The Technology of Drug Prohibition 724
ches_grin writes "Although the GWOT gets all the headlines, technology is proving to be the key factor in the 'war on drugs'. This article and slideshow take a look at the current state-of-the-art for both federal agents and drug traffickers, from greenhouses to Predator drones: 'In the pitched battle surrounding illegal drugs, each side has its advantages. Law enforcement can take advantage of private sector expertise, expensive machines, and, of course, the law. Those who cultivate, manufacture, and smuggle illegal drugs can leverage vast sums of cash, generated by constant demand.'"
Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalise them, tax them!
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?? (Score:2, Insightful)
The Netherlands legalized marijuana usage decades ago and still is together with Germany the smartest country in Europe [timesonline.co.uk] with 107 IQ points on average.
Can we have a war on the term "war on" (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to be treated like an adult for a change.
The tin foil hats got it right... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
> want any more crackheads around.
Yeah, we all know how successful making drugs illegal has been in preventing demand! Look how hard it is to get drugs now! If we didn't have laws against them, why, you could get drugs in just a few minutes from any town on the planet! Thank god we don't live in *that* world!
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, you *could* win (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason no one wants that is that the cure is worse than the disease.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a matter of fact, it's highly likely that uptake and usage of harder drugs would drop in an environment of legality and education - see the statistics on heroin usage in Holland since they began selling pure heroin to addicts and educating the population about the dangers of heroin usage.
People generally come into contact with harder drugs through criminal acquaintences (sp?) and are often inclined to ignore warnings given by the government in the 'War on Drugs' since it takes very little time and experience to realise that it's a FUD campaign. Obviously if they lied about cannabis, they must have been lying about crack, right?
By legalising and lifting the taboo and FUD, drug related problems would diminish drastically. Controversially, that would leave the law enforcement agencies referenced here and TFA without jobs. But that can't have anything to do with why the legislation stays as it is can it? Surely not...
Marijuana prohibition history (Score:2, Insightful)
Why Is Marijuana Illegal [salon.com]
It appears that it was a combination of "think of the children", outright capitalistic greed, and politicians promoting themselves.
Re:War on drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, their current illegality is just a welfare program for the legal, judicial, and criminal system.
Ask any judge if they would have a job if drugs were legal. Odds are, they will say no.
The thing is that the "war on drugs" has become such a profit driven thing by our government that they cannot legalize it anymore because it would kill their bottom line. Any rational being would say that the war on drugs has been lost and that it is a stupid waste of time, but telling the DEA, most all of the lawyers, judges, and policemen that they have to find a new job is not going to be easy.
The spirit of the law and the letter of the law regarding drugs is completely different. The law is written so that possession or sale of X mass of Y substance will get you Z sentence. The spirit of the law is that, yeah, you can do these things, but its going to get more expensive and dangerous as you get older. So, if your a white kid of college age or in your 20s, party up, but outside of that, we will "throw the book at you".
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
But if alcohol is legal, why is marijuana not?
I could very well be wrong, but I'd guess the beer industry lobbyists have a lot to do with this.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Last Saturday (Score:5, Insightful)
'War' on drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Or how about opium poppies: I see them growing in a lot of people's gardens. You can buy the seeds in garden centres or even in supermarkets (for baking bread etc). You can buy morning glory (contains LSA, similar to LSD) legally to grow in your garden. So how can one 'fight a war' against drugs? It's nonsense, simple and pure.
No, legalise it, educate people, tax it. That way we would get rid of two whole classes of crime that only exist because of reactionary legislation: drugs trafficking and drug use.
Re:Last Saturday (Score:4, Insightful)
Um... When was the last time you've seen a movie glamourizing crack, heroine, or meth?
Well, Monster Party kind of, but remember in the end he murdered his drug dealer and went to prison for it so I suppose that isn't glamourizing.
The point is, Pot is no more dangerous and addicting than most forms of alcohol.
Cocaine and X won't kill you outright unless you do stupid things and most people can take them and never get addicted.
Heroine, meth, and crack on the other hand will kill you and make you do things that you never thought you'd ever do in your life to get those drugs.
Personally, I'm all for legalizing Pot and maybe even cocaine if they find some method of controling the amount a person can get, but for FFS no one in their right mind should ever legalize household meth, crack, and heroine.
I live in an city with over 300 murders per year and I will tell you Dave Chapell's immitation of a crack feind is pretty spot on except its not funny when you meet one.
Re:Well, you *could* win (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:War on drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
Cure the addict.
He describes the drug world as a pyramid. Dealers on the top, addicts on the bottom. If you take out the top layer of a pyramid someone will step in to supply more drugs. If you take out the bottom of the pyramid the dealers will fall.
Not completely realistic, but I would rather see the money spent on education and treatment for the people who really need it.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of the problems with alcohol went away when we legalized it.
Deaths from bad product went down 80% within the year.
Violence involving disputes between providers disappeared almost overnight.
Organized crime was dealt a major blow, which they were only able to recover from by switching to other illegal drugs. Protection rackets and fixing gambling just never brought in as much money.
Why do you think it will be any different with cocaine?
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the overarching point is there already is a fantastically easy way to get Cocaine.
1. Drive up to any high school
2. Watch the kids outside for five minutes
3. Identify the drug dealer
4. ????
5. (Profit?!) Score some Cocaine.
There are other effective algorithms for obtaining Cocaine, most involve going to a seedy area and/or speaking with a junkie friend of a friend. Point of course is, if its illegal for kids to have cigarettes and alcohol, never mind 'da crack', why on earth do we believe that prohibition of these substances does anything except cycle the stupider/unluckier ones through the penal system?
Incidentally, the larger social costs of cocaine are threefold: increased crime due to substance's price (which is artifically high to deal with the risk fo being an illicit substance), overdose (usually due to impurity of product, again, because pharmacies aren't making the stuff), and the actual pharmacological effects of the drug in question, that is, how it alters mood, behavior, and health. I personally would rather get past problems 1 and 2 (which claim way more lives and money than the last one) and instead concentrate on the *actual* problem that drugs themselves produce.
Marijuana vs. Other Drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
A lot of people do underestimate the subversive (on the person's psyche and ability to function as a productive member of society) effect that "harder" drugs have on people, since they're only really familiar with recreational cannibis. Not to mention the permanent damage that a drug like opium or heroin can do to a person.
Another problem is this: if narcotics were legalized, who would end up being the distributors? Likely the cartels and networks of dealers that have been selling it illegally for years. You know, the people that cut it with strychnine and analogs so they can inflate their volume and therefore profits, at the expense of the health and safety of their users. Or the brutal cartels that, if they were operating in the same sphere as legitimate businesses, would make every single corrupt corporation, combined in some voltron-like fashion, look like the local, friendly mom & pop.
Even if they did play fair and there way governmental oversight, the damage to the user would still be there. Furthermore, testing narcotics for purity, etc is somewhat time-consuming and actually consumes a portion of the drug, which would raise the costs phenomenally (provided the government did not make the distributors eat the costs. That would be a toss-up).
It's just generally a bad idea to open this all up so a few people can legally mess with their own heads.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:War on drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
I stopped using recreational drugs other than alcohol about 9 years ago, but I totally agree with both Bill Hicks and you.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Laughter? Sport? Exercise? Fear? The buzz you get from doing something dangerous? Adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine?
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:War on drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Not merely education, but effective education. Teaching kids in grade school that pot will turn you into a drug craving monster and that there are pushers around every corner waiting to get the little kiddies hooked on their wares doesn't jive with the reality most kids live in, especially the suburban kids who have never even seen a crackhouse in their lives.
Sadly, anything program that doesn't demonize all drugs (pushing self-esteem crap as a feel-good bait and switch) will be shouted down by the "think of the children" set.
Re:Last Saturday (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly not. And this is, in my mind, the strongest argument to keep drugs such as crack illegal. But I wonder, how many people are killed each year by people due to their drug use, and how many people are killed each year by criminally inclined people who happen to take drugs. Also, how many people are killed by the illegal drug trade every year, meaning the process by which drugs are illegally created and distributed, a process that would no longer exist if those drugs were legal. Remember that the mafia grew up during Prohibition. Similarly, a lot of organized crime has grown up around the distribution of illegal drugs. Finally, its not clear how many users of, eg, crack we would have if drugs weren't illegal. During prohibition, hard liquor consumption went up, because hard liquor takes up less space than beer, and it is easier to smuggle. Similarly, in the 80s when police began to crack down on marijuana use, heroine and cocaine became much more popular, because it is much easier to smuggle. So it is possible that making these recreational drugs illegal actual encourages people to use more potent drugs. Of course, whether making some subclass of these drugs legal would discourage these now addicted people from using those same, harder drugs is a different question. Finally, any kind of drug legalization would presumably have to be accompanied by programs to help addicts. We would treat drug abuse as a disease, rather than a crime. Then I wonder how many people would still be committing crimes to get crack, when they could simply go to a shelter instead.
And before anyone starts in with "what about alcohol, its a drug!" or "what about cigarettes!" trying to turn my opinions around...ban them all. There are too many adverse effects to using any of them.
What about red meat? People can get away with vegetarian diets. Too much red meat will cause heart damage as surely as too much alcohol will damage your liver. And additionally, there is the argument that the animals raised for red meat consume food that is grown on land that could be used to grow food for starving people instead of for beef for overweight Americans. And why not ban tanning salons. And sodas- after all, all that sugar is bad for us. And all of the other things we do that are bad when not done in moderation, which I suppose includes just about everything. At the very least, banning red meat and sodas would seem to be the logical conclusion to your argument. I for one think there is something to be said for the government not messing with people, and just letting them live their lives like they want. Congress doesn't need to justify whether drinking alcohol is worth it for me- only I need to do that.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice little logical fallacies you have there. Using pot doesn't mean you will turn to harder drugs, not even that a large majority will. I know people that smoked quite a bit, but they never expressed interest in anything harder (indeed, since they knew the dangers of the harder stuff, they decided it wasn't worth bothering with).
Also, you ignore the fact that should a person end up homeless because they'd rahter just smoke pot, that's their choice. They wanted to keep pushing things further, they choose NOT to get help, they choose to beg. That is within their rights.
So you want to remove a whole group of people's rights because some of that group can't handle freedom? Might as well just rip of the Constitution and install a facsist government right now.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think you get it. Drugs are about social control, not about taxes or anything else. It wasn't that long ago that we intentionally flooded poor (black) neighborhoods with drugs to keep them down. The penal system is set up in order to keep the 'bad' people in their place. That's why I have to pay my speeding tickets but VP Cheney doesn't get charged with manslaughter when he gets drunk and shoots someone IN THE FACE. The government needs to come along and randomly stamp people as evil to keep the moderates scared and in check. It also needs to keep repressing them so that they don't get the gumption to take what's rightfully theirs (freedom).
[/conspiracy theory]
And yes, I'm an upper middle class white person
Your horse looks pretty high there, fella (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh really? Just wander by your local Emergency Room one weekend evening and look who is causing problems.
Deaths from bad product went down 80% within the year.
I have no idea where you pulled your "statistic" from, but I'll go along with a signficant increase in the purity of the drug when it was legalized.
Violence involving disputes between providers disappeared almost overnight.
But the societal problems of alcohol use remained. Druken driving, domestic abuse, chronic alcohol abuse, physical problems stemming from chronic alcohol use, etc.
The problem is that simply legalizing dangerous drugs in a complex society is fraught with lots of other problems. Yes, tiny little countries in Europe have experimented with legalization and government control of some very powerful, addicting drugs - I am not sure that this model would translate well in the US. I am also not sure of what mix of regulation and prohibition of drugs would be appropriate in the US, but I am sure the answers are neither simplistic nor easily attained.
Re:Marijuana vs. Other Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm glad you don't mention it, because I suspect you have no idea what that damage would be given a clean supply and good education.
"Another problem is this: if narcotics were legalized, who would end up being the distributors? Likely the cartels and networks of dealers that have been selling it illegally for years."
What makes you think so? Is all alcohol now produced by the folks who supplied the US with alcohol under prohibition? You might be interested to know that many of the so-called bad drugs are available on prescription, at vastly lower prices than the black market.
"Even if they did play fair and there way governmental oversight, the damage to the user would still be there."
I thought you weren't going to mention it? The net damage to users would be reduced massively due to clean supplies and education. Not to mention the reduction of damage incurred by frequenting an unfriendly, criminal environment in order to obtain drugs.
"Furthermore, testing narcotics for purity, etc is somewhat time-consuming and actually consumes a portion of the drug, which would raise the costs phenomenally"
I'm quite certain that the quality control methods used to ensure the standard of pharmaceuticals now is quite effective. Time-consuming? Oh no! Consumes a portion of the drug? Who cares? When it's produced for pennies per kilo, it really makes no difference.
"It's just generally a bad idea to open this all up so a few people can legally mess with their own heads."
It's obviously a better idea to spend billions on keeping those few who want to mess with their heads criminal. Note that the few people who you refer to are messing with their heads today despite the illegality.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Last Saturday (Score:2, Insightful)
I couldn't care less about the processed drugs - coke, meth - those are dangerous from the get-go. Crack too. Dangerous to make, dangerous to consume. I'd much rather chew on coca leaves than snort that stuff up my nose. Actually - it would be kinda neat - a new kind of chew! Legalize the unprocessed drugs, fellas. You may find people abandoning alcohol for a tamer fix - less intoxicated deaths for certain (compare alcohol intoxication to pot intoxication and do the math).
But - politics again. And a very UNEDUCATED and GULLABLE public. There was a time all this was perfectly legal. You could drink Coke with coke!
Sigh...
Re:Another "war" without end.... (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, I'm the guy he's talking about.
Re:Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalization question (Score:3, Insightful)
If we legalize "hard drugs" why wouldn't we extend this to all drugs. That is to say all prescription drugs such as anti-depression, heart meds, erectile enhancers, and the like? Where do we draw the line. I personally think it is dangerous to have people self-medicating, so I want to konw if there is a legitimate answer to thisi. Maybe it falls back into the category of, "Yes, make them all legal and let the dummies kill themselves but smart folks will still see their doctor for a proper prescription that will tell them how to administer the drugs." That kind of makes sense.
Personally I get some allergy problems in the summer and have taken a prescription drug for years. At this point I know the dose and that one pill should be taken every 24 hours when I'm experiencing problems. I suppose it makes some sense that I should be able to refill as many times as I like right?
So how does this trickle down to kids I wonder? When I was 15, I imagine I would have tried some hard drugs had they been legal. Seeing a rock of crack next to the hard candy would make it seem like trying an atomic fireball or sour gummy. (There's no reason to think they wouldn't be presented like this if all are legal). The fact that they were illegal made me wonder why and that's when I did some research and talked to my parents. Now maybe the "legalize drugs" crowd would say it was my parents fault for not talking to me proactively. In their defense, my parents taught me right and wrong. Doing something illegal was wrong, therefore taking hard drugs was wrong. Maybe legalizing drugs is only for 18 and up?
This is a delicate subject indeed.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
First the victim survived, manslaughter is for when someone is killed.
second it was a hunting accident. Hunting accidents, even fatal ones are rarely prosicuted, because it is assumed that all parties understood the risk.
If you want to pick an elite skipping out on a crime pick a better eexample, I am sure there are dozens
oh yeah my spelling sucks.
Outlaw mountain climbing (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything that makes other people happy, but that I don't personally care for should be outlawed. All shortcuts to happiness should be outlawed, happiness should only come from hard work and abstinence.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm advocating legalizing ALL drugs. Put whatever you want in your body, I don't care.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason they ended prohibition was that it was doing nothing so much as killing people and making gangsters rich and, what is more dangerous, popular. The gangsters didn't have to do anything but give people what they wanted in order to make piles of money, so they had the popular support of the people. Making it legal again destroyed their power base, their means of income.
Most people would be more than happy to pay taxes and keep records if the whole thing were legal. Of course, what that would actually accomplish would be to put the money in the hands of corporations as usual, because they would take up factory marijuana farming, and there would be no money whatsoever in small-scale marijuana production except for organic product. (What the USDA calls "organic" is not necessarily so, and savvy consumers who care about such things know this.) Thus they would be able to derive tax revenues quite efficiently - but of course the price of marijuana would take a nosedive, because it is painfully, trivially easy to grow, and the factory farming industry would be able to turn it out faster than the world could smoke it, let alone the USA.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Two responses to this:
1) Where do you stop? Okay, smoking is an obvious one. What about drinking? (You may recall that there was a little experiment called Prohibition a few decades back.) Eating crappy fast food? Not exercising enough (whatever the government decides "enough" is)? Exercising too much, to the point of injury? Living in a particularly polluted place, or in a place prone to natural disasters? All of these things can fuck your body up just as much as heroin, and all of them are personal choices. There is no clear cutoff line between "too dangerous" and "dangerous, but just safe enough that we'll tolerate it."
2) Total cost. Yes, all of the behaviors mentioned above, as well as illegal drug use, have costs to society, which we all have to pay. But against this, you have to measure the cost to society of illegalization. We spend an insane amount of money on the War on Drugs: the salaries of the law enforcement personnel, the maintenance of the prisoners, and the high-tech equipment are only the most obvious ones. How about the cost of productive working lives wasted in prison? How about the general rise in the power of organized crime, and all the ills it brings with it, which have a ripple effect far beyond the drug money which provides the initial funding? (The venture capital, if you will.) How about the medical costs incurred by the violence inherent in any illegal trade? (Liquor store owners may tend toward alcoholism, sure -- but since 1933, their rate of death by Tommy gun has gone down to almost nothing.) Add these up, and I suspect they dwarf the direct costs of drug use. Ban smoking, or drinking, or McDonald's, and you'd see a cost to our government and society that would make the current budget for the WoD look like chicken feed.
Once it's legalised it's really hard to go back if it turns out to have been a mistake.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that Moses came down from the mountain with a stone tablet reading "Thou shalt not smoke up," and since then, thus hath it ever been -- in other words, that illegality is the natural state of drugs. But cannabis, coca, poppies, and for that matter tobacco have all been growing for a long time before the law ever even came into existence. Drugs, of any kind, haven't always been illegal. People made those laws, and did so fairly recently in historical terms. We can unmake or remake them as we choose.
tiny little countries in Europe? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are guilty of the same mind-set used by those who dismiss evolution because they cannot possibly comprehend how a billion billions of small changes could turn a aquatic animal into a land-based animal.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:1, Insightful)
FWIW
Re:Last Saturday (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some obvious political-economic reasons why this is so today, as others have pointed out.
Historically, alcohol and marijuana were both made illegal at the same time. Marijuana was swept up with alcohol in the prohibition craze, in large part due to the efforts of William Hearst the newspaper magnate, who actually invented the word "marijuana" to refer to the drug in his propaganda. When the prohibition ammendment was repealed and the era ended, the other drug laws that had been enacted didn't leave the books. Thus we have a situation where a commonly enjoyed but dangerous drug is seen as our right to consume -- so long as we do so responsibly -- while a much less harmful drug is vilified.
Speaking of history, I find it rather tragic that we are taught in school about the Prohibition Era and its effects, and why it was repealed. Today we have a situation that's very similar to Prohibition in its negative effects, particularly those involving the creation of criminal -- especially organized criminal -- black markets, and the resulting lack of quality leading to a lack of safety. Yet somehow this obvious repetition of history goes unnoticed. We go straight from U.S. history class to D.A.R.E. and are told to accept both.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
SUGAR
Sugar is one of the most prevalent drugs used in the USA. It causes significant and dramatic changes in brain chemistry in a very short time after ingestion; it is both habit-forming and addictive.
How is sugar addictive? Your brain measures blood sugar levels to determine how hungry you are. Research has shown that over time it becomes more resistant, and it requires more and more to make you believe you are full. Thus, the more sugar you eat, the more sugar (and other carbs, of course, but sugar breaks down most quickly) you will have to eat to feel full.
Youth diabetes was basically unheard of in this country before the advent of the food pyramid, which places carbohydrates at the base (5-7 servings; I think this has been decreased in the new one?) and which also coincided closely with the advent of processed foods, nearly all of which are packed with sugar. Can someone explain to me why a fucking hot dog needs 6 grams of added sugar?
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think part of the problem is that the government knows America is not ready for drug availability. Look at alcohol---you have to be 21, driving drunk is a punishable offense, giving it to minors is a punishable offense, using it to manipulate someone is a punishable offense---but it's still a HUGE problem! There's plenty of date rape involving alcohol, lots of minors drinking, lots of people driving drunk---I mean, come on, use common sense if you're going to drink!
Maybe it wouldn't be such a problem if it was legal at an earlier age and people learned how to use it responsibly. Think there is any great mystery to booze in a country where you can legally buy it at 18 and where your parents have been giving it to you at dinnertime since you were 5 years old? Think those countries have a problem with binge drinking?
Only in the United States can I sign away my life to a cell phone company/credit card company/military, vote and be tried as an adult without being able to legally buy booze. And date rape/DUI are completely separate issues and bringing them up seems like FUD.
An interesting idea is a "psychoactive research license." Someone could take a special training course, take an exam, and be granted a license for a few years that would let them purchase small quantities of illegal substances and use them in the privacy of their own home. I mean, the Native American Church has an agreement that's sort of like this for the use of peyote in religious ceremonies (the Church has a permit to buy peyote from special DEA-licensed growing farms for certain restricted uses with registered Church members). Of course, if you trafficked the substances, used anything around a minor, became a public nuisance while intoxicated, or tried to operate a vehicle, you'd have your license revoked and be punished in some way.
Funny you should mention the Native American use of peyote. Native Americans are the only ones that need "permission" from the Federal Government to practice their religion. What part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" is so hard to understand? What you purpose would only create a massive bureaucracy with further control over our lives.
Here's an idea: Legalize all drugs. Prohibit employers from requiring drug tests with an exception for jobs that actually require you to be sober (i.e: truck drivers). Make people take responsibility for their own actions. You may not agree with that extreme of a viewpoint. But you'd have a hard time convincing me that THC should still be illegal.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
That is a personal responsibility problem. Not a drug problem.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
You may be suprised to know that there ARE drugged up people driving 18 wheelers down the road right now! Worse, since drugs are illegal we can't regulate it so that you can leave a drug den, for example, if you haven't come off your high yet.
So you'd rather have high truck drivers that may plow into a bus load of kids IN ADDITION TO THE INNOCENT PEOPLE KILLED IN DRUG TURF WARS.
Good for you!
Re:Legalization question (Score:3, Insightful)
If we legalize "hard drugs" why wouldn't we extend this to all drugs. That is to say all prescription drugs such as anti-depression, heart meds, erectile enhancers, and the like?
Those drugs are already legal, but regulated. You seem to imply legalization of illegal drugs means there won't be any kind of regulation on them at all and you'll be able to buy cocaine at your local gas station. Very few people are arguing for that.
Where do we draw the line.
You don't draw one line, you draw 1000 different lines on a case by case basis. The problem you're having is lumping all illegal drugs into one big pile. This is idiotic, but it's been the attitude that people have taken for many years. Marijuanna is very different from heroin, but yet they're both lumped into the category of "illegal drugs".
Seeing a rock of crack next to the hard candy would make it seem like trying an atomic fireball or sour gummy. (There's no reason to think they wouldn't be presented like this if all are legal).
Huh? I think you must be trolling here. Are legal drugs like alcohol sitting next to hard candy, and freely available to children? If drugs were legalized then they'd certainly have some very hard restrictions on them, much more so than alcohol.
The fact that they were illegal made me wonder why and that's when I did some research and talked to my parents.
Well, if the only thing preventing you from doing potentially dangerous things is the legality of illegality of it, you've got a lot to learn. Drinking drain cleaner is also perfectly legal, but I wouldn't recommend you try it. Rock climbing without a rope is also legal, but I wouldn't do it unless you're an expert climber and enjoy risking your life.
Re:War on drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
Jaysyn
Re:Don't you mean the war on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ritalin (Score:4, Insightful)
Ban Ritalin.
It's such a load of fucking bullshit that parents can forcefeed their kids Ritalin for years if they don't like the grades they've been getting, but if a college student wants to take a small, one-time dose of speed so he can study for a tust he gets thrown in jail (and if you want to argue that Ritalin isn't speed, simply substitute "Adderall" instead. The former is a pseudo-amphetamine, the latter IS amphetamine and both have practically identical effects to methamphetamine.) I was addicted to speed (aka Ritalin) for four years before I finally refused to take it any more. I was 14 years old, and I somehow managed to overcome "peer pressure"--which directly from my parents and doctors, strongly urging me not to quit.
I went through severe withdraw and lost all self-control for about two weeks. My sense of humor was oddly changed and it took months for the fog to clear from my mind. To this day I'm still not sure if it's affected me permanently, and to this day I despise the feeling evoked by most stimulants (caffeine included.)
ADD (without physical hyperactivity) is a fucking scam. Medical bodies recommend AGAINST any form of physiological diagnosis (e.g. MRI), and the criteria for psychological diagnosis is hopelessly vague--it's a catch-all for ANY otherwise-intelligent kid who has problems in school. Doctors and shrinks will keep a kid on it even though it can have serious, permanent side effects, even if it's obvious that the kid is still having problems, even if the kid has gone into a severe depression as a result. Yes, depression is a known side effect of Ritalin and Adderall--the solution? Stick 'em on an antidepressant. Oh, but watch out 'cause in many cases this can increase depression and/or suicidal tendencies, and even if it doesn't there are plenty of other lovely common side effects such as libido supression.
My point is that we're turning millions of perfectly normal (if somewhat academically challenged) kids into crank addicts, sometimes against their will, while denying the right of informed adults to use this drug (or even a nonaddictive drug like marijuana) on an infrequent, occasional basis. This is severelyfucked up. You talk about drugs being shoved in your face--you have no fucking clue what you're talking about until you have your mom or dad tell you that you must take this pill or you'll be grounded.
And just so you know, I work in the mental health field so no, I am not just basing this on my own experience I've seen hundreds of kids (and dozens of mentally deficient adults) diagnosed with ADHD while in reality only maybe 2 or 3 of them were truly hyperactive/attention-deficient. The rest were just a bit uncooperative or apathetic.
At the ripe old age of 14, I educated myself on drug dependence, addiction, and withdraw, and I successfully quit the drug despite peer pressure in the worst sense of the term. I now occasionally employ alcohol and marijuana, but never in excess and never for more than 2 or 3 consecutive days (or when I otherwise feel like I'm building up a tolerance.) I feel that both drugs have had a positive impact on my life. Alcohol in the quantities I typically has numerous health benefits, and ingested marijuana has virtually no harmful side effects. I will not do either if I plan on driving anywhere.
So tell me, why should I be thrown in jail? Why should the shrinks and the overcontroling parents be allowed to forcefeed children addictive substances against their will on the basis of a nearly completely arbitrary diagnosis?
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah, it would probably be more like the end of the Cold War- we've got this huge military but no enemy anymore, so we have to invent new ones.
I don't want to know how they'd figure out how to occupy all the cops, prosecutors, etc. in the absence of illegal drugs.
Re:Don't you mean the war on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco are all "psychotropic" substances.
Better yet, it's the War on Drug Users. Drugs are not the victim in this war. It's not the drugs that are rounded up and imprisoned. It's good, honest, everyday people like you and me who are persecuted just because we have the audacity to claim it's nobodys business what we do with our bodies.
Or better yet, call it what it really is. A witch hunt.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:2, Insightful)
These answers may not be simplistic, but the only reason they can't be easily attained can be attributed to the conundrum our politicians find themselves in. Most know that the WOD is futile, but to openly suggest an end to it is political suicide, and a few have tested that theory. Drug abuse is one of many political subjects in the US that is legislated by way of emotion, not rationale thought. For this I don't blame politicians, because not all of them fall into that trap, but those they represent usually do, and demand that their politicians do likewise.
I think we need to back up and ask ourselves what what we hope to accomplish with the WOD in the first place. To save people from the misery of drug addiction? Then how is it that we throw violators into prisons? Is living in a prison better than being addicted to a drug? If given the choice between the two, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't select prison. You?
"Wait!", you say. "None of that matters because we have to protect our children. We don't want them to be exposed to drugs, or to become people who use drugs!" That's strong motivation, and I'll be the first to agree with the sentiments. But look again. Are we accomplishing anything of the sort? Definitely not. Every child in the US is exposed to drugs in a variety of venues. Neighborhoods, schools, recreation centers. We keep trying to use force to make it stop, but we've never suceeded. We succeed only in turning them into criminals for seeking substances that human beings have craved for as long as recorded history has existed.
You reply, "The WOD may not be a perfect solution, but at least it keeps the associated crime in check. Without such a program our streets would be overrun by addicts, who would steal on a grand scale otherwise." That's another fallacy to which intelligent reasoning has not been applied. Most of the crime reportedly caused by drug abuse is in fact caused by the WOD itself! Look in your newspaper if you need proof. Few drug-related crimes involve addicts attacking people to get money for drugs. Most involve distributors fighting each other over turf, or one group stealing drugs from another. In short, most of the drug related violence is about money, not the drugs themselves, or the use thereof. The WOD perpetuates these crimes by keeping supply short and prices high. End it and drug related crime would all but go away.
Could it be that this last is the real reason the WOD continues? Could it be that the real power in the US is backing those who are raking in enormous sums of money from the drug trade? Ask yourself who benefits by keeping current policies in place. Not our children. Certainly not the majority of drug users. But if not them, who? Someone tell me, please.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
I still often wonder, what if Dick had been the one who was shoot instead of being the shooter. I bet that would have been one "hunting accident" that was very prosecuted.
It would have been called and attempted assassination, not a hunting accident.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:3, Insightful)
No one claims legalization will fix all problems, but it's still a better world to fix some of the problems than none of the problems. Legalization might even make some particular problems worse. However, one needs to compare the total effects of both policies to make a logical choice. In particular, many of the undesirable effects of illegal drugs are really a side effect of them being illegal.
Luckily people have already done lots of research. [druglibrary.org] In some ways, it's a cost benefit analysis. Of course, one of the biggest problems is that people don't know and understand the issues well enough to do a logical cost benefit analysis.
After doing research, I've come to the conclusion that legalization is a better solution in terms of liberty, economics, and harm reduction. Of course, legalization doesn't necessarily mean selling drugs out of candy machines. The primary goal is to eliminate the black market and there are many possible legalization strategies...
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
"
1: The government is not a person. It doesn't KNOW anything. You are mixing metaphors.
2: Alcohol isn't a huge problem. It is a part of life, get over it. Contrast to the danger it brings, alcohol brings great pleasure and happiness to many many people. think of the parties, think of fun times with friends and loved ones.. enhanced through the use of alcohol.
The biggest problem with alcohol is alcoholism and then basic stupidity and irresponsibility. But stupidity and irresponsibility will ALWAYS cause problems.
Alcohol may be associated with something like 40% of traffic fatalities, but stupidity and recklessness is associated with 90%.
A person didn't start off smart and then get drunk and stupid and drive. A person started off stupid.. went to a venue in a car knowing in advance they would drink and knowing in advance that they would drive.
I dont hear many people saying we should make it illegal not to get an education!
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Anger makes people do crazy shit that can and could very well hurt others. Should we ban anger? I assume if illegal drugs were legalized, hurting others would still be illegal.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I dont hear many people saying we should make it illegal not to get an education
That's already illegal.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Border Patrol?
Re:Oh? But now lets turn it around (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Science fiction is so often right about what actually happens in the real world.
I'd argue with you more, but my flying car needs to be taken to the robo-mechanic to have the gyrostabilizers rotated and top off the dilithium crystals.
Where do you stop, then? (Score:4, Insightful)
While you're at the self-centered "let's tell people what to do, because I don't want to pay for their problems" (but supposedly still expect them to pay for _yours_), why stop there? Lemme see what else we should make illegal...
- fucking without a condom. Well, hey, if they're going to be assholes about paying for the medical care for smokers (that's just about all the damage that pot smoking does too), then I don't want to pay for their AIDS/syphilish/etc bill when they go fucking around.
- going in the woods for a picknick or camping. They could get bitten by a bear, or poisoned by a snake, or stung by a bee and discover that they're allergic, or break a leg while climbing on god knows what rock. Why should I pay for the subsequent medical care? Shouldn't they take full responsibility when they decided to go camping? Make that illegal, I say.
- ditto for jogging, come to think of it. If they're going to exercise, they can do that in a safe enclosed place. I'm not gonna pay for their medical care if they insist on running outside where they can be run over by a car.
- for that matter going anywhere out of the house without an umbrella and without a backpack full of warm clothes. What if you get caught in a rain? What if it snows? (Yes, it occasionally does even in August.) Why should it be me who pays for the medicine to treat your pneumonia then? If you're going to go out with just a t-shirt and jeans, you should take full responsibility for whatever happens because of it.
- getting old. Have you see how often those old people get sick and need medical care? And don't even get me started about my paying for their pensions. They should just make suicide mandatory at 65 years old or so.
- using any kind of cell phone, walkman, ipod, or any other personal entertainment device. They can sprain an ankle because of paying more attention to that ipod than to where they step! Or even, don't laugh, back problems as stepping wrong can cause shocks in the spine. Ban any electronics lighter than 40 pounds, I say. Let's see them use _those_ while jogging.
- driving any kind of car, especially anything looking like a sports car. Me, I live close enough to work to get there in less than 10 minutes with the bus, so I use the bus. So why should I pay for your medical care when you get in a car accident? Where's the justice in that? If you insist on driving a car, you should take full responsibility for whatever happens as a result. Some drunk redneck in a pickup truck smashed into the side of your car? Too bad, sucker. It wouldn't have happened if you were in a bus, so don't expect sympathy or medical care money from _me_.
- travelling abroad. God knows what exotic diseases they have in those forn places. And then you go do your vacation or business there, get it and expect the rest of us to pay for your medicine. Worse yet, bring that disease back home and cause even more people to need medical care. It should be illegal, that's what I say. If closed city-state economies were good in the middle ages, they're good enough today too.
- parents. Yes, you've read that right. God knows how many shrinks make a living just out of people whose mom didn't buy them a lollypop, or whose dad never had enough time for them. Or worse yet, think of all the children that get molested or beat up by their parents, and then end up needing a decade of therapy for it. If we made parents illegal, think of how much money society as a whole would save. Each city should have one big orphanage (or several, if it's a really big city) where all kids are raised, far from their parents.
Etc.
</sarcasm>
Or you could stop being a self-centered judgmental asshole, and stop pretending that only the things _you_ do should be subsidized by everyone else. Life in society is a give-and-take thing. Yes, you pay for some smoker's medical bills, but then he/she pays for something else you may need. That's how it works.
Re:Oh? But now lets turn it around (Score:3, Insightful)
You really believe that the only thing stoppin everyone from being 'doped out' all the time is the fact that drug use is illegal? If so, I have a bridge to sell you..
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:4, Insightful)