of course!  the problem is that all law enforcement really accomplishes
is to restrict the people selling to the most violent and despicable in
many cases, and drives the profit margin up high enough to provide a
major economic incentive.  not many people in wyoming would make meth
amphetamine if it weren't for the fact that spending $100 lets you make
$10,000 worth of meth, economics like that are very attractive even to
non users in an economy like that in wyoming. =20

now if morphine/heroin was "legal" (with some controls very possibly,
like for alcohol) the purity could be regulated, people could call the
police if they were sold bad stuff, or if their supply had been stolen,
and the price and profitability would go way down so that the brutally
violent didn't have an incentive to drive the reasonable out of
business.  i doubt it would have much long term affect on usage any way,
the same people who get addicted to illegal drugs are usually the people
who are alcoholics, it's genetic and some just choose a different poison
for various reasons. =20

i'd point out that properly produced and purified, most street drugs are
no more dangerous than alcohol, and most are safer to the body.  not
that you can't od on anything (even water it turns out, it's true!), but
at least the other harmful effects that are purely created by the legal
system would be alleviated.  i just think that money would be better
spent figuring out how to really cure addiction (it's really a sick joke
currently) and to create a society that more people could face without
the need to run away one way or another.  the early settlers joked about
how the some indians would carry huge rolls of tobacco on expeditions,
and how addicted they were to it, seems that opinion changed once some
farmers realized that addictive crops are great cash cows and bought
politicians to make it happen.

i'm not judging how other people should live or what they should do with
their bodies, i think that's their job not the states, and the state
should at least tell the truth rather than exaggerating things as they
constantly do, which trivializes the hazards, the audience, and winds up
making it harder for anyone to find out the truth and make smarter
decisions.  the war on drugs has done a fine job of increasing the
damage done, and i think that's what some want, but i don't think it's
ethical in the least. =20

just for reference, i slowly lost my best friend to alcoholism, i'm very
familiar with the problem, but the root of the problem was his life.  i
knew him long enough and well enough to know, in his shoes i might have
fallen down the same hole.

Russell McMahon wrote:
>=20
> > > Also FWIW, Opium production [from Afghanistan] has increased vastly
> since their demise.
>=20
> > that's only because, after filling warehouses with enough to supply
> > demand for 2 years, they coned the ... DEA ... into giving them a sev=
eral
> million dollar
> > bribe to cease growth of opium poppies.
>=20
> That may be. But from what my friend who was there in person said, the
> growing patterns changed while they were in control, and have changed b=
ack
> again. She encouraged them to grow other crops in the last few years bu=
t the
> opium income is superior. Some private US aid providers will not give $=
$$ to
> villages that are growing opium.
>=20
>         RM
>=20
> _______________________________________________
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--=20
Philip Stortz--"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.=20
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
Jew.=20
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I
wasn't a trade unionist.=20
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a
Protestant.=20
Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-- Martin Niem=F6ller, 1892-1984 (German Lutheran Pastor), on the Nazi
Holocaust, Congressional Record 14th October 1968 p31636.



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