Quoted: Quoted: All they accomplished is driving up street price and the slowing of natural selection. That means means the immoral and the criminal in American society will have to work harder to get the same amount of cocaine. At the same time, the US Navy gets to practice pursuing and capturing small, high-speed, long-range vessels full of armed men committing evil. It's a win-win situation.

Damn. I feel safer already.

How in the hell does THIS sneak up on you?

Quoted: Just like alcoholics and tobacco users right? I guess maybe we should ban them too, its for the children right?

You said it, not me.

So you think freedom and choice are not important things in society? Do you think that government should ban all "bad" things and protect us from ourselves?

Freedom and choice are important in a society, but I'm not equating either with harmful drug addiction and cocaine. In La La Land, cocaine equals Freedom. But in the real world there isn't a society where cocaine has taken the place of coffee. Cocaine is easy to cultivate and distribute, even backwards Turd World Colombians can do it. But despite decades and decades of knowledge regarding cocaine, not a single leading society has choosen to make cocaine a staple. Gee, I wonder why that is? You think that the Colombians themselves are fighting the drug lords because of "Love for the Gringo" or because they love their children more than the powder?

Quoted: How in the hell does THIS sneak up on you?

I don't really know so I'm sticking with my "the smugglers were sampling their own product" theory.

I don't know if/when the Navy publishes the bridge and navigation logs of an active duty warship in today's environment. But I bet it would be interesting reading. Just imagine the comments on the margins! "OMG... We *****ing did it! They never detected us. Complete *****ing surprise". Who knows, we might get a picture of the cruiser and the captured smuggler boat in the same shot for an OWNED pic.

Quoted: Who knows, we might get a picture of the cruiser and the captured smuggler boat in the same shot for an OWNED pic.

Glad I stocked up when I did.

Klubmarcus
You are way  way off. If you  really looked at the facts on cause and effect. Yes cigerrettes and alchohol are gateway drugs. And yes cocaine and heroin was legal at one time. And if you look at the laws they werent enacted for the public good. The laws were enacted out of fear of minoritys. Since this happened before PC its part of the congressional record. We ahve congressman making statements to the efffect that 'Our white women need protection from cocainised negros'

Prohibition didnt work, and neither will the war on (some) drugs

Quoted: How can you seize drugs in international waters?

1.)  Embark a U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment
2.)  Fly a USCG flag

ALAMEDA, Calif., May 16 -- The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Active discovered nearly 26,397 pounds of cocaine on board a 152-foot Belize flagged fishing vessel in the waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, nearly 1,500 miles south of San Diego, Calif., May 3. This seizure is the largest cocaine seizure in maritime history. The fishing vessel Svesda Maru was originally sighted April 28 by a U.S. Customs Service P-3 aircraft and then identified by a US Coast Guard C-130, while flying Counternarcotics Detection and Monitoring patrols under the control of Joint Interagency Task Force West (JIATFW). The Svesda Maru was then intercepted by a U.S. Navy Guided Missile Frigate USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60), homeported in Everett, Wash., with a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment (LEDET) from San Diego on board. Once on board the vessel the Coast Guard team began conducting an initial safety inspection and a space accountability search. As the LEDET conducted their space accountability search, they discovered various unexplained discrepancies in below deck spaces. After five days of exhaustive searching, the Coast Guard LEDET had accounted for most of the spaces on the Svesda Maru, but could not access a large area beneath the fish holds. The cutter Active arrived on scene and relieved the LEDET team. An augmented boarding team from the Active concentrated their search on the fish hold area. While searching the vessel, they discovered the cocaine in a secret compartment. The Coast Guard boarding team removed a sample of contraband and tested it. The contraband tested positive for cocaine and was transferred to the Active as evidence. The Svesda Maru was seized and its crewmembers, two Russians and eight Ukrainian nationals, were also transferred to the Active. The fishing vessel was seized and taken to San Diego. The cutter Active is a 210-foot medium endurance cutter homeported in Port Angeles, Wash. This seizure is the third cocaine seizure by the Coast Guard in the waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean in the last week. More than 33,000 pounds of cocaine has been seized during this period. The largest seizure prior to this case was 24,000 pounds seized by a U.S. Coast Guard LEDET from the Nataly I in June 1995.

I was on USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60) during OPEERATION CAPER FOCUS 2000 & 2001.  M/V Tolteca had 4 metric tons, M/V Svesda Maru was good for 12 metric tons--until recently, the largest cocaine bust in U.S. Maritime history.

www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel071001.shtml

Quoted: Quoted: What's a narco-terrorist? We used to call them smugglers.

Gotta keep the sheeple scared of them "terrorists," you know.

Quoted: Klubmarcus You are way  way off. If you  really looked at the facts on cause and effect. Yes cigerrettes and alchohol are gateway drugs. And yes cocaine and heroin was legal at one time. And if you look at the laws they werent enacted for the public good. The laws were enacted out of fear of minoritys. Since this happened before PC its part of the congressional record. We ahve congressman making statements to the efffect that 'Our white women need protection from cocainised negros' Prohibition didnt work, and neither will the war on (some) drugs img92.imageshack.us/img92/1980/owned9nc.jpg</a>

Mytwocents, YOU are WAY OFF! Everybody knows that drugs hurt low income minorities the most. They have fewer resources to pay for the consequences of drug use. So the last thing the 'gubment should do is act as an "enabler". The last thing those with such "noble" intentions should become is a "sympathizer" to a druggie's cause.

By legalizing illegal drugs, you won't increase the life expectancy of a ghetto male up to the level of a white woman. The effect will be to LOWER the life expectancy of a white woman to a ghetto male. The War on Drugs works every day. Every ton seized is a ton that isn't on our streets. Every hour spent intercepting criminals is an hour where taxpayers get double their money's worth. You can be proactive by hitting them outside US borders, or you can be reactive and deploy $ocial workers AFTER the damage is done.

You should be ashamed of yourself when you have to use multiple murdering drug boss to support your cause. Maybe you should re-align your moral compass.

Quoted: Quoted: All they accomplished is driving up street price and the slowing of natural selection. That means means the immoral and the criminal in American society will have to work harder to get the same amount of cocaine. At the same time, the US Navy gets to practice pursuing and capturing small, high-speed, long-range vessels full of armed men committing evil. It's a win-win situation.

+1 Go Squids Go...

If you want to know what the difference between a 'Drug Dealer' and a 'Narco-Terrorist' is (p.s. the term pre-dates 9-11), look up FARC.

In addition to producing, selling & smuggling drugs to fund their 'cause' (emplacement of a Marxist/Communist government in Colombia), these folks have kidnapped & murdered American citizens for ransom (next to drug sales, kidnapping is a principle means of funding for them) & murdered those who's families could not pay, and committed numerous bombings & other terror attacks against the government of Columbia...

Google on one of FARC's victims - that guy was from my church back in the states



In essence, a 'narco-terroist' organization is a terroist organization that principaly funds it's operations thru the production & sale of narcotics/drugs...

P.S.

All of you guys who think that Cocaine & drugs could be harmlessly legalized must be smoking some of it...

1) There is too much of an organized crime infastructure in the production & distribution of drugs. Anything that threatens their profits is gonna be hit by mob violence on an abasurd scale... These guys would make sure they continue to be the sole source by any means neccicary.

2) Being the sole source, said criminals would continue to smuggle, evade taxes, etc - You would end up with a 2-tier market: the 'legit' outlets & the 'street' outlets we allready have - one taxed & regulated (but expensive & unable to operate in certain areas due to (1)), and the other as the current status-quo exists...

Oh yeah, and then you'd have the addicts & the resultant drain on society for prison, medical care, 're-hab', and whatever else...

Cocaine needs to stay illegal (along with Pot, Heroin, and the rest of the pile) - if you think otherwise, you must be on crack

Quoted: All of you guys who think that Cocaine & drugs could be harmlessly legalized must be smoking some of it... 1) There is too much of an organized crime infastructure in the production & distribution of drugs. Anything that threatens their profits is gonna be hit by mob violence on an abasurd scale... These guys would make sure they continue to be the sole source by any means neccicary. 2) Being the sole source, said criminals would continue to smuggle, evade taxes, etc - You would end up with a 2-tier market: the 'legit' outlets & the 'street' outlets we allready have - one taxed & regulated (but expensive & unable to operate in certain areas due to (1)), and the other as the current status-quo exists... Cocaine needs to stay illegal (along with Pot, Heroin, and the rest of the pile) - if you think otherwise, you must be on crack

Their market would dry up, buddy. Who's going to buy imported pot if millions of people have little gardens of it here?

No market, no worky.

Quoted: Alcohol is a gateway drug to cocaine.

lol

you can't be serious

Quoted: In essence, a 'narco-terroist' organization is a terroist organization that principaly funds it's operations thru the production & sale of narcotics/drugs...

Right on! There are a lot of terrorists out there who act like drug dealers and drug dealers who act like terrorists. Why should WE take the chance? Let's hit both those groups, preferably long before their personnel and "product" hit our streets.

We seem to have a lot of soft-belly Americans who really don't understand the true cost and consequences of their drug abuse around the globe. They're OK with bankrolling evildoers who mean to do us harm. If you think about it, cocaine might as well be weapon system that backward Turd World people use to cause damage within the USA. They're so selfish in thinking that they have the RIGHT to hurt themselves as if there's no cost or consequence to others inside and outside the USA. Cocaine would be a wonderful drug if cocaine addicts never showed up at the emergency room on someone else's dime, it would be great if you couldn't be born addicted to it, etc... But we don't live in La La Land so we must fight.

No wonder liberals are opposed to the War on Terror. They don't want their supply of foreign drugs to be interrupted. They are willing to risk a narcotics - terrorism linkage just to keep their high, and there are non drug-using idiots who want to enable it.

Quoted: i22.photobucket.com/albums/b350/npd233/USNowned.jpg

Nice!

Quoted: Quoted: Alcohol is a gateway drug to cocaine. lol you can't be serious

And you can't be thinking. Where do you see cocaine but no alcohol? What's wrong? Can't figure out why crackheads are already drinking malt liquor? Can't figure out why the twiggy snorting cocaine in the bathroom already had a few drinks? Just use your brain man. Alcohol IS a gateway drug to cocaine not THE gateway drug to cocaine.

Quoted: Their market would dry up, buddy. Who's going to buy imported pot if millions of people have little gardens of it here? No market, no worky.

There are plenty of small beer companies and plenty of home-brewers. But for some reason there are a whole lot of American and foreign beer companies that still make HUGE profits. If they can make money shipping heavy bottles of liquid, what makes you think they can't with something that can be shipped in a plastic bag?

Quoted: I long for the days when they would have hung the crew and scuttled the boat.........

Yep, that's how piracy was pushed into the armpits of the world. They allowed ships to kill the pirates and take their money, and at the same time they gave them 'gubment sanction and bounties. Like I said, we've got "soft-bellied" Americans who want to play nice doggy with people in narcotics.

Quoted: Quoted: I long for the days when they would have hung the crew and scuttled the boat......... Yep, that's how piracy was pushed into the armpits of the world. They allowed ships to kill the pirates and take their money, and at the same time they gave them 'gubment sanction and bounties. Like I said, we've got "soft-bellied" Americans who want to play nice doggy with people in narcotics.

For those of you wondering how they could get so close,  it's pretty easy.  Ships don't really make any noise at all  if they are barely moving.  You can  hear crew conversations on oil tankers from a couple hundred feet away.  It's downright spooky something that big can be so quiet.  Be down in the cabin or even just fishing on the wrong side of the boat and you'll never know they are there.  

We seem to have a lot of soft-belly Americans who really don't understand the true cost and consequences of their drug abuse around the globe. They're OK with bankrolling evildoers who mean to do us harm. If you think about it, cocaine might as well be weapon system that backward Turd World people use to cause damage within the USA

It is and always has been the CIAs' unofficial funding source for Freedom Fighters we back. Think Contras. Although we officially dont condone it we hav a history of looking the other way and not inspecting the cargos of planes we use covertly

Quoted: Heroin and cocaine AND METHAMPHETAMINE are the sourge of our society.  There is nothing is nothing like being on in the high seas and realizing that you are next to a man-of-war right next to you.

Quoted: What's a narco-terrorist?

Military speak for drug runner.

I just love how a bullshit "drug war" is prosecuted supposedly to protect us.  Simple question why is their more heroiune coming out of Afghanistan after wei invaded, and how is our government somehow helpless to do something about it.  HINT!  HINT!  The druglords helped us toss out the Taliban.  Short of invading and totally defoliating 10 countries minimum the drug war will always bne a waste of money.  OUR MONEY!!!!

Quoted: P.S. All of you guys who think that Cocaine & drugs could be harmlessly legalized must be smoking some of it... 1) There is too much of an organized crime infastructure in the production & distribution of drugs. Anything that threatens their profits is gonna be hit by mob violence on an abasurd scale... These guys would make sure they continue to be the sole source by any means neccicary. 2) Being the sole source, said criminals would continue to smuggle, evade taxes, etc - You would end up with a 2-tier market: the 'legit' outlets & the 'street' outlets we allready have - one taxed & regulated (but expensive & unable to operate in certain areas due to (1)), and the other as the current status-quo exists... Oh yeah, and then you'd have the addicts & the resultant drain on society for prison, medical care, 're-hab', and whatever else... Cocaine needs to stay illegal (along with Pot, Heroin, and the rest of the pile) - if you think otherwise, you must be on crack hippie.gif

Interesting theory but you are incorrect. How many beer barons are still running around? How many gangs still traffic alcohol?
Drug gangs are profit motivated- if you remove that motivation they will move on to other illegal activities- prostitution, racketeering etc....... Making something illegal creates a profitable market- if you could purchase a days supply of clean, legal cocaine for $5, why would you choose instead to pay more for a lower quality product from some street gang? If you were the gang why would you choose to sell a product that you make no profit on?

BTW- as it is, you still have the addicts & resultant drain on society right now, and the crime and poverty that result from those folks paying gangs huge profits. Of course, you also have the billions of dollars wasted every year by the gov't with their war on drugs, incarceration of "offender" etc......

sillly people..

doesn't matter whether
pot,
heroin,
meth,
cocaine,
lsd,
ectasy,
pyote,
psilocibin,
and all kinds of other things that mother told you not to put in your nose

is illegal or not, you can get more than you need just about anywhere...

there are only two choices.. use it or dont use it.. for those who think making it illegal stops people from using it need to open your eyes...

Quoted: We seem to have a lot of soft-belly Americans who really don't understand the true cost and consequences of their drug abuse around the globe.

Nope what we have are alot of ignorant sheeple who just go along with the war on drugs just because the government says its a good thing.

They're OK with bankrolling evildoers who mean to do us harm.

If its legal then the consumers would not be bankrolling evildoers, they would be bankrolling legitimate salesmen and farmers.

If it was legal American farmers could grow it and we could keep some of the money in our own economy instead of sending to places like Colombia or Afghanistan.

With our modern Agribusiness we could produce the worlds best drugs and we could actually export it around the world and bring in more money.

No wonder liberals are opposed to the War on Terror.

I support the war on terror, but I do not support the useless wasteful failure of the war on drugs.

How much resources are being wasted federal, state, and local on keeping the war on drugs going. Those resources could be better used to investigage suspected terrorists and to better protect vital infrastructure. But no, some people would rather waste that money on keeping adults from using drugs.

You should be ashamed of yourself when you have to use multiple murdering drug boss to support your cause.  Maybe you should re-align your moral compass.

Not ashamed at all. Prohibition laws created Al Capone. Well not really created him. More like let him acheive the power he did. Without the money of bootleg liquor Al would of been in prison a lot quicker then he ended up.

How many bootleggers are there now? How many politicians do they own? Liqour is legalised. The illegal wholesale market for cocaine, puts the current price at about 1.50 a gram. That sells for 100 on the street. Dilute it and you get even more.

Legalise it and your crack head is not going to be pulling burglarys and robbing people. More like pan handling for change. I would rather deal with pan handlers than deal with my house being robbed when I am not home. I figure with legalisation the price of coke will come down, it will be regulated (not 21 no coke for you). And more easily treated. Imagine the money we could save on law enforcement alone.

Weed? Absolutley waste of time even trying to enforce the law. Hey do you want this to be a prison society? Thats where we are headed. They have a program in switzerland. They Just give the heroin to the addicts. Guess what? They are productive and they are not committing new crimes.

Drug abuse is a medical issue not a law enforcement issue. No matter how much interdiction is accomplished the price of cocaine and heroin has gone down and the purity up. What should that tell you? Its not working. end of story

Quoted: Quoted: In essence, a 'narco-terroist' organization is a terroist organization that principaly funds it's operations thru the production & sale of narcotics/drugs... Right on! There are a lot of terrorists out there who act like drug dealers and drug dealers who act like terrorists. Why should WE take the chance? Let's hit both those groups, preferably long before their personnel and "product" hit our streets.

or why not just legalize it and let altria grow the plants so that the profits can go to shareholders instead of terrorists...

FWIW I dont have a problem with the Navy or Coast Guard interdicting smugglers in US waters.

Smugglers could be real criminals since you do not know what they are carrying, could be bombs, or terrorists.

Stopping smugglers in and of itself is a good thing, however reasoning that we should stop smuggling because drugs are bad mkay is just idiotic.

We have a war on terrorism to fight, to divert precious resources away from that just for the sake of protecting people from themselves is idiotic, and everyone who supports the war on drugs at the expensive of the war on terrorism is a terrorist sympathizer.

Quoted: Clearly you guys don't know much about the reality of Columbia.

Clearly, you don't even know how to spell the name of the place.

Quoted: Oh please, get off it. How many leading world powers sell cocaine from the grocery counter? crickets chirping... more crickets. Gee, I wonder why? If cocaine was so good for society, then don't you think Colombia would be in a lot better shape? They have more cocaine per person than we do!How come with all that cocaine coursing through Colombian blahblahblahblahblah.....

You are supremely clueless.  The depressing thing is that most of America has been brainwashed to spout the same crap you do.

I've been a soldier in the War on Drugs for the last 12 years, directly and as a trainer/advisor.  I just left Colombia after spending 4 years as a military advisor there.  I think I'm qualified to give an opinion on this particular subject...and here it is:

The War on Drugs is an unmitigated disaster.  It is unwinnable, no matter how much of our money and our rights we throw at it.  The fact is that Prohibition of anything has never and will never work.  There will always be those who want what others don't want them to have, and criminals who are more than happy to feed those desires for an exhorbiant price.

The amount of drugs making it past our eradication programs, interception forces and domestic police and onto the streets has never been higher.  The number of addicts is record high.  Our laws criminalizing drug use and trafficking have resulted in our having to build new prisons to house the millions undeterred by them.  And the traffickers are richer than ever.  No matter how you spin it, we're losing this one.

People scream about the loss of rights in the name of anti-terrorism, but what about the enormous erosion of our rights we've suffered just to keep crack out of Jimmy's pipe?  Police run around in armored military vehicles with belt-fed machine guns, perform searches that would have caused outrage thirty years ago, and can sieze your property without a warrant if the officer thinks you're "suspicious".

Just to keep crack out of Jimmy's pipe.

The first time we, the US, tried Prohibition it resulted in the rise of organized crime, rampant violence, the expansion of police powers and the loss of individual rights without ever stopping the trafficking.  Sound familiar?  It should.  I personally don't think we, as a nation, can sustain this conflict.  It costs around $30 billion dollars annually to fight this war, aside from the priceless loss of our freedoms and the cost of our bloated prison system.

Just to keep crack out of Jimmy's pipe.

How do we extricate ourselves from this mess?  I see two ways.

First is complete legalization.  Legalize all drugs.  Regulate their manufacture and distribution.  And tax the shit out of them, a la tobacco and alcohol, thus turning them into money makers instead of a $30 billion drain.

Oh, I can hear all those bowels spontaneously evacuating.  Legalize DRUGS?!?!?!  It would be...be...be...CHAOS!!!!!

Hardly.  The War on Drugs is such a dismal failure that you can already go to nearly ANY public school (elementary to high school) and buy drugs.  When they are already everywhere, how can legalization increase availability?  It won't.  It will only make the availability more open and easier to regulate.

"Oh, but the number of users would SKYROCKET!!!"  The number of users may increase, but I don't think it would increase much.  Those who want drugs now can already get them very easily with little risk, and if personal experience is a guide the number of potential users holding back solely out of a fear of getting entangled in legal trouble is not significant.  And even if there were a large increase in users, think of the $$$ that would be available for treatment programs:  $30 billion unspent tax dollars + the tax revenue from legal sales!

Crime would plummet, as the conflicts between gangs would lose impetus.  How many gang wars are fought over contraban cigarettes?  Individual users would not need to commit high-value crimes to feed their habits.  How many bums carjack and kill for the price of a bottle of Thunderbird?  The terrorist and criminal organizations that are presently bankrolled by America's drug users would have to find other sources of funding.  Legalize drugs, and it will be more profitable to grow tomatos than poppies.

The second solution I see is simply to go in and buy everything the drug-growing regions can produce.  The current estimate of the value of the entire drug production in Colombia is $3 billion.  We currently spend around $30 billion to fight it.  Why not just buy it?  Prices could go 10 times higher than they presently are and we would still break even.  No way the cartels and terrorists could compete with that.  There would still be some product making its way to the US, but it would be more akin to the market in illicit Chinese antiquities; there's stuff to buy, but only the VERY rich can afford to buy it.

Violence and crime would spike briefly as gangs fought more viciously for smaller territory, and users were goaded to crimes with higher payoffs to buy pricier and pricier drugs, but as the supply dwindled there would eventually be nothing to fight over or buy with criminal dollars.  Of course, this option would do nothing to help the situations in drug producing countries, but it would help the situation in ours, so fuck 'em.

But I fear we are stuck with the War on Drugs for at least the rest of our lives.  Do you know where most of the $30 billion goes?  To the front line eradication?  Nope.  To rehab programs and education?  Nope.  It buys police agencies, from the local to federal levels, those snazzy black uniforms, automatic weapons, body armor and military personnel carriers.  Those most interested in continuing the War on Drugs are those charged to end it.  

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how long it will take them to win it....and meanwhile our tax dollars and rights go swirling down the endless drain...

Just to keep crack out of Jimmy's pipe.

Quoted: <snip>

GREAT POST.  i'm going to save that one for posterity.

Quoted: Nope what we have are alot of ignorant sheeple who just go along with the war on drugs just because the government says its a good thing.

Wrong again! According to people who advocate legalizing drugs, the 'gubment bowed to pressure from the majority of people who want illicit drugs to be banned. Apparently, a lot of people prefer to have metric tons of harmful substances to be violently disposed of in the high seas instead of having to dispose of them one pound at a time on their own streets.

If its legal then the consumers would not be bankrolling evildoers, they would be bankrolling legitimate salesmen and farmers. If it was legal American farmers could grow it and we could keep some of the money in our own economy instead of sending to places like Colombia or Afghanistan. With our modern Agribusiness we could produce the worlds best drugs and we could actually export it around the world and bring in more money.

Oh please, all that will happen is that the 'gubment will be subsidizing immoral Americans to grow (or not grow) the source plants. Come on now. It will solve nothing because the health problems will still remain, the addicts/criminals will not go away, and you'll be whining about why the Feds are doling out farm subsidies using YOUR tax dollars when you can import cheaper product from our enemies.

I support the war on terror, but I do not support the useless wasteful failure of the war on drugs. How much resources are being wasted federal, state, and local on keeping the war on drugs going. Those resources could be better used to investigage suspected terrorists and to better protect vital infrastructure. But no, some people would rather waste that money on keeping adults from using drugs.

You will excuse terrorist behaviour in exchange for a harmful substance. Think about it. It's OK for drug lords and their henchmen to ply their illicit trade because they only want to make a buck from doped up Americans. But it's not OK for "real" terrorists to act in the same manner because they're not selling poison to Americans. You know terrorists use the illegal drug trade as a funding source, just like any other funding source available to violent murdering organizations. What's wrong? You can't connect the dots?

Quoted: The War on Drugs is an unmitigated disaster.  It is unwinnable, no matter how much of our money and our rights we throw at it.

They said they same thing about piracy. They said they same thing about slavery. They said they same thing about every enemy the US has ever fought on moral grounds. We seem to have done just fine. Maybe you are incompetent, maybe your leadership is incompetent. All that we know for sure is that YOU are not succeeding. Perhaps we should replace you with someone who can.

Quoted: What's a narco-terrorist?

I'm guessing it is a terroirst with narcolepsy, hence the ability of the US navy to sneak up on them.

so "narco-terrorist" is the new term for drug runner?  i dont see why they didnt just sink the boat and let those fuckers swim it home

Quoted: All that we know for sure is that YOU are not succeeding. Perhaps we should replace you with someone who can.

By all means, step up to the plate.  

But I suggest you bring more thn the status quo with you.  It ain't working.

Quoted: FWIW I dont have a problem with the Navy or Coast Guard interdicting smugglers in US waters. Smugglers could be real criminals since you do not know what they are carrying, could be bombs, or terrorists. Stopping smugglers in and of itself is a good thing, however reasoning that we should stop smuggling because drugs are bad mkay is just idiotic. We have a war on terrorism to fight, to divert precious resources away from that just for the sake of protecting people from themselves is idiotic, and everyone who supports the war on drugs at the expensive of the war on terrorism is a terrorist sympathizer.

I know now how to solve the immagration problem.  For every illegal who has been working in the US for 5 years or longer we will offer citizenship in exchange for their country of origin taking one person who thinks like OFFascist.  Its a fair trade to me.

Quoted: Quoted: Their market would dry up, buddy. Who's going to buy imported pot if millions of people have little gardens of it here? No market, no worky. There are plenty of small beer companies and plenty of home-brewers. But for some reason there are a whole lot of American and foreign beer companies that still make HUGE profits. If they can make money shipping heavy bottles of liquid, what makes you think they can't with something that can be shipped in a plastic bag?

Thank you for making my point. Those huge beer companies are 100% legal.

Once this stupid War on Drugs is stopped and if some of these drugs are legalized, the same thing will happen.

Quoted: or why not just legalize it and let altria grow the plants so that the profits can go to shareholders instead of terrorists...

Because you don't more 'gubment agency boondoogles happening in our borders. You've seen how beer companies and tobacco companies and people involved with them get hit by local, state, an federal agencies and bureucraps even though their product is LEGAL. You want to add the current batch of illegal drugs into the mix? What if the drug dealers switch to something worse that will still have that "it's banned so it must be the good stuff" cachet? It still won't solve the problems of paying for the existing addicts and the new ones who are coming when the floodgates open. If legalized smoking and alcohol was such a moneymaker, how come most of the lawsuits are based on recouping costs? How come individuals sue each other to recover damages due to smoking and drinking, and we're thinking about adding cocaine to the mix? Why does your insurance bill go up with more smokers and drinkers are one the books? Going soft won't solve anything, we might as well fight.

If only the smokers and the drinkers died from their habits, there wouldn't be a such a stigma attached to the behaviour. But you know it affects others who don't even have anything to do with it. But there are fools out there who want to add cocaine into the mix? Are you guys nuts? There are reasons why they don't let patrons snort coke at the gun range even if it's legalized. It's a danger to the customers and a liability to the business. Think about it. Are you going to want to be the sheriff to enforce "underage snorting". Are you going to get mad at the non-English speaking guy behind the counter who sold a pack of weed to a minor? We already have too many problems associated with legal drugs, we don't need any more.

Quoted: Thank you for making my point. Those huge beer companies are 100% legal. Once this stupid War on Drugs is stopped and if some of these drugs are legalized, the same thing will happen.

Thank you for not getting it at all. I've just proven to you that profit is not the driving factor because you can make money from it regardless of it's legal status. So if you were wrong in saying that profits are the driving factor for the illegal side, then why are you happy?

It's like arguing that if we just made the illegal aliens into legal residents then we'd have a much smaller illegal alien problem. You just didn't get it.

Quoted: We already have too many problems associated with legal drugs, we don't need any more.

No, let's just add the society-destroying problems of illegal drugs to them.  

Quoted: You will excuse terrorist behaviour in exchange for a harmful substance. Think about it. It's OK for drug lords and their henchmen to ply their illicit trade because they only want to make a buck from doped up Americans.

I dont excuse anything.

IMO most drug dealers and drug lords are not criminals because they sell drugs (a capitalist endeavor selling a product for which there is a market), they are criminals because they violate the rights of people.

If you think its wrong to practise capitalism then you are probably living in the wrong country. Murder, rape, and theft on the other hand are real crimes.

Legalize drugs and murders, rapists, and thieves will no longer profit from the trade.

You know terrorists use the illegal drug trade as a funding source, just like any other funding source available to violent murdering organizations. What's wrong? You can't connect the dots?

Legalize drugs and you take that funding source away from the criminals. I'll repeat your words for you, "What's wrong? You can't connect the dots?"

Quoted: Thank you for not getting it at all. I've just proven to you that profit is not the driving factor because you can make money from it regardless of it's legal status. So if you were wrong in saying that profits are the driving factor for the illegal side, then why are you happy? It's like arguing that if we just made the illegal aliens into legal residents then we'd have a much smaller illegal alien problem. You just didn't get it.

The point is this: Those who make and distribute products legally have fewer costs involved than those who make and distribute them illegally. Between the little guy who grows enough weed for himself and a few friends and the big conglomerates who have hundreds of acres of legal weed entering the pipeline, the market is already covered.

Besides, why buy illegally when you can simply grow your own or buy off the shelf?

Thanks for playing.

Quoted: Quoted: The War on Drugs is an unmitigated disaster.  It is unwinnable, no matter how much of our money and our rights we throw at it. They said they same thing about piracy. They said they same thing about slavery. They said they same thing about every enemy the US has ever fought on moral grounds. We seem to have done just fine. Maybe you are incompetent, maybe your leadership is incompetent. All that we know for sure is that YOU are not succeeding. Perhaps we should replace you with someone who can.

Your profile claims you to be from Virigina? But from your post it would appear that you believe the Civil War was fought over slavery, and that the war was fought on moral grounds.

This Tejano thinks you show your ignorance of history, and that probably explains why you believe what you believe.

The war on drugs is an immoral war, it is a war that is fought against the citizens of this country.

I do not believe the Vietnam war was wrong (merely it was fought ineffectively), however if I did it would be easy to say that the War on Drugs is a larger failure and costs us far more in ruined lives and lost resources.

Because you don't more 'gubment agency boondoogles happening in our borders. You've seen how beer companies and tobacco companies and people involved with them get hit by local, state, an federal agencies and bureucraps even though their product is LEGAL.

so? how is that like any other industry?  almost every industry is regulated to some extent.  

You want to add the current batch of illegal drugs into the mix? What if the drug dealers switch to something worse that will still have that "it's banned so it must be the good stuff" cachet?

no, the idea is that everything would be legalized, so drug dealers would go out of business, just like the rumrunners after the first prohibition ended.

It still won't solve the problems of paying for the existing addicts and the new ones who are coming when the floodgates open. If legalized smoking and alcohol was such a moneymaker, how come most of the lawsuits are based on recouping costs? How come individuals sue each other to recover damages due to smoking and drinking, and we're thinking about adding cocaine to the mix? Why does your insurance bill go up with more smokers and drinkers are one the books? Going soft won't solve anything, we might as well fight.

smokers and heavy drinkers should (and in some cases do) pay higher health insurance premiums so that everyone else isn't punished, because they are statistically more likely to need more expensive health care.  the same would apply to legal cocaine users, etc.

If only the smokers and the drinkers died from their habits, there wouldn't be a such a stigma attached to the behaviour. But you know it affects others who don't even have anything to do with it. But there are fools out there who want to add cocaine into the mix? Are you guys nuts? There are reasons why they don't let patrons snort coke at the gun range even if it's legalized. It's a danger to the customers and a liability to the business.

alcohol would be unsafe to drink while at the gun range also.  does that mean it should be illegal?

Think about it. Are you going to want to be the sheriff to enforce "underage snorting".

underage snorting (as well as all snorting) is currently illegal, so i don't see how this would be much different that what we have today.

Are you going to get mad at the non-English speaking guy behind the counter who sold a pack of weed to a minor?

if cannabis were legal and sold OTC, minors having access to it would actually be LESS of an issue, because some attempt would be made to card them.  do you think that the average weed dealer cards his customers to make sure none of them are minors?  nope.  for most high-schoolers, it's easier for them to buy weed than to buy alcohol.

We already have too many problems associated with legal drugs, we don't need any more.

all drugs should be legal.  the government has no right to tell individuals what they can and cannot put into their own bodies.

Quoted: I know now how to solve the immagration problem.  For every illegal who has been working in the US for 5 years or longer we will offer citizenship in exchange for their country of origin taking one person who thinks like OFFascist.  Its a fair trade to me.

Exactly the kind of words I would expect from a terrorist sympathizer.

So have you made your pilgramage to Mecca yet hajji?

Quoted: By all means, step up to the plate.  But I suggest you bring more thn the status quo with you.  It ain't working.

How many ships carrying slaves or pirates do you see in US waters? How many do you see around the world? Gee, you have to make an extraordinary effort to find "real pirates and real slavers" overseas, and even then it's a low-ball operation. Gee, it seems like slavery and pirates were just "the cost of doing business" back then. Somehow they succeeded where you cannot, even though slavery and piracy were much bigger problem than your War on Drugs.

We understand that you are just covering your butt. That's why you are inviting me into your field. You're defending your failure by expecting others to fail. The only way you can win your point is to wish that others to fail in the face of danger. How depressing it must be to be you. Think about it.

Some interesting points of view here.  Valid arugements on all sides too, but, the problem ain't gonna go away.  

I got nothing against pot and I don't know anything about coke.  I may have a drink every now and again but my family is more important than "gettin high" or whatever...  But I think the Crank, Meth, Ice, etc. situation in this country is way out of hand.  

If you wanna sit at the house smoke a joint and watch Sponge Bob then have at it, just keep your ass at the house, off the road, and away from children.  But it sickens me to no end to see cranked up meth heads at the wal-mart at 1or 2 in the morning with small children that look like they haven't eaten or been bathed in days.  I'm glad I got off second shift so I don't get to wal-hole at those hours any more but I know it still goes on.  

There's a special place in hell for people who subject children to that type of behavior.