JRM4833 wrote:

The AntiChrist wrote: JRM4833 wrote: So nobody wants to talk about the DOJ statistics? Again, I'm for some legalization/decriminalization, but those who won't even admit that drugs have a negative effect on society aren't looking objectively. JRM, you can't blame the drugs, for what someone does on them. Those people need to take responsibility for their actions. Drugs is not a defense. If I beat my wife on alcohol, was it the alcohols fault? Or was it mine alone? Not everyone that drinks beats their wife, also. You don't have to be drunk, to beat your wife. Of course DUI/assault/etc. should remain illegal (you know infringing on someone elses rights). It is what you do to your own body, that should not be illegal. Then how can you blame alcohol for drunk driving? We stop that before the violent deaths. That's what society wants to do with drugs. I'm with you man, but this isn't the road to take IMO. Confront the reality that everyday people see.

I don't blame alcohol for drunk driving. I blame the person that gets behind the wheel drunk.

JRM4833 wrote:

The AntiChrist wrote: JRM4833 wrote: Do you really think regulation by the government will lead to lower prices? Yes and all I have to cite is alcohol prohibition. Why was organized crime involved in prohibition? Because they could make huge profits. At the turn of the century, both heroin and aspirin were legally available and sold for approximately the same amount. Today aspirin can be purchased at the corner drug store for 20 cents per gram; heroin costs $50 per gram. Link: http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu:8001/Liberty/Tales/CrimeAndDrugWar.Html If drugs are decriminalized, they will be taxed and regulated like hell. Look at the cost of a pack of cigarettes if you avoid the tax? They're like $2 on the internet and like $6-8 in a store. I'm with you man, but these are real issues the pro-decriminazation movement has to acknowledge.

The tax is fine with me. Alcohol is cheap, even with the "sin" tax. Six pack of Bud costs $4.75. Cigarettes are cheap, even with the "sin" tax. $6-8, that s*cks you must have a ridiculously high tax. Marlboros here cost $4.65, Pall Malls cost $3.09. How much would these drugs (alcohol/nicotine) be worth if they became illegal? They would be worth their weight in gold (figuratively).

The AntiChrist wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: The AntiChrist wrote: JRM4833 wrote: So nobody wants to talk about the DOJ statistics? Again, I'm for some legalization/decriminalization, but those who won't even admit that drugs have a negative effect on society aren't looking objectively. JRM, you can't blame the drugs, for what someone does on them. Those people need to take responsibility for their actions. Drugs is not a defense. If I beat my wife on alcohol, was it the alcohols fault? Or was it mine alone? Not everyone that drinks beats their wife, also. You don't have to be drunk, to beat your wife. Of course DUI/assault/etc. should remain illegal (you know infringing on someone elses rights). It is what you do to your own body, that should not be illegal. Then how can you blame alcohol for drunk driving? We stop that before the violent deaths. That's what society wants to do with drugs. I'm with you man, but this isn't the road to take IMO. Confront the reality that everyday people see. I don't blame alcohol for drunk driving. I blame the person that gets behind the wheel drunk.

But you still prohibit drunk driving.

The AntiChrist wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: The AntiChrist wrote: JRM4833 wrote: Do you really think regulation by the government will lead to lower prices? Yes and all I have to cite is alcohol prohibition. Why was organized crime involved in prohibition? Because they could make huge profits. At the turn of the century, both heroin and aspirin were legally available and sold for approximately the same amount. Today aspirin can be purchased at the corner drug store for 20 cents per gram; heroin costs $50 per gram. Link: http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu:8001/Liberty/Tales/CrimeAndDrugWar.Html If drugs are decriminalized, they will be taxed and regulated like hell. Look at the cost of a pack of cigarettes if you avoid the tax? They're like $2 on the internet and like $6-8 in a store. I'm with you man, but these are real issues the pro-decriminazation movement has to acknowledge. The tax is fine with me. Alcohol is cheap, even with the "sin" tax. Six pack of Bud costs $4.75. Cigarettes are cheap, even with the "sin" tax. $6-8, that s*cks you must have a ridiculously high tax. Marlboros here cost $4.65, Pall Malls cost $3.09. How much would these drugs (alcohol/nicotine) be worth if they became illegal? They would be worth their weight in gold (figuratively).

Ok, just as long as we're on the same page that prices for drugs certainly wouldn't drop and potentially could lead to causing even more crimes if the right measures aren't put in place.

JRM4833 wrote:

The AntiChrist wrote: JRM4833 wrote: The AntiChrist wrote: JRM4833 wrote: So nobody wants to talk about the DOJ statistics? Again, I'm for some legalization/decriminalization, but those who won't even admit that drugs have a negative effect on society aren't looking objectively. JRM, you can't blame the drugs, for what someone does on them. Those people need to take responsibility for their actions. Drugs is not a defense. If I beat my wife on alcohol, was it the alcohols fault? Or was it mine alone? Not everyone that drinks beats their wife, also. You don't have to be drunk, to beat your wife. Of course DUI/assault/etc. should remain illegal (you know infringing on someone elses rights). It is what you do to your own body, that should not be illegal. Then how can you blame alcohol for drunk driving? We stop that before the violent deaths. That's what society wants to do with drugs. I'm with you man, but this isn't the road to take IMO. Confront the reality that everyday people see. I don't blame alcohol for drunk driving. I blame the person that gets behind the wheel drunk. But you still prohibit drunk driving.

Which has nothing to do with the legality of ingesting the substance. If you want to drive around your property drunk, I don't have a problem with that. Now if you get on the public roads, you are infringing on other peoples rights.

JRM4833 wrote:

The AntiChrist wrote: JRM4833 wrote: The AntiChrist wrote: JRM4833 wrote: Do you really think regulation by the government will lead to lower prices? Yes and all I have to cite is alcohol prohibition. Why was organized crime involved in prohibition? Because they could make huge profits. At the turn of the century, both heroin and aspirin were legally available and sold for approximately the same amount. Today aspirin can be purchased at the corner drug store for 20 cents per gram; heroin costs $50 per gram. Link: http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu:8001/Liberty/Tales/CrimeAndDrugWar.Html If drugs are decriminalized, they will be taxed and regulated like hell. Look at the cost of a pack of cigarettes if you avoid the tax? They're like $2 on the internet and like $6-8 in a store. I'm with you man, but these are real issues the pro-decriminazation movement has to acknowledge. The tax is fine with me. Alcohol is cheap, even with the "sin" tax. Six pack of Bud costs $4.75. Cigarettes are cheap, even with the "sin" tax. $6-8, that s*cks you must have a ridiculously high tax. Marlboros here cost $4.65, Pall Malls cost $3.09. How much would these drugs (alcohol/nicotine) be worth if they became illegal? They would be worth their weight in gold (figuratively). Ok, just as long as we're on the same page that prices for drugs certainly wouldn't drop and potentially could lead to causing even more crimes if the right measures aren't put in place.

We are not on the same page, about the prices. I do not believe a 1/4 oz. of pot, would cost $40-60 dollars if legalized. Also I could grow marijuana, and exactly how much would that cost?

I like that you used potentially could lead, because that is the truth. I believe people are good/evil, with or without drugs.

Malcolm Kyle wrote:

It's almost a century ago since the United States plunged into Prohibition. Immediately, illicit dealers began supplying bootleg booze. Gun battles erupted between rival rum-runners. Prisons were crammed. Police and judges took bribes to overlook "speakeasy" bars. Street gangs and the Mafia grew and grew. After Prohibition was repealed, the wave of alcohol crimes faded. Today history is repeating itself, via criminalization of disapproved drugs. Illicit dealers supply banned substances. Gun battles erupt between rival operators. Prisons are crammed. Police and judges are sometimes bribed to look the other way. Street gangs and the Mafia profit from the lucrative trade. So do Muslim terrorists who control Afghanistan's opium poppies, and Latin American cartels are in control of cocaine production. Local American peddlers carry guns, so they won't be robbed of their cash or stash. They sell to children. Addicts commit robberies to get money for daily fixes. Impure mixes by amateur suppliers cause overdose deaths. U.S. taxpayers spend $69 billion a year on the "war on drugs" Is this normal behavior or have we all lost the plot? The drug war clock : http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm

You kick ass

JRM4833 wrote:

If drugs are decriminalized, they will be taxed and regulated like hell. Look at the cost of a pack of cigarettes if you avoid the tax? They're like $2 on the internet and like $6-8 in a store. I'm with you man, but these are real issues the pro-decriminazation movement has to acknowledge.

A pack of cigarettes is $2-8 and that's approximately 1/8 oz of tobacco. An eighth of pot goes for $30-100 depending on the area and quality. They're both just dried plants, except pot is much easier and cheaper to grow.

Ultimately, prohibition does little more than raise the price of the banned goods. Excessive taxes do the same thing and also can cause black markets. Of course, if we made drugs legal to drop the price, we'd be idiots to raise the price back up enough to create a black market.

JRM4833 wrote:

You can't change that one quarter of property offenses are because of drugs. That's a lot of our property stolen. I would be willing to wager that there is no other single item that is the motive of anywhere near this many property crimes.

again, the majority of such offenses have nothing to do with drugs. all of those crimes are committed to acquire money, and most of that money is not spent on drugs. if the drugs were available at what they are actually worth, then the number of crimes committed to get money to buy drugs would be reduced even further.

it is important to focus on the missing perspective required to understand what these statistics actually do or do not mean. most drug users do not commit crimes. most crimes of acquisition have nothing to do with getting money for drugs.

it is not the drugs, it's the people. thieves steal: and not all thieves are drug users, nor are all drug users thieves.

JRM4833 wrote:

brian bennett wrote: and let's look at the grand totals for this drugs = crimes connection: in 2002, 16.9% of those in prison said they committed whatever offense they are in jail for to get money to buy drugs. that leaves 83.1% percent of the criminals in jail who committed their crimes for some reason other than "to get money to buy drugs." the vast majority of drugs users, meanwhile, do not "commit crimes to get money to buy drugs" -- and neither do the vast majority of the actual criminals. So you think that because there are other motives, we are not permitted to do something about this one?

no, i think that claims about the effects of drug use are blown way the hell out of all rational perspective. the government's own numbers prove my contentions. if we manage to use our eyeglasses instead of a microscope, it becomes easier to understand how absolutely miminal the levels of problems associated with drug abuse actually are.

clearly, if 83% of property crimes are not "drug-related" then claims about how drug use causes crime become less convincing. the assumption is that drug use causes lots of crime -- but the data itself indicate otherwise.

JRM4833 wrote:

brian bennett wrote: okay what else is there on that page? hmmm, it seems that the percentage of homicides that are "drug-related" has been steadily declining since it's peak in 1989 at 7.4% of the total. which, of course, leaves the other 96.3% of those homicides as having nothing to do with drugs. and it looks like alcohol is winning the "what drug causes violent crime?" contest. in short, i have to conclude that reports about the "harms" to society caused by drug use are grossly distorted and that for some strange reason people don't remember simple things: like the fact that percentages add up to 100. so what do you make of all the stuff from the doj page? Uuummm ... so why is it you left out the most damning evidence?

i got tired of typing, and i thought i had given you enough perspective that you would employ your own curiosity to dig into the details and reveal the uneventful truth for yourself. however, i've been in your boat, so let's continue along and see what this "damning evidence" tells us.

JRM4833 wrote:

Quote: About 29% of the victims of violence reported that the offender was using drugs, alone or in combination with alcohol. This is crazy. Drug users make up a very small percentage of society, yet 30% of violent offenses were committed by those on drugs!!

that's only scary if you don't use the actual numbers you need to put such a claim into perspective. for starters, how many victims of violence are there?

the answer to that question is here:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0336.pdf

and the claim is that for the year 2003 (latest available data), there were a total of 4,949,370 violent crimes.

next, pay attention to the wording in the claim: "About 29% of the victims of violence reported that the offender was using drugs, alone or in combination with alcohol."

how many involved only drugs, how many involved only alcohol, and how many involved both?

that data is available here:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/tables/percepti.htm

Quote:

Victim's perception of the use of alcohol and drugs by the violent offender, 2003, Percent of victims of violent crime: Alcohol only 15.6 Alcohol and drugs 5.9 Alcohol or drugs 1.7 Drugs only 5.9

so, right off the top, we can see that it is alcohol that is primarily involved in these violent crimes. more importantly, we can observe that the actual number of these crimes in which the victim perceived that "the offender was using drugs, alone or in combination with alcohol" only adds up to 13.5% -- not the 29% claimed.

hmmmmmm, so alcohol all by itself is involved in 15.6 percent of these crimes, and is believed to be involved in 23% of all violent crimes, while drugs (alone or in combination with alcohol) are only involved in 13.5%. significantly, drugs alone were perceived to be involved in only 5.9% of the crimes. this does not support the idea that drug use is involved in much violent crime. oops, it looks like i was right when i said: "it looks like alcohol is winning the "what drug causes violent crime?" contest." you can't take these pronouncements at face value -- especially those which are blatant lies.

but let's continue: 13.5% of the violent crimes were perceived to involve drugs -- so that works out to 668,165 of the total number of violent crimes.

the next thing we need to know is how many past year drug users were there in 2003? that answer is here:

http://www.drugabusestatistics.samhsa.gov/nsduh/2k4nsduh/2k4Results/ap ph.htm

so, in 2003 there were 34,993,000 past year users of illicit drugs. if each of the violent crimes in which the victim perceived that his/her attacker was under the influcence of drugs (either alone or in combination with alcohol) were committed by a different past year drug user, then that would mean that only 1.9 percent of past year drug users committed a violent crime. obviously that means that 98.1% of these evil druggies did not commit a violent crime while under the influence of their drug(s) of choice.

suddenly, the claim is not so frightening. drug use is involved in only a very small portion of violent crimes, and involves only a tiny minority of drug users.

you can't take any of the drug war statistics at face value -- especially when they can't even do simple arithmetic (ie the actual percentage involving drug use, rather than the 29% claimed).

JRM4833 wrote:

Quote: Overall 41% of violent crimes committed against college students and 38% of nonstudents were committed by an offender perceived to be using drugs, 1995-2000. About 2 in 5 of all rape/sexual assaults and about a quarter of all robberies against a college student were committed by an offender perceived to be using drugs. I'm shocked that people would really brush this off. 41% of violent crimes? 40% of rapes?

i'm not sure that most people would brush it off -- only people like me who dig for the details will successfully derail the claims. in which case, i'm not actually brushing it off -- i'm just putting into coherent perspective.

so let's go find some numbers. we'll need to know how many rapes/sexual assualts occurred, how many involved college students, and how many were perceived to involve drugs.

total number of rapes/sexual assualts reported in 2003 are here:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0326.pdf

in 2003, then there were 198,850 rape/sexual assualt victims in a total of 191,350 incidents (one incident can have more than one victim) 68% of which involved victims who knew their attacker.

the percent of all rapes/sexual assualts involving perceived use of drugs are here:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0332.pdf

and we can see, yet again that the primary drug involved in such attacks is alcohol -- wow, what a shock! indeed, drugs alone are claimed to be involved in only 3.4 percent of all these rapes/sexual assaults, while alcohol alone is involved in over 35% of them. everyone knows that alcohol is the real "date-rape" drug -- apparently even the government knows it. so where's the "war" on alcohol. oops, did that already -- it didn't work.

but how many of these incidents actually happened to college students?

that data is devilishly difficult to find, and following the links from the original page were no help. however, your intrepid reporter uncovered this somewhere in the chain of links:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vvcs00.pdf

and page three contains the source of the claim that 41% of college students who were victims of rape/sexual assualt perceived that their attacker was under the influence or alcohol or drugs. according to the table, that works out to an average of 12,760 rapes/sexual assualts per year.

but there is no list telling us how the drugs involved break out -- why not? i will make the very unbold asumption that yet again, the primary drug involved is alcohol -- but i can find no proof of that assertion and thus cannot properly cull out the exact numbers.

so, for sake of convenience, let's pretend that every one of those 12,760 incidents involved only drugs other than alcohol -- whoa! now we need to know how many college student drug users there were, and that information can be found here:

http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol2_2004.pdf (1.6Meg) on page 246

in 2004, 36.2 percent of those enrolled in college were past year illicit drug users, while in 2000 (last year included in the claim above) that number was 36.1 percent.

thus, if there were an average 7.7 million enrolled college students (as asserted in the source document) and 36 percent of them were past year drug users, then we can estimate that there were some 2,772,000 past year drug users in college. if every rape/sexual assualt were committed by a different drug user, then only 0.46 percent of past year drug using college sudents were involved in a rape/sexual assualt.

to properly approximate a closer guess would actually require counting mainly the male drug users (even though not all rape/sexual asualt perpetrators are male, and not all victims are female) -- but we would also need the breakout of what percent of the total involved alcohol versus the other drugs.

this current approximation still exhibits quite clearly that the involvement of drugs in these crimes is still minimal. and most importantly, that most drug users do not commit crimes -- which is the central thesis i presented.

obviously, then, once again, most drug users do not commit the crimes of rape/sexual assault. and most of such incidents actually involve alcohol.

but most alcohol users don't commit crimes either. isn't this fun?

i'm tired of typing and have already put over 4 hours into this post, so i'm not going to dissect the claims about "college students who are victims of violent crimes who perceive their attacker was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the attack." i believe there is enough here for anyone else interested in doing so to make the attempt. for my part, i'll make the truly "wild assed" guess that most of it invovles alcohol, and that yet again, most drug users are not committing these crimes.

indeed, if we wish to pursue the drugs/crime nexxus as a society, we clearly have our attention focused on the wrong drugs.

JRM4833 wrote:

There's more there, but you can't ignore these numbers. They don't lie.

while the numbers aren't necessarily lies (although here we have uncovered a blatant lie -- 29% my ass!) they need to be put into a coherent perspective in order for them to be properly assessed. prohibtionists make everything sound as drastic as they can -- but they can only do that by hiding the underpinnings that reveal their claims to be exaggerations and undue hysteria.

JRM4833 wrote:

You can work with the parts of society who believe this is a serious governmental interest, but claiming that drugs cause no harm is a losing argument. But there are ways to change this, and that's where the focus for the decriminalization argument should lie IMO.

agreed! my claim is not that drugs are not involved in various societal problems -- my claim is that such involvement is nowhere near as dire as we are led to believe. i say we start by understanding that the statistics are blown way the hell out of proportion and misrepresented. and i say we can use the government's own data to prove it. all we need to do is dig under the surface of the claims and the edifice rapidly disintegrates.

it requires only a bit of curiosity, a bit of patience, and a whole lot of digging. we cannot blindly accept the claims made by prohibitionists.

Excellent post, Brian. Thanks for doing all that work. Very helpful information.

Guither wrote:

Excellent post, Brian. Thanks for doing all that work. Very helpful information.

thanks pete -- and no problem. i like pulling the curtain back to expose the "wizard" with his smoke and flame machines.

Wow, that was one hellofa great post Brian; I think that you pretty much own the numbers game... Great job!!!

brian bennett wrote:

we cannot blindly accept the claims made by prohibitionists.

If only more people could see that as they are liars and always have been...

Prohibitionists have just been using their own numbers...

Sukoi wrote:

Wow, that was one hellofa great post Brian; I think that you pretty much own the numbers game... Great job!!! brian bennett wrote: we cannot blindly accept the claims made by prohibitionists. If only more people could see that as they are liars and always have been... Prohibitionists have just been using their own numbers...

thanks sukoi -- this game boils down to something fairly simple: dig until you find the data. well, the idea is simple, anyway -- actually finding the underlying truth can be maddeningly difficult at times. but i'm a persistent little bugger.

The AntiChrist wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: But you still prohibit drunk driving. Which has nothing to do with the legality of ingesting the substance. If you want to drive around your property drunk, I don't have a problem with that. Now if you get on the public roads, you are infringing on other peoples rights.

Of course not. But if society finds that something is dangerous enough, the police powers of the state are a proper means to prohibit that danger. The statistics I showed you are a proper basis to make this decision, even if I happen to disagree with the decision on some levels. And nothing in the USC says that society has to be completely consistent at all levels.

The AntiChrist wrote:

We are not on the same page, about the prices. I do not believe a 1/4 oz. of pot, would cost $40-60 dollars if legalized. Also I could grow marijuana, and exactly how much would that cost? I like that you used potentially could lead, because that is the truth. I believe people are good/evil, with or without drugs.

I can make booze ... but I don't for obvious reaons. I can make my own cigarettes ... but I don't for obvious reasons. The same would go for most marijuana users. They would pay the increased price which would include a hefty "sin" tax like booze and cigarettes.

And yes ... I'm not trying to say I can predict the future, but I do believe this would be the case.

ja wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: If drugs are decriminalized, they will be taxed and regulated like hell. Look at the cost of a pack of cigarettes if you avoid the tax? They're like $2 on the internet and like $6-8 in a store. I'm with you man, but these are real issues the pro-decriminazation movement has to acknowledge. A pack of cigarettes is $2-8 and that's approximately 1/8 oz of tobacco. An eighth of pot goes for $30-100 depending on the area and quality. They're both just dried plants, except pot is much easier and cheaper to grow. Ultimately, prohibition does little more than raise the price of the banned goods. Excessive taxes do the same thing and also can cause black markets. Of course, if we made drugs legal to drop the price, we'd be idiots to raise the price back up enough to create a black market.

Just explain why something that costs $.50 to make costs $8. New York taxes them $3 and this isn't even counting the federal taxes.

brian bennett wrote:

again, the majority of such offenses have nothing to do with drugs. all of those crimes are committed to acquire money, and most of that money is not spent on drugs. if the drugs were available at what they are actually worth, then the number of crimes committed to get money to buy drugs would be reduced even further. it is important to focus on the missing perspective required to understand what these statistics actually do or do not mean. most drug users do not commit crimes. most crimes of acquisition have nothing to do with getting money for drugs. it is not the drugs, it's the people. thieves steal: and not all thieves are drug users, nor are all drug users thieves.

Drugs will never be available for what they are actually worth. Just like cigarettes will never be available for what they are actually worth. As I've already stated, it is my belief the price would rise, not fall.

The fact remains that a hugely disproportionate number of crimes are committed by drug users and society has an interest in that.

brian bennett wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: So you think that because there are other motives, we are not permitted to do something about this one? no, i think that claims about the effects of drug use are blown way the hell out of all rational perspective. the government's own numbers prove my contentions. if we manage to use our eyeglasses instead of a microscope, it becomes easier to understand how absolutely miminal the levels of problems associated with drug abuse actually are. clearly, if 83% of property crimes are not "drug-related" then claims about how drug use causes crime become less convincing. the assumption is that drug use causes lots of crime -- but the data itself indicate otherwise.

I've looked at the stats personally and IMO, you are the one trying to skew them. That's the biggest flaw in the pro-decriminalization movement from the perspective of someone who leans toward decriminalization in some areas. I see it as absolutely rational to be worried about these numbers.

I don't know where you got the 83% number though.

brian bennett wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: Uuummm ... so why is it you left out the most damning evidence? i got tired of typing, and i thought i had given you enough perspective that you would employ your own curiosity to dig into the details and reveal the uneventful truth for yourself. however, i've been in your boat, so let's continue along and see what this "damning evidence" tells us.

You should lose the "I'm informed and you're not" attitude. I think you're wrong in some areas and see it as completely valid.

brian bennett wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: Quote: About 29% of the victims of violence reported that the offender was using drugs, alone or in combination with alcohol. This is crazy. Drug users make up a very small percentage of society, yet 30% of violent offenses were committed by those on drugs!! that's only scary if you don't use the actual numbers you need to put such a claim into perspective. for starters, how many victims of violence are there? the answer to that question is here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0336.pdf and the claim is that for the year 2003 (latest available data), there were a total of 4,949,370 violent crimes. next, pay attention to the wording in the claim: "About 29% of the victims of violence reported that the offender was using drugs, alone or in combination with alcohol." how many involved only drugs, how many involved only alcohol, and how many involved both? that data is available here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/tables/percepti.htm

You can't change the fact that at least 30% of these crimes were committed by the small number of people who use drugs. These numbers blatantly distinguish between drugs and alcohol.

brian bennett wrote:

Quote: Victim's perception of the use of alcohol and drugs by the violent offender, 2003, Percent of victims of violent crime: Alcohol only 15.6 Alcohol and drugs 5.9 Alcohol or drugs 1.7 Drugs only 5.9 so, right off the top, we can see that it is alcohol that is primarily involved in these violent crimes. more importantly, we can observe that the actual number of these crimes in which the victim perceived that "the offender was using drugs, alone or in combination with alcohol" only adds up to 13.5% -- not the 29% claimed.

I'll stick to believing the DOJ didn't just make up the number. I don't have time to go through both reports to tell me what I see personally every day running criminal sessions in court.

brian bennett wrote:

hmmmmmm, so alcohol all by itself is involved in 15.6 percent of these crimes, and is believed to be involved in 23% of all violent crimes, while drugs (alone or in combination with alcohol) are only involved in 13.5%. significantly, drugs alone were perceived to be involved in only 5.9% of the crimes. this does not support the idea that drug use is involved in much violent crime. oops, it looks like i was right when i said: "it looks like alcohol is winning the "what drug causes violent crime?" contest." you can't take these pronouncements at face value -- especially those which are blatant lies.

So argue that alcohol should be prohibited if you must. Society doesn't have to be consistent and you won't win your fight with this argument. I'm just trying to help people understand why the argument fails time after time after time.

brian bennett wrote:

but let's continue: 13.5% of the violent crimes were perceived to involve drugs -- so that works out to 668,165 of the total number of violent crimes. the next thing we need to know is how many past year drug users were there in 2003? that answer is here: http://www.drugabusestatistics.samhsa.gov/nsduh/2k4nsduh/2k4Results/ap ph.htm so, in 2003 there were 34,993,000 past year users of illicit drugs. if each of the violent crimes in which the victim perceived that his/her attacker was under the influcence of drugs (either alone or in combination with alcohol) were committed by a different past year drug user, then that would mean that only 1.9 percent of past year drug users committed a violent crime. obviously that means that 98.1% of these evil druggies did not commit a violent crime while under the influence of their drug(s) of choice.

I'll continue to stick to the 30% number I saw on the DOJ, which was in no way ambiguous with it's wording. And the fact remains that a disproportionate number of offenses are committed by drug users.

brian bennett wrote:

suddenly, the claim is not so frightening. drug use is involved in only a very small portion of violent crimes, and involves only a tiny minority of drug users.

Try convincing people that what they see every day in their real lives isn't true. Again ... it's a failing argument IMO.

brian bennett wrote:

you can't take any of the drug war statistics at face value -- especially when they can't even do simple arithmetic (ie the actual percentage involving drug use, rather than the 29% claimed).

I have no problem believing that number and am more than willing to state that what I see everyday reflects this.

brian bennett wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: Quote: Overall 41% of violent crimes committed against college students and 38% of nonstudents were committed by an offender perceived to be using drugs, 1995-2000. About 2 in 5 of all rape/sexual assaults and about a quarter of all robberies against a college student were committed by an offender perceived to be using drugs. I'm shocked that people would really brush this off. 41% of violent crimes? 40% of rapes? i'm not sure that most people would brush it off -- only people like me who dig for the details will successfully derail the claims. in which case, i'm not actually brushing it off -- i'm just putting into coherent perspective. so let's go find some numbers. we'll need to know how many rapes/sexual assualts occurred, how many involved college students, and how many were perceived to involve drugs. total number of rapes/sexual assualts reported in 2003 are here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0326.pdf in 2003, then there were 198,850 rape/sexual assualt victims in a total of 191,350 incidents (one incident can have more than one victim) 68% of which involved victims who knew their attacker. the percent of all rapes/sexual assualts involving perceived use of drugs are here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0332.pdf and we can see, yet again that the primary drug involved in such attacks is alcohol -- wow, what a shock! indeed, drugs alone are claimed to be involved in only 3.4 percent of all these rapes/sexual assaults, while alcohol alone is involved in over 35% of them. everyone knows that alcohol is the real "date-rape" drug -- apparently even the government knows it. so where's the "war" on alcohol. oops, did that already -- it didn't work.

The wording is unambiguous. 41% were using "drugs" which does not include alcohol. I don't have time to dig for something which I know to be true from my real life experience.

But keep attacking alcohol. That tactic has worked great for the pro-decriminalization movement. I'll say it again, there are better ways to fight for decriminalization and they involve taking responsibility.

brian bennett wrote:

but how many of these incidents actually happened to college students? that data is devilishly difficult to find, and following the links from the original page were no help. however, your intrepid reporter uncovered this somewhere in the chain of links: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vvcs00.pdf and page three contains the source of the claim that 41% of college students who were victims of rape/sexual assualt perceived that their attacker was under the influence or alcohol or drugs. according to the table, that works out to an average of 12,760 rapes/sexual assualts per year. but there is no list telling us how the drugs involved break out -- why not? i will make the very unbold asumption that yet again, the primary drug involved is alcohol -- but i can find no proof of that assertion and thus cannot properly cull out the exact numbers.

The DOJ distinguishes between drugs and alcohol.

brian bennett wrote:

so, for sake of convenience, let's pretend that every one of those 12,760 incidents involved only drugs other than alcohol -- whoa! now we need to know how many college student drug users there were, and that information can be found here: http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol2_2004.pdf (1.6Meg) on page 246 in 2004, 36.2 percent of those enrolled in college were past year illicit drug users, while in 2000 (last year included in the claim above) that number was 36.1 percent. thus, if there were an average 7.7 million enrolled college students (as asserted in the source document) and 36 percent of them were past year drug users, then we can estimate that there were some 2,772,000 past year drug users in college. if every rape/sexual assualt were committed by a different drug user, then only 0.46 percent of past year drug using college sudents were involved in a rape/sexual assualt.

This is skewing facts to help your argument. A disproportionate number of violent assaults on college campuses are committed by drug users. That's all society needs to know. Now the onus is on the pro-decriminalization movement to explain how that can be dealt with. The best argument is not to tell people their own experience and knowledge is lying to them.

brian bennett wrote:

to properly approximate a closer guess would actually require counting mainly the male drug users (even though not all rape/sexual asualt perpetrators are male, and not all victims are female) -- but we would also need the breakout of what percent of the total involved alcohol versus the other drugs. this current approximation still exhibits quite clearly that the involvement of drugs in these crimes is still minimal. and most importantly, that most drug users do not commit crimes -- which is the central thesis i presented. obviously, then, once again, most drug users do not commit the crimes of rape/sexual assault. and most of such incidents actually involve alcohol. but most alcohol users don't commit crimes either. isn't this fun?

Not really. It's becoming tedious and you haven't swayed me a bit. I'm sure you'll be able to tell me that it's because I'm so uninformed, but oh well ...

brian bennett wrote:

i'm tired of typing and have already put over 4 hours into this post, so i'm not going to dissect the claims about "college students who are victims of violent crimes who perceive their attacker was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the attack." i believe there is enough here for anyone else interested in doing so to make the attempt. for my part, i'll make the truly "wild assed" guess that most of it invovles alcohol, and that yet again, most drug users are not committing these crimes.

You can make all the guesses you want. People will still see the statistics which condemn drugs, and not alcohol.

brian bennett wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: There's more there, but you can't ignore these numbers. They don't lie. while the numbers aren't necessarily lies (although here we have uncovered a blatant lie -- 29% my ass!) they need to be put into a coherent perspective in order for them to be properly assessed. prohibtionists make everything sound as drastic as they can -- but they can only do that by hiding the underpinnings that reveal their claims to be exaggerations and undue hysteria.

You haven't convinced me it is a lie.

brian bennett wrote:

JRM4833 wrote: You can work with the parts of society who believe this is a serious governmental interest, but claiming that drugs cause no harm is a losing argument. But there are ways to change this, and that's where the focus for the decriminalization argument should lie IMO. agreed! my claim is not that drugs are not involved in various societal problems -- my claim is that such involvement is nowhere near as dire as we are led to believe. i say we start by understanding that the statistics are blown way the hell out of proportion and misrepresented. and i say we can use the government's own data to prove it. all we need to do is dig under the surface of the claims and the edifice rapidly disintegrates.

I completely disagree and am not sure why you think we are in agreement. I think the focus needs to shift from what everyone knows, that drugs are harmful to society. It needs to focus on what can be done to change the effect, which is not an impossible task.

Sukoi wrote:

Wow, that was one hellofa great post Brian; I think that you pretty much own the numbers game... Great job!!! brian bennett wrote: we cannot blindly accept the claims made by prohibitionists. If only more people could see that as they are liars and always have been... Prohibitionists have just been using their own numbers...

I love this. It sums up the entire failure of the pro-decriminalization movement nicely. I tried to do my part and explain the awful failures time after time, but it seems it was in vain.

JRM4833 wrote:

The AntiChrist wrote: We are not on the same page, about the prices. I do not believe a 1/4 oz. of pot, would cost $40-60 dollars if legalized. Also I could grow marijuana, and exactly how much would that cost? I like that you used potentially could lead, because that is the truth. I believe people are good/evil, with or without drugs. I can make booze ... but I don't for obvious reaons. I can make my own cigarettes ... but I don't for obvious reasons. The same would go for most marijuana users. They would pay the increased price which would include a hefty "sin" tax like booze and cigarettes. And yes ... I'm not trying to say I can predict the future, but I do believe this would be the case.

JRM, are you familiar with pot prices right now? They are outrageous. Even with a hefty "sin" tax, pot would be much cheaper, than now. Not to mention competition in the market and viola, companies lowering prices to compete.

Everyone I know that smokes weed, would be growing their own if legalized, I guarantee it. The marijuana plant will grow any where, with little care.

JRM4833 wrote:

ja wrote: JRM4833 wrote: If drugs are decriminalized, they will be taxed and regulated like hell. Look at the cost of a pack of cigarettes if you avoid the tax? They're like $2 on the internet and like $6-8 in a store. I'm with you man, but these are real issues the pro-decriminazation movement has to acknowledge. A pack of cigarettes is $2-8 and that's approximately 1/8 oz of tobacco. An eighth of pot goes for $30-100 depending on the area and quality. They're both just dried plants, except pot is much easier and cheaper to grow. Ultimately, prohibition does little more than raise the price of the banned goods. Excessive taxes do the same thing and also can cause black markets. Of course, if we made drugs legal to drop the price, we'd be idiots to raise the price back up enough to create a black market. Just explain why something that costs $.50 to make costs $8. New York taxes them $3 and this isn't even counting the federal taxes.

JRM, how much do you think those cigs would cost if tobacco was illegal?