I don't mean to sound like a moron or naive but are Linux rootkits really that prevalent?
Considering that rootkits originated in Unix (hence "root"), I imagine that they are as prevalent in Linux as they are in any operating system (the argument of uptime notwithstanding).
Besides, a rootkit does not have to reside in kernel space to be very effective. Simply replacing many of the key binaries (init, bash, getty, ls, top, ps, etc depending on *nix flavor) will do wonders for probably 98% of systems out there. That said, I'm sure there are some which do reside in kernel space (a kernel module perhaps?) or maybe even some that are simply modified kernels (the source is available after all). How do you know that the kernel your system is running has not been compromised?
After doing a quick google search for "rootkits for linux", I found a few for the old 2.0 and 2.2 Linux kernels...
I tend to doubt you'll find the latest and greatest rootkit via Google. If you know the right people, I'm sure you can get whatever you need.
The methanol -> formaldehyde breakdown chain is at least disconcerting(and I get that it is a very small amount).
And that's what everybody says when asked about it. You might find this interesting (from here):
Aspartame, a dipeptide composed of phenylalanine and aspartic acid linked by a methyl ester bond, is not absorbed, and is completely hydrolysed in the intestine to yield the two constituent amino acids and free methanol. Opponents of aspartame suggest that the phenylalanine and methanol so released are dangerous. In particular, they assert that methanol can be converted to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, and thus cause metabolic acidosis and neurotoxicity.
Although a 330 ml can of aspartame-sweetened soft drink will yield about 20 mg methanol, an equivalent volume of fruit juice produces 40 mg methanol, and an alcoholic beverage about 60-100 mg. The yield of phenylalanine is about 100 mg for a can of diet soft drink, compared with 300 mg for an egg, 500 mg for a glass of milk, and 900 mg for a large hamburger (1). Thus, the amount of phenylalanine or methanol ingested from consumption of aspartame is trivial, compared with other dietary sources. Clinical studies have shown no evidence of toxic effects and no increase in plasma concentrations of methanol, formic acid, or phenylalanine with daily consumption of 50 mg/kg aspartame (equivalent to 17 cans of diet soft drink daily for a 70 kg adult) (1, 2).
And no, you only need to worry about heavy metal poisoning from your well:) (though I admit I much prefer the well at my parent's house than city water).
Well, this is just great! Thanks a lot guys! We thought we'd give this a fair run, see how things went, etc. I think we've been fair, very patient, but after the stunts pulled today I'm afraid we've spoken to our lawyers and we have to pull the plug. You only have yourselves to blame. Thanks for helping us test the system. So long.
But is it really news that Teens are committing computer crime? Isn't that the stereotype?
Exactly! The only feasible solution is to add Hot Pockets to the same over-the-counter blacklist that NyQuil and such are on. Anyone who goes to Costco and buys a case of Hot Pockets is obviously a criminal.
You do realize that the USA is a really, really big place, right? There are literally thousands of chocolate makers.
Living here, indeed I do, and I realize I wasn't exactly verbose, but I was referring to commodity chocolate, the kind of stuff you might find at a gas station. I know you can find incredible chocolate at specialty stores and the like.
However, if we're just talking about off-the-shelf style candy, I'll take the European stuff any day. For some reason most Americans seem just fine with the brown wax misleadingly known as "chocolate", but anyone who has tried candy from abroad knows what we're missing out on.
Simple solution is to simply use something like TrueCrypt.
TrueCrypt is pretty neat, but that brings up a question. If you encrypt your entire hard drive, what happens when your computer is taken as evidence? Can you be required to divulge the decryption key? IANAL, but I assume that you can be held in contempt of court (or something) by refusing to offer it up, leading to criminal charges, fines, and/or jail time. In any case, I doubt you can just give the RIAA the bird and say "Nah nah, can't touch this" because your stuff is encrypted.
Does anyone know the details about this? I doubt encryption helps you when it comes to legal matters, unless maybe you can plead the Fifth. After all, by giving up the decryption key you may be incriminating yourself:)
I completely agree, and I'm not afraid to share my opinion! In fact, just the other day I was telling a friend how completely stupid the cops are around here! All they do all day long is eat donuts and sit on their fat as....al#&(!@NNA&$N+++ATH^NO CARRIER
The thing is, I imagine that only the Windows "power users" really care and/or know the reasons behind wanting to stick with XP (at least until a service pack or two is released for Vista). Most average users just see Vista as the new Windows. Pretty much everything they do--Office, web browsing, email, Solitaire--still works and it's shiny and bouncy and see-through...wow! Most probably won't even notice a slowdown because they get Vista with new hardware and it offsets the new performance requirements.
Microsoft is probably just trying to give people they see as just not liking change a push to move to the new OS. I'm not too concerned because I've got a couple XP Pro licenses hanging around, a few OEMs and one from MSDNAA, so I'll "upgrade" when I'm good and ready.
I'd say on most days it does a fair job of at least hiding the blatant trolls from view. The nice thing about Slashdot's threaded system is that heated arguments don't mean the entire story is taken over. Besides, I think arguments in the comments is one reason some people read them.
Of course Slashdot's moderation is also at the whim of the subset of users that have mod points on a given day. For example on April Fools, all somebody has to do is say "Please mod my post insightful! kthxbye." and they hit +5 in minutes. Alternatively, a story like this might prompt someone to say "Reverse the polarity of the moderation flow!" suggesting moderators go nuts modding up trolls and flamebait and modding down everything else. (That would actually be pretty funny. Read More -- 10 of 381 comments). And of course moderators would probably do it, just to spite the system:)
(That actually sounds like a funny April Fools joke for next year. Give everyone mod points for the day and then randomize or invert what they do. Heck, even just giving everyone infinite mod points would be funny, and probably break Slashdot in the process).
Is there a market for super efficient cars that look like tampons with wheels?
Interestingly enough, Scott Adams talks about this very thing in his latest blog entry. In addition to throwing some humor in the mix, he shares your opinion about the look of available high(er) efficiency vehicles.
Personally, while enemy AI is something that's pretty neat to see in action, it's the friendly AI that gets my attention. Most games seem to put all their effort into the enemy, while you friends turn out to be schizophrenics with an IQ of about 40. I haven't played, but I have heard that something that people complained about in Gears of War was was the poor team AI.
I don't play many games any more, but Halo 2 was one that I thought pulled ahead of the pack a bit. Friends that can drive vehicles was pretty cool (albeit not always the safest drivers...) allowing you to man the gun in the back. They also seem better at not running right in front of you when you're in the middle of launching a rocket, and also do little things like take advantage of available cover (or in other cases jumping up on top of said cover and getting blown to bits). Halo 3 is supposed to have even better AI for both friendlies and enemies, and that's one of the things about it I'm looking forward to.
Remember Ballmer's little prancing mantra? "Developers. Developers! DEVELOPERS!!!"? Guess what? There's a ton of Java developers out there. Their code does not run on MS OSes in general in production.
I guess I must be imagining that Azureus is running on my Windows box as we speak. Hmm.
or wait for them them to boot forever when they've failed to recover from a sleep/hibernate situation.
I've never had Windows fail to come out of hibernation or sleep (with the exception of once when the battery died halfway through the hibernation process). Besides, in the event you do need to boot, doesn't Windows boot faster than Mac/Linux?
They start using user friendly non-MS applications that do what they want.
As opposed to user friendly MS applications that do what they want? Ever hear of Visual Studio, you know, that program that anyone who develops for Windows uses? The IDE that everyone else emulates?
They don't suffer embarassing BSODs on waking from sleep, or during their presentations.
Maybe should invest in a laptop that isn't a piece of crap. This argument has been outdated since Win2000 came out; I thought you guys had finally given up trying to get people to keep believing it.
all of a sudden, there's more developers for Apple than MS.
Developers who want to starve, sure. A 3% market share can only support so many developers. Pretty soon Apple developers will be the new musicians: out of work and unemployed in every sense of the word, waiting for their big gig, which they're sure is just right around the corner.
Another draw is multi-media editing software. The software on OSX just works better and easier than anything I've seen on an MS system.
And another argument from 1998.
As for making your own system with your own hardware, Apple sells their software already and if you're willing to hack it, you can run it on other hardware.
I love how Apple fanboys always seem to cover up that Apple participates in more vendor lock-in that Microsoft, and instead explain that you can just "hack it". Oh, and breaking the licensing agreement and giving Apple the option of revoking your software license is always a great idea too.
I'd love to see a 16 or 32 core Mac Pro in the near future - imagine the processing ability of such a system.
Let's see, Intel processor, Intel chipset... Probably about the same as a 16 or 32 core PC!
A better question would be, how much better would things be if now we decided to give stiffer penalties for driving under the influence -- just take away people's licenses on their first infraction, for something like 10 years, or life.
Really, it's an activity, and as long as someone is not hurting others then it's Stay Out of my Fucking Way territory.
I'd like to agree, but the problem is that if somebody chooses to remove their ability to discern dangerous actions towards others then you're in new territory. Waving a gun around in school, for example, doesn't actually hurt anyone, but I imagine you'll be in handcuffs soon enough.
If everyone wants to go this route (and it appears so by your moderation) then punishments had better be adjusted accordingly. If you kill somebody through drug-related negligence (ie, it's manslaughter) then the death penalty is the only result I want to see. Someone who has such little regard for other people's lives that they willingly throw them away has no right to their own.
People who use these drugs don't tend to care much about the legality or otherwise, so I don't think there is a valid case to make that ending prohibition will increase their numbers.
Perhaps people who currently use them don't care, but what about all the people who have thought about it, or almost did, but didn't because they worried about the repercussions? Some people really do think about causality. If they do drugs, there's a good chance somebody will find out, and they will end up paying for their choice.
By removing the legal ramifications of doing drugs you remove the second-largest deterrent to doing them (second to moral/health reasons). The only thing left is the cost, and people prove every day in bars and casinos around the world that money isn't much of a deterrent at all.
So what is your great motivator that you gain no pleasure from, I'm curious.
I think there is a difference from physiological pleasure and a feeling of happiness or contentment. Yes, some people obtain that through money, others through helping people, others through hobbies, etc.
By your argument, the enjoyment that comes from reading a book is the same as the pleasure that comes from drugs, is that right?
Of course there is, the brain is a pleasure seeking mechanism
That's not logic, that's human physiology. Logic would cause a potential user to stop and ask "What will this do to my health? My life? My family? My job? My future? Will this make me more or less productive in society?"
in fact it can be argued that all effort is mediated in the brain for the purpose of seeking pleasure
Again, only at the most basic level. If you really believe that this is all we are, then you really are one of the moist robots Scott Adams likes to go on about. For most people, there are more profound motivators than perceived pleasure.
the willfully ignorant have no interest in learning anything.
And those lost in self-justifying denial have even less.
Who's giving them money? Why, that would be us. Why are they getting money? 'Cause they sell drugs. Drugs are made of fucking plants, why are they so expensive?
The tobacco industry is incredibly wealthy, and they sell legally process plants. Where do you think these new legally-available drugs will come from? South America. Who will the money go to? The cartels. The only thing that will come from legalizing a drug such as marijuana will be increased demand. Increased demand will mean increased profits.
Gangs and drug-related violence won't go away. Why give up your spot on the corner when you can undercut the gas station down the street by 25%? Why give up your turf just because Uncle Sam said your merchandise isn't illegal anymore?
By your logic then you believe that alcohol and tobacco should also be illegal. Is that the case?
Tobacco isn't as much of a concern because it's effects alone on a person's mental facilities are much less than other drugs. I would say yes to alcohol, however we've tried that before and things didn't go so well. The problem is that once you decide to take something away, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to then enforce the law. Most of the time, "whatever it takes" means taking even more away from the people.
You can always circumvent making alcohol illegal by simply trading a punishment for possession with stiffer punishments for abuse. For example, the FIRST time somebody is caught driving under the influence of alcohol, they lose their license. Not for a week, not a month, not a year. Forever. The goal here would be to remove the threat some people pose as fast as possible, without inflicting sobriety on more "responsible" people. It wouldn't fix the problem, but I think it would be a significant step in the right direction.
It's hardly surprising that in the decades since, the laws concerning cannabis are just as tortured and contradictory, especially when considered against the background of yet another new study that suggest alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous
Regardless of Dr. Nutt's findings (note my ability to refrain from making jokes!), the problem I have with illegal (and legal) drugs is NOT primarily what it does to the user. While I think that a society of addicts is ultimately doomed, my primary concern are the victims of drug abusers.
We already have to deal with intoxicated people operating cars, planes, and other potentially lethal machinery. How much worse would things be if now, in addition to those, you've got people high on ecstasy or marijuana? What about heroin? Would bystander deaths double? Triple? Some of the effects of these drugs make alcohol pale in comparison.
People like to explain that the "war on drugs" is failing and how eventually the government will have no choice but to legalize these substances. They even go on to say how great it would be for everyone because then the government will be able to collect taxes in the same manner they do with tobacco. Last time I checked, not very many people grow tobacco in their backyards and make cigarettes in their basements. Why does anyone think dealers give the government a cut of their lucrative business?
Pretending for a moment that anyone would pay these "drug taxes", I wonder what percentage of these new taxes would go to pay for the welfare of addicts? 300% at the very least I would assume, but very likely more. Society already has to pay for addicts, how many would we be paying for if these substances become easily and legally available?
Logic has no place in pro-drug arguments, because there is nothing logical about (ab)using these drugs in the first place. I don't suggest to have answers, but I don't care what you use to justify your reasoning, in any case, the only question legalizing illegal drugs answers is "how can we destroy our society?"
Slashdot Mirror
I don't mean to sound like a moron or naive but are Linux rootkits really that prevalent?
Considering that rootkits originated in Unix (hence "root"), I imagine that they are as prevalent in Linux as they are in any operating system (the argument of uptime notwithstanding).
Besides, a rootkit does not have to reside in kernel space to be very effective. Simply replacing many of the key binaries (init, bash, getty, ls, top, ps, etc depending on *nix flavor) will do wonders for probably 98% of systems out there. That said, I'm sure there are some which do reside in kernel space (a kernel module perhaps?) or maybe even some that are simply modified kernels (the source is available after all). How do you know that the kernel your system is running has not been compromised?
After doing a quick google search for "rootkits for linux", I found a few for the old 2.0 and 2.2 Linux kernels...
I tend to doubt you'll find the latest and greatest rootkit via Google. If you know the right people, I'm sure you can get whatever you need.
And that's what everybody says when asked about it. You might find this interesting (from here):
And no, you only need to worry about heavy metal poisoning from your well
Well, this is just great! Thanks a lot guys! We thought we'd give this a fair run, see how things went, etc. I think we've been fair, very patient, but after the stunts pulled today I'm afraid we've spoken to our lawyers and we have to pull the plug. You only have yourselves to blame. Thanks for helping us test the system. So long.
- Al Gore
+++AH*$*&*^!NA(*$&!(HDSF....[ NO CARRIER ]
But is it really news that Teens are committing computer crime? Isn't that the stereotype?
Exactly! The only feasible solution is to add Hot Pockets to the same over-the-counter blacklist that NyQuil and such are on. Anyone who goes to Costco and buys a case of Hot Pockets is obviously a criminal.
You do realize that the USA is a really, really big place, right? There are literally thousands of chocolate makers.
Living here, indeed I do, and I realize I wasn't exactly verbose, but I was referring to commodity chocolate, the kind of stuff you might find at a gas station. I know you can find incredible chocolate at specialty stores and the like.
However, if we're just talking about off-the-shelf style candy, I'll take the European stuff any day. For some reason most Americans seem just fine with the brown wax misleadingly known as "chocolate", but anyone who has tried candy from abroad knows what we're missing out on.
As if American chocolate wasn't bad enough as it is...
Simple solution is to simply use something like TrueCrypt.
:)
TrueCrypt is pretty neat, but that brings up a question. If you encrypt your entire hard drive, what happens when your computer is taken as evidence? Can you be required to divulge the decryption key? IANAL, but I assume that you can be held in contempt of court (or something) by refusing to offer it up, leading to criminal charges, fines, and/or jail time. In any case, I doubt you can just give the RIAA the bird and say "Nah nah, can't touch this" because your stuff is encrypted.
Does anyone know the details about this? I doubt encryption helps you when it comes to legal matters, unless maybe you can plead the Fifth. After all, by giving up the decryption key you may be incriminating yourself
Anyone know?
I completely agree, and I'm not afraid to share my opinion! In fact, just the other day I was telling a friend how completely stupid the cops are around here! All they do all day long is eat donuts and sit on their fat as....al#&(!@NNA&$N+++ATH^NO CARRIER
This is a good move on Microsoft's part only if they enjoy annoying their customers.
I think this is a great description of the situation..
The thing is, I imagine that only the Windows "power users" really care and/or know the reasons behind wanting to stick with XP (at least until a service pack or two is released for Vista). Most average users just see Vista as the new Windows. Pretty much everything they do--Office, web browsing, email, Solitaire--still works and it's shiny and bouncy and see-through...wow! Most probably won't even notice a slowdown because they get Vista with new hardware and it offsets the new performance requirements.
Microsoft is probably just trying to give people they see as just not liking change a push to move to the new OS. I'm not too concerned because I've got a couple XP Pro licenses hanging around, a few OEMs and one from MSDNAA, so I'll "upgrade" when I'm good and ready.
you're most likely male, some college,
WHO ARE YOU AND GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!~
etc.
And what, exactly, are you implying?
Well what do you think caused the sun spots to peak?
Increased greenhouse gasses caused by human use of fossil fuels. Duh!
Why don't you neo-cons get with it and watch Al Gore's movie already. He proved this very thing.
Slashdot moderation maintains civility?
:)
I'd say on most days it does a fair job of at least hiding the blatant trolls from view. The nice thing about Slashdot's threaded system is that heated arguments don't mean the entire story is taken over. Besides, I think arguments in the comments is one reason some people read them.
Of course Slashdot's moderation is also at the whim of the subset of users that have mod points on a given day. For example on April Fools, all somebody has to do is say "Please mod my post insightful! kthxbye." and they hit +5 in minutes. Alternatively, a story like this might prompt someone to say "Reverse the polarity of the moderation flow!" suggesting moderators go nuts modding up trolls and flamebait and modding down everything else. (That would actually be pretty funny. Read More -- 10 of 381 comments). And of course moderators would probably do it, just to spite the system
(That actually sounds like a funny April Fools joke for next year. Give everyone mod points for the day and then randomize or invert what they do. Heck, even just giving everyone infinite mod points would be funny, and probably break Slashdot in the process).
Is there a market for super efficient cars that look like tampons with wheels?
Interestingly enough, Scott Adams talks about this very thing in his latest blog entry. In addition to throwing some humor in the mix, he shares your opinion about the look of available high(er) efficiency vehicles.
What's the E in E=mc^2 mean, then?
I think they just messed up the case. It should in fact be e. The story obviously isn't so good, what with a rating of 2.718 or so.
Of course I think a better rating for most of these stories would be h .
Regardless, I'd say we tag every story put up today as omgponies.
Ever since last year, OMGPONIES == April Fools for me. Bring back the pink!
Personally, while enemy AI is something that's pretty neat to see in action, it's the friendly AI that gets my attention. Most games seem to put all their effort into the enemy, while you friends turn out to be schizophrenics with an IQ of about 40. I haven't played, but I have heard that something that people complained about in Gears of War was was the poor team AI.
I don't play many games any more, but Halo 2 was one that I thought pulled ahead of the pack a bit. Friends that can drive vehicles was pretty cool (albeit not always the safest drivers...) allowing you to man the gun in the back. They also seem better at not running right in front of you when you're in the middle of launching a rocket, and also do little things like take advantage of available cover (or in other cases jumping up on top of said cover and getting blown to bits). Halo 3 is supposed to have even better AI for both friendlies and enemies, and that's one of the things about it I'm looking forward to.
Remember Ballmer's little prancing mantra? "Developers. Developers! DEVELOPERS!!!"? Guess what? There's a ton of Java developers out there. Their code does not run on MS OSes in general in production.
I guess I must be imagining that Azureus is running on my Windows box as we speak. Hmm.
or wait for them them to boot forever when they've failed to recover from a sleep/hibernate situation.
I've never had Windows fail to come out of hibernation or sleep (with the exception of once when the battery died halfway through the hibernation process). Besides, in the event you do need to boot, doesn't Windows boot faster than Mac/Linux?
They start using user friendly non-MS applications that do what they want.
As opposed to user friendly MS applications that do what they want? Ever hear of Visual Studio, you know, that program that anyone who develops for Windows uses? The IDE that everyone else emulates?
They don't suffer embarassing BSODs on waking from sleep, or during their presentations.
Maybe should invest in a laptop that isn't a piece of crap. This argument has been outdated since Win2000 came out; I thought you guys had finally given up trying to get people to keep believing it.
all of a sudden, there's more developers for Apple than MS.
Developers who want to starve, sure. A 3% market share can only support so many developers. Pretty soon Apple developers will be the new musicians: out of work and unemployed in every sense of the word, waiting for their big gig, which they're sure is just right around the corner.
Another draw is multi-media editing software. The software on OSX just works better and easier than anything I've seen on an MS system.
And another argument from 1998.
As for making your own system with your own hardware, Apple sells their software already and if you're willing to hack it, you can run it on other hardware.
I love how Apple fanboys always seem to cover up that Apple participates in more vendor lock-in that Microsoft, and instead explain that you can just "hack it". Oh, and breaking the licensing agreement and giving Apple the option of revoking your software license is always a great idea too.
I'd love to see a 16 or 32 core Mac Pro in the near future - imagine the processing ability of such a system.
Let's see, Intel processor, Intel chipset... Probably about the same as a 16 or 32 core PC!
A better question would be, how much better would things be if now we decided to give stiffer penalties for driving under the influence -- just take away people's licenses on their first infraction, for something like 10 years, or life.
:)
I wholeheartedly agree
Really, it's an activity, and as long as someone is not hurting others then it's Stay Out of my Fucking Way territory.
I'd like to agree, but the problem is that if somebody chooses to remove their ability to discern dangerous actions towards others then you're in new territory. Waving a gun around in school, for example, doesn't actually hurt anyone, but I imagine you'll be in handcuffs soon enough.
If everyone wants to go this route (and it appears so by your moderation) then punishments had better be adjusted accordingly. If you kill somebody through drug-related negligence (ie, it's manslaughter) then the death penalty is the only result I want to see. Someone who has such little regard for other people's lives that they willingly throw them away has no right to their own.
People who use these drugs don't tend to care much about the legality or otherwise, so I don't think there is a valid case to make that ending prohibition will increase their numbers.
Perhaps people who currently use them don't care, but what about all the people who have thought about it, or almost did, but didn't because they worried about the repercussions? Some people really do think about causality. If they do drugs, there's a good chance somebody will find out, and they will end up paying for their choice.
By removing the legal ramifications of doing drugs you remove the second-largest deterrent to doing them (second to moral/health reasons). The only thing left is the cost, and people prove every day in bars and casinos around the world that money isn't much of a deterrent at all.
So what is your great motivator that you gain no pleasure from, I'm curious.
I think there is a difference from physiological pleasure and a feeling of happiness or contentment. Yes, some people obtain that through money, others through helping people, others through hobbies, etc.
By your argument, the enjoyment that comes from reading a book is the same as the pleasure that comes from drugs, is that right?
Of course there is, the brain is a pleasure seeking mechanism
That's not logic, that's human physiology. Logic would cause a potential user to stop and ask "What will this do to my health? My life? My family? My job? My future? Will this make me more or less productive in society?"
in fact it can be argued that all effort is mediated in the brain for the purpose of seeking pleasure
Again, only at the most basic level. If you really believe that this is all we are, then you really are one of the moist robots Scott Adams likes to go on about. For most people, there are more profound motivators than perceived pleasure.
the willfully ignorant have no interest in learning anything.
And those lost in self-justifying denial have even less.
Who's giving them money? Why, that would be us. Why are they getting money? 'Cause they sell drugs. Drugs are made of fucking plants, why are they so expensive?
The tobacco industry is incredibly wealthy, and they sell legally process plants. Where do you think these new legally-available drugs will come from? South America. Who will the money go to? The cartels. The only thing that will come from legalizing a drug such as marijuana will be increased demand. Increased demand will mean increased profits.
Gangs and drug-related violence won't go away. Why give up your spot on the corner when you can undercut the gas station down the street by 25%? Why give up your turf just because Uncle Sam said your merchandise isn't illegal anymore?
By your logic then you believe that alcohol and tobacco should also be illegal. Is that the case?
Tobacco isn't as much of a concern because it's effects alone on a person's mental facilities are much less than other drugs. I would say yes to alcohol, however we've tried that before and things didn't go so well. The problem is that once you decide to take something away, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to then enforce the law. Most of the time, "whatever it takes" means taking even more away from the people.
You can always circumvent making alcohol illegal by simply trading a punishment for possession with stiffer punishments for abuse. For example, the FIRST time somebody is caught driving under the influence of alcohol, they lose their license. Not for a week, not a month, not a year. Forever. The goal here would be to remove the threat some people pose as fast as possible, without inflicting sobriety on more "responsible" people. It wouldn't fix the problem, but I think it would be a significant step in the right direction.
It's hardly surprising that in the decades since, the laws concerning cannabis are just as tortured and contradictory, especially when considered against the background of yet another new study that suggest alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous
Regardless of Dr. Nutt's findings (note my ability to refrain from making jokes!), the problem I have with illegal (and legal) drugs is NOT primarily what it does to the user. While I think that a society of addicts is ultimately doomed, my primary concern are the victims of drug abusers.
We already have to deal with intoxicated people operating cars, planes, and other potentially lethal machinery. How much worse would things be if now, in addition to those, you've got people high on ecstasy or marijuana? What about heroin? Would bystander deaths double? Triple? Some of the effects of these drugs make alcohol pale in comparison.
People like to explain that the "war on drugs" is failing and how eventually the government will have no choice but to legalize these substances. They even go on to say how great it would be for everyone because then the government will be able to collect taxes in the same manner they do with tobacco. Last time I checked, not very many people grow tobacco in their backyards and make cigarettes in their basements. Why does anyone think dealers give the government a cut of their lucrative business?
Pretending for a moment that anyone would pay these "drug taxes", I wonder what percentage of these new taxes would go to pay for the welfare of addicts? 300% at the very least I would assume, but very likely more. Society already has to pay for addicts, how many would we be paying for if these substances become easily and legally available?
Logic has no place in pro-drug arguments, because there is nothing logical about (ab)using these drugs in the first place. I don't suggest to have answers, but I don't care what you use to justify your reasoning, in any case, the only question legalizing illegal drugs answers is "how can we destroy our society?"