Jesse Ventura and Ben Swann: It’s Time to End the War on Drugs

They may keep it illegal, because there are people making boatloads of money because it is illegal. We should've learned from the prohibition of alcohol.

My mother told me, who lived through the prohibition, that the war on drugs is the equivalent to the prohibition of alcohol. All you're doing is keeping the criminals rich and powerful.

originally posted by: VashTheStampede
a reply to: JesseVentura

Yep,way overdue,you'd think they would have learned from prohibition that making things illegal only creates a black market for them,but maybe that was their plan in the first place,either way keep waking people up.

Certainly there are, and you're not going to sell them the same way. But if you decriminalize it, you can make sure people are getting the help they need. People will able to seek treatment without fear of getting arrested.

The point being is, addiction is a medical problem, why do we insist on treating it criminally?

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: JesseVentura

I am generally for removing prohibition on a great number of narcotic substances. However, I think it would be terminally stupid for the tolerance and acceptance which is justly given to marijuana, to be applied to something like crystal meth.

There are scales to these things.

The war on drugs is one of the biggest conspiracies of our time.
Everyone that could make money off of it has.

I'm glad ATS policy has changed so that this can be discussed.


Ok, going to go watch the video.

a reply to: JesseVentura

I think that the idea of treatment over punishment is sound.

However, there are some drugs which are straight up lethal, can kill upon the first dose in some circumstances. People who peddle that filth ought to be prevented from being able to access the general population of a nation.

The other thing is, that whether the drugs are legal or not, you will ALWAYS have people experimenting with them for the first time, and so the availability of some particular narcotics will always be a significant risk to the health of citizens. PCP, for example, is a serious danger, not only to the person who has taken it, but any and all individuals in their eye line. The reason? PCP can lend users apparent inhuman strength, an inability to process pain signals, delusions... This can lead to a delusional, pain immune, terrifyingly strong individual walking around naked with their guts hanging out of an open abdominal wound, one they simply have not noticed.

There is no rehab for going for a stroll with your intestines literally flopping around by your knees, while your blood vessels quickly empty out down your stomach, and sluice down your thighs, past your knees, down your calf muscles, before rolling off your feet and ankles into a crimson pool beneath your feet, while you smile and laugh the whole time, because the fact is that while on that drug you do not give a rats behind about any of it.

And yet, that is precisely what one individual did when on the drug. God alone knows who opened him up, or how he might have gotten that way by his own hand, but it happened.

You cannot be telling me that having that stuff around AT ALL is a good idea, and that decriminalising the sale of that stuff would be a really good idea? Surely? I mean, I am all for freedom and individual choice, but this stuff...it's like Russian roulette! It's not the only one either! Imagine a nation where a dose of scopolamine (Devil's Breath) was perfectly legal to carry around? That stuff can be used as a control mechanism, allowing an individual to literally command your every move! People have helped offenders steal their entire life's savings, cars, the contents, and I mean the entire contents of their homes, as well as helping thieves steal the marks ORGANS, after being drugged with that stuff!

Oh, and it messes with memory too!

I mean come on... What the hell are you supposed to do about anything in a world where the aforementioned are not prohibited?

a reply to: TrueBrit

There is far worse. Have you ever seen a person in crucial pain question mark next sentence analgesics are derived from opium. Morphine is from opiates. Also, in the same year Dupont manufactured Plastics, the government criminalized marijuana. Marijuana has medicinal properties, paint Plastics do not have any health benefits.

a reply to: JesseVentura

Even more so Jesse.. I think It's high time to end the 'War on Citizens' instigated by past administrative fails.