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I don't know who this guy is, but the depth of his stupidity is truly astonishing.
But according to our local drug-legalization crowd, led by marijuana's false prophets, those feds just don't understand the way we choose to live in la-la-land. This clutch of deceitful addicts and their myopic supporters propose legalization of cannabis and other illicit drugs, and the introduction of a bureaucratic system of drug regulation and distribution.
Their dream-world fantasy is based on a misty notion that illicit drugs could be produced and distributed like alcohol; that by the stroke of a pen the multi-billion dollar gangland drug manufacturing/importing/exporting business would be transformed into a legal, manageable and taxable government monopoly. Yet to be explained by marijuana's false prophets: How a pussycat government monopoly hopes to persuade gangsters to trade in their guns for bongs, become choir boys, and refrain from continuing to sell drugs in an inevitable black market.
Fat chance, I say.
Marijuana's false prophets send a steady stream of misinformation about a supposed similarity between the brief period when alcohol was prohibited and our hundred years of criminalization of illicit drugs, always ending with the same catchphrase: Let's take control of marijuana -- tax it, standardize and regulate it. [...]
It is a false message. Gang violence and murder will not end with fairy-tale legalization. International crime syndicates, coupled with source countries around the world profiting in the production of narcotics, will continue to target Canada and the United States. Legalization would cause them to increase their activity to accommodate an increase in the numbers of addicts in Canada.
Forget all the other stupidity in those paragraphs. How does a sentient being come up with a thought process wherein criminal syndicates continue to sell illegal drugs at high profit when they're available legally? Is Wallace unable to imagine a human who buys drugs? Does he think that the average drug purchaser would say "Well, I could purchase this legally at the corner and it would be safe and inexpensive. No, I think I'll go get it from a criminal instead." ? Does he not know that the black market cannot exist unless goods are illegal or over-regulated?
It gets worse. Wallace Gilby found the writings of Anthony Daniels, writing under the pseudnym of Theodore Dalrymple (probably because he had an inkling that he was writing complete crap). He shares some quotes with us, including:
"Analogies with the Prohibition era, often drawn by those who would legalize drugs, are false and inexact: it is one thing to attempt to ban a substance that has been in customary use for centuries by at least nine-tenths of the adult population, and quite another to retain a ban on substances that are still not in customary use, in an attempt to ensure that they never do become customary. Surely we have already slid down enough slippery slopes in the last 30 years without looking for more such slopes to slide down."
What nonsense. Prohibition of substances is prohibition of substances. Period. And regardless of historical use, the laws of economics control. If there is demand, there will be supply, and prohibition won't work.
Wallace Gilby Craig is a wanker, no doubt. But I've got to admit he can turn a colorful phrase, even if it is meaningless:
Dalrymple's observations are apropos to today's campaign of drug legalizers, including marijuana's false prophets, to destroy the moral and ethical integrity of our precious individual liberty by including in it an absolute and unfettered right to dally with marijuana, chemical drugs and narcotics.
Wake up Canada! Dedicated narcissistic marijuana users and psychosocial hard drug abusers are parasitical citizens, engaged solely in their own interests and pleasures.
Their creed: I care for nothing but myself.
I particularly love that our push for legalization will destroy our precious individual liberty.
Wall Street Journal balances sanity with stupidity
A couple of days ago, I gently chided Mary O'Grady for not being as direct with her conclusions about the need to end prohibition as she seemed to want to be in her recent Wall Street Journal column. While I wished she would push harder to get the Journal to come out more for a sane approach (and perhaps they're not ready to go there), I noted that she clearly understands the most important parts -- the part that economics plays in prohibition, that supply-side drug wars are doomed to failure, and that ending prohibition is the only way to stop the black market profits.
I thought that maybe the Wall Street Journal was ready -- after all, they also ran an OpEd by former Latin American Presidents Fernanco Henrique Cardoso, César Gaviria, and Ernesto Zedillo The War on Drugs is a Failure.
...the plain political fact is that drug legalization in the U.S. is not going to happen as long as a powerful moral and social consensus opposes it. To make the case for it now while Mexico bleeds is an exercise in fecklessness. [...]
Mexico's achievements have not been negligible. The government has managed to spark power struggles within and among cartels, and the vast majority of Mexico's murder victims are themselves involved in the drug trade. More important, Mr. Calderón has sent the signal that his government will not repeat the patterns of complacency and collusion that typified Mexico for decades. Whatever else might be said about his government, it's a serious one.
This does not mean Mr. Calderón will win this war. But for those of us who know Mexico well, it is an astonishing turn, deserving neither of pity nor sagacious snickering, but of respect.
Shorter Bret Stephens: Legalization is not going to happen, so there's no point talking about it. But doing nothing is not an option, either. We need to be serious, and lots of violence and death means we're serious, even if it doesn't actually work. So we should respect Mexico for achieving pointless death.
Tom Ammiano (who sponsored the bill to legalize marijuana in California) in the SFGate:
What if California could raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue to preserve vital state services without any tax increase? And what if at the same time, we could, without any new expense, help protect our endangered wilderness areas while making it harder for our kids to get drugs? [...]
There may be disagreements about what direction to take, but it is clear to everyone involved that our current approach is not working. Regulation allows common-sense controls and takes the marijuana industry out of the hands of unregulated criminals.
As a member of the state Assembly, I believe we must acknowledge reality and bring innovative solutions to the issue of marijuana, not simply wait for the federal government. This is how change happens. Californians lead rather than follow, and we can set an example for the nation as we did on medical marijuana by passing AB390.
And he's interviewed in Salon:
Do you think legalizing it endorses its use?
Its use is there anyway. People do it everywhere. It's better if you have a situation, like with booze, when you regulate it. If you're smoking the legal product, you're an adult, and it's not full of pesticides, additives or other crap. The environment would benefit because a lot of these rogue plantations pollute the water source and deplete the soil. The growers pull up and walk away without any kind of remediation. You have to admit to reality here. I think everyone has been on this big denial trip.
The day may not be far off when Americans conclude, as they did with Prohibition in the 1930s, that violence associated with the marijuana ban is worse than the drug's social ills. Some will raise the slippery slope argument that legalization opens the way to decriminalizing hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. Maybe we would have that discussion if legal marijuana works out, but saying yeah to one doesn't mean saying yes to the other.
Marijuana prohibition no longer makes sense, if it ever did. For the record, my recreational chemical of choice is alcohol. After the sun sets, I like to enjoy a glass of wine or scotch. Why shouldn't my neighbor, if so inclined, be able to relax with a joint?
Good news from California's DMV. While they claim not to be changing policy, there had been indications that they were yanking driver's licenses of medical marijuana patients simply because of their status. Now they've clarified that medical marijuana is treated "exactly the same as any other prescription drug."
The Appeal Democrat (Maysville, CA) editorial suggests that the next step needs to be re-scheduling marijuana.
The criteria for Schedule I are as follows: "A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse, B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision."
Marijuana does not meet any of these criteria. In 1988 the then-chief administrative law judge of the DEA, Francis Young, stated as much in an extensive advisory opinion based on several years of hearings. This view was reaffirmed by an extensive 1999 report in book form by the government's Institute of Medicine, which summarized all the most recent research documenting marijuana's medicinal uses and potential.
As the law is written, then, marijuana does not belong on Schedule I. If anything it belongs on Schedule V, the least-restrictive schedule. But even putting it on Schedule II (along with cocaine, morphine, amphetamines, PCP and opium) would allow physicians and their patients to use it appropriately. It would still not allow "recreational" use.
We understand that the Obama administration has a lot on its plate. But correcting this ongoing mistake, thereby alleviating a great deal of pain and suffering nationwide, is worth consideration.
Then there are those in California who lead... the wrong way.
San Diego County is nothing if not determined (or perhaps pigheaded). They really don't like the state's medical marijuana law and are doing everything they can to avoid implementing it (at great taxpayer expense) despite being shot down by every court so far.
San Diego County attorneys say they are pressing ahead with a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to resolve conflicting state and federal medical marijuana laws. That's in spite of comments from U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, suggesting federal enforcement of marijuana laws may change.
I really don't believe the Supreme Court will take this one. They've been pretty clear all along that while federal law supersedes state law, it doesn't negate it.
There's a war going on. It destroys lives and families, spawns violence, suspends civil liberties, tramples on the infirm, locks up millions of peaceful citizens, costs billions, and subjugates reason with fear. This blog looks at the front lines of the drug war, with news, analysis, and the occasional rant.
Illinois: 
