Legalize Drugs, Why?

[geauxtohell]

I can say that for some of the booze hounds I've worked with.

There are plenty of congressman, governors, Military commanders, professional athletes, doctors and lawyers who are alcoholics, how many heroin addicts are in prominent positions? heroin addicts may be do ok as Rock Stars or something but what else can they do?

there have been plenty of high functioning drug addicts in positions of responsibility

That's somewhat analogous to saying that "there have been plenty of high function autistic people".

However, I think we can all agree that it's a better hand to not be autistic.

 

[kwc57]

I applaude you raising your son in a positive environment, but sometimes thats not enough. My brother is a heroin addict and we were raised in the same home, my father was not a drug addict, he did smoke and drink but never did drugs or had it in the home. But, in high school my brother was a big pothead and than later got into heroin, he said he could control it but he could not, one day my father came home and found that he sold everything in the house, fridge, coaches, beds, washers, etc EVERYTHING, to payback the credit he owed his drug dealer. Me and my brother are total opposites, I served 7 years in the Military and now hold a good job with the government, my brother dropped out of high school to do drugs, joined the Army but was sent back home in basic training because he tested positive for cocaine on the drug test, and is now serving time in Wasco State Penn in California for domestic violence, drug possession and various parole violations. Sometimes providing a good home is not enough.

True. Life is choices. All we can do as parents is point the right way and back it up by our example. But eventually, your children make their own choices and as painful as it is to watch, it is their choice. You can't change what they decide. My older brother was a pot head back in high school and I'm sure he did some harder stuff. At some point he grew out of it and turned back into a responsible and sensible person. He was married with two kids and finished his college education and has held a management position in a very large corporation for the past 30 years. Personal responsibility and freedom to choose.

I basically agree with both of you, with this caveat: why facilitate the ability of teenagers to gain access to dangerous substances? What benefit is their to society, other than buying into the libertarian mantra, that would make this a smart move on our part? While many kids will do the right thing with proper parenting (and some without it), some will still do the wrong thing.

Why increase the odds that the average rebellious teenager can get their hands on opiates, which they might not be able to kick, as opposed to alcohol which they probably will?

Why? Because this nation was founded on freedom and liberty......not a nanny state. Do you really want the government saving you from yourself? Are you not responsible enough to decide what you want to do? Making it legal does NOT mean easier access for kids. We already have models in place for alcohol and tobacco. Pot and cocaine are not going to be mixed in with the Snickers and Sweetarts for kids to pick up and take to the counter.

Right now here in Oklahoma there are news stories about the possible change in laws to allow strong beer and wine to be sold in grocery stores and conveninece stores. The state regulating agency is using the argument that this increases access of harder liqour and therefore is a bad thing. Yet I can travel across the border to surrounding states, walk into a grocery store and by six point beer or wine with no problem. I don't know 100%, but I'm willing to bet that those states don't have any higher rate of alcohol related issues than we do. For God's sake, we have liqour stores right next to the grocery store where you can go buy anything you want and they are afraid that putting it in the grocery store next door is somehow going to increase use and make it to accessible!

 

[geauxtohell]

not everyone can do that, we call ourselves alcoholics.

addicts aren't any different than alcoholics in that there is something inside of them that drives the need to change how they feel. it isn't the drug that causes the addiction; it's the person using it, imo. there are probably people that could use heroin *socially*.

personally, i think it's foolish to allow one recreational drug (alcohol) to be legal and all the others are illegal when alcohol far and away causes more damage and misery to society.

I agree that alcohol is more dangerous to society. However, I would argue that is simply because of access as it is legal. This is the point that I think many of us are making.

Is it a hypocritical double standard that alcohol is legal and other drugs are illegal? You bet. However, the genie is out of the bottle with alcohol. You can't put it back.

Have you ever read histories of the Prohibition times and how the alcohol was just as plentiful only now you also had to deal with organised crime too? Has that completely passed you by?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/3146053-post193.html

Again. "All prohibition is not created equal".

 

[westwall]

You guys are really comparing heroin to porn, booze and smokes?

Heroine and alcohol...


both are physically addictive


you can O.D. on both


in both cases, making them illegal created a huge black market and spawned brutal cartels and gangs that drove violent crime through the roof


both tend to abused by many people

....

so, please, explain to me how they're really so different

There are people that can be social drinkers and only drink on special occasions, and than not drink again for like 6 months, how many people can take a hit of heroin and than go cold turkey for 6 months?

Once again who cares. Drugs are bad. More to the point the actions that people do to feed their habit are worse. When drugs are cheap they don't need to go out and rob and kill to get the money to feed their habits.

 

[geauxtohell]

I am someone who has never been drunk or stoned in my life. It has frankly never interested me. I watched my dad as a youngster and saw the effects it had on him and said to myself eww, i don't want to look like that when I get up in the morning! His brother my uncle obviously died of drug in the 1980's. He wasn't high at the time but had used so many hard drugs he just kicked off from a heart attck.

People like them can't be saved. But the youngster laying in their bed can. I don't care what happens to addicts, I really don't. I do care about all of those innocent people who have died because some asshole has decided he would rather be a killer drug dealer than a productive member of society.

Legalisation puts those pricks out of work.

So it took you personally experiencing how destructive substance abuse can be after watching it harm your family members to decide that using these things was a bad idea for you?

Why do you think this is a good idea, again?

Because I have also read history and the only effect of criminalization has been to get a lot of innocent people killed. How many were killed during Prohibition who were not involved in the booze trade? How many innocent people have been killed in teh various drug wars now goin on around the world? Mexico alone has seen 22,000 people killed THIS YEAR in the various drug gang wars. Most are innocent bystanders. Are you so blind that you can't see this?

It's a shame that innocent people die.

It's an unavoidable consequence to human existence.

Innocent people die in war. That doesn't stop our zeal to make it.

 

[westwall]

The grandchildren of the moonshiners are now cooking crank in my old hometown. It doesn't matter what the substance is, as long as it is illegal there will be a market for it and people will use that to try and supplement their incomes (or simply survive in the case of the new "Moonshiners").

That doesn't mean that just making everything legal is the solution to it. At some point asking "what is the net gain for society"? is a legitimate question.

Even the purest of Methamphetamine is a wicked drug.

The net gain for society is you no longer have completely innocent bystanders killed because of wars over drug selling territory. You don't have dipshits breaking into others houses to feed their habit, you don't have drug addled halfwits abusing their children because they are afraid to seek help. The list is a pretty long one if you just think about it.

Those two will likely happen regardless

hell, the latter happens with alcoholics all the time

But nowhere at the current rate that it does. When I look through the police blotter in Carson City 90% of all crimes are drug related. That one simple action will reduce that number.

 

[JBeukema]

I agree that alcohol is more dangerous to society. However, I would argue that is simply because of access as it is legal. This is the point that I think many of us are making.

Is it a hypocritical double standard that alcohol is legal and other drugs are illegal? You bet. However, the genie is out of the bottle with alcohol. You can't put it back.

Have you ever read histories of the Prohibition times and how the alcohol was just as plentiful only now you also had to deal with organised crime too? Has that completely passed you by?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/3146053-post193.html

Again. "All prohibition is not created equal".

so there are no cartels?

 

[westwall]

It's not. Which is why those substances are controlled.

and yet they get out on the street anyway. i certainly don't favor untrammeled access to rec drugs, but treating them the same as booze seems to me to be worth trying.

i've been wrong before, though

Sorry. I should have expanded on that. The fact that these items are controlled makes it much harder for the average teenager to gain access to them than booze and cigarettes, which can be obtained on every street corner.

I would imagine the percentage of teenagers who have raided their father's liquor cabinets dwarfs the percentage of teenagers who have raided the medicine cabinet. Even then, the percentage of American households that have liquor in them certainly dwarfs the percentage that have benzos and narcotics.

Actually it doesn't. There are just easier cheaper drugs to go for so why bother. Supply and demand my man.

 

[kwc57]

You guys are really comparing heroin to porn, booze and smokes?

Heroine and alcohol...


both are physically addictive


you can O.D. on both


in both cases, making them illegal created a huge black market and spawned brutal cartels and gangs that drove violent crime through the roof


both tend to abused by many people

....

so, please, explain to me how they're really so different

Heroin is much more addictive and much easier to overdose on.

It's also not deemed to be socially acceptable.

One reason prohibition was a disaster was that alcohol had previously been legal and was used by many Americans before they decided to make it illegal. Therefore, there was a huge demand for the product when it became illegal. While all illegal substances generate demand, the relative scope compared to alcohol is much smaller. That is why organized crime boomed. It was just the fact that something was made illegal. It was the fact that something a large portion of the society used was made illegal.

Furthermore, making alcohol illegal was a change from the status quo.

What good does it do our society to change the current status quo?

Ding, ding, ding!!!

The same argument you just made for alcohol and social acceptance can be made for drugs like pot and cocaine. You are aware that cocaine was an ingredient in a good number of products sold across the counter aren't you? There was no social stigma associated with cocaine until it was made illegal. People accepted it, used it and wanted it. Making it illegal was a change from the status quo.

snopes.com: Cocaine in Coca-Cola

 

[westwall]

pure coke is MUCH cheaper than Meth.

where the **** do you live?

My dentist is one of the few in CA that is certified to use pure cocaine on some of his patients who can't use any other type of anasthetic. He buys it direct from the Federal Government and it cost about .25 cents a gram.

 

[geauxtohell]

Why? Because this nation was founded on freedom and liberty......not a nanny state. Do you really want the government saving you from yourself? Are you not responsible enough to decide what you want to do? Making it legal does NOT mean easier access for kids. We already have models in place for alcohol and tobacco. Pot and cocaine are not going to be mixed in with the Snickers and Sweetarts for kids to pick up and take to the counter.

With all due respect, you guys consider everything the government does, short of the most basic of services, to be the "nanny state". You guys are certainly entitled to your opinion, but there is a reason that libertarian platform continually fails to gain traction. Most Americans don't subscribe to that political philosophy. It's too extreme. That's not my opinion. It's quantifiable with election results.

In regards to government, I expect government to be prudent and make moves that are in the best interest of our society.

I never perceived that you guys wanted make illegal substances as available as sweetarts. That being said, to say that removing societal boundaries for illegal substances will result in a more responsible society is a stretch. Again, alcohol and cigarettes are not perceived in the same light as a narcotic. Making narcotics legal would certainly make access easier.

Right now here in Oklahoma there are news stories about the possible change in laws to allow strong beer and wine to be sold in grocery stores and conveninece stores. The state regulating agency is using the argument that this increases access of harder liqour and therefore is a bad thing. Yet I can travel across the border to surrounding states, walk into a grocery store and by six point beer or wine with no problem. I don't know 100%, but I'm willing to bet that those states don't have any higher rate of alcohol related issues than we do. For God's sake, we have liqour stores right next to the grocery store where you can go buy anything you want and they are afraid that putting it in the grocery store next door is somehow going to increase use and make it to accessible!

Again, Alcohol is not the same as heroin, methamphetamine, or cocaine.

 

[geauxtohell]

Heroine and alcohol...


both are physically addictive


you can O.D. on both


in both cases, making them illegal created a huge black market and spawned brutal cartels and gangs that drove violent crime through the roof


both tend to abused by many people

....

so, please, explain to me how they're really so different

Heroin is much more addictive and much easier to overdose on.

It's also not deemed to be socially acceptable.

One reason prohibition was a disaster was that alcohol had previously been legal and was used by many Americans before they decided to make it illegal. Therefore, there was a huge demand for the product when it became illegal. While all illegal substances generate demand, the relative scope compared to alcohol is much smaller. That is why organized crime boomed. It was just the fact that something was made illegal. It was the fact that something a large portion of the society used was made illegal.

Furthermore, making alcohol illegal was a change from the status quo.

What good does it do our society to change the current status quo?

Ding, ding, ding!!!

The same argument you just made for alcohol and social acceptance can be made for drugs like pot and cocaine. You are aware that cocaine was an ingredient in a good number of products sold across the counter aren't you? There was no social stigma associated with cocaine until it was made illegal. People accepted it, used it and wanted it. Making it illegal was a change from the status quo.

snopes.com: Cocaine in Coca-Cola

And are you aware that ingesting cocaine completely changes it's pharmacological properties relative to snorting or inhaling it? If you apply cocaine locally, it's an anesthetic. If you give it direct access to your brain, it's a stimulant. Even if cocaine gave the exact same "high" by being ingested orally (it doesn't), you would have to ingest a much higher quantity of it to account for first pass metabolism by the liver before the drug got to the blood stream and then the brain compared to snorting it or smoking it.

So people who got cocaine in Coca Cola weren't exactly doing it for the same reasons that people use it for today.

 

[geauxtohell]

and yet they get out on the street anyway. i certainly don't favor untrammeled access to rec drugs, but treating them the same as booze seems to me to be worth trying.

i've been wrong before, though

Sorry. I should have expanded on that. The fact that these items are controlled makes it much harder for the average teenager to gain access to them than booze and cigarettes, which can be obtained on every street corner.

I would imagine the percentage of teenagers who have raided their father's liquor cabinets dwarfs the percentage of teenagers who have raided the medicine cabinet. Even then, the percentage of American households that have liquor in them certainly dwarfs the percentage that have benzos and narcotics.

Actually it doesn't. There are just easier cheaper drugs to go for so why bother. Supply and demand my man.

Sorry, I don't buy that.

 

[geauxtohell]

pure coke is MUCH cheaper than Meth.

where the **** do you live?

My dentist is one of the few in CA that is certified to use pure cocaine on some of his patients who can't use any other type of anasthetic. He buys it direct from the Federal Government and it cost about .25 cents a gram.

Cocaine has medical indications as an anesthetic. It's just not used much, as there are better anesthetics.

PCP and Ketamine also started out as anesthetics.

 

[westwall]

I agree that alcohol is more dangerous to society. However, I would argue that is simply because of access as it is legal. This is the point that I think many of us are making.

Is it a hypocritical double standard that alcohol is legal and other drugs are illegal? You bet. However, the genie is out of the bottle with alcohol. You can't put it back.

Have you ever read histories of the Prohibition times and how the alcohol was just as plentiful only now you also had to deal with organised crime too? Has that completely passed you by?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/3146053-post193.html

Again. "All prohibition is not created equal".

But the criminal exploitation of that paradigm is! If a substance is illegal there is allways a group that is willing to make money providing it to those who want it. Human beings are naturally addictive. Human beings naturally want sex. The lunatics preaching abstinence to teenagers are delusional. They are arguing that teens should be able to fight a million years of genetic programming that says go out and procreate. Addiction is the same way.
There are a very few people who can contrl those primal urges....they are the exception.

Criminal enterprises exist because of laws. Take the laws away and those criminal enterprises no longer have a reason for being. Take a look at the gangs after Prohibition was lifted what did they do? They went into prostitution and drugs. Hell drugs were LEGAL until the mid 1960's for the most part. The Gangs had to rely on terrorism of their neighborhoods (protection money) and gambling to survive.

Read some history.

 

[westwall]

So it took you personally experiencing how destructive substance abuse can be after watching it harm your family members to decide that using these things was a bad idea for you?

Why do you think this is a good idea, again?

Because I have also read history and the only effect of criminalization has been to get a lot of innocent people killed. How many were killed during Prohibition who were not involved in the booze trade? How many innocent people have been killed in teh various drug wars now goin on around the world? Mexico alone has seen 22,000 people killed THIS YEAR in the various drug gang wars. Most are innocent bystanders. Are you so blind that you can't see this?

It's a shame that innocent people die.

It's an unavoidable consequence to human existence.

Innocent people die in war. That doesn't stop our zeal to make it.

And yet drug related deaths are something COMPLETELY WITHIN OUR ABILITY TO CONTROL! We can't prevent wars. We can't prevent accidents, but we can prevent those and you just blissfully ignore that simple fact!


Wow, just wow.

 

[westwall]

Why? Because this nation was founded on freedom and liberty......not a nanny state. Do you really want the government saving you from yourself? Are you not responsible enough to decide what you want to do? Making it legal does NOT mean easier access for kids. We already have models in place for alcohol and tobacco. Pot and cocaine are not going to be mixed in with the Snickers and Sweetarts for kids to pick up and take to the counter.

With all due respect, you guys consider everything the government does, short of the most basic of services, to be the "nanny state". You guys are certainly entitled to your opinion, but there is a reason that libertarian platform continually fails to gain traction. Most Americans don't subscribe to that political philosophy. It's too extreme. That's not my opinion. It's quantifiable with election results.

In regards to government, I expect government to be prudent and make moves that are in the best interest of our society.

I never perceived that you guys wanted make illegal substances as available as sweetarts. That being said, to say that removing societal boundaries for illegal substances will result in a more responsible society is a stretch. Again, alcohol and cigarettes are not perceived in the same light as a narcotic. Making narcotics legal would certainly make access easier.

Right now here in Oklahoma there are news stories about the possible change in laws to allow strong beer and wine to be sold in grocery stores and conveninece stores. The state regulating agency is using the argument that this increases access of harder liqour and therefore is a bad thing. Yet I can travel across the border to surrounding states, walk into a grocery store and by six point beer or wine with no problem. I don't know 100%, but I'm willing to bet that those states don't have any higher rate of alcohol related issues than we do. For God's sake, we have liqour stores right next to the grocery store where you can go buy anything you want and they are afraid that putting it in the grocery store next door is somehow going to increase use and make it to accessible!

Again, Alcohol is not the same as heroin, methamphetamine, or cocaine.

You're correct. Alcohol kills far more people then all the other drugs combined save for the gang violence that accompanies them. Eliminate the gang violence and all the other drugs have much less impact on society than alcohol does.

 

[geauxtohell]

But the criminal exploitation of that paradigm is! If a substance is illegal there is allways a group that is willing to make money providing it to those who want it. Human beings are naturally addictive. Human beings naturally want sex. The lunatics preaching abstinence to teenagers are delusional. They are arguing that teens should be able to fight a million years of genetic programming that says go out and procreate. Addiction is the same way.
There are a very few people who can contrl those primal urges....they are the exception.

Criminal enterprises exist because of laws. Take the laws away and those criminal enterprises no longer have a reason for being. Take a look at the gangs after Prohibition was lifted what did they do? They went into prostitution and drugs. Hell drugs were LEGAL until the mid 1960's for the most part. The Gangs had to rely on terrorism of their neighborhoods (protection money) and gambling to survive.

Read some history.

I agree people want to get high. However, we are not biologically programmed to desire getting high, as we are for sex. So I don't think it's analogous.

I am not disputing the prohibition facilitates crime. That's a non-issue.

I am disputing that the degree of crime that prohibition creates outweighs the degree of harm that would be done to our society if we made narcotics, amphetamines, and cocaine legal.

Again, look at the methadone "experiment". It didn't do much to stop heroin, and you won't see any pillars of the community at a methadone clinic getting their weekly fix.

Eventually, an addict is chained to their craving for the drug and becomes non-productive.

You guys say: "So, what? Let people do what they are going to do."

That's your perspective. However, it shouldn't be beyond the realm of comprehension that people would find that to be a absurd solution or proposal to take.

 

[geauxtohell]

And yet drug related deaths are something COMPLETELY WITHIN OUR ABILITY TO CONTROL! We can't prevent wars. We can't prevent accidents, but we can prevent those and you just blissfully ignore that simple fact!


Wow, just wow.

Are you guys so naive to think that criminals are going to stop being criminals simply because you take away their cash crops? As you noted, it didn't stop the Mafia. Eventually they will just move on to the next illegal activity to facilitate their cartels. Where does it stop? This magical fantasyland were we end all crime by legalizing drugs is just that.

We can't stop wars, but we can stop are eagerness to get into useless wars.

 

[westwall]

But the criminal exploitation of that paradigm is! If a substance is illegal there is allways a group that is willing to make money providing it to those who want it. Human beings are naturally addictive. Human beings naturally want sex. The lunatics preaching abstinence to teenagers are delusional. They are arguing that teens should be able to fight a million years of genetic programming that says go out and procreate. Addiction is the same way.
There are a very few people who can contrl those primal urges....they are the exception.

Criminal enterprises exist because of laws. Take the laws away and those criminal enterprises no longer have a reason for being. Take a look at the gangs after Prohibition was lifted what did they do? They went into prostitution and drugs. Hell drugs were LEGAL until the mid 1960's for the most part. The Gangs had to rely on terrorism of their neighborhoods (protection money) and gambling to survive.

Read some history.

I agree people want to get high. However, we are not biologically programmed to desire getting high, as we are for sex. So I don't think it's analogous.

I am not disputing the prohibition facilitates crime. That's a non-issue.

I am disputing that the degree of crime that prohibition creates outweighs the degree of harm that would be done to our society if we made narcotics, amphetamines, and cocaine legal.

Again, look at the methadone "experiment". It didn't do much to stop heroin, and you won't see any pillars of the community at a methadone clinic getting their weekly fix.

Eventually, an addict is chained to their craving for the drug and becomes non-productive.

You guys say: "So, what? Let people do what they are going to do."

That's your perspective. However, it shouldn't be beyond the realm of comprehension that people would find that to be a absurd solution or proposal to take.

So riddle me this. Almost all drugs were legal up till the 1960's..did this country fall apart from that? What was the level of violent crime that was solely drug related? What was the incarceration rate of non-violent offendors? Criminologists know that 80% of all violent crime is committed by 7% of the criminal population, we have to let those animals out of jail to keep no-violent drug offendors in.

Does that make any kind of logical sense to you?