Libertarians are inclined to support decriminalization based on the notion that the major parties injured by drug abuse are the users. If only! I spent some time talking to some social workers today. Hospitals here in Boise often have several newborns withdrawing from meth at a time. They use morphine to ease their suffering. Of course, a newborn withdrawing from meth is an immediate loss of guardianship for the mother. You obviously know a week before birth that you are pregnant and are putting your unborn child in a world of hurt.
Not sure what the long-term consequences of soaking a fetal brain in meth are, but I doubt that it is good.
One could imagine a position that legalizes the use of drugs in general but still criminalizes use that applies to others. Even the hard-core Libertarians would, I think, acknowledge that it is a crime to force a drug onto another without consent, and use during late-term pregnancy would seem to be an instance of that.
ReplyDeleteCars are legal; hitting somebody with one is not. In much the same way, drugs could be legal while addicting an infant to them would not.
The only drug laws I would support are ones targeted against idiots that harms others, such as pregnant women as you mention.
ReplyDeleteIf people want to harm themselves, that is their business. We have a police state due to the effects of all the drug laws. Why would you want to grow the government?
EVERY society in known history has always had a certain percentage of those who are attracted to mind altering substances. You can't change that!
Laws should only target the actions that harm others. Leave businesses to address drug users if they need to. I would certainly agree that public consumption should be discouraged in various ways, as I don't want to share in other peoples drug habits. (such as nicotine)
Remember, people come in two basic flavors: those who want to control others, and those who don't.
Clayton,
ReplyDeletehere's a story to illustrate the idiocy of our War on (some) Drugs:
About '71, in South NJ: A girlfriend was allergic to aspirin. Prior to this development, I was told she had a history of drug use. She had to stop due to the life-threatening allergy, as there is no control over what may be mixed in street sold drugs. Every allergic reaction (anaphylactic shock) she had got progressively worse.
Her mom had dropped off some cold capsules for her, that contained some aspirin. She began exhibiting a reaction. My roommate had my car, so I called for an ambulance.
The town had a new regulation, that any medical call that involved a drug reaction had to have police respond first. Two cops showed up, and proceeded to grill her on who she got her drugs from, etc. They continued this routine until she got incoherent, perhaps ten minutes, and only then allowed her to be loaded on a gurney and tossed into the ambulance. No attendant, just a driver. A very SLOW driver. (I knew how fast those Pontiacs and Cadillac ambos could move, I serviced them, and had to verify they could pull top end)
She died.
For a couple minutes, I could find no vital signs. No heartbeat, no breathing. No pulse. I had my ear on her chest, and was checking her wrist and neck. Eventually, she began twitching, and I heard a thump...........thump.........thump.....thump..thump. A gasp. Another one. By the time we backed up to the arrival doors a couple minutes later, she seemed almost lucid. I described all this to the ER doc, who had seen her several times prior. He told Candi she might not survive the next attack, if she waited so long to get help. I think I was too upset to tell him about the idiotic cop scenario.
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No good deed goes unpunished. She was P.O.'ed that I called for the ambo, and tossed me. I've never been so scared as I was in the back of that ambo.
This does not even make sense in a no tolerance sense.
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