A Trivial Little Matter

We have a fair number of Conservatives who read this blog. And because of that I get chided all the time about my obsession with Drug Prohibition. Fine.

I have a question for my Conservative critics. (Please. Only those of you who are dyed in the wool Conservatives answer the question. The rest may comment on other aspects of this post.)

Why did the Republicans of 1914 vote against the Harrison Narcotics Act? (the act put the Federal government in charge of opiates and cocaine).

If you can answer that question then go on to explain what has changed since then. Why do the Republicans of 2012 support it AND the UN? Republicans don’t support the UN? Look up “Single Convention Treaty” and get back to me.


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32 responses to “A Trivial Little Matter”

  1. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Having not read the Harrison Narcotics act, nor lived in 1914, I’ll address my primary concern with legalization today. I’m all for it…. smoke, shoot, huff, snort all you want, when you want, where you want. Here’s the rub, we NOW live in a society where I am somehow responsible for your bad decisions. I have to pay the state to help you recover, I have to pay the state for your medical bills, I have to pay a company for my car insurance to cover me when you get high and can’t quite drive. I have to pay for rehab centers, and spousal abuse facilities, and programs for children born with disabilities associated with drug abuse by dear old mom. So, if you can somehow disconnect MY responsibility from YOUR choices, I’d be happy to let you do ANYTHING you want.

  2. Alex Avatar
    Alex

    Because the Republican changes a lot? Even before 1914, they were for federdal drug and alcohol regulation before they weee against it. Just look at their 1856 platform:

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1856-Republican-party-Fremont-isms-caricature.jpg

  3. Southern Man Avatar

    Well, here’s a conservative who believes that anything – ANYTHING – that consenting adults want do in private can’t be illegal and shouldn’t be regulated.

    The “War on Drugs” just creates a huge criminal cartel. I say, decriminalize ALL private drug use, and witness the decline in theft that goes along with the price drop. Just as long as you take responsibility for the consequences and don’t ask me to pay for it. Then take all those Drug Warriers and put them on property crime cases.

  4. Trimegistus Avatar
    Trimegistus

    I’m not going to hide behind that waffling “it’s your life” bullshit. We live in human society; we are not a collection of disconnected Aspergers’ cases who don’t interact with other humans. We recognize that a functioning, stable society is a good thing.

    Some things are incompatible with a functioning, stable society, even if they don’t involve direct harm to other people. A society full of opiate addicts is not going to be functional and stable. A society full of stoners is not going to be functional and stable. (A society full of drunks wasn’t functional and stable, which is where the Temperance Movement came from. The big secret of Prohibition is that it succeeded: Americans came out of it drinking about half as much as they did before.)

    Societies require functioning, stable family units as their building blocks. A world of casual hookups and “don’t judge me” gives you the permanent dysfunctional underclass of America’s inner cities and rural trailer parks. Detroit is not a model for a functioning, stable society.

    “Traditional values” aren’t something made up by Puritans one afternoon to keep people from having fun. They are the end product of about five thousand years of Darwinian competition. The societies which didn’t follow them got wiped out or absorbed by those which did. Saying “it’s different now” doesn’t make it true: I’m sure the prosperous Roman women who aborted their pregnancies to stay attractive thought the same — and the descendants they didn’t have were unavailable to defend Rome from the Vandals.

    Too many libertarians are intelligent, rational people. They assume that everyone will behave intelligently and rationally when freed of social constraints. History does not support this belief.

  5. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    So, if you can somehow disconnect MY responsibility from YOUR choices, I’d be happy to let you do ANYTHING you want.

    Ah an alcohol prohibition fan?

    The reality is that you CANNOT disconnect yourself totally from other people’s choices. To think otherwise is to live in a fantasy world. Utopia. No where.

    And to think that prohibition stops anything is to be further divorced from reality.

    So what is the real purpose of prohibition? The real purpose is to create a black market where there is no chance of ANY control. What will legalization bring? Some control – and not much of that. But there is a benefit. Crime goes WAY down.

  6. douglas Avatar
    douglas

    Hippies.

  7. Bram Avatar
    Bram

    Trimegistus – I’m convinced that a great many people WON’T behave intelligently or rationally. Neither will they obey drug laws (any more than people obeyed Prohibition laws).

    All we achieve is filling prisons with people who have NOT harmed anyone.

  8. Eric Avatar

    “All we achieve is filling prisons with people who have NOT harmed anyone.”

    Precisely what the prison guards’ unions want! (For obvious reasons….)

  9. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    My little sermon for the day:

    If you have control issues you are to give them up to God not to Government.

    Well the deal with the Devil has been made. And now all is being revealed. There will be Hell to pay. Enjoy it as best you can, because if you deny the price, compound interest at vigorish rates will rip you apart.

    My sincerest condolences. But you had ample warnings and ignored them all.

  10. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Tri,

    The experiment was done from at least 1776 to 1914. The society full of opiate addicts you fear so much didn’t happen. I don’t know why. Maybe you do. Probably not. Perhaps you would like to review this bit about opium use in Nantucket in 1792 and explain it all to me.

    http://classicalvalues.com/2012/08/opium-use-in-nantucket-1792/

    Demon Opium is in the same category as Demon Rum. It is a religious belief. My condolences on your affliction. May you get well soon. And you might want to look into getting those Demons removed.

  11. feeblemind Avatar
    feeblemind

    If the GOP calculated drug legalization to be a net vote getter, don’t you think they would be advocating the issue?

    Indeed, you don’t even see the dems pursuing this on the national level. They could have legalized drugs during BHO’s first term had they wanted to. Why didn’t they? I can only speculate they see the issue as a political loser as well.

    In any event, the repubs are the minority party are likely to be for a long time to come. Legislative initiatives from them are not going to go anywhere.

    Politicians lack spines. When the public clamors for drug legalization, it will come to pass.

  12. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    History does not support this belief.

    American history does.

    http://classicalvalues.com/2012/08/opium-use-in-nantucket-1792/

    ====

    If the GOP calculated drug legalization to be a net vote getter, don’t you think they would be advocating the issue?

    No. Here is the reason why: there is a cohort of Republicans who would stay home if they advocated on the issue.

    That cohort is well represented in this thread. So the Republicans can’t win with it despite 70% to 80% public support for Med Pot.

    The Republicans can’t win with the issue. Fine. I’ll vote communist. As will a LOT of other people.

    My guess is that Republicans (the base of the Party anyway) would rather lose to the Communists than give up Drug Prohibition. Fine by me. Let them lose.

    Technocrats do tolerably well under communism. The rest of the poor SOBs may not be so lucky.

    Remember November 1932. Hint: FDR.

  13. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Politicians lack spines. When the public clamors for drug legalization, it will come to pass.

    Were you referring to Colorado and Washington?

  14. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Douglas,

    Isn’t it amazing that a bunch of stoned out hippies are whipping the stone cold sober (well OK maybe they are drunk) Republicans?

  15. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Well so far none of my Conservative friends knows why the Republicans of 1914 opposed the Harrison Narcotics act.

    I’ll give the answer tomorrow. Unless a Conservative can give it sooner. In which case I will front page that Conservative.

  16. Trimegistus Avatar
    Trimegistus

    Note that heroin only became available in the late 19th century, right before the ban on opiates. Almost as if the existence of a highly potent, highly addictive opiate changed the game . . .

  17. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    “The reality is that you CANNOT disconnect yourself totally from other people’s choices. To think otherwise is to live in a fantasy world. Utopia. No where.”

    Umm, true, in its way. BUT. YES I CAN, if the government doesn’t require me to pay for other people’s choices.

    OK – my parents screwed up in their choices – and it is MY choice to slowly commit suicide in order to keep them off medicare and as healthy as possible under the present system. BUT that’s my (possibly foolish – but it isn’t YOUR choice) choice.

  18. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Kathy,

    Uh. A guy (gal) gets drunk and crosses the median and totals your car and you.

    It happens.

  19. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Tri,

    Heroin was over the counter for better than 20 years before the ban.

    Before the ban the addiction rate was 1.3%. Nearly 100 years after the Federal ban the addiction rate is 1.3%.

    i.e. the legality has made zero difference. Other than financing criminals and the Taliban.

  20. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    Umm. Yeah. BUT I was in that situation once – I swerved madly and went up (QUITE ILLEGALLY) on the median myself. And got totally missed. That was MY choice. (And yeah, I got off-road – that was WAY before cellphones and called cops – they couldn’t have cared less.)

    Or, as Billy Joel said “only the good die young”.
    I’m evil by most moralist standards… most moralists are evil by my standards, so we’re even.

  21. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    P.S. I have no earthly idea why the Republicans of 1914 voted against the Harrison Narcotics Act. Unless they read the US Constitution or something odd like that.

    But you never know – the Republicans might have had ethics in the distant past.

  22. Leave Avatar
    Leave

    Because it was a tax instead of a ban…therefore giving the power of congress to regulate through taxing what otherwise would have been a state right. There is a John Roberts joke somewhere in this.

  23. […] my post A Trivial Little Matter, I asked: Why did the Republicans of 1914 vote against the Harrison Narcotics Act? (the act put the […]

  24. […] libertarian (I assume judging by the tone of her numerous comments on the blog) commenter Kathy Kinsley got it: I have no earthly idea why the Republicans of 1914 voted against the Harrison Narcotics […]

  25. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Tri,

    Heroin was initially promoted as a non-addictive opiate because the first 10 people it was tried on did not get addicted.

    What does that tell you? That it is not this highly addictive substance you claim it is. In fact most people are immune to addiction.

    You really ought to get up to date on the subject instead of getting all your info from government and Hollywood propaganda.

  26. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Alex,

    Your link shows no such thing.

    Now about the “Free Love” Society. Couldn’t they have gotten a prettier representative?

  27. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Alex,

    Uh,

    On further observation I found it. It appears they did want alcohol prohibition and free sex. At least in the minds of their detractors.

    Freemounters. An interesting concept.

  28. Daniel Taylor Avatar
    Daniel Taylor

    Dude, there are no Communists in the US. Both parties are much closer to Fascism than Communism any day of the week (requiring us to buy health insurance from private corporations is more fascist than communist, if they’d expanded Medicare to cover everyone instead the cries of Communist would ring more true).

    Get your definitions straight and quit using snarl words.

  29. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Well the fascists were socialist too.

    I consider it a matter of degree and nuance rather than an essential difference.

    YMMV.

  30. Daniel Taylor Avatar
    Daniel Taylor

    Indeed, and in reasonable political discourse nuance and degree are everything.

  31. Darleen Click Avatar

    The reality is that you CANNOT disconnect yourself totally from other people’s choices. To think otherwise is to live in a fantasy world.

    Of course we are, to larger or lesser extent, affected by other people’s choices. However, our responsibility to other people can be voluntary or coerced.

    Either I get to pick the charity I will support, or some bureaucrat believes his/her choice is superior (which goes along with their idea that all money/property is really the Government’s)

    So, get rid of the Government-run welfare & I’ll be happy to allow legal drugs.

    In fact, with ObamaCare, be prepared for Bloomberg-style Nanny stuff to be on the agenda. Who do you think you are that you will be allowed to stay at an unhealthy BMI when taxpayer money is paying for your medical care?

    We get the government we deserve, and I hope the 60 mil fellow “Americans” that voted themselves a share of other people’s money get it good and hard.

  32. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Darleen,

    You have already lost the argument.

    ====

    And what you are saying is in effect: we need to bring back alcohol prohibition until we abandon welfare – given that alcohol causes 20X the damage to society that all the illegal drugs combined do.

    You think that argument will fly?

    ====

    Ever think that legalizing drugs might cause the end of welfare?

    I favor attacking the leviathan and making progress where ever possible.