Something I agree with Europe on.

[WildGunsTomcat]

http://youtu.be/7BF2pKDFcmk

Here in the US, we spend more money on prisoners than we do students at colleges. Per capita, we build 4 times more prisons than universities in this country.

Why? Marijuana.

Watch the video. It's disgusting.

[Warborn]

Well, a lot of places in Europe still have marijuana as illegal. In Canada we came close to decriminalizing marijuana, but we were actually leaned on pretty heavily by the US. Then the financial shit happened, our Conservative shithead party won power, and now marijuana laws are harsher and we're building new prisons to house all the new criminals we've created despite crime up till this point being the lowest it's been in decades.

Anyway, yeah, private prisons in the US give a very powerful lobby create harsher laws so as to make more criminals. And the lawmakers can sell themselves as being "tough on crime", and people who don't know any better eat it up.

[Malorn]

Meh.

[Sgt Shultz]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Other drugs that are far more dangerous of course should remain controlled substances for public safety.

I think the US could follow the Dutch model for even the harder drugs, and prostitution. I wouldn't want to limit it to just marijuana, because I think we should not criminalize what is basically victimless commerce.

[Warborn]

Portugal decriminalized possession/use of every drug, although transport of more than 5 days worth is illegal, and the "penalty" for using is voluntary counseling/rehab. They're doing pretty well.

I think, as the video says, treating drug users as addicts rather than criminals is the way to go, whether it's hard drugs like heroin or softer drugs like marijuana. Putting someone who does heroin behind bars is just stupid.

Originally Posted by Malorn

Other drugs that are far more dangerous of course should remain controlled substances for public safety.

This doesn't seem like a libertarian point of view. I know Ron Paul is in favour of legal marijuana, but it seemed like making all drugs legal and allowing the market to turn them into a commodity is consistent with libertarian principles.

[WildGunsTomcat]

Holy crap you're right Warborn, the planets have aligned.

We have harmony in this thread.

Speaking of decriminalizing things...I think prostitution should be legalized too. We should definitely follow Amsterdam's lead on drugs and prostitution...we might have a safer and more harmonious society.

But, this is where I greatly disagree with the religious right.

I was going to have this glorious exposition and explain my viewpoint...but I literally just had a brain fart and the point I was going to make went out the window. I just woke up.

It'll come back to me. Carry on.

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by WildGunsTomcat

Speaking of decriminalizing things...I think prostitution should be legalized too. We should definitely follow Amsterdam's lead on drugs and prostitution...we might have a safer and more harmonious society.

In Ontario, where I live, we had a big court case where some prostitutes challenged the legality of criminalizing prostitution, saying that it forces women who work as prostitutes to do so under conditions which are unsafe and degrading (which is against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). The unanimous court decision sided with the prostitutes, striking down prohibition on prostitution, although it'll be about a year before the law comes into effect. At that time, bordellos will be legal in Ontario.

This is something I actually had a very interesting conversation about recently. Ultimately, it's a good decision. Like prohibition on drugs, all that prohibition on prostitution does is empower criminal elements and put people hurting no people through their consensual sex-having into jail. Meanwhile, if a John does get violent with a hooker, the hooker can't count on law enforcement to help them.

In the end, it's absolutely one of those things that is purely a dumb "moral" law without any practical end -- something I can't abide. People will fuck for dollars whether it's legal or not. Making it safer for those involved and taxing it like any other business is simply the only real answer. It also frees up law enforcement from busting people for this shit and lets them focus on actual crimes (like smoking weed, lawl).

[Malorn]

Meh.

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Alcohol, and Marijuana are rather mild drugs, but they can be misused and cause harm to others (drunk driving, for example). One could easily argue it is government's job to protect citizens from each other and therefore must deal with the issue of drunk driving. I subscribe to this belief.

Well, there's a problem here. Alcohol really isn't mild. It's actually fairly addictive and fairly dangerous. Prohibiting drugs which are dangerous to the user and those around them makes sense if you include the prohibition of alcohol. Which, I suspect, you won't, because you watch Boardwalk Empire or are familiar with the huge rise in organized crime that the Volstead Act precipitated in your country on account of those Temperance League busy-bodies.

So how do we say that the prohibition of cocaine or heroin differs? Certainly they're more addictive, but is splitting hairs over degrees of danger the baseline for legislating against one drug but not the other? How much harm/addictiveness to a person is enough to justify the existence of cartels and other organized crime groups, the massive prison populations that drug use being criminalized requires, and the police forces required to enforce drug laws?

Meanwhile, what's the gain? People still do cocaine and heroin. Prohibition doesn't end use. It makes acquisition more difficult, but how much of an impact does that really have? If you knew you could go down to the store tomorrow and buy heroin, would you? Would any of us? In the case of Portugal, the answer is "no". Making use of these sorts of drugs legal did not seem to increase the rate of use amongst people. But, it did reduce crime, infection rates for blood-borne pathogens commonly associated with needle sharing, and so on.

Seems to me that the mandate to save people from themselves in the case of drugs actually causes much more harm than good.

[Baneblade]

Marijuana is a waste of our time and resources. It being illegal creates far mor severe and numerous problems than it solves.

[Warborn]

Look at the four of us all agreeing on something.

Also, interesting that in the video is says California spends $50k on a given prisoner per year. In Canada, the opposition to our recently passed crime bill, Bill C-10, which makes mandatory minimum sentencing for marijuana crimes among other issues, the figure of $100k per prisoner per year was given.

Our currencies aren't that different in value, and yet we spend around twice as much per prisoner. That is an interesting disparity. Better food? More guards per prisoner? More services? I wonder what the difference is.

[Malorn]

Meh.

[Baneblade]

I dont even spend that much on myself lol.

[Hamma]

Something we can all agree on! Mark this date on the calendar.

[Baneblade]

I'm a Confederal Libertarian, which I just coined.

Basically I'm for ultra limited government (basically only military and the most basic social programs) where the biggest concentrations are at the municiple, county, and state levels.