From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri Feb 15 2002 - 21:37:10 MST
Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
>>AMEN. And again, there are many users of many different
>>substance who are in no way "addicts", so using this language is
>>negatively polarizing of issues of human freedom. Hell, you can
>>have everything you own seized by forfeiture laws if one joint
>>is found on the premises. I defy anyone to tell me how that
>>makes any sense or how someone occassionally smoking pot (or
>>firing up at the end of the workday for that matter) can be
>>equated with being a junkie.
>>
>
> I have repeatedly said that a) I distinguish between users and addicts,
> and b) I don't think that forfeiture laws are particularly well written
> or executed to perform the job they are intended to do. So please don't
> assume that I think otherwise. Nor do I think the way forfeiture is
> practiced reflects very well with the way I've described it SHOULD work.
>
Granted.
> However, there is a very salient point to be made about indirect
> consequences. I am reminded of the latest anti-drug public service ads
> on tv these days, illustrating that drug profits are the largest source
> of income for terrorist organizations. Whether you are dealing with left
> or right wing terrorists in Columbia as well as the rest of latin
> america, or with heroin profits funding al Qaeda and other islamist
> groups, the money a drug user spends funds the violence directed at
> innocent people.
>
I find it interesting that a lot of the shadiest dealings of our
own government (CIA especially) were funded illicitly with drug
money. Run a latter day prohibition to jack up the price and
simultaneously erode the freedom of the populace while
increasing the power of governemnt AND profit from the higher
prices to fund yet more black ops. Very tidy. And not to be
blamed on the addict principally if you ask me.
> Now, it's obvious that legalization would likely mitigate a good share
> of this funneling, if only by the effects of reduced prices and taxation
> of profits.
Yes. And better controls with far less erosion of freedom.
>
> Be that as it may, given the current state of affairs in the world, the
> best thing a drug user could do today to do their patriotic share is to
> cut back or quit for the duration, to help deny these funds to the
> enemy. If demand drops, prices and profits will too, and terrorist
> groups will have to find other ways to fund their activities.
>
The best thing anyone can do, drug addict, user or utterly
sober, and by far the most patriotic, is to oppose this bloated
monster pretending to be our government with everything at our
disposal. I fear it far more than terrorists of the
non-domestic governmental kind.
- samantha
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