Wed 14 Nov 2007
Interesting talk last night.
Peter Christ, former police captain and member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) will be speaking Tuesday November 13th at 7:30 in Paresky Theater. Using his personal background in fighting the Drug War, Mr. Christ will be talking about the failures of our drug policy and discussing the issue with professors James Mahon (Political Science) and Betty Zimmerberg (Neuroscience).
Good stuff. Did anyone attend? By the way, here’s my foolproof plan to legalize drugs: Let the Native Americans do it! Given the bureaucracy and politics involved, it seems hard to know how any state might legalize drugs on its own, just as it was hard to see 25 years ago how any state (leaving aside Nevada and Atlantic City) would legalize gambling. But then Native American tribes saw the money making potential for gambling and used their tribal sovereignty to good effect. Now even Puritan Massachusetts is setting up casinos.
Why wouldn’t the same process work for drugs? Let’s say that an ambitious tribe decides to legalize medical marijuana. Could the Federal government prevent that? I don’t think so. (Eph legal opinion welcome.) Would anything prevent such a tribe from allowing visitors to smoke marijuana, assuming it was under a doctor’s supervision? Once that was established, why not harder drugs? Why not drop the doctor? I bet that such a tribe could grow very rich offering this sort of legal entertainment.
And once that happened, other tribes would follow. State governments, envious of the revenue stream and eager for an escape from the war on drugs, would have political cover to do the same. Problem solved!
EphBlog: Your favorite source for crackpot ideas!
November 14th, 2007 at 6:51 am
As Seinfeld said to Kramer (in response to his cologne that smelled like the beach idea), I can’t believe I’m saying this, that’s not a bad idea.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Why waste time and effort? Human folly knows no bounds. If it ain’t drugs, it will be something else. I grieve for my grandkids and their future weaknesses.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:27 am
I can see it now…
“Special Internships offered to Amsterdam, All Expenses Paid”
America would probably move to the top of the list as a destination point for Deviance Tourism….
David: I hadn’t figured you for the “creative” type.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Given the current slew of substance abuse problems on the reservations, I’m not sure if legalizing drugs on reservations is really the answer…
November 14th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
It is a good idea. A really good idea.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Don’t statistics show that legalization doesn’t increase usage?
If it happens, I would like to invest in setting up Krispy Kreme on all reservations….
November 14th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
On my post above:
Correction on part 1: that is usage ABUSE
Disclaimer on part 2: I was being FACETIOUS
November 14th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
FROSH mom–I think it is hard to dispute that legalizing marijuana on the Reservations will bring a great number of marijuana users (and the harder drugs that accompany them) to the Reservation. While possibly marijuana abuse may not increase among Native Americans on the reservations that have legalized the drug, I can’t imagine that marijuana tourism would be especially great for the Native Americans (in terms of health or really anything else). Amsterdam has become a mecca for potheads, but doesn’t suffer significantly from this due to its extremely fortunate financial situation. I can’t imagine that the legalization of marijuana on Reservations would result in anything other than the influx of other, more harmful drugs, drug users, and yet another reason to exploit the rightful heirs to America.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
To 2:18:
I think I am in agreement with you on this and my joke was in bad taste…especially considering my mom status.
Although there are a lot of good arguments for legalization, Reservations, in my opinion, would be the wrong setting.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
I agree. Personally, I’m in favor of legalization…just not on reservations.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Many American Indians and their friends can’t get accustomed to the universal truth, after all these years and innumerable hard lessons, that might makes right. America rightfully belongs to them that hold it!
November 14th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Who would bother going to a reservation just to smoke dope when it’s very readily available everywhere else as well? It also happens to be something people rather enjoy doing in the comfort of their own home. Now if they could legally sell cocaine at casinos, I could see THAT being a decent business model.
November 14th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Anon @ 5:07– the same people who fly to Amsterdam to smoke dope (and there’s a lot of them).
Frank–might does not make right. That’s a ludicrously idiotic thing to say. The Nazis were not in the wrong because they lost. They were in the wrong because they were in the wrong.
November 14th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Tone is hard to hear. He wasn’t saying “might should be right.”
November 14th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
The Nazis’ might (irrespective of what one thinks of its virtue or lack of virtue) made right until greater might defeated it.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
am I missing something? Do you not understand morality? Are you trying to make some silly pragmatic argument where the people in power somehow get to decide what’s morally acceptable (rather than what’s legally allowable)?
November 14th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
People in power decide what happens. What then happens is “right”.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Why the FDA does not allow individuals to practice health care delivery unless it meets their criteria for safety.
The pharma companies have already been approaching congress to curtail the sale and distribution of supplemenets by the general public.
We have approached an era where “inalienable” rights do not exist. That rights are privileges conferred by regulation and license.
Unless we have a mutual understanding and the means to communicate at a peer level, then “anything goes”. At this point, the prevailing party assumes the field of conversation and dominates the emotional charge of the language.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Unfortunately for this idea, according to my understanding (others more specialized in this area feel free to correct me) this would be barred by current federal law, particularly the Application of Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Native Americans on their reservation can evade state civil regulatory regimes (cigarette taxes), but they must comply with criminal statutory regimes (Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Butterworth, 491 F.Supp. 1015).
The CSA criminalizes the manufacture, distribution, and possession of marijuana, and applies to intrastate growers (Gonzales v. Raich) as part of Congress’ efforts to regulate interstate commerce.
This is my understanding, at least. I did not find anything on point (something with time may want to look at the past rulings on Peyote), but it does not seem like either the states (Nevada with its gambling, in the original post above) or the Native Americans could get around that federal act and the latitude which the courts have until now granted it. Anyone more specialized please feel free to chip in, though.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:58 am
To Frank and 2:18:
The word “right” is a bit of a troublemaker here.
In my kitchen dictionary; Random House (my small dictionary!), there are 57 definitions of the word right..
Here are two of those definitions:
1. right: in accordance with what is good
2. right: principal, front, or upper
I think we can all agree that the nazis weren’t right (no. 1)
but they were most definitely right (no 2)
at least until “greater Might” came along….
November 15th, 2007 at 2:31 am
not that this is relevant to anything, but I have a problem set I need to procrastinate starting:
What’s seen as “good” varies based on the society in question. For example, the Nazis truly believed that racial purification was necessary and morally right. Obviously our society’s current standards would disagree with that, but that doesn’t change the fact that their behavior was “right” to them at the time. It so happened that we won the war, so our standards of right and wrong are the ones people primarily use today, but had the Nazis won we would have been brought up to see the Holocaust as a great and proud moment in human history.
I think that’s what Mr. Uible means by “might makes right” - there is no absolute source of moral values, but every society has its own standards that it occasionally tries to enforce on others (see also: crusades and jihads). In an evolutionary sense, you could say that societies with the most useful notions of right and wrong tend to prosper and dominate those with less useful moral codes (for example, killing half your population is not a recipe for an efficient society).
November 15th, 2007 at 6:31 am
See the Shakers.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Of course I didn’t invent the phrase - Lincoln among others used it.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:24 am
If you are driving along the highway and you see a Mack truck coming at you, in your lane, with no intention of moving over..
well, that, to me is a very simple understanding of “Might Makes Right”.
There are many possible outcomes, but the fact is, that in that moment that truck owns that lane whether you are able to get the heck out of the way …or not.
And, whether it was “right” of the driver to do it?
You can spend time after the fact talking about it…just as we are.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:32 am
And the American way of handling the problem is to spend a lot of money on a much bigger truck…
even several trucks….
and head them all down the highway looking for the other Mack until you find him.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Oops, that was me above, with the mack scenario
November 15th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Moral relativism aside (which seems to be what ‘10 is pushing), I can think of no other argument for “might makes right,” assuming we’re talking morality (ie: the first definition of the word right given above). FROSH mom, the Mack truck is in no way right. Maybe they’re mighty, and maybe we have to get out of their way or get creamed, but the fact that they will smash us to a pulp if we don’t accede to their demands doesn’t make what they’re doing “right” or “good,” unless you subscribe to a form of relativism.
Now that I think about it, mainstream relativism doesn’t even argue that “might makes right.” Rather, a relativistic position is that there are different–equally valid–”goods” or “rights.” This actually differs from “might makes right;” for example, a deranged lunatic with the physiological inability to experience morality might gain control of a nuclear arsenal and manage to dictate the laws of a certain region of the world. According to any theory of moral relativity that I’ve heard, as long as the residents of the culture in that region continue to reject the depraved lunatic’s positions, moral relativity would find him in the wrong, despite holding the might.
The only form of morality that I can imagine that accepts the statement “might makes right” is some sort of pseudo-pragmatic morality, where the voice of authority is accepted absolutely. Whoever was making the rules would always be “right” simply by virtue of them being the ones making the rules. If you ask me, that’s one of the absolutely most idiotic forms of morality I’ve ever heard of.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
On the mean streets (and a good many other placrs) morality is not a factor.
November 15th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
I don’t think that the relationship between the Feds and the Tribes is all that different from that in Gonzales v. Raich (which, IMO, was wrongly decided over a dissent from Thomas).
November 17th, 2007 at 5:39 am
How come we legalized butter?
November 17th, 2007 at 5:43 am
Substance abuse is a misnomer. Depends upon what substance you are speaking about. Many substances are able to compromise your health. Personal responsibility regarding use and abuse is better than regulation. Regulation means control and funding for politicians who view these matters as a means of funding campaigns.
Understand the issue clearly within the perpective of our social order.