Google holds way too much power. MS buying them would taint the brand and encourage people to seek out alternatives, which have been busy narrowing the usability gap. Diversity in the search engine space would be a very welcome development.
Apple's past record for support of older systems is a stronger indication of their intent than the ramblings of any site, publication or group of users.
They come right on the heels of Panther's debut, targetting only those security problems that Panther has addressed.
I don't think there's any doubt here what's going on. Apple struck some kind of a deal with @stake to issue these advisories at exactly this time in an effort to drive sales for Panther, which otherwise isn't worth the price.
Apple has always enjoyed a small but rabid following, and in the past ruses like this worked like a charm. Just look at the tone of the story posted here on/., it's almost mindless adulation, like how a 15-year-old girl pines for the latest boy-band.
I suspect too that they would've stuck to their guns and denied the Jaguar fix were it not for the fiasco that sees Panther trashing everybody's external FireWire 800 drives. This is a major fuckup on their part, and it isn't helped any by their trying to shift the blame to third-parties. FireWire 800 was their creation.
Shouldn't we still try to at least develop countermeasures instead of "taking a kick in the balls"?
Exclusive of any other effort? No. Absolutely not.
Now, if some of you monkeys decide you're big enough to address the root cause of all this terrorism, and then, as a complement, work on new technology to thwart further acts of violence, then yeah, that would be good.
But to continue to place all our faith in technology without understanding why people want to kill us? That's stupid.
Are you stupid?
By the way, here are 2,998 people who had nothing to do with America's "evil past".
Actually, the number is now 2,976, idiot. If you bothered keeping current with the news, you'd know that. And yes, ordinarily such a correction would count as picking nits, but the fact of the matter is that it's because so many of you skip reading international news that we're in this mess in the first place. You're too busy watching football or wrestling.
And so you are completely unaware as the rat monkeys who control this country continue to plunder and rape other nations, causing untold misery and grief... misery and grief which eventually finds it's expression in acts like 9/11, and who are more than happy to leave the rest of us exposed to the consequences.
Did the victims of 9/11 deserve it? No more than any of the rest of us did. We all choose to remain ignorant of the evil deeds committed by our government, so in a very real sense, yes, we are responsible.
I can only hope you were kidding when you say that the we let some of our major cities be destroyed, then use the term "rational leadership" in the next paragraph.
Of course, I didn't say that. In fact, my council here was aimed at preventing such an occurance. And if you could a) read, and b) think, you'd understand that.
Thank you for letting your stupidity screw the rest of us over.
It's people like you that make me hope that hell really exists.
...by the time the monkey assigned to observe the changes in the cockroaches actually observes a change of interest, it's already too late.
We're not going to solve the problem of terrorism by introducing new technology to the equation. It's the new technology that got us into this mess in the first place.
No, what solves the problem is acknowledging all the fucked up things we've done to other people in other nations/cultures that causes them to hate us so.
Understanding that we cause 99% of the shit that comes our way is the very best anti-terrorism measure we can take.
Of course, for those who wield all the power in this country, that simply won't do. They depend on our ability to inflict death and misery upon other nations so as to more easily extract their natural resources.
They understand that there are going to be repercussions by doing this, but to their mind that doesn't mean it's wrong in any way, only that they should take care to be long gone before those repercussions become real.
The horrible, brutal truth of the matter is that our very best course out of all of this is to not only cease and desist from fucking over other people, but to understand as well that because we've spent so many years fucking over all these other people in all these other nations that we're due all kinds of grief in the years to come no matter what we due today.
In other words, we could as a nation act as angels and still get shit thrown our way, simply because the seeds were planted by our predecessors long ago.
The sobering reality is this: if we are really interested in a peaceful future, we have to be ready to take a major kick to the balls, and then smile like nothing happened.
Or in other words, accept the fact that Manhattan is going to get nuked. Accept that the reason it got nuked was because of atrocities we've committed upon other people long ago. Accept that our retaliating for Manhatten being made to glow green will only cause DC, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco to glow green as well.
But of course, this will never happen. Our political system does not support rational leadership. Look at the insane reaction to 9/11. Now multiple that by a google (no, not the search engine) to understand what will happen when finally America is made to account for it's evil past.
We're fucked. We are totally fucked.
The cockroaches aren't going to save us. They are here to survive us.
They rated nicotine as being worse than heroin in the criteria of dependence, which is what most people commonly associate with addiction.
As for the dosage, I would your definition of a dose. In any case, you're oversimplifying it greatly I think. Many people die much sooner than 30 or 50 years. Cancer can occur within 20 years for instance. Cardiovascular disease can happen quicker than that. And now we're getting studies which indicate that cigarette smoke can actually cause people to have heart attacks immediately upon exposure.
The point is this: more people who smoke cigarettes die as a result than do people who use all of the other drugs combined.
Just because noone has overdosed on marijuana does not mean its use can't incapacitate someone beyond their ability to properly act and react doing complex tasks, such as driving.
I can agree with this, but I don't see how it in any way substantiates your claim that millions of people have lost their lives to stoned drivers.
How do you know I don't have research in my back pocket showing how many deaths were caused in whole or in part by marijuana?
Because if you did, you'd give us a cite, or a link, or something other than your good word.
Because it never showed up on a pro-legalization 'fair news' website?
Of course I keep tabs on the prohibition websites... it's where some of the most damning evidence against prohibition can be found. Especially NIDA.
Somebody elsewhere made this point earlier, but I'm happy to make it again. I have no doubt that there are fatalities where one of the drivers involved tests positive for marijuana use. The question is whether marijuana contributed to the accident or not. Bear in mind that you can test positive for marijuana weeks after having used it, unlike the case for alcohol, which comes much closer to testing for intoxication.
This, combined with the fact that numerous studies have been performed which have examined the effects of marijuana on driving ability and that they are unanimous to the degree that marijuana is far less of a problem than alcohol, tells me that your numbers are wrong as well.
Please understand what it is you're trying to prove. Even assuming you could test to see if a driver were intoxicated at the moment of impact, you would still have to demonstrate that the incidence of such accidents was greater than the incidence of marijuana use in the general population, and thanks to prohibition, you can't even do that because we have no way of reliably determining how many people use pot!
With regards to your brother's bipolar medicine, I think the context ably demonstrates that we are talking about recreational drugs, but I apologize for the confusion nonetheless.
While I'll admit that the chart and graph on the page seem to support your claim, drugwarfacts.org doesn't offer any source for the data in the chart (and graph). Especially considering the title of the (nine year old) NYT article, I'll have to remain doubtful of your claim that tobacco is more addictive than heroin, but I would love to see the data from NIDA that backs up your claim.
A quick Google search reveals any number of links to the full-text of the article. Here's just one.
Heroin abuse is associated with serious health conditions, including fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, collapsed veins, and infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.
As a previous poster has observed, prohibition contributes to--if not outright causes--each of these consequences.
I can't remember the last time I heard of anyone dying from a fatal overdose of nicotine--and I've known a number of chain-smokers.
What does it matter how the substance kills? That said, there is emerging evidence that exposure to tobacco smoke can induce cardiac arrest, simply by being exposed. In effect, the victims overdose....the health concerns NIDA is referring to here are for the heroin itself
This is not true.
However, the fact that the additives are dangerous does not change the fact that the heroin is dangerous, too.
The emerging consensus is that heroin causes no ongoing toxicity to the body, even through long-term use. Heroin may only be dangerous because we've worked so hard to make it that way.
I'm not against the legalization of some drugs which are currently illegal, but I am against distorting the truth.
As am I, which is why I take such great exception to your post.
As has been pointed out, the argument that drugs should be kept illegal because of what it might mean on the roads applies as well--if not moreso--to alcohol, the most intoxicating recreational drug there is.
You're going to tell the millions of people whose lives have been devastated by abuse of ANY substance that 'hey sorry youre dead, its the american way'?
No, you're the one who is telling them that. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is prohibition that is what kills, not the drug itself.
You cite the drunk driving statistic, but I wonder if you realize how much our present policy contributes to that. We effectively encourage our young to binge drink with our drug policy. We practically endorse alcohol use, which as you point out contributes to these fatalities, when a drug like marijuana might otherwise be used which causes no overdose and little if any impairment when operating a motor vehicle.
The legality of these substances has little to do with the harm they can cause...
That is simply wrong. Look at alcohol prohibition. Look at all the people who died because the stuff they were drinking wasn't alcohol at all! What do you think the word overdose means? Do you think all of these heroin users actually wanted to overdose? Or is it more likely that they didn't know what the proper dosage was, because the black-market doesn't regulate purity? Adulteration kills too. It is thought that every one of these deaths you hear attributed to Ecstacy are in fact attributable to crap that was sold in its stead. Crap that would never have even reached the user were the drug legal.
Did you know that heroin, when correctly manufactured and of known purity, actually produces no ongoing toxicity whatsoever?
Ours is a drug policy that promotes the use of the most addictive and deadly recreational drugs out there--alcohol and tobacco--while using violence to deter people who seek to use the safest and least addictive recreational drugs like marijuana.
Alcohol is the only drug you can be addicted to that can kill you when you try to quit.
More people die from alcohol overdose than do from any other recreational drug, even though alcohol manufacturing is legal and regulated and thus produced without adulteration.
Alcohol is more intoxicating than heroin, cocaine or marijuana, and hence, causes more death indirectly through accidents and violence.
And then of course there are the long-term health consequences, which kill more people than any other drug out there save tobacco.
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.
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.
So you support repealing the 21st Amendment, and letting alcohol prohibition stand, is that right?
Despite all the evidence that's been amassed that demonstrates beyond doubt that alcohol prohibition worsened the problems associated with alcohol abuse, you would have us continue this failed policy for the rest of the drugs.
You would have us continue to arrest and incarcerate millions, and kill millions more, simply to satisfy your notion of propriety with respect to drug use, even though it then violates my right to do with my body as I choose?
I'm sorry, you're not making any sense here. Most of the lives that have been devastated by drug use that you point to were devastated not because of the drug use per se, but because of our policy towards same.
I mean, how exactly do you think it is that America came to be such a successful nation? You do realize, don't you, that these drugs were legal for most of our history, yes?
Are you serious? Are you actually going to use cigarettes as an example?
The most deadly and addictive recreational drug there is, and we only just stopped selling the stuff through vending machines!
Says a lot about our commitment to keeping the truly dangerous drugs away from kids, doesn't it?
The same applies for alcohol. We don't really enforce these laws. Compare the sentence an adult gets for selling weed to a kid with the slap-on-the-wrist a clerk at the 7-11 gets for failing to ID for an alcohol purchase, despite the enormous disparity in harm between these substances.
If you're really serious about preventing underage drug use--including the deadliest and most addictive recreational drugs, alcohol and tobacco--you'll legalize the rest of the drugs, put them all on the same shelf, and make the penalties for procuring any of these drugs for the underage very severe.
Or, you can continue pretending that what we're doing now is working.
As stupid as the war on drugs is, attempting to gain the upper hand through technology is even stupider.
For instance, thanks to the innumerable advances in creating genetically-engineered plants, we will soon see the day where the characteristics of interest in plants such as cannabis, coca, psilocybin, and opium are capable of being integrated within such ordinary plants as grass, seaweed, ferns, etc. So even if we are able to use technology to prevent drugs from coming into this country from the outside, the obvious solution for organized crime will be to make it so that the drugs can be more easily manufactured from within.
We've already seen this with methamphetimines. By working to reduce the supply and thereby increase the cost of the more traditional drugs, the market responds with a drug like meth, that is easy and cheap to produce domestically. Look at the consequences of the meth epidemic in America. It's a total disaster.
Changing the technology isn't the answer. Changing the policy is. Legalize drugs now.
Who would you rather see selling drugs? Law-abiding citizens in a legalized environment who won't sell to kids? Or criminals in a black-market environment who will?
That's the question nobody on the prohibition side seems to be able to answer. They admit that they will never be able to rid the world of illegal drugs, yet cannot come to grips with this simple question. If our drug policy is based on what is best for the children, then why haven't we legalized already? Why not start letting communities actually control these controlled substances for a change? When do we learn the lesson of alcohol prohibition? When do we recognize that there is no constitutional basis for the continuation of this goddamn policy?
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Google holds way too much power. MS buying them would taint the brand and encourage people to seek out alternatives, which have been busy narrowing the usability gap. Diversity in the search engine space would be a very welcome development.
Apple's past record for support of older systems is a stronger indication of their intent than the ramblings of any site, publication or group of users.
LOL! I guess you haven't read this yet.
Just today, Apple announces the terms of the class action settlement stemming from their unwillingness to support older systems.
Talking to Mac people the truth about Apple is like telling a five-year-old Santa Claus doesn't exist.
Just look at the timing of the security advisories from @stake.
/., it's almost mindless adulation, like how a 15-year-old girl pines for the latest boy-band.
They come right on the heels of Panther's debut, targetting only those security problems that Panther has addressed.
I don't think there's any doubt here what's going on. Apple struck some kind of a deal with @stake to issue these advisories at exactly this time in an effort to drive sales for Panther, which otherwise isn't worth the price.
Apple has always enjoyed a small but rabid following, and in the past ruses like this worked like a charm. Just look at the tone of the story posted here on
I suspect too that they would've stuck to their guns and denied the Jaguar fix were it not for the fiasco that sees Panther trashing everybody's external FireWire 800 drives. This is a major fuckup on their part, and it isn't helped any by their trying to shift the blame to third-parties. FireWire 800 was their creation.
They can only push their luck so far.
your mocking tone makes you just as bad as all of the people you hate
Hatred finds its ultimate expression in the killing of others. My anger doesn't come anywhere close to that.
They aren't even remotely similar, you fucking retard.
I can't tell you how many times I make that mistake.
your arrogant attitude and dim consideration of your fellow human being is part of the problem, not the solution
I see, criticizing the wanton destruction of other nations/cultures constitutes a "dim consideration" of my fellow human beings.
Right.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
I wonder why I chose the term monkey. Oh yeah, that's right... thank you for reminding me.
Actually, the number is now 2,750, idiot.
No it isn't.
That's the toll for the WTC alone.
If you bothered to read the news, you'd discover that the WTC was not the only target of terrorism on that day.
Retard.
Shouldn't we still try to at least develop countermeasures instead of "taking a kick in the balls"?
Exclusive of any other effort? No. Absolutely not.
Now, if some of you monkeys decide you're big enough to address the root cause of all this terrorism, and then, as a complement, work on new technology to thwart further acts of violence, then yeah, that would be good.
But to continue to place all our faith in technology without understanding why people want to kill us? That's stupid.
Are you stupid?
By the way, here are 2,998 people who had nothing to do with America's "evil past".
Actually, the number is now 2,976, idiot. If you bothered keeping current with the news, you'd know that. And yes, ordinarily such a correction would count as picking nits, but the fact of the matter is that it's because so many of you skip reading international news that we're in this mess in the first place. You're too busy watching football or wrestling.
And so you are completely unaware as the rat monkeys who control this country continue to plunder and rape other nations, causing untold misery and grief... misery and grief which eventually finds it's expression in acts like 9/11, and who are more than happy to leave the rest of us exposed to the consequences.
Did the victims of 9/11 deserve it? No more than any of the rest of us did. We all choose to remain ignorant of the evil deeds committed by our government, so in a very real sense, yes, we are responsible.
I can only hope you were kidding when you say that the we let some of our major cities be destroyed, then use the term "rational leadership" in the next paragraph.
Of course, I didn't say that. In fact, my council here was aimed at preventing such an occurance. And if you could a) read, and b) think, you'd understand that.
Thank you for letting your stupidity screw the rest of us over.
It's people like you that make me hope that hell really exists.
...by the time the monkey assigned to observe the changes in the cockroaches actually observes a change of interest, it's already too late.
We're not going to solve the problem of terrorism by introducing new technology to the equation. It's the new technology that got us into this mess in the first place.
No, what solves the problem is acknowledging all the fucked up things we've done to other people in other nations/cultures that causes them to hate us so.
Understanding that we cause 99% of the shit that comes our way is the very best anti-terrorism measure we can take.
Of course, for those who wield all the power in this country, that simply won't do. They depend on our ability to inflict death and misery upon other nations so as to more easily extract their natural resources.
They understand that there are going to be repercussions by doing this, but to their mind that doesn't mean it's wrong in any way, only that they should take care to be long gone before those repercussions become real.
The horrible, brutal truth of the matter is that our very best course out of all of this is to not only cease and desist from fucking over other people, but to understand as well that because we've spent so many years fucking over all these other people in all these other nations that we're due all kinds of grief in the years to come no matter what we due today.
In other words, we could as a nation act as angels and still get shit thrown our way, simply because the seeds were planted by our predecessors long ago.
The sobering reality is this: if we are really interested in a peaceful future, we have to be ready to take a major kick to the balls, and then smile like nothing happened.
Or in other words, accept the fact that Manhattan is going to get nuked. Accept that the reason it got nuked was because of atrocities we've committed upon other people long ago. Accept that our retaliating for Manhatten being made to glow green will only cause DC, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco to glow green as well.
But of course, this will never happen. Our political system does not support rational leadership. Look at the insane reaction to 9/11. Now multiple that by a google (no, not the search engine) to understand what will happen when finally America is made to account for it's evil past.
We're fucked. We are totally fucked.
The cockroaches aren't going to save us. They are here to survive us.
Have a nice day.
Your wrong.
Actually, it turns out that is a typo. It's not 3 percent, it's 38 percent.
See for yourself.
Here's what the New York Times and scientists for NIDA have to say about the relative addictiveness.
They rated nicotine as being worse than heroin in the criteria of dependence, which is what most people commonly associate with addiction.
As for the dosage, I would your definition of a dose. In any case, you're oversimplifying it greatly I think. Many people die much sooner than 30 or 50 years. Cancer can occur within 20 years for instance. Cardiovascular disease can happen quicker than that. And now we're getting studies which indicate that cigarette smoke can actually cause people to have heart attacks immediately upon exposure.
The point is this: more people who smoke cigarettes die as a result than do people who use all of the other drugs combined.
I think some places ban chocolate cigarettes. :)
Just because noone has overdosed on marijuana does not mean its use can't incapacitate someone beyond their ability to properly act and react doing complex tasks, such as driving.
I can agree with this, but I don't see how it in any way substantiates your claim that millions of people have lost their lives to stoned drivers.
How do you know I don't have research in my back pocket showing how many deaths were caused in whole or in part by marijuana?
Because if you did, you'd give us a cite, or a link, or something other than your good word.
Because it never showed up on a pro-legalization 'fair news' website?
Of course I keep tabs on the prohibition websites... it's where some of the most damning evidence against prohibition can be found. Especially NIDA.
Somebody elsewhere made this point earlier, but I'm happy to make it again. I have no doubt that there are fatalities where one of the drivers involved tests positive for marijuana use. The question is whether marijuana contributed to the accident or not. Bear in mind that you can test positive for marijuana weeks after having used it, unlike the case for alcohol, which comes much closer to testing for intoxication.
This, combined with the fact that numerous studies have been performed which have examined the effects of marijuana on driving ability and that they are unanimous to the degree that marijuana is far less of a problem than alcohol, tells me that your numbers are wrong as well.
Please understand what it is you're trying to prove. Even assuming you could test to see if a driver were intoxicated at the moment of impact, you would still have to demonstrate that the incidence of such accidents was greater than the incidence of marijuana use in the general population, and thanks to prohibition, you can't even do that because we have no way of reliably determining how many people use pot!
Alchohol is NOT the only drug with deadly withdrawl. Heroin withdawl can, and does kill people.
Heroin withdrawal is never fatal to otherwise healthy adults.
With regards to your brother's bipolar medicine, I think the context ably demonstrates that we are talking about recreational drugs, but I apologize for the confusion nonetheless.
I will tell that to the millions of families who lost a loved one to a pothead who thought he was okay to drive.
You can't even demonstrate ONE death lost to somebody because he was driving stoned, at least not conclusively.
And you want to claim millions?
It simply isn't so. As your inability to corroborate such an outrageous statement clearly indicates.
While I'll admit that the chart and graph on the page seem to support your claim, drugwarfacts.org doesn't offer any source for the data in the chart (and graph). Especially considering the title of the (nine year old) NYT article, I'll have to remain doubtful of your claim that tobacco is more addictive than heroin, but I would love to see the data from NIDA that backs up your claim.
...the health concerns NIDA is referring to here are for the heroin itself
A quick Google search reveals any number of links to the full-text of the article. Here's just one.
Heroin abuse is associated with serious health conditions, including fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, collapsed veins, and infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.
As a previous poster has observed, prohibition contributes to--if not outright causes--each of these consequences.
I can't remember the last time I heard of anyone dying from a fatal overdose of nicotine--and I've known a number of chain-smokers.
What does it matter how the substance kills? That said, there is emerging evidence that exposure to tobacco smoke can induce cardiac arrest, simply by being exposed. In effect, the victims overdose.
This is not true.
However, the fact that the additives are dangerous does not change the fact that the heroin is dangerous, too.
The emerging consensus is that heroin causes no ongoing toxicity to the body, even through long-term use. Heroin may only be dangerous because we've worked so hard to make it that way.
I'm not against the legalization of some drugs which are currently illegal, but I am against distorting the truth.
As am I, which is why I take such great exception to your post.
Then you shouldn't drive while high.
Just like you shouldn't drink while drunk.
As has been pointed out, the argument that drugs should be kept illegal because of what it might mean on the roads applies as well--if not moreso--to alcohol, the most intoxicating recreational drug there is.
You're going to tell the millions of people whose lives have been devastated by abuse of ANY substance that 'hey sorry youre dead, its the american way'?
No, you're the one who is telling them that. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is prohibition that is what kills, not the drug itself.
You cite the drunk driving statistic, but I wonder if you realize how much our present policy contributes to that. We effectively encourage our young to binge drink with our drug policy. We practically endorse alcohol use, which as you point out contributes to these fatalities, when a drug like marijuana might otherwise be used which causes no overdose and little if any impairment when operating a motor vehicle.
The legality of these substances has little to do with the harm they can cause...
That is simply wrong. Look at alcohol prohibition. Look at all the people who died because the stuff they were drinking wasn't alcohol at all! What do you think the word overdose means? Do you think all of these heroin users actually wanted to overdose? Or is it more likely that they didn't know what the proper dosage was, because the black-market doesn't regulate purity? Adulteration kills too. It is thought that every one of these deaths you hear attributed to Ecstacy are in fact attributable to crap that was sold in its stead. Crap that would never have even reached the user were the drug legal.
Did you know that heroin, when correctly manufactured and of known purity, actually produces no ongoing toxicity whatsoever?
Ours is a drug policy that promotes the use of the most addictive and deadly recreational drugs out there--alcohol and tobacco--while using violence to deter people who seek to use the safest and least addictive recreational drugs like marijuana.
There is a word for this. Insanity.
Yes, of course, I should have made that clearer.
Alcohol is the only drug you can be addicted to that can kill you when you try to quit.
More people die from alcohol overdose than do from any other recreational drug, even though alcohol manufacturing is legal and regulated and thus produced without adulteration.
Alcohol is more intoxicating than heroin, cocaine or marijuana, and hence, causes more death indirectly through accidents and violence.
And then of course there are the long-term health consequences, which kill more people than any other drug out there save tobacco.
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.
So you support repealing the 21st Amendment, and letting alcohol prohibition stand, is that right?
Despite all the evidence that's been amassed that demonstrates beyond doubt that alcohol prohibition worsened the problems associated with alcohol abuse, you would have us continue this failed policy for the rest of the drugs.
You would have us continue to arrest and incarcerate millions, and kill millions more, simply to satisfy your notion of propriety with respect to drug use, even though it then violates my right to do with my body as I choose?
I'm sorry, you're not making any sense here. Most of the lives that have been devastated by drug use that you point to were devastated not because of the drug use per se, but because of our policy towards same.
I mean, how exactly do you think it is that America came to be such a successful nation? You do realize, don't you, that these drugs were legal for most of our history, yes?
Actually I fear people who use alcohol more than I do any other drug. And the statistics bear this out: alcohol causes more violence by far.
I'm afraid you're a victim of propaganda.
Are you serious? Are you actually going to use cigarettes as an example?
The most deadly and addictive recreational drug there is, and we only just stopped selling the stuff through vending machines!
Says a lot about our commitment to keeping the truly dangerous drugs away from kids, doesn't it?
The same applies for alcohol. We don't really enforce these laws. Compare the sentence an adult gets for selling weed to a kid with the slap-on-the-wrist a clerk at the 7-11 gets for failing to ID for an alcohol purchase, despite the enormous disparity in harm between these substances.
If you're really serious about preventing underage drug use--including the deadliest and most addictive recreational drugs, alcohol and tobacco--you'll legalize the rest of the drugs, put them all on the same shelf, and make the penalties for procuring any of these drugs for the underage very severe.
Or, you can continue pretending that what we're doing now is working.
As stupid as the war on drugs is, attempting to gain the upper hand through technology is even stupider.
For instance, thanks to the innumerable advances in creating genetically-engineered plants, we will soon see the day where the characteristics of interest in plants such as cannabis, coca, psilocybin, and opium are capable of being integrated within such ordinary plants as grass, seaweed, ferns, etc. So even if we are able to use technology to prevent drugs from coming into this country from the outside, the obvious solution for organized crime will be to make it so that the drugs can be more easily manufactured from within.
We've already seen this with methamphetimines. By working to reduce the supply and thereby increase the cost of the more traditional drugs, the market responds with a drug like meth, that is easy and cheap to produce domestically. Look at the consequences of the meth epidemic in America. It's a total disaster.
Changing the technology isn't the answer. Changing the policy is. Legalize drugs now.
Who would you rather see selling drugs? Law-abiding citizens in a legalized environment who won't sell to kids? Or criminals in a black-market environment who will?
That's the question nobody on the prohibition side seems to be able to answer. They admit that they will never be able to rid the world of illegal drugs, yet cannot come to grips with this simple question. If our drug policy is based on what is best for the children, then why haven't we legalized already? Why not start letting communities actually control these controlled substances for a change? When do we learn the lesson of alcohol prohibition? When do we recognize that there is no constitutional basis for the continuation of this goddamn policy?