Drug War Victims Discussion Overflow 2 This is from the comments at Drug War Victims. It had reached the limit of the comments capability The first and second group of comments are shown here. Feel free to continue in comments below. Comments in response to this post: Sick.. Just sick. One can put about 15% of the blame on inexperienced and/or incompetent officers, but the rest falls on our lawmakers and politicians who probably haven't heard of any of these people. J • 9/13/05; 2:42:50 AM # This is a truly wonderfull sign of the times. People get to sit here and rant about how horrible it is that they are not able to peddle poison which greatly affects the lives of addicts the poor and children. Maybe if all the money middle america spends on pot,h,coke and x could be diverted to social programs western culture could truly step into a better era. And although I do acknowledge the needless deaths listed on this site let us not forget all the officers so villanized here that have lost there lives. These are the same men and women who show up for work and put thmeselves in harms way for your protection. Regardless of your feelings towards them. Timmy • 9/14/05; 10:13:51 AM # this site is complete bs....wake up america!!! the same people who complain about the drug problem are the same people who feel sorry for these shitbags.... i worked for the department of one of the shitbags posted on your site.... you have no clue of what really happened that night!!! just my 2 cents, for whatever that's worth. jake • 9/14/05; 7:50:35 PM # Timmy and Jake, Please learn to read before you post. If you actually looked at the page, you would realize that there are cops and innocent people listed here, all victims of the war on drugs. So careful who you're calling shitbags. Pete • 9/14/05; 8:16:41 PM # There is a serious problem with the legislation that helped create the "War on Drugs". Take a look at the people that are truly being impacted by the laws; the mules, the small scale dealers, the users. But what impact has the laws really had on the major sellers and distributors? None, once they lose a dealer or mule, they recruit another and so the circle goes around. The biggest impact that the legislation has had is in the astronomical growth of corrections and its ever expanding budget. There are appsoximately 1.4 million people in prison and the number is not dropping. We cannot continue to lock people up. When state governments are cutting educational and social funding to fund more prisons WE HAVE A PROBLEM! The laws enacted to support the "War on Drugs" were knee jerk reactions to a perception that drugs were rampant and people were out of control. It is just another case of the government thinking that they know better what is good for us as individuals. It truly is a sad commentary on our great country that the legislators and law enforcement have not taken a step back and evaluated the consequences of those laws. But when you tie law enforcement budgets to drug law enforcement, how motivated are the police to cut their own throats where their funding is concerned. Think about it. Paul • 9/16/05; 8:53:14 AM # okay.. i have a solution. let's eliminate the small dealers so the large dealers have no one to sell to. jake • 9/16/05; 5:44:32 PM # Jake, That's what we seem to be trying to do now, but anyone who knows economics knows it won't work. There's always going to be a line of people ready to step in and make some good cash, particularly in poor communities. And then (assuming you didn't mean executing when you said "eliminate"), eventually, the small dealers you arrest will be back out with a prison record and nobody will hire them except the large drug dealers. We keep creating and recycling this class of small dealers. Pete • 9/16/05; 6:26:22 PM # so let me guess what your solution is...... LEGALIZE DRUGS. please! that will destroy this great country. jake • 9/16/05; 10:26:18 PM # Jake, Legalizing drugs will not destroy this great country. This country was founded by men that grew marijuana as a second crop. (ie George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) It was founded on principles of personal privacy and self worth were "all men are created equal." You comment on Pete's site about "shitbags." You don't take into account the number of people that need drugs like marijuana to combat the side effects of our "scientific medicine" that includes radiation and kemotherapy. When alcohol was under Prohibition, crime rose in extraordinary levels. Bootleggers were just as commom as local dealers are today. When they repealed Prohibition, it was not anarchy. Our country did not drink itself to death or fuel horrific rampages of the sex-crazed drunkards. Prohibition breeds crime. It allows for a black market to spring up. If the government did legalize-or even strongly regulate-we would have the money from taxing the products like we already do for alcohol and tobacco. The money could be put into those programs that Timmy wrote about in an earlier post. The naivety of nationwide anarchy because hash would be legal is very sophmoric and insulting to the intelligence of the people of this great country. People can't go to work drunk so why would they go to work stoned/geeked? Before you cast generalized hate speech, take a look at the world around you. Not everyone is as small minded as yourself. ben • 9/20/05; 2:42:03 PM # I take it that Timmy and Jake are the sort of folks who think nothing of desecrating cemetaries. This particular branch of the site details the circumstances of innocents ("...until proven guilty", remember?) killed in the DrugWar and serves as a memorial...which Timmy and Jake proceed to virtually defecate on. The electronic equivalent of overturning headstones and scrawling four-letter words and swastikas on them. Which would, of course, enrage them should someone visit their websites and return the favor. Too typical of too many of the opposition; more proof of the reason behind Judge Brandeis's warning about 'men of zeal, without understanding.' kaptinemo • 9/21/05; 6:04:02 AM # PLEASE Ben...... you pot smoking hippie!!! drugs will NEVER be legal in this country & they should never be. All you liberals want are more programs. Do the right thing. Don't SELL or TAKE drugs. It's that simple. I don't want my kids subject to a society where drugs are legal. btw... kaptinemo!! The Hirko shooting on this page is complete BS. I worked for the department that this incident occurred. Many, many, many drug buys were made at his (Hirko's) residence prior to his death (by the department i worked for). So, no i don't feel sorry for him. I would say many of the so called "innocent" individuals that were killed and posted on this site were more than likely GUILTY. The officers that shot this shitbag were justified in shooting him. The officers were NOT charged criminally for shooting him because Hirko had a gun and shot at the police officers. The shitbag's family only won a CIVIL trial because juries are filled with people like yourself. THANK GOD FOR NIXON CREATING THE DEA!!! jake • 9/25/05; 10:12:36 PM # I worked for the department that this incident occurred. Ah, so I assume you are a policeman, yes? Or someone who directly benefits from the War on (Some) Drugs? Your motivations immediately become suspect with that statement. I would say many of the so called "innocent" individuals that were killed and posted on this site were more than likely GUILTY. I'm sure you would say that, rather than consider the possibility that you may be wrong...which still does not justify the unwarranted deaths that occured thanks to trigger-happy police and military personnel acting as judge, jury, and executioner, which your latest missive seems to indicate you'd also like to operate as. It would seem that 'due process' are curse words with you, while forgetting that it is exactly this same process which is supposed to protect all of us from those same deadly 'mistakes'. If you are a cop or someone affiliated with law enforcement professionally, you should already know that. If you didn't, you have no business working in law enforcement. Oh, and BTW, you presume to know my political orientation without knowing anything at all about me. It may interest you you know I consider myself a 'paleo' (Goldwater-type) conservative, not the cheap Nixonian knock-off kind that has allowed this War on (Some) Drugs to go as far as it has and create as much damage as it does. True conservatism doesn't engage in the kind of massive invasion of privacy, trashing of the Constitution (your precious War on Some Drugs is a perfect example of that) burgeoning of government, squandering of tax dollars, foreign adventurism getting American soldiers killed while the cowards who sent them to die never faced that prospect themselves because they ran like 'shitbags' when it was their turn, etc., that the present bunch calling themselves 'conservative' have done. Do not presume to lecture me about the difference between 'liberals' and 'conservatives', as the terms have become interchangable by reality: the so-called 'conservatives' of today bear no semblence to those of times past, and do bear an astonishing similarity to the very people they claim to hate, and for the same reasons. Both 'liberals' and modern-day 'conservatives' spend our tax dollars like drunken sailors, and trash the country in the process with their half-baked ideas about 'social engineering'. A real conservative needs neither to advise him or her how to live their lives; how about you? Or have 'talking points' replaced the Golden Rule? kaptinemo • 9/26/05; 5:52:34 AM # Timmy and Jake...WAKE UP! scott • 9/28/05; 3:16:51 PM # So then... what's your solution guys? You want drugs to be legal? Okay. Let's make all other crimes legal too. You know, i don't think stealing should be a crime. Just because we don't like a law... doesn't mean we should just disgard it... RIGHT! I bet when 9/11 occurred you guys were all for going over to the middle east. Now that things are not working out as planned, lets pull out. i disagree!!! Guess what? ALL wars fought, innocent people die!! WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and even the war on drugs. when you guys are out there fighting the war on drugs and your the police officer that has to make a split-second decision to shoot or be shot...... come talk to me. until then, live your fantasy life of legal drugs not harming your community. Till then, FIGHT ON! take care now...... bye bye then! jake • 9/28/05; 3:53:34 PM # Jake, have you ever heard of the term, 'conflation'? To state that cannabis usage is on the same level as murder, rape, child molestation, etc., is conflation. It's also intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt...but that has never stopped prohibitionists. It's a (pathetic) argument prohibitionists use all the time...and it never holds water. As to the position of accepting 'collateral damage' in the DrugWar, let's ask a few questions: first, who started the war? It's not like some foreign country tried to kick over our apple cart. It was the US government that started the DrugWar, so, ultimately, it is the US government's responsibility for the deaths caused by it. So your analogy doesn't hold up. Secondly, ask yourself this question: just how accepting of this collateral damage would you be if this were your child killed in the same manner as Alberto Sepulveda? Thirdly, if they are old enough to know better, would your child would be as accepting of you sacrificing him or her upon the altar of your ideology? (I somehow doubt it, and I would also doubt that he or she would be sacrificing them out of 'love'.) Fourthly, you bring up the specter of police shootings; how many are drug-related? Remove the risk for it via regulation and taxation of the trade, and far fewer bronze badges have to die; it really is that simple. Or do you prefer that they have a higher risk of being shot now, thanks to drugs being illegal? I don't want cops to be shot any more than I want little kids to be shot by cops. Yet the present system which you favor guarantees that these incidents will happen...needlessly. Finally, if you are going to cease posting here, then I declare myself the winner of this debate, and you the loser, since you don't seem capable of defending your position with anything but more hysterics. It's why we're gaining ground and your position has fewer and fewer supporters among people that think...instead of engage in Pavlovian foaming at the mouth when they hear their master's whistle. kaptinemo • 9/29/05; 5:20:45 AM # Sorry, I meant to say: (I somehow doubt it, and I would also doubt that he or she would believe that you were sacrificing them out of 'love'.) kaptinemo • 9/29/05; 5:24:27 AM # Hey, Jake, care to try your hand at justifying the persecution of unarmed terminally-ill people just because they smoke pot to ease their chronic pain? Care to explain why it's right for the Feds to arrest and prosecute them in states where medical marijuana is LEGAL? Raging Bee • 9/29/05; 11:51:47 AM # Legal drugs like alcohol and nicotine are doing a good job at destroying this country. 36 thousand traffic deaths each year, half from alcohol is taking its toll. You don't see a war on cars. I don't see people legislating against more roads. You don't see a war on alcohol. There used to be one, but Congress had enough sense to bring an end to alcohol prohibition. Thank God for that. How many deaths can be attributed to tobacco use? 400 thousand? You don't see a war on tobacco. I don't see a web site of pictures of dead tobacco users and the tobacco warriors who lost their lives in the line of duty. Tobacco companies are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, fgs. What we have is a citizenry that is soured on the US government and a government that knows no bounds to the corruption. Keep fighting the war on drugs, Jake. You will never win. I knew of a drug informant that took the life of a man and almost killed a relative. He was peeling a safe in his spare time. He is now in prison. A good place for him, the murdering bastard. muleskinner • 9/29/05; 12:18:28 PM # I wish everyone would quit calling it a "War on Drugs." It isn't. It's "government-sponsored murder," plain and simple. Since they're started their "war," have prices got so high no one can afford them due to scarcity? Has the quality diminished? Have innocent people died, had their possessions and homes taken and their futures ruined? Over what? If Prohib was such a good idea, why didn't it work the first time? Why is government-backed poision sold "over the counter?" How many doctors are afraid (of the government) to hold truthful dialogue with their patients? And how many of those patients go without assistance because the government is afraid they might "feel good" at the same time? Where in the Constitution does it state that "feeling good" is a crime? Oh, it's ok to go get soused, acquire lung cancer, down a few Rx pills after work with your martini, isn't it? That's ok. However, allow someone to either gain enjoyment or pain relief, without you in their pocket, at the same time, labels you "a desparate criminal." That seems to be ok today. I've run into my share of "Jakes" in my life. They've always been a bunch of whiners who couldn't back up their arguement with facts. They cry "what about the children?" However, look at them and their children. They don't say two words to them all day, leave them alone to fend for themselves and poison themselves in front of their kids. Yeah, WTF about the children? Your Prohib is telling them mirads. But it's not what you think they're hearing. Kids today aren't "fence posts." They're a smart bunch, that I've interacted with, anyway. Most thought the "this is your brain" ad was funnier than "RM!" No truth to it, just funnier. No, Jake and his minions are the people spoken of in the movie, "A Few Good Men." Antis "can't handle the truth!" You know why? Like Jake, they can't stay "on topic." They're not "drug warriors," they're drug "sheep." I, too, both served my country in Vietnam and on the streets in TX (30 years ago-short job/threw mayor in jail for drunk driving!). Law school also played a part in exposing the drug war fallacy. It feels so good, not wearing wool all the time. ;-) ezrydn • 9/29/05; 3:54:48 PM # One last item (sorry, I forgot to write it). Good drugs/bad drugs. Is that written in stone somewhere? Weren't the bad drugs good at one time? Weren't they "acceptable" to society, one time? Who decides whether a drug is "good" or "bad?" And, does that make it so? The "good/bad" argument is a human one. It's a human assumption. And, if the human making the assumption is illiterate (on the subject), does the assumption hold validity? Yesterday, they were good. Today, they're bad. What changed? The drug? Or, the human? ezrydn • 9/29/05; 3:59:57 PM # The drug alcohol was bad. Today, it's good. Make up your friggin' mind, Jake (et al)! ezrydn • 9/29/05; 4:01:53 PM # Owned. me • 9/29/05; 4:10:57 PM # I'm stunned by the deaths of Veronica and Charity Bowers. I can't believe that the government thinks that the lives of the pilots and passengers of each plane are of less importance than the perceived harm of the alleged drugs in the first place, but a mistake while doing that that costs innocent lives is unforgivable. me • 9/29/05; 4:24:39 PM # Perhaps the most terrifying thing about all the above observation, for me personally is...I'm not stunned. I'm not stunned that there are people in this world, Americans, who can callously devalue the lives of innocent people and justify their off-handed execution with obvious ease and (dare I say it?) relish. The Germans, the Japanese, the Russians, the Chinese...we castigated them for a lack of respect for human life while vaunting our championing of it. Yet we have read in above comments - purportedly made by someone who claims to be associated in some way with a police department - make the same kind of justification in taking innocent lives that our former enemies once did. America has stared into the DrugWar abyss too long, and now, it is staring back at us. It speaks to us with the voices of Timmies and Jakes, shamelessly speaking blasphemies that we damned other nations to Hell with bullets and bombs for ever uttering and practicing. Our parents fought a hot global war and some of us in my generation fought a cold, quiet, smaller but no less occasionally deadly war to keep to keep that from ever taking root here, yet...here...it...is. And it is speaking with an American accent. This is why the DrugWar must be stopped, before America loses it's soul. kaptinemo • 9/29/05; 6:43:56 PM # And before anyone tries to wax righteous about the side-effects of illegal drugs, I recommend looking up the well-known side-effects of a legal prescription drug called prednisone. Raging Bee • 9/29/05; 7:42:14 PM # Yo, Jake, Tim, whassamatter? Second-hand pot smoke made you quiet? Raging Bee • 9/29/05; 7:43:39 PM # Jake and Tim went the way of all prohibitionists when they are faced with the truth. They cut and run. Hope • 9/29/05; 8:37:20 PM # guys/gals.... you haven't scared me away!!! i'm a little busy catching the bad guys poisoning our communities. (you're very welcome) i work for a living. i don't have all day to play on the internet and post silly remarks. if you think the war on drugs is ever going away, you're quite wrong. until you can come up w/ a valid reason why we should end this, let me know. Don't give me the "we should tax drugs" either. i find it amazing that you guys want drugs on the street legal. i can't comprehend it! and for stupid Raging Bee, i am one of the few that has NEVER tried drugs. you know why, because it's the law? i grew up in a family that stressed the importance of staying away from drugs. But there are the few, like yourself, who try it.... to be cool & fit in. then it leads to more dangerous drugs. guys/gals, bottom line is... i'm right and you're ALL wrong. that's the way the majority of the country feels. you are the minority, so deal with it. jake • 9/29/05; 9:56:53 PM # hey paul..... that's what we need, more social funding!! there's a liberal idea. if you want to look at the real problems in this country, look at the lawyers. Also guys/gals.... there is no war on tabacco because it's not a mind altering drug. i could give a shit if you smoke and kill yourself. Alcohol is.... but to say we should have a war on alcohol just because there are more deaths related to it is crazy. make drugs legal and drug related deaths will out number alcohol related deaths. jake • 9/29/05; 10:09:40 PM # http://www.leap.cc/ for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Hope • 9/29/05; 10:29:20 PM # Heres the Mission Statement. http://www.leap.cc/mission.htm Hope • 9/29/05; 10:31:20 PM # LOL!! please. you people have gone mad! i'd like to talk to the 18 officers that are involved in that organization. you think medical insurance is expensive now..... make drugs legal. jake • 9/29/05; 10:37:36 PM # DON'T YOU KNOW SADDAM WOULD HAVE KILLED ALL THESE PEOPLE ANYWAY? OPERATION DRUGGIE FREEDOM MARCHES ON! Walter Sobchak • 9/29/05; 11:06:21 PM # "guys/gals.... you haven't scared me away!!! i'm a little busy catching the bad guys poisoning our communities." That's nice to know, so how many informants, DEA and drug task force agents have you locked up so far? Have you managed to get John Walters yet? Sukoi • 9/30/05; 1:27:14 AM # Hrm...I'm honestly having a hard time believing that Jake is in any way for real. His responses are so easily refuted with little things like the Bill of Rights and the basic distinction between consensual and nonconsensual activity that there's simply no need to bother, and I'm sensing that this is the point. Keeps us distracted and all. So, Jake, where do *you* hang out, Internet-wise, when you're not baiting DPR activists and/or bating yourself? Ethan Straffin • 9/30/05; 3:11:08 AM # LOL... you're too wise for me Ethan. keep up the juvenile zings. Sukoi, if you read above, i've already disclosed where i work. Scroll up a little and learn something. jake • 9/30/05; 5:02:06 AM # Our intent was not to scare you away, Jake, but to illustrate a point...namely, that you have none. You have been challenged several times on the basis of your beliefs, and all you can come up with is the singularly lame defense of "because it's the law!". Jake, have you ever read the Constitution? Have you ever read the part about slaves being only counted as 3/5ths of a man for census purposes? That meant that slavery was enshrined by law. Now, with your dog-like devotion to 'the law!', would you have carried out that law, knowing what conditions existed for slaves, and especially what treatment an escaped slave could expect to receive upon forcible return? Would you, Jake? Given what you have written so far, I strongly suspect that you'd have cheerfully handed over the slaver's 'property' without nary a twinge of conscience; please tell me I'm wrong. If you fail to answer, if you dodge the question with more inanities as you have been since you got here, then I will assume for the sake of argument that I am not wrong, which would make you no better than the bastard who whipped those slaves. I wonder how many of your African-American colleagues would feel about that? Are you beginning to understand that some laws are inherently immoral because of the damage that they do to society as a whole as opposed to the good they are purportedly to serve, and that those who claim, as the ones who stood in the docket at Nuremburg did, that they 'were only following orders' ('the law!'), are part of the problem? Drug prohibition is exactly like it's long dead twin alcohol Prohibition, in that it caused more harm to society that the supposed 'good' it was to bring. All it does is all that alcohol Prohibition did, that is, prohibit nothing while trashing our liberties while corrupting our police and courts and make gangsters rich. Why do you think it was eventually struck down? Why do you think the institution of slavery was ended? Because both were bad laws, Jake. kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 5:55:42 AM # jake, have you ever raed anything byt Upton Sinclair? I had to, when I was in school. This line from his book The Jungle stuck in my mind ever since: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."</b Sound familiar, Jake? Still don't get it? Then look in the mirror, Jake. That's you, Jake, that's you. There is a difference between being ignorant and being stupid, Jake, but the distance between the two can sometimes be so small that it can easily be bridged by someone who really doesn't care whether he's described by one or the other. That kind of person doesn't care who's in charge, doesn't care that what he might be doing at their orders is wrong, doesn't care that he, himself, is being endangered by their wrongheaded leadership, doesn't care if there may someday be a day of reckoning in which their attitude is used to judge them...until the day it happens. Or the day when those they pursue turn on them and in a bright white muzzle flash the former pursuers realize with the last second of their lives that they wasted that life doing the bidding of others who didn't give a rat's backside about them. Since you obviously don't give a damn about the lives of innocent people being taken, then I'll ask it this way: Is the DrugWar worth a single cop's life, Jake? I say it isn't. Do you? kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 6:14:35 AM # Jake, have you ever read anything by Upton Sinclair? I had to, when I was in junior high school. This line from his book The Jungle stuck in my mind ever since: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."</b Sound familiar, Jake? Still don't get it? Then look in the mirror, Jake. There is a difference between being ignorant and being stupid, Jake, but the distance between the two can sometimes be so small that it can easily be bridged by someone who really doesn't care whether he's described by one or the other. That kind of person doesn't care who's in charge, doesn't care that what he might be doing at their orders is wrong, doesn't care that he, himself, is being endangered by their wrongheaded leadership, doesn't care if there may someday be a day of reckoning in which their attitude is used to judge them...until the day it happens. Or the day when those they pursue turn on them and in a bright white muzzle flash the former pursuers realize with the last second of their lives that they wasted that life doing the bidding of others who didn't give a rat's backside about them. Since you obviously don't give a damn about the lives of innocent people being taken, then I'll ask it this way: Is the DrugWar worth a single cop's life, Jake? I say it isn't. Do you? kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 6:17:10 AM # Sorry about the HTML goofs, folks, the comment box was slow in processing this morning. kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 6:23:43 AM # Sukoi, if you read above, i've already disclosed where i work. Scroll up a little and learn something. Yes Jake, you said that you ?worked? at a police department and then you said: ?i'm a little busy catching the bad guys poisoning our communities." Those ?bad guys poisoning our communities? are those who gleefully enforce unjust and unconstitutional laws such as those in the DEA and drug task forces along with any other LEO who does the same and those who spread propaganda in an attempt to try and justify this war on innocents such as the ONDCP. These are the ?bad guys poisoning our communities? by enforcing these unjust laws, not caring how many lives they ruin or take in the process, the law is the law right? That was the exact same justification for the holocaust in Nazi Germany at the hands of their government and police, what is happening here in this country is no different. Are you a member of the ?Schutzstaffel?? In another post, you expressed in talking to the members of LEAP, well I know for a fact that they?d be more than happy to talk to you and point out why your thinking is completely wrong, their contact information can be found here: http://leap.cc/contact.htm Please let us know what they say. Also, they have a bit more than 18 members but you would know that if you had read their ?About Us? page that Hope provided you the link to, here?s an excerpt from that page: ?In two years we went from five founders to a membership of over 2,000, with 85 speakers, living in 34 of the United States and in 7 other countries. All LEAP speakers are former drug-warriors?police, parole, probation and corrections officers, judges, and prosecutors. LEAP has members and supporters across the United States and in forty-five other countries, which is fitting since U.S. drug policy has ramifications that affect the entire world.? I?m curious, do you even know what these unjust and unconstitutional laws that you take such pride in enforcing are even based upon? It certainly seems as though you don?t. Sukoi • 9/30/05; 8:28:46 AM # Jake, you go on out there and fight that drug war all you can. In the words of Jack Crab: "General, you go down there... you go down there if you got the nerve." I wouldn't want to cause a reversal of your decision. "Oward to Little Bighorn and glory." - George Armstrong Custer from the movie "Little Big Man" You might win a few battles, Jake, but you will never win the war. some history muleskinner • 9/30/05; 8:44:47 AM # oopsa daisy link muleskinner • 9/30/05; 8:48:12 AM # kaptinemo... don't compare slavery to the war on drugs. slavery dealt w/ human beings. drugs do not. crack is an object! so no i don't support slavery. but i don't support the war on drugs because............... as i have said before! I DO NOT WANT MY CHILDREN GROWING UP IN A SOCIETY WHERE DRUGS ARE LEGAL. I also wouldn't want prostitution legal either... you know why? I DO NOT WANT MY CHILDREN GROWING UP IN A SOCIETY WHERE PROSTITUTION IS LEGAL. trust me, if drugs would be gone forever GREAT! as a police officer, it would make my job EASIER. i still get paid the same amount w/ drugs legal or illegal. have you ever had to arrest someone on PCP or crack after they broke into a home? i didn't think so. it's so easy for guys to play monday morning quarterback when you never did the job. make drugs legal, then we send message it's okay to do drugs. well it's not. i'm sure most you tools agree with the distribution of condums in high school too. what message does that send...... go johnny, have sex. it's okay. wrong message. Sukoi........... again yes i used to work for that department. figure the rest out. why is it unjust and unconstitutional to have legal drugs? maybe i think paying taxes is unjust. now what do we do? jake • 9/30/05; 10:31:56 AM # muleskinner..... we all lose if drugs are legal. what do we win if drugs are legal? tell me... no one has explained that to me yet. more lives are ruined by taking drugs then any law enforcement officer shooting any drug dealer or what you guys call innocent people. read your paper.... count the number of OD's drug related deaths in one month.......... then count the number of shootings of innocent people. let me know what you find. jake • 9/30/05; 10:37:06 AM # You're living in a dreamworld, Jake. A drug free utopia will never attained. In August of 2004 two US Air Force pilots were nabbed for cocaine possession and trafficking. The drug war leads to neverending corruption. A drug free America will never happen. It is a pipe dream for you, that's great. You can live your life that way, as surreal as it may be, it's your choice. Fight the 'good fight' with all of your might. It's your 'drug war of choice.' The America you see and the real America that is out there are two different animals. The one you choose to recognize isn't the one that's there. You have deluded yourself. grow up muleskinner • 9/30/05; 11:24:49 AM # "What you guys call innocent people." You haven't even read this victim's list. Some of the people on this list did break your beloved "law", but many of them did not. The "law" you worship is man made. It wasn't carved in rock somewhere on the top of a mountain by the finger of God. Your beloved "law" is a man made rule and tradition. Those of us who can think for ourselves recognize it as a bad law, a very bad law that causes more death and destruction and harm than the inanimate objects you claim to be at "war" against. Your law, our law, and yes, it is ours, too, is not "perfect". When a manmade law is recognized as ill conceived, it has to be changed. That's what we want to do. Hope • 9/30/05; 11:30:07 AM # Hope... besides the 10 commandments (if you believe in that) all laws are man-made. muleskinner.... dude do you think we will ever stop crime? should we make "crime" legal? just because it's not "winnable" doesn't mean you abandon it. what you have to do is contain it. Do you have kids? when your kids disobey you, do you just give up or do you continue to enforce your rules? same principle. jake • 9/30/05; 11:37:12 AM # What is the real motivation in here to legalize drugs? Are you just interested so you can get high "legally"? don't tell me it's for tax reasons either. The tax money you save to fight the war on drugs will be used for funding rehab centers. is everyone one okay with that? jake • 9/30/05; 11:45:50 AM # What is the real motivation in here to legalize drugs? Harm reduction, Jake. The drug war, as so many people have already stated, causes much more harm than good. It is folly to think law enforcement can contain drug use. scottp • 9/30/05; 11:53:33 AM # FYI, I never use cocaine. I never have bought cocaine. I don't want cocaine. If somebody wants to use it, it is their business; no one elses, not even yours. I don't care if it is legal. Just leave it alone. It doesn't require some kind of government sanction, legal or illegal. I can go down to the river bank in my city and gather as much jimson weed as I care to use. It is there, free for the taking. I have a strong botany background and I am able to key any plant on earth. I will be able to tell if it can kill me or not with one look at the plant. There is also water hemlock growing on the river bank. A few leaves will put you in a coffin, pronto. I don't see it being eradicated at all. It grows abundantly. The legislating of any substance to a illegal status produces nothing but heartache for society. The laws are what do the harm. If you want to get high legally, buy a gallon of oil-based paint and huff it all day long. It is at your paint store. muleskinner • 9/30/05; 11:57:09 AM # Jake, can you tell the difference between correction...and child abuse? Most child abusers can't. They think what they are doing is the 'way it s'posed to be', not realizing they are making things worse. Most of the child abusers I knew grew up to repeat the same pattern I witnessed in their own families. Unsurprisingly, many became policemen, out of a desire to prevent the worst that happened to them from happening to others...but wound up being just as abusive. Can you tell the difference between the harm caused by a drug...and that caused to society by the laws meant to curb it's usage? There's only so many ways that the question can be asked, and you haven't asnwered any of them. Your failure to do so by trying to throw up nore unrelated questions is not going unnoticed, nor is it terribly clever; we deal with this tactic all the time, and you are being called out on it. If you can't answer a single question your public puts to you, Mr. Public Servant, the only thing you prove yourself as being is either wilfully ignorant or deliberately obtuse. And, yes, Mr. Public Servant we do indeed deserve answers, contrary to your next, thoroughly predictable rejoinder. The money that goes into your wallet isn't miraculous manna from Heaven but came from taxpayers, any number of which may be reading this right now. So, how about, Mr. Public Servant (who evidently wants to be judge, jury and executioner)? Got any answers besides more questions? kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 12:07:20 PM # Sorry, I maent 'victims of child abuse'...and I've seen far too many in my life. kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 12:11:45 PM # ?have you ever had to arrest someone on PCP or crack after they broke into a home?? Perhaps they wouldn?t have needed to break into a home if they had what they wanted legally and cheaply available to them in the first place, just as it should be in a ?free society?. ?why is it unjust and unconstitutional to have legal drugs? maybe i think paying taxes is unjust. now what do we do?? Let me rephrase the question; exactly where in the Constitution is the government granted the power to tell people what they can and cannot grow, possess and/or ingest? And again, do you actually know what the laws that you so eagerly enforce are based upon? ?we all lose if drugs are legal. what do we win if drugs are legal? tell me... no one has explained that to me yet. more lives are ruined by taking drugs then any law enforcement officer shooting any drug dealer or what you guys call innocent people. read your paper.... count the number of OD's drug related deaths in one month.......... then count the number of shootings of innocent people. let me know what you find.? No, you have it all wrong, more lives are ruined by PROHIBITION then by all drugs legal and illegal combined, besides, the shooting of just ONE innocent is far too high a price to pay to enforce your version of morality. Now, let me ask you something similar; count the number of deaths directly related to cannabis over the last thousand years and the count the number of shootings directly related to the prohibition of the plant over the last ten years, le me know what YOU find out. Sukoi • 9/30/05; 12:12:54 PM # Jake, I do think the Ten Commandments are a valuable guide. Very valuable. I am a Christian. I've raised four children. Of course I had rules, but I wouldn't say that I "enforced" them. If one or all of my children disagreed with one of my rules, we discussed it. I listened to them and sometimes I changed them. I learned not to reflexively say "No" every time they made a request, even if I was very busy. Life is about a lot more than "rules". I treated my children with respect as the human beings they are. I respect them and they respect me. I encouraged them to ?think? and ?understand??not just to follow the rules like good little soldiers. As adults with families of their own, they still seek my advice when they are faced with serious issues. I spent a lot of time making things "clear" to them that they couldn't understand. I listened when they disagreed. The laws that you are hired to enforce don't include that you should consider other adults "children" that you have to enforce rules against. We are not your children. We are as fully adult, maybe more so, than you. You misread your roll in life if you think it is to be the parent of other adults. Some of your laws are wrong, Sir. Very wrong. The ?fruits? of the so called War on Drugs have been hideous. Some of them are listed on this page. That you would call these people by the names you so liberally cast about in the beginning of this conversation indicates to me that there is something very wrong with your conscience. Hope • 9/30/05; 12:15:27 PM # Jake, you said, "The tax money you save to fight the war on drugs will be used for funding rehab centers. is everyone one okay with that?" I would so much rather my taxes be spent on rehab than incarceration and terroristic style raids on people?s homes and businesses and money grubbing forfeiture efforts on the part of the government. My motivation for change in the law is to stop the mistreatment and yes, death, that so many people have had to endure at the hands of law enforcement and to make my government a cleaner, better thing. Hope • 9/30/05; 1:01:36 PM # I missed Jake's earlier response to a posting, so I am backtracking here: First off, I will indeed continue to make the analogy of bad laws = immoral laws, and that they need to be challenged because they are more destructive to the commonweal than not. Slavery caused human beings to be treated like products to be abused - or killed - at will. The people whose names and faces on this website were treated no differently than those same slaves, many were killed at will and no legal action beyond a slap on the wrist happened to their killers because their deaths were justified in the name of the War on Drugs The analogy should be obvious, Jake. As to your desire to have your children grow up drug free, you must be a Christian Scientist, yes? Because a CSer would deny his or her child anything like a drug...like aspirins, cough syrup, antibiotics, etc. Have you denied a sick child of yours any of the above mentioned substances out of ideology or religion? No? Why not, if you want them to grow up drug free? Tell me, Jake, do you drink alcoholic beverages? If so, then why do you do so, knowing what it can do to you? Is alcohol not a drug? Is every person who uses it not a 'drug user'? And is every person addicted to it not a 'drug addict'? You say you don't want your children to grow up in a society where drugs are legal. Too late; you're surrounded by them, and most of them are prefectly legal. And here's the key, Jake: they are being used by the vast majority of users in a responsible fashion. And because these (highly destructive) drugs are legally available and properly regulated, we don't have anyone being killed in drive-by shootings to get their nicotine fix or their next beer buzz. Jake, we've heard all this before, and are quite ready for your rationalizations. Can you come up with something more original than just these tired old DrugWarrior 'talking points'? kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 1:17:18 PM # When I said, "I would so much rather my taxes be spent on rehab than incarceration and terroristic style raids on people?s homes and businesses and money grubbing forfeiture efforts on the part of the government.", I didn't mean forced rehab. Forced rehab is another "industry" that is nothing more than ?re-education? in the style of the old Soviet Union. Hope • 9/30/05; 1:34:57 PM # Jake: in the midst of your feverish "it's the law" rhetoric, you neglected to address my point regarding Federal policies in direct conflict with state laws. If you really are a cop, I wonder how many of your suspects walk because you misunderstood the law as badly as you misunderstand it here. You also neglected to address my point about the comparative dangers of legal vs. illegal drugs, but that's another matter. Raging Bee • 9/30/05; 2:43:37 PM # Jake, here is a well written and informative article, especially for law enforcement officers such as yourself: http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?section=News&type=Feature Here is a short excerpt: "Howard Woolridge is outside of Utica, N.Y., heading east on horseback on a beautiful late summer day. He?s wearing a t-shirt with the slogan ?Cops Say Legalize Drugs. Ask Me Why.? For the last 3,000 miles, he?s been switching off between his two horses, Misty and Sam. But the t-shirt slogan has stayed the same. The rangy, good-looking guy is also talking on the cell phone to a reporter back in North Texas. But he interrupts that conversation to speak to someone who pulls up next to him in a car. ?That?s right ? cops say legalize,? he tells the newcomer in a deep voice. ?Why? Because if we do, we just might be able to keep drugs out of the hands of your 14-year old.? ?Right on!? the motorist shouts, and drives off. Woolridge is not a lunatic, and he hasn?t been out in the sun too long, even if he did cross the United States on horseback in the summer heat. He?s a retired law enforcement officer with 18 years on the job who finally decided that the war on drugs was more of a problem than the illicit drugs it was purporting to fight. He?s also a serious long-distance horseman, on the road this time since March 4, when he left Los Angeles on the 3,400-mile ride to the New York City harbor. It?s the second time Woolridge has crossed the United States to publicize the campaign to repeal most of the drug laws in this country. In 2003 he rode from Georgia to Oregon. When he finishes this trip on Oct. 5, looking out at the Statue of Liberty, he will be honored by the Long Riders? Guild as only the second person known to have ridden horseback all the way across the country in both directions. And he?ll still be wearing one of the ?Ask Me Why? t-shirts he?s been wearing for six years. ?When I first started wearing it,? he says, ?people in Texas thought I was crazy. They thought my idea would destroy Texas and America. They believed the government propaganda that millions of people would pick up heroin or methamphetamines and become junkies overnight if you legalized it.? But in the last two to three years, he?s seen a sea change in the attitude of the American public regarding the War on Drugs. ?At any given Arby?s, McDonald?s, Rotary Club, or veterans hall, people are overwhelmingly in favor of calling a halt to drug prohibition. Overwhelmingly.? Sukoi • 9/30/05; 2:50:26 PM # Jake, you already live in a society where drugs are legal. Not all, but MOST. You know it and I know it. Your lack of education on the topic shows when you can only target the concept, "you only want to get high legally." Alcohol is a drug and you don't use it for anything OTHER than "to get high." Only difference is, alcohol rots your liver. As for prostitution, you also live in a society where it's legal. Been to Nevada lately? You need to get out more often. In a food/fuel crisis, I'll take a crop of marijuana every time. You? You'll starve and walk. Why? Because "it's legal" to starve and walk. You'll never change your mind UNTIL...one of your loved ones can get no help for their pain, other than MMJ. Of course, even if it's your wife, she'll either wither in pain or you'll cart her ass off to jail. Right? Your total argument has you locked in the 60s. When are you going to grow up and start thinking for yourself? Ba-a-a-a-a. ezrydn • 9/30/05; 3:22:44 PM # EZ, I believe the problem here is that Jake suffers from the misperception that he is thinking for himself. He cannot recognize when he has been manipulated...or he refuses to believe it possible. To use an analogy from pop-culture, he hasn't 'swallowed the red pill' because he doesn't even see it. Every day, without knowing it, he swallows the blue one, again and again and again, because that's all he sees being offered. But now, someone comes along and offers him the red one, and he's terrified of it. It truly will turn his life inside out, force him to think of the world in way that is fundamentally frightening for him to even conjecture about. This is why he refuses to actually dialog with us, but throws up the very same straw men that prohibitionists all use to hide behind. Every prohibitionist I've ever encountered has engaged in exactly the same behavior, which proves it's a learned one. Which means someone taught him that. Which in turn means that someone had a motivation to do so. Questioning that motivation is inherently threatening to him because he has invested so much mentally in his view of the world and his perceived place in it. Because he runs the risk of learning what every drug law reformer has learned: the War on Drugs is a con job, and nobody likes to admit he's been suckered. Nobody. kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 3:58:44 PM # Jake, I have not looked at this comment section for awhile so I have not had time to respond to your name calling. You called me a "pot smoking hippie." First of all, I am not a hippie. Hippies existed in the 60's and 70's. They lived in communal housing or crashed at a friends house. They did not pay taxes and they grew their hair long. I am not a hippie. I have paid taxes since I started working at 16. I live by myself in an apartment that I pay for with my hard earned money. I support my local police department not because I necessarily agree with their strong-arm, military style tactics, but because they are doing their job to protect the community. I am also a memeber of the D.A.R.E. generation, and from your responses, I would assume that your children are as well. Let me tell you something about D.A.R.E. I learned all the different ways all the popular drugs-legal and illegal-are used. I did not know that you can snort, smoke, or injest cocaine until I had to sit infront of Officer White and listen to his slide show presentation. I did not even know that you could "huff" cleaning and painting products. I never drank or did anything illegal until I was out from under my parents roof. I would also say that you may want to rethink just how "pure" your own children are. I would say that 99% of the people that are my age have broken a law involving alcohol or drugs. From my exerience I have also learned that the children of the most "high handed" parents are usually the craziest at parties. Would you like to know why? You never let them question or experience the world. You give them blanket answers of "because I said so" without ever explaining truthfully what your reasons are. I do not want to come down hard on you, as most of the people commenting above me have done enough, but you are not the kind of person that I would want carrying a gun in my neighborhood. You use stereotypical name-calling to devalue another person. You are a sad, pathetic man and I am glad that I do not know you. ben • 9/30/05; 4:29:54 PM # http://www.ice.gov & http://www.dea.gov jake • 9/30/05; 4:38:12 PM # 22 Members Of Colombian Organization Indicted For Conspiring To Smuggle Cocaine Into U.S. Seaports With Help From Corrupt Longshoremen A five year investigation by ICE has lead to the indictment of 22 members of two Colombian drug organizations on charges that they conspired to smuggling large quantities of cocaine through seaports in New York, Newark, San Francisco, and Oakland with the help of corrupt longshoremen. "Operation Pier Pressure" today resulted in the arrest of defendants in New York, New Jersey, Florida, California, and Colombia. One of the ringleaders is accused of supervising various international cocaine smuggling operations from his federal prison cell in Pennsylvania. jake • 9/30/05; 4:38:58 PM # http://www.ice.gov/graphics/news/newsreleases/articles/050927newark.htm jake • 9/30/05; 4:42:54 PM # So do you think that this will make cocaine harder to get? or raise the price? Ah, the funny thing about Drug warrior's is that they parade large scale drug busts as if they have found the cure for cancer. Don't you realize that there is another smuggling operations that are now stepping up and taking where the last one left off and the police won't have their names or faces.....wonder if they can get the next one in under 5 years. ben • 9/30/05; 4:44:05 PM # Jake, two things: first, your last exercise in regurgitating headlines did ntohing to answer any of the points made here about US drug policies. And second, we've been seeing headlines like that for DECADES, and there's never been a significant decline in the availability - or potency - of any illegal drug as a result. I'll believe the War on Drugs is being won when I see the following headline in a reputable newspaper: ADDICTS FLOCK TO REHAB AS DRUG SUPPLIES DRY UP. PS: One of the ringleaders is accused of supervising various international cocaine smuggling operations from his federal prison cell in Pennsylvania. So I guess putting that guy in jail didn't have much impact on the drug trade, eh? Raging Bee • 9/30/05; 4:49:09 PM # It ain't nothin' new, Jake. Coca-cola was introduced in 1886 as "a valuable brain-tonic and cure for all nervous afflictions". Coca-cola was promoted as a temperance drink "offering the virtues of coca without the vices of alcohol". The new beverage was invigorating and popular. Until 1903, a typical serving contained around 60mg of cocaine. Sold today, it still contains an extract of coca-leaves. The Coca-Cola Company imports eight tons from South America each year. Nowadays the leaves are used only for flavouring since the drug has been removed. muleskinner • 9/30/05; 5:09:26 PM # Jake, anything that you cite from ".gov" sites can be taken as nothing but propaganda since the government officials are already known as admitted and sanctioned liars (http://www.mpp.org/releases/nr031104gao.html) If you want to prove any percieved point then please refrain from using propaganda. I've noticed that you've gotten awfully quiet, is that because you cannot support your arguement or is it because you are simply "out gunned"? If the latter is the case then please invite all of your drug warrior friends over here, I'm sure that I speak for us all when I say that we would welcome them with open arms. And I must ask; why do you not answer any of the questions that we have asked? Is it because you are afraid of the answers or is it because you have no answers at all? Sukoi • 9/30/05; 5:33:20 PM # well... i'm answering your questions just like you guys/gals answered mine. the only reason i got for legalizing drugs was for medical marijuana and illegal drugs are unconstitutional. what is your reason to legalize methamphetamine (a synthetic drug)? read up on how that stuff is manufactured. you know to process that stuff you leave behind toxic waste? let's legalized meth then have all the dopers dump that stuff in your back yard. you think some junkie is going to "PAY" to have it removed by EPA standards.... nah!! say what you will guys. you may not like my opinion, but it's what i believe. thank God the politicians think that way too. but muleskinner..... you got the best excuse for legalizing cocaine..... "a valuable brain-tonic and cure for all nervous afflictions". you grow up. jake • 9/30/05; 5:43:16 PM # Jake, have you noticed something about those busts? There was a time when the busts were measured in scores of pounds. Then hundreds of pounds, then tens, and then scores of hundreds of pounds. Now, it's thousands of pounds. Tons, Jake, tons. And the number of tons of drugs just keeps getting higher and higher. And despite all these "Biggest Bust Ever!" seizures, the prices have actually fallen. The purity is up, the quantity is high and the price, despite all these multi-ton seizures, is dropping. If you can look at that and say that prohibitionists are winning the War on Drugs, then how can you explain this? Jake, the prohibitionists have been playing in to the cartel's hands from Day One, because prohibition is nothing but unofficial government price supports of an incredibly cheap to produce commodity that commands a vastly inflated price thanks to the laws prohibiting it. If you and other DrugWarriors were truly serious about gutting organized crime, you'd do what our grandfathers did, and cut the cartels off at the knees by removing the profitability of illegal drugs the exact same way Grandpa did to Al Capone: Legalize. Regulate. Control. Unless you actually enjoy going to police funerals? kaptinemo • 9/30/05; 6:08:09 PM # "and illegal drugs are unconstitutional." Now I'd certainly like to hear your justification for that statement especially since I asked you precicely how it is constitutional for the government to tell us what we can and cannot grow, possess and or consume; hmm, another question that you never answered. Why do you keep avoiding answering these very basic questions Jake? They aren't that difficult and they should be especially easy for you as you are supposed to uphold the U.S. Constitution; so why don't you know what it says? Sukoi • 9/30/05; 6:21:49 PM # No, you grow up. You're playing silly kid games here. You haven't a leg to stand on. This stuff has been going on for centuries and is not going to stop because some government that has been around for a couple of centuries says it must stop. That's not how it works in the real world. Coca Cola is still here. Stockholders own millions of shares. They got their start during prohibition years. Alcohol was prohibited long before the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified. The phrase was a advertisement to sell a product that substituted for alcohol use. It was Coca Cola that coined the phrase, not me. But, go ahead and conflate if you want to. You have let your own propaganda brainwash your mind. You're a tough nut to crack, Jake. I know there is no changing your mind. You have your narrow-minded bigoted opinion and everyone is entitled to it. You have taken flight from reason with your sober, addled brain. You better get to work, or are you working? I'm through with you. You're not an American who loves freedom. You're a murkan that relishes in taking it away from others. That's your job. Actually, you're a slave to it. How does it feel to be a slave? muleskinner • 9/30/05; 6:31:13 PM # Jake, I answered your question. You asked, "What is the real motivation in here to legalize drugs?" My answer was, "My motivation for change in the law is to stop the mistreatment and yes, death, that so many people have had to endure at the hands of law enforcement and to make my government a cleaner, better thing." Also, I'd like to thank you for reining in the name calling. There is no way for people to have a sensible, serious discussion when people fall so low as to resort to calling others insulting names. That's not a discussion. That's an attack. I truly appreciate that glimmer of integrity on your part. Hope • 9/30/05; 8:41:30 PM # muleskinner.... you really must grow up now. Have you served in the military or even remotely done anything for this country? I have both served in the military & worked for the government to try and make this a better place to live. so calling me unamerican... i just laugh at you!! guys like you have NO CLUE! you call me a slave to my job...... nah, i call it pride in what i do. I LOVE MY JOB. Sukoi wrote.... "Now I'd certainly like to hear your justification for that statement especially since I asked you precicely how it is constitutional for the government to tell us what we can and cannot grow, possess and or consume." Dude... i'll do one better. where in the constitution does it say.... "you have the right to grow, possess, and/or consume drugs"? it doesn't. your interpretation of the constitution says you have that right. I don't see it that way. jake • 9/30/05; 8:42:41 PM # Well, maybe name calling is too much a habit with you, but I would like to ask you a question concerning one of your statements. Namely, "...dopers dump that stuff in your back yard." Why do the items used in meth making suddenly become extraordinarily hazardous and require drastic measures and huge amounts of money to clean up if they are used to make meth, but they weren't up until they were used for something deemed illegal. Farmers spread anhydrous ammonia on their pastures and the EPA doesn't run in screaming. We throw away batteries and matches and other stuff they use in meth all the time. Why do they suddenly become so hazardous when used in methamphetamine making. I know the stuff is dangerous and flammable and explosive. Quite a few things in our lives are. I'd like to see methamphetamine legally manufactured...under safety standards in factories...and sold legally and at reasonable enough prices to undercut the "bootleggers", to those adults who wish to use it or are addicted to it. It's already being manufactured legally. It's even prescribed to children. It's called Desoxyn, I believe. It used to be legal for adults. Why all the "scourge" and "plague" hysteria now? Wouldn't it be better if when people got themselves in trouble with it or wanted to get off it that they could see a doctor and not worry about being arrested and persecuted? Why is it alright for the government to give it to fighter pilots, but if my neighbor takes it, he's a criminal? Hope • 9/30/05; 8:56:38 PM # Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Hope • 9/30/05; 9:02:47 PM # Hope... i don't know if you've been reading, but there have been more name calling about me than anyone. but i'm a man, i can take it. also guys/gals... you keep saying i'm not answering your questions!! i think i have been. i just want to know how this government conspiracy theory started. is there a conspiracy on the cure for cancer too? how much money has gone into that? and no... i'm not saying we should stop. does uncle sam have a cure that they are hiding? jake • 9/30/05; 9:07:20 PM # "Sukoi wrote.... "Now I'd certainly like to hear your justification for that statement especially since I asked you precicely how it is constitutional for the government to tell us what we can and cannot grow, possess and or consume." Dude... i'll do one better. where in the constitution does it say.... "you have the right to grow, possess, and/or consume drugs"? it doesn't. your interpretation of the constitution says you have that right. I don't see it that way. Wow, apparently I was right, you really don't have a clue do you? You see Jake, the Constitution of this country was written to limit the powers of the government over the people and it explicitly states the powers that are granted to the government. Anything NOT SPECIFICALLY mentioned as powers granted to the government are reserved to those of the people and the several states. So why don't you actually READ the the document that you swore to uphold. I'll ask you again; how it is constitutional for the government to tell us what we can and cannot grow, possess and or consume? Oh, and you might want to read your oath again too as the two kind of go hand in hand. While you're at it you might also want to read this: http://www.constitution.org/mil/law_attn.htm And when you get done with all of that, please come back and answer ALL of our questions, we'll be waiting... Sukoi • 9/30/05; 9:15:05 PM # http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000EA0BF-1BE4-1121-927783414B7F4945 August 17, 2004 Marijuana Extract Fights Brain Cancer in Mice The current debate over medical marijuana hinges on its use as pain medication. But an extract of the plant could one day form the basis of cancer treatments. New findings indicate that Cannabis extracts can shrink brain tumors by blocking the growth of blood vessels that nourish them. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University in Spain and his colleagues tested extracts of marijuana known as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinols in 30 mice that had brain tumors. The researchers analyzed the animals' DNA and identified 267 genes associated with blood vessel growth, or angiogenesis. The cannabinoids inhibited the expression of several genes critical to angiogenesis known as the VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) pathway. Blockade of the VEGF pathway constitutes one of the most promising antitumoral approaches currently available, Guzman says. The cannabinoids work by increasing the potency of a fat molecule known as ceramide, the team posits. Increased ceramide activity, in turn, inhibits cells that would normally produce VEGF and encourage blood vessel growth. The scientists also tested the therapy on tumors taken from two patients who had not responded to conventional therapy for their glioblastoma, a deadly form of brain cancer. After the cannabinoid injections, both tumors exhibited decreased VEGF levels. Writing in the current issue of the journal Cancer Research, the team notes, however, that a combination of therapies will most likely be required to obtain significant clinical results. Hope • 9/30/05; 9:21:48 PM # "i just want to know how this government conspiracy theory started. is there a conspiracy on the cure for cancer too? how much money has gone into that? and no... i'm not saying we should stop. does uncle sam have a cure that they are hiding?" Yes Jake there certainly is, You might be surprised to know that the government has known that cannabis kills cancer cells and shrinks cancer tumors and they have known this since 1974. So why do you suppose it is that they won't allow any research to be done on this subject? Read and learn: http://www.sierratimes.com/03/11/07/article_kubby.htm Sukoi • 9/30/05; 9:22:16 PM # http://www.alternet.org/story/9257/ Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in '74 By Raymond Cushing, AlterNet. Posted May 31, 2000. In 1974 researchers learned that THC, the active chemical in marijuana, shrank or destroyed brain tumors in test mice. But the DEA quickly shut down the study and destroyed its results, which were never replicated -- until now. The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects. Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000. The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice -- lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia. The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out -- unsuccessfully -- to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high." The Madrid researchers reported in the March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. "All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ... Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats." The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results. The Spanish researchers, led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University, also irrigated healthy rats' brains with large doses of THC for seven days, to test for harmful biochemical or neurological effects. They found none. "Careful MRI analysis of all those tumor-free rats showed no sign of damage related to necrosis, edema, infection or trauma ... We also examined other potential side effects of cannabinoid administration. In both tumor-free and tumor-bearing rats, cannabinoid administration induced no substantial change in behavioral parameters such as motor coordination or physical activity. Food and water intake as well as body weight gain were unaffected during and after cannabinoid delivery. Likewise, the general hematological profiles of cannabinoid-treated rats were normal. Thus, neither biochemical parameters nor markers of tissue damage changed substantially during the 7-day delivery period or for at least 2 months after cannabinoid treatment ended." Guzman's investigation is the only time since the 1974 Virginia study that THC has been administered to live tumor-bearing animals. (The Spanish researchers cite a 1998 study in which cannabinoids inhibited breast cancer cell proliferation, but that was a "petri dish" experiment that didn't involve live subjects.) In an email interview for this story, the Madrid researcher said he had heard of the Virginia study, but had never been able to locate literature on it. Hence, the Nature Medicine article characterizes the new study as the first on tumor-laden animals and doesn't cite the 1974 Virginia investigation. "I am aware of the existence of that research. In fact I have attempted many times to obtain the journal article on the original investigation by these people, but it has proven impossible." Guzman said. In 1983 the Reagan/Bush Administration tried to persuade American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries, reports Jack Herer, who states, "We know that large amounts of information have since disappeared." Guzman provided the title of the work -- "Antineoplastic activity of cannabinoids," an article in a 1975 Journal of the National Cancer Institute -- and this writer obtained a copy at the University of California medical school library in Davis and faxed it to Madrid. The summary of the Virginia study begins, "Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was retarded by the oral administration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBN)" -- two types of cannabinoids, a family of active components in marijuana. "Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with THC and CBN had reduced primary tumor size." The 1975 journal article doesn't mention breast cancer tumors, which featured in the only newspaper story ever to appear about the 1974 study -- in the Local section of the Washington Post on August 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb Is Studied," it read in part: "The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers "found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent." Guzman, writing from Madrid, was eloquent in his response after this writer faxed him the clipping from the Washington Post of a quarter century ago. In translation, he wrote: "It is extremely interesting to me, the hope that the project seemed to awaken at that moment, and the sad evolution of events during the years following the discovery, until now we once again ?draw back the veil? over the anti-tumoral power of THC, twenty-five years later. Unfortunately, the world bumps along between such moments of hope and long periods of intellectual castration." News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article. This writer stumbled on it through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report web page. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors. Hope • 9/30/05; 9:25:25 PM # guys... It seems clear that the original intent of the 9th amendment was to uphold John Locke's doctrine of natural rights... that rights exist unto themselves and government must have some legitimate intent before restricting them. i hardly doubt our founding fathers would say doing drug for recreational purposes is a natural right! jake • 9/30/05; 9:39:10 PM # Wonderful article guys.... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27947 With only six percent of the overall population over the age of 12 currently using drugs, it is difficult to say that drug-reduction efforts have failed. Furthermore, it took 30 years of campaigning for smoking to decline as much as illegal drug use did in just 10 years. jake • 9/30/05; 9:49:49 PM # Drug proponents will argue that marijuana is not as addictive as alcohol, therefore it is a lot safer and deserves to be legalized. Marijuana is not safe. Scientists have found that a marijuana cigarette contains 50 percent more carcinogens than a tobacco cigarette and involves twice or triple the tar and carbon monoxide. Presently, 50 percent of all regular smokers will die or become disabled as a result of smoking. Do we really want to compound the health problems in this country by legalizing marijuana? jake • 9/30/05; 9:51:02 PM # GOD what a great article..... Marijuana smoking raises the blood pressure and increases the heart rate. Many people do have adverse reactions. In 1999, over 87,000 patients were treated in our hospital emergency rooms because of marijuana. Chemicals in marijuana are fat-soluble and do not pass through the body like the components of food or alcohol. The psychological and physiological effects are cumulative and the withdrawal symptoms do not appear suddenly but gradually increase with time. Given these facts, those who are promoting drug legalization appear to be, at best, shortsighted ? or worse, extremely selfish, willing to accept another half-million drug-related deaths a year in order to validate this lifestyle. jake • 9/30/05; 9:51:57 PM # I offer the following on why drug legalization should NOT be considered: * Drug use and drug addiction in America will increase substantially. Do we want our commercial pilots, heart surgeons, teachers, police officers and legislators to be incapacitated or impaired while carrying out their job duties? If drugs were legalized, workplace drug use restrictions would become moot. * What do parents do when their children announce they have made the personal decision to use drugs? Don't think for a minute that the solution here would be a minimum age restriction. The black market would prevail. * The highway carnage inflicted by drunk drivers will substantially increase by adding drug users into this mix. Additional costs and complications would accrue to our over-burdened criminal justice system. * Drug treatment and education programs would be well-funded, but oxymoronic, in view of a legalized drug environment with no consequences. Our public schools will continue to deteriorate, and high-tech companies will not be able to staff their payrolls with qualified workers. Our military strength and international leadership will be drastically weakened, as well. In an America where drugs are legalized, either the government or private enterprise would supply the drugs - at a dollar cost, of course. Either would be sued for product liability in a manner similar to the tobacco debacle, and more drug users will commit crimes to get money to buy drugs. Please don't suggest the federal government (i.e., taxpayers) provide the drugs free of charge! There is no "sound bite" solution to the drug problem in this country, nor is there any benefit or logic to demonizing law enforcement. We can legitimately debate the amount of money and emphasis that should be spent in each of the three disciplines of education, treatment and enforcement, but all three must be mutually supported. We should be open to "alternative" strategies to add to this arsenal, as long as these proposals are designed to reduce drug use in America, not increase it. In my view, the objective is to give our kids the best possible private or public education we can provide. They need to see and learn principles of integrity and character, which include being responsible and accountable for their actions. I see no place for legalized drug use in this equation. Just my 2 cents on this subject. Sandra • 9/30/05; 10:07:28 PM # Sandra, nearly all of your position is based upon supposition, not fact. "Drug use and drug addiction in America will increase substantially." Care to give us some figures? What percentage of the presently non-illicit-drug-using population do you expect to run out wildly and purchase heroin or coke or meth as soon as the hypothetical legalization takes place? This is couched in the typical prohibitionist assumption of everybody but them being unable to control their appetites, and therefore drugs (like alcohol, Sandra? remember how well that worked?) must be kept from "Baby's" hands; it's insulting to the intelligence of any adult possessing an IQ above room temperature. I don't drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, and I don't like being around those who do, but I prefer their company to that of the supercilious prigs who think they know what's good for me better than I do. "The black market would prevail" Under a regulation regime? How many moonshiners today are hauled into court and thrown in jail for 20 years? Doesn't happen, Sandra, because the alcohol trade was removed from the hands of organized crime by re-legalizing it. Your assertion doesn't hold water. Do we want our commercial pilots, heart surgeons, teachers, police officers and legislators to be incapacitated or impaired while carrying out their job duties? This point has been made by others above; were you paying attention? Show up for work drunk, you get fired. Show up for work stoned, you get fired. Period. The highway carnage inflicted by drunk drivers will substantially increase by adding drug users into this mix. Again, numbers of the projected irresponsible drivers, please. Additional costs and complications would accrue to our over-burdened criminal justice system. In what way? By reducing the number of drug cases brought to court; take a look at this: http://www.uscourts.gov/recenttrends2001/20015yr.pdf at Page 8, and realize that, under a regulation regime, there would be almost NO such cases AT ALL. Thus freeing up the courts to handle crimes such as murder, rape, child molestation, etc. They would not be overburdened, the burden would be relieved. Drug treatment and education programs would be well-funded, but oxymoronic, in view of a legalized drug environment with no consequences. Sandra, did you actually read this, or just cut-and-paste someone else's work in here? Do you actually subscribe to this idea? Who said there would be no 'consequences'? What this statement actually reveals is the prohibitionist's hunger to punish; there has to be punishment for enjoying yourself. Our public schools will continue to deteriorate The rot in our public schools set in a long time ago, and drugs cannot be blamed for it; I suggest you go here: http://johntaylorgatto.com/ and see why public schools are in such bad shape. ...more drug users will commit crimes to get money to buy drugs. Again and again and again: When was the last time you ever heard of anyone being held up at gunpoint and/or shot so the perp could by tobacco or alcohol? They're drugs Sandra, legalized drugs, and no one gets robbed or killed to procure them anymore. The example of legalization stands on its' own, imperfect as it is, but much better than the present prohibition regime. kaptinemo • 10/1/05; 6:00:45 AM # To the intellectual woodpile, Jake, you've done it again; it's what you get for allowing the blind to lead you. Cannabis is a hypotensive (blood pressure lowering) substance, not a hypertensive (blood pressure increasing) one like nicotine. Google Search String for Studies on Cannabis Hypotensive Properties I keep trying to tell you, we've seen and heard all the rationalizations and misrepresentations of fact before, and we're ready for them. Prohibitionists have been playing the 'cherry-picking' game with scientific studies for years, and we're wise to it. You've seen links above to studies that have proven THC shrinks cancer tumors; did you bother to read them? Do you grasp the implications? Then you come in here with this half-baked article by someone who is not a scientist (and evidently not a good writer, either, for she fails to provide the names of and links to the studies she purports to be writing about which prove her point, sloppy of her) which contains nothing but stale warmed over prohib propaganda and expect us to take it seriously, crowing as if you 'got over' on us? Try again, please. kaptinemo • 10/1/05; 6:56:01 AM # To put it in perspective for you Jake, given your background: I'm sure you've heard of the phrase "Testilying"? It's what all too many cops do when they are in the docket, giving false - or incomplete - testimony in cases of ipse dixit (one person's word against another). Prohibitionists have been playing this game for many, many years. Ms. Chastain's artcile is the journalistic equivalent of 'testilying'. We've seen it all before... kaptinemo • 10/1/05; 7:02:41 AM # Why is it that it's accepted that airline pilots, surgeons, etc. in high "consequence" positions won't drink alcohol and function in their jobs but, and it's a big "BUT," those like Jake seem to jump to the conclusion that they WILL? I don't grasp the rational. Just because one can't control something when it's illegal doesn't mean that control can't be achieved while legal. Alcohol is a prime example. The logic of the argument fails on that component alone. And, yes, Jake, I was amongst the first to face the NVA. I've worn your precious badge. I hold two doctorates, the top Ham license and am an Airplane/Helicopter flight instructor/charter pilot. I have never smoked just before or during any flights. So, please, don't start on the "problems over time" stuff. I have smoked, off and on, throughout that whole period. If ya wanna get "toe to toe" on the subject, I'm ready. Have you ever knowingly allowed (or watched) a fellow officer get drunk and then, drive home? Did you stop them, as you would a regular citizen? Why not? Did you "pick and choose" which law you'd believe in, when you waved goodbye to them? YOU many have known that they were "ok" but the law is blind to your feelings. The law says that, when they turn that key, they're "arrestable." Well, did you? Does your front tire actually come to a "complete stop" at a stopsign? Or do you perform a "rolling stop?" Law's the law, man. Pick and choose. You do it every day and we both know it. You asked above, somewhere, for a "comspiracy" explanation. Here's one for you: http://www.jackherer.com/chapter04.html . You're position? Prove it didn't happen that way. That's all I ask of you at this point. Prove that factual history is false. This is the conspiracy that has brought you and I to where we are today. Honest question, Jake. You ever tried marijuana? I, at least, want to see if you have any "point of reference." ezrydn • 10/1/05; 8:19:12 AM # kaptinemo... you keep saying you've seen it all before. what makes you think you are right? is there a scientific study that says legalized drug WON'T hurt society. no! this is what we call debate. your stand on this subject is based on your opinion (what you think would happen if drugs were legal). I'm a not willing to test your theory. so... i heard/seen your kind of thinking for years.... and no i'm not buying it. get over it. drugs are illegal and should be. also, you wrote "Show up for work drunk, you get fired. Show up for work stoned, you get fired. Period." you have a good point but, as addictive as alcohol is, it can't be compared to the addict of a heroin user. in all the police work i have done, i have never seen anyone rob a home when drunk.... but i have seen it on heroin. now don't say the heroin user is going to rob because he CAN'T get more heroin because it's not legal. he's doing fine getting it illeg! ally. my point is.... heroin/crack/cocaine/meth do things to your body/mind that alcohol doesn't. The addiction is a lot worse. jake • 10/1/05; 8:58:07 AM # zrydn........ dude BRING IT ON... i'll go toe-to-toe with you anytime. you asked if i ever tried marijuana. i've already discussed that, but since you can't read the above i'll tell you again. I have never tried any illegal drug (including marijuana). also, it seems you are calling me a dirty cop! now i understand your stance on this debate..... you and the rest of the board seem to have a hard time w/ law enforcement officers. i think you guys just don't like AUTHORITY. you don't like people telling you what you can and can't do. i'm hear to tell you ezrydn.... you can't smoke weed legally in the street anytime of the day or night. deal with it. you wrote "Does your front tire actually come to a "complete stop" at a stopsign? Or do you perform a "rolling stop?".......... honestly no. again you guys want compare apples to oranges. do you have any clue how many times i have been on patrol and seen drivers roll through a st! op sign? several thousand! no i don't stop them for it. that's called discretion. i don't have to stop them nor did it (depending on the circumstance). you want to compare the drug laws to vehicle code laws. I now award you with the "i'm ignorant" award. jake • 10/1/05; 9:13:47 AM # Sandra, it is not the job of the government to teach your children the principles of integrity and character. That's your job. To depend on government or politicians for such would be a grave mistake. It[base ']s really sad that anyone would look to the government or politicians as a source for character instruction and politicians are the last place to look for integrity. " Do we want our commercial pilots, heart surgeons, teachers, police officers and legislators to be incapacitated or impaired while carrying out their job duties? If drugs were legalized, workplace drug use restrictions would become moot." No, I do not want such to be inebriated in any way while they are working. Alcohol is legal now, yet we still expect people to not show up for work, do surgery, or pilot planes while drunk. Hope • 10/1/05; 10:17:39 AM # "this site is complete bs....wake up america!!! the same people who complain about the drug problem are the same people who feel sorry for these shitbags.... i worked for the department of one of the shitbags posted on your site.... you have no clue of what really hap! pened that night!!! just my 2 cents, for whatever that's worth." - awake Jake Shitbags is such an endearing term to refer to a fellow human being. Jake loves his job, his country but, freedom is something he has never known. He's a slave. He's probably jonesin' for some more 'debate' right now. He hasn't any idea of how much of slave he is. He's lost. Geobbels would have used him until they shipped him off to Auschwitz. At some point in time, he will finally realize just how much of a slave is his to his 'country.' Until then, there is no hope for him. When he finally does wake up, have an epiphany, he will finally realize how much he has been suckered. Muleskinner • 10/1/05; 10:19:21 AM # ?What do parents do when their children announce they have made the personal decision to use drugs?? Have your children announced intentions to you of smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol? What did you do or would you do, if they did? First of all, it would be pretty amazing should your child make such an announcement to you. If he did, you could thank God that he would come to you with such a decision on his part. It would likely mean that he trusted you and had a great deal of confidence in your reaction. You would, I would, sit them down and explain TRUTHFULLY (educate yourself) what the dangers and drawbacks of such a decision would be. Much like a computer, if you put ?trash? in your child?s mind, you?ll likely get ?trash? back. The truth and only the truth is the best way to go. Always. In all likelihood, your child already been taking drugs since you dropped those first drops of medicine in his mouth as an infant. God forbid that he is already taking ?kiddie cocaine? (Ritalin, Adderal, etc.) or Desoxyn. Right now, under the present system, you might be surprised that your teenage child can get any drug he wants easier, probably, than you could. To think that absolutely no minor could get hold of drugs under a system of regulation is as much ?wishful thinking? as thinking he can?t get them under a system of prohibition. But, under regulation, it would be more difficult in that he would have to show proof of age and he would be somewhat safer in that he wouldn?t be exposed to the dangerous types he might buy his drugs from under the present system, plus he might know exactly what he?s getting and he?s not likely to get killed??Drug deal gone bad? type situation. So many children are attracted to ?forbidden fruit??the more forbidden the better. If you think drug users are not on the highways this minute, you are deluding yourself. To be a good parent it is absolutely essential that you be realistic about the world around us. It is a dangerous world and prohibition makes it even more dangerous. If my child, and I have four, came to me and said they were going to use drugs I certainly would have no desire to turn him over to the government enforcers for ?re-education? or ?punishment?. Do we turn people over to the government for drinking, smoking, or eating too much? Parenting is my job, not the government?s. I didn?t give birth to a child to give him to the government. Hope • 10/1/05; 11:50:44 AM # 0211001 Sandra, about punishment. Why do you think people should be "punished" for drug use? Hope • 10/1/05; 11:56:10 AM # 0211002 Jake, you are helping to make my case for me. ...you keep saying you've seen it all before. what makes you think you are right? History bears me out Jake; historical evidence of the drop of the murder rate immediately after the termination of alcohol Prohibition is sufficient proof of the salutory effects of ending it. Here's a graph to prove my point: Drugs, Violence and Economics Note the time periods of spikes; the murder rate jumped to almost double during alcohol Prohibition. Afterwards, it dropped back down to what it was before. Prohibition=more murder. No Prohibition=less murder. But my main reason in making the comment you point to was to say that we have heard and read every single protestation and rhetorical tactic used as ploys by prohibitionists to justify their positions before. You are not providing any revelations here, simply because the number and type of tactics that can be used by prohibitionists are severely limited. Prohibitionists are like singers who know only ten songs. You've sung them all, and they've been noted and identified in our counter-comments, but you still try to convince us that they are actually new. That's why I say I've heard and read them all...simply because I have. kaptinemo • 10/1/05; 1:12:18 PM # 0211013 Sandra, I understand your concern for your children. Prohibition is far more dangerous to your children than true regulation. What about Alberto Sepulveda, Charity Bowers, Ashley Villareal, Xavier Bennett, and too many more? Do they mean nothing to you? Are they acceptable collateral damage? What if your child is the next Alberto, or Charity, or Ashley, or Xavier? I think they are not acceptable ?collateral damage?. I think they would still be alive today if it weren?t for drug prohibition. Anyone who supports the present prohibition has their blood on his hands as well as the blood of countless other young people and adults who have either been killed or had their lives ruined because of prohibition. They weren?t taking drugs. They didn?t die of overdoses. They were murdered by authorities enforcing prohibition. What about the children that do overdose? Prohibition keeps them from reaching out for help. You doom them to death because they are afraid of the system that won?t allow them to ask for help when they?ve gotten themselves into trouble, without lowering that legal boom on themselves. Sadly, they all too often hope for survival from an overdose, when they know they won?t survive the onslaught of cops and prosecutors and trouble and hullabaloo they will bring on themselves if they report an overdose. Prohibition of alcohol came to an end, in part, because of seven gangsters and a dog that were executed by other mobsters, the Saint Valentine?s Day Massacre. Yet today we let the massacre continue, even of innocents. Why? Because too many people are making too much money off prohibition of drugs. They don't care if the present prohibition isn't really working, as long as they get their money, or their desire for schadenfreude. Obviously, today, greed for money and more and nicer stuff and of course, schadenfreude, is more important than these children?s lives to many avowed prohibitionists. Can you not see that? Hope • 10/1/05; 1:32:24 PM # 0211019 Oh...and if you would like a list of those tactics, here it is: Themes in Chemical Prohibition By William L. White From: Drugs in Perspective, National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1979 Take a look at the list of tactics you have employed, Jake; literally from the beginning you used Tactic #1 by calling the victims listed in the memorial 'shitbags'. Prohibitionists are soooooo predictable. Also please note, Jake, that this was a study funded by the Feds premiere anti-drug organization NIDA; you can't call this source into question because it came from your camp, not ours. kaptinemo • 10/1/05; 1:34:11 PM # 0211020 Sandra, do you need and "arsenal" of laws to keep your older child from drinking bug spray or paint thinner or even alcohol, cigarettes, and caffeine? Of course you don't. Childproof containers and secure cabinets are essential and helpful?although not always actually childproof. You are the first and best line of defense, from anything, for your child. Will a law keep your four year old from running out into traffic? Of course not. It?s you and what you teach him and how well he understands the situation that will protect him. There is no phantom superhero policeman that hovers over him constantly and who will pull him back out of harm?s way should he make such a foolish decision. You have to do it or whomever you put in charge of your child in your absence. Do you need a law that says talk to him about poison or a law that says keep it out of the reach of younger children? Laws don't make you a responsible parent. You either are or you aren't. I don't want children to drive cars, have sex, or use firearms without supervision, but that doesn't mean that I want to stop my adult neighbor from doing so, so that I can imagine that that is somehow protecting my child. Children are to be nurtured and protected, but prohibition laws do neither and actually put everyone in more danger than they would be under a system of real regulation. Hope • 10/1/05; 2:01:37 PM # 0211021 "I don't want children to drive cars, have sex, or use firearms without supervision, but that doesn't mean that I want to stop my adult neighbor from doing so, so that I can imagine that that is somehow protecting my child." Obviously I could construct that sentence better. They should do none of those things...cars, and sex, at all, supervision or not. It's the supervision of gun use by an older child, that I meant should be carefully supervised, should you allow it. Children should be aware that guns exist, are not toys, and can be deadly. Hope • 10/1/05; 2:07:28 PM # 0211023 Here's my justification. John Hirko was a shitbag. this was a link from this website which i found. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n087/a05.html?124 "In 1997, John Hirko, a 21-year-old unarmed Pennsylvania man with no prior offenses, was shot to death in his house by a squad of masked police dressed in ninja-style uniforms. They didn't even knock before tossing a smoke grenade through a window, setting fire to the house. Hirko, suspected of dealing small amounts of marijuana and cocaine, was found face down on his stairway, shot in the back while fleeing the fire. Police in these instances were found legally justified in committing the homicides because of the "no-knock exception" to the Fourth Amendment in cases involving the execution of search warrants on drug suspects." Where should i start first. ok. Hirko WAS a drug dealer. not a suspected drug dealer. the department, with the use of informats, made numerous drug buys from Hirko. This site makes the reader think he didn't sell drugs. Second... Hirko was armed and shot at the police. this article makes it look like Hirko was trying to only flee from the police.... Nope!!! but how you know kaptinemo? you weren't there and you don't know what happened that night. ANYONE that shoots at a police officer, is a shitbag. Third.... Supreme Court permits a "no-knock" entry when officers believe that knocking and announcing would increase the level of danger to the officers or other innocent persons. Hirko was armed. You want to know what the teach a new cadet at the police academy? GO HOME AT THE END OF YOUR SHIFT. BTW.... the officers were cleared criminally on the shoot.... IT WAS A JUSTIFIED SHOOT. Now i can't say for certain what happened w/ the others who were killed posted on this page, but i'm not that naive to believe ALL these subjects were NOT dealing drugs. Bottom line is... had Hirko not been dealing drugs, he'd be alive today. He utimately made the choice to die. jake • 10/1/05; 2:11:05 PM # 0211024 ALSO.... symptons of marijuana withdrawal are: insomnia, restlessness, HYPER-ACTIVITY, mental confustion, and decreased appetite. So Sandra was corrected in her previous post. But you guys don't want to hear that, that's all made up by the big bad government. jake • 10/1/05; 2:13:41 PM # 0211026 Hope... "It is a dangerous world and prohibition makes it even more dangerous." Where is YOUR proof that legalizing drugs would make the world less dangerous? And please don't bring up the comparison of alcohol. Apples and oranges! jake • 10/1/05; 2:16:46 PM # 0211027 Muleskinner.... "Jake loves his job, his country but, freedom is something he has never known. He's a slave. He's probably jonesin' for some more 'debate' right now." Nice come back. I win....... AGAIN!! What freedom do i not have? I have every freedom you have. I don't consider grow pot in my basement a freedom because it's wrong. Bye Bye!! jake • 10/1/05; 2:24:20 PM # 0211029 Jake, my proof is right here on the Drug War Victims page. Charity, Alberto, Xavier, and Ashley would still be alive. Where is your proof that the world is safer because of prohibition? Hope • 10/1/05; 3:05:10 PM # 0211032 Jake, why is growing a non poisonous herb in your basement worse than growing oleander in your yard? Oleander is a deadly poison. A child can buy oleander plants at Wal-mart with no legal problems. An unjust law is the only reason, I believe, that you can base your assumption of "wrongness" on. Hope • 10/1/05; 3:10:20 PM # 0211034 I don't consider going awol, abandoning a military assignment as a pilot in the Texas National Guard as a freedom. It is dereliction of duty. Another pilot out snortin' coke and having a ball while other real Americans were dying on the killing fields of Viet Nam. You're a slave to support such a goon. But, go ahead and be a traitor to your country. It's your job. You're what Ward Churchill referred to as 'little Eichmanns.' Keep doing your job right up to the time of your trial. muleskinner • 10/1/05; 3:13:24 PM # 0211035 Authorities? Jake, I have a real problem with "Authority" when it's out of control, racist, and overly punitive. I have a problem with it when it makes itself into some sort of creeping crud that insinuates itself into every aspect of our lives. I have a problem with the changes I've seen in "authorities" in my lifetime. There was a time when the presence of a law enforcement officer in times of trouble was a Godsend. The officers I knew, appeared to be stable, calm, wise, strong, caring, brave people. Now, I suppose as part of that ?going home at the end of the day? business, they act terrified, terroristic, dangerous, overbearing, screaming, threatening, cursing, and suspicious all the time of everyone. People shouldn?t go into law enforcement if they are that fearful. A few years ago I was driving home, on a rural road, at night, with a carload of children from a ballgame. Suddenly, police lights flashed in my rear view mirror. I wasn?t speeding or anything, but of course, I pulled to the side of the road and took my license out of my purse and waited for the officer to come to my door. Instead, to our great surprise, we were bombarded with spotlights and an officer screaming, ?Get out of the car!? repeatedly. I thought , ?What in the world is going on?? I stepped out of the car into the blinding light. I could barely see what appeared to be several officers. Next they screamed?and I mean screamed?with an hysterical note??Move away from the vehicle! Keep your hands away from your body! Get out in the ditch!? Well, Jake, I?m a country girl, it was summer, the road ditches were dense with tall grass and I was in sandals and a skirt. I wasn?t about to tromp out into that snake and chigger infested road ditch. They kept screaming and telling me to get out in the ditch. I was terrified, but steadfast, because of my children. Slowly, with license extended as far as I could reach with my hand, I slowly crept towards them until one of them was brave enough to take my license. I could see my children?s terrified faces in the car because they too were lit up by the spotlights. Yes, it?s a miracle they didn?t shoot me, right in front of my children. They seemed terrified of me. Terrified people can hurt you. Finally, after all the hysterics and theatrics, one of them had the nerve to tell me, although I never saw his face, that someone who drove a car similar to mine had just committed an armed robbery back in town?with a knife. I watched the papers for days. Such an armed robbery?or any robbery?was never reported in the newspaper or in any other media. The majority of them today don't seem like heroes to me anymore, because, all too often, they are not. By all appearances, they are armed, smart aleck, bullying, trigger happy, hysterical lunatics, that you have to be as wary of as any criminal. I?ve seen police officers lie, lie, lie in the face of truth. When my car was new, apparently, the authorities wanted it as seizure. Traveling out of state to see my son, my husband and I were stopped and when we refused to be searched, they separated us, by taking my husband to one of their cars. They made us wait until they brought dogs out to sniff us. Finally, after repeatedly asking the officer that stayed with me, what had we done that would make him so suspicious of us. He finally said, because our ?stories didn?t agree?. Nonsense! They WERE LYING. We had no ?different stories?. We were going to visit my son and his family and that?s all. What kind of ?character? allows them to lie so easily and profusely? A friend of mine is one of the seven legal marijuana recipients from NIDA in this country. Once when he was taking his medicine the scent reached the nostrils of some authorities. When his wife tried to explain he was legally using marijuana and tried to show him the papers that proved it, he screamed into the face of this lovely woman, ?Shut up you M----- F------ B----!? How can you expect decent people to respect law enforcement that behaves like that? Are we supposed to be good sheep, and lower our heads and endure the persecution, abuse and slaughter? I do have a mind of my own, and I can?t accept that. Several members of my family work in law enforcement. I do know what it?s all about. One is a State Trooper, another is a city officer and DARE officer. One lost his life because of a mean person about to be arrested for a prohibition law, and another was an officer in our narcotics task force, but has since , and I thank God, moved on from that murky position. I don?t have to tell you, surely, what sorts of characters you can often find working undercover in narcotics. In fact, my family member who did work in narcotics, believes that working in narcotics, especially undercover, has a detrimental effect on the lives of such officers. It?s peculiar how often working in narcotics leads to divorce. Have you noticed that? Most, if not all of my family members know that I am active in trying to reform the drug laws. Do they think I?m some sort of traitor? No, they don?t. They know who I am and where I?m coming from and some have privately told me that they hope that I, and other reformers are ultimately successful in making their jobs and the population a little bit safer. I don't want to lose any more family members or friends to prohibition. History shows that no prohibition of a substance has ever been successful. EVER! Why do some people doom us to repeat the same mistakes over and over again? I thought we were supposed to learn something from history?like not repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Do you know why marijuana was made illegal in the first place? Two reasons?the first and foremost is racism. The second is job security for government employees. Please read http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html carefully. Hope • 10/1/05; 3:21:25 PM # 0211037 ?Here's my justification. John Hirko was a shitbag. this was a link from this website which i found. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n087/a05.html?124 "In 1997, John Hirko, a 21-year-old unarmed Pennsylvania man with no prior offenses, was shot to death in his house by a squad of masked police dressed in ninja-style uniforms. They didn't even knock before tossing a smoke grenade through a window, setting fire to the house. Hirko, suspected of dealing small amounts of marijuana and cocaine, was found face down on his stairway, shot in the back while fleeing the fire. Police in these instances were found legally justified in committing the homicides because of the "no-knock exception" to the Fourth Amendment in cases involving the execution of search warrants on drug suspects." Where should i start first. ok. Hirko WAS a drug dealer. not a suspected drug dealer. the department, with the use of informats, made numerous drug buys from Hirko. This site makes the reader think he didn't sell drugs.? So are you saying that this young man had been convicted of something? ?Second... Hirko was armed and shot at the police. this article makes it look like Hirko was trying to only flee from the police.... Nope!!! but how you know kaptinemo? you weren't there and you don't know what happened that night. ANYONE that shoots at a police officer, is a shitbag.? If someone burst into my house, I?d definitely be shooting first and asking questions later and I think that most people, including yourself, would do the same. Now, if he were shooting at police when he was shot, then why was he shot in the back? Was he some kind of a trick shooter or something? ANYONE who breaks down someone?s door and shoots him or her in the back, murdering him or her in his or her own home over vegetable matter is a shitbag. BTW, how do you know that the account that you describe is accurate, were YOU there? ? Third.... Supreme Court permits a "no-knock" entry when officers believe that knocking and announcing would increase the level of danger to the officers or other innocent persons. Hirko was armed. You want to know what the teach a new cadet at the police academy? GO HOME AT THE END OF YOUR SHIFT. BTW.... the officers were cleared criminally on the shoot.... IT WAS A JUSTIFIED SHOOT.? Yep, those no knock Nazi raids certainly make things safer for everyone don?t they? Just ask Donald Scott? oh wait, you can?t, because those who were entrusted to protect the public MURDERED him, the police. Take a look at the story surrounding that botched Nazi raid. I suppose that you?d call him a shitbag too for doing nothing more than trying to protect his family and property. Interestingly, this MURDER was eerily similar to the Hirko MURDER, it seems to be a trend with the police these days. ? Now i can't say for certain what happened w/ the others who were killed posted on this page, but i'm not that naive to believe ALL these subjects were NOT dealing drugs. Bottom line is... had Hirko not been dealing drugs, he'd be alive today. He utimately made the choice to die.? Bottom line is? if prohibition did not exist, he?d be alive today. Those police officers, prosecutors and judge(s) made the choice to invade his home and MURDER him. Sukoi • 10/1/05; 3:34:40 PM # 0211042 It's a shame one of those s------- wasn't on hand a few years back when a group of thugs wearing masks and DEA insignia burst into a young woman's house in Dallas a few years ago, yelling "DEA! DEA!" They weren't law enforcement officers at all. They didn't have to show any identification in their "dynamic entry". They were thugs, immitating police tactics, who kidnapped the girl and later buried her alive because her brother had stiffed them in a narcotics deal. That never should have happened, and it wouldn't have, had it not been for prohibition, which left the "stiffed" with no legal recourse, and the tactics our police are commonly known to use now. Hope • 10/1/05; 3:48:19 PM # 0211043 I want to say. Jake is basically saying might makes right. His arguments are based on vitriol and and canned statments. In short he sounds like a cop. runruff • 10/1/05; 4:01:37 PM # 0211053 Everyone else is speaking logic and commonsense. runruff • 10/1/05; 4:02:45 PM # 0211054 Jake, I was once a prohibitionist. I didn't know any better. Since then, and with a little effort I've learned the truth, I've been educated, and I had the guts and the good sense to realize I had been wrong. It's not a disgrace to change your mind or to learn more and grow. It is a disgrace to cling to the wrong way of doing things just because that's what you once believed was right. Hope • 10/1/05; 4:13:22 PM # 0211055 Sukoi...."Bottom line is? if prohibition did not exist, he?d be alive today. Those police officers, prosecutors and judge(s) made the choice to invade his home and MURDER him"..... well the prohibition was here first so i'd say the ball was in his court to chose his actions. jake • 10/1/05; 4:26:36 PM # 0211056 Sukoi....."BTW, how do you know that the account that you describe is accurate, were YOU there?" Dude... you must do you research of what I posted TWICE now. jake • 10/1/05; 4:28:20 PM # 0211057 "Where is your proof that the world is safer because of prohibition?" Because w/out control there would be even more drugs and drug addicts on the street. jake • 10/1/05; 4:32:07 PM # 0211060 muleskinner.... "I don't consider going awol, abandoning a military assignment as a pilot in the Texas National Guard as a freedom." I see where this is going now.... Anti-Bush!!! Get over it guys... Maybe Hilary will be the next president & she could legalize drug for you. Then she can start a boat load of social programs to help those in need of weed or crack. Yeah... that's the world I want to live in. jake • 10/1/05; 4:36:56 PM # 0211061 Hope.. "Jake, I was once a prohibitionist. I didn't know any better. Since then, and with a little effort I've learned the truth, I've been educated, and I had the guts and the good sense to realize I had been wrong. It's not a disgrace to change your mind or to learn more and grow. It is a disgrace to cling to the wrong way of doing things just because that's what you once believed was right." You've changed because you're easily persuaded. Stick to your guns!!! I don't buy the bull of what you guys think may happen if we legalize drugs. jake • 10/1/05; 4:40:33 PM # 0211065 "If someone burst into my house, I?d definitely be shooting first and asking questions later and I think that most people, including yourself, would do the same." Good thing you're not dealing drugs then... you should have no problems or encounter w/ the police. jake • 10/1/05; 4:42:10 PM # 0211066 runruff... "I want to say. Jake is basically saying might makes right. His arguments are based on vitriol and and canned statments. In short he sounds like a cop." HUH!! where did this guy come from??? Right on my brother!!! Now go away unless you have something to add. jake • 10/1/05; 4:47:49 PM # 0211069 "Interestingly, this MURDER was eerily similar to the Hirko MURDER" HIRKO WAS NOT MURDERED. jake • 10/1/05; 4:49:50 PM # 0211071 "If someone burst into my house, I?d definitely be shooting first and asking questions later and I think that most people, including yourself, would do the same." Good thing you're not dealing drugs then... you should have no problems or encounter w/ the police. I'm that's what Donald Scott thought as well before he was MURDERED by the police; ahve you read about him yet? The story is on the victims page as well as many other places on the internet. It seems that innocent citizens are justified in becoming more afraid of the police than of any other criminal element out there; yet another negative result of prohibition and it is indeed sad. Sukoi • 10/1/05; 4:53:01 PM # 0211072 "Interestingly, this MURDER was eerily similar to the Hirko MURDER" HIRKO WAS NOT MURDERED. Hmm, lets see, he was shot in the back while trying to protect himself by armed thugs who invaded his home; he was MURDERED, just like Donald Scott and a myriad of others. Sukoi • 10/1/05; 4:57:29 PM # 0211073 Correction: the beginning of the comment that I posted at 4:53:01 was supposed to begin with "I'd bet that's what Donald..." Sukoi • 10/1/05; 5:00:09 PM # 0211074 Hope.... "I have a problem with the changes I've seen in "authorities" in my lifetime. There was a time when the presence of a law enforcement officer in times of trouble was a Godsend. The officers I knew, appeared to be stable, calm, wise, strong, caring, brave people. Now, I suppose as part of that ?going home at the end of the day? business, they act terrified, terroristic, dangerous, overbearing, screaming, threatening, cursing, and suspicious all the time of everyone. People shouldn?t go into law enforcement if they are that fearful." You have no clue what police officers have to do enforce the law. criminals today have WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more rights then victims. The changes you think you know about are changes for the worse... it used to be a lot easier/better to be a law enforcement officer. Thanks to lawyers!! And your little comment about LEO's being "fearful". I laugh at you. I wish no harm to you but when/if you are faced w/ a situation of life or death, i hope you are not in "fear". Police are not held to 20/20 hindsight. sorry for that! (Terry vs. Ohio) jake • 10/1/05; 5:01:35 PM # 0211075 Sukoi.... HE SHOT AT THE POLICE FIRST! jake • 10/1/05; 5:03:20 PM # 0211077 "HE SHOT AT THE POLICE FIRST! No, if he shot at all then he most likely shot at what any rational person would think were home invaders out to rob and/or kill them just like Donald Scott did (BTW, what are your comments about that MURDER?) And apparently he was right. Why was he shot in the back while fleeing from these home invaders again? I must have missed something. Oh, I forgot, you are only relying on what those who shot him told you, right? Sukoi • 10/1/05; 5:25:44 PM # 0211081 Another job well done by the good guys!! http://www.dea.gov/pubs/pressrel/pr092705.html jake • 10/1/05; 5:25:52 PM # 0211082 Actually Jake, I have every "clue". Sometimes I think I know more police officers than I do non-officers. I've "baby-sat drug dogs, which I think is a hideous misuse of an animal's powers of detection. I'm also closely related to one of the greatest, most respected sheriffs my state has ever known. I know about brutality, too. One of my closest relatives was removed from law enforcement because of brutality many, many years ago...even before the glut of lawyers we have now hit. He was a juggernaut of a man but the police force was better off not having to deal with his "efficient" methods of law enforcement. And yes, the glut of lawyers is part of the prohibition problem. Prohibition keeps them comfortably employed and abled to buy those extras in life. Prohibition also created the dangerous "gang bangers" of today just as it enriched and strengthed the power base of the mafiosa in the last century. I wish I could say to you, but I know it would be fruitless, please help us stop spending huge amounts of money on prohibition and start spending it on education and lifting up the downtrodden. Please help us, as a nation, to stop building more prisons and start building more and better schools. Please? Hope • 10/1/05; 5:34:33 PM # 0211084 Sukoi.......... I was not aware of the Donald Scott incident. So i did some research. Again, officers are not held to 20/20 hindsight. It's a shame what happened to Scott. I was not there... I know no one involved in it. But i will say, i'm sure there is more to it then what is posted on the sites. Also, don't think the officers that shot him got away with it. I'm sure, just like the HIRKO shooting, the officers were held responsible in some way or another. One thing i will add is: i found no information that the officers were held criminally for the whole incident.... which leads me to believe it was a justified shooting. Sorry if that's hard to take. finally... HIRKO did not believe he was being rob. Autposy showed he had traces of drugs in his system when he died. He was a documented drug dealer to college kids and informants in the community. He was getting high when police broke in, grabbed a gun after the flash bang went off... then shot at the police.... he then attempted to flee up the stairs and was shot. Again......sorry if that's hard to take. jake • 10/1/05; 5:40:20 PM # 0211086 "You've changed because you're easily persuaded. Stick to your guns!!!" *smile* You obviously don't know me very well. Understanding what prohibition really does was a lot like when I learned the truth that I couldn't get pregnant by holding hands with or thinking about a boy too much. Those, what I know now, to be crazy ideas were "planted" in my mind by well meaning folks, I suppose, to protect me, but they were wrong and I was wrong to believe them, just as I was wrong to believe that prohibition might be a good way to deal with use of certain drugs. I felt stupid and deceived when I learned the truth. As a child and young adult, I believed that spiders and snakes had what would amount to virtually supernatural powers, as many today believe that drugs have some sort of supernatural power. I know they all can be dangerous, spiders, snakes, and drugs, but I?m not terrified or phobic of them. Terror and phobias only make a person weaker and less able to protect himself from real danger. I was young then and a very good child and generally trusted in what my elders told me. I'm older now and I seek out the facts for myself instead of allowing myself to be spoon-fed myths, hysteria, and lies. With prohibition, unlike those other misunderstandings, people are dying and suffering daily because of the lie. That makes me sad and I have to try to help end it, even if my efforts are small, insignificant...or even futile. My conscience requires that I "lift a finger" to help. (And I don't mean the bird finger.)I mean actually trying to help people and not by tormenting or demonizing them. Let me make it clear, also, that I am not ?pro-drug?. Although I am grateful for the healing and life saving properties of some drugs?I?m not pro-drug. I?m pro-people?even those that ?are the least of these, my brethren.? Hope • 10/1/05; 5:44:03 PM # 0211088 Hope..."I've "baby-sat drug dogs, which I think is a hideous misuse of an animal's powers of detection." Please, please, please tell me you're not a PETA member. Tell me what your "well respected sheriff" thinks of legalizing drugs. I have an idea.... keep prohibition and rid society of rehab center... use that money for education. jake • 10/1/05; 5:47:03 PM # 0211089 Answer me this guys/gals...... can you truely say you would want a PCP user as you next door neighbor. They become very violent because PCP inhibits the pain receptors in the brain, and may destroy these pain receptor in chronic PCP abuse. Imagine domestic abuse now. The become like superman in strenght. Then the big bad cop has to arrest the guy and deal with that crap. I know I wouldn't. I don't think legalizing drugs will make the user more responsible just a little more abusive. If you can answer me "YES" then I hope you get your wish. jake • 10/1/05; 6:00:45 PM # 0211091 I'm not a member of PETA. I love animals, but I'm not a lunatic. My sheriff passed away in the sixties, so he never saw the mess we are in now. He treated everyone he knew, met, or arrested with respect and as a human being...and he was perceived as a truly admirable human being by everyone who knew him...even the criminals he arrested and jailed. He was kind and noble. Diabetes took his life. Hope • 10/1/05; 6:01:29 PM # 0211093 http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/debate/myths/myths4.htm jake • 10/1/05; 6:26:54 PM # 0211100 The above is why we should NEVER legalize drugs. jake • 10/1/05; 6:28:08 PM # 0211101 Actually, I do have a neighbor who used it and hence, swore he'd never be so stupid again, and he hasn't. I can't see that his being arrested would have helped matters. We have a saying around here that a "smart" man learns from getting kicked in the head by a mule and doesn't let it happen twice. A "wise" man, however, learns from the experience of the first guy and never gets kicked in the head at all. Hope • 10/1/05; 6:29:37 PM # 0211102 if that is so Hope... then why are sooooooo many people in and out of rehab??? ADDICTION... something i don't want my community being subject to because it's legal. Leave it to the people who are stupid enough try it on their own. jake • 10/1/05; 6:35:23 PM # 0211103 I've got a child molester living a couple of blocks from my house. I don't worry about drug dealers in my neighborhood. It's the child molester that I keep my eye on and know who it is. The drug dealers across the street know how to behave. Child molesters don't. It's the real America. Get used to it. It's scary. muleskinner • 10/1/05; 6:41:05 PM # 0211105 People are doing repeated stints in rehab because of PCP? You're educating me...or feeding me falsehoods. I'll have to research that. You are tireless, aren't you Jake? I admire that. Hope • 10/1/05; 6:57:47 PM # 0211108 See, "Go away unless you have something to add". Typical bully. This isn't the city park and you can't hit me on the head for not agreeing with you. This is a public forum and I will stay as long as I like! Viriol and canned speach! I don't need to show you no stinking badges. runruff • 10/1/05; 7:19:06 PM # 0211114 SPEECH! runruff • 10/1/05; 7:28:40 PM # 0211117 "...can you truely say you would want a PCP user as you next door neighbor." No, I can't truly say I'd want a pcp user as a neighbor. I can't say I'd want a raging alcoholic as a neighbor, either. Which brings me to my next point. Where do prohibitionists get the idea that because something is legal or is a non-arrestable offense, it is "sending a message" that it's ok, or universally condoned or an advised activity? That?s just not true. In most states, adultery is no longer illegal, but I don?t know anyone, even adulterers who would agree that it?s ok. Legality doesn?t make something right or wrong. Anyone with even half a mind knows that. Hope • 10/1/05; 9:02:14 PM # 0211124 Hope.... i will never go away. PCP was what i'd like to call an "example"... you guys, if we're going to legalize drugs...... we must legalize all of them.... including Rohypnol, GHB, and GBL. Do you guys know what they are.... date rape drugs! so, when your daughter is out at a party and shitbag johnny slips her one of those and rapes her. who you going to blame? no one because it's legal. jake • 10/1/05; 9:55:12 PM # 0211134 Now i'm a bully!! are we amongst adults or kids runruff? just add something to the debate. jake • 10/1/05; 9:58:34 PM # 0211135 mulskinner... "I've got a child molester living a couple of blocks from my house. I don't worry about drug dealers in my neighborhood. It's the child molester that I keep my eye on and know who it is. The drug dealers across the street know how to behave. Child molesters don't. It's the real America. Get used to it. It's scary." what the heck is your point here? are you saying police are doing anything about that? If that is so, talk to your local department to address the issue. If drug dealers know how to "behave"........ again why the high crime rate? either prohibition is working in your neighbor hood or it's not!! jake • 10/1/05; 10:02:36 PM # 0211136 once again... i'd like some comments on http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/debate/myths/myths4.htm jake • 10/1/05; 10:03:29 PM # 0211137 In most states, adultery is no longer illegal, but I don?t know anyone, even adulterers who would agree that it?s ok.......... so then why do they do it? because they can! jake • 10/1/05; 10:07:59 PM # 0211139 Have you guys had enough? You want me to go away? Because i'm only here to help you guys/gals learn something. jake • 10/1/05; 10:11:50 PM # 0211141 As long as you care to tell me what you truly believe and why, I'm willing to listen. There are times when I have to be away from the computer, work, chores, etc., the same as you, but I'm ready to listen to what you have to "teach". I'm interesting in hearing your point of view as long as you treat me respectfully and don't get vile again with the "colorful" language. I just don't like that. I don't think you should be arrested for it...but I don't like it. You seem an exceptionally intelligent man. We just disagree on this prohibition thing. Believe me, I've been disagreed with before. As long as you don't attack my person or character, I find discussing this with you very interesting. The beauty of using the computer to discuss things like this is that it can be carried on while still taking care of the things I have to do. My computer is central to my house. I can check it easily throughout the day. Rave on! It's interesting. Hope • 10/1/05; 10:22:38 PM # 0211143 "I can check it easily throughout the day." Well, throughout days...not everyday...but I always eventually check to see what's up and Drug WarRant is one of the sites I regularly check. Hope • 10/1/05; 10:27:05 PM # 0211144 Throughout "some" days, I should have said. Hope • 10/1/05; 10:29:06 PM # 0211145 Jake, I can't speak for the others here, but I must say I am enjoying this immensely. And many thanks for your selfless desire to 'help us learn something'. The implication, of course, is that you have something valuable to teach. You do, but it's not your intended curricula that we are learning from (as I've said above, and posted a link to, we are well aware of the arguments that prohibitionists use, as they are well documented propaganda techniques) but your determination to repeat your limited phiolsophical points over and over again. Get challenged on your logic, and you duck and weave to the next (thoroughly predictable) prohibitionist 'talking point' like the best prizefighter, avoiding answering the question to you while you pose the same ones in slightly different form. You ask if we've 'had enough' as if you believe yourself on the verge of victory; but it's the classic question of those making the traditional 'brave noise'. If you haven't realized it yet, we are a very patient lot. We'll stay as long as you will. kaptinemo • 10/1/05; 10:38:57 PM # 0211147 Hope... i mean no personal attacks on you at all just the subject of discussion. you see when you get involved in police work, you deal the lowest of people in society. You start to lose respect for most (not all) humans. Drugs (such as crack/cocaine/weed/heroin) do nothing to contribute to society. They are the downfall of this country. I don't have the answers how to end the war on drugs. no one seems to! But legalizing is not the answer. If i were building a plan, I would have the military involved down at the boarders. No one would enter this country without a full inspection. but obviously resources are limited. But be aware that it is getting better. The borders are not totally secure but they're getting better with all the hiring due to 9/11. jake • 10/1/05; 10:39:06 PM # 0211148 kaptinemo..... let me ask you this. Why are my links and my points considered "propaganda techniques" and yours are not? Maybe I think your points are just myths. "Things that may work if we do it this way". I'm not willing to find out. jake • 10/1/05; 10:44:05 PM # 0211149 I can understand that you have to wrestle with hatred because of the inhumanity and results of cruelty and ignorance that you see. Hatred can turn a good person into a bad person. When you allow yourself to indulge in hatred, you run the risk of becoming like those you hate. When a man is a "brute beast" or a "lowlife" and you hate him and that hatred leads you to treat him with cruelty, you become like him, in a way, that you hated...cruel and without reason or ability to care for others. Shock, anger, and disgust can lead to hatred, but they are not hatred. You can be shocked, angry, and disgusted without allowing hatred for what you consider the dregs of the earth to live and grow in you. I?m not saying it?s easy to resist hatred. It?s not. It?s an evil emotion or spirit, if you will, that lives in or visits us all from time to time. But to give it credence, to feed it like a fire, to keep it alive, to let it grow and have power over your thoughts and actions is destructive, both to yourself and your relationships. There are ways to fight hatred other than more hatred. You have to find productive ways to shake that burden off. It eventually crushes all those who don?t find a way to give it up. My way is through God. Perhaps yours is in running or painting or fishing. There are ways, though. Hope • 10/1/05; 11:53:30 PM # 0211155 About "weed". It, cannabis/hemp/marijuana is in fact a very good plant that we, as a society, should not neglect. It has contributed much to society. Rope, paper, fabric, fuel, medicine, and yes, as a mild intoxicant, are just a few of the things that make it a "good" plant. Apparently, "weed"s great evil is in that "A black man will look you in the eye, or step on your shadow if he has been smoking reefer." It was purported to be a vice of the "degenerate races". I often wonder how many black or Hispanic people would continue in their support of it's prohibition if they really knew the real reasons it was first prohibited. Hope • 10/2/05; 12:05:06 AM # 0211156 Jake, Sorry I haven't had the time to get very much involved with the debate here -- it's certainly been interesting. You asked in particular if someone would respond to your mention of this page regarding foreign experiences. I'll give it a shot. That page is part of a Department of Justice debate manual written in 1994 to provide talking points for countering drug legalizers. It was mostly viewed with amusement in the drug policy reform community, because the content is extraordinarily misleading and vague. Just skimming through it you can see some of the tricks used: In the British section: "Many registered addicts continue to turn to illicit drugs; Many registered addicts do not decrease their dosage over time..." etc. Of course many do not. No program is perfect. But what kind of data is "many"? There are no details given, and they compare macro and micro events that may be unrelated. In the Netherlands section: "The Dutch have not raised one dollar in tax revenue from drug sales" Irrelevant, since the U.S. will not allow them to legally do so through international treaties. "Legalization advocates claim that marijuana use in Netherlands has not increased since the laws were liberalized, but the number of Amsterdam drug cafes rose from 30 to over 300 in one decade." Note the trick here: They don't refute the claim -- simply cover it up with an irrelevancy. Of course, the number of cafes rose -- the laws were liberalized to allow them. Duh. The rest of the analysis suffers from similar vagueness and apples/oranges comparisons So let's look at some real data, starting with an experiment that began after the DOJ talking points you mention. As reported in the Guardian: Switzerland is now leading the way out of prohibition.  In 1994, it started prescribing free heroin to long-term addicts who had failed to respond to law enforcement or any other treatment.  In 1998, a Lausanne criminologist, Martin Kilias, found that the users' involvement in burglary, mugging and robbery had fallen by 98%; in shoplifting, theft and handling by 88%; in selling soft drugs by 70%; in selling hard drugs by 91%.  As a group, their contacts with police had plunged to less than a quarter of the previous level.  The Dutch and the Germans have had similar results with the same strategy.  All of them report that, apart from these striking benefits in crime prevention, the users are also demonstrably healthier ( because clean heroin properly used is a benign drug ) and that they are more stable with clear improvements in housing, employment and relationships. In another study that compared drug use patterns in San Francisco and Amsterdam (about as similar a city as you could get in terms of culture, size, etc.), there were some very interesting patterns. See here that the numbers showed higher experimentation with harder drugs under prohibition. There aren't enough direct comparative studies between the U.S. and other countries -- the U.S. doesn't seem to like doing them, but there have been some fairly reasonable ones in terms of comparing like data. Here's one that's always fascinated me. What seems particularly interesting is that the Netherlands has seen benefit from separating hard and soft drugs from the same sales mechanism. The average age of heroin addicts there is slightly higher (36 years) than here, which is a combination of fewer young people using it, and more addicts living a longer life. There are plenty more international studies to be explored, all of which offer more direct data and interesting material than the old DOJ chestnut. One point that needs to be stressed throughout. Many times these arguments fail to address the difference between use and abuse, and that's critically important to the numbers game. Certainly we feel different about a person who has a glass of wine with dinner than someone who is constantly drunk, abusive (and driving). We understand the difference between use and abuse with alcohol. We need to separate it with other drugs as well. Often, when numbers are bragged about by prohibitionists in terms of reducing drug use, for example, the reduction is primarily in those who aren't a problem (users, not abusers). People who might dabble responsibly if it was legal, but aren't really that interested (and would be very unlikely to do more than try it a few times) are deterred. Those who abuse drugs tend to find them no matter what the legality (hence the bizarre fact that countries who execute drug offenders never run out of people to execute). To the extent that prohibition reduces drug use, it reduces the freedom of those who are not a threat to society and drives the abusers further underground and away from help. Pete • 10/2/05; 3:44:30 AM # 0211168 Jake, to answer your question, you may have noticed something about the links that have been proffered to you: they deal with factual information, not conjecture or emotionalism. You have said that I and others here have been engaging in propagandizing(?) Very well, consider this: we have offered you a chance to examine the root basis of your belief system regarding the need for maintaining the current prohibition on currently illicit drugs. (Prohibitions seem to be more the products of a particular era's prejudices rather than any scientific rationale; see Black Fiends and White Hope for examples of this.) Such examination requires a degree of suppressing one's tendency for viewing matters through the prism of previous preconceptions and emotional experiences to consider viewpoints that may contain elements that are emotionally painful for the examiner to dissect. From this arises the problem of cognitive dissonance. Which just about every drug prohibitionist I know suffers from. Particularly those who drink alcoholic beverages or are nicotine addicts. Your stated unwillingness 'to find out' is symptomatic of this cognitive dissonance. kaptinemo • 10/2/05; 7:33:18 AM # 0211185 ?Sukoi.......... I was not aware of the Donald Scott incident. So i did some research. Again, officers are not held to 20/20 hindsight. It's a shame what happened to Scott. I was not there... I know no one involved in it. But i will say, i'm sure there is more to it then what is posted on the sites. Also, don't think the officers that shot him got away with it. I'm sure, just like the HIRKO shooting, the officers were held responsible in some way or another. One thing i will add is: i found no information that the officers were held criminally for the whole incident.... which leads me to believe it was a justified shooting. Sorry if that's hard to take. finally... HIRKO did not believe he was being rob. Autposy showed he had traces of drugs in his system when he died. He was a documented drug dealer to college kids and informants in the community. He was getting high when police broke in, grabbed a gun after the flash bang went off... then shot at the police.... he then attempted to flee up the stairs and was shot. Again......sorry if that's hard to take.? Jake, I?m certainly glad to see that you did some research on the Scott murder and you?re right, it is indeed a shame what happened to him; a needless killing because of over zealous officials, prohibition and asset forfeiture laws. Unfortunately, the officers were not held accountable as seems to be the norm but a $5 million settlement was paid which leads me to believe that it was NOT a justified shooting. More here: http://www.saveourguns.com/scott001.htm How do you know that Hirko didn?t think that he was being robbed? Traces of drugs in his system are completely irrelevant as are any alleged incidents of drug dealing. What he was doing when a grenade exploded if his living room is irrelevant as well. It?s what he did after that that is relevant; he did what any normal person would do when attacked in his own home, he tried to defend himself and was murdered for it, shot in the back no less. ?if that is so Hope... then why are sooooooo many people in and out of rehab??? ADDICTION... something i don't want my community being subject to because it's legal. Leave it to the people who are stupid enough try it on their own.? Actually Jake, these numbers are very small. They have been artificially inflated by the government in yet another attempt to keep their ever loosening hold on prohibition. Pete has done a good job of explaining much of this here: http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/07/27/debunkingTheOndcpsScottBur.html . ?kaptinemo..... let me ask you this. Why are my links and my points considered "propaganda techniques" and yours are not? Maybe I think your points are just myths. "Things that may work if we do it this way". I'm not willing to find out.? I can answer that, it?s because you are citing what are said to be ?facts? which are actually half-truths, exaggerations and outright lies (which have been repeatedly proven as such) from the government, who are admitted liars as I pointed out the other day and as Pete points out rather easily at the link above. The truth is on our side, so we have no reason to lie. Here?s an example complete with numerous credible references: http://www.drugwardistortions.org/NORML_Truth_Report_2005.pdf Sukoi • 10/2/05; 7:37:09 AM # 0211186 " How do you know that Hirko didn?t think that he was being robbed? " Bottom line is.... i don't care if he thought he was being robbed..... he should not have been dealing drugs. Had he refrained from that lifestyle, the police wouldn't have been at is residence, and he'd be alive today. jake • 10/2/05; 9:58:38 AM # 0211202 "I can answer that, it?s because you are citing what are said to be ?facts? which are actually half-truths, exaggerations and outright lies (which have been repeatedly proven as such) from the government." Well if this so-called conspiracy has the government exaggerating to keep drugs illegal.... then the sites you provided, i'm sure are half-truths and deflated figures to strenghten their cause to make drugs legal. Unless you have done the study yourself, you also have no leg to stand on. One big question i'd like to know.... What is the groups stand on the war on terror. I can tell you this guys/gals. There will be resources dedicated for this war a long time. please don't abandon that because the war on terror will never end!! jake • 10/2/05; 10:06:32 AM # 0211204 Sukoi, "Jake, I?m certainly glad to see that you did some research on the Scott murder and you?re right, it is indeed a shame what happened to him; a needless killing because of over zealous officials, prohibition and asset forfeiture laws. Unfortunately, the officers were not held accountable as seems to be the norm but a $5 million settlement was paid which leads me to believe that it was NOT a justified shooting. More here: http://www.saveourguns.com/scott001.htm" A justified shooting is one when the officers are not held on criminal charges. I'm sure they were justified or they would be in jail....... Now on the civil side, that's a different story. Remember in a civil trial all you need to prove is preponderance of the evidence and not beyond a reasonable doubt. jake • 10/2/05; 10:15:47 AM # 0211206 Jake, IMHO, There are some complex issues in the area of "justified" shootings. First, understand that to many people, even though there are distinct branches within the force that are designed to prevent abuse, the investigations of police shootings often appear to outsiders to be a group taking care of their own. Second, there is a problem with the whole definition of "justified." As it usually applies to cops in shooting situations, the term is heavily weighted toward the moment of the shooting. ie, did the officer reasonably feel that his life was in danger at the moment he shot the suspect. Well, when you're breaking into an unknown house with limited intel at 4 in the morning when there are probably guns in the house, then yes, there's a very reasonable feel of danger. However, "justified" to me includes a wider range of responsibility all the way up to the decision to take that approach to an arrest. I tend to be less critical of the cops who do the shooting than some of my colleagues, but much more critical of the leaders who choose to use tactics that are likely to lead to dangerous situations (for both the cops and the suspects). In the case of Anthony Diotaiuto, he had a legal concealed weapon permit. So every officer going in there certainly had been told to be aware that the suspect probably had a gun on him (concealed). I almost don't blame the cops too much for being trigger happy in that situation even though Anthony never pointed a gun at them. But their bosses are guilty of murder in my eyes. The notion of going in SWAT for a supposed pot dealer who has a legal concealed permit, is holding two jobs to pay for the house he lives in with his mother? Insanity. In the case of Cheryl Noel, the police busted in at 5 am. While we may never know all the details, it appears that she woke up to loud sounds and someone entering her bedroom. She owned a gun and grabbed it. The policemen were in danger and were therefore "justified" in defending themselves (ie, killing her). But the department wasn't justified in its tactics, and so I say that Cheryl was murdered. There was a time when police departments only used SWAT tactics to save lives -- hostage situations, etc. Now, it's about saving evidence. Too often drug task forces are risking the lives of minor criminals, innocent victims, and their own cops just to prevent some pot from being flushed down the toilet. That's sick. Pete • 10/2/05; 10:59:37 AM # 0211210 Let me tell you this... when i was on patrol, the absolute best call you could get was a man with gun. Here's why. With all the scrutinizing about cops shooting bad guys or possible bad guys, going on a call like that left the unknown... "known". I already knew he had a gun. I was justified shooting if he made one wrong move. don't misunderstand me. i have never and hope to never be involved in a shooting. The end results would be justified!! Finally you said, "SWAT tactics to were used to save lives -- hostage situations, etc. Now, it's about saving evidence". How do you know this? Were you a cop? Have you ever been on a SWAT or an entry team? The most important thing on a raid is SAFETY to the COPS.... my life! Not the bad guys or innocent peoples life. My job is to go in and secure the residence and people inside. I don't care who's not involved once that door is rammed. All i'm concerned with is securing EVERYONE! One more thing.... if you really look at the the amount of "marijuana cases", you will see it's not the main focus anymore (but it should be). Prosecuting attorneys have thresholds to meet to prosecute on drug related offenses. Let me be the first to tell you that you need a shit load of weed to prosecute. I've seen 300 pound seizures that were declined prosecution because the attorneys are just toooooo busy. So SWAT isn't breaking down doors like you think for the local pot dealer. One last thing.... the local pot dealer who is holding two jobs to pay for his house.... Pete........ he holds the key to his own destiny. I worked two jobs for 5+ years. prior to that, i went to college fulltime & worked fulltime.... you know what? it paid off because i eventually got a better paying job. And let me tell you, there were time i thought i would be stuck working 2 jobs forever. So QUIT feeling sorry for those guys. If they get off their butt and work a little harder (towards a goal), things will get better. Guys like that want things the easy way. I'm sick of that additude. jake • 10/2/05; 11:32:08 AM # 0211215 I finally woke up. Jake is right. We must fight zie drogenwar fur zie vaterland. sieg heil sieg heil seig heil I'm practicing my goose stepping. I'm so happy now that I have seen the light. Thanks Jake, old buddy. you ace, you face, you shooter, you pal My sarcasm isn't that funny. neither is the drug war. muleskinner • 10/2/05; 11:39:29 AM # 0211216 One last thing.... the local pot dealer who is holding two jobs to pay for his house.... Pete........ he holds the key to his own destiny. I worked two jobs for 5+ years. prior to that, i went to college fulltime & worked fulltime.... you know what? it paid off because i eventually got a better paying job. And let me tell you, there were time i thought i would be stuck working 2 jobs forever. So QUIT feeling sorry for those guys. If they get off their butt and work a little harder (t! owards a goal), things will get better. Guys like that want things th e easy way. I'm sick of that additude. Whoa, you really really went off the deep end there, Jake. When have you heard of a drug dealer who's working two legit jobs? You can make more from dealing. And they found less than 2 ounces of pot. And you're saying he should get off his butt and work a little harder? OK, you just lost all the cred you had started to develop with me. Then: The most important thing on a raid is SAFETY to the COPS.... my life! Not the bad guys or innocent peoples life. I'm sorry you don't take innocent people's lives as seriously as your own. Every copy I know would find that "additude" repellent. I seriously doubt that you're a cop, now. Later. Pete • 10/2/05; 11:58:43 AM # 0211218 muleskinner.... spoken like a guy who has been defeated. i win! jake • 10/2/05; 12:39:49 PM # 0211225 Pete.." When have you heard of a drug dealer who's working two legit jobs?" i'm just repeating what you state above. "In the case of Anthony Diotaiuto, he had a legal concealed weapon permit. So every officer going in there certainly had been told to be aware that the suspect probably had a gun on him (concealed). I almost don't blame the cops too much for being trigger happy in that situation even though Anthony never pointed a gun at them. But their bosses are guilty of murder in my eyes. The notion of going in SWAT for a supposed pot dealer who has a legal concealed permit, is holding two jobs to pay for the house he lives in with his mother? Insanity." And when i talk about "innocent people"..... you know what i'm talking about! When you make entry into a home and there's a 75 year old lady or a 6 month old baby, sure extra precautions are taken. But if i go into a crack house & there at 7 people.........6 of who are involved and 1 that's in the wrong place at the wrong time, i don't have the time to decide who's NOT involved. Everyone is secured because i'm not getting hurt. SAFETY FIRST. So don't twist my words. Finally.... I could care a less if you think i'm a cop. I'm sure every cop you know would say you are way off on this whole subject. LATER to you too! jake • 10/2/05; 12:51:07 PM # 0211226 Jake, today?s prohibition of drugs was bred and born in racism. Anslinger, Hurst, and DuPont were some of the original ?conspirators?. Yes, they and others did form a true conspiracy to bring us the drug war of today. The new Jim Crow is part of the substructure of the conspiracy. It still lives and feeds off racism and classism all these many years later. Last evening I wrote to you, ?I can understand that you have to wrestle with hatred because of the inhumanity and results of cruelty and ignorance that you see.? From your statements, it?s very clear that you are actually ?pinned?, and likely already thoroughly defeated by that hatred you either welcome, or wrestle with. It seems you welcome it more than wrestle with it. You have lost the greater part of your humanity, and yes, you have become cruel and you refuse to understand what you don?t want to understand. ?There is none so blind as he who will not see.? You ignore the fact that your informants knocked on the man?s door and were allowed in and if you had knocked on his door, even in full uniform, he was not likely to shoot at you. You had your evidence to convict him?the wonderful snitches and CIs, whether he flushed any pot down the commode or not. You and others like you are adrenaline junkies. You were probably invited by the dynamic entry team to ?come and play? military attack commando team guy. Ah! What fun! You got to wear masks, too. How exciting for you. Yours is a cruel, stupid, and wicked game. Killing John Hirko and the others on the page is the new ?witch burning? hysteria. It is and there is no way around it. You tell yourself you are protecting the children from the drug dealer?s (instead of witches this time) hideous spells. You convince yourself that ?druggies? and ?dopers? are the new witches, more heinous than the hatchet wielding stalker or killer?because your moralistic, purposely blind, and willfully ignorant leaders told you so and you swallowed it whole. You are destroying people?s lives and families for ?their own good?. You?re ?saving? them just like the witch burners were ?saving? the souls of their victims. History will revile the prohibitionists of our times. Revile?with a capital R. Hope • 10/2/05; 12:52:52 PM # 0211227 I want you to feel like a winner. Winning is fun. Whatever makes you feel good. However, you will never win the drug war. You're a loser there. muleskinner • 10/2/05; 12:55:42 PM # 0211228 What is with this trigger happy stuff? there are more cops getting shot by bad guys than bad guys getting shot by cops.... check out http://www.officerdown.com (it happens just about every other day). Feel sorry for the cops getting shot to keep you safe not drug users or dealers getting shot. jake • 10/2/05; 12:56:21 PM # 0211229 muleskinner.... AGAIN as i've stated above..... I DON'T THINK THE WAR ON DRUGS CAN BE WON. But abandoning it is not the answer. jake • 10/2/05; 12:58:19 PM # 0211230 "The most important thing on a raid is SAFETY to the COPS.... my life! Not the bad guys or innocent peoples life. My job is to go in and secure the residence and people inside. I don't care who's not involved once that door is rammed. All i'm concerned with is securing EVERYONE!" You make a mockery of the old legend, "Protect and Serve" and the "brave and courageous" police officer. There is nothing "brave" about ramming down doors in these cases. You are, by doing so, in fact creating a catastrophe in the making. This is part of why many of us, myself included, see this sort of activity by police as making you the "bad guys" in these cases. If it's all about you, you should never have accepted the badge you wear. Hope • 10/2/05; 1:09:19 PM # 0211231 "You have lost the greater part of your humanity" Hope... i don't like people who can't follow rules. I have to follow rules everyday and so do you (and i think most of the posters here). If you're breaking the law and you learn from it..... good for you! If you continue, i have no use for you. you sound like you follow the laws. so why all the fuss over legalizing a mind altering drug? It's really simple people. drugs will go away if people stop using them. As long as there are consequences for doing drug, the majority of people will stay away from them. Notice i didn't say "all people" because i know there are the few who don't like laws/rules. jake • 10/2/05; 1:09:54 PM # 0211232 "Protect and Serve" and the "brave and courageous" police officer. i am protecting and serving. not everyone would go though that door not knowing what's on the other side. What's the definition of courage: The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery. Again, how would you guys/gals no because you never did it. I'm here to try and make this a better/safer country. So don't blame the war on drugs on me or other cops. Blame the war on drugs on the people using/selling. jake • 10/2/05; 1:19:41 PM # 0211233 mulskinner... if i'm a loser in the war on drugs, it makes you even more a loser because legalizing drugs is not even close to being an option in the eyes of congress. Head on down/over/up (where ever you live) to capitol hill and lobby for legalization. jake • 10/2/05; 1:23:41 PM # 0211234 "If it's all about you, you should never have accepted the badge you wear." Hope... i'll give it to you again. People don't get into police work to get "rich". God knows there are a ton of jobs that pay better than a patrol officer and have a better probability of going home at the end of your shift. so..... that leads me to my prior statement.... if it's me or him.... i'm going to win! GO HOME AFTER YOUR SHIFT. if you think that's a NEW police attitude... you're quite wrong. I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6. jake • 10/2/05; 1:30:03 PM # 0211235 "johnny slips her one of those and rapes her. who you going to blame? no one because it's legal." No one wants to make rape legal. It would still be illegal, a crime, to trick someone into taking a drug against their will. It would still be illegal, a crime, to rape someone. You're using conflation again, Do you mean that in date rape cases today, that it is the drug, alcohol or ghb or whatever, that is the crime...not the rape? Once again, I sense not only conflation, but distraction from the facts as a form of delusion, that you choose for yourself and try to infect others with. "we must legalize all of them.... including Rohypnol, GHB, and GBL." First of all, the most commonly used "date rape drug" is already legal, alcohol. Second, "legalization" does not mean a "free for all"...it includes regulation and control. Third, marijuana is the one "drug" that needs to have the criminal sanctions removed from it immediately. It is completely non poisonous and non lethal, and to kill or cage people for having or using it is an outrage against humanity. Marijuana sales and use would require regulation much like we have for alcohol and cigarettes today...even though marijuana in no way compares with the harm done by alcohol and tobacco consumption. The other drugs you mentioned, I believe, have uses besides date rape, another conflation. The harder, more dangerous, killer drugs would definitely have to be more tightly controlled. For personal consumption a person should not be bound, mistreated, verbally abused, or locked in a cage because you don't like them using it. Most of us do NOT want all drugs legalized. A few do. I think, personally, that some sort of legalization is required for all of them to end the injustices and deaths taking place because of their prohibition. We live with poisons all around us. Oleander and castor beans are just a couple of them. Your role in protecting people from their own choices about what they consume or not, by destroying them, hurting them, or caging them is an insult and a travesty against free people. As far as HAVING to legalize them all if we legalize one, what you are saying is merely another conflation and it?s just not true. My desire for legalization has nothing to do with allowing people to possess certain drugs. They already do. My desire for legalization is about ending the harm done by prohibition and tending to the harm the drugs can cause in a sensible and humane and respectful manner. Hope • 10/2/05; 1:58:19 PM # 0211239 "First of all, the most commonly used "date rape drug" is already legal, alcohol." WRONG. jake • 10/2/05; 2:32:23 PM # 0211245 "Most of us do NOT want all drugs legalized." Should we pick and choose? If this group wants marijuana legal, then another group may want crack legal.... where do we draw the line? remember guys were complaining about our 9th amendment. nah... just keep them all illegal. "Marijuana sales and use would require regulation much like we have for alcohol and cigarettes today"... what is it with this marijuana stuff... i really have to give it a try someday. We are regulating marijuana now... we try to regulate who can have it now by not letting anyone have it. "Second, "legalization" does not mean a "free for all"...it includes regulation and control." Hope... please tell me you're not serious. we have prescription drugs that are regulated and they seem to get in the wrong hands. Just ask DEA's Diversion Unit. "Do you mean that in date rape cases today, that it is the drug, alcohol or ghb or whatever, that is the crime...not the rape?" you know exactly what i mean.... lets NOT give kids more opportunities to have access to drugs. Also... i'm not aware of anyone dealing castor beans or oleander. Look, for every example you give I can come up with a reason and vice versa. There really is no debate. If people would just behave and follow the rules..... this would be a much better place to live. Sorry but that's the way it is. jake • 10/2/05; 2:54:33 PM # 0211250 "Should we pick and choose?" Yes. "Rules" need updating and changing from time to time. Some laws, and some rules were ill conceived and need changing, because they do more harm than good. Not many years ago, people of color were not considered fully human by our laws. They needed changing. A wife used to be a chattel or "owned" by her husband. That law needed changing. It used to be legal to hang and burn people thought to be witches. That law needed changing. We used to (sadly still do)put people away and take their property because of their possession of a plant. That law needs changing. The people who loved those old wrong-headed laws didn't believe their favorite laws would be changed, but they were. Less than two years before alcohol prohibition ended one of the prohibitionists in government said that there was as much chance of the Volstead act being repealed as there was for "...a hummingbird flying to the moon with the Empire State Building tied to it's tail." Hope • 10/2/05; 3:49:00 PM # 0211256 "We used to (sadly still do) put people away and take their property because of their possession of a plant. That law needs changing." i repect your opinion... but i disagree. The examples you stated above all are related to human rights.... i don't think the founding fathers of this country would say getting high is a necessary right. jake • 10/2/05; 3:59:21 PM # 0211258 Congress is out of touch completely with what America is. They can't be reached. Neither can you. You're off on yourself. You're a hopeless case. There is more hope for a meth freak to turn to God than there is for you. You're hooked on prohibition. I am doubtful if you really are a cop and wonder if you're just spoofing this board. It seems you're talking to yourself and trying to convince yourself more than anyone else. But, have fun doing it. You're on your own. See ya, wouldn't want to be ya. muleskinner • 10/2/05; 3:59:45 PM # 0211259 It might not be a "necessary right" to some people...but it is none the less...a God given right...that should be "retained by the people". It's not my constitutionally stated right to eat carrots and brocolli, but it is most certainly one of my God given, retained rights. Hope • 10/2/05; 4:11:30 PM # Thank you for respecting my opinion. It's a small thing...but it means a lot. Hope • 10/2/05; 4:12:56 PM # 0211264 muleskinner ... again dude.. i'm not concerned about you believing that i'm a cop. If you say congress is out of touch.... what is your goal then? just to debate others online. do something about it. You're quite right... i am hooked on prohibition because i believe it's right. I'm one of three (on this discussion board) that think prohibition is right. i'm just the only one entertaining your nonsense. jake • 10/2/05; 4:19:33 PM # 0211250 "How do you know that Hirko didn[base ']t think that he was being robbed? " Bottom line is.... i don't care if he thought he was being robbed..... he should not have been dealing drugs. Had he refrained from that lifestyle, the police wouldn't have been at is residence, and he'd be alive today.[per thou] Jake, you[base ']re missing the point here; the point is that he, nor anyone else, should be oppressed and forced to make such a decision. This is supposed to be a free country right? If so, then why can we not freely ingest any vegetable matter that we so choose? As an officer of the law, you are supposed to uphold the Constitution of this country and not violate the rights of the citizens, isn[base ']t that correct? If it is then you aren[base ']t doing a very good job. "I can answer that, it[base ']s because you are citing what are said to be [base "]facts[per thou] which are actually half-truths, exaggerations and outright lies (which have been repeatedly proven as such) from the government." Well if this so-called conspiracy has the government exaggerating to keep drugs illegal.... then the sites you provided, i'm sure are half-truths and deflated figures to strenghten their cause to make drugs legal. Unless you have done the study yourself, you also have no leg to stand on. One big question i'd like to know.... What is the groups stand on the war on terror. I can tell you this guys/gals. There will be resources dedicated for this war a long time. please don't abandon that because the war on terror will never end!![per thou] I[base ']m sure that we have differing opinions with regard to the [base "]war on terror[per thou] but one thing that I[base ']m sure that we drug law reformers do agree on is that prohibition funds terrorists and there is absolutely no question about it; it is a FACT. "Sukoi, "Jake, I[base ']m certainly glad to see that you did some research on the Scott murder and you[base ']re right, it is indeed a shame what happened to him; a needless killing because of over zealous officials, prohibition and asset forfeiture laws. Unfortunately, the officers were not held accountable as seems to be the norm but a $5 million settlement was paid which leads me to believe that it was NOT a justified shooting. More here: http://www.saveourguns.com/scott001.htm" A justified shooting is one when the officers are not held on criminal charges. I'm sure they were justified or they would be in jail....... Now on the civil side, that's a different story. Remember in a civil trial all you need to prove is preponderance of the evidence and not beyond a reasonable doubt.[per thou] Let me ask this Jake, if criminal charges were to be brought against these officers, who would bring them, the same DA who went to the judge with the warrant? Also, are you saying that even though the evidence overwhelmingly indicated a wrongful death, these guys are somehow still innocent of causing that death? "Most of us do NOT want all drugs legalized." Should we pick and choose? If this group wants marijuana legal, then another group may want crack legal.... where do we draw the line? remember guys were complaining about our 9th amendment. nah... just keep them all illegal.[per thou] Marijuana WILL be legal for adults in the near future, exactly as it should be but lets be realistic here, you won[base ']t find a magazine called [base "]Cocaine Culture[per thou] but you will find one called [base "]Cannabis Culture[per thou], you won[base ']t find an organization called [base "] National Organization for the Reform of Methamphetamine Laws[per thou] but you will find an organization called [base "] National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws[per thou] and the list goes on[sigma] The point is that few are actually rallying behind substances that are actually harmful but they are indeed rallying behind a very useful and relatively harmless plant. Marijuana can cause harm but it is certainly less than that associated with alcohol or tobacco and it is actually safer to heavily consume marijuana then it is aspirin, potatoes or water. Personally, I[base ']d be very happy if just marijuana were legalized but that would only solve part of the problem caused by prohibition, in order to eliminate the vast majority of drug related problems, the only answer is legalization and regulation, just like alcohol. Did you even know that the propaganda machine considers marijuana that you so heavily rely upon to be one of the most useless and addictive substances known to man, even over cocaine and heroine? How ridiculous is that? "Marijuana sales and use would require regulation much like we have for alcohol and cigarettes today"... what is it with this marijuana stuff... i really have to give it a try someday. We are regulating marijuana now... we try to regulate who can have it now by not letting anyone have it.[per thou] yes, you probably should give it a try, then you will know just how much you[base ']ve been lied to about it. Oh, and prohibition and regulation are two very different things, even a prohibitionist such as yourself should know that. "Second, "legalization" does not mean a "free for all"...it includes regulation and control." Hope... please tell me you're not serious. we have prescription drugs that are regulated and they seem to get in the wrong hands. Just ask DEA's Diversion Unit. "Do you mean that in date rape cases today, that it is the drug, alcohol or ghb or whatever, that is the crime...not the rape?" you know exactly what i mean.... lets NOT give kids more opportunities to have access to drugs. Also... i'm not aware of anyone dealing castor beans or oleander. Look, for every example you give I can come up with a reason and vice versa. There really is no debate. If people would just behave and follow the rules..... this would be a much better place to live. Sorry but that's the way it is. [per thou] Jake, open your eyes, kids currently have more access to illegal substances than they do legal ones, now why do you suppose that is? The reason that you don[base ']t see people dealing castor beans or oleander is because they are legal and people don[base ']t deal alcohol or tobacco either for the same reason. If you truly want to put drug dealers out of business then you would support an end to prohibition. If prohibition did not exist, then this would be a much better place to live for those on both sides of this issue. Sorry but that's the way it is. "We used to (sadly still do) put people away and take their property because of their possession of a plant. That law needs changing." i repect your opinion... but i disagree. The examples you stated above all are related to human rights.... i don't think the founding fathers of this country would say getting high is a necessary right.[per thou] Umm, you do know that both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were [base "]pot[per thou] farmers, don[base ']t you? Sukoi • 10/2/05; 4:26:00 PM # 0211256 "We used to (sadly still do) put people away and take their property because of their possession of a plant. That law needs changing." i repect your opinion... but i disagree. The examples you stated above all are related to human rights.... i don't think the founding fathers of this country would say getting high is a necessary right. jake • 10/2/05; 3:59:21 PM # 0211258 You're with the 'dry' Congressman that believed that Prohibition I was a done deal and that alcohol prohibition would never be repealed. They were diehard prohibitionists, too. They had to eat crow. Weep your crocodile tears while you can. ! You will lose the drug war. It is an economic war, and like all wars, they end. BTW, the original cannabis growers were from Republican backgrounds. The first commercial growing operation that was busted in a major metropolitan area was operated by the son of the president of a bank. muleskinner • 10/2/05; 4:38:45 PM # 0211259 "Umm, you do know that both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were [base "]pot[per thou] farmers, don[base ']t you?" Please dude... let's not go there. The weed today is much, much, much more dangerous today than back then. "Jake, open your eyes, kids currently have more access to illegal substances than they do legal ones, now why do you suppose that is?" So your solution is to legalize it then people will use it less..... hmmm! doesn't make sense to me. "As an officer of the law, you are supposed to uphold the Constitution of this country and not violate the rights of the citizens, isn[base ']t that correct?" I am to uphold the constitution and any laws enacted by congress which are interpeted by the supreme court. That's what i do. and until supreme court legalizes drugs, i will continue to enforce. i don't make laws! Marijuana will not be legal as long as we have a true conservative supreme court. not sure if you've been watching, but Bush is naming 2 more to the bench. Now if Gore or Kerry were president... we'd probably have legal weed by next month. Sukoi... just curious. how old are you? Does it mean that much to you to smoke marijuana? Don't you grow out of that sorta thing? jake • 10/2/05; 4:45:30 PM # ou will lose the drug war." Again... read above. This is getting old. jake • 10/2/05; 4:49:56 PM # 0211264 "i'm just the only one entertaining your nonsense." Muleskinner's right about your "crocodile tears" and I expect, as well, your respect is "crocodile" respect. We are not children. We are adults. Adults that aren't easily led around by the nose. ! You have become, possibly because of your employment, very arrogant and openly disrespect others whose opinion of matters differs from yours. You HAVE to be right, because your some sort of societal royalty. Right? The arrogant always fall from their self made pedastals. They're noses are too high in the air to watch were they are going and their pedastals are hardly ever as spacious as they think they are. I am interested in the opinions of others, even when they disagree with me. But I don't think you are here about trying to "enlighten" us or "teach" us anything. I think you are acting like a silly kid, "poking" the caged tigers with a stick for the fun of riling them up. That could be dangerous. While you're laughing at us, our truth is seeping into you. Your subconcious, your brain will not let you ignore our truth. Maybe dreams will do it, maybe an epiphany of other sort, but you've been snagged, boy. The truth has gotten it's claws into you now and you won't get away as easily as you thought you would. Sweet dreams! Hope • 10/2/05; 5:04:30 PM #