HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/wont.endorse

Text File | 1996-05-06 | 5KB | 109 lines

Newsgroups: alt.drugs,alt.drugs.culture,alt.drugs.pot,alt.hemp,alt.hemp.politics,talk.politics.drugs
From: [e-mail] (Chris Clay, a.k.a. Hemp Boy)
Subject: Buckley: Legalization Won't Endore Use of Drugs
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 1995 16:27:47 GMT

Legalization Won't Endorse Use of Drugs
by William F. Buckley Jr.
The Tribune, December 24, 1993


In the ongoing flurry about legalizing marijuana (and other drugs), we
hear again and again the complaint that the last thing society wishes
to do is to communicate that it "favors" the use of drugs.

This is the most stubborn of modern social superstitions, the
equivalent of the assumption that money flowing to the states from
Washington doesn't cost the taxpayers anything, a fantasy widespread
among children and Democrats.

"At a time when we are trying to keep people from buying drugs, we
don't want to send them the signal that it's OK to buy them," one
commentator said on television Sunday.

When a society decides to authorize the production of a good, there is
no more reason to suppose that there is popular approval of that good
than there is to assume that Congress likes Dr. Pepper because you can
buy it on the street.

It pays to go back to the axioms of a free society, among which is
that government should not stand athwart a willing buyer and a willing
seller. The exceptions begin:

The government, representing the will of the people, can and does
prohibit the circulation of medical drugs until they are licensed by
federal laboratories. There are many complaints about delays almost
fetishistic in character. And yes, it is true that because the Food
and Drug Administration is so slow in approving new drugs, Americans
sometimes find themselves needing to go to Canada or France or
wherever to get them.

Now it is acceded that marijuana and cocaine would never get by the
FDA. The latter, taken in doses too heavy, can kill. The former is
psychoactive.

But instantly we recognize an irregularity in government practice,
because, of course, alcohol can kill, and the whole point in consuming
it is precisely that it is psychoactive. To concede the authority of
the state to bar the sale of a medical drug is not to undertake to
establish that the government always acts consistently. No death from
marijuana has ever been recorded. It would be a good year if fewer
than 400,000 deaths were attributable to tobacco.

But the approval of the sale of alcohol and tobacco does not mean that
society "condones" their consumption. Indeed, in the case of tobacco,
the government is here and there engaged in persuading people not to
smoke, by advertising the surgeon general's recommendations on the
subject and forbidding its manufacturers to advertise their product on
radio or television.

There are few calls on Congress to prohibit the sale of tobacco for
one primary reason, which is that the prospect of keeping 46 million
tobacco users from their narcotic is a job the government simply
wouldn't want to undertake.

There are many arguments for licensing brothels -- and indeed, here
and there in Nevada they are legal. The primary argument is that since
some people are going to buy sex, it makes sense to see to it that
they buy it from sellers who need to submit every fortnight or so to a
medical examination.

It is a not incidental argument in favor of licensing drugs that the
buyer can know what he is buying is free of extraneous materials, and
is of the specified toxicity. Some who favor legalizing drugs for one
reason alone -- namely, that the consumption of them can't be
regulated by law unless we pursue policies against pushers that we
simply aren't willing to engage in (cutting off their fingers, for
example) -- favor, at the same time, vigorous programs precisely
designed to condemn those who exercise the freedom to walk into a
federal drugstore for cocaine.

They should feel the obloquy of their fellow citizens. They should be
denied preferences and experiences the disdain that, bit by bit,
crystallizes against the tobacco user, reaching effective form
where tobacco is flatly but effectively prohibited: in airplanes and
in the White House.

How silly it is to suppose that society approves of everything it
tolerates. Do we all approve of 2 Live Crew?


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HEMP NATION HEADQUARTERS (HNHQ) is located at http://pobox.com/~hemp
On May 17, 1995, the Great Canadian Hemporium in London, Ontario, was
raided by police.  Owner Christopher Clay (a.k.a. Hemp Boy) faces life
in prison for selling a 3" clone to an undercover cop.  His fight is
now a constitutional challenge, headed by law professor Alan Young and
partner Paul Burstein.  Donations to the Hemp Nation Constitutional
Challenge can be made at any Royal Bank in Canada: Hemp Nation, Transit
#2722, Account #1045889. Call [phone] for more information.

Herb like fruit.  Keep you healthy, mind clear.  The healing of a nation.
                                    --Bob Marley, 1976
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