You drug legalization people amaze and depress me. You want more intoxicants on the streets ... that's just fucking brilliant.

And you pull out that tired old worn-out argument about beer. Look, drugs (marijuana included) are taken for the sole purpose of getting high. No other reason. That's not the case with beer, or gin or scotch. Millions of people every day have a cocktail or a couple of beers without any intoxication involved. A gin and tonic or a cold beer is good-tasting and refreshing, but I've never heard anyone say they smoke joints because they taste good, or do crack because it's yummy. Yes, some people drink alcohol to get ripped, but it's not the sole reason for it to exist like with meth and coke and weed.

In addition, hard drugs always addict, whereas millions of people drink alcoholic beverages without ever coming close to addiction. And if you're doing an occasional line of coke and tell me you're not addicted, all I have to say is you're kidding yourself. I've seen drugs kill two different people among my family and friends, and it's ugly. Drugs change your thought processes, and turn you into a liar and a thief and a cheat, then they kill you.

I agree the war on drugs hasn't been very successful. What we need to do is arrest everyone caught with drugs and pen them up somewhere away from normal people. Not just dealers. Then we need to firebomb the drug lords' crops and headquarters. Bingo - no demand, no supply.

The guy's mistake wasn't telling the cops he had contraband - it was accepting the shit in the first place.

ETA: The war on drugs is like the war on illegal immigration - fight it half-assed and you get half-assed results.

I can see how that would be the case, but it sounds like everyone wants to hang all the problems in society onto the WOD.

I can agree that it is an expensive, ineffective machine today.

Oh, I'm not saying it is the cause of all our problems, but it really has been a big enabler for all kinds of liberty infringments. Heck, if we wanna get technical, a lot really started growing legs due to prohibition.

Generally speaking (agencies will be somewhat different) discreation is becoming more limited. Discreation is normally only used when the officer is representing the state in a matter of charging or citing someone. Examples would be citing you for no seat belt and not citing you speeding or you are arrested for a warrant after the officer determines you provided false information about your identity, but does not charge you with providing false info.

For most agencies the days of cutting breaks to people who have broken laws are fading. If you catch someone with misdemeanor weed and you scuff it out on the ground, you may be looking at tampering with/destruction of evidence. This is due to state laws, alot of agencies being accredited, people complaining after later being arrested when they or other people they know have previously been given a break. So if a cop plays by the rules and seizes some drugs and wants to turn them in for destruction, but not arrest someone, he usually completes a report. He has to describe how he came into possession of said drugs. Now, the officer could describe how he seized the dope and didnt make an arrest, but that usually wont go to well with his agency and the prosecutors. Or, he could seize the drugs and state in the report that he found the drugs and is turning them in for destruction as the owners are unknown and prosecution is not possible. This would be a lie. In this day and age of in car videos, surviellance videos and a cell videos, a decent officer trying to cut somebody a break can instead get jammed up.

How can it happen? An officer gives someone a break for misdemeanor possession of marijuana. The officer is called to a convienence store in reference to a subject loitering outside the store late at night. When asking for the subjects ID, the subject pulls his wallet and a joint falls out of his pocket. The officer finds nothing else on the subject and kicks joint into a drain in the parking lot. Several days later the subject gets arrested on some minor dope charges. Pissed off at the officer that put them in jail, he files a complaint saying that Officer X had given them a break before and the arresting officer was just being a dick. The agency looks into the allegation (for whatever reason/justification the agency may have). They find footage on the CCTV from the store that supports the allegation that the officer did fail to seize the joint (a contraband controlled substance) and discarded it on the scene. The officer is found to have violated department policy for failing to seize the contraband for destruction, failing to document the seizure of the contraband, unauthorized destruction of contraband (the way the joint was disposed of is not an approved method and was never documented properly) and failure to act in performance of his official duties. Criminally, he could face tampering with and destruction of evidence, possession of misdemeanor marijuana (you did take possession of it for other than lawful purposes) and filing a false report if he documented the incident and took the liberty to "creatively" articulate what happened.

Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell are 'dopers'?

"The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree." -Walter Williams

He was a criminal already, he just finally got caught. His greatest contribution to society was driving his stoner buddy to concerts.

Wouldnt that be theft under color of authority and destruction of evidence? Why should the cop commit crimes to protect shaggy and scoob?

Driving under influence is illegal.

If they were legal, they would not be expensive and therefore little to no crime to support a habbit.

But, then, logic isn't the strong suit of prohibitionists.

complete and total sarcasm understanding fail.

i meant the part in red though.

I know far more drug users who are productive members of society and have never had any legal problems, then I know drug addicts who have been in trouble with the law and are leeches.

I would hate to see those good people I know get the treatment that guy got (even though they are drug users and the laws target them) and have them end up becoming unproductive members of society. Because really, that's all possession laws do for the most part; it doesn't slow drug use, it ruins lives that otherwise wouldn't have been ruined.

The WoD does not work. All it does is get good people mixed up in bad laws.

Wow. InBev loves people like you. Keep the beer flowing, dude. It will kill you in due time and you won't have any clue until it is way too late. Stop, right fucking now, never touch a beer again. I bet in 3 days you will start to feel the withdraw coming on. Most of america would be in withdraw if there was suddenly no supply of alcohol tomorrow.

Ding, ding, ding.....

I thought there was a "special thread" for folks that advocate for and support "certain politicians" that want to work toward the decriminalization of drugs.

Of course––the two usually go hand in hand. It's all about "freedom"––freedom to use poison and freedom to kill one's offspring.

Give it a rest already. You guys are obsessed with that guy.

Here are some druggies that agree with me:

Thomas Sowell.
Milton Friedman
Walter E Williams
William F Buckley
Barry Goldwater

Are you seriously going to call somebody like William motherfucking Buckley a Paulbot, or a closeted pothead? You guys are completely out of your minds.

Seriously, when you call yourself a conservative and find yourself at odds with Barry Goldwater, it's time to take a step back and think for a second. You guys are at odds with some of the intellectual pillars of modern conservative thought, and you have the balls to call me radical? Are you shitting me?

A pregnant woman could buy enough tylenol to poison herself and her unborn child for less than $10 in any gas station or drugstore with no questions asked or laws being broken. Eventually y'all are going to have to admit that this has as much to do with saving lives as gun control.

The kind America likes or the kind America doesn't?

Not that I've noticed, but there must be one.

Except someone somewhere is going to need to prove in court that cigarette was a joint.

Well, they are trying some free market reforms, but the ruling party is still the Communist Party.

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. Don't do stupid shit and you have nothing to hide. Obey the law and you'll be fine.

Dude's stupidity aside, that's not really the point.

Or, we could just have people like YOU "penned up somewhere away from normal people" so that the rest of us don't have to listen to such idiocy.

Because it's one of the most obvious and prevalent ways in which government unreasonably encroaches on personal freedoms.

I work a good job, pay my taxes, own my home, served in the military for ten years and I volunteer with two organizations. I am a very normal, well-adjusted, productive citizen.

If I go home tonight and alter my consciousness by drinking three beers, it's all good. But if I do the same thing by smoking an easily grown weed, all of the sudden I'm a "criminal". To many of us, this makes no sense.

We've been fighting a War on Drugs for decades now, and the primary result has been that drugs are now cheaper and easier to obtain than ever. Just like the laws of economics would predict. At what point do you acknowledge that the current "solution" for dealing with drugs, is not a solution at all?