Thanks for not disappointing.

Functioning Addicts. I like that.

I agree with your above post.

Limbaugh is different. I have no problem with him taking the medicine or even abusing it, but being a hypocrite is something everybody should know about him. He defended the Drug War from the get go and he constantly supported possession sentencing…then he shopped around and was illegally obtaining super high quantities of the drug.

Same thing goes for Valium and the housewife. I don’t care if she takes them or abuses them. So long as she is not driving under the influence and not neglecting her children (if she has any)…I don’t care.

The big “enforcement” problems that will arise if controlled substances are ever decriminalized and available to the public at large will not be a matter of searches and seizures…the social policies regarding child abuse, child neglect, DUI, and even employer drug use and testing policies are where the real work is going to take place.

How we deal with those matters will define the era of ending prohibition and how I personally judge a addicts behavior.

There are plenty of functioning addicts. Do what you want to your own body, but as soon as your habits start affecting or harming others a line will need to be drawn.

My biggest curiosity comes from just WHO was the first human being to eat a bat liver to figure out it could do whatever it did to help you?

Do we really want a Lt. Gov. that sponsors this kind of big brother crap?

John Konop–I’ve returned in a twilight zone. You and I agree on this issue. Very strange.

The war on drugs is a sham. 80% of arrests last year in the War on Drugs was for possession.

Marijuana sure beats alcohol in terms of what you want the guy next door using. Marijuana driving- yeah, you never hear about that, because a person smoking weed doesn’t care enough about anything to get in a car and drive there.

With bills like HR 614 and then the Drivers License bill HB 396 (which was tabled in the Senate yesterday)- combine those, and someone can have their drivers license suspended because they’ve been prescribed vicodin for a couple years.

I was diagnosed with shingles last year– and it was too late for treatment with antibiotics. So the only thing the doctors could do for me was to prescribe vicodin and neurintin to try to manage my pain. Were it not for my friend who is an UNLICENSED herbalist (remember that 110 pg. atrocity of a medical bill the House passed on crossover requiring all this licensing for fringe medicine?)– I could have been on those drugs for a year or more. Fortunately, my friend who has more real life experience actually curing people, I was able to get the pain levels under control using certain vitamins, herbs, etc. (and bat livers, but that may be too gruesome for this crowd. Non-genetically modified bat livers, in the event that you ask, Bill).

The Georgia House and Senate is totally out of control. Boo these people at the District Conventions, and pass out fliers letting the delegates know what kind of garbage is going on.

The arbiters of tyranny have a southern drawl, y’all.

If a housewife is on valium do you really care? If Rush is taking OxyContin do you care? And what should be the punishment? Are we not creating more problems than we are solving?

Secondly, since when do you guys care? Remember the Patriot Act? How about Roe v Wade? Now…if you are not a fan of the 14th Amendment (for whatever reasons) you really have no foot to stand on.

Enforcement of this law, and investigation of suspects, does not require the knowledge of anybody’s name. Like all gov’t records, the use of numbers will be attached to individuals. Social Security numbers are the likly “reference” numbers, but different numbers can be used fir various security concerns.

Simply having an electronic record of what drugs are being dispensed and in what quantities over an interval of time (all of these, for those that are unfamiliar, have lawfully regulated quantities and intervals of refill) for the database of reference numbers would allow a simple computer program to quickly identify people that are abusing the system and are shopping around. The total costs…a new computer program and electronic medical records (which has been a proposed project for a decade).

Simply having electronic medical records available for pharmacists and other doctors would in itself reduce these crimes. The state would simply be able to punish pharmacists and doctors for knowing filling illegal prescriptions.

Again, this is not an infringement on privacy rights. Keep an individual’s identity out of the picture and have assigned reference numbers…that is a court tested administrative method that saves everybody time in court.

Like our European colleagues, we need to decriminalize these drugs, regulate them, tax them and create addiction treatment programs.

All in all, both socially and fiscally, this route is much more sound. Regulating the drugs will ensure that distributors are selling a safer product. Taxing them will create revenue. Addiction to these substances is not a good thing, and decriminalization coupled with treatment should inevitably lower the demand and lower the costs of imprisoning these repeat offenders.

There is probably no need to go into all of the specifics regarding the benefits of legalizing drugs.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/24/miron.legalization.drugs/index.html?iref=newssearch

This article sums most of it up nicely.

Regardless of all of this talk, this bill was a good one and it fell victim to the greed of pharmecutical giants who do not want their profit margins to sink because laws start getting enforced.

You kind of get what I am getting at. I don’t think extra funding should necessarily be attached all the time, but all of the tools should be provided…so long as they are court approved. That does not necessarily mean attaching more money to a program.

You are right about one thing, on many of these issues…I could care less. Partly because I will be dead before anything significant is done, but also because I don’t care what the law says. I care about how voters come to their conclusions about who to vote for and a few other things…but for the most part, none of these policies actually affect me as a person or anybody in my family.

I have extreme flexibility in my ability to relocate. I really like Georgia. It is beautiful, but so is Martinique or even Santa Barbara County. Money is not a problem for me…so it is not as if I am stuck somewhere because of my job or because I can not afford to move to a different city, state, or country. Even on issues I do care about…regardless of how a legislative body votes on it, it will not affect my life. I don’t need Sunday alcohol sales…it is impossible to drink all of the booze in my house within a month. I do not need the economic stimulus or unemployment insurance or tax cuts or public school standards.

There are two Americas. There is the one that a very small percentage of people buy and the other is the public. I want what is best for my country and my people. Plain and simple. I did my part and my generation is leaving the rest to next generations. We had our wars, we paid off our debts, we raised taxes and cut spending when necessary, now it is your generations turn.

You guys are off to a rocky start. (I am not certain how old you are Daniel, so I may not be talking about your generation necessarily…you might be of my grandchildren’s generation, in which case I would kindly ask you to scold your parents for being so reckless). This is America…adversity will be overcome, but only if the country can come together for a common cause with a common purpose. Partisanship has never solved any of America’s problems.

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”

You intellect is truly dizzying.

Let’s see if I’ve got it.

You believe we should not only add to bad policy with more bad policy, but we should fund it and increase it’s funding whenever and however possible…. And we should do all these things until such time as we no longer do them… which btw, will happen after you die or never, so therefore, right now let’s continue to think up new bad policies and implement them and raise more taxes to pay for them, fore down deep, you really could care less (ok, the last part was my opinion, but it fits).

Correct?

Pathetic