Glenn Greenwald on Drug Legalization
Salon columnist, blogger and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald discusses drug legalization/decriminalization with Reason.tv and at the Cato Institute.
CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Saturday, April 21, 2012
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Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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12 Comments:
Glenn Greenwald?!?!
Really?!?!
I was taught that democracy was rule by the majority while protecting the rights of minorities. While there are compelling reasons to argue for legalizing drugs, one must also consider that a sizable minority will be harmed as a result. Many persons are predisposed to addiction and abuse. Food for thought.
“It stands to reason”:
“there are compelling reasons to argue for legalizing drugs, [but] one must also consider that a sizable minority will be harmed as a result”
_________________
Most of the people who want to use illegal drugs are using them regardless of their legal status.
In Portugal, drug use was decriminalized a number of years ago… drug use did not increase in the wake of that
http://onforb.es/n3oKqY
Personally, I think that the very least we could do would be to reduce the DEA budget by 90%.
Let the chips fall where they may.
"Personally, I think that the very least we could do would be to reduce the DEA budget by 90%.
Let the chips fall where they may"...
Now that's an interesting idea arbitrage, really is due to its simplicity...
I would favor such legalization if drugs were then treated exactly the same way alcohol consumption was: if you break a law while using drugs/alcohol, you may be subject to greater penalties; e.g., speeding while intoxicated... and that treatment was done through non-taxpayer funding [AA/DAA or pay-as-you-go detox centers].
Why should one person's liberties be another person's tax liability?
One thing that I don’t really have a good sense of is the politics of this issue of drug legalization. Of course, there are those people who benefit, either directly or indirectly, from federal spending on the “war on drugs”. That particular analysis is relatively straightforward, and entirely uninteresting to me.
I’m more interested in trying to understand how the various voting blocks look at this issue (again, setting aside the question of those who benefit from federal money used to fight the drug war).
It’s interesting, in part, because there many on both the far left and the far right who actually want to legalize drugs. I assume that overall, more Democratic voters want to legalize it than Republicans, but there are still plenty of Republicans who want to reduce Federal power in this, and many other areas (I’m one of those who wants to reduce Federal power).
Probably 99% of the Santorum voters enthusiastically endorse the “war on drugs”. I would also venture to guess that most people who believe that gun control laws reduce the frequency of deaths by shooting also believe that drug control laws reduce the frequency of drug use.
But my sense is that there isn’t a high degree of correlation between political party affiliation, and sentiment on this drug legalization issue. It seems that there are a lot of ideological cross currents operating.
I did a “quick and dirty” search on this question, and came across this, which provides some analysis:
http://www.americanpolitics.com/030499dictionary.html
Glenn Greenwald.
Really!!!!
There's a reason illegal drugs are illegal.
Actually, there are many reasons, which I cited some before.
And the U.S. is not Portugal (there are also many factors).
One of the major problems I see with the war on drugs is that its a federal war on drugs when I think constitutionally (yet another commerce clause contortion) speaking it should be a states' right issue...
Mind you I'm still dubious in the extreme about decriminalizing/legalizing drugs for what I consider a wide variety of practical reasons...
Has federal interference in local, county, or state police enforcement mitigated the drug flow to any appreciable degree?
I don't think so especially taking into account the costs of such interference...
Hey ironman thanks for that reminder about the 'Boys from Brazil'...
Sock puppets indeed...
Its about time to decrimalize possession of small amounts of drugs. Many Lives have been ruined over a few ounces of marijuana.
The Portugal decriminalization is interesting. It appears to reduce use and get people in treatment. I think that letting the states experiment would be interesting, maybe start with marijuana and move from there. I do have some reservations after seeing Florida and their lack of oversight on prescription abuse.
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