http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7044115.stm & http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7038552.stm

In the report Mr Brunstrom wrote: "If policy on drugs is in future to be pragmatic not moralistic, driven by ethics not dogma, then the current prohibitionist stance will have to be swept away as both unworkable and immoral....

"Such a strategy leads inevitably to the legalisation and regulation of all drugs".

I'm impressed :)

I'm convinced that the War on Drugs in America is largely a result of illegal drug syndicates bribing officials to keep drugs illegal.

It sounds counterintuitive, but if you think about it...  the illegality of drugs is the only real thing that makes them so profitable.  If they were legal and regulated, they would be cheaper, and kids would find it much harder to get them.

you should hear the 'conspiracy theories' about the war in afghanistan.

check it.

afghanistan is the biggest opium-poppy producer in the world, as we all know. opium makes the country go round. so... a radical islamic party, the taliban, rises to power, they get a cush-cush trip to texas in the late 90s to talk about making some oil deals... then they get a bug up their noses and decide to outlaw the poppy fields... presto! there's a war in afghanistan and the taliban are deposed. following this, the country starts exporting bumper crops in opium, the biggest in their history, evidently. and the US military is helpless to stop it.

what would have happened to the global economy if the taliban had been enduringly successful in curbing opium production in afghanistan is not entirely clear. but i've read it argued, rather convincingly, that the vast exchange of monies that the opium/heroin trade enables is essential to the modern economy, without it no one's sure what would happen, the ripple effects would be unpredictable.

i dunno, the more i learn about the vicissitudes of global politics, the more i like my dog.

The more I learn about global politics, the more I wonder if a nuclear holocaust is such a bad thing....

That's an interesting idea.  I think I may have heard a little about that before, but I'll need to look into it more.  So far, it sounds like it makes sense.

The more I learn about global politics, the more I wonder if a nuclear holocaust is such a bad thing....

That's an interesting idea.  I think I may have heard a little about that before, but I'll need to look into it more.  So far, it sounds like it makes sense.
there's a school of philosophical thought that says that the purpose of the human race is to so soil the globe as to preclude the prospect of any species like humanity ever appearing on earth again. i find that idea a hair cynical but i can see where people might believe it. the human race has totally got big big problems, mayng.

i dunno, the more i learn about the vicissitudes of global politics, the more i like my dog.

Opium puppies?

I'm convinced that the War on Drugs in America is largely a result of illegal drug syndicates bribing officials to keep drugs illegal.

It sounds counterintuitive, but if you think about it...  the illegality of drugs is the only real thing that makes them so profitable.  If they were legal and regulated, they would be cheaper, and kids would find it much harder to get them.


The original bans on drugs were all racially based: we must stop those negroes from mass raping white women while under the influence of cocaine (not my words: they are paraphrased from turn of the century Southern abolishionists - retarded, isn't it?).

Now the war on drugs is based on several things. It is still racially based (see the differences in sentencing between cocaine and crack), but it is much wider reaching than that. The main thing I see is the attempt to legislate perceived morality, an utterly futile and moronic thing to do.

The mark up on drugs is so high that it doesn't matter if 100% of our tax dollars went to fighting illegal drug manufacture and use: it's still going to happen, that is, unless we nuke about 10 countries off the face of the planet and impose martial law across America. In other words, it's never going to happen.

I don't think that there has been a single year from 1970 until now that funding for the 'war on drugs' hasn't increased (in the US). We're (everybody) is fighting a losing war, and for what reason?

The problems of drugs will not go away even if they are legalized, but I believe they will be greatly decreased.

Regulation of currently illegal drugs is not a bad idea, but criminalization of every drug offence is completely counterproductive to a functioning society.

Ant

The original bans on drugs were all racially based: we must stop those negroes from mass raping white women while under the influence of cocaine (not my words: they are paraphrased from turn of the century Southern abolishionists - retarded, isn't it?).

IIRC that was the argument against marijuana rather than cocaine - argued very succesfully with a complete absence of any evidence to back it up.  Of course, that could never happen today, could it?  </sarcasm>

IIRC that was the argument against marijuana rather than cocaine -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrd5xtyfjFw

From 17:15, especially at 21:15, to 22:15 pretty much sums it up. The video, as well as the series, is pretty good though - watch it when you get some time.

The argument has been used against opium, cocaine, marijuana, etc.


argued very succesfully with a complete absence of any evidence to back it up.  Of course, that could never happen today, could it?  </sarcasm>


:smile:

Ant

The argument has been used against opium, cocaine, marijuana, etc.

Not very inventive with their arguments, were (are) they?