4e38d3b8   
   From: retired@home.com   
      
   Brother Nate wrote:   
   > VFW wrote:   
   > [...]   
   >> "The war on drugs does not work, period," said Dr. Julio Montaner,   
   >> president of the International AIDS Society.   
   >>   
   >> "We must take an evidence-based approach to dealing with the drug   
   >> market, because current strategies are not working and people are paying   
   >> for ill-considered policies with their lives," Montaner said in a   
   >> release.   
   >   
   > I'm in favor of taking a rational approach to the problems posed   
   > by addiction and drug abuse, but I don't find statements like   
   > "The war on drugs does not work, period" to be especially   
   > meaningful - there are just too many dimensions to this issue.   
      
   Possibly "the war on drugs does more harm than good" would be a better   
   short phrase to describe the situation.   
      
      
   > The war on drugs certainly has not created a zero-violation   
   > environment, but that would be an unrealistic expectation.   
      
      
   True, but the point is that it is extremely far from zero.  Many illegal   
   drugs are as easy to obtain as legal drugs   
      
      
   > It's true that some forms of drug abuse are on the rise, but   
   > despite what we're told about "forbidden fruits" it's clearly   
   > self-evident that laws aren't causing people to binge drink   
   > more.  Abuse is driven by what people want, not by what   
   > they're told not to do.   
      
   True but not the point.   
      
   > The spike in violence may be the worst side-effect of our   
   > efforts to enforce these laws.  Revenue from a high-stakes   
   > trafficking business has fueled the ambitions of defacto   
   > warlords.  There may be a certain appeal to the idea of   
   > taking away the revenue that drug lords make from   
   > running drugs and redirecting it as sales tax and "sin"   
   > tax on regulated trade, but implicit in the very name of   
   > the "harm reduction" approach is the reality that drug   
   > abuse really does cause harm.   
      
   And the reality is that drug abuse would cause far less harm if they   
   were legal.   
      
      
   > A legalized environment might result in less harm, but   
   > I believe the fact that harm would still occur would be   
   > taken up as a point of criticism by opponents of drug use,   
   > and that criticism would be no less unfair or unrealistic   
   > than blanket generalizations that the present approach   
   > "doesn't work period".   
      
   That criticism would be unfair because all the evidence (e.g., from   
   alcohol prohibition, the pre-criminalization era, other countries)   
   strongly indicate that legalization greatly reduces harm.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)