Maptalk-Digest Tuesday, December 12 2000 Volume 00 : Number 263
Redford Givens gets Pubbed in USA TODAY 12/11
From: Barr Mann <>
Needed: Dec. 6 item from The Australian
From: "Don Beck" <>
Allan Writes One Bad-Ass Letter!
From: "Don Beck" <>
Re: Allan Writes One Bad-Ass Letter!
From: "Jim White" <>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subj: Redford Givens gets Pubbed in USA TODAY 12/11
From: Barr Mann <>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 19:32:24 -0800 (PST)
Props to our cyber-pal and fellow DPReformer, Redford
Givens, for his nice quick LTE printed in today's
edition of the Multi-Colored Fishwrap. It was not on
the subject of DPR, but if you happen to be one of the
50.00092 percent of the voters who chose GORE, you
might get a grin. Bush backers will find the humor
quotient lacking, I am afraid. :-)
I was unable to spot it at the website, and don't have
my hardcopy from this morning, since the spousal unit
disposed of it so efficiently, but I will attempt to
paraphrase...(forgive any errors, Robin)
To the editors,
If the US Supreme Court decisions prohibit any further
recounts in Florida, George W Bush will enter the
White House and forever be known as simply , 'Old 5 to
4'.
R Givens, California etc etc........
now, RG, post the REAL LTE copy if you don't mind my
'transcription' too much....
Steve in Clearwater(yeah, formerly Steve in
Largo....us Floridians are KNOWN for changing things
around, doncha know)
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/
------------------------------
Subj: Needed: Dec. 6 item from The Australian
From: "Don Beck" <>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 19:46:58 -0600
This OPED refers to an earlier piece from The Australian, by a Duncan
Campbell, Pubdate 6 Dec.
It is no longer on the Australian's Opinion page archive, but is apparently
available in an online archive available to subscribers..........hope
someone can hawk it.
I think it's important that this prohibitionist OPED be refuted. Please read
it and see if you don't agree. It is of a generally higher quality than most
such efforts that appear, and makes a much more persuasive case against harm
minimisation than we usually see. Despite being couched much more reasonably
than the usual prohibitionist effort, it relies on the same persuasive
gimmickry and evidence: confuse association with causation and make
unwarranted doomsday predictions of consequences of "legalisation."
Thanks and regards, don
**********************************************
Australia: OPED: Cost Of Drugs Free-For-All Is More Than Money
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1863.a09.html
Newshawk: M & M Family
Pubdate: Mon, 11 Dec 2000
Source: Australian, The (Australia)
Copyright: News Limited 2000
Contact:
Website: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
Author: Bill Muehlenberg, national secretary of the Australian Family
Association.
COST OF DRUGS FREE-FOR-ALL IS MORE THAN MONEY
DUNCAN Campbell (Opinion, December 6) gives a good summary of the harm
minimisation approach to drugs.
This view says that drug abuse will always be with us, so let's try to make
it safer. It also says that any attempt to ban such substances is doomed to
failure. However, the harm minimisation approach is a defective and
defeatist policy that exists through the perpetuation of myths and
misinformation.
Consider the "banning doesn't work" mentality. Prohibition, Campbell
informs us, has failed. Has it? During Prohibition in the US, consumption
of alcohol declined substantially, as did the cirrhosis death rate for men
(cut by two-thirds between 1911 and 1929), and arrests for public
drunkenness dropped 50 per cent between 1919 and 1922.
But, Campbell asks, what about crime? This is a familiar furphy. The
argument goes like this: by making drugs legal or less prohibitive, drug
prices will decline and, as a result, crime and the black market associated
with illicit drugs will also decline or disappear. It is also claimed that
the legalisation of drugs will remove the profit motive from the drug trade.
And it is argued that the money saved in stopping parts of the drug war or
in taxing the newly legalised drugs can go to rehabilitation.
There are several problems with these arguments.
First, the costs to society of drug use are far greater than any money saved
on reduced law enforcement efforts. Consider the costs of drug
legalisation: lost productivity; increased medical services for addicts and
their families; more car accidents; poorer educational performance;
increased policing; more babies who may pick up their mother's addiction. A
recent study found that the annual cost of drugs to the Australian community
is $14.3 billion. Increase the number of drug users, as legalisation will
do, and you increase this figure as well.
Second, any taxes raised by these legalised drugs will not offset the costs
to society. Indeed, the taxation of legalised drugs will still drive people
to crime. In order for governments to raise enough revenue from drug taxes
to pay for all the costs of increased drug use, taxes will have to be high.
Third, the profit motive abounds in existing legal operations. The alcohol
and tobacco industries are driven by hopes of large profits. If drugs were
legalised, whole new industries would develop to cash in on the trade.
Greed for gain does not disappear when an activity is legalised.
Fourth, black markets exist today for all kinds of legal products. Just
because something is legal does not mean the black market will disappear.
Fifth, crime rates may in fact rise. Advocates of legalisation claim that
such a move will reduce drug-associated crime. But will it? Not
necessarily. Even if we assume that lower prices will cause addicts to
steal fewer valuables, we know that this will be offset by the general crime
increase associated with the increase in users. Any police officer will
tell you that a person on drugs will be more likely to neglect a child,
abuse a spouse or take a life.
The point is, drug use contributes to crime. It is the illegal activities
people engage in while on mind-altering drugs that is the problem. As one
commentator put it, "It's not just that people do bad things to get drugs;
drugs make them do bad things."
CONSIDER some statistics: a 1991 US federal survey found that most of those
arrested in 24 cities for robbery, assault, burglary and homicide tested
positive for drugs; a 1994 study of 31,000 abused and neglected children in
Cook County, Illinois, found that more that 80 per cent of the cases
involved drugs; in The Netherlands, from 1988 to 1993, when drugs laws were
relaxed, the number of organised crime groups jumped from three to 93; a
1992 study of NSW inmates found that 67 per cent of prisoners had been on
drugs while committing the crime for which they were imprisoned; a 2000
study of Australian detainees found that a large percentage had tested
positive for drug use. For example, 70 per cent of adult male detainees
charged with violence tested positive to a drug, and 86 per cent of adult
male detainees on property charges also tested positive.
Also, cheaper drugs do not necessarily mean less crime. When inexpensive
crack cocaine flooded the US in the early 1980s, the rate of addiction
soared, as did crime rates. Indeed, police noted that wherever drugs were
the cheapest, crime rates were the highest.
The truth is that the harm minimisation approach has been tried in Australia
for the past 15 years and it has not worked. Drug use has increased, as
have the number of drug overdoses. A policy that decreases the number of
drug users and helps addicts become drug-free is the only compassionate
approach to the drug problem.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- ----
MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk
------------------------------
Subj: Allan Writes One Bad-Ass Letter!
From: "Don Beck" <>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 18:54:35 -0600
DND 1865 of today contains this gem of a PUB LTE, written by MAPstaffer
Allan. Congrats, Allan! regards, don
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1865.a01.html
Pubdate: Tue, 12 Dec 2000
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2000 The Register-Guard
Contact:
Address: PO Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440-2188
Website: http://www.registerguard.com/
Author: Allan Erickson
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1797/a10.html?38195
WAR ON DRUGS GOES TOO FAR
In his Nov. 3 letter, Jerry Ritter says, "Reporter David Steves calls the
success of Measure 3 `an achievement of people trying to roll back the war
on drugs.' This characterization is neither fair nor accurate." Not fair or
accurate? Excuse me?
It was the government's war on (some) drugs that led to the abuses that in
turn led to Measure 3. Remember what happened when the state tried to
recriminalize pot? It was beaten back by a 2-to-1 margin after an
initiative signature drive that amassed 100,000 signatures in less than 40
days to qualify for the ballot.
Some folks in Eugene-Springfield remember when Norm Majors, a great guy
(and in a wheelchair) had his house seized because he was growing a little
herb in his basement. It cost him more than $20,000 and a lot of grief.
Bill Conde's property had seizure papers filed against it for the five
months Linn County Sheriff's Department and the state police pored over the
data in his computers looking for the evidence that would prove he was a
major drug kingpin (of course, no such evidence ever materialized).
And I'm fairly certain one or two of the folks mentioned by Ritter -
"Commissioner Bill Dwyer, Floyd Prozanski, George Soros and the countless
others" - are adamantly opposed to the barbaric tactics (such as property
seizure and racial profiling) waged by our government in the name of the
war on drugs. I know I am, and I am one of the voters Steves was talking
about. When it comes to the war on drugs, I say: "Roll it back, push it
back, waaaay back!"
ALLAN ERICKSON
Eugene
------------------------------
Subj: Re: Allan Writes One Bad-Ass Letter!
From: "Jim White" <>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 22:27:48 -0500
Way to go Allen! Man, I love those indignant 'hey we ain't stupid, and as a
matter of fact...' LTEs...
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Beck" <>
To: "MAPTalk-posts (E-mail)" <>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 7:54 PM
Subject: MAP: Allan Writes One Bad-Ass Letter!
> DND 1865 of today contains this gem of a PUB LTE, written by MAPstaffer
> Allan. Congrats, Allan! regards, don
> URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1865.a01.html
>
> Pubdate: Tue, 12 Dec 2000
> Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
> Copyright: 2000 The Register-Guard
> Contact:
> Address: PO Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440-2188
> Website: http://www.registerguard.com/
> Author: Allan Erickson
> Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1797/a10.html?38195
>
> WAR ON DRUGS GOES TOO FAR
>
> In his Nov. 3 letter, Jerry Ritter says, "Reporter David Steves calls the
> success of Measure 3 `an achievement of people trying to roll back the war
> on drugs.' This characterization is neither fair nor accurate." Not fair
or
> accurate? Excuse me?
>
> It was the government's war on (some) drugs that led to the abuses that in
> turn led to Measure 3. Remember what happened when the state tried to
> recriminalize pot? It was beaten back by a 2-to-1 margin after an
> initiative signature drive that amassed 100,000 signatures in less than 40
> days to qualify for the ballot.
>
> Some folks in Eugene-Springfield remember when Norm Majors, a great guy
> (and in a wheelchair) had his house seized because he was growing a little
> herb in his basement. It cost him more than $20,000 and a lot of grief.
> Bill Conde's property had seizure papers filed against it for the five
> months Linn County Sheriff's Department and the state police pored over
the
> data in his computers looking for the evidence that would prove he was a
> major drug kingpin (of course, no such evidence ever materialized).
>
> And I'm fairly certain one or two of the folks mentioned by Ritter -
> "Commissioner Bill Dwyer, Floyd Prozanski, George Soros and the countless
> others" - are adamantly opposed to the barbaric tactics (such as property
> seizure and racial profiling) waged by our government in the name of the
> war on drugs. I know I am, and I am one of the voters Steves was talking
> about. When it comes to the war on drugs, I say: "Roll it back, push it
> back, waaaay back!"
>
> ALLAN ERICKSON
>
> Eugene
>
>
------------------------------
End of Maptalk-Digest V00 #263
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