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Will John Kelly Re-Militarize the Drug War?


Yamato

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From the video:  

Trump's pick for Homeland Security, Gen. John Kelly, comes back to government fresh off his last assignment as commander of the US military's Southern Command (SOCOM).

Will he bring his experience using the US military to fight the drug war in Central and South America to the drug war at home?

 

 

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Just curious, is there any drug that you feel should never be legalized?  For me, methamphetamine would never be a useful substance and should be eliminated by whatever means necessary.  The rest could be de-criminalized or legalized as long as the individuals that use them and harm someone else could be held accountable.  Using the military to intercept traffickers would be costly, casualties would be high and ultimately it would only drive up prices for the product.  Since people have always and will always seek an altered state of consciousness, the only long term answer is severe punishment for those who harm others while intoxicated.  Personal responsibility is the only way out of this maze.

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22 minutes ago, and then said:

Just curious, is there any drug that you feel should never be legalized?  For me, methamphetamine would never be a useful substance and should be eliminated by whatever means necessary.  The rest could be de-criminalized or legalized as long as the individuals that use them and harm someone else could be held accountable.  Using the military to intercept traffickers would be costly, casualties would be high and ultimately it would only drive up prices for the product.  Since people have always and will always seek an altered state of consciousness, the only long term answer is severe punishment for those who harm others while intoxicated.  Personal responsibility is the only way out of this maze.

People who think the fedgov should control what people do with their bodies must also think that the people, towns, cities, counties and states need babysitters.

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5 minutes ago, Yamato said:

People who think the fedgov should control what people do with their bodies must also think that the people, towns, cities, counties and states need babysitters.

Sorry Yamato, but combatting drugs has nothing to do with a nanny state. There're an evil that needs to be eradicated IMO. With whatever means. 

Edited by Captain Risky
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...and if there are any minors or confused adults that are contemplating taking drugs... say NO! Its what Captain Risky would say...

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2 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Sorry Yamato, but combatting drugs has nothing to do with a nanny state. There're an evil that needs to be eradicated IMO. With whatever means. 

You'll get used to Yammy's off-beat responses, or not, but he never changes :)  He's like UM's resident Satanic er, Devil's advocate.  You say tomaytow, he'll say toomahtow.  

Welcome to UM

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4 minutes ago, and then said:

You'll get used to Yammy's off-beat responses, or not, but he never changes :)  He's like UM's resident Satanic er, Devil's advocate.  You say tomaytow, he'll say toomahtow.  

Welcome to UM

I have no problem with Yamato. In fact i like his posts. Just that on this count i strenuously disagree. And I'm not new mate. Im in disguise ;) 

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6 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Sorry Yamato, but combatting drugs has nothing to do with a nanny state. There're an evil that needs to be eradicated IMO. With whatever means. 

Inanimate objects aren't evil.  That's like saying that guns are evil.  

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Just now, Yamato said:

Inanimate objects aren't evil.  That's like saying that guns are evil.  

I don't wanna fuss over the definition of evil. But i have seen what they do to people and their families. So trust me when i say that hard drugs are a curse straight from hell.  

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3 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

I don't wanna fuss over the definition of evil. But i have seen what they do to people and their families. So trust me when i say that hard drugs are a curse straight from hell.  

What people may do is what's evil.    What people may do with guns might be evil too.   If you were touched by gun violence you might think that guns are evil.   People love to talk about responsible gun ownership and how important gun safes are to prevent death by gun.  Well when you go to the pharmacy and bring home a plastic bottle full of pills, there's no angels from the federal govt in your house to tell you what not to do.  Put them in your cabinet or leave them on the counter.  Wake up the next day wanting to kill yourself, and you'll know where the bottle's at.

Legal hard drugs and illegal hard drugs are dangerous.  General Kelly might be fighting some of those hard drugs down south meanwhile we're drowning in legal hard drugs up here.   The legality of opioids that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year doesn't save their lives.  And if tens of thousands die every year, how many who don't die are addicted?   If Kelly or Sessions or Trump or Romney or Giuliani were questioning hard drugs and what they can do to peoples' lives, but they have no problem with the legal ones.   It's as if they think they have it all figured out on legal vs illegal already, and they only need to punish the illegal ones while kowtowing to the legal ones.  

Trump is now saying that drugs are too expensive in this country.  Trump is talking about the US importing more drugs from other countries to get drug costs down.  Drugs from China maybe?   Trump is talking about how great Duterte is, who's killing his own people in his war on drugs.  

States have their own laws for murder, assault, rape, incest, child molestation, terrorism, alcohol, tobacco, cars, guns, and drugs.   We can talk about how horrifying the toll is from any of these things, and if we've seen it firsthand we'll know, but federally going after drugs while ignoring the rest doesn't make any sense.   Once we get a fedgov babysitter for one thing, the door will be wide open for unprecedented nanny state govt. wars on any of them or all of them.

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I think its important to make a distinction between abusing over the counter drugs and illegal drugs and not group them together. People don't buy illegal drugs so that they can deposit them in a bank vault like some piece of fine art. And they don't treat aliments with them either. They're used to justify the worst of human excess and mindlessness. I admire your principles of free choice and action BUT unfortunately not everyone holds the same values and sense of right or wrong. And its not a comparison of legal and illegal. Both when abused are wrong. Its about the peripheral effects also... the violence, the loss of free will that you seem to champion is an effect of drug abuse. Loss of dignity, health and the ability to function in society that should convince most that fighting them is important even if its un-winable war.  

Thats just my opinion of course.

 

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Gotta stay awake ...
 

Quote

 

~

Amphetamine was first made in 1887 in Germany and methamphetamine, more potent and easy to make, was developed in Japan in 1919. The crystalline powder was soluble in water, making it a perfect candidate for injection. Methamphetamine went into wide use during World War II, when both sides used it to keep troops awake.

The History of Crystal Methamphetamine - Drug-Free World

www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/crystalmeth/history-of-methamphetamine.html

~

 

Quote

 

`

The History of Meth: From Hitler to Kerouac - How Meth Works ...

science.howstuffworks.com/meth2.htm

The History of Meth: From Hitler to Kerouac - The history of meth spans multiple wars and a long list of cultural icons. Dive into the history of meth, from Hitler to ...

`

 

It ain't the substance ... its the abuse ...

~

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1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

I think its important to make a distinction between abusing over the counter drugs and illegal drugs and not group them together. People don't buy illegal drugs so that they can deposit them in a bank vault like some piece of fine art. And they don't treat aliments with them either. They're used to justify the worst of human excess and mindlessness. I admire your principles of free choice and action BUT unfortunately not everyone holds the same values and sense of right or wrong. And its not a comparison of legal and illegal. Both when abused are wrong. Its about the peripheral effects also... the violence, the loss of free will that you seem to champion is an effect of drug abuse. Loss of dignity, health and the ability to function in society that should convince most that fighting them is important even if its un-winable war.  

Thats just my opinion of course.

 

People actually do buy illegal drugs to treat their ailments.  CBD oil for instance doesn't get anyone high, yet if it's not sourced from "mature stalks" (not included in the fedgov's definition of "marijuana") it's illegal under federal law.  A life saving cannabinoid that never made anyone high and never will, and yet it's technically a Schedule 1 substance with no medicinal value.   A potential gold mine for federal intervention in the war on drugs if the new administration wants to go there.   

So there are legal drugs which have terrible abuse and there are illegal drugs that have no abuse.  I don't want to hurt people by not protecting them from dangerous substances, I don't want to hurt people by denying them beneficial substances that protect them.   I agree with your intentions but it's also a theoretical-ideal argument that isolates out hard drugs that destroys peoples' lives (crystal meth, crack cocaine, ice).  Marijuana isn't a hard drug.  The federal law at least doesn't make that distinction and so the practice is much different than the theory.

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4 hours ago, Captain Risky said:

Sorry Yamato, but combatting drugs has nothing to do with a nanny state. There're an evil that needs to be eradicated IMO. With whatever means. 

So you're for alcohol prohibition too right?

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Possession for personal use of all illegal drugs should be decriminalized. That would free up Police resources to go after the dealers and traffickers. Punishing addicts is like kicking a mugging victim while they are down.

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2 hours ago, Yamato said:

People actually do buy illegal drugs to treat their ailments.  CBD oil for instance doesn't get anyone high, yet if it's not sourced from "mature stalks" (not included in the fedgov's definition of "marijuana") it's illegal under federal law.  A life saving cannabinoid that never made anyone high and never will, and yet it's technically a Schedule 1 substance with no medicinal value.   A potential gold mine for federal intervention in the war on drugs if the new administration wants to go there.   

So there are legal drugs which have terrible abuse and there are illegal drugs that have no abuse.  I don't want to hurt people by not protecting them from dangerous substances, I don't want to hurt people by denying them beneficial substances that protect them.   I agree with your intentions but it's also a theoretical-ideal argument that isolates out hard drugs that destroys peoples' lives (crystal meth, crack cocaine, ice).  Marijuana isn't a hard drug.  The federal law at least doesn't make that distinction and so the practice is much different than the theory.

Okay that's an excellent example and i stand corrected. But i was referring to illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin. But i see where you're going with this.   

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57 minutes ago, Farmer77 said:

So you're for alcohol prohibition too right?

Well no I'm not. But i don't think that alcohol is in the same league as meth and heroin. Nor pot... even though modern strains of pot these days is some powerful chit. And theres the rub. You can control the potency of alcohol where-as you can't illegal drugs like heroin and meth.

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5 hours ago, Captain Risky said:

. But i have seen what they do to people and their families. So trust me when i say that hard drugs are a curse straight from hell.  

you've seen what PEOPLE do to themselves and their families. as long as there is a demand there will always be supply, there is absolutely nothing you can do about, aside from fighting unwinnable war.  that makes you dumb twice, you know you can not win yet you still fight,  show me where such approach ever worked? 

mentality like that is more dangerous than any drug.  

 

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3 hours ago, third_eye said:

Gotta stay awake ...
 

 

It ain't the substance ... its the abuse ...

~

Without trying to sound like some anti drug crusader... abuse is more a symptom of the addictiveness of the illegal drugs than any control factor.  

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3 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Without trying to sound like some anti drug crusader... abuse is more a symptom of the addictiveness of the illegal drugs than any control factor.  

Its the same runaround, its a mental condition ... if its not this then its that ... they'll still find means of substituting the substance ... the issue here in this thread is GOvermental Policies and social repercussions ~

Edited by third_eye
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1 minute ago, aztek said:

you've seen what PEOPLE do to themselves and their families. as long as there is a demand there will always be supply, there is absolutely nothing you can do about, aside from fighting unwinnable war.  that makes you dumb twice, you know you can not win yet you still fight,  show me where such approach ever worked? 

mentality like that is more dangerous than any drug.  

 

No problem buddy. Lets all just throw our hands in the air and surrender to the inevitable. Is that what you think is right? Or actually try to give people and society a chance to grow up.

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Just now, Captain Risky said:

Well no I'm not. But i don't think that alcohol is in the same league as meth and heroin. Nor pot... even though modern strains of pot these days is some powerful chit. And theres the rub. You can control the potency of alcohol where-as you can't illegal drugs like heroin and meth.

Theres some cognitive dissonance happening there. If heroin and meth were legal their potency could be controlled. Alcohol is the perfect example of that , get bad moonshine and go blind right ?  

The following chart is a couple of years old but it highlights my point perfectly. Alcohol related deaths outnumber drug related deaths by a massive margin. Yet through conditioning its not even questioned in our society whether alcohol is worse than drugs (nevermind that alcohol IS a drug) . So somehow we have an entire war on substances which are by the numbers killing about half as many people as something you can walk into the store and purchase. 

Image result for deaths due to alcohol annual vs drugs us

If you read the fine print at the bottom the alcohol attributable deaths total doesnt even include FAS or traffic accidents. 

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1 minute ago, Farmer77 said:

... the alcohol attributable deaths total doesnt even include FAS or traffic accidents. 

I for one can vouch for those numbers from my wild partying and social Clubbing days ... I've seen my fair share of it all ... friends and foes alike ~

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3 minutes ago, Farmer77 said:

Theres some cognitive dissonance happening there. If heroin and meth were legal their potency could be controlled. Alcohol is the perfect example of that , get bad moonshine and go blind right ?  

The following chart is a couple of years old but it highlights my point perfectly. Alcohol related deaths outnumber drug related deaths by a massive margin. Yet through conditioning its not even questioned in our society whether alcohol is worse than drugs (nevermind that alcohol IS a drug) . So somehow we have an entire war on substances which are by the numbers killing about half as many people as something you can walk into the store and purchase. 

Image result for deaths due to alcohol annual vs drugs us

If you read the fine print at the bottom the alcohol attributable deaths total doesnt even include FAS or traffic accidents. 

Well tobacco is the worse of the lot and nothing short of a criminal enterprise thats been legalised. If hard currently illegal drugs goes the same way as tobacco then the government will just take a nasty addictive drug away from the dealers, tax it and do the same all over again. I can't see any advantage in legalising hard drugs for recreational use.

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2 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Well tobacco is the worse of the lot and nothing short of a criminal enterprise thats been legalised. If hard currently illegal drugs goes the same way as tobacco then the government will just take a nasty addictive drug away from the dealers, tax it and do the same all over again. I can't see any advantage in legalising hard drugs for recreational use.

I can understand that. In my mind its about two things, freedom and responsibility. When we look across the globe at the few nations which have legalized drugs there seems to be a consensus that they have overall improved their nations by doing so. This is a good article on Portugal 14 Years After Decriminalizing All Drugs, Here's What Portugal Looks Like 

Arming violent men to arrest people and ruin their lives for making personal choices flies in the face of what America is supposed to stand for in my opinion 

As Yamato mentioned throw in the medicinal use of marijuana (saved my life, literally) and the "new" discovery (really a re discovery) of the psychological benefits of psychedelics  such as mushrooms and DMT and you begin to see some logic and benefit  to ending prohibition. 

 

 

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