That's a strained pair of analogies if I've ever seen any. You're making it seem as if the people performing violent crime to get money for another hit or back their drug ring in some way or other are completely without consent in this matter, much like an animal directed to a purpose it can't grasp intellectually, or a child unable to protect one's self from abuse. This, frankly, is insulting to those in legal and/or medical problems due to drugs because it assumes them completely powerless and irresponsible and exonerating them of all blame, and insulting to victims of abuse because the analogy trivializes their ordeal.
Perhaps you should take a breath and try to understand the analogy before refuting it? Because you didn't seem to understand it in the slightest. I will spell it out for you: In the child example, taking drugs = missing bedtime. It is a decision made by someone. The government responds by "hitting them in the head with a hammer" AKA ruining their lives either forever or for quite a long time. Once we've missed our bedtime, once we've made that mistake, we ARE completely powerless to prevent the government from abusing us, ostensibly for our own good. Because we "might" have done something bad while staying up late. Even though most people who stay up late a couple of times end up turning into perfectly fine adults with no lingering negative effects.
And the dog analogy was about the
mindset expressed - the mindset that forms the core of violent racism and prejudice time and again. Saying its okay to hurt people because someone that is in some way
like them did something you don't like, someone who is, in fact, NOT them, and did not do the thing that made the other person bad, is a
dick move. Yes, a person has a choice whether or not to "be a dog" in this situation , but here's the thing - most dogs are not bad animals! Being a dog isn't actually implicitly a bad thing! I am not saying people are animals - I am saying that being okay with all animals of some type being hurt and tortured against their will simply because a different animal once hurt you is
fucked up.
The "abuse" most drug users suffer in this analogy is not the
drug, it's YOU, and society, and specifically the government. And you don't even HAVE to "miss your bedtime" to endure those hammer blows, since the government has a wee bit of an accuracy problem when it starts swinging, in case you haven't noticed.
The rest of your replies are nearly as worthless.
The idea of the war on drugs is to try to dismantle the massive organized crime institutions that have been formed through drug distribution and ancillary crimes.
The war on drugs
created these criminal organizations. They literally could not exist without it. The rest of your your point here rests on this completely unsupported statement, so I will ignore it except to comment on
The fact that someone gets mangled by the gears is of little importance in the short run.
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I would imagine it is of significant importance to those getting mangled. You may think the end result is worth it, and I might accept that, but to think that people's lives, the lives of real people, are "of little importance"? That makes a heartless fucking bastard in my book. If you aren't trying to help people, if you don't care about them because people are "of little importance", what exactly is the point of opposing drugs to begin with?
Secondly.
Legalizing it would be a message that it's okay to experiment with high risk drugs and get addicted and/or catch AIDS/Hep C/god-knows-what-else,
We could just legalize the low risk drugs like pot/lsd/ecstasy/mescaline though, right? You'd be fine with that?
because even if the state takes a monopoly on it, it'll still be cheaper to buy from back-alley dealers because they have lower production, transport and distribution costs and can undercut the state-backed competition.
Can you give an example of where this happens? Because the state-controlled drug distribution system for alcohol in New Hampshire begs to differ, on account of how it drove the vast majority of the previously problematic bootleggers out of business.
If it's a law, and it doesn't unjustifiably limit your freedoms, you fucking obey it, as silly, ridiculous, or pointless as it may seem at first glance.
Something being a law doesn't make it good. Slaver was the
law, you know. And I know, I know, you attempt to throw out the ridiculous bullshit of "it doesn't unjustifiably limit your freedoms", except, of course, that it
does, and it was completely 100%
intended to. Slavery had a far better set of justifications than the drug war ever did, but we still decided THAT was bullshit. Meanwhile, pot and LSD, at least, were made illegal for pretty much the sole purpose of suppressing cultural movements. If that's not unjustifiably limiting freedoms, you've got a very narrow opinion of freedom. And you've not exactly provided a justification for the drug laws, so I'm pretty sure they currently
The moment you willingly disobey a law, even doing it as a political statement, you do so at your own expense, fully knowing the consequences. If you're not willing to accept those consequences, how'bout, say... not breaking the law?
Presumably for the reasons anyone ever breaks the law - because the likely consequences are perceived to be worth the likely risk. I think the more important consideration here is that for most laws, there is a moral consideration preventing people from doing the activity anyway - for drugs, that factor doesn't exist. Drugs have a variety of clear benefits - you're probably not going to become a successful all-star athlete without breaking a couple laws, for example - it's expected of you. You might be stymied in your quest for spiritual enlightenment or even "mere" social acceptance. It's easy to see how one could justify breaking the law. Now how do you justify enforcing it, and pushing people into a hell that is likely to make their poor decision's consequences far worse, encourage future poor decisions, and restrict them from the options that lead to a positive outcome? (i.e. sending them to jail, killing their career opportunities, forcing them into contact with a bunch of far harder drug users and forcing them to interact with criminal elements to survive)
Note that this is a law
both our previous presidents have broken, and yet you support a system that would have destroyed their lives? (Well, assuming they were poor, of course)
I am a lawful person. This is why I do not do illegal drugs. But this does not make those laws "ok" - considering that those who make said laws seem to flout them with impunity half the time, I sometimes wonder why I bother at all. But following the law doesn't mean you need to make excuses for bad laws. People are stupid, they get caught up in the hype and make terrible mistakes. The fact that so many people have been willing to break these laws is the primary thing that will cause them to be fixed. And honestly, it's hard to blame them, when for most drugs the primary negative consequence is that someone more powerful doesn't like it and really, really wants an excuse to fuck you over for it (while pulling in a large paycheck for the effort).
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