I agree that drugs are bad, and I would never do them myself. I would also advise a friend or family member to seek help. Our disagreement is over values and strategy. I value liberty so highly, that I can tell you that the liberty to injure or even kill one's self ought to be permitted with a straight face. This is the dark side of liberty, true, and I can live with it. Our second disagreement is over strategy. As I have stated before, criminalization raises the price for drugs, and therefore increases crime. The better strategy would be to focus on prevention and rehabilitation, rather than on a ruthless effort to kill drug dealers.

> V.Kemp wrote:

> Too bad you don't have any knowledge of the harm drugs use. You refer to whining 13 year olds as expert witnesses. You take homeless drug addicts at their word.

- First sentence grammar, illogical sentence (you call me out on your vs you're, gives me license to call the English proffesor on his errors). Second sentence Strawman argument. Third sentence strawman. To whit the age ranges of people using drugs covers a wide range, this invalidates strawman #1. Strawman #2 is invalidated due to that being an incorrect falacy. I was in a homeless to work program, they were in for other reasons including fresh from incarceration.

>You have no actual knowledge of drugs, what they do, or how they do it. You know absolutely about the garbage "gateway" drug theory, but lack the intellectual capacity to understand or question what you're told.

- Another strawman. I have a two year degree and a lot more hands on the job experience than the vast majority of society. Strawman number two is also a direct insult, questioning my intelligence. I have not referenced my intelligence recently so no basis for such an insult exists. As it is I was in talented and gifted for being way to smart for average school.

>You're an ignorant, cocky idiot who's on a crusade to hurt people around him and get law enforcement personnel and civilians killed in your pointless "war" on drugs.

- Count the strawmen and the insults. Claims I am out to hurt people around me... bogus. Claims the war is pointless where he has no backing for his claim.

>Fact: Nobody's forcing anyone to harm themselves with drugs.
>Fact: Your "war" produces 0 decrease in usage rates.
>Fact: There's collateral damage in your "war," killing law enforcement and civilians alike.

- Bunched together for brevity. Kemp is clearly ignorant of pimps deliberately addicting young girls to keep them reliant upon the pimps. Argument one slain with just one counter fact which shows his is an uneducated opinion. Additionally studies do show education, rehab and incarceration do have an impact upon drug use. Of course Kemp will try to deny it. His claim of casualties is designed to tug heart strings. Drug addicts do kill people, he wants to allow anyone to be a drug addict and thus increase the killing.

>Maybe you should learn a little bit about topics before fighting to the death for a position you have absolutely no basis for. Just a thought.

-Strawman again. Claims I need to learn about a topic I am deeply educated about.

>I presume you're going to go on a shooting rampage "to the death" later to stop people from consuming alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. Anything else would be hypocritical.

- Strawman again. He tosses nicotine and caffeine into a list to create hysteria. Alcohol is a subject of difficulty and he knows it. Alcoholism will require more education and targeted efforts than a blanket ban. By calling upon a shooting rampage he tries to make me out as a madman.

Kemp has no evidence, uses strawmen and blatant personal attacks with no basis or evidence. His style is inflaminatory and hysteric based. He is the worst person to discuss the problems of drugs in the topic so far. He is under the additional illusion he is an expert and can dismiss my claims out of hand. Delusional much?

"It's" is implied in the first sentence. It's not formal, but it's not incoherent.

You've literally claimed what I said you claimed in the second sentence. It's not a strawman when you referenced literally what I cited as evidence.

Your education and work experience is not directly related to drugs, is it? You obviously have absolutely no academic knowledge of drugs, in light of medicine, psychology, or sociology. You keep repeatedly making appeals to authority, so why don't you tell us just what authority that is? You don't have any. You were in a homeless to work program. That's great. That gives you absolutely no expertise on the topic of drugs.

"- Bunched together for brevity. Kemp is clearly ignorant of pimps deliberately addicting young girls to keep them reliant upon the pimps. Argument one slain with just one counter fact which shows his is an uneducated opinion."

This alleged crime is already a crime. Go and fight it, dumbass. Claiming this is widespread and accounts for more than a tiny minority of drug users is laughable. That you argue .001% of drug use is forced makes drug use in general a crime forced on innocent people? Yeah you REALLY slayed that argument by referencing .001% doing something which is already a crime!

You're really raising the level of exchange on the forum with logic like that! Good response, which completely ignores the logic and morality of my argument! Ohnoes, the 99.999% must be protected from themselves and their own freedom in the name of SAVING the .001% from a crime which can already be prosecuted! That doesn't even make any sense.

"Additionally studies do show education, rehab and incarceration do have an impact upon drug use."

Yeah. A tiny impact. Which decriminalization and even legalization also have.

"Of course Kemp will try to deny it."

Sorry, I don't deny the truth like you. Yes, they have a tiny impact on drug use. But considering that decriminalization and legalization also have this impact, as shown in every nation which has decriminalized/legalized, you've still not provided a justification for the lives lost to your drug war. I've already explained why this "point" of yours is not justification, yet you've failed to respond.

Little over your head, are you?

"His claim of casualties is designed to tug heart strings. Drug addicts do kill people, he wants to allow anyone to be a drug addict and thus increase the killing."

1) Most of their crimes are motivated by your drug war and the black market it creates. Legalization/decriminalization don't create more criminals because they wipe out drug crime.
2) Drug usage rates are barely influenced by legalization/decriminalization. Studies consistently show that those who want to use, legal or not, use. All the evidence suggests that there'd be no or almost no change in the number of drug users. How would that increase the number of deaths due to drug use? Especially when doses could be regularized and regulated?

So where's your evidence that legalization/decriminalization would save lives? You'd need to save many tens of thousands to save more than the current drug war has costed. Yet you have absolutely no evidence that it saves ANY lives, let alone tens of thousands.

Again and again, the facts and my arguments are demonstrated to be over your head. As it turns out, arrogance is not a good substitute for knowledge and understanding.

"-Strawman again. Claims I need to learn about a topic I am deeply educated about."

You're just embarrassing yourself. You don't know anything about it. You have a 2 year degree and worked with the homeless briefly. Big [clucking] deal. That doesn't make you "deeply educated" about it. Grow up.

I can see that, this time, you're trying to respond to some of my arguments. But you're completely missing them and responding like a 5 year old, so it's not much better.

I can say without doubt marijuana can lure a person to try more drugs

I can say without doubt, gaming can lure a person to try drugs
I can say without doubt, booze can lure a person to try drugs
I can say without doubt, parents can lure a person to try drugs...

whats your point? this is not fact. annything can lure someone to drugs, its the person not the reason why someone would.
either a person can controle himself and his urges or he cant.

The Yell,

So you support prohibition?

The current drug war is no more successful. It just has more ignorant supporters who deny the facts. You're making up stories about Joe and Jim because, as I've laid out, the drug war is lost. It's unsuccessful but still costs us dearly.

"Asshat libertarians want Joe left alone, which wouldn't help Bill, Roy, Sam, Frank, Bob or Steve put their kids in college and is the typical sort of pinko trick libertarians get up to."

Joe is obligated to put others' kids through college? Communist.

There he goes again

2 year degree
12 years experience
200 books read (including pyschologist books, treatment plan books, chemistry analysis books, and more)
Two jobs proffessionally handling drug addicts (Secured Medical Transport and Urinologist)
Associations with drug addicts and people in recovery.

I know this better than someone who reads the Constitution, reads the Federalist Papers, reads the writings of the founding fathers knows the Constitution. The difference is they read it. I studied it, lived with it around me, I worked on it, and I read it.

Shall I mock your insults and show how your all bluster? No... I think I will question your qualifications to even offer an opinion.

your war on drugs is to force your beliefs onto other people, your war on drugs is to use tax money on an impossible feat expecting actual results, your war on drugs is the thought that people need to be told what to do and controlled, your war on drugs is a personal control issue that you need to address yourself and not hold others accountable.

its also easy to bs your experience there is no proof in this.

"Two jobs proffessionally handling drug addicts (Secured Medical Transport and Urinologist)"

You mean urologist right? I didn't know you were an MD?

Wow, Einstein is a doctor, and not just any kinda doctor, a surgery subspecialist, an urologist! And all this time I thought you were just a veteran turned truckdriver!

The job, rarely talked about, was watcing men go wee (who were on court ordered programs) and putting the cups through low level (no degree required) tests and was spelled Urinologist.

Mr. Yell,

"Costs in what? Repression of drug users is victimless.  They don't count, because they don't care about themselves."

You didn't answer my question. Do you support prohibition? Are you against legal caffeine?

The "war on drugs" is costly because:
It creates a black market, which means both massively increased cost of goods and no police to regulate the market. I haven't referenced the sellers' deaths in this because I understand that you don't care. But this DOES result in deaths in law enforcement trying to regulate the industry. And deaths to intimidate those who might witness the business and speak out. The innocent, not-in-the-business deaths as a result number in the tens of thousands in just recent years.

And, since all instances of countries legalizing/decriminalizing drugs (even all drugs, which I'm not suggesting should be done, at least not right away) have resulted in pretty much unchanged rates of use, I ask what justifies all of this loss of innocent life. What do you have to show for the war to justify these costs?

And, of course, it costs dollars too. But I tend to focus on the innocent people getting killed because of it. And I ask why? For what gain?

I'll have to give your reference to China some thought. Maybe their society is preferable to ours. Maybe freedom really does suck compared to slavery. Hey, whatever price I have to pay to keep some evil man who ought to be put to death from smoking a joint this month is worth it, right?

Mr. Einstein,

"I know this better than someone who reads the Constitution, reads the Federalist Papers, reads the writings of the founding fathers knows the Constitution. The difference is they read it. I studied it, lived with it around me, I worked on it, and I read it."

Do you appreciate the irony of your screenname? Your associate's degree obviously isn't in the field. Your "experience" obviously isn't in the field. The jobs you listed give you some exposure at best. Like your claim of having read 200 books on the topic, your humongous ignorance of the topic suggests they either--like your jobs--weren't really on the subject (are you counting all books about those jobs? they'd barely inform you of the topic at all), were extremely limited in scope to the BS you'd accept, or are just fictitious.

"Shall I mock your insults and show how your all bluster? No... I think I will question your qualifications to even offer an opinion."

I don't need qualifications to cite doctors and chemists who clearly state that you're wrong regarding the effects of various drugs.

I don't need qualifications to cite studies in multiple countries which all show legalization/decriminalization not resulting in increased usage rates.

I don't need qualifications to refer to mass graves in Mexico as a result of the drug policies you support, which you have nothing to show for; nor do I need qualifications to refer to the many law enforcement agents who have been killed as a result of the black market which the policies you support create.

I don't need qualifications to cite all of the reasons "gateway drug theory" is a ridiculous and not remotely sound theory. I linked you more than a half dozen sources ripping it apart previously, and you just put your head in the sand and repeated your reference to it here. It's garbage by academic standards. It's garbage by common-sense standards.

"Your worldview ends when it interferes with my worldview."

How does my preference to enjoy a joint with a few beers on my porch or in my garden once or twice a month interfere with you?

Please advise. You can't give any answer which isn't filled with complete bullshit.

"Since your drug loving worldview means death, robbery, theft, indecency (added for Justinian), loss of power at times, damages to bridges, stolen funeral markers, and more... Your worldview takes a backseat to my worldview."

Again, you have absolutely no basis for this BS and it's why we're making fun of you. You're just making things up. Most of the things you refer to are a result of the "drug war" you support, not drugs. That you're unable to differentiate between the two is just embarrassing. You're offering evidence of the costs of your drug war, not drugs. Thanks for backing up arguments against your position.

You watched guys pee. Damn you are an expert. I take back all of those references to facts I kept trolling with. My bad. I've never watched a dude pee before. You're the expert.

RisingDown,

I like how you accepted his credentials as a "medical expert."

He's not going to mention gateway drug theory more than the passing reference. I ripped him apart when he brought up the issue of Libertarian positions on drugs in the past. He immediately stopped posting and gave up when I bombarded him with links making fun of "gateway drug theory."

I've repeatedly asked about alcohol, and recently nicotine and caffeine as well. He ignores these questions. If pressed he claims that alcohol's pretty harmless and marijuana is all kinds of things which literally no professional would claim it is. He just toes the Republican party line because they give him intellectual validation. Attempts to focus on medical facts like the effects of marijuana vs alcohol or the logical hypocrisy of current laws results in loads of fabricated claims of how Pot grew into a monster and ate his cousin once.

Pot was made illegal because of who was using it, not its effects. Einstein doesn't know his history, so he doesn't care. Until Republicans tell him it's okay to think about the topic and ponder the evidence, he's not going to.

You've left the door open to the army of straw-men he'll soon wage an assault on. I'm obviously advocating injecting THC into babies, and clearly I'm implying that smoking tons of dope every day is a good decision.

you should have at least 12 beers a day to keep the doctor away