We are Doomed! DOOOOOMMED I say!

[Diogenes]

Preventing changes to law and society that make things worse than they already are is not social engineering.

The original social engineering was done in 1914 by Progressives and Conservatives. You favor it. Thus you favor social engineering.

Your facts are bad, your logic is worse. The First "Progressive" Accomplishment was the Interstate commerce act of 1887. Your logic is of the form:

A=B, C=D, A=C.

All your double think and new speak doesn't change the facts. The fact that the social engineering was not done on your watch does not negate the fact of social engineering.

I claim that the social engineering done by Conservatives and Progressives has made things worse. Evidence from Holland points in that same direction. So tell me how your social engineering makes things better when legal beer is harder for kids to get than illegal drugs?

Again, a Rock costs $20.00, a beer $1.00. Why do you keep saying this?

More than 90 years of opiate prohibition has not changed use rates at all (in so far as we can tell - the stats are not reliable due to the illegality of the behavior - so it is quite possible that the use rates are actually up under the prohibition regime. Stats from the UK vs Holland point in that direction.).


Note: kids using illegal alcohol was a BIG problem. As one mother said: saloons selling to children lose their licenses. Criminals selling to children face no such restrictions. See Holland vs UK re: opiate use.

Mrs. Sabin complained to the House Judiciary Committee: "In preprohibition days, mothers had little fear in regard to the saloon as far as their children were concerned. A saloon-keeper's license was revoked if he were caught selling liquor to minors. Today in any speakeasy in the United States you can find boys and girls in their teens drinking liquor, and this situation has become so acute that the mothers of the country feel something must be done to protect their children.""

http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionr ... ildren.htm

So actual experience with prohibition points in the same direction as evidence from Holland vs. UK.

Prohibition gives children easier access to drugs. If you think that is a bad idea: legalize.

Allegations do not equal facts. The conclusions are not provable by the assertions.

[Diogenes]

I think you are referring to Portugal, where they have a non prosecution policy for the users of all drugs.

It is a start. It seems to be working well. Maybe we should try it in the USA.

Then we can go on to the next step.

Killing all the Addicts seemed to work pretty well in China. Perhaps that would be a better step?

[Diogenes]

Let me note also that under alcohol prohibition use was not illegal. Only sales and manufacture. The criminality did not end until use and distribution was made legal.

It didn't end then. The Kennedys kept doing a bunch of dirty sh*t to this very day. They just became so rich they could afford a new class of crime.

[Diogenes]

Again Heroin is not legal in the Netherlands. Far from it!
I dont know where you get your information from!
Even pot is not really legal. Its use is just not prosecuted. The selling and import, etc is still technically illegal.
So GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT!

So true. And yet making use defacto legal has reduced use. Not a total solution. But a start.

We are doing an experiment in California. If the law passes we will see what happens after a few years and can refine from there.

One thing I predict: if the taxes are not too high (see cigarettes, smuggling) the cartels will go out of the pot business.

A proposal to put the legalization of marijuana in California to a vote this November is causing some growers of the plant in the state to worry about a sharp drop in the value of their crop if the measure succeeds.

As The Los Angeles Times explained in January, when supporters of the proposed Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 turned in more than enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot, the initiative “would make it legal for anyone 21 and older to possess an ounce of marijuana and grow plants in an area no larger than 25 square feet for personal use. It would also allow cities and counties to permit marijuana to be grown and sold, and to impose taxes on marijuana production and sales.”

On Monday, The Times-Standard newspaper in Humboldt County, a part of Northern California known as the “Emerald Triangle” for the density of its marijuana crop, reported:

[L]ocal business people, officials and those involved in the marijuana industry are planning to meet Tuesday night and break a long-standing silence to talk about what supposedly is the backbone of Humboldt County’s economy — pot. More specifically, the meeting will focus on the potential economic effects of the legalization of marijuana.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0 ... in-prices/

Oh yes, I can't wait to see how things are going to improve in California after that voting block exercises their judgment once more. We can all see how sensible they have been up till now, so surely they will be just as sensible on this issue as they have with all the other issues in the past.

Boxer, Finestein, Jerry Brown, Nancy Pelosi, Willie Brown, Henry Waxman, yeah, the voters in California have GREAT JUDGMENT!

[MSimon]

Some one asked why I focus on pot. I am following the advice of Strategy by B.H.L. Hart who advises going after the weakest member of a coalition first.

He calls it the indirect approach and says it can work in politics as well as war.

If you haven't read it may I highly recommend it.

Now pot prohibition is actually the strongest member of the illegal drug coalition with 60% of the arrests. So why do I call it the weakest member? Because the intellectual underpinnings of pot prohibition are the weakest and experience with that drug is the widest.

Once pot prohibition is gone the rest will drop like ripe fruit.

For those of you interested in where your strange ideas about drugs come from may I suggest viewing a legal copy (available for download) of Reefer Madness.

And if you want to see that the newspaper business hasn't changed in 70+ years may I suggest a view of "His Girl Friday" in the same archive.

Very little has changed in the intervening years. Except for the fact that we have alternate channels of information. We can fact check your ass (as some denizens of the i'net used to say).

[Diogenes]

Another prediction: if California legalizes I predict they will reap a bonanza from other states that have not legalized. The other states will be forced to legalize in self defense (i.e. to reap some of the tax money and reduce law enforcement and prison costs).

In 5 years pot will be legal in America.

Yeah, after the economy collapses. I doubt anyone will have time for a leisurely smoke though.

That experience will make it easier to legalize other drugs. You see I have a plan (in cahoots with other anti-prohibitionists).

BTW we know how opium ruined Thomas Jefferson. Don't let that ruination affect you.

Jefferson had planted opium poppies in his medicinal garden, and opium poppies are now deemed illegal. Now, the trouble was the folks at the Monticello Foundation, which preserves and maintains the historic site, were discovered flagrantly continuing Jefferson's crimes. The agents were blunt: The poppies had to be immediately uprooted and destroyed or else they were going to start making arrests, and Monticello Foundation personnel would perhaps face lengthy stretches in prison.

The story sounds stupid now, but it scared the hell out of the people at Monticello, who immediately started yanking the forbidden plants. A DEA man noticed the store was selling packets of "Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Poppies." The seeds had to go, too. While poppy seeds might be legal, it is never legal to plant them. Not for any reason.

Employees even gathered the store's souvenir T-shirts -- with silkscreened photos of Monticello poppies on the chest -- and burned them. Nobody told them to do this, but, under the circumstances, no one dared risk the threat.

Jefferson's poppies are gone without a trace now. Nobody said much at the time, nor are they saying much now. Visitors to Monticello don't learn how the Founding Father cultivated poppies for their opium. His personal opium use and poppy cultivation may as well never have happened.

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/145872/ho ... lic_memory

Thomas Jefferson probably had better sense than most people. Opium and Heroin has long been used for medicinal purposes, and only became a problem when people wanted to use it for recreational purposes. The Same thing applies to a lot of other medicines. You are comparing mis-use to use, and calling them the same thing.

[Diogenes]

I lived for a year (when I was five) just down the hill from Monticello. Luckily I never visited the place or else I might have been ruined like Jefferson.

Would that you had been ruined in the manner of Jefferson. You would be sounding a lot more reasonable, and probably make better arguments!

[Diogenes]

Some one asked why I focus on pot. I am following the advice of Strategy by B.H.L. Hart who advises going after the weakest member of a coalition first.

He calls it the indirect approach and says it can work in politics as well as war.

It's called LYING, and the Liberals have been using this tactic for a very long time. They never come out and state their true agenda, they just incrementalize it a bit at a time. They know full well, that if the people knew what they were about, there would be a backlash.

The method for addressing this is to do what I call "Tripping the trap early." Don't let them incrementalize, demand full support for the ultimate agenda, or nothing! Point out that the philosophical basis for their thinking REQUIRES IT! Show them the destination, so they can see they don't want to go there.

All that has to be done to screw up your strategy is for someone to get on a louder megaphone, and demand all you are asking and more!


An alternate approach is to let you get what you want, then prepare for the massive backlash. I have long said that we need to use this tactic against the liberals. Conservatives should always stand on principals, even when they loose, because we are better off having a Liberal Fanatic than a moderate conservative.

Once things break, all the damage will be one sided, as it is so far shaping up this year. Unfortunately, I don't think it will go far enough, because the differences haven't been made stark enough.

If you haven't read it may I highly recommend it.

I'm sure it's similar to Alinskys tactics. Kinda obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a while, but certainly evil in it's methodologies.

Now pot prohibition is actually the strongest member of the illegal drug coalition with 60% of the arrests. So why do I call it the weakest member? Because the intellectual underpinnings of pot prohibition are the weakest and experience with that drug is the widest.

Once pot prohibition is gone the rest will drop like ripe fruit.

The Addicts? The Culture? Yeah, you're probably right about that!

For those of you interested in where your strange ideas about drugs come from may I suggest viewing a legal copy (available for download) of Reefer Madness.

Is that going to tell me why all those people wrecked their lives? That would be an amazing trick!

And if you want to see that the newspaper business hasn't changed in 70+ years may I suggest a view of "His Girl Friday" in the same archive.

Very little has changed in the intervening years. Except for the fact that we have alternate channels of information. We can fact check your ass (as some denizens of the i'net used to say).

PLEASE DO! Go hang out in a crack house, and ACQUIRE some facts for a change! You can't do it on the internet though, you have to do it in the meat world.

[MSimon]

Opium and Heroin has long been used for medicinal purposes, and only became a problem when people wanted to use it for recreational purposes.

Recreational use is ostensibly why it was outlawed. And what was the fear: well white people could handle their drugs but the "inferior" races couldn't. Which is why the original anti-opium laws (1875 San Francisco) were aimed at smoked opium (Chinese use) but not tincture of opium (White use). And then there was the fear of cocainized negroes raping white women (1914 Harrison Narcotics Act as promoted by Hearst papers - the media liars didn't start in 1960).

You can read all about it here:

Drug War History

It started out as a way to improve or punish the "inferior" races. It was not a health measure in any sense when passed. For pot prohibition it was Mexicans.

The medical rationale only came in once racism became unpopular. And the medical rationale is now falling apart too.

And you know who forced the medicalization of the drug war? (the Controlled Substances Act) Timothy Leary when he won his case in the Supreme Court. You can look it up.

So the medical rationalization is a recent event. But enforcement still follows the old racist pattern.

=====

BTW opium use in America peaked in the mid to late 1800s. Use rates were around 5% of the population (now a days it runs 2% if you count any use in the past year). And nothing was done about it. Why? A large portion of users were Civil War veterans. Alcoholism was also rampant in the era. It was called the soldiers disease.

They didn't know what PTSD was then. But they did know that war was hard on the people who fought it and for some drink and drugs were an escape from the residual effects of war. They were so much smarter then. We are dumber than that now.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... sease.html

Opiate prohibition didn't come in until most of those who fought in the Civil War were dead (1914 - about 50 years after the war).

[KitemanSA]

He calls it the indirect approach and says it can work in politics as well as war.

It's called LYING, and the Liberals have been using this tactic for a very long time. They never come out and state their true agenda, they just incrementalize it a bit at a time. They know full well, that if the people knew what they were about, there would be a backlash.

The method for addressing this is to do what I call "Tripping the trap early." Don't let them incrementalize, demand full support for the ultimate agenda, or nothing! Point out that the philosophical basis for their thinking REQUIRES IT! Show them the destination, so they can see they don't want to go there.

You have just observed a symptom of Johansen's Third Law "Like most toxic substances, government programs are subject to the J Curve.

[Diogenes]

Opium and Heroin has long been used for medicinal purposes, and only became a problem when people wanted to use it for recreational purposes.

Recreational use is ostensibly why it was outlawed. And what was the fear: well white people could handle their drugs but the "inferior" races couldn't. Which is why the original anti-opium laws (1875 San Francisco) were aimed at smoked opium (Chinese use) but not tincture of opium (White use). And then there was the fear of cocainized negroes raping white women (1914 Harrison Narcotics Act as promoted by Hearst papers - the media liars didn't start in 1960).

You can read all about it here:

Drug War History

It started out as a way to improve or punish the "inferior" races. It was not a health measure in any sense when passed. For pot prohibition it was Mexicans.

The medical rationale only came in once racism became unpopular. And the medical rationale is now falling apart too.

And you know who forced the medicalization of the drug war? (the Controlled Substances Act) Timothy Leary when he won his case in the Supreme Court. You can look it up.

So the medical rationalization is a recent event. But enforcement still follows the old racist pattern.

=====

BTW opium use in America peaked in the mid to late 1800s. Use rates were around 5% of the population (now a days it runs 2% if you count any use in the past year). And nothing was done about it. Why? A large portion of users were Civil War veterans. Alcoholism was also rampant in the era. It was called the soldiers disease.

They didn't know what PTSD was then. But they did know that war was hard on the people who fought it and for some drink and drugs were an escape from the residual effects of war. They were so much smarter then. We are dumber than that now.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... sease.html

Opiate prohibition didn't come in until most of those who fought in the Civil War were dead (1914 - about 50 years after the war).

Now see, we've had this discussion before. I pointed out how you alleged the whole thing was a "Wallet Extraction scheme" and I pointed out that you had previously said it was all "Racism" in action.

I further pointed out that I didn't see how it could have been a wallet extraction scheme if it was based on racism, and therefore it needed to be one or the other, or you would have to do some fancy explaining how it could be both.

I find I am still wondering how it can be a nearly century old conspiracy of getting money from the "rubes" and oppressing other races.

All I can say is that it is shades of "the protocols of the elders of Zion" level of Diabolical!

[Diogenes]

He calls it the indirect approach and says it can work in politics as well as war.

It's called LYING, and the Liberals have been using this tactic for a very long time. They never come out and state their true agenda, they just incrementalize it a bit at a time. They know full well, that if the people knew what they were about, there would be a backlash.

The method for addressing this is to do what I call "Tripping the trap early." Don't let them incrementalize, demand full support for the ultimate agenda, or nothing! Point out that the philosophical basis for their thinking REQUIRES IT! Show them the destination, so they can see they don't want to go there.

You have just observed a symptom of Johansen's Third Law "Like most toxic substances, government programs are subject to the J Curve.

A lot of what has transpired in our country was the result of not reckless disregard, or lack of the knowledge of the consequences, but Deceit. Many proponents know full well what the consequences of their proposals will do, they just have an agenda at odds with the best interest of the Nation and the people.

[Skipjack]

So true. And yet making use defacto legal has reduced use. Not a total solution. But a start.

Uhm, I dont think so. Pretty much everyone and their mother smokes pot in the Netherlands and then they have tourists coming in to buy and use.
Again, where are you getting your numbers from?

[MSimon]

Your facts are bad, your logic is worse. The First "Progressive" Accomplishment was the Interstate commerce act of 1887.

My facts are good. The Harrison Narcotics Act was passed by a coalition of Religious Conservatives and Progressives. Alcohol Prohibition was passed by the same coalition. Have a look at Billy Sunday. And the Mike Huckabee of his day, Father Coughlin (Coughlin was a socialist to be sure. But if you listen to Huckabee he advocates socialist/progressive policies while claiming to be a Republican).

I had nothing to say about anything else Progressives did or when they started doing it.

======

And just for fun:

At the beginning of the 20th century, cocaine began to be linked to crime. In 1900, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an editorial stating, "Negroes in the South are reported as being addicted to a new form of vice – that of 'cocaine sniffing' or the 'coke habit.'" Some newspapers later claimed cocaine use caused blacks to rape white women and was improving their pistol marksmanship. Chinese immigrants were blamed for importing the opium-smoking habit to the U.S. The 1903 blue-ribbon citizens' panel, the Committee on the Acquirement of the Drug Habit concluded, "If the Chinaman cannot get along without his dope we can get along without him."

The drafters played on fears of “drug-crazed, sex-mad negroes” and made references to Negroes under the influence of drugs murdering whites, degenerate Mexicans smoking marijuana, and “Chinamen” seducing white women with drugs.[11][12] Dr. Hamilton Wright, testified at a hearing for the Harrison Act. Wright alleged that drugs made blacks uncontrollable, gave them superhuman powers and caused them to rebel against white authority. Dr. Christopher Koch of the State Pharmacy Board of Pennsylvania testified that "Most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain".[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act

[MSimon]

So true. And yet making use defacto legal has reduced use. Not a total solution. But a start.

Uhm, I dont think so. Pretty much everyone and their mother smokes pot in the Netherlands and then they have tourists coming in to buy and use.
Again, where are you getting your numbers from?

I'll tell you what. Since you have provided no links so far I'll let you post one that supports my position. Let me see how good your google fu is. Just once.