The same folks who say this will turn around and whine about how Perry was destroyed by the media, etc. They would be wrong, but they would be correct in saying that a Perry defeat does not necessarily mean that conservatism was rejected at the ballot box.

We don’t elect policy papers — we elect human beings who are not all equally adept at explaining themselves, who have several attributes which manifest themselves in ways that other people don’t like, and who are liked and disliked for things that have nothing to do with their governing philosophy and record. Do I like Ron Paul’s governing philosophy? By and large, no: but it is a fallacy to establish an equivalence between Paul and his policies (or his supporters’ preferred policies). Just because he lost and Mitt won doesn’t mean that voters want war with Iran or increased spending, any more than Rick’s defeat to Mitt means that they want abortions and a centralized uber-state in DC. Thinking about the state of affairs means looking objectively at what happened and why — not whining about why such-and-such candidate did poorly, and not writing off the candidate and his supporters’ policy preferences just because they lost.

Why not libertarians? I’d rather have a libertarian on my side than someone like David Frum — and we don’t have enough people on our side to be able to afford writing off large groups and being as inflexible as you’d like for us to be.

Marijuana legalizers are at 51-52%. Folks who want to legalize medical MJ are somewhere in the 60-70% range. Folks who think the WOSD is a failure are in the high 80s. Support for the various wars in the ME that you folks want top out at 40-50% ATM (and go down to the 20s if you start talking boots on the ground). Support for gay marriage is increasing, and there’s virtually no support for things like banning pornography or any of the other issues that some social conservatives want. Reagan Democrats are a dying breed (and were never that reliable anyways).

You can’t write these folks off. Some form of accommodation and rapproachment with non-conservatives is neccessary for a voting coalition. Bush 2.0 tried to make Republicans Democrats, But With Less Abortion. That didn’t work, and our various constituencies went to war with each other while the Republican party ineptly attempted to build up a patronage network. Fusionism works. There’s no reason that drug legalizers — which include such conservative luminaries as T Sowell, Milt Friedman, William Buckley, Walter Williams, and many many others — should be tossed out on a rail. Libertarians and libertarian leaners agree with us on gun rights, religious liberties, free speech and political speech, economic issues, the Constitution, education reform, and government reform in general.

and who lives in a community where drug use and trafficking are rampant, I can tell you right now that 1) the idea that everyone in the drug trade is unsalvageable human refuse is hogwash, and 2) there are lots of people in prison right now due to the drug war who have impulse control issues, but who are fundamentally non-violent and not inclined towards other crimes. I do wonder why drug warriors don’t call for immediate execution of those involved in the drug trade, if their view of it is so stark.

Not to pick on Dave_A specifically (he’s a good egg), but I do think that the above is a good example of both the standard drug warrior mentality, and a perfect example for why the general public and social conservatives in particular are backing away from supporting the war on drugs.

The majority of users and low-level dealers of soft drugs (like marijuana) would continue to use and not be a threat to others in any respect, in much the same way as most tobacco, alcohol, and prescription drug users do. The majority of hard drug users (or serious addicts of soft drugs), even under the current legal regimen, end up having a life trajectory similar to that of Frmr Pres Bush: they use, ruin their own lives to some extent (depends on the person), and most likely stop using when they see how much it’s ruining their lives and they decide to reform accordingly.

High-level players in the drug industry would find themselves in a similar place to high-level Mafia after prohibition: looking for cash in riskier venues, but largely drying up (there was significantly less homicide and crime post-Prohibition than there was during).

I think that’s better than just locking up the guilty and the innocent in categories #1 and #2 without regard to whether they can reform themselves voluntarily or whether it’s moral to stick all of this large population in cages with rapists and murderers.

The core question in this debate is not, “are drugs bad”? It is not, “do you want to legalize drugs”? It is whether you think that voluntary pressures and self-motivation are more effective and more moral means than jail either at reforming drug users or eliminating problems with drug use. The War on Drugs only makes sense if you think that drug users are unsalvageable and universally debased; IOW, if you think that incarcerating anywhere from 1/5 to 1/2 of the US population is a worthwhile approach to a public health issue. If you don’t think that GWB, or any of the other drug users who got their lives in order, would have been better off with a stint in prison, then you should re-evaluate what you think about the WOSD.

“Only 7.6% of those admitted to prison in 1995 for first drug felonies had prior convictions for violent offenses.”

HRW

Alcohol was readily available during Prohibition.

Plenty of drug users *right now* are working at IBM among other places to support their habits. I personally know a Raytheon engineer who is growing cannabis on the compound, and who supports his habit with the money he makes at work.

1/2 of Americans have tried some illegal substance. Prison only works as a deterrent if you think you’ll get caught. Think of the parent who threatens often, and beats their child bloody once for every .5% of threats issued. Logical solution? Make enforcement a certainty — but then you have to justify why putting half of the American population in prison is a good idea or effective. Besides, I thought the goal was to reduce crime and addiction rates — not stop drug use en se. The legal regimen created by the drug war may have reduced consumption, but it has certainly made indulging the vice much riskier and much more violent, and has in many cases prevented addicts from getting the help they need. Do you think that GWB would have been a better person if he’d gone to jail? Do you think that society would be better off if the 1/2 of Americans who have tried something on the Controlled Substances List had gone to jail?

Tobacco use has gone from being idolized by kids, to being seen as a poor decision without throwing cigarette smokers in jail. I don’t see why we can’t do the same for the public image of drug use. I know that what we’re doing now hasn’t been nearly as effective at getting young folks to use less. In both Portugal and the Netherlands, drug use in the 15-28 range has gone down after decriminalization and partial legalization respectively; they might be doing something right.

Stealing something or drowning a baby gets you more years in jail than smoking a J.

which exist under both prohibition (liberty; loss of father figures in inner cities; police militarization), and a legalized regimen (potentially more addicts; possible equivocation between legal sanction and moral sanction among idiots).

I prefer legalization, because *most* costs are directed (or can be directed) right back towards the user, because whatever else it does, it increases liberty and decreases arbitrary, violent government, and because restores the balance of citizen to government to its rightful place, rather than with citizens as children to Father Government who must be disciplined for doing as they will.

but also its attendant promise: that people will learn from their mistakes. If you’re right about the following:

“It is much more likely to be similar to the situation you?ve mentioned about tobacco?an increased awareness of the side effects and consequences within the society.”

Then that’s great, IMO! The system is working as intended: people are seeing the harm done by drug use and avoiding it.

We can’t criminalize everything that might be harmful, militarize the police and dispose of the back half of the Bill of Rights in doing so, and pat ourselves on the back for being such lovers of liberty. Looking to increase liberty when it benefits us (as it does in the case of gun rights, for example) is self-serving, not indicative of a love of liberty. I do wonder why so many on the right miss the parallels between their rhetoric on drug bans “for our own good”, and that of liberals when it comes to gun control, obesity laws, smoking, and other lifestyle bans.

I specifically said that most people in federal prisons were in there for dealing.

In *state* prisons for states which have not decriminalized, 57% of users are in for possession, possession and purchase, or possession with intent to traffic.

It’s a shell game, since the federal government withholds funds and assistance from states that don’t model their laws after federal ones.

And as far as I’m concerned, the number of people in jail for possession and trafficking which doesn’t involve money should be zero.

Drug warriors really do think that drug users are unsalvageable degenerates, and assume that to be the case regardless of how much evidence is presented to the contrary.

57% is in reference to the percentage of all prisoners locked up for drug related offenses. It calculates to ~17% of the state prison population (~1/5), and about 140,000 prisoners.

are caused by a legal firearm.

You’re not using the right statistic for measuring what should be measured: whether drug users in general are violent criminals, not whether criminals or abusers also use drugs.

If someone did the same with racial statistics (i.e., said that all or most blacks were criminals because criminals tend to be black), you would call them out in a second.

I’m not an expert, but neither am I using statistics fraudulently. I have detailed where I’ve gotten most of my statistics, and stated why I think they help my case. I’m also not saying that drug users are “innocent imbibers” (what does that even mean?) or that it’s a good idea to use, I’m saying that on the whole they are non-violent and that they mostly don’t commit property crimes.

That’s a totally semantic point — my example was to illustrate a use of fallacious statistics use.

then why not have a regimen where such things are emphasized? Why do you need a “war” on drugs, complete with SWAT midnight raids?

I didn’t say that everyone who supports some sort of penalty sees drug users as monsters — I said that the status quo can only be justified if you see users that way. Logically, our current policy of locking up drug users for as long as violent felons only makes sense if you see them as being on that same moral and effectual light (i.e., as people who should be cordoned off from society and thrown in a cage with rapists and murderers as we sort them out).

If you are suggesting a move away from current policy (esp federal policy), then my argument isn’t with you.

or at least, not true without certain qualifications which would also exclude most drug users from consideration.

Most people have a lack of personal self control in various facets of their lives. Many people who are obese are so because they eat without restraint. Many people with STDs are sexually promiscuous in a thoughtless way. Many people who find themselves chronically unemployed or underemployed are such because they live by the moment.

The defining characteristic of a criminal is not a lack of self-control; many of the most notorious and effective criminals in the world are incredibly disciplined (that can be said of the top criminals in many criminal organizations, where competition between large cartels and gangs can quite literally be cut-throat). The defining characteristic which makes a person a violent criminal in most cases is a mindset which makes violence acceptable as a response to a whole gamut of situations. Plenty of undisciplined people without self-control (including various potheads) avoid the leap to violence precisely because they don’t conceptualize it as an appropriate response outside of extreme cases. I agree more with wcp than with you: drug use is a public health issue, and people who are drug users should be treated like alcoholics and responded to in a similar way.

the view that there is a fixed amount of crime and that the tradeoff is between having this crime be committed against only criminals (which btw is NOT a correct summation of what’s going on in the WOD), is one that is not at all supported by data: not only has the rate of crime changed quite rapidly in response to various policies (i.e., a sharp decrease in the homicide rate after the repeal of Prohibition or the decrease in crime rates in NYC as a result of some of Guiliani’s policy changes). Crime in the Caribbean shot up dramatically when the illicit drug trade went through the Caribbean to get to the US; it went back down after the path to drugs entering America shifted to Central American overland and port routes. (Consequently, Central American states like Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico saw incredible amounts of political instability and crime, which has become apparent through what’s going on in Mexico right now.)

The assertion of a fixed amount of crime where only the crime in question and the victim in question can be changed, is simply not supported by the facts.

When you consider the size of the average Puerto Rican’s extended family, that number is quite large

Two of my cousins (brilliant people) ruined their lives because they started using cocaine, and then heroin. One of them got his life back together and is living a semi-normal life (married, has kids), if one that was an emblem of wasted potential. The other is still in a bad place, and will be for the forseeable future. Having seen that sort of damage in my family over a number of years, I don’t think drug use should be tolerated in society or by family members, but I just don’t see how either of my cousins would have done better by spending some hard time in the pen.