I agree that freedom without the “r” word is a dangerous frontier to construct a country in. It’s not for the feint-of- heart. That said, dangerous frontiers are where Americans, by definition, bravely go. It’s in our nature to stretch envelopes and test barricades.

Or, it used to be.

I think the GOP can embrace that spirit under the rubicon of liberalizing the economy, without yielding on the responsibility-half of its platform. It’ll be a tight needle-hole to thread, but, taking a “less-is-more” approach to economic regulation (which, if its Reagan’s party still, should come naturally) will guide the party’s reformers safely through the hole.

Will say this: Current airplane is in power dive with tail assembly shot off.

Suggest trying new-fangled gadget called parachute. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. What is there to lose?

Likewise: An absence of statutory law is far easeir to correct that a surplus of statutes. The barbarians have ALWAYS been aided by excessive quantities of government, NEVER by lack of quantity.

Let us postulate that the effects of legalization on your terms [cheap, copious, etc] would be as stated. What are the odds, under any conceivable political reality, that this will happen in this country; that given legalization that the government will refrain from distorting the market with either taxes, tariffs, or fees for inspections, etc.? In an ideal world, you would have the funerals noted. But we do not have an ideal world, and to achieve it would require the funerals of pretty much the entire governing caste of this country. It just is not going to happen, or if it does; drug legalization is not going to be a primary concern in the aftermath.

We are governed by unindicted criminals and egotistical fools. And no, that is not a metaphor for the two parties. It is a description of the makeup of the elected officials of both major parties.

The economics, and the political parameters we are stuck with, are such as to make sole concentration on the demand side futile. I will not go into details, but unless we can find a way to raise the marginal costs of production, financial and other costs, so as to reduce the profit margins to the point where the supply portion is constrained, we are not going to be able to work with the demand side. If the goal is to reduce the funding of our enemies, and to reduce the gang violence on and inside our borders, the problem has to be attacked on both those fronts, and on a number of others.

My point in # 149 was that the argument against the current policy [which is a failure] has been dominated thoroughly by a simplistic demand for legalization, with no real examination of the effects on and the reactions of the major players to that legalization. All of those players have both the power and the motivation to make relatively minor adaptations to maintain or enhance their dominance and make things worse than the current status quo.

There are no simple solutions. There are no sure solutions. There may not even be a solution. Whatever we try, in order to work, is probably going to be more complex and difficult than can be stated here. And any attempted solution is going to have to adapt to countermoves by enemies, attacks by other enemies not involved in the drug problem, and self destructive actions by those who cannot see farther than the short term, and who assume that the whole country can collapse and somehow they will be exempted.

Two [of many] historical rules of thumb:

1) The natural state of mankind throughout most of his history is a combination of poverty and slavery; our current civilization is an anomaly.

2) In the end, the barbarians usually win; due to the failure of the will of the civilized.

Subotai Bahadur

I would like to see copious quantities of all
currently illegal substances become legally
available overnight and dirt cheap to boot.
I’m talking 5 kilos of 95% pure heroin for less than $100 retail. Then, we see a spectacular number of funerals in a very short time frame. After that, the drug market will shrink to much more appropriate size.

Harsh? yes. Inhumane? No. For decades, the law has partially protected certain numbers of people from self-induced consequences. As a result, their numbers have grown geometrically. Some day or other, a ruthless nature will weed our garden for us. Better we do it ourselves so that the collateral damage will be minimized.

PS Subotai: De-toxification from opiates is
considerably easier and much less life-threatening than de-toxification from alcohol. Yeah, the patient tends to wish he or she was dead, but there is little danger of additional damage, let alone death. Subsequently, addicts have a recovery rate effectively the same as alcoholics.

Father James Martin, SJ, is a leading authority on alcoholism. He has pointed out that the one thing that reversed a healthy decline in the rate of alcoholism was, you guessed it, prohibition.

Also, during prohibition, shootouts on this side of the border were darned near a nightly occurence in some sectors. See the stories of Tom Threepersons, Bill Jordan, Charlie Askins and Harlan Carter. These went down to nothing immediately after repeal.

I would not expect equally Quick results from repeal of drug laws. That is because the contraband of yesteryear was legally manufactured by reputable persons in countries of orgin. But I would expect the course of human events to follow the same general pattern.

Prohibition in any form amounts to prior restraints. Prior restraints are always disasterous.