--- DoreneFC at aol.com wrote:
Criminalizing drug use gives
> people who suffer direct
> neglect and other dangers due to someone else's drug
> use ways to end the harm
> to themselves or to have others help them reduce the
> harm.
Yes, I suppose throwing someone in jail works in some cases. Of course, apparently they can get the drugs in prison (or at least that is my understanding). Then they get out of jail. They have a police record and nobody wants to hire them. What happens then?
Maybe you are
> lucky enough not to know anyone whose life is so
> messed up by drugs they
> literally cannot take the first steps to help
> themselves but encounters with
> the criminal justice system CAN be an excellent way
> to get these people's
> attention and sometimes to divert them from
> self-destruction.
I have known drug addicts, especially people addicted to a drug called ALCOHOL. But why stop there, let's throw people addicted to sex, to gambling, etc in jail. Let's let the criminal justice system help them out, too. Did alcohol prohibition stop alcoholism? No. Same thing is true of drug prohibition.
Should we make alcohol illegal because it can be BAD for you, because you could get addicted? Why not make sugar illegal too? I suspect that more people suffer from diabetes related illnesses than from heroin. How many people died from car crashes this year? Let's make car travel illegal while we are being so benevolent.
-Thomas
===== <<Be like me! The Primal Mother, eternally creative, eternally impelling into life,
eternally drawing satisfaction from the ceaseless flux of phenomena.>>
-Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy"
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