Pubdate: Wed, 18 Sep 2002
Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web)
Copyright: 2002 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/655
Author: Joel Miller

WND READERS WANT POT LEGALIZED

WorldNetDaily's poll last Saturday concerned whether pot should be legalized.

The final tally of respondents was 56 percent pro and 43 percent con with 
variation among those answers. An unqualified yes hit the charts at 32 
percent. One percent answered "other."

While not scientific and prone to problems, the response didn't surprise me 
much. There has always seemed a receptive attitude regarding changes to our 
current drug policies among WND readers. Since my first column on the 
subject, I've received overwhelmingly positive feedback to criticism of 
current policies and recommendations for change.

But it's not all whistles and roses.

Reader Joel I. Hunt, for instance, fired off this missive to WND when he 
saw the results of the poll:

I was shocked when I voted on the poll then saw that most people voted in 
favor of legalization. What really shocked me was the fact that the readers 
of WND voted this way. I thought that WND readers for the most part are 
Christian, conservative, reasonably intelligent people. This may not mellow 
Hunt's shock, but there is nothing incongruous with wishing drugs legalized 
and one's Christian confession, being conservative or reasonably 
intelligent. In fact, I think the opposite is closer to true - a fact about 
which a majority of WND readers seem savvy.

Christianity

There is nothing in Scripture, for instance, that particularly plugs 
prohibition. While it says nothing specific about narcotics, Holy Writ is 
adamantly against drunkenness and dissipative abuse of alcohol. If we want 
a biblical approach to drugs, we must apply Scripture's cautions about 
booze to other brain-meddlers, as alcohol is but one of many psychoactive 
substances around.

If we do this, we will see that the Bible distinguishes between sin and 
crime here. While strongly condemning drunkenness and dissipation, God 
doesn't provide a lot of support in Scripture for criminalizing them. Like 
lying, jealousy, refusing to help widows and orphans, these are sins, yes, 
but not crimes. If the concern is about some of the ill effects stemming 
from some drug abuse (property theft, abusive behavior, etc.), legislation 
actually sanctioned by Scripture already has those bases covered.

If not supporting draconian drug laws is the mark of a non-Christian, then 
the Bible isn't very Christian.

Conservative

The American right seems very confused on this one at times. Conservatives 
are opposed to big government, are in favor of states' rights, and laud the 
Constitution. But perhaps no single set of policies since the New Deal have 
so totally undermined these things as the drug war.

Antidrug legislation has drastically inflated federal police powers. 
Federal drug laws - for which there is no provision in the Constitution - 
have run roughshod over the rights of states to set their own policies 
regarding matters left unspecified in the Constitution. And drug-war 
tactics have brutalized the Bill of Rights' protections of life, home and 
property.

Further, by its constant escalation, the drug war has pushed drug 
traffickers to trump police in firepower, the resultant gun crime providing 
ammunition in the ongoing liberal war on the Second Amendment.

Intelligence

Besides being a low blow, any charge that holding a position unfriendly to 
drug prohibition is a sign of unintelligence is simply stupid. Thomas 
Sowell, Charles Murray, Milton Friedman, Walter Williams - these men aren't 
"reasonably intelligent"?

Ponder instead how support of the drug war measures a man's intelligence:

a.. Drug prohibition hasn't eliminated drug use. It's pretty hard to 
measure if it's had much effect at all on curbing use. I think it has, but 
I don't consider all use damaging to society, so I'm not wetting myself 
over the prospect of slightly higher drug intake if dope were legalized. 
Regardless of the law, millions of Americans regularly use drugs, 
especially pot.

b.. Drug prohibition hasn't helped stem crime. By pushing the market 
underground, it has in fact helped encourage crime - and more violent 
crime, to boot.

c.. Drug prohibition hasn't boosted the nation's morals. The opposite might 
be true, since instead of promoting and persuading correct moral decisions 
in people we use the wrench of the state to force it. This is just 
bandaging cancer. Using government as the main inculcator of virtue instead 
of churches, families and communities is a monstrous mistake. On the other 
hand:

a.. Drug prohibition has given the U.S. the free world's biggest prison 
population - many of those behind bars being nonviolent drug offenders. 
Spending on prisons is up, up, up.

b.. Drug prohibition has provided terrorists with the necessary economic 
conditions to pad their purses with aims of attacking American citizens.

c.. Drug prohibition has led to obscene corruption of law enforcement.

d.. Drug prohibition has - and this is perhaps more damaging to the country 
than much of the above - harmed the legal and constitutional system in the 
country, as it has permitted police tactics that spit in the founders' 
faces. The Bill of Rights has become void where prohibited by drug laws, 
which means the constitutional shield used to shelter the assumed innocent 
has become a battering ram to assault the assumed guilty. Supporting such a 
policy seems a much better mark of the lack of reasonable intelligence, 
rather than vice versa. Unless, of course, all those things are the actual 
intent of drug warriors. If so, they're not unintelligent - just evil.

Contra Mr. Hunt, the fact that WND readers so strongly oppose this terrible 
policy shouldn't be shocking. It should be encouraging, if not outright 
refreshing.
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MAP posted-by: Alex