Tag: drugs

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The Appropriate Sentence for a Crime

Almost everybody loves to whine about criminals getting off easy. That’s all he got? Four years? Five years? Twenty years? It’s not enough. They should lock him up for life. No wonder there’s so much crime!

I don’t know of any divine tablet or sacred spreadsheet that tells us what a “light” sentence is or what is a sufficient punishment for, say, a burglary, or an assault, or a rape. People routinely act as if they know but they usually only say it should be more than what it was. Always more. If you asked someone out of the blue how many years in prison a man should serve for, say, rape, I doubt that most people have a clue as to how to arrive at a particular number.

How long should a man serve for conning people out of money? 144 years?

The most useful measure, in my opinion, is the relative seriousness of a crime. And the “seriousness” of a crime should be measured in harm.  And what is a harm?  If you have deprived someone of a material good, or health, life, or limb. There, we are on firmer ground, though not in the clear.

What types of crime are there?

There should never be any punishment for thought crimes. You would think that would be obvious– I would have thought it would be obvious– but in the so-called war on terror, the U.S. is now locking up young men for talking about jihad even if they cannot be shown to have taken a single actual step towards committing an act of terrorism. Talking about a crime is not really a crime unless you proceed to commit the crime. Talking about using drugs without using drugs is not illegal. Talking about having sex without having sex is not illegal. But talking about jihad without doing any jihad will get you 20 years, especially if an enthusiastic FBI informant offers to supply you with guns and bombs.

There are “victimless” crimes like possession of drugs for personal use, prostitution, possession of pornography (which, under the Canadian criminal code, used to include depictions of homosexual acts). When people try to justify prosecution for these crimes they frequently give, as reasons, consequences that are already illegal under other laws: driving while drunk, assault, exploitation of minors. But if a man (or a woman) uses threats of physical violence to force another person into acts of prostitution, I believe he or she should be prosecuted for a) exploitation (taking the money earned by someone else’s forced labour) or b) assault. But if two independent adults agree to have sex with each other in exchange for money, the government should stay out of it.

Drugs are more complicated: prescription drugs should be regulated to ensure quality and accuracy of dosages.   Alcohol should be regulated to prevent minors from having access but what if someone brews their own?  I think it is possible to prohibit giving alcohol to minors but if a person wants to consume home-brewed liquors in his own home, the government should stay out of it.  And the government has no business telling anyone they can’t grow a particular plant and then stick its leaves in their mouths and set them on fire. As long as they don’t get behind the wheel of a car after doing so.

But then, why should the tobacco industry be regulated?  You see– it does get complicated.  There is a difference: the shareholders and managers of tobacco companies profit by deceiving customers into believing their product is harmless (and, at one time, glamorous).  That invites legitimate government regulation.  Could we have a world where commercial sales of tobacco is banned entirely but if someone wants to grow some in his backyard and smoke it that is entirely up to the individual?

Should motorcycle owners be required to wear helmets?  And if they don’t, would society be okay with denying medical care to a motorcyclist who chose not to wear a helmet and got into an accident that caused a head injury?  Ayn Rand might say, sure.  Our society would find that hard to stomach.  In the end, the most rational choice may be to require helmets.

There are property crimes. I think there should be a big difference between the punishment for property crimes and the punishment for crimes of violence. And I think the punishment for property crimes should be focused on restitution, not on revenge.

Crimes of violence should be taken very seriously, and repeat offenders should receive escalating sentences. This is one area where I have some sympathy for victims’ rights organizations– with limitations. Quite often, we hear mythical tales of someone who committed numerous violent acts and kept getting released after light sentences. In many instances, the story is more complicated than that: our judges are not stupid.

Capital Punishment is absurd: if we really believe that life is sacred and the taking of a life is a horrible offense, the last message we want to send to society is that we will do it too. Besides, as DNA testing has shown, we are all too frequently wrong in determining who committed the crime and a capital sentence cannot be reversed.

Unfortunately, what has happened in the U.S. is a ratcheting up of criminal sentencing. And the word “ratcheting” is exactly what I mean. A ratchet, if you don’t know, is a box wrench on a handle that can be switched to allow the user to quickly turn the handle back and forth while applying force in one direction only. In the U.S., over the last forty years, there has been constant political pressure to lengthen sentences without the slightest movement backwards. It has become politically impossible–thanks to the “tough on crime” wing of the Republican party– to advocate for lighter sentences for anything (though there are signs the U.S. is coming to their senses on the issue). As a result, sentences for some crimes in the U.S. have moved beyond severe to ridiculous and then to the sadistic and finally absurd. Yes, there are people in federal prisons in the U.S. serving 20-25 years for possession of marijuana. If you’re a rational person, you probably don’t believe me.

The benchmark sentence for violent crime should be 25 years for murder and there should be a chance of parole after 15 years. Hey, I can be specific. And you can quibble all you like about the exact number, but I believe that 25 is a rational, reasonable guess as to how much is appropriate and constructive. I believe that even a murderer should have some hope of being released some day if only to provide him with an incentive to change his life while in prison. Prison guards will tell you that it is not helpful for a prisoner to know that he will never be released no matter what his behavior is like, in prison.  He or she has nothing to lose.

Scale that down to three months for a basic assault that does not include sufficient violence to inflict permanent injury to the victim for a person who is not a repeat offender. It seems rational to me to give suspended sentences to first-time offenders in this category, particularly if they take steps to turn their lives around, especially making personal, public apologies and restitution.

The rest I will leave alone– it would take years of work and analysis and practice to develop a useful, sensible scale of appropriate punishments for violent crimes that fall in between murder and assault. Hey, we have that: it’s called the criminal justice system. It needs to be fixed, within parameters like the ones I suggest above, but it’s possible, because we do still have the miracle of rule by law.

And we must stop adjusting criminal sentences by blandly pleading for “more”.

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The Latest DSM

The latest DSM manual will now assert that grieving the death of a loved one is a dysfunctional condition that calls for treatment.

As in, paid for by your benefit plan.

Your therapist will almost certainly prescribe a drug. In my opinion, what the drug does is not all that different from what marijuana or cocaine or methamphetamine does. The difference is all in the packaging, including the “therapist” and the doctor and the pharmacist, the rigid doses and schedule, and everyone soberly declaring that this substance can correct some kind of deficiency in your brain cells which is the cause of your unhappiness. Except that death is not a chemical deficiency, so we have an unusually naked moment here: hell, let’s just call a spade a spade: people who are sad should do drugs.

If you packaged marijuana in the same way, you could convince just as many people that this is some kind of impressive therapy that addresses a real medical condition. Exact dosages, on a schedule, with monitoring. The difference is, marijuana would not have as many side effects and would not be nearly as expensive. The difference is that marijuana is not patented.

There, done. While we’re at it, children who have discovered that school work is “work” should do drugs. Every teenage girl in the country who worries about how she looks should do drugs. Every mother who wishes she could put her feet up and watch tv all day while strange men fall over themselves to buy her gifts should do drugs. Every businessman who thinks the competition is competition should do drugs. Every liar should do drugs.

As you read the previous paragraph did you think of the fact that, for all practical purpose, they are all doing drugs, with nice names and prescriptions.

I have my own suggestion: every executive at every pharmaceutical company should do drugs, just as every congressman should go through the long lineups at the airports and every congressman’s firstborn child, male or female, straight or gay, should enlist.

And every Ayatollah who believes in the Intifada should be the first to strap on that explosive belt. Lead the way!

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The Decline of Violent Crime

In 1963, the City of New York had 25,500 police officers, and a murder rate of less than 600 a year. In the mid 1980s, the murder rate about 2,200 a year. Today, for the first time in almost 40 years, the murder rate will be below 600. The number of police officers: 38,000. The number of 911 calls on an average day: 1,000. What are the other 37,000 officers doing? I don’t know.

Nobody seems to know what’s going on. Why is there a huge decline in the murder rate? Did people become good? Have we executed enough criminals now that we are finally safe? Has all that harsh law and order finally started to have a beneficial effect?  Abortions?

The murder rate increased in connection with the widespread distribution of drugs. But drugs don’t cause crime. They don’t. Drugs cause people to waste their lives, and they cause people to do stupid things, and they are addictive, but there is no particular reason why someone using drugs would be more criminal-minded than, say, the CEO of Enron corporation.

But when drugs are illegal, and the cost to an addict increases to a preposterous amount, and the drug trade is hugely profitable because of the high prices caused by interdiction, crime will increase because of the illegality of drugs.

The truth is that drugs are not illegal in America. They are practically obligatory. Prozac, Lithium, Ritalin, Zoloft, Paxil– you name it, you need it. The difference is that some drugs are not patented. Like marijuana, hashish, opium, and cocaine. So drug companies cannot profit from them by providing exclusive access to them. So they must be illegal.

I’ve already made my arguments for legalizing drugs. What I’m concerned with here is that New York’s murder rate is down to about the lowest number it’s been in 40 years. So if you believe that the world is rapidly heading to hell in a hand basket, and that our morally bankrupt nation is sliding into a hellhole of perdition and depravity, you’ll have to explain why it doesn’t show up in the murder rate.

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A Victory in the War of Drugs

Russell Eugene Weston Jr., 44 years old, walked into the Capitol Building in Washington DC on July 24th, 1998, in order to save the world from cannibals, and to retrieve top secret information from a satellite system that was capable of time-travel. I’m not sure why he thought the government would be of any use to him, but he did, and when the government didn’t listen he shot and killed two guards.

He is imprisoned in Butner, North Carolina, in solitary, because, after all, he is mad. In what used to be the civilized world, he would be in some kind of treatment program where smart people with degrees in psychology would be trying to help him recover his senses. But this is America of the 21st century and bloodlust over-rules compassion so the government wants very badly to put him on trial for murder and sentence him to death.

The trouble is, of course, that Mr. Weston appears to be insane. It is a well-established facet of the modern justice system that a person who is not responsible for his actions cannot be convicted of crimes committed while he was not responsible for his actions, ie., in possession of his faculties, his reason, his ability to discern right from wrong.

A small obstacle to be sure. In a new, significant skirmish in the real drug war– the war waged by pharmaceuticals to get everybody onto drugs– a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit ordered him to be medicated!

Mr. Weston’s lawyer– a public defender (and we all know how awesome public defenders are)– is considering an appeal. Of course, appeals ultimately end up in the hands of those robed dildos of Partisan Politics, the Supremes.

Well, what is wrong with medicating this guy so he can be ruled sane so he can be tried for murders committed while he was insane?  And then executed?   We need to provide a nice deterrent to all those crazy UFO-believers out there with guns.

Apart from the obvious– that just because medications can make him appear to be sane doesn’t mean he was sane at the time of the murders– there is the absurd circumstance of the government drugging people into certain specified conditions (guided by the high priests of mental sanitation, psychiatrists and psychologists) in order to obtain particular results from the justice system.

I know– it’s hard to wrap your mind around this issue, especially if it’s medicated. But break it down. The drugs in question are those very powerful psychotropic drugs the mission of which is to alter a person’s personality or emotions.

Is this allowed by the constitution? The very question is insane– of course not. The idea that a constitution that protects the right of privacy and freedom of speech and presumes innocence until proof of guilt is established and  validated by a duly constituted jury or judge, would permit any government body to forcibly alter a person’s mind with powerful psychotropic drugs— it’s absolutely outrageous.

But that’s not even the most objectionable part of it all. Of what use is this procedure to the prosecution? The man was probably insane when he shot the two guards. The prosecution wishes to argue that he was not insane. They are allowed to specify how his mind should be altered in order to present him as evidence in support of their view????

The precedent is shattering. With the pharmaceutical companies already revving up the corporate cheer-leaders, every prosecutor in the country will now consider the option of obtaining a court order to force prescribed personality alterations of defendants in criminal actions.

You think I’m getting carried away? What if I had told you 50 years ago that we were headed towards the kind of society in which people who are unhappy or dissatisfied with their lives in any form would go to their doctors and readily obtain prescriptions for powerful mood-altering substances that would help them cope with their terrible little lives?

You would have thought I was insane.

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Drug War Sponsors

The United States is going to give the government of Columbia $1.5 billion of aid in their war against drugs.

Now, on the surface, this might sound to you like a bad idea. You don’t think some of Columbia’s military and political leaders might get the idea that the more drugs Columbia supplies to the United States, the more money they are going to get for new equipment, training, and fringe benefits, do you? Or do you think that their reputation for honesty, integrity, and diligence is such that after a few years of aid, they will announce to the world that the program has been a success and therefore no more American money is needed?

It is pretty well documented that the small successes early on in the war against drugs contributed to the over-all failure of the same war. When the FBI and other government agencies cracked down on the most visible agents of drug trafficking in the early 1980’s, the prices of many of these drugs went soaring, which caused a huge number of new sellers to appear. Furthermore, the really smart dealers went deeper underground to avoid detection and became ever more entrenched and sophisticated, and almost impossible to stamp out. The result is that drugs are now far more profitable and widely available than ever before.

Isn’t that kind of shocking? If a private business set out to accomplish something that cost hundreds of billions of dollars over more than twenty years, it would probably have the good sense to sit down at some point and try to answer the question of whether it was moving closer or farther from it’s goal. If it found that, after twenty years, it was farther away from its goal than ever before, I tend to think they would stop wasting their money and come up with a new plan.

But this is a government plan of course. Ironically, the very people who most decry government waste in other areas of the economy– conservatives and Republicans– are the most enthusiastic about spending a few hundred billion more on the same self-defeating program.

And now they are pouring $1.5 billion into a corrupt Columbian government to ensure that even worse results can be obtained. You see, when the Columbian army is not busy stamping out drug dealers, or fighting an entrenched guerrilla movement, it tends to spend a lot of time and effort assassinating human rights activists and peasants.

Nice to know that now they will be able to violate human rights with state of the art equipment.

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Just Say No

Universities in Canada got 60% of their funding from the government in the 1960’s. Now they get 40%. The rest comes from tuition and corporate donations.

The Corporate sponsorship is disturbing.

Apparently, according to the Canadian Association of University Professors, many of these agreements are secret, especially in regard to intellectual property rights. It was this kind of agreement that led to the University of Toronto trying to silence researcher Nancy Oliveri when her research showed that there might be harmful side effects of a drug produced by Apotex.

In a related story, a professor at McMaster University imposed a new policy on all researchers at that facility: no meetings with representatives of drug companies. Why? Because he felt that medical research was becoming compromised by the intermingling of the interests of the drug companies with those of the universities and the medical profession itself.

Perhaps the most laughable slogan of the entire 1980’s was pet phrase of Nancy Reagan’s: “Just say no to drugs”. Just say no to drugs? Ritalin! Valium! Prozac! Viagra! Lithium! Etc. Etc. Etc. We are the most drug-addled society on earth! Say “no”? And bring the stock market crashing down?!

Our society loves drugs. Institutions love them because violent patients can be sedated into harmless mindless sacks of inert flesh. Doctors love them because they provide convenient and speedy personality modifications to persistently annoying patients, and spare them the aggravating ordeal of actually trying to find a real remedy. Drug companies love them—naturally—because they provide incredible profits, since they can charge far in excess of the actual cost of the chemicals in the prescription, to cover—ha ha—research and development. Research scientists love them because drug companies provide them with millions of dollars to conduct research to arrive at just that conclusion (and if they don’t reach that conclusion—see above—the money is withdrawn).

So what’s with this “just say no” campaign? Well, you see, those poor inner city blacks don’t play by the rules. First of all, their drugs don’t include a healthy royalty to some large pharmaceutical firm (just imagine their apoplexy had Nancy Reagan added—”and let’s all try to do with a little less Prozac and Valium ourselves, shall we?”). Secondly, they haven’t developed this wonderful rationale of how stressed out they all are and how they’ve all seen so many psychiatrists and been to all the doctors and just can’t get over this severe depression that’s been limiting their ability to work, you know… The truth is this: in the U.S., blacks constitute 14% of the drug-using population, but they constitute 58% of those convicted for drug use. Look at those numbers carefully. Think of all the movies and tv shows you see about drugs and crime. Think about the reality. The war on drugs is the war on black America. And this war cost $18 billion a year (Harpers Magazine, November 1999). And it is the most one-sided debacle in U.S. history. It has been lost over and over again but America continues to fight it because it’s a winner as an election issue.

It is at moments like this I feel somewhat pessimistic about the human race.

There is a pretty good argument to be made that marijuana, especially, is illegal today because it provides the same sort of hit that Prozac and Valium provide, but at much, much less cost. In fact, you could grow it yourself in your backyard, if the police would let you. A similar argument could be made for cocaine. So, even though I feel pessimistic, I must admit that there are signs of hope. In seven states, voters have indicated, by substantial margins, that they approve the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Representative Bob Barr, in fact– he of impeachment fame– used some nefarious and obscure loopholes to prevent the results of the vote in the District of Columbia from becoming known. When it was finally released, 70% of the voters supported medical use of marijuana. But Mr. Democracy, Bob Barr, has blocked the implementation of the law on a technicality.

It might strike you as surprising that it is only recently in human history that drugs like Cocaine and marijuana have been made illegal. The prohibition of these and other “recreational” drugs coincides perfectly with the rise of the large pharmaceutical companies (who also tried to ban or hobble sales of herbal remedies).

Ah, you say—but aren’t those evil, illegal drugs addictive? Precisely. Why some of them are almost as addictive as, say, lithium. In fact, many of the heavy duty, most frequently-prescribed pharmaceuticals are at least equally addictive.

So what am I saying?

First of all, I am not saying that drug use is good. Get that clear. I don’t drink more than two or three beers a YEAR myself. I dislike anything that messes with your mind. And I certainly don’t use any prescription drugs and whenever I hear of someone who is depressed or disturbed, I hope they find some way to deal with problems that does not involve pharmaceuticals.

However, just as Prohibition of alcohol failed, the war on drugs has failed. And just as most people came to realize that Prohibition did more damage than good, people should come to realize that the war on drugs does more harm than good. The war on alcohol produced powerful criminal organizations that branched out into prostitution, gambling, and murder. Does that sound familiar?

As shocking as the idea sounds, the fact is that some countries have already tried legalizing drugs. In Holland, marijuana and hashish are freely available. And surprise, surprise, more adolescents try marijuana in the U.S. than they do in Holland!

That drugs like cocaine and marijuana should be legal? Well, think about it. Alcohol, in terms of sheer quantity, does far more damage to our society than marijuana. Yet it’s perfectly legal. In fact, it is downright easy for any teenager to get a six pack or a bottle of wine.

We did try banning alcohol once too. Of course, we all know how disastrous that was, and how it led to the development of powerful criminal organizations in North America that branched out into other forms of crime and plagued our society for years afterwards. Does that sound familiar?

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court, featuring embarrassingly second-rate minds like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, appointed during the twelve years of Republican Administrations between Carter and Clinton, have been steadily eroding constitutional rights protecting citizens from “unreasonable search and seizure”. Police in helicopters can now peer inside your windows, and officers can search your car just because they feel like it. What does this mean? In California, according to Harper’s, an elderly grandfather was shot twice and killed by police who burst into his house in a hail of gunfire searching for a suspect who had lived next door fifteen years earlier. In New York, a mentally retarded, menstruating young girl was dragged naked from the shower and hand-cuffed while police searched the house. Again, no drugs were found.

Nor were any apologies offered. Why should we apologize? We’re the police! We’re in a war on drugs! You don’t apologize to civilian casualties during a war!

And those two cases are just the tip of the ice berg. Under the Supreme Court’s relaxed rules on search and seizure, it has become very profitable for police to pull suspects over the side of the road, seize their cars and property, and leave it to the hapless citizen to “prove” that the property was not used for the purpose of drug-dealing. Not every citizen is smart enough to respond within the 10 days allowed, or rich enough to afford a lawyer, or patient enough to challenge the constipated U.S. criminal court systems. It’s easier, quicker, and safer to please guilty to a reduced charge and turn snitch, thereby providing the police with fresh leads on new property to seize.

It’s utterly incredible, contemptible, and outrageous. Why isn’t this on the front pages of the newspapers, the lead story on television?

Because there’s no sex.

Hollywood stars can afford lawyers.

Everyone has been convinced by successive administrations that drugs is the number one problem in our society and nobody– not Al Gore, not George Bush Jr., not Bill Bradley, not even John McCain– has the guts to stand up to his juggernaut of imbecilic brutality.

 

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I Want a New Drug

According to the American Journal of Psychiatry, a new drug named Paxil (paroxetine) alters the personalities of people, making them more “easy-going and cooperative”.

Psychopharmaceuticals is what they call them.

Specific serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Don’t like your personality? It can be fixed. But remember, we are against drug abuse.

This drug is now available to doctors everywhere. They will probably be receiving colorful brochures advertising its virtues shortly. Maybe they will receive an invitation to take a free cruise to Latin America where the excellent effects of the drug can be described in luxurious detail. They will be given free samples of the drug to “try out” on patients. The drug will be expensive to prescribe. But that’s okay. Don’t worry– be happy: the American Psychological Association will be pressured to include it in DSM VI or VII or VIII or whatever, as a recommended treatment for “unhappiness”. That way, it will be covered by the real pimps of our drug culture: health insurance plans.

How far are we really from the idea that we should drug everyone in our society into placid, carefree submission? How long before we officially acknowledge that our dope laws are really concerned with stamping out competition, and not with eradicating “bad” behaviours?

It all stinks.

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Soma

A man writes Ann Landers:
“I am a 60-year-old man who doesn’t have any interest in anything or anyone. I’m bored with everybody I meet. I am bored with my job and bored with my life.”

Ann solves his problem: “You aren’t bored; you are depressed. But you don’t have to stay that way the rest of your life. See a doctor; and ask for an anti-depressant that will help you.”

Was there ever a better illustration of the rampant hypocrisy of our society’s stand on drug abuse? We spend billions of dollars a year trying to stamp out the recreational use of drugs by teenagers and the inner-city poor, and then turn around and, through that paragon of bourgeois values, Ann Landers, advocate that we go running for a quick hit whenever we feel a little depressed with the world.

In the meantime, a woman in Illinois has just been released after serving 20 years in prison for merely being in the same car as a drug dealer. I am not making this up. The drug dealer– classy guy, I guess– freely and immediately admitted that the three pounds of heroin were his and his alone, and that the woman didn’t even know about it.

The courts said, “We don’t care.” Those new “get tough on crimes laws” made it possible for the prosecution to convict her anyway.

While she was in prison, she acquired some legal skills and now plans to work as a paralegal. Ann Landers, however, is still on the loose.

What, really, is the difference between the Lithium this man’s doctor will probably recommend, and the cocaine sold on the street corners? They are both addictive. They are both escape hatches from the pressures of life.

The difference is, the class of people who use them.

* * *

Judy Sgro, who dared to challenge some behaviours by the police during her tenure on the Toronto Police Services Board, has been pushed out of the position of vice-chairperson. Somehow this really reassures me that the police are out there to make sure our civil liberties are well-protected.

November 1999: Once again, even though the crime rate is going down, the police in Waterloo County, Ontario, are requesting more money and more officers. So while Mike Harris keeps telling the rest of us to tighten our belts and make sacrifices for the good of the economy, the police get to go on fattening their budgets and payrolls and throwing their weight around as never before.

When the crime rate went up, the police said they needed more officers because there were more criminals. Now that the crime rate is going down…. well, I guess it’s too much to expect. Just as it might be too much to expect that the police, when the crime rate goes up, might admit that they’re not doing a good job, instead of asking for more money.

Sometimes, I’m not totally opposed to the conservative agenda. It’s the rank hypocrisy that bothers me. If Mike Harris had declared that all of Ontario, teachers, the poor, the rich, industry– everyone– is going to have to tighten their belts, I could have seen some benefit to that. But inevitably, with the Republicans in the U.S. and the Conservatives in Canada, the real agenda is not to reduce taxes, but to shift the burden from the rich to the poor. When Harris talks about reducing taxes, he’s not talking about you and me. He’s talking about those people who inhabit the private boxes at the Skydome, and with whom he’d rather spend his off-hours anyway.

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Dutch Treat

Everybody knows that the Dutch are crazy. While we North Americans spend billions of dollars every year fighting marijuana use, the Dutch have virtually legalized it. What a crazy country! Amsterdam, with its numerous legal hash joints, is known as the “dope capital of Europe”. Here, we call that place “Washington DC”.

But, well, life is strange. According to a recent study by the Amsterdam University and Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics, only about 16% of the Dutch population, over the age of 12, have ever tried cannabis. The equivalent percentage for North America is 33%.

Zowie! That is really weird. Can anybody explain this?

Maybe it can be explained with the old “forbidden fruit” theory. Because it is illegal in the U.S. and Canada, our teenagers want to try it, to prove that they’re not sissies who listen to their mommies and daddies. In Holland, it’s the mommies and daddies (the politicians) that are saying, “Here, try it”, and the kids are saying, “What? Are you nuts?”

Maybe it’s like when your kid threatens to run away from home. One day, you hand her a suitcase and say, “Okay.” That usually stops them dead in their tracks. Maybe it’s the same with marijuana. Now that Dutch society says, “go ahead, use it if you like.” And the kids are going, “Why? Maybe I don’t want to.”

Well, I think we owe it to common sense to give it a try here. If it reduces drug use to legalize drugs, I’m all for it.

But why hasn’t it worked for guns?