RedHatManDan...In the case of drugs, if someone abuses a drug, he will most likely lose control of his mind and go off and do really terrible things to himself, but most importantly to OTHERS.

This is pure propaganda. The VT shootings only involved the brain chemistry "God" gave Cho.

People abuse drugs and we do not devote enough time, money and research to find out why. That's a choice informed by the fear of altered consciousness and moral view you espouse. Animals have used psych-active substances for thousands of years with little observed abuse. People seem to have less sense than the animals. I'm not a Tom Cruise Scientologist wingnut. I only agree with Thomas Szazs to a point. Most people can get all the information they need about drugs from their pharmacist. 6 years studying that, and that alone. Do you have any idea how much time an MD not specializing in pharmacology spends on pharmacology? A few weeks. Most of his knowledge comes from reps from Big Pharma. The most harm that can be done is done by drugs that no one would take for getting high. There are some substances you do want to control. Some hallucinogens, Ketamin, date rape drugs, barbiturates, (because barbiturate withdrawal can be fatal). But morphine, opium, marijuana, even heroin? Please, gimme a break. The main trouble with morphine and heroin is that we don't just make them freely available to addicts. They don't make you crazy, far from it. Withdrawal makes you do desperate things to obtain the drug. If it's freely available they function normally. Stimulants are another matter. They can do things to the body and brain.

What we are seeing here is the result of years of indoctrination and misinformation about "dangerous drugs" we have never even allowed science to study (marijuana, for instance) and the "Your Doctor Is God" syndrome. Your doctor is not God. He probably knows better than the janitor in your office building (unless he is a Russian immigrant with an MD or Ph.D. who hasn't managed to get any better job). But if your are reasonably intelligent and educated, or can educate yourself and take some responsibility for and some part in your own medical treatment is a good thing. It's often encouraged. To just leave it in the hands of others has caused some civilians to cure serious illnesses and conditions. Lorenzo's Oil ring a bell? Much of the advances on Autism came from parents of autistic children and if we just listened to doctors and education experts and professionals, most dyslexics would still be in institutions and labeled as retarded or crazy.

I have heard it and seen it a 1000 times. Some, very few, will tell you the truth, which is precisely as you state it. In point of fact, relatively few physicians will treat patients as adults and tell them the truth about a great many things.

Even though all doctors and lawyers may be what we define as "professionals," (everyone run to teh g00gl3), not all doctors or lawyers are equal, capable, ethical or professional. I've long been an advocate of professionalizing policing, (requiring college degrees, ongoing education, etc.) What we have now are mostly local police forces based on the military model vs. the professional model. You can define a professional as one who engages in a practice that most people are not capable of judging whether or not the professional in question has any idea he actually knows what he is doing, or cares, unless they practice in a similar profession and/or specialty. Often the professional in question does not. What cops often have to do can be likened to what lawyers and physicians do, law is involved, the decision to take someone's freedom away, or use deadly force, but there is one difference: Police, "A mechanism the distribution of non-negotiable coercive force used in accordance with the dictates of an intuitive grasp of situational exigencies."

All Glenn is asking is: Do we want lawyers and doctors to have the power of cops? Because they don't, unless we cede that power to them.

Jay's response is quite good, but one I would expect to hear from some doctors and/or lawyers. But he has some good points.

When the authoritarians are defeated and at bay for the time being and Glenn can devote some time to topics like this.

You left out the requisite, "The Donkey Media won't report the Feinstein scandal! Proof of a "liberal bias" in the media!"

I will be happy to make your comments for you if you would like to go golfing. Anyone can do it.

"Why can't that happen here?"

Classically, there were only three professions: ministry, medicine, and law. These three professions each hold to a specific code of ethics, and members are almost universally required to swear some form of oath to uphold those ethics, therefore "professing" to a higher standard of accountability. Each of these professions also provides and requires extensive training in the meaning, value, and importance of its particular oath in the practice of that profession.

Sociologists have been known to define professionalism as self-defined power, elitism, or as organised exclusivity along guild lines, much in the sense that George Bernard Shaw characterised all professions as "conspiracies against the laity".Sociological definitions of professionalism involving checklists of perceived or claimed characteristics (altruism, self-governance, esoteric knowledge, special skills, ethical behavior, etc.) became less fashionable in the late 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession