Well that's supposed to say "so long as it does _not_ inherently cause...".

Cya,
Robert

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Fisher [mailto:garciasghostvw@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 12:29 AM
To: 'vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM'
Subject: RE: It's Phinally Phriedae, and Drug prohibition created the drug
lords. (was (ironically) Re: HIJACKED - update)

I agree with both of you: Dave says "no market, no industry"; Mike says "no
prohibition, no market" - therefore no industry. I once read a an article
that maintained that you could break down the known drugs into two broad
categories: Those that approx. 90% of a given population could take/use
without becoming addicted, with the other 10% experiencing varying degrees
of addiction, and vice versa. The proposal was that the (mostly)
non-addictive drugs should not be regulated, and that the (mostly) addictive
drugs should, with the legal bent being that society would endeavor to help
users overcome their addiction (to either kind) and that the illegal
distributors of the regulated kind would face penalties. Apparently in those
western societies that have de-criminalized drugs, most people that use are
content with the readily available "soft" drugs and cap their use with
those. I don't have a problem with any of that.

I don't think that amounts to liberalism (raving or not), conservatism (nut
job or not) or liberalism (bleeding heart or not). I think it's just common
sense analysis of what works and what doesn't. Basically the courts have
consistently ruled that a legislative body may regulate any behavior they
choose as long as the regulation is not in conflict with those rights
granted by the Constitution. There is, however, a growing argument that an
individual has a constitutional right to do whatever he wishes so long as it
does inherently cause or has a significant likelihood of causing a "real and
measureable harm", an idea/term with which the courts have long been used to
working and defining.

Having said that, I'm guessing the mods were probably speaking of the broad
topic of "the dangers or lack of, of travelling in Mexico" when they said
save it 'til Fridaye, and that a politically-tinged discussion of the North
American Drug Trade (Its Constitutionality, Causes and Effects) is not quite
what they had in mind. But that of course is up to them.

Cya,
Robert