378.4 Billion The Free Market Is Alive And Well

[JoeNormal]

Originally Posted by JWeeks

I knew you wouldn't take this well.

Actually, my former employer, DuPont, had a hand in getting marijuana made into an illegal drug. They were concerned about the competition that hemp provided to their synthetic rope fibers, so one way to help take hemp off the market was to push to outlaw marijuana. And here you thought it was all Big Pharma or maybe just another attempt to punish non-whites.

Of course DuPont was very active in other lobbying efforts. They wanted, for example, for the government to ban dynamite as a dangerous, hazardous material. Their goals were entirely altruistic (ignoring the fact that they were a major supplier of one of the few substitutes to dynamite).

I have argued repeatedly for a smaller government with less controls over the private sector. Such a government would provide far fewer opportunities for big companies to lobby them. Big Pharma wouldn't lobby the government in order to keep up their sales to Medicare (and wouldn't have backed Medicare Part D either). DuPont wouldn't be lobbying to outlaw marijuana or dynamite. Such was the government envisioned by our founders. Big money and big money interests have a powerfully corrupting influence on even the best of men. And a bigger government to attempt to tame those influences is clearly moving in the wrong direction.

You think a totalitarian government is going to let their citizens use illegal drugs?

You always seem to think in terms of 'bigger' or 'smaller' when it comes to the government. Why can you never focus on 'more effective' or 'less involved with special interests'?

I think you secretly like special interests and believe that they have become just one more of the costs of doing business in the US. At least the biggest guy usually wins that way - just as it should be in the 'free market'.

[JWeeks]

Originally Posted by JoeNormal

You always seem to think in terms of 'bigger' or 'smaller' when it comes to the government. Why can you never focus on 'more effective' or 'less involved with special interests'?

Probably because "bigger" and "more effective" seem oxymoronic.

Over the past ten years we have seen a huge growth in government. Can you think of a single example where the government is more effective?

Same thing with "special interests."
I was looking for some statistics. As memory serves, we currently have 36,000 lobbyists in DC. A decade ago we had far fewer.

Of course the biggest special interest we really need to concern ourselves with is the federal employee union. They are large, getting larger, and are powerful advocates to looking out for their interests.

I think you secretly like special interests and believe that they have become just one more of the costs of doing business in the US. At least the biggest guy usually wins that way - just as it should be in the 'free market'.

Nope; I don't like special interests at all. When we were discussing the health care debate, perhaps you remember that my favorite model was the veterinarians...a very lightly regulated industry with zero lobbyists. They don't have lobbyists because they don't need them.

[Moot]

Originally Posted by JWeeks

It is rather obvious, isn't it?

Let's assume that the provisional answer to the question is "yes."

If that is true, then....

You are the customer for the drug cartel. All the illegal activity that it engages in, all of the crimes it commits, all of the people's lives that are destroyed, all the people sitting in prison are there simply because they are trying to respond to the market forces that you are creating. The drug business (at least as far as the US is concerned) could be ended overnight, the drug cartels would be put out of business, and the war on drugs would end, if you and all other users of illegal drugs in the US simply stopped your use.

You are so naive, Weeks. FYI, after the British and Americans got rich hooking the entire continent of China on opium, it took a Mao Cultural Revolution to finally end the Chinese addiction to opium. Millions were executed. People don't just stop an addiction, even under the threat of death.

It might not hurt to educate yourself on the history of illegal drugs and how they got that way, Weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQlk01sxO_E

At the turn of the last century in the US, people could buy heroin through the Sears & Roebuck catalog. But even with it's easy access, there were probably only 200,000 addicts in the entire country. Then because of Protestant missionarys causing a media hype about drug addicts and lobbying congress, the US passed a law criminalizing opiate drugs. Most of the people who were instantly made criminals and arrested were medical doctors. After the criminalization of heroin, the drug actually gained in popularity, which in turn created more criminals, which in turn created more law enforcement, which in turn created more prisons and here we are today, creating more criminals, more law enforcement, and more prisons. Right wing conservatives seeing a business opportunity have made incarcerating people a commercial enterprise and need criminals to fill the cells and so they lobby for harsher sentences and get them. Conservatives don't want the drug trade to stop because it's bad for their business and makes them look tough on criminals.

Supply and demand is the essence of laissez fair economics also known as the free market and the core of your beliefs. Don't the blame the people for their drug addiction, blame your fukin free market belief system and the manipulation of our laws that protects it.

[JWeeks]

Originally Posted by Moot

You are so naive, Weeks. FYI, after the British and Americans got rich hooking the entire continent of China on opium, it took a Mao Cultural Revolution to finally end the Chinese addiction to opium. Millions were executed. People don't just stop an addiction, even under the threat of death.

It might not hurt to educate yourself on the history of illegal drugs and how they got that way, Weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQlk01sxO_E

At the turn of the last century in the US, people could buy heroin through the Sears & Roebuck catalog. But even with it's easy access, there were probably only 200,000 addicts in the entire country. Then because of Protestant missionarys causing a media hype about drug addicts and lobbying congress, the US passed a law criminalizing opiate drugs. Most of the people who were instantly made criminals and arrested were medical doctors. After the criminalization of heroin, the drug actually gained in popularity, which in turn created more criminals, which in turn created more law enforcement, which in turn created more prisons and here we are today, creating more criminals, more law enforcement, and more prisons. Right wing conservatives seeing a business opportunity have made incarcerating people a commercial enterprise and need criminals to fill the cells and so they lobby for harsher sentences and get them. Conservatives don't want the drug trade to stop because it's bad for their business and makes them look tough on criminals.

Supply and demand is the essence of laissez fair economics also known as the free market and the core of your beliefs. Don't the blame the people for their drug addiction, blame your fukin free market belief system and the manipulation of our laws that protects it.

Supply and demand is the essence of all economics. Where there is a sufficient demand, a supply will develop regardless of the government's best efforts to keep that demand from being satisfied.

I don't disagree with the points you make here. The history of addiction is a long and tragic one and many are, indeed, powerless to pull themselves out of the hell that they have entered into. And your point that many people have made money from the criminalization of illegal drugs is also true, from the drug cartels to those who incarcerate those who are caught.

None of which invalidates my fundamental point. Drug cartels would go out of business, prisons would have to find different criminals, etc., if people magically stopped using drugs, illegal or otherwise.

People, of course, will not stop using drugs, drugs will continue to be forbidden to citizens (even though I believe that all federal laws against illegal drugs are unconstitutional), people's lives will be greatly be harmed due to drug usage, people on many levels will profit from the drug trade, and those involved at all levels will have to accept responsibility for that portion of blood that they have on their hands.