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She "faces forty years"? I'm sure that is purely theoretical. I can't see her getting any serious jail time. America is crazy but not that crazy.

Oops, forgot link. This site quotes numbers between 50 and 60 percent:

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm

But they are pretty clearly on one side of the debate, so who knows.

I don't know where you get your information, but it's wrong. The overall crime rate increased 24% between the radification and repeal of prohibition:

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00492/Crime_Ra te.htm

The murder rate skyrocketed during prohibition, dropped immediately after, and has jumped up again in the 40 years since the "War on Drugs" was declared.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/crime.htm

I stand my ground that there is very little difference between the two.

Yes, by all means, get politically aware. Something we who live in "free" and "democratic" societies often seem to forget is that freedom comes with responsibility. That responsibility is not just to exercise our freedoms in a "responsible" manner, it also includes active participation in the workings of government. Voting is just the most obvious "responsibility" we have in this regard. Far more important is the habitual awareness and involvement with current events and politics... Not only will your vote be more "informed," you'll also be better equipped to influence the "debate" at the dinner table, the pub, the church, etc..

Here are the five most fundamental and important changes, which I think provide the best leverage to make American democracy work better:

1. End "personhood" for corporations.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtm l

2. End the War On Drugs.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/

3. Open the televised debates to 3rd party candidates.
http://debatethis.org/

4. Ensure transparent ballot counting and elections.
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/

5. Require proportional delegation in the Electoral College (ie: no more winner-takes-all)
http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/reform.htm#propo rtional

These issues are not in the news much, but they have a common-sense appeal to most people, regardless of their political orientation. These are "systemic" issues, with the potential to have broad effects throughout the society. There are many other things I'd wish for as well, but these five are a good starting point, for beating back the encroachment of Big-Brother government.

--jrd

Nice analogy. However if someone in your family murders you, frankly no one else gives a damn.

Look up "Phil Hartman". You can find other examples on your own.

As oppossed to, say, a few thousand people getting killed at the same time and witnessed by people around the globe.

It was only "witnessed by people around the globe" because it was repeatedly broadcast.

If they repeatedly broadcast car wrecks around the globe, then the same could be said of them.

People who then wonder, can I even count on being safe going to work in the morning.

"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. Again, there is more of a threat to those people from other cars on the highway than from terrorists.

Financial markets that then wonder, exactly how resilient is this supposed super power.

"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. The country was in no more danger that day than a year prior.

Industry leaders who then wonder, maybe I should scale back hiring and investment because who knows what's going to happen next.

"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. Their businesses were in no more danger that day than than a year prior.

So all things considered, the two are not the same and the consequences of one are much greater and reach much further than the other.

No, they are the same in that in each scenario, people die.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

The only differences are:
a. You are far more likely to die from aspirin than from terrorism.

b. People who do not understand statistics succumb to the "terror" in "terrorism".

Thankfully, outside of Slashdot, the nation is not populated by chicken littles and people are willing to take a slight reduction in privacy/anonymity in return for an increased liklihood that the government will be able to prevent more attacks.

And, over time, those "slight reductions" result in ... a police state.

Now, to demonstrate your understanding of statistics, why don't you name 5 countries which have fewer Rights than the US and fewer terrorist attacks.

If you cannot, then your point is invalid.

People also have enough common sense to realize that this is not a dictatorship, GW and friends will be out of power in a few more years, and our system of government will - as it always has - correct what some see as the excesses of current policy.

What "excesses of current policy"?

Either the reduction of Rights is necessary, or it is not. You cannot have it both ways.

By the way, facism starts when the populace has its involvement in political life curtailed.

Really? Perhaps you can provide an example of such? All of the Fascist states that I'm familiar with (Italy, German, etc) did not prevent the citizens from participating in politics. In fact, the citizens were encouraged to support the Fascists by identifying the "threats" in their communities.

The first shadow of the future police states was cast by the policies of Czarist Russia. It was not the czars overreaction to domestic terrorism that spawned it, it was the systematic denial of political involvement to the Russian citizenry for centuries.

"first shadow" and "centuries" don't match. Something cannot be the "first shadow" that happens over "centuries".

You may also want to read about various monarchs throughout the ages.

There have and always will be enemies of the state, and it is foolish to think that they are falsehoods perpetuated by those in power.

Look up "McCarthy witch hunt".

The key to preventing facism is an engaged citizenry with the political ability to curtail the overreaction of the g

Alcohol: 85,000, or between 1 and 2 percent of the US population every year. Marijuana: 0. FUCKING ZERO.

Let me say up front that I'm for legalizing Marijuana as a substance similar to the way Alcohol is legal.

I checked what I believe is the source of your data:
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

The "zero" number you quote is only for deaths directly related to smoking it. The number for alcohol (85000) includes car related accidents. The number of direct alcohol deaths is more like 68400 - not an insignificant number. The number of car accidents related to "illicit drug use" including Marijuana is included in the 17000 number near the bottom. If we count every incident as a "Marijuana related car accident" (which I know is unreasonable) then we still end up with a number comparable to alcohol. What that says to me is that no matter what substance you have available to let people alter their minds with there is a percentage of the population that will do stupid things like drive and take other people out.

I think it's stupid that smoking it is illegal but perhaps something a little more realistic than "it's harmless" should be the message. If you tell people its harmless and the statistics start to show more indirect deaths due explicitly to Marijuana then you risk backlash.

I would agree that it makes sense for advocacy groups like the "Pirate Party" to limit themselves to the domain of IP law. However, I also think you should do some more reading about the war on drugs and its consequences. America isn't the global leader in incarcerating people for no reason. It's OK to oppose drugs -- there are different strategies of decriminalization -- but I hope you will agree that locking up thousands and thousands of people is not the way to deal with the drug problem. And let me not even go into the whole tobacco+alcohol vs. marijuana issue. There is no excuse for ignorance of the facts, however.

I only mentioned recreational use since I feel that marijuana is a safer alternative to alcohol, but I use it more for its psychological benefits. Marijuana has helped me with a problem with rage and helps me get to sleep at night. Obviously I have no scientific data to back this up, only personal experience that these problems recur after abstenance and persist regardless of the length of abstention. Of course, the government feels no need to back up its position with science - and likes to ignore scientific evidence that refutes it.

Anyway, I said that "I feel" it is my duty. I never claimed its written down anywhere for me to obey. Many people feel they have a duty to God to do something, I'm not going to tell them they're mistaken (even if they do have it written down somewhere). I also write letters to our Congresspeople, but they have the same knee-jerk reaction so many other people do: "Drugs are bad, mmmkay." I do all I can to change the law, should I suffer while I do so?

I don't think there's all that much difference in standing up for millions of people who have been unjustly imprisoned for "a little hedonistic pleasure" than standing up for people who were persecuted for their skin color. Most of the more than 700,000 people arrested for charges related to cannibis in 2004 were charged with simple, non-violent possesion. Injustice is injustice.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/marijuan.htm

Geez, how many people do you think alcohol kills every year?

I fully understand the practicalities of alcohol as medicine and would not want to discourage its use in that area, but without negative side effects to drinking to excess, the bottom line is that more people will do it. Drink too much, that is.

And note that unlike Star Trek's synthehol, the intoxicating effects themselves of what they are talking about in this article are not easily ignored... it's just that the most visible negative side effects like hangovers and getting sick won't happen. People can, and most definitely will still get piss-ass drunk with this stuff. It'll be a boon for bars, because if people don't get sick, they'll have that much less reason to stop drinking.

And of course, it's more often than not that an alcohol related death was not a person who themselves had drank to too much, but was killed (often inadvertently) by the actions of a person who was drunk, so we can't even attribute it to darwin's theory in action.

TAANSTAFL.

Actually, you have a greater chance of dieing due to a non-prescription pain-killer overdose than suffering death or injury from a terrorist attack.

You're more likely to die by overdosing on non-perscription pain relievers like Advil or Motrin than in a terror attack by a factor of 24 to 1. (We had 7,600 deaths due to "Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin" in 2000.) Here's a handy chart.

If we count Oklahoma City and 9/11, plus the smaller terrorist attacks, we end up with something close to 3100 terror deaths in ten years. That's about 310 deaths by terror on US soil per year. By comparison, we lose about 400,000 people per year to tobacco, and 20,000 to homicide. Skeptical? Want more info? Feel free to shoot this down if you can by reading the source of this analysis.

Maybe you'd better do a little research on that one: Drug War Facts

The crime rate has been primarily influenced by government, and prohibition in particular. When we look at history in general -- the history of any government -- the more power at the center, the higher the crime rate. Of course, if you're the guy "offering" security services, that's exactly what you'd want, no?

Look, my friends and I have been smoking since teenagerhood, half our fucking lives, and we're not impaired. I'm sorry your friend is an idiot or developmentally disabled or hit his head too many times or whatever happened to him but even government-funded studies show that marijuana use has no lasting effects. It does have short-term effects on memory and the ability to shoot your wad - I think that's the vasodilating effect of THC - but it has no long-term effects unless you get busted for it.

Of course, the plural of anecdote is not data, so even if you were right about what did your friend in, this would still be a meaningless conversation.

One thing that we do know is that there are no recorded cases of marijuana ever killing anyone, but alcohol kils thousands in the US alone every year. Perhaps you should look at this page on causes of death in the US in 2000. Deaths due to alcohol: 85,000. Deaths due to prescription drugs: 32,000. Deaths due to Marijuana: 0.

Put another way, it is just fucking retarded that alcohol is legal, and marijuana is illegal.

Your links don't preclude the possibility that the rise of drug use is related to the decline of religious adherence too...

I think it does. If religious adherence is related to the homicide rate then you would need to show some data where religious adherence numbers follow the inverse of the homicide rate. Is the decline of religious adherence something that is linear with time? That seems to be what you suggest but, looking at this graph religious adherence should have declined during 1920-33, then risen and experienced another decline starting in 1970.

Religious adherence sure doesn't seem to be a good explaination the homicide rate.

As long as you are tossing around correlations regarding violent crime, I have one that is better supported and actually has an identifiable cause. See these links:

Crime
Crime and the Drug War

It is no stretch to say that crime is more closely associated with the differenct prohibitions than with lessing religious adherence.

Also of great importance is the fact that drug prohibition causes violent crime to skyrocket. (Refer to alcohol prohibition for the classic textbook example -- this is how organized crime came about in the 1920's.) We don't see caffeine, tobacco, or alcohol vendors killing each other on the street for market share. Budweiser, Folger's, and Marlboro aren't involved in any gang wars as far as I know. There's a very good reason for this: the alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine businesses are bound to the law like any other legally recognized business. They play by the rules; otherwise they become criminals. A cocaine dealer, on the other hand, is already a criminal, and therefore hasn't got anything to lose.

Don't take it from me, though. All the facts are available for your reading pleasure.

Good post. I too hated those buying drugs == terrorism ads because I know they are BS and I know a lot of people would believe them.

Back on topic, hmm, lets think about this. People that are wiling to kill a number of people including themselves would never seem to be people to violate copyright violations. WTF? Granted I didn't read the FA, but I read recently where some of the knockoff street vendors in cities are fronts for terrorist funding. That too shocked me. I always thought those street vendors were legit. Now I know.

Back to the "War on Drugs" (TM) ...

And just like The War on Drugs it is a farce that ignores the realities of the world we live in in favor of making money on an outdated status quo.

An excellent quote pertaining to this is:

"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

-- Abraham Lincoln

Can't add to much to that.

Please also see: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/.

No, you're wrong.

From here: http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/ulk/amlock.html Percent of federal prisoner population incarcerated for nonviolent crimes: 89
Percent of new admissions to federal prisons that are for nonviolent crimes: 94
Percent of state prisoner population convicted on drug charges, 1979: 6
Percent of state prisoner population convicted on drug charges, 1991: 21
Percent of Federal prisoner population convicted on drug charges, 1979: 25
Percent of Federal prisoner population convicted on drug charges, 1991: 58

And on drug incarcerations: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm
Prisoners sentenced for drug offenses constituted the largest group of Federal inmates (55%) in 2001, down from 60% in 1995

And finally, on how Amsterdam has largely eliminated its drug problems through decriminalization http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/reinarman.califano.ht ml

Go check some facts before you spout off your opinion as gospel.

"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

-- Abraham Lincoln

Also worth checking out is http://www.drugwarfacts.org/

Legalizing drugs will not fix our problems, any more than legalizing alcohol did.

http://drugwarfacts.org/crime.htm

Lots of them, here and here.

The 12% number is off, but the 25% number is correct. The US does have the largest prison population in the world, both as an absolute number and in percentage terms. More than China and Russia, and 5 to 8 times the rates of Canada and Western European countries. And a lot of people are there for nonviolent drug offenses, including this 25-year-old who's going to be in prison until age 81, with no chance of parole.

I wish this insanity would stop, although I don't hold out much hope at the rate things are going.

As of June 2002, 1 in 142 US residents are in jail. The average annual cost to incarcerate an inmate in state prison is $22,650 .

FYI, about half of the people in federal prisons, and around 20% of those in state prisons, (or 27%, by the DEA's numbers, though there they say the federal rate is about 5%, but this contradicts the Federal Bureau of Prisons figure of 54%) are in on nothing more than mere drug offenses, correct?

IMO, we ought to legalize all drugs, tax the hell out of those which seriously impair one's ability to operate machinery (e.g. cars, guns, etc.) so as to pay for the consequences which may result from legalization. Regulate the sale of the harder drugs (coke, heroin, etc.) by requiring a doctor's prescription -- a prescription as a recreational drug, much like Viagra... But softer drugs ought to be available over-the-counter for adults.

Legalizing marijuana alone would end the arrests of about 750k Americans/year and save the U.S. $7b in enforcing this prohibition, plus another $2b in housing weed-charged inmates.

Eliminate drug offenses, and your rate would go to around 1 in 284 (about 0.35%) Americans... Plus, by freeing all those people, we'd have more people here working productively and therefore able to share the cost of incarcerating the *real* criminals -- the murderers, rapists, fraudsters, etc., so the average annual cost of incarcerating prisoners would drop...

Incarceration would likely drop(who knows, maybe drug use leads to violent crime irrespective of current laws...) but the activities that are currently considered crimes would likely increase...It is less clear how decriminalization will effect the rates of crimes related to laws that are not changed.

I can't tell whether your post is pragmatic, or succumbing to FUD. Our current prohibition laws are totally unscientific as it stands (and they were in the '30s when it all began). Our justification for them are either based on falsehoods, or based purely moral principles without any scientific basis (leading back to the false justifications). Furthermore, current data suggests that legalization and/or decriminalization would show a decrease in said drug use.

I am not, however recommending that we replace a senseless policy with another senseless policy. Of course study is warranted...but the opponents of changing our policy repeatedly refuse to accept any pragmatic data. In fact, they fabricate their own "facts" in order to contradict to this data (no idea what that site's all about...just the first link from a Google search).

Part of the problem is that the people in the US government (ONDCP, DEA, and those under the curtain of DH&HS) will do anything to keep their budgets and jobs. This includes fabricating data which the Congress relies on and results in poor lawmaking. Ultimately, this needlessly puts otherwise productive members of society in jail. I'd like to target both the hypocrisy and the jerks who purvey it in our reform of drug law.

In 1968 Richard Nixon ran at least partly on reducing Crime. After election, he felt it necessary to deliver on his promises. Crimes of finance for drugs were felt to be a large part of the problem, so they were going to attack drugs. He was all set to go on a law'n'order, source-interdiction based drug policy, but his advisor(s) (Name forgotten, but there was a key one, here.) told him that it would never work. He had to work on demand reduction.

They put in place demand reduction, largely in the form of drug treatment. It worked, at least within the timeframe and measurements they used. They reduced crime.

Please see http://www.drugwarfacts.org/crime.htm for some data regarding the "War on Drugs(tm)" and its effects on crime.

IMHO, drugs should be legalized and regulated like alcohol and tobacco, simply because the budgetary and social cost of "crimes of financing" are exceeding the what the budgetary and social costs would be, if regulated. Simple, pragmatic economics.

Me too, however, I could do without the regulation part, but still.

Drugs are illegal because its an easy way for the government to establish control over its people and its illegality has become almost a necessity for our economy, and the justification for government's existance. If drugs were not illegal, what would the police, judges, and correction's officers do?

The whole drug testing thing is unconstitutional and irrational. A murderer who has no record involving drugs who is out on paroll gets drug screened all the time, but no other invasive test are done to tell if he or she is involved in any other illegal activity like paraffin tests or blood splatter tests.

Its also a little know fact that 10 out of the 50 states laws regarding marijuana for personal use as a fined offense like a speeding ticket. No time, no court, just a fine. Hopefully this is a trend.

Every year there are about 45'0000 deaths from Car accidents alone.

Are you a registered Organ Donor?

If more people would be registered, that waiting list would shorten dramatically in a year or two, and this guy would not have had to do this to stay alive.

Or do you have other plans for your organs after you are dead?

Maybe we should come up with some that reduce the effects of legal drugs. For those too lazy to follow the link: 85,000 deaths directly related to consumption of alcohol, 16,653 deaths from alcohol-related automobile collisions, and 17,000 deaths from illicit drugs. That includes deaths from drug-related automobile incidents, and illnesses contracted during the use of illegal drugs.

I'm not talking about "white collar crime." I'm talking about white, middle class people using drugs. Lots of them do. In fact, just as many middle class white folk use drugs as poor folk and black folk. That is indisputable.

It is also indisputable that middle-class folk who use drugs don't usually get arrested/imprisoned for it while, at the same time, many poor folk do. Our system of law (US law) treats two people, who are breaking the exact same law, differently.

But I really disagree with your last paragraph. Why, exactly, are drugs illegal? To make the children safer? Studies have shown that legallizing drugs might actually lead to decreased usage and a safer supply of drugs. There is little evidence which shows that decreased regulation of drugs leads to greater rates of abuse. Again, read all about it for yourself here and here.

This isn't wishy-washy. These are real studies, often commissioned by governments, which indicate that relaxed regulation and open dialog on drug use might actually be a better way to combat drug use than cracking down with police and prison time. Drugs are illegal for very bad reasons. They are illegal because people assume a police crackdown automatically leads to less drug usage.

They couldn't be more wrong.

Taft

I'm not talking about "white collar crime." I'm talking about white, middle class people using drugs. Lots of them do. In fact, just as many middle class white folk use drugs as poor folk and black folk. That is indisputable.

It is also indisputable that middle-class folk who use drugs don't usually get arrested/imprisoned for it while, at the same time, many poor folk do. Our system of law (US law) treats two people, who are breaking the exact same law, differently.

But I really disagree with your last paragraph. Why, exactly, are drugs illegal? To make the children safer? Studies have shown that legallizing drugs might actually lead to decreased usage and a safer supply of drugs. There is little evidence which shows that decreased regulation of drugs leads to greater rates of abuse. Again, read all about it for yourself here and here.

This isn't wishy-washy. These are real studies, often commissioned by governments, which indicate that relaxed regulation and open dialog on drug use might actually be a better way to combat drug use than cracking down with police and prison time. Drugs are illegal for very bad reasons. They are illegal because people assume a police crackdown automatically leads to less drug usage.

They couldn't be more wrong.

Taft

Read all the facts for yourself here.

I agree that anyone who uses drugs instead of providing for their families or themselves shouldn't get much simpathy. But at the same time, they aren't doing anything that the rest of America isn't doing. And, being poor, they statistically have a far higher rate of mental and emotional problems than their well-to-do counterparts. Ever hear of coping?

But I think the real tragedy is that the poor get treated differently by our system of law. That is the real injustice. The fact that poor/minorities are incarcerated at a higher rate than their well-to-do counterparts and use the same amount of drugs indicates an inequality in enforcement/prosecution of drug criminals. What happened to justice being blind?

Taft

Who were they? Marijuana users. Seriously, this has been tried before (and undoubtedly will be tried again), but it doesn't work. We have decades of data which indicate that the war on drugs hasn't worked. All its been successful in doing is putting a lot of people (mostly minorities and the poor) in jail. Drug use rates among teens or the population in general have not gone down.

So now, after learning all that we have from the war on drugs, we are supposed to enact more laws limiting freedoms so we can have the mistaken impression that we are acting proactively against a problem and this action is making things better? No thank you.

Just like the war on drugs, making spam purchases illegal will simply result in more people in jail. Except that, in this case, it is more likely to be men with small penises than a minority.

Taft

Civil Rights
Corruption
Crime
Prisoners
Race and Prison

Civil Rights
Corruption
Crime
Prisoners
Race and Prison

Civil Rights
Corruption
Crime
Prisoners
Race and Prison

Civil Rights
Corruption
Crime
Prisoners
Race and Prison

Civil Rights
Corruption
Crime
Prisoners
Race and Prison

The "women are equal" is taken by intelligent people to mean "women deserve an equal chance".

Intelligent people have long realized that women have always had as equal a chance as is possible.

As for the drugs, I think you overstate the adictiveness of tobacco... Heroin, from everything I've seen, is much harder to quit.

And yet the NIDA--the science wing of the drug warrior establishment--says that tobacco is the more addictive drug, at least when measured using dependence as the criteria. And it isn't just NIDA that thinks so.

(btw, anecdotal evidence regarding drug use is notoriously unreliable. Different people have different reactions. Many people can use heroin one day and walk away the next, while some people can't get off of caffeine no matter what. The plight of heroin addict you witnessed could easily have little to do with his use; the behavior you witnessed could be the manifestation of some previously existing mental condition, or, he could have actually had ants on his head (he was likely homeless, forced to sleep in the streets, where thar be ants! :)))

As for the Israeli conspiracy, I've seen how secrets leak.

And I've seen how they remain plugged up. TWA 800 is an excellent example. All kinds of evidence disputing and even outright disproving the official explanation has emerged and the media/government hasn't paid any attention whatsoever.

Besides, a lot of New York Jews died (presumably with many family connections to Israel) and anyone warning Israelis would have wanted to warn these people...

May not have been possible, as the chances are great the Israelis would have been working from passport lists or the like (if the theory is true.)

And, to finish on a conspiritorial note, anyone who masterminded the deaths of thousands (up to 10k, had the buildings collapsed sooner) would likely be willing to sacrifice some of their countrymen in order to have increased justification.

Well, that hasn't happened in any of the precedents for this sort of attack (the Lavon affair, U.S.S. Liberty) but the point is taken. Again, I am not stating categorically that the Israelis did it. I'm merely stating that there is evidence implicating Israel, that, though while not conclusive, is certainly more considerable than any amassed against Afghanistan or Iraq.

And that is all.

But would you rather drive with a drinker than someone who was high?

Alcohol is more intoxicating than marijuana, cocaine and even heroin, at least according to the NIDA. It's the intoxication that's the threat on the roadways.

In fact, most studies performed on the question demonstrate that marijuana users are much, much safer than alcohol users, and there was even one study done in Australia which showed that marijuana users were as safe on the road as people who weren't intoxicated at all! (actually the numbers showed that pot smokers were safer, but it was within the margin of error for the study.)

The crime resulting from drug use is nothing compared to the crime resulting from drug prohibition: Link

Also note that nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol addicts have no problem funding their habits. Can you explain why?

Certainly not when it causes the murder rate to skyrocket: Link

Why?

People who would only use these drugs once legalized are already using legalized drugs like alcohol, would you at least agree with that?

And given that alcohol is more intoxicating than heroin, cocaine or marijuana, wouldn't we actually see an improvement in the incidence of traffic accidents?

Think about it. Marijuana is very interesting in this case... numerous studies have been performed and which demonstrate that the impairment experienced is minimal compared to alcohol; indeed, some studies even demonstrate that there is no impairment at all.

Sorry, tobacco is more addictive than heroin, at least according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

Here, see for yourself.

And as for deadly, heroin doesn't even come close to tobacco.

In fact, most of the time when heroin kills, it isn't really the heroin itself, but the fact that it is illegal. This happens because the drug is adulterated, or because the correct dosage is unknown. Or because of the use of some other drug--usually alcohol--at the same time, an event that could be prevented under legalization through labelling.

BTW, this is why alcohol killed during prohibition.

Sorry, tobacco is more addictive than heroin, at least according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

Here, see for yourself.

And as for deadly, heroin doesn't even come close to tobacco.

In fact, most of the time when heroin kills, it isn't really the heroin itself, but the fact that it is illegal. This happens because the drug is adulterated, or because the correct dosage is unknown. Or because of the use of some other drug--usually alcohol--at the same time, an event that could be prevented under legalization through labelling.

BTW, this is why alcohol killed during prohibition.

Then I wonder what we're spending the $1200/second budget of the drug war for. It can't all be for "education"; there were only a couple of Superbowl commercials.

Actually, there were 1,579,566 arrests for drug law violations in 2000. 734,497 of those were for cannabis. 646,042 people were arrested for cannabis possession alone.

Granted, they're not all convicted, but many are: prisoners sentenced for drug offenses make up about 55% of Federal inmates and about 20% of adults in state prisons.

All this helps to give the United States the highest prison population rate in the world, at 686 per 100,000.

[Obviously this is nothing compared to the number of people who speed. I'm just objecting to the "not enforced very often" line.]

Just wait until information is added to the list of forbidden substances, and included in the War on Drugs.

And for every study linking THC to stopping cancer there is a study refuting that.

Bullshit. Here are the studies I know of.

Here's a study.

Here's another study.

And another.

And then of course there is Dr. Guzman's work itself.

Now you show us the studies that refuse these.

UCLA says smoking weed leads to lung cancer and that THC supresses anti-tumor immune responses.

Thanks for the link. Were you perhaps referring to this study? The study that was funded by the federal government, i.e., the study where if they don't report what the federal government wants to hear they'll lose their funding? Well that was put to rest by a research at Johns Hopkins Medical School who concluded in effect that no such risk exists. UCLA was doing bogus science. Indeed, if you read their report carefully, you'll note that cancer was never caused by the THC; that they simply thought it would occur based on the higher concentrations of certainl chemicals marijuana smoke shares with tobacco smoke, forgetting the whole time that a marijuana user inhales far, far less smoke than the average tobacco smoker.

Of course they had to say something though. Remember that this came out shortly after Dr. Guzman's work in Madrid.

Criminalizing IV drugs spreads AIDS? Is that like criminalizing cats spreads mice?

No, not at all. According to the logic put forth by our drug policy, heroin is a menace because once addicted the user loses the ability to choose (nevermind the fact that tobacco and alcohol are more addictive than heroin according to the NIDA.) So if these addicts have no choice but to use drugs, the only people with the opportunity to make a choice as to whether they transmit deadly diseases or not are those who stand in the way of these addicts using their drugs safely.

In other words, we know they're going to use heroin, and they want to use heroin safely, but we won't let them. We would rather see them spread deadly diseases than let them use clean syringes.

Like I said. Barbaric.

The fact is that the majority of AIDS/HIV transmission comes from sex and from infected mothers giving birth, not drugs.

The fact is that most people die of natural causes, so it's OK for us to kill? Your logic is rephrehsible.

These "indisputable" facts are easily disputed. There is zero evidence that THC would be a magic cure for the hundreds of cancers.

I've just given you four links that say otherwise.

And there is no way that anyone can blame the US for the 6 million cancer deaths world-wide.

It's our drug policy. And thanks to our economic and military might, we've seen to it that this policy is exported throughout the world. Get put on our list of "uncooperative" nations and watch your economy go into the shithole. Stand accused of aiding or abetting drug traffickers and watch our military kill hundreds if not thousands of your citizens.

And by the way, the figure is closer to 300,000,000. From cancer alone that is. Or at least, that is the number of lives that at best we've recklessly endangered. 30 years * 10,000,000 @ year = 300,000,000.

If it's so indisputable, then the Ministries/Departments/Directorates of Health of the other 200+ nation-states on Earth and the World Health Organization are equally guilty.

Do you read the news at all? We were voted out of the U.N. Committee on Narcotics last year! The world is chomping at the bit to institu

Unbelievable.

The USA has taken the lead in the incarceration rate.
It's prison population rate was between 686 (in 2001) and 702 (in 2000) prisoners per 100,000 of the national population, according to various sources.

Also see here and some additional info here.
I wonder what were the rates for 2002 and what they are today.

In 1996 alcohol was responsible for 110,640 deaths. This doesn't include deaths from drunk driving or alcohol-inspired violence.

So, approximiately 100,000 dead vs. potentially 1,000,000 saved.

I don't know. I still think they should've published the data. If they were really concerned about the unhealthy effects of alcohol they could have then published that data too.

If American drug laws were more like those in The Netherlands, we'd have a lot more prison space and our convicts would be treated more humanely. Over half of American prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes.

I'm choosing two that are hands-down slam-dunk.

Evidence? I showed that people in continental Europe do not have some fundamental rights that Americans take for granted and your response is you've made a slam-dunk.

The fact that a large percentage of those incarcerated are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses seems to escape your eye.

It's strange then that you would cite Holland and Sweden as your slam-dunk examples of free societies. While marijuana use is tolerated in Holland, use and sale of hard drugs is not and result in severe prison sentences. Sweden has a stated goal of making the country drug free. About 40% of people in prison are drug users.

I consider the amount of actual state intervention a more important metric for freedom than the details of one's judicial rights.

If actual state intervention is important,
1. Why would you select "breaking the speed limit by 1mph. Having sex with a married person to whom you are not married. Same sex sex. Watching a bought DVD on a Linux system" as examples of state intervention? People in the U.S. do these things with the same impunity as people anywhere else.
2. Why would you select Sweden as a slam-dunk example of a free society? Its high taxes and welfare state make it a common example for people who complain about state intervention.

First off, let me say that I think it is undoubtably unjust that this man is in jail. The DMCA is a joke, and yet another argument for campaign finance reform, IMHO. The RIAA and MPAA are charlatans and crooks, and I'm hoping karma bites them in the ass realsoonnow.

Having said that, there are many, many other issues that are more deserving of attention. At the end of 1999, 1 in every 137 US residents were incarcerated. An estimated 30% of those are there for non-violent drug crimes. In 1999 alone there were over 1.5 million people arrested for drug related crimes. Sklyarov is an isolated case, whereas the imprisonment of otherwise peaceful citizens goes largely unreported because it is sadly so common. The abuses of personal freedoms in the name of the drug war are much more odious than those commited in the name of the DMCA. The United States has declared war against its own citizenry in the name of fighting drug abuse. Ask yourself which is more important.

Mod me down if you wish. And again, I hope that Sklyarov goes free, and soon. But I think that on the balance his incarceration, while unjust, pales in significance when compared to other issues. And the drug war isn't the only one that can be deemed more important: poverty, AIDS, and environmental abuses all rank higher in importance, due to the fact that they affect so many more people.

And no, I'm not saying that /. shouldn't cover this. Their audience is interested in DMCA related issues. But I will continue to dedicate my efforts at raising awareness of the tragedy that is the drug war. I feel it is more worthwhile to do so.