On Eric Olsen's recent entry, "The Song, Not the Singer: Bush on the War", Jim Carruthers left the following comment:…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
The War on Drugs or the War on Terror: Which would you choose? - Comments Page 3
On Eric Olsen's recent entry, "The Song, Not the Singer: Bush on the War", Jim Carruthers left the following comment:…
Article comments
76 - Natalie Davis
I take it Roger has missed the new edict forbidding insulting BCs and visitors to this site.
77 - Chris Kent
Natalie, from here on out I shall refer to you as "Blogcritics Social Cop." I shall tie a nice pink bow for you to wear.....
78 - Roger
About #75, I get this video and pics as a part of my work. That is typically what is expected from a PI. Most of the stuff is in the hands of Attorneys.
Further there is nothing for crank heads or cocaine addicts like Methadone for opiate addicts. As far as the Europeon countries, please like me to so info. I'd really be interested in checking out their protcols for handling addicts.
Sorry Natalie but I was just stating a fact. Quit crying over what you interprut as an insult.
79 - Mark Edward Manning
Wow, I finally snagged me a Prohibitionist!
Roger, perhaps if you'd troubled to read any of my other comments and entries, you'd find that I was pro-Iraq War, pro-W.o.T, pro-Bush, and pro-America. In other words, I'm not the burned-out, weed-smoking hippy you have interpreted me as - you presumptious, insulting jackass (sorry, Natalie and Eric. Had to be said).
Do you care to explain why it's OK to get drunk - for alcohol to be legal and to buy and drink as much of it as we like - but not to purchase marijuana as you can do in any coffeeshop in the Netherlands?
The legalization of harder drugs is actually a grey area for me. I realize the deadly, life-shattering potential of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, et al. But, if we took Holland's experiment with soft drugs, we can see that it works: Dutch law enforcement is free to tackle the harder drugs.
Boomcrashbaby and Chris Kent are right: We just want to lock drug users up and throw away the key. When you get sent to jail for ten years for possession of a lousy gram of marijuana, and watch rapists, pedophiles, muggers get release long before you, there IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE SYSTEM! (And I say this as a very law-and-order type of guy.)
I have no sympathy for dealers. They are criminals. But if we legalized marijuana, tossing that out of the equation, that would take a huge chunk of the dealers' black market, and we could concentrate, as Holland does, on tackling harder drugs.
I still believe giving treatment to hard drug users, legally, is the best solution.
Bill Buckley and Rich Lowry, both of them prominent conservatives, agree with me. But I suppose they're just burned-out, weed-smoking hippies with their heads up their asses too, eh, Roger?
You can take your prohibitionist, punish-drug-users-to-the-max attitudes and preach it to someone stupid enough to take it seriously. You will get absolutely no quarter from me. This phoney "War on Drugs" is bullshit - always has been, always will be, and has destroyed far more lives than drugs themselves ever did.
80 - Roger
I'm sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way Mark. Weed isn't the problem. I smoked for a number of years and slowly grew tired of it. I agree on the alcohol issue. It is ten times as deadly as pot for the user and non user. It is the other I have problems with.
My family, friends and myself have had numerous problems with theiving, criminal addicts. Further I work as an Independent PI in mostly child custody and domestic matters. Based on all of my experiences personal,and professional (which is probably more than all of the regulars on here put together)unfortunately at least 70% of all speed and opiate addicts are hopeless. Not as people,but the fact that their lives have deteriorated to the point they have been through treatment time and again and still continue.
I'm sorry but I have no compassion for a woman who leaves a 6, 8, and 12 year old in bed alone at 4am while she waits n line to get her fix. Further it isn't very productive to a childs learning ability to get up that early with mom and then go to school at 8am.
I'll say this as well. Whethter it has been a custody battle due to a drug addicted parent, or a spouse spending $200.00 a day on meth (crank), there is a 90% success rate with my clients due to the evidence I've gathered.
Maybe sometime when I know such a court hearing is taking place you can come and present the Judge with your findings along with your portfolio and slidshow on the "Great European Way to treat Addicts.
81 - Roger
Info please! Someone please post some ligit links to the European way of treating Opiate and Methamphetamine addicts, and the ways the addict criminals are handled! Got some info Mark?
82 - boomcrashbaby
Roger, here's some good places to start from the Euro MethNetwork. Keep in mind, I said I don't know if it was a success or not, so am not sure what you are about to delve into, but would be interested to know what you think of their alternatives to treating addicts as criminals.
source 1
source 2
83 - Roger
I appreciate the effort but as I stated above I am very familiar with Methadone treatment. In fact this so called "European protocol is no different than the US version. 60mg to 120mg daily is standard.
What do you do when these people are stabalized from the severe withdrwals and start seeking the "high or head buzz" again?
Enter Methamphetamine!!!
Give me a proven treatment for that and the "dual user".
84 - Roger
Besides, that 1995 looking web-site/page looked less than professional. That type of page could be put together in under an hour.
I want to see a professional site put together by European Countries and / or government.
Put up or shut up!!!
85 - Natalie Davis
BCB, I recommend not wasting your valuable time and effort. What's the point? Just agree to disagree and do something that is actually productive and likely to produce positive change.
86 - Roger
I'm sorry Natalie but I personally know people in a drug addicted compromising situation. All I want is information. Legit info! Got a problem with that?
87 - Mark Edward Manning
Roger, if I come across any info., I will gladly let you have it. I am not an expert on European solutions to treating addicts and I have not pretended to be.
I believe what I believe: and that is, treating is better than jail. America is a safe nation for all the prisons we build, but why stuff them with drug users? That's why we have overcrowding.
As conservative as I am, I just simply believe in showing compassion towards drug users. Here's the thing: I admire anyone who can turn down a drug, for the same reason that I respect one who doesn't drink. I have never smoked tobacco, for which I have respect for myself. Drugs can be bad and harmful and no-one should do them. However, I don't want the government treating me as badly as a murderer simply because I stupidly got addicted to heroin or meth. I'm not a liberal softie, but I do take the American approach and attitude to drugs seriously and think it needs another, and far fresher, look. I do tend to side with liberals and libertarians on the drug issue.
When I get some info, Roger, I'll e-mail you some. Right now, I only write from my beliefs and an inherited Buckleyite philosophy. And thanks for the apology.
88 - Natalie Davis
I reiterate my statement to BCB.
89 - boomcrashbaby
I hear you Natalie. Basically the War On Drugs isn't my beef, so I don't know the best way to fight it, nor do I have links. I do know other countries have tried other means, but haven't cared enough to research any deeper than that. My plate is already full. Basically, I spoke up though because I do agree with the original comment by MEM at the very top of this thread that what we do have in place already is a failure. One doesn't have to do any research to see that. From the addict to the taxpayer, we all lose.
90 - Roger
I think some people see drug dealers and addicts as one in the same. It is the dealers and trafficers that are getting 10, 20 and even life.
I currently know five severly drug addicted people. None of them have been in jail for no longer than 90 days, and that wasn't for drug usage. It was for a crime commited while under the influence of a narcotic.
All have been in extensive inpatient treatment centers no less than four times and one as many as six. Some at the taxpayers expense.
I just don't think it is fair to say people are being housed in prison just because they are drug addicted. In my line of work as well as my personal life I have been aquainted with around 35 to 40 addicts, all have commited at least two or more crimes.
Damn, it's like meth labs are popping up like ant hills all over the US. That is addiction and a crime rolled in to one. What the hell do you do?
91 - Mark Edward Manning
Roger, the government has already taken a step toward trying to crack down on the meth problem by putting pseudoephedrine-containing cold medicines behind the counter. Sudafed and similar products can now be purchased one box at a time. Though I was very annoyed and affronted by this at first, I can now see the point. In England, you can only get pseudoephedrine from behind the counter, and the same with codeine-containing medicines in France: Behind the counter and only one box per purchase.
I'm not saying this is an instant problem solver, but it's a start.
92 - Roger
In the states I've recently traveled you could easily get more than one box. Certainly if you had a buggy full that would be a red flag.
The troubling thing is that there are numerous ways to make it. They first banned the regular ephedrine because that was the easiest way to make it.
There are several ways to cook that shit, one is using Drain-O. I think it turns out greenish and is called "Christmas Tree" meth.
When I was in high school a little weed was all we did. Now it's Ecxtasy and now dextromethorphan.
93 - boomcrashbaby
I think by removing the chemicals needed to make a certain drug, from society, will only lead to the black market creating yet another drug.
Drugs are a high. And I believe a high is an attempt to escape from reality. Perhaps the best way to fight the war is to study the reason why more and more people feel the need to escape from reality. Trying to stop each method as it crops up sounds like a losing battle to me.
94 - Mark Edward Manning
BCB: Drugs are a high. And I believe a high is an attempt to escape from reality. Perhaps the best way to fight the war is to study the reason why more and more people feel the need to escape from reality.
Too true, Boom, too true. That is the very essence of why people do drugs.
Roger: When I was in high school a little weed was all we did. Now it's Ecxtasy and now dextromethorphan.
I hear you, Roger. People chug down bottles of Robitussin for the DMX, which has hallucinogenic properties similar to those of acid. We cannot ban every chemical under the sun, however, in the attempt to keep illegal drug manufacturing from occurring (as with meth). Whether we favor the War on Drugs or not, I think we can all agree with your sentiment about recreational drugs in that they seem to have gotten much harder.