Originally Posted by link

You may be right and critical thought may not be part of his process. On the other hand, Larry appears to have a peculiar need for attention and exercises it by knowingly being an antagonist to those who express rational ideas on this type of social issue. He does the exact same thing time after time; never appears rational to the majority of us, and yet, in the end always gets the attention he’s after. It amounts to a type of symbiosis. He feeds others by disagreeing; in turn, they feed him by suggesting he has intellectual issues. Some people don’t care about the type of attention they get, but they demand it in a way they know they will achieve their goal. He appears to me to do this very successfully.

Back to the A theme of this thread: Several years ago in this area, the courts started to treat first time convicted drug abusers more as having psychological problems rather than as criminals. This approach was rare in the USA initially, and the area may have been the first in the nation to do so, but the approach has become more broadly used. I don’t know how many states do this now but it is considered cost effective and mostly successful. The goal is to treat the person as needing to dry out and also requiring counseling, so rather than necessarily putting the perps in jail/prison they mandate a state hospital stay and then on-going counseling. The perp has to pay at least a % or for all of the treatments. It costs the tax payer little to nothing. That is way better than supporting people in prison. If the perp’s problems persist they may get the all expense paid criminal's treatment after subsequent convictions. Again, this approach has reportedly had great success. They do not do this for convicted dealers.

Originally Posted by spdrun

Why not treat outcomes? If someone is a functional addict, leave them alone. If someone resorts to theft or crime to support their addiction or places their family in danger, remand them to treatment.

Originally Posted by spdrun

Why not treat outcomes? If someone is a functional addict, leave them alone. If someone resorts to theft or crime to support their addiction or places their family in danger, remand them to treatment.

Originally Posted by Air&Road

Yeah, sure, your psycho babble is surely correct? There's no possible way that I could actually feel very strongly about legalizing or decriminalizing drugs. How could that be possible?

Originally Posted by link

You may be right and critical thought may not be part of his process. On the other hand, Larry appears to have a peculiar need for attention and exercises it by knowingly being an antagonist to those who express rational ideas on this type of social issue. He does the exact same thing time after time; never appears rational to the majority of us, and yet, in the end always gets the attention he’s after. It amounts to a type of symbiosis. He feeds others by disagreeing; in turn, they feed him by suggesting he has intellectual issues. Some people don’t care about the type of attention they get, but they demand it in a way they know they will achieve their goal. He appears to me to do this very successfully.

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Originally Posted by MTI

Instead of trying to re-educate a member, can we just discuss the topic and pull the plug on the energy source which feeds it?

Originally Posted by kerry

I'd describe the situation differently. Larry adheres to a strongly patriarchal worldview. Opposition to homosexuality is typical of almost all forms of patriarchy, as is adherence to the 'law' as an expression of the will of the patriarch. Obedience is the prime value and self-indulgence the prime sin. Given recent events in Larry's family, he now finds himself in the position of senior patriarch, solely responsible for the defense of the patriarchy. There's little rational defense of patriarchy possible in our world so the only defense available is simple assertion of its values. In fact, rationality is a threat to the very basis of patriarchy which is the raw assertion of male power. He's playing his role in this thread and many others.

Originally Posted by link

Isn't this the defacto solution?

If one is not caught or arrested, nothing changes. To make it a doctrine you'd have to get it past legislatures and similar governing bodies.

Originally Posted by spdrun

Or just spread the word that jury nullification is a civil right. It only takes 1/12 jurors to hang a jury. That's 8% of the population. If it's done consistently, and prosecutors realize that there's a good chance of a hung jury every time they bring a non-violent drug crime to trial, they'll start not bothering. If 10-15% of the public nullify, they'd have to try every non-violent drug crime multiple times on average to win a conviction. If defendants start realizing that they're difficult to convict, they'll start opting for a jury rather than a plea.

Hit the swine where it hurts: their pocketbooks. Right now, the "war on drugs" is a profit center. Remove the ability to profit and its reason for being ceases to exist.

Originally Posted by Botnst

Congratulations for turning an interesting topic into yet another psychoanalytic discussion of Larry.

Originally Posted by Botnst

This place would get awfully quiet if that became a general strategy.

Originally Posted by Air&Road

Okay, change the word legalize in my sentence to decriminalize. Happy?

Originally Posted by spdrun

Or just spread the word that jury nullification is a civil right. It only takes 1/12 jurors to hang a jury. That's 8% of the population. If it's done consistently, and prosecutors realize that there's a good chance of a hung jury every time they bring a non-violent drug crime to trial, they'll start not bothering. If 10-15% of the public nullify, they'd have to try every non-violent drug crime multiple times on average to win a conviction. If defendants start realizing that they're difficult to convict, they'll start opting for a jury rather than a plea.

Hit the swine where it hurts: their pocketbooks. Right now, the "war on drugs" is a profit center. Remove the ability to profit and its reason for being ceases to exist.