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13 Dec 08

Amsterdam cracks down on prostitution, cannabis: lessons for Victoria? « Robertrandall’s Weblog

Rob blogged about Amsterdam's re-think of its liberal laws regarding drug use (and prostitution, too). I left a *long* comment, a thinking-out-loud about how the factory system of education, coupled with a repression of creative risk-taking and innovation in the culture, enables and exacerbates turning to drugs.

robertrandall.wordpress.com/...-cannabis-lessons-for-victoria - Preview

robert_randall drugs socialcritique drug_addiction education innovation risk youth comments

"Legalization of Drugs: The Myths and the Facts," by Robert L. Maginnis

Maginnis marshals arguments against the legalization of drugs. First, he presents arguments from all sides (pro & con), then skewers 8 myths around the alleged benefits of legalization. Bottom line: drugs do harm and cause social disorder, and since "There is no 'civil right' to do what is wrong or harmful to yourself, your family, or your society," there isn't a convincing argument to be made for proceeding to accept drug use through legalization.

www.sarnia.com/...myths.html - Preview

legalization drug_addiction social_disorder

There is no "civil right" to
do what is wrong or harmful to yourself, your family, or your society.
- If you accept this, then that means there isn't a convincing argument to be made for proceeding to accept drug use through legalization.
  
  It occurs to me that a key objection to legalizing hard drugs (or marijuana that has been 'doctored' to increase its potency) is that it implies *acceptance* of drug use. But given the dangers of addiction and of the fact that these drugs alter the user's brain chemistry (for the worse), *accepting* their use would be like accepting alcoholism or drunkenness or the nicotine-stained chain-smoking cigarette addict. We have laws around public drunkenness or around where you can smoke - why pedal backwards on drugs by making hard drug use legal (and thereby acceptable)? - on 2008-12-13
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28 Jan 08

Boogie: Bleak Street Lifes (PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things”)

Interview with "Serbian photographer Boogie [who] grew up in the war-torn region of former Yugoslavia, documenting protests and the disturbing portraits of skinheads. After moving from Belgrade to Brooklyn in 1998, he started observing New York’s bleak street side of life with monochrome shots. Distinctively, his work isn’t emphatic. He doesn’t judge. He is more reporting on a not so distant universe with a fine eye for detail - and a lot of guts. He showed PingMag his depiction of Brooklyn gang life and junkies." Boogie notes: "'This whole life is a bunch of choices you make and they just made a couple of wrong ones,' says photographer Boogie about his series on junkies in Brooklyn."

pingmag.jp/...-bleak-street-life-photography - Preview

boogie brooklyn drug_addiction gangs interview nyc photography ping_mag street_life

They liked me and I never judged them. Because who am I to judge anyone? That junkie, or a gangster, it could’ve been me and you. This whole life is a bunch of choices you make and they just made a couple of wrong ones.

It came to the point where I would just go to their houses, hang out, and they were doing whatever they would do, had I not been there. It’s the moment every photographer lives for - when you become a fly on the wall…
- I guess one question might be whether society is "allowed" to make choices for them by demanding they go into rehab, or whether their right to choose (which inevitably includes stealing and degradation of others to support their habit) is paramount. It's alright for an artist like Boogie not to judge, but that's not an option for people who are victims of the junkie's crimes. Maybe we won't have an acceptable answer until the proposed vaccine against drug addiction is on the market...? - on 2008-01-28
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