Tomorrow afternoon on bFM's 'The Wire,' Russell Brown, Nandor Tanczos and Dr Richard Goode will be discussing Libertarianz's cannabis policy -- released today -- the Libz drug policies in general, and the various wrong, hallucinatory, and frankly bizarre utterances on the subject by Peter Dunce's Benighted Future Party.People outside Auckland can listen in here.
[UPDATE: Readers and comments-people might wish to read my earlier Cue Card Libertarianism -- Drugs piece in order to confirm that, yes, we do mean it and yes, legalisation is both practical and principled.]
24 comments:
do Libertarianz want to legalize P??
'P' is a $168 million industry that is presently controlled by organised criminals and corrupt policemen. Libz want to get crooks away from this kind of lucre by legalising the industry. Libz want to have policemen on the hunt for real crimes with real victims, not victimless crimes in which the police get to do us over for our own good.
Libz recognise that you can't even keep drugs out of prisons, so how on earth can you keep them out of people's homes. Prohibition simply criminalises the otherwise honest, ties up valuable police time, and puts profits in the hands of criminals and corrupt policemen.
So the short answer to your question, Anonymous, is yes, we do.
i would hardly regard P a victimless crime.
look at the results- the rsa shootings, asb shooting etc.
legalisation would cause an increase in use.
i'm all for legalisation of marijuana etc, but P is a terrible drug with huge social ramifications.
will we see a libertarianz billboard-
LEGALIZE P - VOTE LIBERTARIANZ?
Do you regard P as being responsible for the RSA shootings? Personally I regard this as a failure of the justice system; William Bell had a long history of crime and assault and should not have been on the streets. Was he on P? Yes. Would he have killed the people at the RSA anyway? Probably (Its impossible to say, although it is nearly certain he would still be continuing his criminal behaviour today were he not in prison).
Similar scenario with Coral Burroughs (not sure about her spelling). When her stepfather killer her he was on P also. He also had more than 80 convictions under his belt, many for assault.
P is an unsavoury drug, you won't get an arguement about that from me, although I'd rather see it legalised for the same reason PC does. But making P a scapegoat for the justice system evades the real issue.
I did a bit of math recently, and counted about 6 murders attributable to P since the beginning of the millenium. With murders happening on a nearly daily basis in NZ, blaming P for murderous killing sprees is a cop out.
Obviously anybody operating firearms or vehicles in the vicinity of others while under the influence of mind altering chemicals - alcohol included - is guilty of threatening behaviour, possibly even attempted murder. The latter two are proper crimes that will be pursued legitimately by the Police.
All drugs cannot be legalised until a Libertarian Society is rung in. Until then MY TAXES are paying for others bad lifestyle choices by way of welfare, rehab etc.... The entire welfare state needs to be overturned b4 you can talk about legalising drugs like P. Those 'Libertarians' who say otherwise just want to do what they like without fear of prosecution.
It's precisely because it is having such a terrible effect on New Zealand society that we must legalise it.
Nearly all crimes committed by P users have financial motivations primarily. Take these away through legalisation and the amount of crime fueled directly by being high would be minimal by comparison to those committed by drunks, since P's main hazard stems from sleep deprivation.
Legal suppliers of P would have a vested interest in education of users for the sake of their public image, and fewer people would abuse it or combine it with other drugs.
does (or has) this "Libertarian Society" exist anywhere?
The problem with people like Ruth is that it becomes impossible to take any single step toward a more liberal (read "libertarian" if you insist on speaking American) society, because "MY TAXES are being used ..."
I'm all for "pushing the button", as Leonard Read put it, but in reality no such button exists: the only way to achieve a more liberal society is by taking (many) distinct steps toward that goal. And that means, as one example, legalising drugs under exactly the circumstances Ruth claims "cannot be done" [of course it can be done. It was done re: alcohol in the US in 1933]
Another thing - Libs seem to think that if drugs are legalised we will all be happy clappy - people will still steal, rob,& bash to get money to buy drugs folks. And there will still be dealers ~ market forces of supply and demand.Most importantly MY TAXES will be paying for even more deadshits. Libs are full of shit about this issue.
Ruth says "people will still steal, rob,& bash to get money to buy drugs folks"
Yes, yes they do. And they do it right now under prohibition. Would legalisation ease the problem? Worked with alcohol.
so am i right in saying
LEGALIZE P - VOTE LIBERTARIANZ ????
when will we see the billboard?
it'll get you tonnes of publicity no doubt
... Anon, are you a philosophy student or some-such...?
unfortunately i'm a little old!
LEGALISING P
Why?!?!? are you guys nuts? making it legal isnt going to make the social ramifications just vanish. Just because it is legal, doenst make people instantly give up what has probably been their whole life of burglary and violence to fuel their drug habits.
Vote libz for a screwed up government... I'm with Ruth on this one
How come it is that in this country of ours where we continually throw time and resources against the problem of drugs... that the drug problem gets worse?
Traditionally when someone is involved in a vices such as marijuana and opium for example when these substances were legalised, the cost was only to the individual. But as the War-on-drugs(tm) has excalated, crime has risen as such drugs have been taken over by gangs and the black-market. The war on drugs hasn't stopped the drug-dealer down the road from hanging around secondary schools to sell his junk, it seems to have encouraged them. The gangs sell the product for however much they like, and can coerce or abuse the custom to the point where some customers have debts and are required to steal to make up these debts.
Better to leave drugs on the open market where they have a more realistic value and law-abiding vendors. Continued prohibition is just going to lead to a continuation and worsening of the problems we already face today.
If you want to see what legal drugs look like go to one of the government heroin shooting rooms in Canada. Look at all the zombies on the streets around it.
Meth turns people into something out of the "Night of the Living Dead". It makes people violent and paranoid. These people would be climbing the walls and killing each other even if no cop ever crossed their path. Even if crack were legal and sold for a dollar a hit the addicts would be out bashing people over the head for it.
Almost ALL actions a person takes have an effect on others. This is where Libertarian thought falls down. Unless you live in a shack in the middle of the wilderness, it's never a cut and dried case of "Personal Freedom".
So what solution do you offer for the Drug problem Ruth?
So just because prohibition doesn't work completely we should legalize it?
Hey, radiotherapy doesn't work completely on cancer, let's just give that up too!
Damn, I knew you were a philosophy student.
The difference between prohibition and radiotherapy is...
Prohibition makes things *worse* and encourages crime and gang activity.
Radiotherapy (I'm not pretending to be a doctor here) has some effect on fighting cancer, although the side-effects can be rather nasty.
Come to think of it, I don't think you can realistically compare radiotherapy and prohibition.
Maybe radiotherapy would be better compared to prohibition if radiotherapy didn't work, aggrevated the patients condition and made the gang element wealthy.
Anon2, you suggest that we're nuts, solely on the basis that a measure we propose isn't (so you claim) going to alleviate one particular problem that you are fixated on. That's not grounds to declare we're insane.
We should end drug prohibtion, not because drug prohibition doesn't "work", but because drug prohibition is morally wrong. Not only is it the worst kind of government interference in people's lives, it's not even in the public good.
Damon Machiavelli, who was convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine for his own use, would still be alive today if he'd been left alone. Instead, he hung himself after his probation officer allegedly told him that he was definitely going to jail for his so-called "crime" and could expect to be raped because he was a pretty boy. He is survived by his wife and his 1 year-old and 4 year-old children.
Libz say, leave drug users alone. It's not a big ask.
That cue card just proves your drug policy is the capering of conceited fools and losers. Your knowledge of drugs is woeful at best, and advocating legalising heroin et al is despicable and irresponsible. Why don't you tell us how drugs are 'victimless'?
Stick to writing about things you actually know something about.
ok the ho come crime in the 19th century was a hell of a lot lower everywhere when drugs were all legal.
most of the hype about drugs causing crime by the chemical effects is histeria to justify prohibition.case in point on the front page of the herald was an armed robbery carried out by a pistol weilding robber and the claim was that it was caused by p.you know usual hype but this obviously was a very pre medetated crime because it would have required premedatation to obtain the pistol which would be hard to come by.
the outlandish hype proposes that normal everyday joe bloggs holding down a job takes drugs then through the chemical effects of taking the drug goes out and robs a bank.tell me what known chemical can command somebody to undertake the coplecated task of aquiring a gun then planning a robbery of a bank pizza joint rsa whatever.
on closer inspection all of these thugs have a long history of crime.
are we to supose they were on p for all of the long list of crimes they commited.
im sure there is truth in the claim that drugs increase violence just as alcohol increases the chance of getting in a bar room brawl.but to claim that all the "drug related crimes"are the product of just the random chemical effects of intoxicants is rediculous the shoud be refered to correctly as "drug law related crimes"
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