A matter of degree
Interesting thread, but I have to bring up a couple of points. Apparently some people think that drug users only use drugs to get wacked out of their minds. Some do, but many use drugs just like most people use alcohol, just to get a "buzz", a slightly enhanced sensation. I have known a number of drinkers, and drug users, and combinations of the two. Some people handle them well enough to lead 'normal productive lives", and some don't.
It is tragic when someone destroys their life by substance abuse. Bad for them, bad for the people who care about them. But to me, it is a worse tragedy when someone has their life ruined because they get caught in the system, when all they are doing is trying to enjoy themselves.
I'm not talking about the people who do irresposible things like driving impaired, or reprehensible things, like robbery and assault, but the people who are not harming anyone else, being sent to jail, or even sometimes killed for the tremendous "crime" of having a forbidden plant, or a few ounces of a prohibited chemical.
It is especially irksome to me, to see that, inspite of the lofty ideals, and all the good intentions that prohibit these things to people, how often the system fails to help those who need it, and punishes those who don't.
I have personally seen people living on welfare, who dealt drugs for their spending money. They also had a couple of small children. They lived in a house the government paid for. They got busted. Their children were taken away. What happend to these destroyers of the fabric of society? Within TWO WEEKS, they were back in their house (that we pay for), dealing drugs again, and within a month, their children had been returned to them.
In another case of which I have personal knowledge, a couple lived a modest middle class life, three small kids, husband worked steadily, but like to drink. He never got in trouble for drunk driving, or drunk in public, but did ocasionally have loud arguments with his wife. A "concerned councilor" at the children's school got one of the children to make some statements about the arguments, and then had social services take the children from the home. Because the husband refused to attend (and pay for) the counciling he "needed" for his "drinking problem", the children spent several years being bounced from one foster home to another, the marriage failed, lives wrecked.
System failures. Tragedies. I know the system has its' successes, but I am coming to the point where I cannot but wonder if the price we are paying for them is higher than the cost of doing something else.
My personal view runs basically, "and ye harm no one, do as ye will". I don't think it is right for anyone else to make my decisions for me. I want to make my own decisions, and I will accept the cost of my mistakes. I don't care what you do for entertainment, if you are not hurting anyone else. If you are hurting yourself, that to me is your choice. You have free will, if you use it badly, it is you that should pay the price.
Remember, your right to do what you want stops at the end of my nose. I am sick of people who think they have the right to control everyone else, for their own good, because of the cost to society, or whatever. I think it is just wrong. If you harm some one else, then you have violated their rights, and for that, punishment is appropriate. Other wise, let me live the way I want, own what I want, believe (or not) what I want. And you do the same. As long as you neither cause me pain, or cost my money, why should I care.
As for the other point, ALL the illegal drugs were at one time legal.
