Can't have nothin'!!!

[scsmith42]

I can understand the feelings and perspectives on this topic; as I stated earlier I am against drug abuse and even recreational drug use.  My concern is how can we eliminate drug abuse for good.

If it were legalized, there would have to be a tremendous social stigma against it.  At one point in time shame was a powerful motivator, and it still is today.  Mothers Against Drunk Driving made a tremendous difference in our society, and the number of drunk driving fatalitites is significantly reduced today as opposed to just 20 years ago, even though alcohol is legal, but alcohol abuse is not.

What other solutions exist to the problem?  It seems like everything that we've tried hasn't worked, and the toll not only in our own country but also now in our neighboring countries is getting worse.

And, if you want to talk about "economic stimulation", I wonder how much positive impact that the proceeds of drug abuse would have on the economy if they were spent on constructive things, as opposed to destructive things...

[customdave]

I had quite a bout with theives a few years ago , 5 or 6 times in a span of a few months , stole tools, chainsaws, cases of oil, the boy's dirt bike that he had worked for to pay his half ! Some of my tools (Mac tools exp!) showed up in local pawn shop, police called me to identify, asked him if he was going to search his residence for the rest of my stuff, said he had no grounds for warrent because I did not see him break into my shed. So I took it upon myself cure this problem, many sleepness nights, but I cured this in the end! I like Cheyenne's idea of the 10 gauge , maybe a bit harsh ,so I toned it down to 12 gauge loaded with #00 buckshot! no more troubles! I'll be darned if I'm going sit bye & let them steal every thing that I've worked for .       


customdave

[TexasTimbers]

At one point in time shame was a powerful motivator, and it still is today. 

That's the achille's heel in your plan. I don't see shame playing a very big role in most of society today. We see men and women kissing each other on prime time network tv. We see sports figure "role models" cheating the system with drugs to get an unfair advantage, and then swearing an oath on a Bible to tell the truth, then lying about it. We see politicians having affairs and lying and stealing and cheating and selling senate seats.  We see presidents having sex outside of marriage in the oval office and then lying about it.

Where is the shame ??? Kids today are not motivated by shame. Legalizing drugs might cut down on crime, it might not. It would just shift the crime to a different entity. Govenrment. But the worst thing it would do is destroy what little good there is left in society. Legalising drugs will not make kids less prone to try them. Just the opposite. i cannot imagine living in a society in which meth is legal.

[scsmith42]

At one point in time shame was a powerful motivator, and it still is today. 

That's the achille's heel in your plan. I don't see shame playing a very big role in most of society today. We see men and women kissing each other on prime time network tv. We see sports figure "role models" cheating the system with drugs to get an unfair advantage, and then swearing an oath on a Bible to tell the truth, then lying about it. We see politicians having affairs and lying and stealing and cheating and selling senate seats.  We see presidents having sex outside of marriage in the oval office and then lying about it.

Where is the shame ??? Kids today are not motivated by shame. Legalizing drugs might cut down on crime, it might not. It would just shift the crime to a different entity. Govenrment. But the worst thing it would do is destroy what little good there is left in society. Legalising drugs will not make kids less prone to try them. Just the opposite. i cannot imagine living in a society in which meth is legal.

ok - so the question remains - what can be done to solve the problem on a wide scale basis? 

All of us can related to CustomDave's and Cheyenne's solution, but that's addressing the sympton, not the cause.

What would it take to eliminate, or drastically reduce the problem of drug abuse?

[Cedarman]

Watched the new show on Fox called the Dollhouse.  Girls had a new personality embedded in their brain by a machine.  It even induced asthma.   Use this machine to cure drug addiction and program people to never abuse drugs.

There's a solution.

[johnjbc]

Sorry but I have to side with scsmith42 on this one. For my entire life time we have been fighting the "War on Drugs" and the only thing it has accomplished is to keep the price of drugs high. As long as there is such a high profit in selling it Pushers will do whatever it takes to hook new users.
Lets look at the bad things caused by our current programs.

The "War on Drugs" has been used to justify gun control and attacks on our freedoms.

Pushers protecting their turf with guns kill people every day, along with a lot of innocent people and kids.

A lot of the money that is made ends up supporting lobbing our government. Probably one of the biggest reasons we don't protect our borders.

People are robed and many times injured or killed by someone stealing money to pay for it. I have a screen in the bottom of my eye socket and stainless steel wire in my cheek bone from being mugged and robbed by druggies.

My son in-law is a prison guard and he thinks that about 70% of his charges are in there for drug violations  And it cost enough to pay for lots of counseling.       

Drugs are cheep to produce and wouldn't support buying guns, planes, boats, and the organization that distributes them without government price supports. Where else can you sell a product that costs $5 a pound for $100,000

I realize there would still be users but it would be them paying the price not the people who are robbed, mugged, or even shot by some one trying to get money to buy them.   

[TexasTimbers]

The "War on Drugs" is just another in a long line of examples of government failure. Is the only other option to legalize it?

How about truly sealing our borders? That would pretty much solve at least two overwhelming problems; illegal immigration and massive drug imports. Soome drugs, and aliens would get through no matter what, but a proeprly sealed border, like virtually every other country on the planet has, would reduce both problems to a much more manageable degree.

And why are our borders not sealed? Because Americans continue to vote the same creeps into office over and over and over. Americans continue to get the same they always got, because they continue to think they way they have always thought.

[gunman63]

Look at it this way, if the US had sealed borders, most americans wouldnt be here.

[DanG]

but a proeprly sealed border, like virtually every other country on the planet has,

We only share borders with two other Countries, Canada and Mexico, and their borders aren't sealed any better than ours. ;) :D

The USSR sealed their borders pretty tightly, and it don't seem to have worked out all that well for them. :

The notion that we can simple build a fence along the Mexican border and stop illegal immigration or drug running is a joke...a really bad joke.  In my opinion, which is always humble as you know, the two problems have similar solutions.  I don't go as far as Scott on the drug legalization, I do favor legalizing Marijuana.  It is no worse than alcohol, and is no more of a gateway drug than alcohol.  Most of all, we ain't gonna stop it, so we may as well legalize it and tax the hell out of it.  We can't stop immigration either, no matter what we do, so I subscribe to G.W. Bush's idea of the Guest Worker Program.  It would come a lot closer to gaining a measure of control than anything else I can think of.

[gunman63]

just think how many people want to get into this  country compared to how many want to leave,, its the best in the world

[HOOF-ER]

You all have made some good points. I believe there is a model for life.   It is in the good book that there is an outline. ALL forms of abuse are a problem for society. Alcohol , drugs , tobacco , lust, greed , gluttony . Think what all these cost society. The body is a temple, control what enters it. Moderation is the key to most. The problem is most people don't know exactly how much it will take to be  at more than the moderation level. Raising my children we have taught them it is best to avoid. Hard to do in todays society , even more so with peers doing it all. Problems were there in biblical times I don't see getting rid of them easily. :-\

[ellmoe]

    At one time there was not anyone are more supportive of strong drug control laws than me.  I now have to go along, at least part-way , with Scott and his reasonings. My Dad says," the bootleggers and the Baptist preachers kept west Texas dry for years." For the folks that may not understand ,that means that the people who made and sold illegal alcohol and the religious people stopped the selling of alcohol. The bootleggers didn't want to lose their market and the preachers were concerned about the damage the alcohol could do. Two different motivations, both looking for the same results( up to a certain point). Did our government's prohibition 100 years ago stop alcohol use in the USA? No, but it did give us the Mafia (and the Kennedy's, but that's a different story  ;D ). Not mentioned so far is the corruption in this country that the money in illegal drugs have caused. Up in Tom's and getoverit's country two sheriffs, in adjacent county's went to jail for aiding some of the drug dealers in their respective counties. Apparently, neither one knew what the other was doing, they did it on their own. Will anybody say that they think our court system has not been corrupted by this money? How about our sterling politicians? They can't be bought, can they? (I say no, they can't be bought, but they sure as heck can be rented!) If I was a major player in the drug business, I'd make sure the laws were made to keep all drugs illegal. I wouldn't want anyone screwing with my profit margin.
    Now I'm going to make a statement that few will believe. I grew up in the 60's and 70's, and went to the U. of Florida, and ...here it comes...have never used drugs! I hate them, and hate that they are around my children and my community. I have seen where young people were introduced to pot , cheaply, and then moved to harder stuff. The comment I got was, we wanted to try some weed so we got to know the dealers. They talked us into trying the harder stuff. We had started hanging out with the dealers,and all of the drugs they had were illegal, so what's the difference, so why not?
    As I get older I see the value of some of society's and religions' taboos and methods that have been discounted by our recent society. The destruction of the concept of shame is foremost in my mind. It used to be shameful to dress like a streetwalker, and act like one, to be known as a drunk or druggy, and to accept welfare or handouts from the government or others w/out working for it. Now, there is no shame for much of society. This has benefitted us how?
    Anyway, I think controlled legalization of the softer, less addictive drugs, taxed just enough to provide funds for control and rehab, but not enough to mimic the smuggling of cigarette's would be beneficial. Turn law-enforcement towards the serious stuff and drive the profit motives out. As the world stands now, we will soon have a complete narco-state south of our border, and TT doesn't have enough guns to hold back the problems that will soon thereafter spill over the border. It maybe too late to stop, but what we have tried so far hasn't worked too well.

Mark

[Cedarman]

Let's try it in California first.  Sorry, don't mean to make you Californians mad.  Maybe the southern 1/2 of the state.

[TexasTimbers]

I don't understand why it is so difficult for some people to grasp the national sovereignty and immigration issue. Every country has the right to determine who should be allowed into its borders. Saying "if the borders were sealed you wouldn't be here" cannot be a serious response.

Most of our forefathers came in legally and were accepted by playing by the rules, or in the case of my great⁴ earned it by fighting the British. Whatever the route, a nation has the sovereign right to administer the rules of it's path to citizenship at its will. That's the sovereignty part of the equation.

As to our actual ability to protect our borders effectively, if you think we would not be able to accomplish this given the political will, you need to read up on the issue further. "Erecting a fence" sounds draconian, and while it might be used in some areas it would only be a small part of the solution. American has a whole does not have the backbone to employ effective border protection, which is one of the major reasons we have such an unchecked influx of illegal drugs.

[customdave]

I think we have to start with the justice system, it has to start handing out harsh sentences, drug dealers the big ones ,caught twice-hang em! The jails need to be toughend up as well, the jails nowadays are a holday for these guys, I worked with a guy one time when I was younger it was a seasonal job, I asked him if he had a job lined up after we finished this one. He said nope I'll probably pull a B&E and go to jail for the winter, its warm & they feed you. This is just my opinion!


                             customdave

[DanG]

Maybe I can help you understand a little better, TT.  The fact that we don't totally agree with you doesn't mean we don't have a grasp of the problem.  It merely means that we have different ideas about the solution.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, but you first have to catch the cat, whatever method you use.  From what I hear, we have over 11 million cats to catch, so far.  It is a little bit late to worry about sealing the border.  I just happen to think it is more productive to put a little food out to concentrate the cats in a more managable environment.

[ErikC]

Let's try it in California first.  Sorry, don't mean to make you Californians mad.  Maybe the southern 1/2 of the state.

Marijuana is already legalized here, the whole state. For medical use only of course. It conflicts with Federal Law, but little is done to stop it other than huge Cartel farms. Now we are overrun with people buying land and growing weed to make money and not work for a living. I don't see that it's solved anything yet. I see a few problems it has created though. And DanG is right, compared to other drugs it is fairly harmless, but the longer people use it the more it affects their productivity. It takes a while but it will drag people completely down. Meth will drag them down in a few months instead of years.

[ely]

war on drugs is a misnomer imho.  if it were in fact a war there would be bloodshed and if that happened on a regular basis it would create a deterrent for others.

[TexasTimbers]

Since we failed before we must go on failing. I get it now. Thank you for explaining that to me Dan. :

[DanG]

Kev, you keep talking about failure, but I haven't seen anything from you about what your idea of success is.  You speak about sealing the borders, but offer nothing in the way of a method of doing that.  Perhaps if you were to suggest some solutions instead of just telling us we're stoopid for not listening to you, we might find some common ground.

[TexasTimbers]

Kev, you keep talking about failure, but I haven't seen anything from you about what your idea of success is. 

That's called selective reading on your part dan. I've stated my beliefs and ideas many times and you know it. I'm not going to recap for you, as if you are truly interested anyway.

... . . . instead of just telling us we're stoopid for not listening to you . . . .

Perhaps you should quit hitting the sauce so early and so frequently because you can't be sober making a statement like that. I've never told anyone they are stupid, nor insinuated it. Anyone can twist someone's intent but that about as far as one can stretch it.

February must be your month to insult as many people as possible. But you'll have to try harder with me. A lot harder. 8) 8) 8)

I've spoken my peace and counted to 3. I'm not going to participate in ruining this man's thread any more than I have. You're all on your own now dan.

[Raider Bill]

Let's try it in California first.  Sorry, don't mean to make you Californians mad.  Maybe the southern 1/2 of the state.

Marijuana is already legalized here, the whole state. For medical use only of course. It conflicts with Federal Law, but little is done to stop it other than huge Cartel farms. Now we are overrun with people buying land and growing weed to make money and not work for a living. I don't see that it's solved anything yet. I see a few problems it has created though. And DanG is right, compared to other drugs it is fairly harmless, but the longer people use it the more it affects their productivity. It takes a while but it will drag people completely down. Meth will drag them down in a few months instead of years.

CNBC just had a good special on Medicino co in Ca and the weed trade there. If not for weed growing the county would be bankrupt.

[WH_Conley]

You mean there is a way to farm and make money?

[cheyenne]

Not really!  When a sioux tribe grew hemp on a reservation to supply rope & garment mfgs the feds plowed in the fields & put them in jail. Go figure  :...Cheyenne

[CLL]

DanG, since I'm a war monger(or so I've been told) I think I could slow down the flow of illegal immigrants to a trickle. I need about 5000 other war mongers and keep the civil liberties and other do gooders away from me. Once word got around, cross the border and die, it would slow.
I realize that could never happen, but I also realize that its crap that people run across the border have kids and their US citizens, thats entirely wrong! It's also wrong for us to have to provide spanish speaking teachers in schools, learn to speak english or go home, when we go to other nations they don't provide someone thats speaks english for us. When our ancestors arrived at Ellis Island they had to learn english to become citizens, I think that should still be a qualification. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your heritage, just be PROUD of being an AMERICAN.