DamianTV
10-25-2009, 02:53 PM
YouTube - 10/20/09 John Stossel vs. Bill O'Reilly on Medical Marijuana and the War on Drugs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFv1gpWh2yY&feature=player_embedded)
I posted this at a different forum, just thought I would share my rant here also.
I've got to go off on this clip.
This is a case of Politician vs. Reporter. Politican is going to ask a loaded question off the top of his head with a biased outcome, where as the reporter is accustomed to having time to think about what he is going to say, and during that time, do research on the question at hand. O'Reilley whooped Stossels ass in this, but it doesnt mean that he is even close to being right. O'Reilley is an ass. He's not dumb, but he is an ass. The problem I get into is that when a tv viewer is presented with one way media, most people probably cant think well enough for themselves to be able to come up with an intellectual defense against his loaded questions. Then came the internet and here we are, able to debate what was said.
"There are more pot clinics in LA than there are Schools".
My Reply: So what? There are also more 7-11's and McDonalds in LA than there are schools.
"The harder drug users sell marijuana cigarettes to children".
My Response:
A: They dont just target children, they target ANYONE willing to pay for what they have. Some will be kids. Some wont. Its a loaded question.
B: If pot were truly legal, there would be no risk assessed with selling pot to anyone, and the price of the pot would go down. It would go down so far that it would no longer be profitable for the harder drug user to sell "marijuana cigarettes" (ok thats just too damn much typing, lets call it what it really is, a f*cking 'joint') to "children" (already addressed) to be able to get enough money to support their harder drug habits.
C: Thus if pot were legal and the harder drug users couldnt make enough money by selling joints to kids, they would have to find an alternative source of income to supplement their habit. That means they would have to get a job. But, since the work enviornment itself now provides funding and thus a means to acquire their harder drugs, why not make employment illegal? That answer is about as ridiculus as O'Reilley's statements that drugs themselves are the problem.
The problem isnt the drugs, its the laws. The laws give two groups of people more power than they would have without the laws. It gives politicians a means to collect more money from us, the people, (the third group of people) by fining us for possession and usage of said substance. Its a cash cow. Now, because the government has more funding to fight the "war on drugs" the associated risk with drugs increases, and thus, the price of the drugs. With higher prices, there is more profit, and with higher profit, more power. They buy guns, they pay off judges, cops, politicians, and can influence a great more many people than they could if selling drugs was not profitable. In the drug economy, there are two large contributing factors. Supply and Demand, AND Risk. Either can be used to increase the price of drugs, so if you cant get rid of the supply, get rid of the risk. It drops the price so low that it is no longer in a persons financial interests to sell the drugs. It gives them no power. But while drugs remain illegal, both sides will benefit, and we get caught in the crossfire and continue to lose what we have to both sides. Higher taxes to fund the war on drugs, and getting ripped off or hurt by addicts that steal from us and rob from us, and cops do little to catch the criminals. Mostly because it is futile. They'll just do it again anyway so whats the point of even trying.
But, wont more people use drugs then? Seriously, I doubt it. People that use drugs dont want to screw up their entire lives because of them. A lot of people here have kids, and of those that have kids, a lot drink. We dont drink excessively to the point that our children suffer on a daily basis becase we dont come home (or stay at home) and do everything we can to stay schnockered all day long just because alcohol is legal.
Unfortuantely, the same thing is happening to cigarettes and alcohol again. Yeah we all know that drugs are bad *m'kay? Smoking crack right next to you is probably more unhealthy than drinking next to you, but just for the time being, lets put that aside.
Cigarettes and Alcohol are both being made to have an associated risk factor with them. By requiring a person be of a certain age to obtain the controlled but legal substances, it provides a risk factor to these people to be in possession. If we continue to go the way we are going, and requiring a minimum age to drink or smoke, we are creating a black market for teenagers. Cigarettes will be the new heroin and will sell at artifically high rates to other underage teenagers. By doing this, we arent teaching kids reading, writing or arithmetic, we are teaching them how to get into the business of buing, using and selling drugs. These characteristics are carried on into their adult lives. This is one of the major unaddressed issues contributing to the "drug epidemic" that they say is plaguing our nation.
Now if we really want to contribute this, we should take a good long hard look at prescription drugs. Every day when you watch your favorite TV or News show, in the course of a half hour of NBC Nightly News, you'll see on average no less than 5 drug commercials. Ask your doctor if Flextor is right for you. If you have an ingrown toenail, ask your doctor if ToeNailoril is right for you. We are fine with promoting drugs on tv that turn around, get prescribed to people, then they get resold on the black market at inflated values. We teach everyone, not just kids, but everyone that taking drugs is okay.
Are you fat? Take this magic pill. Dont say shit about diet and exercise. Dont promote cutting sugar out of your diet if you have diabetes, lets push Sugar Pops on everyone because they're yummy. Thats right, taking drugs is ok, but just forget about not buying my product could be bad for you.
I posted a link a while back about Oregon considering completely legalizing pot, and taxing the shit out of it. I believe California is also considering it because it had been calculated that the taxes collected on selling highly taxed joints by itself could completely get the state out of debt. Im being lazy and Im not doing the research to find the links for these statements, but lets consider them for a second. Legalize pot. Same number of cops. Cops end up with less risk because going after drug dealers is risky, and cops get shot and killed on the job. If there was no risk of a cop getting shot by a drug dealer, there would be a lot less money paid out to the families of the cops victimized by the laws. The cops arent victims of being shot by drug dealers, the drug dealers shoot the cops because of the associated risk due to the laws. Wouldnt collection of fines go down? Yep, completely. And completely be replaced by people paying taxes on joints legally. Thus all the profit and no risk. Wait, what about drug busts that yeilds large cash incentives for teh government? Well, that money would comletely bypass the drug dealers and just go striaght into the states coffers. That means they'd have more money from taxes than they could collect from drug busts. Its a safer more reliable way to fund government. Besides, how much money is wasted on paying the cops hazard duty pay, equipment, death benefits to their families, then again on lawyers and court costs, producing evidence, then again on handling, processing, and storing said evidence. We dont have to pay extra to keep people imprisoned on drug possession charges. It frees up the number of people in prisons, it reduces the needs for more prisons, it just goes on and on.
But its THE KIDS that suffer. What an asshole statement. If the kids want to do drugs, they are gonna do drugs. We're not gonna stop them from getting the drugs. The incentive to do the drugs needs to be removed. It seems to me that the current popular and "cool" trend among todays youths is to be as completely as stupid as possible. Do stupid and risky shit makes you cool, so doing drugs is one of the things that makes you cool. By removing the associated risk, by doing drugs now just makes you look stupid. Unfortunately that still makes you look cool. The consequences of being stupid need to be hammered in to the kids heads. They think Homer Simpson is cool because he can get away with being a complete and total douche and get paid to work at a nuclear power plant. It needs to be hammered into kids heads that the idea of being stupid isnt going to pay off. If there were a real life Homer Simpson that was in fact as stupid as he was (even if he is entertaining), kids need to learn that people arent going to take care of morons like this, and Home Simpson would have lost his kids in a divorce, and his house, and his job, and would most likely end up in a homeless shelter, absolutely miserable and alone. It needs to be taught that this is what stupidity yeilds. And stupidity is a treatable condition. We dont reward kids for being smart, we punish them.
Its the same thing as the Joe Legal vs Jose Illegal topic in another thread. Bad Behavior is rewarded. Selling drugs is rewarded by high profit margins. Being stupid is rewarded by government subsidized everything. And we continue to try to fix the problem by taking the pill approach. Have an ingrown toenail, buy a magic pill. We teach that if we have any form of a problem, we address the symtoms of the problem, not the cause.
Drugs are not the problem that cause parents to neglect their children. And O'Reilley is an asshole for even suggesting it.
I posted this at a different forum, just thought I would share my rant here also.
I've got to go off on this clip.
This is a case of Politician vs. Reporter. Politican is going to ask a loaded question off the top of his head with a biased outcome, where as the reporter is accustomed to having time to think about what he is going to say, and during that time, do research on the question at hand. O'Reilley whooped Stossels ass in this, but it doesnt mean that he is even close to being right. O'Reilley is an ass. He's not dumb, but he is an ass. The problem I get into is that when a tv viewer is presented with one way media, most people probably cant think well enough for themselves to be able to come up with an intellectual defense against his loaded questions. Then came the internet and here we are, able to debate what was said.
"There are more pot clinics in LA than there are Schools".
My Reply: So what? There are also more 7-11's and McDonalds in LA than there are schools.
"The harder drug users sell marijuana cigarettes to children".
My Response:
A: They dont just target children, they target ANYONE willing to pay for what they have. Some will be kids. Some wont. Its a loaded question.
B: If pot were truly legal, there would be no risk assessed with selling pot to anyone, and the price of the pot would go down. It would go down so far that it would no longer be profitable for the harder drug user to sell "marijuana cigarettes" (ok thats just too damn much typing, lets call it what it really is, a f*cking 'joint') to "children" (already addressed) to be able to get enough money to support their harder drug habits.
C: Thus if pot were legal and the harder drug users couldnt make enough money by selling joints to kids, they would have to find an alternative source of income to supplement their habit. That means they would have to get a job. But, since the work enviornment itself now provides funding and thus a means to acquire their harder drugs, why not make employment illegal? That answer is about as ridiculus as O'Reilley's statements that drugs themselves are the problem.
The problem isnt the drugs, its the laws. The laws give two groups of people more power than they would have without the laws. It gives politicians a means to collect more money from us, the people, (the third group of people) by fining us for possession and usage of said substance. Its a cash cow. Now, because the government has more funding to fight the "war on drugs" the associated risk with drugs increases, and thus, the price of the drugs. With higher prices, there is more profit, and with higher profit, more power. They buy guns, they pay off judges, cops, politicians, and can influence a great more many people than they could if selling drugs was not profitable. In the drug economy, there are two large contributing factors. Supply and Demand, AND Risk. Either can be used to increase the price of drugs, so if you cant get rid of the supply, get rid of the risk. It drops the price so low that it is no longer in a persons financial interests to sell the drugs. It gives them no power. But while drugs remain illegal, both sides will benefit, and we get caught in the crossfire and continue to lose what we have to both sides. Higher taxes to fund the war on drugs, and getting ripped off or hurt by addicts that steal from us and rob from us, and cops do little to catch the criminals. Mostly because it is futile. They'll just do it again anyway so whats the point of even trying.
But, wont more people use drugs then? Seriously, I doubt it. People that use drugs dont want to screw up their entire lives because of them. A lot of people here have kids, and of those that have kids, a lot drink. We dont drink excessively to the point that our children suffer on a daily basis becase we dont come home (or stay at home) and do everything we can to stay schnockered all day long just because alcohol is legal.
Unfortuantely, the same thing is happening to cigarettes and alcohol again. Yeah we all know that drugs are bad *m'kay? Smoking crack right next to you is probably more unhealthy than drinking next to you, but just for the time being, lets put that aside.
Cigarettes and Alcohol are both being made to have an associated risk factor with them. By requiring a person be of a certain age to obtain the controlled but legal substances, it provides a risk factor to these people to be in possession. If we continue to go the way we are going, and requiring a minimum age to drink or smoke, we are creating a black market for teenagers. Cigarettes will be the new heroin and will sell at artifically high rates to other underage teenagers. By doing this, we arent teaching kids reading, writing or arithmetic, we are teaching them how to get into the business of buing, using and selling drugs. These characteristics are carried on into their adult lives. This is one of the major unaddressed issues contributing to the "drug epidemic" that they say is plaguing our nation.
Now if we really want to contribute this, we should take a good long hard look at prescription drugs. Every day when you watch your favorite TV or News show, in the course of a half hour of NBC Nightly News, you'll see on average no less than 5 drug commercials. Ask your doctor if Flextor is right for you. If you have an ingrown toenail, ask your doctor if ToeNailoril is right for you. We are fine with promoting drugs on tv that turn around, get prescribed to people, then they get resold on the black market at inflated values. We teach everyone, not just kids, but everyone that taking drugs is okay.
Are you fat? Take this magic pill. Dont say shit about diet and exercise. Dont promote cutting sugar out of your diet if you have diabetes, lets push Sugar Pops on everyone because they're yummy. Thats right, taking drugs is ok, but just forget about not buying my product could be bad for you.
I posted a link a while back about Oregon considering completely legalizing pot, and taxing the shit out of it. I believe California is also considering it because it had been calculated that the taxes collected on selling highly taxed joints by itself could completely get the state out of debt. Im being lazy and Im not doing the research to find the links for these statements, but lets consider them for a second. Legalize pot. Same number of cops. Cops end up with less risk because going after drug dealers is risky, and cops get shot and killed on the job. If there was no risk of a cop getting shot by a drug dealer, there would be a lot less money paid out to the families of the cops victimized by the laws. The cops arent victims of being shot by drug dealers, the drug dealers shoot the cops because of the associated risk due to the laws. Wouldnt collection of fines go down? Yep, completely. And completely be replaced by people paying taxes on joints legally. Thus all the profit and no risk. Wait, what about drug busts that yeilds large cash incentives for teh government? Well, that money would comletely bypass the drug dealers and just go striaght into the states coffers. That means they'd have more money from taxes than they could collect from drug busts. Its a safer more reliable way to fund government. Besides, how much money is wasted on paying the cops hazard duty pay, equipment, death benefits to their families, then again on lawyers and court costs, producing evidence, then again on handling, processing, and storing said evidence. We dont have to pay extra to keep people imprisoned on drug possession charges. It frees up the number of people in prisons, it reduces the needs for more prisons, it just goes on and on.
But its THE KIDS that suffer. What an asshole statement. If the kids want to do drugs, they are gonna do drugs. We're not gonna stop them from getting the drugs. The incentive to do the drugs needs to be removed. It seems to me that the current popular and "cool" trend among todays youths is to be as completely as stupid as possible. Do stupid and risky shit makes you cool, so doing drugs is one of the things that makes you cool. By removing the associated risk, by doing drugs now just makes you look stupid. Unfortunately that still makes you look cool. The consequences of being stupid need to be hammered in to the kids heads. They think Homer Simpson is cool because he can get away with being a complete and total douche and get paid to work at a nuclear power plant. It needs to be hammered into kids heads that the idea of being stupid isnt going to pay off. If there were a real life Homer Simpson that was in fact as stupid as he was (even if he is entertaining), kids need to learn that people arent going to take care of morons like this, and Home Simpson would have lost his kids in a divorce, and his house, and his job, and would most likely end up in a homeless shelter, absolutely miserable and alone. It needs to be taught that this is what stupidity yeilds. And stupidity is a treatable condition. We dont reward kids for being smart, we punish them.
Its the same thing as the Joe Legal vs Jose Illegal topic in another thread. Bad Behavior is rewarded. Selling drugs is rewarded by high profit margins. Being stupid is rewarded by government subsidized everything. And we continue to try to fix the problem by taking the pill approach. Have an ingrown toenail, buy a magic pill. We teach that if we have any form of a problem, we address the symtoms of the problem, not the cause.
Drugs are not the problem that cause parents to neglect their children. And O'Reilley is an asshole for even suggesting it.