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i think that us drug laws are crazy--but they definitely benefit, and in a major way the entirety of the prison-industrial complex (a name i quite like)...which is after all in addition to it's many other delights a source of cheap labor for major corporations in some cases, and a supplier of cheap goods in others. hooray for capitalism at its finest and most naked. these laws are also a fundamental element in how conservatives have "managed" some of the consequences of the radical transfer of wealth away from anything remotely like a functional distribution. but the rationale for all this operates on other grounds: puritanism; class anxiety; "security"--you know, the right's favorites. so it's no wonder that many conservatives oppose change to this fine system.
but i'm pleased to see exceptions, and here from seaver.
you can't separate drug laws in holland from the more general social-democratic approach they've adopted. of course it has advantages and disadvantages, but the former outweigh the latter i think. we could have a discussion about this, but it'd push the thread away from the op....
to evaluate the outcomes of dutch drug laws, i don't think it's required that anyone pretend that amsterdam is shangri-la. it's hard to figure out whether a straw man is still a straw man when the man term refers to a city...this will occupy me for a few minutes.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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