Nuxx:88e0a5d5h48dsi998js4a0lspren8vikus@4ax.com

Path: num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.bt.com!news.bt.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <88e0a5d5h48dsi998js4a0lspren8vikus@4ax.com> From: Guy Champion  Newsgroups: alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent,rec.bicycles.misc,rec.bicycles.soc,uk.rec.cycling,rec.bicycles.tech Subject: Re: Prostitution and drugs are bad for society Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:06:46 +0100 References: <3df5ca84-bf3a-4aff-be56-57dafe8111ea@y9g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>    Lines: 109 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:06:57 -0500 X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 4.2/32.1118 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 090903-0, 03/09/2009), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-AuthenticatedUsername: NoAuthUser X-Trace: sv3-gDfPFuA+cMdJDm+nLvY488EQ3PrlZSucEN/w3A+I5yENnI0z5XfVapvzVorLTvKyTHTBX4K0rQdKMpE!071XWe1NJ5dIhkWpMi9wFGf8/wswUBJ3xskppEGxG8H1pLlzHAF9l0MLIcpuLvOW8DdCtiv1Mdq0!AA== X-Complaints-To: abuse@btinternet.com X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@btinternet.com X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.39 Bytes: 7641 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:729936

On Sep 3, 9:48 pm, "Edward Dolan"  wrote: > "Friar Broccoli"  wrote in message > > news:e88b28d8-5286-4eac-ad50-667fbb45a411@o9g2000yqj.googlegroups.com... > On Sep 2, 4:57 pm, "Edward Dolan"  wrote: > [...] > > > There is nothing enlightened about relaxed drug and prostitution policies. > > * police can focus on criminals who are HARMING others. > * disease transmission via sex trade workers can be dramatically > reduced. > * less money from these activities flows toward organized crime. > * FAR fewer prisons required, resulting in huge cost savings. > > "nothing enlightened" ?? > > All of the above is purely theoretical and in practice a relaxed policy on > prostitution and drugs just leads to more of the same deleterious conduct. > Eventually, you end up with a society that only wants to do two things, get > high on drugs and fuck, both to the point of death.

That's a rather pessimistic, depressing and (thankfully) incorrect view of your fellow men. We don't seem to have ended up with a society that only wants to get trolleyed and gamble their entire savings, despite drinking and gambling being legal (with some, but relatively few, restrictions).

You'll always get some people who are irresponsible, but there are also a huge number of responsible, sensible, decent people who absolutely should, as adults, be allowed to enjoy things such as drugs and prostitution (as well as drinking and gambling) in a truly free society, as long as no-one is harmed against their will and there are no unwilling participants. Surely being an adult is about being allowed to do whatever you want, as long as you're prepared to accept the consequences, and as long as your actions aren't genuinely disadvantaging others in some way (how the hell does growing a pot plant and then smoking it seriously and genuinely disadvantage anyone apart from the smoker?)

We've tried the prohibitionist approach for decades and decades and by all sensible measures it's been an absolutely astonishing failure. In many ways it couldn't possibly have been more of a failure. The reasons why prohibition was applied in the first place (in the US at least) are, literally, laughable (c.f. "Reefer Madness"), and since then there has never been a proper debate about legalising drugs at the highest levels, for the very good reason that they *know* that an honest debate would come to the inescapable conclusion that legalisation was the only logical solution, but they don't *want* legalisation for political reasons (a very few extremely influential people get to benefit from policies that they know are causing great harm to the general public...a bit like the anti-car movement in the UK, just to bring some relevance to uk.rec.cycling, which is of course infested with supporters of that movement, not that most of them will admit it of course...they're too ashamed).

Drug legalisation and sensible regulation is long overdue. It may not solve all problems, it may cause or exacerbate some problems, but it is by *far* the best, least destructive solution (but of course certain powerful entities, e.g. the pharmaceutical/prison industries and police officers, would end up with less cash/fewer cushy jobs, meaning that they're fighting tooth and nail to stop any form of relaxation of the drug laws).

So many of the worst ills of society today are almost entirely due to prohibition: legalise drugs, and crime and health problems (among many others) would *plummet*. For example, we know that a huge amount of acquisitive crime is committed by addicts who want cash for a fix. So how can legalisation possibly *not* significantly lower the acquisitive crime rate? A lot of addicts are getting AIDS and Hepatitis C as a direct result of prohibition restricting availability of their paraphernalia (among other effects): I happen not to think it's a good thing that such people get such diseases (though I know that some people, who I feel are pretty unpleasant really, think it have a temporary escape from a world which can be pretty shitty for some people, sometimes through no or little fault of their own).
 * is* a good thing that these people are being punished by trying to

The benefits of legalisation *hugely* outweigh the disbenefits; the world would be almost unrecognisable, it would be so much more pleasant (and that would be the case whether or not one was under the influence of anything). The only losers would be those who are benefitting financially from the current arrangement (including of course the dealers themselves), and those who hate people having fun so much that they'd rather have high crime rates than potentially higher fun rates. Screw those bar stewards: they've unjustly had things their way for far too long. Legalise drugs and prostitution for a better tomorrow for the vast majority of people.

Also I don't understand why those on the right, who usually (and justifiably) object to "nannying" by the state, make an exception when it comes to the nannying that is drug prohibition.

And BTW I have *never* heard a remotely good explanation as to how it can be rational that hard drugs like alcohol and tobacco are legal, but soft drugs like cannabis and ecstasy are not. I have *never* heard anyone coming close to logically explaining why that particular situation should be the case. "That's just how it's happened to turn out, so that automatically means that we've got to stay with it and never question it" or is the usual kind of crap that is offered. It's not a remotely good enough explanation for why things should be as they are. Current drug policy is absurd, and needs radical overhaul driven by science, logic and a wish to make things better for the general public, rather than financial interests, greed, selfishness, corruption and rank stupidity.

(I suppose that on the plus side, when someone says "I never do drugs", there's a good chance that that's true...unlike when a regular driver says "I never speed".)