Antiseptic “And when banks were allowed to self-regulate, with fat profits to be made by doing the wrong thing, we had today's mortgage crisis. No doubt that's just the free-market at play, eh?”

So, what are you saying, mortgage lenders should be executed or maybe those who borrow and walk away from their debt.

When you borrow money you have to sign an agreement. My sense of personal responsibility says you live up to the agreement or face the consequences and if you cannot find someone to lend you the money at terms you are prepared to accept, don’t borrow.

You get the choice, the killers victim does not and the drug addicts addiction makes him or her less able to negotiate with their supply too, making them a victim.

I do not know if you are being obtuse or fatuous but the point you are trying to make is clearly facile.

“Smoking still runs at about 25% and harmful alcohol consumption is at something like 20%. “

Both are “LEGAL” and I would like to see your data and definition of “Harmful alcohol consumption”.
Not that “4 glasses of beer and your binging” rubbish, which the socialist swill are trying to thrust down us I trust?

Re Ford Pills

Something people were unaware of their harm and so laws changed, just like wide scale and legal use of opium, cocaine, DDT and lead in petrol.

You should keep up with the times.

As for Banjo observing ‘spin’; that is all you are doing, spinning your wheels.

Creating a lot of smoke and going nowhere.

“I try to make intelligent posts and hope that intelligent people will respond intelligently.”

With statistical claims but no source at all.

I posted references. you should do similar or be seen wanting, as far as ‘intelligent’ is concerned.

You want meth amphetamine made legal, get the law changed.
You want to freely shoot heroin on street corners, get the law changed.

Until you do, they are illegal drugs of dependency and the illegal dealers who trade in them are deserving of a death penalty.

Col Rouge: "Antiseptic “And when banks were allowed to self-regulate, with fat profits to be made by doing the wrong thing, we had today's mortgage crisis. No doubt that's just the free-market at play, eh?”

So, what are you saying, mortgage lenders should be executed or maybe those who borrow and walk away from their debt."

Do try to keep up, old chap.

Col Rouge:"Re Ford Pills

Something people were unaware of their harm and so laws changed, just like wide scale and legal use of opium, cocaine, DDT and lead in petrol."

and yet, despite the "harm", they were part of the routine consumption pattern of hundreds of thousands. What harm accrued to society as a result? Did we have hundreds of thousands of "crackheads" roaming the streets looking for their next fix? If not, what on Earth happened? According to your doubtless thought-free analysis, I grew up in a nation of druggies. My own mum had a hard time getting off valium and both she and Dad died of smoking-related diseases, which makes them typical of their generation, junkies though they may have been.

Col Rouge: "Until you do, they are illegal drugs of dependency and the illegal dealers who trade in them are deserving of a death penalty."

So now it turns out your sole criterion for the death penalty is that the victim should be doing something illegal? Did someone mention lynch mobs?

Banjo,
I meant to say that it’s worse to rape and kill a child than to rape it and let it go, and the law does (and should) recognise that. Shouldn’t murder attract a higher penalty than rape?
BTW, why don’t we simply castrate paedosexuals and repeat rapists?

By all means make a list of all the murder victims in Australia, but the murder rate in some countries that apply the death penalty, like in the US and India, is much higher than Australia’s, thus their list would be even longer.
There's no evidence that the death penalty has any effect on murder rates at all.

Col,
“folk claim the war of drugs is not working… when they have no comparison to the effects on society if these drugs of dependency were not illegal.“
You probably know what happened when the US banned alcohol. That was a blunder as well. Bush can queue up with the other US presidents who have lost the ‘war on drugs’.

“U.S. Ranks #1 in Consumption of Pot, Cocaine, Smokes
the U.S. leads the world and -- just in time for the Olympics -- takes the gold for the use of tobacco, pot, and cocaine, far outpacing other countries, even the Netherlands, where drug laws are far less draconian.
While income and age may be factors determining drug use, it appears that a country's drug policies have little impact on use.”
http://www.alternet.org/story/92434/

The USA, as a country with the largest number of people who supersize themselves to death; could do better and divert the millions they waste on the drug war to healthcare.
But no, if there’s a health problem it needs to be solved with yet another prescription drug. BigPharma have now managed to talk American paediatricians into selling statins to children.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7650

In the meantime, Fast Food stores in Australia and around the world are still allowed to bribe kids with toys to eat crap.

Antiseptic “Did someone mention lynch mobs?”

Twice now by YOU and "hysteria"

You see law and order as one thing and I see it as something completely different.

Show where I have said anything which beckons the anarchy which would ensue from either your lynch-mob attitude or your “junkies-a-go-go” approach to unfettered distribution of drugs of dependency.

The sense of responsibility enshrined in the values I maintain will come head to head with your dysfunctioning-crackhead-whore society.

Of course, my values will prevail,

you and your ilk will be too busy trying to find your next fix and a vein which still works.

Celevia, not sure what your anti-American rant is about really, it makes no sense at all.

Whatever you say, you don’t live there. I do not know if you ever have but I did from 1999 to 2001.

Texas is so close to Australia that I had none of the culture shock I experienced coming from UK to Aus.

You use data from a counter-culture source, likely peddling its own counter-culture gibberish, which suits its own agenda and you seem to be freely promoting their propaganda, Lenin had a couple of choice words for it.

I thought you were more discerning than that.

I had digressed a little from the original thread to respond to the previous vanities of the “legalise narcotics and addiction” brigade but only to illustrate with what happened in China should presently illegal drugs be legalized.

In USA terms it would mean about 40 million junkies, they have a bigger population than Aus, who would only have to carry about 2 ½ million addicts, presumably on “medicare”.

And you seem to think the "war on drugs" has failed?

I would say, looking at the rates of narcotics use and addiction being experienced in Australia and USA, it represents a significant diminution / containment, compared to the millions of addicts your free-for-all would produce.

Maybe you think modern junkies are less susceptible to addiciton than the Chinese of 100 years ago?

Wrong.

FACT: heroin and meth-amphetamine are significantly more addictive than opium ever was.

Col Rouge: "You see law and order as one thing and I see it as something completely different.

Show where I have said anything which beckons the anarchy which would ensue from either your lynch-mob attitude or your “junkies-a-go-go” approach to unfettered distribution of drugs of dependency."

I've not suggested anything unfettered, but quite clearly suggested regulation - you know, the good ol' LAW 'n' ORDER you're so fond of spruiking when it suits you.

Here's the comment that you snipped from my post above when replying that demonstrates your hysterical, lynch-mob mentality quite clearly: "Col Rouge: "Until you do [succeed in having drugs of dependency legalised], they are illegal drugs of dependency and the illegal dealers who trade in them are deserving of a death penalty." That little gem was in response to a considered argument in favour of legislation to regulate drugs of dependency and hence remove the dealers from the equation and shows that your sole criterion for 'hangin' 'em high' is that they have done something illegal. Once the product is legalised, good ol' Col will be down at the Stock Exchange buying as many shares as he can get hold of, after all, they're a good bet for the super, eh?

Celivia also gave you some very good links which you won't have clicked on, because you're "dispensing with the issue of doubt" and you certainly don't want to take any chances of some of that creeping in, do you. It might lead to *gasp* thinking.

Tell us Col, do you automatically accept every law as being right and proper, or do you just obey them out of fear of the consequences if you don't? Please, for once, try to be honest in your answer and avoid your usual ranting of untruths, hard as that may be for you to do. Think of it as a challenge.

Antiseptic,
Come on. Your use of the term "she got hold of" was used to imply that she was the only one involved in procuring the drugs. She found them on the street or picked them off a tree? Her death was an accident?

This woman bought them off a dealer who business was selling illegal and dangerous drugs. To my mind this involves the dealer in her death and the loss of a mother to her little boy. Why you seek to lessen the impact of drug dealers culpability in the drug trade is beyond me, as they deal in other peoples addiction and death.

The instance I refered to was only one of many, many sad tales involving drug dealers. It is happening all the time, but some people simply cannot see much wrong. Drug dealers should pay harshly for their greedy involvement.

By the way, the fact that you did not defend your stance and resorted to making further implications regarding my intelligence shows your inability to continue the debate, so I chalk that up as a win.

Celivia. Glad you clarified. I agree that rape and murder should attract a higher penalty than rape alone. That is not to lessen the seriousness of rape.

On the matter of the deterant effect of the death penalty. I do not think any comparision to what takes place in another country is valid here. It is now over 30 years since the death penalty was abolished in NSW. A comparision of the applicable crime rates for the 30 years before and after the abolition of the death penalty would seem far more reasonable.

If done by a reputable body, I would form my opinion on such data in relation to death penalty deterants, but I doubt very much if the anti death penalty lobbyists would do likewise.