[lbo-talk] it's inevitable

[Carrol Cox]

andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> 
> 
> However, apart from libertarian, anti-paternalistic
> considerations of letting people go to hell their own
> way, we've tried prohibition, and it doesn't work. 

I'm in pretty complete agreement with Justin's whole arrgumen. A couple
points. I put no stock whatever in the libertarin position -- in large
part because I reject the ahistorical concept of "the individual"
implied in it. The second point is profound distrust in the criminal
justice system as it now exists, and the knowledge that the War on Drugs
(n fact the War on Crime as a whole) is not for the purpose or
controlling drugs but for controlling large sectors of the working
class, and in contributing to the justification of the enormous police &
prison apparatus in the u.s. The Police as they now exist resemble mor a
military reserve on constant semi-callup than they do anything like the
police force we would require minus the War on Drugs. In terms of
ideology, the War on Crime is the virtual smoke of a virtual fire --
implying that the major sources of our misery are crime & terrorism, not
the workings of the capitalist society. If we catch the crooks, all will
be well. (I throw out for consideration, without trying to interpre it
myself, that current crime fiction -- which as always is aimed at a
reasonably sophisticated readership), increasingly for a decade or two
has emphasized "the serial killer" (i.e. an abstract -- isolated --
individual) as The Enemy to be fought.)

Carrol

We
> tried it with alcohol and got Capone and the Mafia --
> biggest boon they ever had. We are trying it with
> coke, opiates, pot, etc., and we get large scale
> organized crime plus lots of street crime plus, an
> increase in the prison population that is nearly an
> order of magnitude in the last 25 years?
> 
> --- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> 
> > Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> >
> > >Did not I acknowledged that in my posting?  I
> > disagree
> > >with you, however, that drugs - or alcohol - are
> > >violence and social cost free. Cocaine often
> > produces
> > >violent outbursts.  Opium derivatives (morphine,
> > >heroine) are addictive, and addiction can have
> > quite
> > >adverse effect on the addict and his/her family,
> > >including violent outbursts (esp. during
> > withdrawal).
> > >  Even pot, which indeed is quite benign and
> > soporific,
> > >in some individuals it can produce paranoid
> > reactions,
> > >extreme agitation and irritability, which may
> > trigger
> > >violence.
> >
> > So if drugs cause criminal behavior, the crimes
> > themselves can be
> > punished. Why criminalize the drugs, which normally
> > don't cause
> > criminal behavior?
> >
> > Doug
> > ___________________________________
> >
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> 
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