Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
The other side of the coin is whether God would tolerate madmen having nuclear weapons, genocide being planned and/or committed, whole nations being oppressed by ruthless dictators, people killing in his name, people growing/processing/distributing/selling drugs which destroy the lives of many thousands etc etc.

The most difficult question you can ask of the "everything is negotiable" generations is "what do you stand for". Long on criticism of the actions of others you at least stand for something they are merely empty skeletons.
I wouldn't know what God would or would not tolerate. If s/he is around at all (I wouldn't know that either), s/he seems to tolerate a great deal.

Fortunately we are not God, and the affairs of others are not ours to tolerate or negotiate. If we set out to reform the world we will accomplish nothing but our own exhaustion, bankruptcy, and collapse.

I agree with Mr Jones, a fairly unusual event. The War on Drugs is being fought against the wrong people, in the wrong places. The problem doesn't come from supply - from the "people growing/processing/distributing/selling drugs which destroy the lives of many thousands" - the problem starts with demand, with the people who seek the stuff out and pay money to get it. If the demand is there somebody will supply it. Users aren't "pushed" into drug use by suppliers, suppliers are "pulled" into the trade by an overwhelming financial incentive, produced by a demand we haven't the courage to address and by efforts to curtail supply that are only enough to impose an enormous risk premium on the trade, rendering it obscenely profitable. Dry up demand, supply is no longer a problem. Leave demand in place, and trying to control supply is like bailing with a sieve.

The problem isn't them, the problem is us. If we want to win the "War on Drugs", we have to bring it home, where the problem starts.