Quote:
Originally Posted by
HoustonGM
Yes, what defines an adult is arbitrary
Actually, it's not. There are physiological changes that occur throughout people's teen years. Children and teens are wired, chemically, fundamentally differently than adults are.
See:
Puberty
Adolescent psychology
(I only used the Wikipedia articles because there readily available online. Note that there are plenty of references in the articles. What's said in the articles can, for our (non-medical) purposes, easily be considered authoritative)
On average, scientifically speaking, puberty starts and takes it's course between the ages of 10-20. I don't see anything wrong with pegging the legal definition of adulthood at 18 and 21. Science backs up hundreds of years of observation very well, here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dickay
It is so depressing that some people think this way.
Sorry...but I think it is universally naive to believe legalizing drugs, prostitution, etc. only for the adult only effects the individual using or selling themself.
I'm watching a child at the moment however, making sure he doesn't get into my alcohol cabinet or friends cigarette carton. Availability is a b!tch.
More on this tonight :mad::mad:
I'm equally depressed that you're Victorian, puritanical attitudes are so prevalent these days. When I think of all that money wasted on "prevention", turning otherwise decent people into criminals for the rest of their lives, and not going to actually help those who really need it... I'm almost willing to call your ideology criminal itself. Your attitudes and the (hate) policies that the group which you represent have probably done more harm to this country and this society than any other in our history.
:(
Just for giggles:
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Laws were passed in the early 1900's which cut the additions numbers down tenfold. Look it up.
duh... what about education?!
:rolleyes:
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Alaska’s residents voted in 1990 to recriminalize possession of marijuana, demonstrating their belief that increased use was too high a price to pay.
This is just false. How about looking up the actual proposed law instead of parroting propaganda?
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* Other countries have also had this experience. The Netherlands has had its own troubles with increased use of cannabis products. From 1984 to 1996, the Dutch liberalized the use of cannabis. Surveys reveal that lifetime prevalence of cannabis in Holland increased consistently and sharply. For the age group 18-20, the increase is from 15 percent in 1984 to 44 percent in 1996.
um... duh. What does this prove? That people enjoy getting "high" in some fashion? So what?
Quote:
* The Netherlands is not alone. Switzerland, with some of the most liberal drug policies in Europe, experimented with what became known as Needle Park. Needle Park became the Mecca for drug addicts throughout Europe, an area where addicts could come to openly purchase drugs and inject heroin without police intervention or control. The rapid decline in the neighborhood surrounding Needle Park, with increased crime and violence, led authorities to finally close Needle Park in 1992.
So, again, one instance of failed management is grounds for criminalizing personal behavior for all? Brilliant...
:rolleyes:
Oh, and guess what. Drugs use is still legal in Switzerland.
I'm not even going to bother continuing.
How about some propaganda from the other side. You do believe in "fair and balanced" coverage, right?
lol
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm
Quote:
"Department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced for a second time for committing a violent offense. Whatever else it reflects, this pattern highlights the possibility that prison serves to transmit violent habits and values rather than to reduce them."
Source: Craig Haney, Ph.D., and Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., "The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy: Twenty-five Years After the Stanford Prison Experiment," American Psychologist, Vol. 53, No. 7 (July 1998), p. 721.
Quote:
"The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 738 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by Russia (611), St Kitts & Nevis (547), U.S. Virgin Is. (521), Turkmenistan (c.489), Belize (487), Cuba (c.487), Palau (478), British Virgin Is. (464), Bermuda (463), Bahamas (462), Cayman Is. (453), American Samoa (446), Belarus (426) and Dominica (419).
"However, more than three fifths of countries (61%) have rates below 150 per 100,000. (The rate in England and Wales - 148 per 100,000 of the national population - is above the mid-point in the World List.)"
Source: Walmsley, Roy, "World Prison Population List (Seventh Edition)" (London, England: International Centre for Prison Studies, 2007), p. 1.
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"More than 9.25 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, mostly as pre-trial detainees (remand prisoners) or as sentenced prisoners. Almost half of these are in the United States (2.19m), China (1.55m plus pretrial detainees and prisoners in 'administrative detention') or Russia (0.87m)."
According to the US Census Bureau, the population of the US represents 4.6% of the world's total population (291,450,886 out of a total 6,303,683,217).
Source: Walmsley, Roy, "World Prison Population List (Seventh Edition)" (London, England: International Centre for Prison Studies, 2007), p. 1; US Census Bureau, Population Division, from the web at
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html accessed July 8, 2003.
Boy, that's some good company we keep, huh? Imagine that, we're worse than the Russians, Turks, and Cubans!
:rolleyes:
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The U.S. nonviolent prisoner population is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska.
Source: John Irwin, Ph. D., Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg, America's One Million Nonviolent Prisoners (Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 1999), pg. 4.
Boy, this War on Drugs sure is successful!
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But as a society we unfortunately have to all play by the same rules.
No we don't. Communist.
Anyway, I'm out of this thread. As is apparent, I'm not able to maintain a rational frame of mind in these conversations. How anyone can sit and defend the "Drug War" with a straight face is beyond me. I'm sorry, but I honestly think those that do so are idiots. That's just my opinion.
*shrug*
I'll see you guys in friendlier threads.
:)