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Re: common sense (fwd)
Forwarded message:
> Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 11:33:24 -0700
> From: Dale Thorn <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: common sense
>
> HipCrime wrote:
> > And rather than "dispensing drugs in clinics," why not simply
> > scrap the drug laws entirely? People have a *right* to do as
> > they please with their bodies.
> > Let's hear it for common sense. It's the first decent posting I've
> > seen to this list.
> > -- HTTP://www.HIPCRIME.com
>
> A question for you: In the Civil Rights era (1960's mostly), we dealt
> with the question of whether people had the "right" to not only choose
> their neighbors, but whether they could extend that logic, so once they
> move in, whether they could "enforce" the status quo by preventing other
> people from moving in if those other people didn't "fit in" somehow.
>
> If drugs and/or other items of Vice are liberalized, there will be a
> tremendous marketing opportunity created, and new stores and new
> departments within existing stores will pop up everywhere offering the
> newly-liberalized goods and services. So my question is, since there are
> "dry" areas in the country now, where the citizens can vote to exclude
> alcohol sales, for example, will drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc.
> fall within the purvey of citizen democracy as in the "dry" county
> example, or will there be new problems with this analogy, and will any
> of those new problems relate to the Civil Rights issues I mentioned
> previously?
>
History already has examples of such incidences. Alaska, California, and
other states have tried various levels of legalization. To date I believe
that all such experiments have ended because of federal pressure on the
uncooperative states.
The Indians 'right by treaty' to operate gambling casino's is another good
example of a contemporary situation.
Jim Choate