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Bringing Conservatives and Libertarians Together
Somewhere in a shoe box in my basement, I have a copy of the February 12, 1996, issue of National Review. In that issue, the editors endorsed drug legalization. As far as I know, they have not reversed that position (notably, they republished the 1996 symposium on their website back in July). Despite taking that position nearly 19 years ago the idea still meets with much resistance among conservatives.
That may now change. In light of the votes last week in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington, DC to legalize marijuana — on the heels of similar votes two years ago in Colorado and Washington state — Yury Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, awoke from his slumber in his weirdo 1970s architectural nightmare Eurocrat office building in Vienna to wag his carefully manicured finger at America and remind us that our pot legalization violates international treaties. Awesome. As if I didn’t hate the UN enough already…
This is truly a chance for conservatives and libertarians to come together, because if there’s one thing that conservatives despise more than pot smoking hippies, it’s do-gooder internationalist bureaucrats.
Image Credit: Wikipedia Commons.
Published in General
My recollection (which is very hazy thanks to many hours in Amsterdam coffee shops ;) is that this has been a contentious point for many years between Holland and the UN.
I believe that pot (and other soft drugs) has never been officially “legal” in the Netherlands, but rather has typically been in some sort of gray area between illegal but tolerated, decriminalized, and outright legal. I also recall that the implementation of drug laws in Holland has constantly swung back and forth over the years to prevent being sanctioned by some international body.
I’m not sure what it says in the statute books, but last time I was in Amsterdam, marijuana and hashish were de facto legal. They were sold openly in stationary public establishments and smoked openly on the street.
That is indeed the case, but I am quite certain that the actual legal status of pot has always been somewhat different from how it is actually handled by the authorities in daily practice.
In many ways, that is similar to many jurisdictions in America where marijuana is technically illegal but those laws are less stringently enforced than prohibitions against other drugs.
I am okay with repealing the Federal laws on pot. However, I am not for the Federal government forcing legality across the whole country. Let the States and local communities decide. There are still dry counties out there, and I don’t think they are a danger to our liberty.
I wouldn’t want to drive on the roads of one on a Friday night.
Cato Rand:
Mendel:
My understanding is consistent with Mendel’s. It is technically illegal, but tolerated.
A quick google search found this from Amsterdam.info
Back on topic, according to the Wikipedia page, “The statutes are kept on the books mainly due to international pressure and in adherence with international treaties”
My paternal grandmother lives in a “dry county” that has had several referenda to go wet, all of which have failed overwhelmingly. I’ve driven in the county on many Friday night without incident.
The next county over is wet and you can buy a fifth of bourbon through a drive through window. If I had to pick a country to drive in on Friday night, I will pick the dry county (though I’ve driven between them often as my maternal cousins all live in the wet county).
I think leaving it to local preferences is usually the best idea for most things. One size does not fit all in a nation like ours.
In point of fact they’re widely available now.
I’d be surprised if a mass of people came forth to try drugs for the first time and became hard-core addicts just because they’d been legalized.
The other way to look at it is empowering local busy-bodies to jam their preferences down everyone’s throats.
The problem with dry counties, well, I’ll let the research summary say it:
If you don’t think they would become more widely available and accepted post-legalization, with increasing consumption and experimentation, I would submit that you are not being thoughtful.
How about we make this trade, we make MJ legal but treat its consumption with more derision than we currently heap upon tobacco use? You MIGHT have a case to argue that consumption would not increase significantly if we pursued this path. Unfortunately, this is not a realistic option. I am a strong supporter of legal but shamed in many areas (although, as we’ve discussed before, I think bars and restaurants should be allowed to choose to be smoking establishments). The problem is, in this country, we’ve collapsed legal with morally acceptable, to the great harm of our country.
No, if we made it legal, consumption would increase dramatically. Whether you wish that to be true or not.
That funny, that is exactly how I view your wish to ban dry counties, except you wish to do it to an entire country.
So, if I pointed out that the inhabitants of home with handguns are statistically more likely to be the victim of a violent death, would that suggest to you that we should ban guns in homes?
This is, of course, economic fact. You reduce the cost of doing drugs through availability and lack of prosecution, you’re going to get considerably more drug use. I took Tuck’s emphasis to be on the number of experimenters who become hard-core addicts, which while it would almost certainly have to increase, whether it would be “dramatic” in absolute terms is less obvious.
I’m the one arguing against the bans.
I wish to do what? Keep local busy-bodies from imposing their will on everyone?
I love the unfounded assertions that people confuse with argument so frequently.
No, repeating it doesn’t make it any more of a convincing argument, if you have no evidence to support it, merely belief.
On the other hand, put this in your pipe and smoke it (LOL):
“Since Colorado voters legalized pot in 2012, prohibition supporters have warned that recreational marijuana will lead to a scourge of “drugged divers” on the state’s roads.”
However,
“Since marijuana legalization, highway fatalities in Colorado are at near-historic lows”
“Obvious” assertions such as yours often fail the test of reality, as in this case.
“But you can bet that if fatalities were up this year, prohibition supporters would be blaming it on legal marijuana.”
Yup.
Tuck, we agree on what we think should happen, but here “drugged driving” isn’t the same as increased use. Asquared was talking increased use, and he’s right about that.
Yes, you wish to impose your will on those people that don’t want to live near bars. To me, this is nothing but a zoning law that covers the entire county. Are you against zoning laws (as many libertarians are)?
I am not. I think we should allow people to exclude nudie and alcohol bars from their neighborhood. FWIW, my little socialist republic of Oak Park IL doesn’t allow bars in its city limits (though the definition a “bar” is fluid as the “Oak Park Avenue Ale House” is considered a restaurant). I see no problem with that.
But you used an irrelevant statistical argument of harm to support it.
Also, I don’t think you know what a dry county means. Alcohol isn’t banned, it just isn’t allowed to be sold. When I visit my grandmother, I simply stop at the liquor store on the county line. The people in the dry country aren’t opposed to alcohol, they just don’t want to live next to bars. You don’t think they should have that choice, I think they should.
I don’t think you have the answer for every community in America, I think we should allow deference for local preferences. You disagree. We will continue to disagree on that for a very long time.
I don’t know the answer, but are highway fatalities up in the rest of the nation, ie, is the Colorado trend an anomaly or part of a long-standing national trend?
I’m not an MJ user, but I thought that one of the arguments for legalization was that stoned people would drive 5 mph. Perhaps it is increased usage that is driving the decrease in fatalities.
Just a rhetorical point: I’m not sure it’s fair to say Fred is “imposing his will” if he is opposed to dry counties but also thinks the decision should be made by the county itself (as opposed to federal/state law). We should be allowed to pass judgment on people outside our own jurisdiction without accusations of jamming opinions down throats.
And anyhow, even if a law is only enacted and enforced at a local level, it’s still an imposition against the will of the minority who voted against it. Local governance still beats federal governance for most issues, but we often speak as though 100% of the citizens of a dry county want it that way. It’s still majority rule at the county level, and the minority still has to go pound sand.
FWIW, I’m the one arguing the decision should be made the county itself. Fred is arguing they should not be allowed to make that decision. We disagree.
The more local those decisions are, the easier it is for people to self-select communities of like minded people. Imposing a single view on a nation removes that ability. That is where Fred and I disagree.
I live in Oak Park IL, where conservatives are the minority that are forced to pound sand. It was my choice to live there, even with the No Bar rule. When I first moved here, it was nuclear-weapon free zone (literally) and I was not allowed to keep a handgun in my house. It works both ways. I think courtesy and self-selection work better than forcing the majority to bend to the whim of every minority.
New Jersey deserves to be infested with UN diplomats. Any place that elects Chris Christie governor (or dog catcher, for that matter) deserves the UN.
How do you know that?
And if usage increases, and nothing bad happens in society, who really cares?
The point is that the prohibitionists predicted disaster, as you are doing, and it failed to appear.
Did alcohol consumption increase or stay flat after prohibition ended?
That would be correct, though I’m not 100% sure whether Fred was arguing that, or that dry counties should not be allowed.
That said, couldn’t one argue that the Heller decision is the result of Federal busybodies imposing their will on municipalities agains their will? Obviously, the 2nd amendment is different than the 21st, but the principle seems the same of banning bans.
Like I explained, it’s trivial economics.
Anyone that cares about facts.
Talk without evidence isn’t economics, it’s blather.
And caring about the facts is nice, but it’s nicer to care about people. I don’t see why free adults need the Gov’t to micro-manage their lives…
I’m not convinced in the case of marijuana. It is readily available and in my experience has been used by nearly everyone under 70 at some point. I think there’s reason to think people would continue to make roughly the same choices they make today regarding its use.