Crumple wrote:Cannabis today is much more potent than thirty years ago. I'm anti-drugs deep down and say they should be banned unless given for medicinal purposes on presecription. There is a simple way to stop pushers and addicts re-offending - it's called long term prison. If you show zero zolerance crime goes down.
I do not agree. I think finding ways to decrease suffering and increase pleasure is a fundamentally human pastime. And escapism is one method. What prior generations did with Rimbaud and Baudelaire, current generations do with pot and crack and meth; and alcohol is the eternal balm, despite thousands dying in accidents involving drunk drivers each year in the U.S. (I estimate ~5,000 deaths for 2001 counting only those who were intoxicated based on blood alcohol minimums set by local laws). As long as the tools exist, there will be those who are tempted to use them. It's theoretically possible that harsh punishment might have a deterrent effect, but studies of capital punishment in the U.S. seem to indicate that even that isn't a deterrent. People act first and worry about the consequences later. I'm pulling on a very vague memory, so take this with a grain of salt, but IIRC, in one study of violent crime in the U.S., only 8% of violent offenders were caught and convicted; if that's normal, probability is on the side of the offender, and the only response of the system is to pour money and energy into the problem asymptotically, to vastly diminishing returns. We see the same dynamic in the war on terrorism -- not including those who self select for that special Darwin Award -- too many terrorists, too little evidence, too few policemen; we might be able to make a significant dent in the problem, but only at the expense of devoting the lion's share of our resources to the effort. Instead, we here in the U.S. are saddled with such buffoonery as the T&A of the TSA body scanners and the like. Billions are being spent annually by the U.S. not so much to make Americans safer as to calm their sense of paranoia and reduce fear & anxiety; the U.S. war on terror is largely one big sugar pill, destined to make her feel better but do nothing about the underlying disease (and note how quickly nation building takes a backseat to more martial concerns of building an effective police state in Iraq and Afghanistan). It was inevitable that America would face a 9/11, though perhaps not on as grand a scale. She has ignored the issue of terrorism largely by being physically isolated from the rest of the world. America is "finding her legs" in a world where terrorism, in some sense, is just a fact of life. And IMHO, that's where it should remain, as a tragic fact of life, but not something which should attract a significant amount of attention. It's going to happen. And the bastards are going to get away. Again, and again, and again. And no amount of money is going to change this fact. And those billions could be saving or bettering the lives of millions in Africa, save them from dying from lack of food, clean water, or adequate medical care (and education). But it's much easier to justify saving a few thousand each year from unjust deaths, at the expense of the millions who could be saved, than it is to do the reverse.
