WHAT about sex abuse?

Feel free to start a thread on sex abuse.

You can see that by the reply to you above.

I really don't care about the pope; his religion shouldn't dominate the world.

Safe distribution sites, decriiminalization, injection gear, education on how to prevent addicts from killing themselves....all these things are under the 'greatest good' thing.

Education, education, education.

Making sex and drugs illegal isn't actually going to solve the problem.

That is, mostly, why drugs are such a problem. There is also the fact that there are people who are prone to addiction; about 3% of the population was the last estimate I read.

Addressing the source of the problem is impossible, because there are so many interlocked problems. Thus, the best policy is harm reduction.

I wouldn't say that dealing with poverty and the conditions that flow from it are impossible. Simple mitigation is not the ultimate solution.

There certainly is no evidence that decades of criminalization has done anything except make the proble worse.

Simple decriminalization will not address that.

The proposals being suggested now go no further than some mild for of decriminalization for only some drugs.

The solution is much more radical than that.

You can try to reframe that anyway you want, but the net result is putting people in prison for getting high.

The net goal is not to put people in prison but to take people out of poverty.

No, he was speaking in opposition to efforts to decriminalize and legalize drugs. He opposes legalization and decriminalization.

Do you think legalization alone will deal with the problems of drug abuse?

That is by definition support for the ongoing decades long failure known as the war on drugs.

I think it's just a war on the poor and marginalized. Rich and privileged people will always be able to get the drugs they want, and generally without risk of significant consequences.

But I don't see any tie in with religion.

There is tons of evidence that not only is criminalization ineffective, that it is counter productive and increases the damage to individuals and to society. The advocates for the war on drugs are doing so based not on rational evidence based beliefs, but on faith alone.

But I think you are wrong about the advocates for the war on drugs. It's based on a lot of things, but I still don't see a tie in to religion.

"Faith based initiatives" generally is used to refer to religiously based initiatives. Are you using it more broadly to refer to any initiative that is not based on the science, whether it is driven by religion or not?

Since it has been established and agreed upon in this group that moral principles can exist independent of any religion, then your use of "faith based" can apply to both believers and non-believers.

However, I think using that term in that way could be very confusing...
or just a way to hold religion responsible for something that it is not responsible for.

on at least one occasion.

The drug war in Latin America is actually a war. Legalization isn't going to keep the cartels from fighting each other and the Latin American governments where they have distribution routes or access to raw materials.

Prohibition seems to lead to more crime and black market activity.

While I do agree with him that the problem is much bigger than that and needs to be attacked at it's roots, I'm not convinced that stopping efforts to legalize minor drugs (marijuana) would help do that.

There will still be turf wars for which cartel gets to own the legal head shops, and there will still be fighting over which has access to which routes into the US.

The US appetite for drugs is the problem. Choke off the market, choke off the suppliers.

I agree that the US appetite for drugs is a huge problem.

Legalization here would seem to help a great deal.

Sometimes you can hear the grenades from my house. Last year, there was an explosion on this side that shook doors and windows all over the central part of the city. About half the people I know think it was a bomb; the other half suspect it was a meth lab going up. Nobody believes the news reports that it was a barbecue propane tank. If it weren't for the pervasive violence, I'd probably be living in Mexico right now.

I agree that pot should be legalized. I just don't think it's going to help much with the hard stuff the cartels deal in.

Last year a Coast Guardsman was killed after they cornered a panga.

I plan a trip to Mexico and central america later this year. My understanding is that when you get away from the border, the violence dissipates rapidly.

Agree that legalizing MJ is not going to address the issues around cocaine and heroin.

A friend's father was kidnapped for ransom not too far from the DF a couple years ago.

I am planning on making this trip by car and on my own.

I would be going down the baja peninsula and people I have talked to have told me they think it would be fine.

I was thinking more of the interior.

Panama, I think, but not sure.

And I will probably return to New Orleans at some point.