http://www.startribune.com/467/story/1308203.html

Wow. Just when you think you've seen it all. Of course, this never would have happened if crack cocaine was legal, right? Because parents addicted to legalized drugs would give their baby a bottle, tuck it into its tidy little crib, smoke a couple rocks of free crack, and then toddle off to serve a nice home cooked dinner and help the other younguns with their homework or play Scrabble with them to improve their reading skills. Right?

Who are you talking to, thrice??????

Who wants to legalize crack cocaine????????

But we can probably start out with the testimony of the Executive Director of the ACLU before Congress, Dora...

"The American Civil Liberties Union believes, and has believed for decades, that in general the best way to control the harmful effects of drugs is with a detailed set of regulations. We believe that the use of criminal prohibitions is profoundly wrong in principle, generally ineffective in practice and has created problems that the drugs themselves were powerless to create.

Criminal prohibition is profoundly wrong in principle because the state has no business using its police powers to punish adult individuals for what they decide to do with their own minds and bodies. On the most basic level, the state has no legitimate power to send me to prison for eating too much red meat or fat-laden ice cream or for drinking a few beers or glasses of wine each day. This is true in principle even if an excess of red meat and ice cream demonstrably leads to premature heart attacks and strokes. The police power of the state is legitimately used to prevent one citizen from attacking another, and to punish him if he does; it is illegitimately used to prevent adults from managing their own bodies and minds, or to punish them when they do."

thrice wrote:

We believe that the use of criminal prohibitions is profoundly wrong in principle, generally ineffective in practice and has created problems that the drugs themselves were powerless to create.

Well, he is right about that.

I won't argue with those facts, just the conclusion they lead to. Arresting people for child abuse hasn't stopped people from harming their kids, but that is a poor argument for not making an effort.

"the best way to control the harmful effects of drugs is with a detailed set of regulations"

To be followed up, no doubt, with stern admonitions...

I would be interested to see what kind of society we would have with decriminalized blow: Would we get all German about it and make sure the trains ran on time, or would we all become crack whores?

To tell you the truth, I’ve rarely met someone that was left wanting for drugs for too long. It’s America: If you want it bad enough, you can get it.

And that goes for decent jobs, an education, work ethic, love and all the other good things…