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Zonie63 -> RE: NY Times calls for National Marijuana Legalization (7/30/2014 7:46:52 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
What exactly is naive, silly, or irresponsible about pointing out the US drug consumption funds violence in the drug trade?
Because there's plenty naive and irresponsible about pretending it's not there.
AND, as long as you're digging up posts, check out the one early on where I make it clear I don't have a side in this debate.
Before you go healing, find a disease.
I was mainly referring to what appeared to be stonewalling when I was responding to a couple of your earlier posts. The "playground" remark makes no sense at all, especially if you're honestly taking no side in this debate. You made a few criticisms which seemed a bit one-sided, making it seem as if you were taking a side against legalization or at least leaning towards that position.
As for pointing out that US drug consumption funds violence in the drug trade, I think it's an irrelevant argument in a debate about the legalization of marijuana. (We're not talking about heroin, cocaine, meth, or anything else, not the whole "drug trade.")
Besides, the argument can be made that it's Prohibition which leads to the violence, not the drug consumption in and of itself. We learned that back in the days when we had Prohibition on alcohol.
Here's where actually considering comments in context proves useful.
Someone said legalization makes sense from a cost/benefit analysis. I pointed out that a true cost/benefit analysis, which would include drug lord crime/murder, would have Americans foregoing illegal drug use in the first place, the implication being that cost/benefit is a convenient argument, and not a true goal.
I wouldn't characterize it as a "convenient" argument, although I think whatever arguments are raised should be taken on their own merit, regardless of whatever possible motivation there might be. It may not be the main argument, although just because it's a peripheral or secondary argument doesn't make it invalid, nor does it mean it's used for the sake of convenience.
And when you say "drug lord crime/murder," which drug are you referring to?
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What *is* true is that there are those who a priori favor legalization and look for reasons to support their preference. Some of those reasons may even turn out to be reasonable points. But the motivation is "I want to go buy pot in the store," and not how the world would be such a better place, as the pro-pot rhetoric can indicate.
Okay, but so what? Those who are against legalization are those who favor government restrictions on people's freedoms to consume what they wish and buy what they wish. Those who oppose legalization have no good reason to believe as they do, other than some irrational desire to control others over matters which are nobody else's business.
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If illegal drug users were truly concerned about social good, they wouldn't be funding violent crime.
And if the drugs weren't illegal, there would be no violent crime. So, who's funding whom now? Come to that, who launders their money?
If those who favor continued prohibition of marijuana truly cared about people's health and well-being, they would be putting all their energies into advocating for prohibition of alcohol, tobacco, and just about anything and everything that can be potentially harmful. Since they're obviously not doing that, I think that shows that they're the ones using "convenient arguments."
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That's why the pious pleading for legalization makes me roll my eyes rather than appeal to my reason.
Thing is, I think this country is already on a course towards legalization anyway. I think it's to be expected, now that the "Reefer Madness" generation is passing on.
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Now, those who point out that we're "fighting" an expensive and fruitless "war" have a better point. And that's been the experience of prohibition historically as well. At the same time, to predict a rosy outcome because suddenly criminals will become upright citizens is bizarrely naive as well. The truth is, we don't know what the outcome will be.
In the case of marijuana, it can be grown domestically. It doesn't really have to be imported, so whatever the criminals in other countries choose to do, that's for the governments of those countries to worry about. If their cash flow is stopped and there's no more vast profits from the drug trade, then the cartels will lose power and no longer be as great a threat. I don't think anyone said that criminals will become upright citizens, but maybe they'll just be petty criminals instead of kingpins with vast empires.
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