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Elder Ballard on Scouts, "“The reality there is we didn’t really leave them; they kind of left us,”


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4 hours ago, strappinglad said:

The cynic in me thinks that the cartels will be a big obstacle to legalization in the US. They have the deepest pockets to influence politicians.

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Pharma has deeper pockets and more non-monetary offerings.

Since when have drug cartels and big pharma been advocates for good policy on drugs?  And when they both agree on the same policy and are willing to invest deeply to keep it, it must be sound policy!  Just something to think about. 

 

Edited by pogi
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The BSA first shot themselves in the foot when they jumped on the cultural bandwagon of preventing discrimination against potential Gay leaders.  The extreme irony of this was that it was at a time of very public accusations/convictions of pedophile Catholic priests targeting male choir boys, etc., which had massive public approval.

I personally stopped contributing to BSA after this started developing, with maybe 1 or 2 lapses.

Edited by blarsen
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5 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The interlock system does not detect anti-seizure medication.  It only detects alcohol.  Not sure what you are suggesting here, perhaps in jest?

Right, I was more commenting on the reason for the whole unfortunate incident:

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 However, the blood they drew and tested showed regular pharmaceutical levels of the powerful drugs she took to control her epilepsy (prevent seizures) -- fully in line with her prescription.

You made it sound like they had an issue with her being on anti-seizure meds, which is the reason for the fine, etc.  Maybe I misunderstood. 

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3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

We were failing on drugs before some states legalized marijuana. While I think legalizing it is a mistake I think there are much bigger causes for our problems. 

There are people who believe that we should have retained Prohibition on alcohol, which did not work at all, and only made a bad situation worse.  We need a sense of perspective.  We don't'currently have it.  Kevin Christensen can address addiction for us:  Its causes and its cures.  We can have success, but not by pretending -- which is currently in fashion.

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1 minute ago, pogi said:

..............................................

You made it sound like they had an issue with her being on anti-seizure meds, which is the reason for the fine, etc.  Maybe I misunderstood. 

No.  You understood correctly.  However, the interlock system is unrelated to anti-seizure meds.  I paid for the attorney appearance fee ($800) and the fine, and the impound and tow fee.

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45 minutes ago, blarsen said:

Perfect example of the deep-seated nature of it:  denying it exists; rather like:  "There is no devil . . . " etc.

Using a medical term to talk about disliking someone does not make it an actual syndrome. Is CDS for Hillary also a real thing? No, it is a stupid joke only taken seriously as a real thing by idiots who think it is an effective rhetorical weapon. No offense.

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Just now, Ahab said:

What does marijuana and illegal drug use have to do with the Church no longer being affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America?  Or what do boy scouts have to do with marijuana and illegal drug use?  I don't see the connection here.

The only connection would be that good Boy Scouts don't use illegal drugs.  Pres Ballard addressed drug abuse and Scouting separately in the same interview.

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3 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Using a medical term to talk about disliking someone does not make it an actual syndrome. Is CDS for Hillary also a real thing? No, it is a stupid joke only taken seriously as a real thing by idiots who think it is an effective rhetorical weapon. No offense.

Yeh, but it is so much fun to declare that someone is rabid or deranged.  And then they get so riled up about it.

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2 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The only connection would be that good Boy Scouts don't use illegal drugs.  Pres Ballard addressed drug abuse and Scouting separately in the same interview.

Hmm.  Reporters trying to be efficient, I guess.

While I have you here, let's talk about something completely different now.

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2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The idea that Prohibition did not work is mostly a myth.

Thank you. I didn't have time to get to this, but the historian in me has been cringing at the baseless comments that have been made. America's period of Prohibition was so effective, in fact, that rates of alcohol consumption still haven't returned to pre-Prohibition levels, and the percentage of adult Americans who are complete non-drinkers has remained impressively large -- 10 times greater than where I live now!

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5 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Thank you. I didn't have time to get to this, but the historian in me has been cringing at the baseless comments that have been made. America's period of Prohibition was so effective, in fact, that rates of alcohol consumption still haven't returned to pre-Prohibition levels, and the percentage of adult Americans who are complete non-drinkers has remained impressively large -- 10 times greater than where I live now!

Thank you. I didn’t know all this. I’m afraid I’ve been force-fed the myth all my life. 

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3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The idea that Prohibition did not work is mostly a myth.

It reduced alcohol consumption, cirrhosis deaths fell. It massively reduced the drink until you pass out alcoholism that was a big problem in early America. One of the Founders was concerned that democracy would fail in a nation of alcoholics (though they called it by other names back then) and alcoholic psychosis was not rare at all. In the late 1700s it was common to drink rum or hard cider with every meal. Absenteeism was a big problem nationwide. Instead of coffee in the morning it was alcohol. The hard working abstemious Protestant farmer of the era is more the exception than the rule. They were drinking over twice as much in a year as current Americans.
 

Organized crime violence increased at the same time as Prohibition was in effect (though how much of that came from alcohol production and distribution and how much came from increasing urbanization and the turmoil of the 20s is debated) but domestic violence fell. Murder rates fell. There were downsides to Probibition (poisonous homemade booze, contempt for law due to 

The failure of Prohibition is a slogan now for drug legalization and has little basis in history. The Prohibition experiment upended drinking habits and is probably a factor in us drinking less then half as much alcohol as our ancestors 200 years ago were. I call that a win.

53 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Thank you. I didn't have time to get to this, but the historian in me has been cringing at the baseless comments that have been made. America's period of Prohibition was so effective, in fact, that rates of alcohol consumption still haven't returned to pre-Prohibition levels, and the percentage of adult Americans who are complete non-drinkers has remained impressively large -- 10 times greater than where I live now!

I think it is fair to point out that historians disagree on the success of prohibition.  Probably in part due to the "notoriously unreliable" statistics of the time period. 

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/unintended-consequences/

https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/effects-of-prohibition/#_edn36

One thing we can say with much more reliable statistics in recent history is that prohibition, criminalization of, and war on drugs in Portugal was no where near as successful as decriminalization and investment in prevention/treatment programs.  

So, even if prohibition did have some positive effects (I don't know if that is conclusive - it depends on who you ask - and it's not something I want to debate), we can't say that prohibition is the most effective approach.  In comparing our prohibition of drugs to Portugal's decriminalization and treatment, it seems we have something to learn from them. 

Edited by pogi
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3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Using a medical term to talk about disliking someone does not make it an actual syndrome. Is CDS for Hillary also a real thing? No, it is a stupid joke only taken seriously as a real thing by idiots who think it is an effective rhetorical weapon. No offense.

You're right.  It isn''t in the DSM5; AND isn't likely to be added to the DSM6, but not because one couldn't devise diagnostics and tests to define it, but because most of those with the power to get it into a DSM volume, likely suffer from it themselves 😉

And RS is correct, there is an element of humor people that use the term benefit from . . . coupled with the astonishment they feel when they encounter someone suffering from the syndrome.

The derangement aspect of the term has mostly to due with how extremely black-and-white people suffering from the condition get about the target of their animosity.  They wholeheartedly participate in the bifurcation logical error; totally jettisoning their own objectivity.  And if they are LDS and perhaps highly educated, they seem to be completely oblivious about their own uncivil, accusatory, name calling and nasty behavior they exhibit toward their target; the same ones they accuse him of exhibiting.  Astonishing, humorous and troubling to the max for those not afflicted.

Edited by blarsen
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1 hour ago, pogi said:

So, even if prohibition did have some positive effects (I don't know if that is conclusive - it depends on who you ask), we can't say that prohibition is the most effective approach.

I don't think anyone here has made the argument that prohibition is the most effective approach, and all history is contestable -- which is necessary given both what it is made of and why we make it in the first place -- but the popular depiction of America's experiment with Prohibition is demonstrably false in really non-controversial ways. Hollywood is not a good source of historical information.

Edited by Hamba Tuhan
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52 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Thank you. I didn't have time to get to this, but the historian in me has been cringing at the baseless comments that have been made. America's period of Prohibition was so effective, in fact, that rates of alcohol consumption still haven't returned to pre-Prohibition levels, and the percentage of adult Americans who are complete non-drinkers has remained impressively large -- 10 times greater than where I live now!

I could see that happening.  The revulsion among a sizeable percentage of the population would have been likely exacerbated by seeing the ramped up criminality of the bootleggers, smugglers and even users in the wild speakeasies that were spawned.

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4 minutes ago, blarsen said:

I could see that happening.  The revulsion among a sizeable percentage of the population would have been likely exacerbated by seeing the ramped up criminality of the bootleggers, smugglers and even users in the wild speakeasies that were spawned.

Hey, my grandfather benefited greatly from prohibition as the owner of a speakeasy.  He started out as a poor Greek runaway immigrant miner,  to gaining some real wealth and power as the owner of a speakeasy in Park City, UT.  See, it was good for some!

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1 minute ago, blarsen said:

The revulsion among a sizeable percentage of the population would have been likely exacerbated by seeing the ramped up criminality of the bootleggers, smugglers and even users in the wild speakeasies that were spawned.

Possible. But remember that the vast majority of Americans in the early 20th century lived nowhere near Chicago or New York City* and so could 'see' these things only through the mediating lens of mass media and popular culture, where what would become the dominant narrative was already in formation. Speakeasies and hillbilly stills certainly existed, but they would have been an everyday experience for very, very few people.

-----

*If I remember correctly, it was only in the 1990s that the US population became majority urban for the first time, and America's definition of urban is well within the range that many nations would still consider rural: 'Starting with the 1960 Census and continuing through the 1990 Census, the Census Bureau made a number of changes to the methodology and criteria for defining UAs, but retained the 1950 Census basic definition of “urban” which was defined as UAs with a population of 50,000 or more and defined primarily on the basis of population density, as well as places with a population of 2,500 or more located outside UAs'.

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9 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Possible. But remember that the vast majority of Americans in the early 20th century lived nowhere near Chicago or New York City* and so could 'see' these things only through the mediating lens of mass media and popular culture, where what would become the dominant narrative was already in formation. Speakeasies and hillbilly stills certainly existed, but they would have been an everyday experience for very, very few people.

-----

*If I remember correctly, it was only in the 1990s that the US population became majority urban for the first time, and America's definition of urban is well within the range that many nations would still consider rural: 'Starting with the 1960 Census and continuing through the 1990 Census, the Census Bureau made a number of changes to the methodology and criteria for defining UAs, but retained the 1950 Census basic definition of “urban” which was defined as UAs with a population of 50,000 or more and defined primarily on the basis of population density, as well as places with a population of 2,500 or more located outside UAs'.

Don't forget smuggling and perhaps beer-brewing.  And its hard to believe that more general rural areas didn't have a sizeable drinking population; or that they would go teetotal just because of prohibition.  It would be an interesting study to dig more deeply into this subject.

Edited by blarsen
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1 hour ago, blarsen said:

It would be an interesting study to dig more deeply into this subject.

People actually do that. This is a pretty good popular piece on the subject that summarises some of the academic research. Some grabs:

Quote

This is not controversial among experts. When I asked Courtwright, a drug historian at the University of North Florida, whether Prohibition led to more drinking, he responded, “No well-informed historian has believed that for 50 years.”

Courtwright’s The Age of Addiction has the statistics: “Per capita consumption initially fell to 30 percent of pre-Prohibition levels, before gradually increasing to 60 or 70 percent by 1933.” That suggests a 30 percent reduction, at a minimum, in consumption — although that was less than the initial effect, as people figured some ways around the law ...

In Manhattan, the number of patients treated in Bellevue Hospital’s alcohol wards dropped from fifteen thousand a year before Prohibition to under six thousand in 1924. Nationally, cirrhosis deaths fell by more than a third between 1916 and 1929. In Detroit, arrests for drunkenness declined 90 percent during Prohibition’s first year. Domestic violence complaints fell by half.

Of course, the data are actually quite messy in some areas, such as crime stats, as the article points out. And even when we have stats, the issue of causation is difficult to pin down because more was going on in the 1920s than just Prohibition.

Here are some interesting data about current drinking patterns in the US:

Quote

Drinking Little or No Alcohol is Normal for Americans

In 2013, 43.6% of Americans over age 18 reported drinking no alcoholic beverages in the past month, according to NESARC data. Furthermore, 29.3% drank no alcohol in the past year.

This is simply not normal in many other nations. Mine, for example, has a non-drinking rate amongst adults of 3 per cent! Alcohol saturates every aspect of our culture and communal life. (I just looked it up, and on average each person over the age of 14 in our nation consumes 26 mL of pure alcohol per day! That's over two 'standard drinks' as we define it.) And with it comes astronomically high levels of family and domestic violence, road deaths, and suicide. Alcohol-related disease, increasingly including alcohol-related cancers, is one of the leading causes of death.

Enjoy your study!

Edited by Hamba Tuhan
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1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Thank you. I didn’t know all this. I’m afraid I’ve been force-fed the myth all my life. 

I apologize if I came across as insulting to those who had not heard it. I also got it most of my life and then started reading up on it and it really did have a positive effect on the whole.

1 hour ago, blarsen said:

Don't forget smuggling and perhaps beer-brewing.  And its hard to believe that more general rural areas didn't have a sizeable drinking population; or that they would go teetotal just because of prohibition.  It would be an interesting study to dig more deeply into this subject.

Definitely true. There were small still everywhere. The year between ratification and implementation of the Prohibition Amendment saw an amazingly large market for small private still equipment. It did still lower consumption even factoring in smuggling and illicit production.

1 hour ago, pogi said:

I think it is fair to point out that historians disagree on the success of prohibition.  Probably in part due to the "notoriously unreliable" statistics of the time period. 

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/unintended-consequences/

https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/effects-of-prohibition/#_edn36

One thing we can say with much more reliable statistics in recent history is that prohibition, criminalization of, and war on drugs in Portugal was no where near as successful as decriminalization and investment in prevention/treatment programs.  

So, even if prohibition did have some positive effects (I don't know if that is conclusive - it depends on who you ask - and it's not something I want to debate), we can't say that prohibition is the most effective approach.  In comparing our prohibition of drugs to Portugal's decriminalization and treatment, it seems we have something to learn from them. 

It is still a conflicted issue though from what I have read I think the societal effects were positive. I am less sure of the effects on the individual. Freedom to choose to drink is one element I left out and I think that was the primary reason behind repeal. One big societal downside I neglected (I actually thought I mentioned it but looking back I did not) is that Prohibition caused a kind of benign contempt for law as the law was dodged. Casual law breaking can generalize. It was also disproportionately targeted at the poor. The amendment gave a year until it took effect and many wealthy built massive wine cellars and the like and got huge stockpiles which were perfectly legal as they were not manufactured or imported while illegal. This attitude was later mimicked on a smaller scale by JFK stockpiling Cuban cigars before implementing the sanctions on Cuba. There was also a xenophobic/patriotic element. In the First World War there were complaints that grains being turned into alcohol that should be sent to support the men fighting the war in Europe and many American beer distilleries were also run by German-Americans who were not riding high after the war for obvious reasons. Many of the distilleries switched to very low alcohol beer which was still legal and many switched to making ice cream. America's disproportionate love of ice cream compared to much of the rest of the world stems from this period. In World War 2 ice cream rations were serious business. Carrier air groups offered ice cream bounties for any ship that rescued a pilot from the ocean. US submarines, despite how critical space was inside, carried ice cream machines. It is a fascinating piece of American history.

Incidentally the amendment to bring in Prohibition was the first to have a time limit for ratification. This was challenged in the Supreme Court and found constitutional. Before this a constitutional amendment approved by Congress technically waits forever for enough states to ratify. The 27th Amendment (which limited changes to congressional salaries) was actually proposed in 1789 at the same time as the Bill of Rights amendments but not enough states ratified it. In 1982 a student at UTA wrote a paper pointing out that the amendment was still "live" and could be ratified. The TA gave it a C. The student appealed and was denied. He started a letter writing campaign to state legislatures and they began ratifying the amendment. In 1983 states started ratifying and in 1992 it became law. In 2016 a formal grade change form was initiated and the paper is now an A+ paper. Part of me thinks we should do the same thing with the still "live" Child Labor Amendment. There are some amendments that would be impossible to implement now. One means nothing can federally touch slavery ever and was of questionable legality even then (can you make an amendment that is immune to the normal amendment process?) and 

Sorry, wandered off topic.

The issue I have is that many who want to legalize drug use see any restrictions as 'Prohibition all over again which failed' and things like taxes and restrictions as a kind of "Prohibition Lite" implying they will also fail. I would like that rhetorical weapon to die. If we legalize drugs we should do it because we determine that the individual freedom in this area is more important than the potential societal downsides and not because we throw up our hands and admit defeat because 'Prohibition' or because some people on the internet are convinced marijuana will cure everything from a paper cut to decapitation.

I strongly believe that if we legalize we should also implement a reasonable federal tax on recreational drug purchases and that money automatically apportioned above and beyond any budget allocations to treatment programs (structured to keep it from becoming the equivalent of our ridiculous lotteries claiming they support schools and veterans and whatever). I also think we should reevaluate and adjust the federal tax on alcoholic beverages which have been stagnant since the early 90s (in fact they were cut a little a few years back) and do the same with that money. The ATF needs legislation to make the A in their name matter.

I would also like legislation allowing the federal government to nationalize pharmaceuticals companies that do not comply with laws that require self-monitoring of drug sales or that increase prices on already existing medications beyond the rate of inflation. I do not expect it to be used but the threat would hopefully be enough.

Anyways enough rambling.

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1 hour ago, pogi said:

Hey, my grandfather benefited greatly from prohibition as the owner of a speakeasy.  He started out as a poor Greek runaway immigrant miner,  to gaining some real wealth and power as the owner of a speakeasy in Park City, UT.  See, it was good for some!

As a fan of this game (I won a mini-tournament of it once) I can see the allure:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12477/bootleggers

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