Wednesday, November 16, 2005

CAMP vs. Meth?

Captain Buhne makes another great post about the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting in his Monday blog (No, I'm not the Freddy that made the second comment). Kudos to him for the link to this somewhat horrifying page about methamphetamine addiction. Check out the before and after pics. Yecchhh!

Liberatarians pretty much agree that the drug war causes more problems than it solves. I've said before I'd rather see at least pot decriminalized. What about methamphetamine,though? As an acquaintance suggested, with all the damage caused by meth addiction, should we really consider legalizing it? It seems hard to make a case for that.

I used to dabble in meth, speed, crank or whatever it was called back in the mid '70s. Spent quite a bit of money on the stuff. Never screwed me up like it apparently did to the people in the pics on that web site. I don't believe I was ever addicted to it either. I just moved on to other things at some point in time. Makes me wonder if we're talking about the same drug. Was that "crank" I snorted 30 some years ago the same stuff that's causing all these problems today? I don't know, as I've been absent from the drug crowd for many years.

So what to do about meth? I don't know that I'd advocate legalizing meth labs, at this point. But one has to wonder if at least part of the reason meth is so popular is because it's illegal and thus so profitable to make and sell. We never really had the problems with drugs we have now before they were made illegal, according to some.

Like everything else, my musings don't really mean squat since the powers that be, whether they be Democrat or Republican or just plain bureaucrats, don't indicate any let up in even the war on cannabis.

2 Comments:

At 7:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fred

CAMP for years has been the price support system for commercial pot growers in Humboldt County. I don't know (or care)) what the current wholesale price of processed good quality cannabis is but a year ago it was around $2500-$3000/lb and was slow in selling which suggests that CAMP's impact was rather negligible. Also impacting the outdoor growers in the Klamath river valley were the increasing number of indoor and greenhouse (medical) growers. Some of the commercial growers in the Weitchpec area are also users/producers of meth (crank) which has a low street cost and is rather cheap to produce. One neighbor of ours has been mainlining (injecting ) crank for several years (he looks it too). His family operation includes a vehicle chop shop, burglary and meth lab in addition to the family growing operation. Another upstanding group involved in commercial growing and crank use is the Kelley family. Interested customers for good quality dope should contact either Richard, Charlie or Tim Kelley on upper Cappell Rd. They had 3 greenhouses containing several hundred plants in 2004. The operation was reported to the Humboldt County Sheriffs Dept. who declined to take action but some mysterious citizen destroyed 400+ plants in one of their greenhouses in July 2004 (tsk tsk).

The bottom line is that the illegality of dope is contributing to the enrichment of many criminals in Humboldt County and elsewhere. Think about this. As an adult, who owns your body? Is it you or the government? Who is to decide what an informed adult puts into their own body? This is not to say that anyone is not responsible for their own actions.

Leonidas has first hand exposure to the dope scene on the streets in L.A. County, in the L.A. County jail and living down river from Weitchpec in Humboldt County for 10 years. Tragic as it may seem the people who have had their lives destroyed by dope have made a conscious choice resulting in that destruction.

--
MOLON LABE

 
At 9:44 AM, Blogger Nick Bravo said...

The individual is a sovereign being. No one has authority over the individual except the individual, power on the other hand is an entirely different matter.

 

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