This week's Leonard Pitts column is about legalizing illegal drugs. Why do left wingers insist on revisiting this issue? Do they want to tear our society completely apart? How in the world can it be good to make even more harmful, destructive substances available to everyone?
Part of the role of government it to protect the citizenry from harm. That includes banning harmful substances from general use. (Do not include guns in this because the Constitution gives us the right to bear arms for defense.) Tobacco and alcohol are legal, and they have been for a long, long time. As bad as those two substances can be when abused, they are not as bad as the drugs Leonard wants to make available to all of us. From Methamphetamine to Marihuana. My God, what is the argument?
That we spend too much time and effort trying to battle those things and the people that use them? We spend alot of time and money battling many, many harmful things and harmful behaviors from theft to child pornography. We don't catch them all by any means, but that does not mean that we should stop fighting. We always need to continue that battle for goodness and righteousness.
These things destroy people's lives more savagely and quickly than tobacco and alcohol. Methamphetamine has no valid medical purpose whatsoever. And what about marihuana? Studies show that it is 10 times more carcinogenic than tobacco ever was. The stuff that people are smoking now is 10 times more potent than what the hippies of the '60's used. Advances have given us plants with way more tetrahydracannabinol than they had in the weed of the old days. Plus, marihuana is highly addictive. Addicts cannot kick it in a regular 30 day program. It takes at least 6 months to get over a marihuana habit. Moreover, the THC attaches to fat cells in the body, and as these cells metabolize, THC is released into the system at random times.
How can anyone in their right mind advocate the legalization of any of that crap?
Do you want to make it easier for more people to destroy themselves with that stuff?
How can you wish that on your brothers and sisters?
Do you give up the battle against evil because it is difficult?
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7 comments:
There are many different ways to fight bad things and sometimes the smartest way seems counter intuitive. Why not try something different and radical; it might work. I would not go out and begin using drugs because they were legal and I do not smoke cigarettes. What could be better than taking the profit away from the killers and dealers. I think you are getting stuck with your idea of righeousness.
First, let me say that it isn't only "liberals" who think we ought to reconsider our drug laws. Many conservatives, like myself, also think they should be reconsidered. I'm certainly not advocating legalizing everything, but why marijuana is illegal and alcohol is not is beyond me.
Also, this notion that the State is there to protect you from yourself - that seems more like liberal statism than any form of conservatism that I would want to be a part of.
I agree with anon 11:18 am. I'm confused when so called conservatives want so much government control. I just find that weird that out of one side of their mouths they want no government intervention and then when it comes to something they find the least bit controversial, they want the govt all over it. We really need another political party because the "2" we have now are just variations of the same. Neither one is consistent.
You have to admit that the conversation should be seriously considered if the following is true. Quote from Pitts' articles: "...in 1914, when the first federal drug law was enacted, the government estimated 1.3 percent of us were addicted to illegal drugs. In 1970, when the War on Drugs began, the government estimated 1.3 percent of us were addicted to illegal drugs. Thirty-nine million arrests later, he says, the government says 1.3 percent of us are addicted to illegal drugs."
If that is true I am totally convinced we need to just legalize the d&$# things.
You didn't address the statistics. the same percentage of people are addicted now as in 1914. Aren't there always going to be a certain number of people who abuse whatever substance they can get their hands on? WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW IS NOT WORKING AND GETTING WORSE. WE ARE INNOVATORS CAN"T WE COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER.
Stupidity is dangerous too. Lets have a war on that.
We must be wise stewards of our resources.
Locking people up over a relatively harmless product like marijuana is not being a wise steward.
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