Sunday, September 14, 2014

cannabis decriminalizing issues

Is This the Most Clueless Politician In the Country?

http://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/09/09/is-this-the-most-clueless-politician-in-the-country/
Just when I think things cannot get any more bizarre, debauched and moronic, I keep finding myself being surprised – big time. You think the amount of moonbattery has reached the outer limits, and then something comes along and makes you realise that the level of idiocy must be infinite.
And when this mental and moral meltdown comes from our politicians, then you really got to be worried. I refer to one of the most ridiculous and stupid things I have heard of in a long time from a politician – in this case recently elected David Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democrats.
drugs 6He wants complete open slather on drugs – all of them. And let’s even sell marijuana in our supermarkets. Yes, he actually said that folks. Here is how a news item run with this story:
Cannabis should be sold in supermarkets and hard drugs be available from the Government for heroin, cocaine and ice addicts under a federal MP’s radical drug reform plan. Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm wants to kill the power of organised crime in Australia by decriminalising drugs, opening up the market and bringing down prices.
Senator Leyonhjelm said while it might not be smart to use marijuana, it was a harmless, non-addictive drug and should be openly available. His party’s philosophy is that if a person is not hurting anyone else, the Government should stay out of their business.
Like in the fruit-and-vegetable industry, farmers should grow cannabis for sale in supermarkets and other shops, he said. And anyone should be able to grow it in their garden. Senator Leyonhjelm believes the same open slather availability could be possible for party drugs, such as ecstasy, as long as it can be proven the only real risk is to the person taking it.
“I’m not saying they’re safe, I don’t recommend them, advise them, endorse them, no,” he said. “All I’m really saying is it’s an individual, adult choice.” For hardcore, addictive drugs, the NSW politician suggests the Government stop wasting millions on chasing crime gangs peddling drugs and peddle them itself. Under a “harm minimisation” model, registered addicts would get replacement drugs, such as methadone or “other options”, erasing the need to pay up big to criminals.
In the days of legal opium smoking, people lived their whole lives addicted to heroin, he said. “Because supply was never restricted, they lived a normal life and they functioned quite well.” He said while being an addict was “not ideal”, it wasn’t destructive until you added in the desperate behaviour of scoring a fix.
Wow, where do I begin with this utter buffoonery? Marijuana is harmless? Just what planet is this guy living on? And he wants to lead this country? Be gone! The truth is, there are well over 10,000 scientific studies about marijuana and its effects.
The findings of this research reveal a host of alarming facts. This is a dangerous drug, with acute effects of cannabis use including: anxiety, panic, paranoia, cognitive impairment, psychomotor impairment, and increased risk of low birth rate babies. Chronic effects include: respiratory diseases, attention and memory loss or impairment, and cannabis dependence.
As an article in Pediatrics stated: “Marijuana is an addictive, mind-altering drug capable of inducing dependency. . . . Marijuana should not be considered an innocuous drug. . . . There is little doubt that marijuana intoxication contributes substantially to accidental deaths and injuries among adolescents”.
Yet he says it is harmless and non-addictive. He might as well say the moon is made of cheese and there is no such thing as gravity. How can any politician get away with making such utterly absurd and blatantly false claims. There should be a law against politicians telling porkies to the public.
And he uses the stale yet standard mantra of the moonbats on all this: choice. An adult can do what he wants. No he cannot. There are all sorts of things an adult cannot and should not do. These are not activities which have no impact on others.
For example, as just stated, the number of people steadily being harmed or killed because of other drivers using drugs continues to rise. This is not a victimless crime. Try telling the families who have lost loved ones due to a drug user that it is just all about choice, and none of their business.
Then this guy who has obviously been smoking way too much of this stuff tells us another incredible porkie: making things like opium legal will make everyone happy with no problems. Um no, not even close bub. We know perfectly well that keeping an activity illegal deters people from partaking in that activity.
Remove the penalties or sanctions, and many more people will take up the activity. We can learn from history here. After Europe imposed the opium trade on China in the mid-19th century, by 1900 there were an estimated 90 million opium addicts in the nation. When British physicians could write prescriptions for heroin in the 60s, the nation’s junkies increased thirty to forty-fold.
And then, incredibly, he claims that addictions were not “destructive until you added in the desperate behaviour of scoring a fix.” Is this guy for real? Addiction to dangerous mind-altering drugs is always dangerous and deadly. And since this guy is obviously clueless about the most basic of facts here, let me inform him of a few home truths.
Crime is a function of drug use. When people are on mind-altering drugs, they engage in more crime at greater rates. For example, most US prisoners serving time for drug-related crimes were in for aggravated drug crimes, that is, crimes committed while on drugs (murder, armed robbery, theft, assault, child abuse, etc.).
In fact, the US Department of Justice has found that criminals commit six times as many homicides, four times as many assaults and almost one-and-a-half times as many robberies under the influence of drugs as they commit in order to get money to buy drugs.
And if full legalisation is achieved, it will simply increase the pool of drug users. There is no way to enact the legalisation of drugs without greatly increasing the number of users. By removing the penalties for usage, and by (in theory) reducing the costs, demand will increase. This is a simple function of supply and demand: make something easier and cheaper to obtain, and you increase the number of people who will try it.
Yet this politician thinks all this is just a peachy idea. Just who elected this guy anyway? The “harm minimisation” model is a failed model, and countries which once had huge problems with drugs and crime, such as Sweden, have remarkably turned this around by implementing a just-say-no approach.
If he wants to spend his life lying around getting stoned, endangering his life and that of others, let him do it elsewhere. We don’t need his vacuous and failed counsel here.
[1155 words]---------------------------some comments with links after the breaik

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