equated with colonization. That's rich, coming from someone who advocates military intervention whenever he sees a government he doesn't like in the third world.

It's cheap sloganeering to pander to people's instincts to only care about themselves and not the repercussions for greater society. To make everything about 'choice' as if choices don't affect other people.

"How did the crack cocaine epidemic get overcome. Oh that, that's through drug prohibition."

More importantly, how did the crack cocaine epidemic GET STARTED?

Black helicopters, obviously.

If you don't know the history of the "crack cocaine" epidemic, you're naive and informed. Oh wait, you ARE naive and uninformed. As such, it doesn't surprise me that you don't know.

'How do you know that? You already ranted extensively about there cannot be any evidence. Once again you never hold yourself to the same standard.'

Given the context of what i've said above in this thread you can assume that this was an expression of opinion not of fact. But you may not be capable of reading my statement in any context other than that of an opposition which is automatically wrong and invalid.

My above statement was not that there can not be evidence - you can collect a lot of evidence - it is one of proof. You would need actual experiments on entire cities and countries to constitute experimental proof, and that would leave you without any information of the cultural differences so your data may not even be applicable to other cultures.

'Your solution helps nobody. But it soothes your conscience about the big bad government ever doing anything.'

In case you can't read. I am in favour of creating a source of income from governments to INCREASE their ability to address this problem. But you seem to think you're arguing with some flavour of republican here. You might stop to listen once in a while.

'Why haven't drugs declined in Portugal or the Netherlands?'

The fact that you're not making the counter claim that drugs use has increased in those countries goes to show that maybe, just maybe, people will take drugs whether you ban them or not.

You can make claims about crack cocaine (i'm unaware of this issue or it's history) but suffer from confirmation bias unless you find out what people NOT taking crack started doing. Did they merely end up taking E or sniffing glue instead - because that was what became most easily available?

There are no simply answers, as i've continued to state, and your simple examples are all flawed.

'the Boggs Act of 1952. The acts made a first time cannabis possession offense a minimum of two to ten years with a fine up to $20,000;'

and

'With the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 Congress enacted different mandatory minimum sentences for drugs, including marijuana'

and

'defendants with prior drug felonies are often subject to harsh mandatory minimums'

- source wikipedia.

e;re not talking about who the majority of prisoners are, and what crimes they committed and why, we are talking about why drug possession is punished the way it is.

You can protest all you want; a system of social work, drug/addiction therapy and legal advice/education would likely do more good for the people actually affected.

'Legalization is an imposition of your will over the rest of the society whether you admit that it is or not. Let's stop pretending you're about letting people make up their own mind.'

Yeah, because legalization is akin to putting drugs in the water supply, who is the one making strawman arguements?

'Drug prohibition is equated with colonization. That's rich, coming from someone who advocates military intervention whenever he sees a government he doesn't like in the third world.'

When have I EVER advocated military intervention? You're clearly insane. I'm Irish and proud of our armed forces who have never served in anything but a peacekeeping operation.

And i've repeatedly pointed out the stupidity of trying to impose democracy on a country, when democracy requires people to actually BELIEVE in their government...

'It's cheap sloganeering to pander to people's instincts to only care about themselves and not the repercussions for greater society. To make everything about 'choice' as if choices don't affect other people.'

Just because you seem think that 'society' as a whole is more valuable than the individual expierences of the members of the society. That a particular subset of people knows best for all when all people are different in the first place.

Of course choices will affect others, and teaching compassion and empathy is something which deserves it's attention, teaching by examples would be where the irish school system failed, mostly because of the privileged position of the church... but before i digress. Just because i believe in a laisse faire approach to law enforcement doesn't mean i take the same to education of taxation of private corporation's profits.... you obviosuly think i'm someone else.

as you can see its a balancing act. Personally Im a health Nazi. But also by becoming an addict and disengaging from the addictive activity or substance, I learn ! "To walk in someone elses shoes" if you like. But all this "secret police activity" is threatening and used as an excuse to spy

You have only one life to live !
F*** off you so called do-gooders you are ignorant beyond belief

@Putin - "Why has drug use declined in countries where it is aggressively prohibited?"

Because the law makes it so criminal that the users who are addicted don't seek help to get out form under it and therefore don't get counted. Criminals avoid being counted so make everything you want the numbers to go down on illegal and the numbers will go down on the official papers because those involved will go underground.

If making something illegal works, the. Why isn't the US a dry country? Putin....jackass...ever hear of prohibition? Making something illegal does not mean t disappears...oh...wait....unless you believe in asshole VIOLENT authoritarian regiems....I.e. Communis,...where all rules (including morality) are enforced at the point of a gun. Oh...unlessssss you are part of the 1%....you know..the elite GOVERNMENT class....

Now ASK yourself...why does Obama....the ultimate government-knows-bet guy.....LOVE socialism-communism? Because he's too stupid to be in the 1% in the private sector....so he and MOOCH-elle live the 1% life as your government overseers....and the idiot Liberals are truly too stupid to see this ...