From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 11:32:32 +0800
To: HipCrime <robert@precipice.v-site.net>
Subject: Re: common sense
In-Reply-To: <323896EE.3BC3@precipice.v-site.net>
Message-ID: <3239A8F4.14D4@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


HipCrime wrote:
> And rather than "dispensing drugs in clinics," why not simply
> scrap the drug laws entirely?  People have a *right* to do as
> they please with their bodies.
> Let's hear it for common sense.  It's the first decent posting I've
> seen to this list.
> -- HTTP://www.HIPCRIME.com

A question for you: In the Civil Rights era (1960's mostly), we dealt 
with the question of whether people had the "right" to not only choose 
their neighbors, but whether they could extend that logic, so once they 
move in, whether they could "enforce" the status quo by preventing other 
people from moving in if those other people didn't "fit in" somehow.

If drugs and/or other items of Vice are liberalized, there will be a 
tremendous marketing opportunity created, and new stores and new 
departments within existing stores will pop up everywhere offering the 
newly-liberalized goods and services. So my question is, since there are 
"dry" areas in the country now, where the citizens can vote to exclude 
alcohol sales, for example, will drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc. 
fall within the purvey of citizen democracy as in the "dry" county 
example, or will there be new problems with this analogy, and will any 
of those new problems relate to the Civil Rights issues I mentioned 
previously?