We are getting off subject, most of those imprisoned for drug laws are imprisoned by the state. Article I Section 8 does include the building of post roads which can reasonably apply to our highway system. The short answer to your question is, yes, we should return to being a republic . Yes, the 9th and 10th Amendments should mean something. Yes, most gpvernment should be local. Yes, the federal government should be limited to the powersdesignated in Article I Section 8 and the Amendments. What made our nation great was the concept of individual liberty derived from natural law. The free market adequately punishes those who abuse their liberty.
The US Air Force split off from the army. There were hot air ballons used for military purposes in colonial times..
Thanks for finally answering my question. This is not off topic, you said the federal government does not have the authority to make laws against drugs, my point was that almost every aspect of the Federal government is not specifically spelld out as being allowed under the constitution or it's amendments. Artical 1 section 8 does not allow a national federal road system. Yes, you can "assume" it does with filling a few blanks but that is my point concerning everything the Government does. Again, this is an all or nothing kind of thing, if you don't want the federal government doing one thing not spelled out, then dislike all the things done that are not spelled out. But it does not protect the liberty of those that are victims of those who abuse their liberty, and that is the biggest flaw in your assessment. The government is supposed to protect it's citizens. Most crime has something to do with drugs. From stealing stuff to pay for their drug of choice to violence done to innocents, to the children in homes where drug addicts live, these are citizens who did not want to abuse their liberty but are being abused and need the assistance of the government to try and protect them. As I already pointed out, even if you make drugs legal, drugs would most likely cost more, not less due to taxes, but even if they get cheaper, no home can sustain a drug addict. Sooner or later, the money runs out and bad things happen. Making the drugs legal will simply expose more people to the possibility of addiction faster becuse it would no longer be socially unaccepted. So, boiled down, either citizens deserve to have the protection of their Government or they don't. I believe the Government has a responsibility to try and keep "innocents" from being a victim of those who want to be addicts.
I am sorry. The national highway system can be rationally rendered Constitutional through the designated power to build and maintain post roads. Prohibition of drugs cannot be without a gross misinterpretation of the commerce or general welfare clauses. That is why an amendment was required in an era where our constitution was respected. Many households are currently supporting drug addicts of legal and illegal substitutes. The taxes applied to drugs should not be excessive. It would be quite stupid to tax a drug to the point you recreate the same black market you legalized drugs to end. Heroin and cocaine are both quite cheap to grow. It is only the costs imposed by government that makes them expensive. Heroin is not a drug that incrreases aggression. Addicts rob to pay for the high price of drugs caused by our lost drug war. Most crime has something to do with drugs because A: We stupidly make drug possession a crime and B: We artificially raise the prices of drugs requiring users to resort to crimes against persons and property.
In your opinion, but the degree of roads created were far in excess of what was needed for post roads. So the system we have today is not constitutional. Again, your not considering the requirement of the government to protect it's citizens. What about the innocents of drug abuse? They should be completely ignored by the government in your opinion? Let me go back to an earlier example to ask you a question. I spoke of how it is a federal crime to kidnap a person and cross state lines. The reason for this was because one State cannot have power over another State. But, this law and many others are not supported by a specific amendment. Do you want laws like this to be removed for the same reason you want drug laws to be removed? Again, this is an all or nothing situatin. Let's get down to the basics. If all federal laws were removed like you are wanting, and the states were each completely independant of each other as the founding fathers always intended, would the states each make drugs legal in your opinion? I don't think so, but I do see something else happening. You see, before the Federal government got involved, each state and even each city had completely wild laws. Some were crazy one way and others crazy other ways. It was the belief that each comminity should make laws as they see fit and if you did not like the laws of that community, you had to leave to go find another place more to your liking. A jury of your peers was a group that knew you, that had specific knowledge of who you were and could judge your circumstances. What I see if we remove these illegal Federal mandates and crimes is us going back to the laws being flexable to the communities. And I also see some States getting very harsh with drug related crimes because in their minds, they can drive them away to other States, get rid of their problem and put that problem on the shoulders of other States. Of course that is the entire reason for the Federal system now but as you said, if not spelled out specifically by the constitution or an amendment, then clearly the Federal government should not be doing it. The reason the Government must be involved in drug crimes is the same for the kidnap example I gave. A great deal of the merchandise being sold comes from outside the Country and is distributed throughout the many States. No one State can have power over another State so there must be a higher authority in order to have the power to folow/punnish some of these crimes.
That doesn't make it Constitutional. It would only be Constitutional if it were left under the administration of the Army like the Marine Corps is under the Navy. The Air Force is it's own armed service with it's own Secretary of the Air Force, where the Marines is Constitutional because it falls under the control of the Secretary of the Navy. Either we need to get rid of the US Air Force or it needs to fall back under the control of the Secretary of the Army to be Constitutional.
Both crack cocaine and meth are cheap to buy if you were to use them recreationaly. The problem is that these are highly addictive drugs and people begin to steal, rob and burgle to support their habits, no matter what the cost. Persons addicted to these types of substances need more and more of the drug to obtain the same level of a high. It doesn't matter how inexpensive the drug is, it will cause societal ills. Look at heroin addicts who are on methedone treatments. The methedone is free, but they still go out and try to get a fix one way or another, between doses.
I am sorry but your wrong both about how drugs would be cheper and how the taxes would be in reality. First of all, once the government made drug use legal, it would then regulate it like al other drugs, and that government regulation would create the system that pushes the price up. I again go back to tobacco for my example. Tobacco is cheaper to make than any of the drugs you named but even the lowest cost stated have a pack of cigs that could sell for about 30 cents, costing around 3 dollars. Don't forget the liberals wanting an extra 50 cents per pack added to pay for free medical coverage for people making up to 37 thousand a year. Drug production is drug production. Right now, we have drugs comming from other Countries where the workers make nothing, similar to the products made in China. Once the government gets involved in regulating it, the drugs would need to have regular testing and controls over quality. The street dealers get the drugs fairly direct line, with few stops and with very few people adding their markup, but once we make it legal, each jump the product takes will be a 10% or higher profit margin for each step of its journey. That is why a toothbrush that costs 4 cents to manufacture ends up costing two dollars when it finally makes it to a store. While your correct about people being arrested for possession being a crime, it is generally something fined "after" their busted for other crimes first, unless their dealing, not just possessing the drug. As I already pointed out, no home can sustain a drug abuser. Most homes are living paycheck to paycheck and they even have massive credit card debt. No household can afford a drug addict for very long before everything falls apart. I'll again use the drinking example, most drunks will end up losing everything they wown because they will not pay their bills, the same is true for drug addicts. Even if you could give these addicts cheaper drugs (I already covered how this is unlikely) all you accomplish is streaching out the enevitable ending. The drugs abuse is the problem, not where they get the drug or what it costs. When I worked the streets, you could get a thumnail piece of crack for about 20 dollars. This is a tad higher than a dose of Viagra. You can buy 10 viagra pills for about $160 dollars. Buy Viagra, Cialis, Levitra Online Prescription My point is making a drug legal does not make it cheap. It only changes who is selling it. The minute you make it legal, the "prefered" drug companies will get legislation favorable to them so they can sell the drugs, not the established drug suppliers.
I don't see many people killing people to support their cigarrette habit. Opium and cocaine can be produced quite cheaply. When people argue that drugs should be legalized to end the negative effects of the black market it comes with the terrirory that the taxes will not be so onerous as to produce the same effects. The ole terrible government requires more government argument holds no sway with me. Once again, the high price of prescription drugs is primarily due to the Kefauver Amendment passed in 1962. Alcohol is not covered by the Kefauver Amendment nor would legalized recreational drugs.
Your also paying for research with a lot of these high priced prescriptions drugs. That's why Canada can sell them cheap. They wait for American companies to pay for the research. Marijuana will be extremely cheap to produce in quantities. Same thing with opiates. The research is done.
america doesn't have a war on drugs. it has a war on drugs that it considers to be illegal. remember Usa has a few of the top 10 drug companies in the world. remember american psychologists invented the terms OCD and ADHD. and USA companies also came up with cures for these disorders such as Ritalin etc. drugs have much profit in the world. As does alcohol ask yourselves why certain "illegal drugs" don't have a place . cannabis ie hemp take a look back to the 1920's and focus on the american cotton market. Hemp was far better than cotton but USA didn't have the monopoly on it. So they banned it to keep cotton prices high ( enter the debate of slavery ie cotton pickers) hemp produces not only great natural fibres but also plastic and fuel. both challenged the American economy. and so it was outlawed. also remember companies like Pfizer. A major playor in WW2 and the company behind gassing the Jews. This company still rides high!!! Drugs are legal because they make profit. illegal drugs are illegal because they don't make a profit for the government. that is the simple fact. i'M NOT CONDONING ANY DRUGS HERE. ALL I'M SAYING IS WHY SOME DRUGS ARE LEGAL AND OTHERS AREN'T. i have much to say on drugs as a whole but as of yet this forum hasn't presented such an argument
But back to the war on drugs, I just want to reiterate my original point: The current war on drugs isn't working. We need to try something else. Why not start with legalising marijuana, see how that goes, and if it's successful, extend the 'project' to harder drugs.
Too bad the marketing research does not completely agree with you, consider this: Here we have a vice president admitting that it was not the FDA requirements that drove massive trials, but the need to have sound support for marketing, to sell what you have developed. This is one of my favorite studies done in 2003: http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/rnd/evidenceregardingrnd.pdf It clearly outlines that most of the money in R&D is not due to Government requirements. In fact, a huge amount is spent on existing, already approved medications to maintain market share or to refute claims from other medications trying to take away their market share. But, remember this, if drugs are made legal, they will still need to get approvals for quality control. Cocain for example is cut from it's pure state, diluted because snorting the pure cocain would kill you. I am sure Government regulations would require a standard be met for things like this. Again, I keep going back to my tobacco example to show what happens to purely entertainment products. Recreational drugs will be seen as having a detriment to society in things like unpaid medical bills from those who partake of these substances. Taxes on these substances are to offset these costs to government. All recreational drugs will be heavily taxed. I know she will not see my reply, but the rest of you will: The war on drugs is winning, at least with the most important parts of our society, our children: Overall teen drug use continues gradual decline, but use of inhalants rises From the NIDA: InfoFacts - High School and Youth Trends Any illicit drug ? From 2006 to 2007, 8th-graders reporting lifetime use of any illicit drug declined from 20.9 percent to 19.0 percent and past year use declined from 14.8 percent to 13.2 percent. Since 2001, annual prevalence has fallen by 32 percent among 8th-graders, nearly 25 percent among 10th-graders, and 13 percent among 12th-graders. Since the peak year in 1996, past year prevalence has fallen by 44 percent among 8th-graders. The peak year for past year abuse among 10th- and 12th-graders was 1997; since then, past year prevalence has fallen by 27 percent among 10th-graders and by 15 percent among 12th-graders. Marijuana ? Past year use of marijuana among 8th graders significantly declined from 11.7 percent in 2006 to 10.3 percent in 2007, and is down from its 1996 peak of 18.3 percent. Annual prevalence of marijuana use has fallen by 33 percent among 8th-graders, 25 percent among 10th-graders, and 14 percent among 12th-graders since 2001. Disapproval of trying marijuana ?once or twice,? smoking marijuana ?occasionally,? or smoking marijuana ?regularly? (3) increased significantly among 8th-graders from 2006 to 2007, and remained stable for 10th- and 12th-graders for the same period. Methamphetamine ? Lifetime and past year methamphetamine use decreased among 8th- and 12th-graders between 2006 and 2007; lifetime use among 8th-graders declined from 2.7 percent to 1.8 percent, and lifetime use among 12th-graders declined from 4.4 percent to 3.0 percent. Past year methamphetamine use was reported by 1.1 percent of 8th-graders in 2007 (a decline from 1.8 percent in 2006), 1.6 percent of 10th-graders, and 1.7 percent of 12th-graders (a decline from 2.5 percent in 2006). Crack Cocaine ? Past month abuse of crack among 10th-graders declined from 0.7 percent in 2006 to 0.5 percent in 2007. From 2001 to 2007, students in 8th and 10th grades showed declines of crack use of 29.6 percent and 58.0 percent, respectively. Past month abuse of cocaine (powder) among 12th-graders declined from 2.4 percent in 2006 to 1.7 percent in 2007. Disapproval of trying cocaine ?once or twice? increased among 8th-graders from 86.5 percent in 2006 to 88.2 percent in 2007, and disapproval of trying crack ?once or twice? increased from 87.2 percent to 88.6 percent. Disapproval did not change among 10th- or 12th-graders for the same period. But, we re not doing well in certain other areas, Prescription Drugs, MDMA, Hallucinogens, and Heroin/Opiates are all either flat or increasing. While it is not all good by any means, there is clear success in the war on drugs.
Well, yah mon. The thing we need to keep remembering is that people are still taking drugs. They always have and they (probably) always will.
I am not sure of your point, liberals have given more to building a bigger government than the conservatives. Social welfare is definately a liberal agenda, and needs big brother to make it possible. But I will say both parties have distanced themselves from the things that they used to make a priority. I see part of that being due to the average person not fitting one description. I am heavy conservative in most of my views but I believe many liberal beliefs are very good for the nation. Legal recreational drugs is not something I believe to be a reasonable goal for society. We have enough people escaping reality and running from responsibility without adding another several layers of irresponsibility. People on the whole are weak, the masses cannot resist the existing dangers now, no point in adding more hurdles until the existing ones can be handled successfully.
