Legalization of sin and vice

Quote: Wizard

Seems you have changed your position on this. When I advocated legalizing drugs, in part to end the drug violence in Mexico, you said that the same people would just resort to crime in other ways.

Of course they will. have you ever known criminals to do anything other than commit crimes?

But they won't find anything as lucrative as drugs. And in any case the subsequent crime can also be laid at the door of the "War on Drugs."

I've not changed my mind. If all drugs were legalized everywhere today, the drug cartels in Mexico and elsewhere would simply scramble to do something else. But they won't be able to pay their lackeys as well, and likely they won't need as many. It would, over time, become a more manageable problem. I've been supporting full drug legalization for decades now.

Quote: Wizard

The legalization of recreational marijuana in two states gives me some hope for us.

Two states? I presume you mean four states: Alaska, Oregon, Washington state, and Colorado.

Whether you define the District of Columbia as a state is a different matter.

Quote: kenarman

Prostitution is also in limbo since the laws against it have been overruled by the supreme court.

It's sort of shocking that the U.S. government, the State of California, and the City of San Francisco all tolerate The O'Farrell Theater to remain in business. It advertises itself as a "strip club" but it only takes a 5 minute tour of the place to realize it's an expensive, upscale brothel. The club has a dozen private rooms-- each equipped with a sofa, condoms, & lube. The women there are not shy or discreet about the extra services they offer, you can literally purchase a blowjob without subtly talking in code. It probably helps that the club has insider connections: their lawyer is Terrance Hallinan, the former District Attorney.

Quote: Face

I'm gonna steal petro's thunder, but the answer is simple - follow the money.

follow the money and the effect of the propaganda. Look at washington state... the cops no longer go after someone with medicinal pot in the home but its not hard to go after them for child abuse for exposing some child to the potential danger of finding that pot or having it used in his presence.

>>>>" How many LEO's laid off, how many prisons closed, how many people out of business without the corrections industry? The US has the largest prison complex in the entire world. More than half are in there for drug offenses. Of the 4mm on probation, a quarter of them have drug charges as the most serious offense. Now, we can argue how productive a stoner is vs a sober person. What is not arguable is how productive a stoner is vs a prisoner bleeding dry the system. It's ~$40k a year for each and every one of them. "

Its not just the money supporting the prison construction and operation industry, the judges, the prosecutors, the pychos,...look at the drug rehab world. Most residences for addicts are owned by addicts who control the drug market within their residences. they make good money with addicts/families required to pay four times the going rate for rent but the addicts required to pay twice the going rate for their drugs. all part of the "solution" funding.

creating thousands of people who start out a day saying "I am helpless" sure cements a drug dealer's clientle into a mass of willing payers.

.......Ending the WoD does not fix the drug problem. But it would eliminate a problem that, IMO, has become worse than the problem it aimed to tackle. F#$% the WoD. I dare anyone to defend it.

Hah, the people that defend it are the stooges of those who make money with it.

Quote: Fleastiff

Its not just the money supporting the prison construction and operation industry, the judges, the prosecutors, the pychos,...look at the drug rehab world. Most residences for addicts are owned by addicts who control the drug market within their residences. they make good money with addicts/families required to pay four times the going rate for rent but the addicts required to pay twice the going rate for their drugs. all part of the "solution" funding.

Entrenched industry is almost always a factor in changing something.

I suppose it goes with the territory and it always adds to the difficulty of doing something different.

(*not so much an answer as an observation.)

No doubt even the legal marijuana industry will be a factor to be dealt with in some future conflict. They won't want to do something, or resist something and they will be out in force to resist it in favor of their own industry whether it's a particularly good move for everyone else or not.

Quote: reno

Two states? I presume you mean four states: Alaska, Oregon, Washington state, and Colorado.

Thanks. I heard something about Oregon changing their law but wasn't sure. Alaska -- had no idea. I thought that was a red state.

Quote: reno

It's sort of shocking that the U.S. government, the State of California, and the City of San Francisco all tolerate The O'Farrell Theater to remain in business.

Good for them. I'd turn a blind eye to it as well as long as they are discreet about it and are strict about safety. There are some massage parlors in Vegas that operate in much the same way, but I think they just haven't been caught yet.

Quote: Wizard

There are some massage parlors in Vegas that operate in much the same way, but I think they just haven't been caught yet.

Since the Feds often run investigations that can go on for a year or more you never really know until they give you an unpleasant early morning wakeup.

Here in Washington, the novelty of buying weed over the counter has worn off after 13 months. It's available in so many places, and in such variety, that I can just pick it up whenever I want now, like going to the liquor store after prohibition ended. Stores open up all the time, and supply far outweighs demand. In fact, medical marijuana is due to shut down next year since the state doesn't collect as much taxes on it as it doesn on recreational weed.

I've been in so many stores now, and they're divided up into sections:

• weed (or flowers), subdivided into indica (for pain control, insomnia) vs sativa (for creativity and going to work, if you do that sort of thing). THC content varies from 17% to 33% for around $20/gram or less. The same strain from different growers also varies in THC content, which I don't understand. Imagine if the Budweiser from St. Louis was 6% alcohol, but Bud from Houston was 4.3%.

• medibles like cookies, elixirs, lozenges, and chocolate bars

• concentrates like wax, keef, hashish, shatter, pre-rolled joints, etc

Then of course various pipes, vaporizers and such.

Quote: zippyboy

THC content varies from 17% to 33%

Look for that to change. The Netherlands
has long experience with this, and they
gradually got it down to anything over 15%
is considered a hard drug now and will get
you prison time if you sell it. Too many
years of too many car accidents with
people blown out of their minds on
25% and 30% dope.

Quote: rxwine

Since the Feds often run investigations that can go on for a year or more you never really know until they give you an unpleasant early morning wakeup.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/president-obama-secret-service-agents-home-summit-americas-prostitution-allegations-article-1.1061543

Obama's security detail busted for engaging with prostitutes.

Elliot Spitzer attorney general of the United States, busted for cavorting with a hooker. [After trying to fix Wall Street banks]

Who thinks these women married for "love"http://www.torontosun.com/2013/08/06/billionaire-brides-club-women-who-married-or-dated-billionaires.

Hard to understand for me why people choose to deny that they are surrounded by sex for profit or legalized prostitution, which is only legal because of the language used to describe the relationship, and who collects the fees?

The same goes for narcotics or other drugs. If it's heroin [cia] it's a crime and bad and we should spend billions trillions, trying to eradicate it. If it is laundered through big Pharma [Perdue] and called Oxycotin or "hillbilly heroin", with a legal prescription and the profits routed to big business, taxes payed, and politicians hands greased, it is then acceptable. It only matters who is collecting the vig. The victims are the same.

There is no more "free sex" then there is free lunch. As long as the bigger authority gets their percentage [ the marriage, lawyers, judges, irs, etc.] before, during and after, no one has a problem with the sex, including the church. Who, gets their rake telling people when it's ok to perform an act that brung us all here. How many people got married, just to have sex? That is BS. But some sex worker without the mental or religious hang ups, wants to get completely honest about what she has to offer, can end up in jail, right along with the john. Fifty percent of first marriages end in divorce, and sixty percent of second. How many ruined people got hung up in the institution of marriage, just to have sex, that they should have legally had the right to have "one and done" between two or more consenting adults?

In Japan sex workers are respected and Geisha's later get married without the western hang ups enforced by the status quo. What business is it of anybody else's who is having sex with who, or how? Land of the free? Pfft

" The Matrix: Script
... I can see it in your eyes. You have the look ... you pay your taxes. The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth"

Professional sex workers keep the crime, and std's out of sex. They reduce sex predation, vastly reduce abortions and unwanted pregnancy's, etc, etc, etc.