Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxi!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!trsvax!ljw From: ljw@trsvax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Larry's hateful article about drugs - (nf) Message-ID: <3069@uiucdcs.UUCP> Date: Fri, 7-Oct-83 00:16:19 EDT Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3069 Posted: Fri Oct 7 00:16:19 1983 Date-Received: Mon, 3-Oct-83 05:28:52 EDT Lines: 253 #R:tekgds:-139400:trsvax:55300014:000:13600 trsvax!ljw Sep 29 15:04:00 1983 I don't understand the net at all. I submitted awhile back to net.general a question on why Bell charges a $64 fee to hook up to the phone system (General Telephone, two miles away, charges only $41), and I received NO replies, not even one mentioning that the request should have been made in net.telecom (which I didn't know exist at the time). But when I make a reply using the word "bull manure" (which is in the gardening ads, whereas "bulls*it" is not), I get quite a few letters and get accused of alot of things. One letter was from tecgds!charliep which he submitted to the net (minus what my original note was replying to). I suppose my reply to his reply should be made to the net as well. Be forewarned that you probably won't like it, but I don't care, since I'll be leaving the net (I finally got a decent paying job) this weekend. I could submit a lot of flames about my employer, but that is not my style. Anyway, back to the subject at hand, which is my view about drugs and the legislation thereof. Charlie's original article gave several supposed reasons drugs were illegal and stated that they should be legalized, with a note asking people to support his efforts of legalizing. This article was nothing more than presenting a "straw man" of reasons to support legislating against drugs. Noticibly absent were the following: 21: Because the use of drugs, much like the use of alcohol, limits your ability to react to situations on the highway, thus increased availiability caused by legalization would increase the already appalling slaughter we have on the nation's highways. 22: Because it is the use of drugs (not the legislation of drugs, as charlie implies) causes productivity in this country to decline. {A prime example is our nation's armed forces.} 23: Because there are a lot of stoned-out self-righteous windbags in this country to have no idea of the real (and proven harmful) effects of its use. [Self-rightousness, or self- justification, is a two way street, and you're just as guilty charlie as the rest of us -- it's human nature to be self- righteous]. 24: Because legalization would increase the number of people who die of overdoses, and the drug culture has already taken it's toll of people who make this world a better and more bearable place to live (John Beluishi, Janis Joplin, etc.) I could go on, but you get my point -- there are two sides to every question, including the legalization of drugs and the elimination of other so-called victimless crimes (an aside: tell a prostitute under the control of a merci- less pimp how she is not really a victim). In case you're wondering, yes, I have tried drugs while in college, and I don't see why everyone is so gung ho about them that they would want to steal my possessions, or why they like it so much that they would kill hp-kirk!jimd's two very best friends for not recruiting more customers. (Of course, that was ten years ago; maybe drugs have improved since then, but I doubt it). I certainly did not get enough of a high to say "this high is worth the risk of possibly dying of an overdose sometime in future", or "this high is worth the possibility of spending time in jail" or "this high is worth the chemical imbalances it will bring to my body". Maybe your highs are different, or maybe you don't prize your life as much as I did. I too was searching for the joy that most people seek when they begin using drugs (I know some people start as a result of peer pressure, but this wasn't a factor for me), but I gave up on drugs (mostly marijuana, with an occasional sniff of cocaine -- I refused to try heroin due to my fear of needles) as the answer after trying them for about four months my freshman year. Later that year, though, I did discover a high that brought me true joy, more than I had ever experienced while using drugs. I discovered what it meant to be a new creation. It may be a trite statement, and you may not agree with it at the present time, but (for me), the answer is Jesus Christ. (I could go on more about what Jesus has done for me through the years, but this is not net.religion. If you want to know more about new life through Jesus Christ, there are people on the net who would be glad to tell you -- you can get their address from any pro-Christian article in net.religion). The following is my reply to uiucdcs!mcewan's reply to hp-kirk!jimd's reply to charlie's original straw-man. This is followed by charlie's reply to me (left-justified) intersperced with my reply (indented). Let's see, that makes it my reply to charlie's reply to my reply to mcewan's reply to jimd's reply to charlie's article (which I think was a reply itself, judging from the beginning of it) -- Ain't the net wonderful. ---------- Bull manure, the only reason that scum *LIKE THIS* sell drugs is that it makes them a lot of money! If legalizing drugs is the ONLY way to put these people out of business, how do you explain the existance of organized crime in Nevada and Atlantic City. After all, those people are supposed to leave when gambling is legalized, at least according to your logic. Not on your life. Show me one incident where scum didn't *increase* when vices were legalized. The exis- tense of scum is one reason why harmful drugs should NOT be legalized. ... (microsoft|ctvax|laidbak)!trsvax!ljw (Larry J. West) ---------- First of all, it takes a lot of imagination to classify drug users as scum (you don't even know me!). Second of all, even classifying drug vendors as scum is a stupid generalization. I don't think it is a stupid generalization to classify someone whose main way of making money is to try to get you to ruin your body with chemicals that have been proven to be harmful, and who will force you at the point of death to do it, as "scum". I would have used a stronger word -- scum is the word hp-kirk!jimd used. Also, where do you get the idea that I classify all drug users as scum. I never said that. They may just be misled and unwise. Or like I was, they may just be seeking to have a good time, although I believe they are seeking in the wrong place. I think some people take a lot of pride in selling only the finest marijuana, hashish, etc; moreover, they spend time cleaning and preparing their goods just as any fine retailer would. I think there are probably a few white-slavers who take pride in selling only the finest women and spend time cleaning and preparing their goods just as any fine retailer would. Does that make it right? The fact that most drug dealers know that drugs are harmful to your body show that they do not have the customers' best interest at heart. (Note: I have the same "hate" {I would have used the term "extreme lack of respect"} for those who sell alcohol to alcoholics.) Lastly, I would think that even the most hard-boiled Nazi would compare drug regulation with alcohol and cigarette regulation instead of gambling and prostitution. Ah, yes! If you can't attack the merits of someone's arguments, say that it is similar to the Nazis or the Moral Majority and consider yourself victorious. No way, Jose. I'll be glad for the day when people stop bringing in "Nazis" or the "Moral Majority" or "secular humanists" into their arguments and think that they have done something to support their cause. I agree with you though that drug regulation should be compared with alcohol and cigarette regulations as well. By the way, the Nazis did not have the interest of the people (espe- cially Jewish people) at heart when they made up their laws. Most drug, alcohol, prostitution, etc. laws were made due to the fact that there were some people that didn't have the best interests of people at heart. The government, to some extent, did, although this is no longer true. I think, however, that there are already appropriate laws that could be enforced to clean the "scum" out of gambling and prositution. If those careers were not already so infested with criminal influences before they were legalized, I believe the situation would be remarkably different. Why give the criminal element a leg to stand on? If I read you right, you're implying that we should legalize drug use now, before the criminal element gets involved, because when something that was illegal gets legalized, the criminal influences are so infested that they can't be removed. I got news for you -- the criminal element is already involved in drug sales. I do not know why we should give the criminal element the same "legs to stand on" in the sales of harmful drugs that we do in gambling, prostitution, or alcohol. Try to convince anyone that there were more bootleggers after the Prohibition era than during! Did you know that according to a liquor journal that one fifth of the hard liquor sold in the year 1957 was illegal, that is, bootlegged for the purpose of avoiding paying the high taxes? (Tap and Tavern, Sept. 29, 1958), and that the "take" in the state of Massachusetts alone was over one billion (1957) dollars! I wish I had access to later figures, but they don't keep them any more (perhaps out of embarrassment to the high figures). Very few bootleggers get caught not because there are less of them, but because they've been doing it so long that they've gotten proficient at it. There were bootleggers before (28 states already were "dry" when prohibition when into effect) and after prohibition. During prohibition, newspapers played up the racketeers, and the liquor forces did their utmost to encourage this publicity. Now, the racketeers are more numberous and the amount they make is much more. (I bet you didn't think I'd take you on regarding that statement.) I bet you also didn't know that prohibition worked. Those who say it didn't are very much mistaken. Charles W. Eliot, a former president of Harvard University (thus obviously not your typical dumb pro-prohibitionist that the media portrays) once said: "Evidence has accumulated on every hand that Prohibition has promoted public health, public happiness, and industrial efficiency. These results are obtained in spite of imperfect enforcement. This testimony also demonstrates beyond a doubt that prohibition is actually sapping the terrible force of disease, poverty, crime, and vice." During prohibition, drunkenness was down, juvenile delinquncy was down, and I bet that deaths due to drunk driving were down (relative to percentage of accidents) too. The country, I feel, made a mistake in lifting prohibition (boy will I get flames on that, but that's okay -- Friday is my last day with present company, and my new employer is not connected to the net, so any nasty letters won't get to me). If were to lift the prohibition on drugs I predict the following would happen: 1. Initially, the price would go down due to the fact that shipment costs would be less as drug sellers would not have to worry about the police (although the police would soon figure out some way to get their bribe money restored to them). This may or may not result in less items being stolen due the fact that the machinery for fencing stolen merchandise is not about to be dismantled by the criminal elements that make money off of it. They'll find something else. Traffic accidents would increase, as would murders (I'm told 64% involve alcohol misuse, think of the increase another substance would cause), assaults (41% due to alcohol alone), forcible rapes (34%), etc. 2. More people will get hooked/addicted on drugs due to increase availability and the advertising done by drug sellers. One tobacco company already has trademarked the term "Acapulco Gold" for instance and would probably put many "mom-and-pop" drug dealers out of business. Advertisers will tell how much drugs will help you forget about your problems, resulting in less problems being solved, which would cause more problems, which would lead more people to escapism through drugs, etc. 3. Soon, prices would rise again since those involved in the industry would have a captive audience would be forced to fork over the extra money, or go through the pain of with- drawls. Has anyone noticed that as soon as the tobacco industry realized that smokers would pay $6.00 for a tube of smokers toothpaste, that they started raising cigarette prices at a rate over three times the inflation rate? Expect the same inflation rate in drug prices. If the fencing elements failed in their effort to continue the high rate of theivery, expect an increase in thefts to the present level, if not more. It seems obvious to me that your point about the the ominous increase of "scum" can only be taken to mean that you wouold support the legislation of (your) morality. You scare me. Why shouldn't I support "Legislation of my morality" -- you support legislation of yours. Anyway, I feel that when you compare the good that drugs do with the bad that drugs do, I feel it is to the betterment of the country that drugs (yes, including alcohol) be eliminated as much as possible. Then people like hp-kirk!jimd and myself won't lose friends due to the effects of drugs, people who make the world a better place to live. [Sorry this is so long -- I couldn't figure out a good place to edit it shorter.] Larry J. West, formerly known as trsvax!ljw