Applause.
Mexico is officially the smartest, coolest nation in the Western Hemisphere as of yesterday:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-mexico-drugs.html
God bless them--it's God's work, it really, really is...
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-mexico-drugs.html
God bless them--it's God's work, it really, really is...
posted by Yr. Hmbl. & Obdt. | 10:31 AM
3 Comments:
I think this is the stupidest move done by anybody since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 40's. How do you allow for your own people to harm themselves while you watch on the sidelines? This will make the drug war in the US and elsewhere harder to fight now since drug cartels will gain more power.
Wom:
Why do we allow people to drink alcohol? Smoke cigarettes? Eat McDonald's on a daily basis? Pollute? Watch MTV's Laguna Beach? Really, the goverment's responsibility is protecting people from one another, not themselves. We can either keep people from EVERYTHING that medical science deems bad for them (in which case, why stop with science? Why not ban things that are bad for people's souls? We could make condoms illegal! And erotic literature!)or we can allow for individual choice, so long as that choice doesn't harm others. I bet you'd make something of a fuss if someone told you you could never have a glass of wine again.
Not to mention that, in the case of marijuana, there's virtually NO evidence linking it to either harmful behavior or to horrible health consequences--unless you smoke the equivalent of packs a day of cigarettes, which no one would ever do. And studies that aren't funded by conservative idiots show that it actually has significant medical advantages.
I really hate the way people (like you) feel that it's the government's responsibility to "save" people from themselves. If you're really jonesing to interfere with someone's life, take Dryden's X-Box away.
(Dryden: not a slam against you. I adore you--X-Box included.)
The fact is, Wom, that the "drug war" has been the most colossal governmental failure since...well, I abhor historical comparisons (big fam of empiricism, me)...it's just been a disaster. People are going to do drugs regardless, and, yes, granted, there's some fallout to allowing freedom to those who are going to use it irresponsibly. But a glance back over the history of politics suggests just how insane this particular form of legislation is. To regulate drug use would have struck the Greeks, the Romans, the Elizabethans, the Revolutionaries--it would have struck virtually all other apexes of historical civilization as insane, if it had struck them at all. Because you *can't do it*--it *doesn't* work. What you *can* do is educate the living hell out of people--to let them know *exactly* what will happen if and when they do this drug, and what they can do if and when they find themselves addicted. Declaring "war" on drugs is fine, but like the war on AIDS, it's only winninable by understanding what it is: a war against *ignorance*. (Not, as it almost became, a war against *sex.* Which is the policy the drug war has adopted--not education and treatment, but banning of an unbannable practice. Idiocy. You want to nail someone for something he does *while* high? Fine--we nail drunk drivers pretty good--let's do that. But nailing someone who just wants to get a serious buzz on in the privacy of his own home? Great--let's outlaw masturbation while we're at it. It's about as morally defensible.)
We can stop the spread of STDs--by teaching folks how to avoid them (and by means other than abstinence, thank you.) We can stop accidental gun deaths--by teaching folks how to use (and preferably not use) guns. And we can stop the evils attendant upon drug use by teaching people their *true* nature--and what happens when you use them. And look at it this way--if Mexico turns out to function just fine as a result--and if the Netherlands are any indication, it will--then we'll realize that no, drug legalization is not "Hiroshima"--it's the Marshall Plan...
Post a Comment
<< Home