The War on drugs targets the innocent conduct of 20 million+ people with punishment.

Whatever your views on illegal drugs happens to be I have a some questions for your acute and studied analysis. Butr first I need to set the stage very briefly in order to make a point. I call this my "did you know , , ,?" paradigm.

Of the hundred of chemicals,plants and drugs on the federal and state controlled substance lists which are closely standardized, most can be obtained legally with a physicians prescription. A small number, such as heroin, is not a 'recognized' medical substance currently, but heroin had been so used in the not too distant past. The point here is that the so called lawmakers have t;ld us that virtually none of the forbidden substances are harmful per se and that with the physician's carefully trained hand consumption of the listed substances can be consumed in a way that the potential for abuse has been minimized to an acceptable level and that mere consumption does not automatically result in a threat or harm to the health and safety of the public. However, as we all know, if you posssess, consume, growm distribute, import or manufacture any of the listed substances you are authomatically targeted for serious punishment that runs from arrest and processing the criminal jmustice system to prison, fine and the attending albatross you will wear for a life time.

First a brief outline of what legislators have done in all 50 states and the US CongressOur elected representatives have have defined a group of persons as criminal for enbgaging in otherwise legal activity - the persons with the prescription, or other authorized use are immune from prosecution for engaging in the same activity as the one defined as a member of the '"possessing and using but no prescrtiption" group". If you are or were a communist and a law was passed criminalizing membership in the US Communst Party, then you could suffer serious penalties even in the absence of any proof or even suggestion that your activity as a Cloomunist was tainted with illegal and criminal acts.

It only need be proved that even though that you are a Communist. You may not nevertheless prove yourself a patriotic and law abiding person that has never advocated or paricipated in any violent means to further your goals as a Communist/marxist. The prosecution in fact is prevented from having to prove any unlawful or harmful conduct on you part for which you are being tried as a felon. The jury need only find that you are a member of the group tageted for punishment where the group designation is Communist party membership.

The same applies to persons targeted for punishment for possessing, consuming etc any of the controlled substances. You are in the court room and about to tell your jury that sure you smoked marijuana or snorted methamphetamine but no person or no person's property was threatened nor did actual harm happen to anyone, including yourself. The judge will send the jury from the courtroom and instruct you that your attempt to show yourself as not blameworthy is irrelevant to the felony charges of possession and use of heroin or marijuana or lsd and therefore you will be instructed that your only defense is that you didn't possess or consume any of the substances on the controlled substance list.


What does the Constitution say about targeting named or identfiable groups of persons for punishment?

A. What if there was a US Coinstitutional provision that statesof "Congress shall pass no law that targets an identifiable group for punishment without a trial." and that states "The States shall not pass any law that targets an identifiable group for punishment without a trial."? I mean 'without a trial' the same as the Communist above who is not permitted to show to the jury he didn't threaten or actually harm anyone. You cannot say to the jury, "I just got high!" , but the judge is probably going to mention to the jury the charges as possessing and using "dangerous drugs", and everybody has heard these word and understands them - this is the actual reality in today's legal/court system in the administration of justice..

B. The Constitution must be applied by the courts and judges as the words are expressed in the various provisions as are any normal laws.

C.What if there was a further constitutional provision that said, "the states shall not deprive any person of equal protection of the law"?

This would mean, would it not, that you as the person on trial, or your child or youn wife or husband or parent or sibling or complete stranger would need only to point to A and B above and show the judge a copy of the constitution and direct his or her attention to the specific provisions that prohibits a legislature, any legislature, from targeting any identifiable group for punishment without a trial, and remind his/her honor that you have been targeted for punishment as a member of the identifiable, non-prescription-holder-group by your [charged] possessing and consuming heroin or methamphetamine or marijuana.

The judge would have to set you free right? Right!.

So why don't we provide such prohibiting constitutional provisions and end the war drugs? Do you think that such provisions would have a place as a protection for basic freedoms such as choosing what substances you consume, just like the prescription holder, in the US Constitution? Or anyone shopping at Smiths. The powers that be wouldn't let us do this would they, well not easily?

Then you might also show the judge this provision and remind the judge that the prescription holder is protected from being targeted for punishment but you aren't and would not this be a violation of the clear meaning of "equal protection clause"? if there was such a clause that is. Would not this be a classic deprivation of equal protection of the law enjoyed by the prescription holders? In any event the ABC's of law 101 has been taught, and yes, you will be tested.

This thread is so much pie in the sky isn't it, (smoke dust)? It is funny, sort of, that Article I Section 9.3 of the US Constitution states, "Congress shall pass no Bill of Attainder." and Article I Section 10.1 states "The states shall not pass any Bill of Attainder."

Now a Bill of Attainder has been around for hundreds of years. Kings would siometimes be suspicious of the Duke of Darkness as he appears to have a mean and evil look as if intending treason against the throne. The King would make a law stating any person associating or communicating with the Duke of Darkness shall be taken to the Tower of London and immediately have his head chopped off. That person observed talking to the Duke asking for the time of day, was in violation of the law and was tnerefore one of slome targeted persons talking to the Duke with punishment in the form of "beheading".

There are varying definitions easily found by googling on "bill attainder" but all definitions boil down to the fact that a bill of attainder is a law targeting members of an identifiable group for punishment [without a trial], and certainly a law that named a specific person or person is equally reprehensible.

The bottom line here children, is that we actually have a working constitution proihibiting the passing of bills of attainder and also a provision that protects any person to the equal protection of the law.

The last item was passed/enacted shortly after the end of the civil war when freed blacks were made objects of laws prohibiting them from possessing weapons, and access to public benefits otherwise available to whitey. However, the equal protection provision does not just specify 'newly freed slaves', the provision, is called the "14th Amendment", maybe you've heard of it, says the states shall not deprive any person the equal protection of the law, which 'any person' includes, women, children, whitey, black, oriental, hispanic, Brazilians head hunters in the US, fundamentalist Islamics, homosexuals, heterosexuals, democrats and republicans, communists, old, young, fat, skinny, beautiful people like yourself, Mexican Nationals not possessing a Geen Card, and whose backs appear freshly moistened with water flowing through the Rio Grande, and even ugly people, but I have already mentioned democrats and republicans, and yes the 14th Amendment even applies to stupid people, but then I've already mentioned democrats and republicans, haven't I?

Yes the US Constitutions applies to you and it applies to me and it has been paid for with gallons upon thousands of gallons of blood, rivers of blood as some commentatorsw describe it, as for example did Maurice Boyd pay, and did Loyall D. Anderson pay,yes, reluctantly perhaps, but they paid the full price- the bottom of the bottom line here? Use it or lose it pilgrim.

And did you know that Archie Brown a known Communist was tried and convicted of being such in 1964, and the US Supreme Court cut him loose (US v Brown 381 US 437) because the law he was convicted under was a bill of attainder.

Is this too much for what you call your 'mind' to digest? If so, go back to sleep, you apparently need the rest, what the hell, take a couple of Darvons.

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No way!

 

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So ...after reading all of that, what's your questions? As I see it, there are only two questions in the whole lengthy spiel, yet those seem like rhetorical questons that real questions.

So, ....what's your questions?

Baron Max

 

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Good question. If the constitution prohibits legislatures from passing bills of attainder, that is laws that target identifable groups of persons for punishment without trials, why is there a War on Drugs when the war is being fought exclusively by the enforcement of controlled substance laws that are constitutionally void on their face? A typical controlled substance law says "If one possesses or consumes methamphetamine that one is sub ject to arrest and convixction for a felony". If the one has a doctor's prescription no harm, no foul.

I cannot believe that Congress, for example, is just stupid and cannot see that punishing someone (millions actually) for possessing drugs without a prescription.

Is the War on Drugs just a ruse to create a gigantic Federal/State/County/Local integrated police force? Who can control this monsteWil Good Intentions alone take us all to National heaven??

 

Drugs destroyed many lives....get rid of them and get rid of them now......if you can.....

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Idea for car sticker:

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Smile if you've smoked crystal meth today.

Note. This is the least horrible meth mouth I could find.
Some of them would put you off your dinner.

 

The problem with legalisation is how do you legalise something that causes desperate social harm?

I've often thought that controlled legalisation of drugs might provide an answer, but some drugs are so socially cancerous that they must surely need eradicating.

How are people going to nurture their children, carry out their jobs, take care of their health, educate themselves, when they are in the grips of a drug like methamphetamine, that makes you feel good about yourself, no matter what you do or how you behave. A single hit lasts up to eight hours.

Nature rations dopamine for a reason.

 

Depends on how you count.

Alcoholism tends to degrade your life more while you are alive, but tobacco kills far more people, like about 10:1.

Alcohol kills about 100:1 to all illegal drugs combined (making tobacco 1000:1 to all illegal drugs) and just for perspective, perscription driugs kill about 3:1 to illegal drugs and cars kill about 1:10 to alcohol.

Based on the last time I went and dug up all the numbers mainly from US gov mortality statistics.

 

You mean like gun ownership or religion?

Only a minority of people are interested in destroying their lives. They make use of whatever and if they have trouble they back away from it.

For they minority, you inforce the laws against antisocial behavior. As long as they destroy themselves peacefully, its not really anyone else's business, just like there are people currently eating themselves to death or whatever destructive behavior some one has chosen.

 

The suppression of drug substances could be likened to censorship.
At what point do you say that this is so damaging to society that it should be criminalised.

Some people get a kick from snuff movies.
They don't commit murder, they just like watching them.

Is that OK?

With drugs, I hold a pretty liberal point of view, and have often thought that legalisation would help matters.
People on Heroin and Cocaine are often capable of working and taking care of their families.

Perhaps decriminalisation and controlled access would be better.

But there are drugs now where I draw the line just as I would do with paedophilia, torture or murder in pornography.

Smokable versions of Cocaine and Meth are having similar consequences.

 

...
340 [Swiss] addicts receive a legal supply of heroin each day from one of the nine prescribing programs in eight different cities. In addition, 11 receive morphine, and 33 receive injectable methadone. The programs accept only "hard-core" junkies--people who have been injecting for years and who have attempted and failed to quit. Participants are not allowed to take the drug home with them. They have to inject on site and pay 15 francs at approximately $13 per day for their dose.
...
In late 1994, the Social Welfare Department in Zurich held a press conference to issue its preliminary findings: 1) Heroin prescription is feasible, and has produced no black market in diverted heroin. 2) The health of the addicts in the program has clearly improved. 3) Heroin prescription alone cannot solve the problems that led to the heroin addiction in the first place. 4) Heroin prescription is less a medical program than a social-psychological approach to a complex personal and social problem. 5) Heroin per se causes very few, if any, problems when it is used in a controlled fashion and administered in hygienic conditions. Program administrators also found little support for the widespread belief that addicts' cravings for heroin are insatiable. When offered practically unlimited amounts of heroin (up to 300 milligrams three times a day), addicts soon realized that the maximum doses provided less of a "flash" than lower doses, and cut back their dosage levels accordingly.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/tlcnr.cfm