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Former Seattle Police Chief Says Decriminalize Drugs — all of them
In a column printed in today’s Seattle Times and originally published in the LA Times, former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper courageously and unequivocally comes out in favor of decriminalizing not just pot, but all drugs.
“I’ve never understood why adults shouldn’t enjoy the same right to use verboten drugs as they have to suck on a Marlboro or knock back a scotch and water,” says Stamper. “Will we be able to recognize the abuse of drugs, including alcohol, for what it is: a medical, not a criminal, matter?” he asks.
He further points out the rapidly increasing amount of prisoners in this country for drug charges. In 2003 over 1.6 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, triple the number 20 years earlier.
What a waste of resources; this is more than those arrests for murder, manslaughter, forcible rape and aggravated assault combined, not to mention more damaging corporate and white collar crimes.
Stamper, who has a new book out Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing, has always been a different kind of cop. He was very popular in Seattle until the World Trade Organization riots led him to resign. Now he lives quietly on an island in the Puget Sound when he is not out promoting his book.
He is a brave man and his ideas are worth discussing.
In one fell swoop he would get rid of the illicit profits that making drugs illegal has caused, not to mention the crimes and violence associated with illegal drugs. He also would free up billions of dollars currently spent enforcing the laws with the huge bureaucracy of the American justice system.
This is not to mention the medical benefits of marijuana and the added tax revenues that could be used for worthwhile purposes.
| Print article | This entry was posted by davet on 12/4/2005 at 3:54 pm, and is filed under General, New Books. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 5 years ago
Two new studies show why some people are more attractive for members of the opposite sex than others.
The University of Florida, Florida State University found that physically attractive people almost instantly attract the attention of the interlocutor, sobesednitsy with them, literally, it is difficult to make eye. This conclusion was reached by a series of psychological experiments, which were determined by the people who believe in sending the first seconds after the acquaintance. Here, a curious feature: single, unmarried experimental preferred to look at the guys, beauty opposite sex, and family, people most often by representatives of their sex.
The authors believe that this feature developed a behavior as a result of the evolution: a man trying to find a decent pair to acquire offspring. If this is resolved, he wondered potential rivals. Detailed information about this magazine will be published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In turn, a joint study of the Rockefeller University, Rockefeller University and Duke University, Duke University in North Carolina revealed that women are perceived differently by men smell. During experiments studied the perception of women one of the ingredients of male pheromone-androstenona smell, which is contained in urine or sweat.
The results were startling: women are part of this repugnant odor, and the other part is very attractive, resembling the smell of vanilla, and the third group have not felt any smell. The authors argue that the reason is that the differences in the receptor responsible for the olfactory system, from different people are different.
It has long been proven that mammals (including human) odor is one way of attracting the attention of representatives of the opposite sex. A detailed article about the journal Nature will publish.