What will drugs cost the world today?

[Newc]

28 year ago today, Randy Rhoads was murdered by a coked-up bus driver who fancied himself a pilot.

It wasn't an accident, it was manslaughter, plain and simple. It should always be remembered as murder, and never called "an accident". It would be an accident if the plane had been flying above the treeline, with a competent pilot at the controls, and a flock of birds flew into the propeller/engine, causing critical failure and a tragic crash.

So, what will drugs cost the world today? Your Mother? Your wife? Your child?

What will it take for people to finally stop saying "I can handle it", "I only do it once in a while", or some other childish excuse?

[Jayster]

I'm going to refrain from theological and philosophical debate over both your statement and your tag lines. It truly was a great loss that occurred with Randy

He was a shining star and innovative player who brought class, technique and a fresh perspective to guitar playing at the time(a visionary).He also changed the life of one young guitar builder, Mr. Grover Jackson!

[PowerTube]

Drugs suck big, fat, hairy, slimy green, diseased, day-old donkey dicks.

[Grandturk]

Shit, I'd have to do a whole bag of blow to get on a plane with a coke-head pilot. I wonder how much Randy had to do?

[DonP]

I have no time or money for drugs.

I do have a severe guitar addiction. I'm afraid I'll end up like fett and be on an episode of horders

[Vass]

RIP Randy.

If you believe in personal responsibility then you have to believe that it wasn't an accident- It was someone who had impaired judgement doing something very, very stupid (buzzing the bus).

It's an interesting subject- what does use tell us beyond the fact that someone likes drugs?

I personally don't care too much if weed is legalized or not, for example. I might even smoke a joint if it were! But at my age & in my line of work, when I find someone who is smoking up, or blowing rails, it is not so much the actual use of the drug, how moderate or out of control they are, that strikes me first- It's the utter recklessness of it.

I don't think someone is a terrible person if they pack a bowl- It's not the actual act of smoking weed, the actual act of getting stoned, that is the problem. It's that the upside/downside is totally asymetrical- If you get caught, you are probably fired, and certainly look like an asshole.

It tells me you have incredibly poor judgement, impulse control, and ability to properly recognize consequences- because if you could, getting baked is in no way worth ruining your life over.

This is not Newc's point, exactly. You can, however, make a strong libertarian argument for legalizing everything- The problem, as it is with so many libertarian themes, is that you don't have the power/balls/political stroke to face down what it all would mean.

It would mean that anyone could do anything they wanted as long as it didn't hurt someone- but it always does, and remedying THAT is where you run into problems.

You see it with repeat drunk drivers, where the punishment is, for some, just not high enough- You see a guy getting his 30th DWI or whatever, it makes the papers, everyone shakes their heads and says, "What do we do?" Nothing. The laws aren't written to handle the absolutely unrepentant reprobate. He gets his year in jail, and he'll go do it again as soon as he gets out.

You'd have to be OK with an 18 year old kid (prohibition would have to continue to stand for minors), who by definition is an idiot (no offense to 18 year olds- but call me when you're 30. You'll agree you were an idiot. We all were.) croaking in the street without giving him any sort of help unless it was private- Charitable, out of his family's pocket, whatever. And maybe you are ok with it. But you can't confuse what you are ok with with what society is actually going to tolerate- Trust me, you are never going to be ok with kids dying in the street.

Here's another thing you won't be ok with- What about a kid whose parents are just constantly cracked out? Take their kids away? Why? They're not breaking the law. Now you're bringing government back into it again. So what then? Leave the kid sitting in a dirty diaper for days? Of course not.

And so drugs have to be illegal, because at some point everything, when no personal responsibility exists, has to be written for the lowest common denominator, and the rest of the world has to live with it.

Because as a society we don't have the guts to do as Newc suggests and throw a guy that kills someone because he did a 8 inch long 1 inch wide line of coke and decided to go fly a plane into a dark hole for a very, very long time.


Here's something that will piss alot of people off, and really, from a freedom standpoint it's wrong..it's ends justifying means, but in the dark corner of my heart I'm secretly ok with it and dont' want it to change...

The fact is cops stop cars, stop people jumping turnstiles, riding trains without tickets up here all the time. Invariably they do not catch the person, for example, in the ACT of robbing someone, or stealing something- That's the nature of the beast- Cops can't be everywhere. But over and over, you see these stupid shits getting nailed for having drugs on their person- It is like a permanent "I have bad judgement and do many reckless things" flag in their pocket- So the cops throw them in jail for the weed, because they were never gonna get them for the mugging or the shoplifting.

If you get rid of drug laws, because we're such pussies when it comes to actually putting people in jail, you'll get rid of a valuably tool for getting knuckleheads off the street.

In Jersey City, INVARIABLY, when you see, "Jimmy Jones got pinched for knocking Mrs. Smith over the head" the next sentence in the paper is, "Jimmy got nailed for controlled dangerous substance in a school zone in 2003, posession of CDS in 2007, and distribution of CDS in 2008". He's been up to bad shit for a long, long time, Jimmy has, but cops were only able to get him in the system because he was stupid and reckless enough to walk around with heroin or whatever in his pocket.

Bad judgement in one area of your life usually means there's bad judgement going on everywhere in your life.

Sorry for the book.

[Jayster]

Vass - you have some lucid points, most of them I either fail to see or don't see the relevancy to them. My point was Randy of his own free will got into that plane and most probably felt comfortable with the pilot in question, it was an accident - NOW : I happen to strongly believe that luck is something very controllable(meaning ; If you put yourself in a position where good things can happen to you, then the likelihood is better that good things will happen to you(and innversely as well)).

I'm against drugs personally(except alcohol and prescription), but to say that the fault lay in the pilots use of cocaine is clearly speculative and diminutive to the fact that it was Randy's choice to go up!!!!

I would like to see a return to common sense in society, it was not manslaughter/or any other 'cop out of liberal pussyism'. Randy made a choice, and it was a bad one

I'm going to spend the day remembering what he did give us and not speculate about what would've or could've been or how to impose unconstitutional thoughts about how it was anything other than Randy's choice(a bad one/but still his choice)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4iDqFELf_M

[Endrik]

I don't do drugs but drugs have done a lot of great things for us... just look at all the great art: music, paintings, literature, films etc.

These days I think it would be the best if drugs would be actually mandatory. Not the stuff which makes you insane but all that cool shit which makes you chill out. The world is full of over energetic morons who either want war or are plotting another conspiracy. If those idiots would be tripping around we would have a lot less problems.

[Vass]

Vass - you have some lucid points, most of them I either fail to see or don't see the relevancy to them. My point was Randy of his own free will got into that plane and most probably felt comfortable with the pilot in question, it was an accident - NOW : I happen to strongly believe that luck is something very controllable(meaning ; If you put yourself in a position where good things can happen to you, then the likelihood is better that good things will happen to you(and innversely as well)).

I'm against drugs personally(except alcohol and prescription), but to say that the fault lay in the pilots use of cocaine is clearly speculative and diminutive to the fact that it was Randy's choice to go up!!!!

I would like to see a return to common sense in society, it was not manslaughter/or any other 'cop out of liberal pussyism'. Randy made a choice, and it was a bad one

I'm going to spend the day remembering what he did give us and not speculate about what would've or could've been or how to impose unconstitutional thoughts about how it was anything other than Randy's choice(a bad one/but still his choice)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4iDqFELf_M

Hey bud- Your post wasn't there before I posted my book Newc's thread is more about what drugs will cost the world and mentions Randy as a cost 28 years ago- So responding to his post I thought my comments were relevent.

Does Randy bear some responsibility? Speculatively he might- IF he knew the guy was coked up and IF he knew the guy was a knucklehead and IF he himself were drugged up- But Randy put his own life at risk, not the lives of others. Put another way, just because he MAY have had some culpability for how things worked out that doesn't absolve the pilot.

What we do know (or at least what I think we know) about that day was that the pilot WAS shown to be coked up in his autopsy. I don't know if it was from something he did earlier in the week or if he was actually doing it on the plane. But from what I've read the coke in the guy's system was significant.

Buzzing the bus was bad judgement, sober or not anyway. Maybe Randy is the one who said, "Hey man buzz the bus!" But as the pilot, that guy had his hand on the stick and was the one who made the choice that mattered- He buzzed the bus.

Re-reading Newc's post, and I think he did this for rhetorical effect but he can speak for himself, I don't think "murder" is the appropriate term. I don't think he intentionally killed anyone. But in the final analysis the effect was the same.

[PowerTube]

Ozzy said years ago in an interview that he didn't believe the crash was drug related (although the guy may have indeed been doing drugs). He said that the bus driver/pilot had been recently divorced and was going through some emotional problems. He believes that he looked down and saw his ex-wife on the ground waving and decided to end it all and take a few people with him.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

I don't blame the drugs, I blame the pilot.

Drugs are often just the scapegoat, "I did something dumb, but I was drunk" or whatever. Who cares? You still did something dumb. :dunno:

Getting loaded is fine, I don't really care what you're doing. But, getting loaded and driving a car or even something as simple as passing out with a cigarette in your hand, that's not the drugs' fault, it's YOURS.

[PowerTube]

I don't blame the drugs, I blame the pilot.

Drugs are often just the scapegoat, "I did something dumb, but I was drunk" or whatever. Who cares? You still did something dumb. :dunno:

Getting loaded is fine, I don't really care what you're doing. But, getting loaded and driving a car or even something as simple as passing out with a cigarette in your hand, that's not the drugs' fault, it's YOURS.

Absolutely. I have a dumbass 2nd cousin who got numerous DUI's some years ago, up to the point where he lost his driver's license and got put on house arrest at his sister's place for a year or so.

It's just not worth it.

[Jacksons Shred]

Ozzy said years ago in an interview that he didn't believe the crash was drug related (although the guy may have indeed been doing drugs). He said that the bus driver/pilot had been recently divorced and was going through some emotional problems. He believes that he looked down and saw his ex-wife on the ground waving and decided to end it all and take a few people with him.

[PowerTube]

Hey, just passing on what I read.

[Hellbat]

Ozzy and Sharon have said numerous times that they believe the pilot was trying to kill his ex wife with the plane as she stood by the bus. The drugs and sleep deprivation were probably a factor but untimately it was about the pilot trying to kill the ex on the ground. She probably tried to hide behind the bus and he tracked her and clipped it. Unfortunately the only guy that knows for sure is a carbon stain.