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)
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:4, Informative)
No it wouldn't, because they could tax drug sales. The reasoning to legalize them is still you have the RIGHT to do with your body what you want, but that doesn't mean the government still couldn't tax them.
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.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Informative)
The history of the prohibition of drugs is the history of shitting on blacks and mexicans. As I have repeatedly stated here and in other locations, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 utilized the interstate commerce clause of the constitution in order to allow the federal government to "regulate" the sale of marijuana, which it does by requiring federal tax stamps for the sale of any of the stuff. Of course, actually getting the stamps was not possible.
The point was twofold, and both sides were economical. First, hemp was a threat to the paper and plastic industries. Second, blacks and mexicans were competing with white people for jobs during the depression. The solution? Demonize them so no one will hire them. The plan? Paint them as users of marijuana and then paint marijuana as a dirty drug that caused antisocial behavior. The plan came off swimmingly.
Today, the real issue is all the revenue that creates all those jobs; plus, the more money is moved around, the more of it can be siphoned off into the pocketbooks of the powerful. Well, that and that the government keeps us from boiling over by separating us from one another. They have nothing to fear so much as people getting together and ignoring their differences, which will give them time to gang up on the feds.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Interesting)
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! And just to back you up everyone should go watch The History of Marijuana [archive.org] narrated by Woody Harrelson.
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.
Re:Oh? But now lets turn it around (Score:4, Informative)
It showed that as long as the rats have good living conditions and aren't cramped in tiny little cages, they have no will to use drugs. Even drugs that are highly addictive like morphine. Rats that were in those tiny cages that showed the behavior you mentioned weened themselves off once introduced to better living conditions.
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:Oh? But now lets turn it around (Score:5, Informative)
Well, first off...not all drugs are addictive. Second, I think most numbers show that in places where there has been decriminalization, while there might have been an initial spike in users and first time users....these leveled off, and not everyone used drugs.
Think about it now...alcohol, which in some can be addictive..is legal. But, not everyone drinks, and certainly, not everyone is irresponsible with alcohol consumption. Why should it be any different with something say, pot, which hasn't ever been shown to be physically addictive?
"Human beings are sadly not much better then rats. Some of us too will happily do drugs while we rot away. Yes this is freedom, but society as a whole for now has chosen too put restraints on personal freedom. It is the simple thing of suicide being a crime. A truly free society would have no such ban. Yet again, do you totally trust a society that does not mind if say population group X killed itself?"
Well, you know...people can get hooked on anything, there are people out there that gamble too much, I'm sure that there is someone out there that like to knit so much, they let the rest of their life waste away...people will do it with anything. But, why punish those who can handle things in an adult manner just because some people are weak? Ever hear of survival of the fittest? Heck, by saving people from themselves, we may be in fact working against nature, which would have allowed these people to take themselves out of the gene pool.
I think occasionally, the gene pool NEEDS a little chlorine. And as for suicide...what is more personal that your own life? If you are suffering, should you not be allowed to choose what to do with the "1" thing that you truly own in life...your own life? What right do I have to tell you that quantity of life is more important than quality of life?
Go spend some time in the onc ward of your local hospital for awhile...and see if you don't change your mind a little...
Re:Oh? But now lets turn it around (Score:3, Informative)
Not only that, but nobody has ever died from smoking too much pot. Ever. 20,000 deaths per year or so are blamed on alcohol in the U.S..
Hey, I live in that society! (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry fella, you already live in such a society. Unless you live in an Islamic theocracy, that vast majority of the people around you have easy access to mood enhancing drugs and use said drugs regularly. It is called alcohol. You can call it ethyl alcohol if that name makes it sound more like a "real" drug.
Alcohol is as much of a drug as any other drug. In fact, on the scale of drugs, it is probably one of the worst. It is absolutely lethal if you over dose, it is damaging to your body in low doses, it induces aggression in many people, and it destroys sound judgment. The only thing that keeps alcohol related deaths down compared to some drugs is that alcohol is made in a nice clean factory instead of some sketchy drug dealer's basement. If alcohol was made the same way illegal drugs are made (as it was during prohibition) you would find all the same problems that current illegal drug face in terms of purity and safety.
What would happen if the government legalized all drugs? Crime would plummet, police would have significantly more time to pursue real crimes, the prisons would empty, criminal organization would suddenly find that they are completely incapable of funding criminal activities, a handful of South American nation would become significantly more stable, and the number of drug related deaths would plummet. Drugs would be made in sanitary controlled ways by pharmaceutical companies and they would merrily compete to make the best non-addictive drug possible with the fewest side effects.
As to how society would change, other then a dramatic drop in crime and massive budget surpluses from the resulting savings in law enforcement, nothing much would change. People would still take drugs to recreate, they just might throw in some other drugs into the mix besides alcohol and caffeine. You would still get fired if you went to work, and alcoholics / drug addicts would still find themselves fucked when it comes to holding down a job. In other words, very little would change except a dramatic reduction in crime and government spending.
Re:Oh? But now lets turn it around (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you some kind of counselor or therapist? This is the problem with basing policy on worst case scenarios. You've only seen messed up people with horrible, abusive childhoods and hopeless lives, and pin it all on whatever substance or activity they do to escape from their miserable reality. However, you never stop and ask that regular, decent person who you see on the street or interact with daily how much they drink or what recreational drugs they
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: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:Legalise Drugs (Score:4, Funny)
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 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:3, Interesting)
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:4, Informative)
Considering that during prohibition alcohol sold for 10 to 20 times it's value when it was legal (and was often of questionable quality), I think drugs would cost significantly less. The fact that they are illegal, and people will still do almost anything to get them, is what deterimines the price. You can't compare prices from years ago to current - they were still as illegal then as they are now. You used to be able to buy cocaine in pharmacies (until the Harrison Tax Act) for literally pennies when it was legal.
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:4, Interesting)
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:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Border Patrol?
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.
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:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:2)
Legalize weed? It may happen in our lifetime, but I'm sure the DEA spends vast amounts more on cocaine interdiction than weed.
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: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...
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) It allows for the users without self-restraint to remove themselves from the picture, usually through death. It sounds hardhearted, but this really is the only way to convince some people. This has the side effect of showing a generation of would-be users just how awful addiction really is, and during their childhood to top it off!
2) It allows law enforcement to get back to its REAL job - enforcing laws to benefit society. There's nothing beneficial in forcing useless people to stop killing themselves. Allow them to die and enforce the laws that benefit the "greater good". Now, this doesn't mean that we should turn a blind eye when someone in their death throes decides to stir trouble for everyone else. If you murder, steal, etc. you should still be held accountable for that.
I don't think drugs are good. Not even marijuana. But I think that people who are stupid enough to harm themselves should be allowed to. It's a long-forgotten concept here in America... "Freedom" they used to call it. Free will and the ability to exercise it are a necessity. Consequences should arise from conflicting interests, not from arbitrary rules.
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:3, Informative)
You know, all the problems that prohibition created when it was in effect by giving rise to the mob.
Also, the justice system could focus on more important things, like terr
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:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:4, Interesting)
But why not give it a shot, when the trillions spent already have done nothing to stem the demand?
"But the societal problems of alcohol use remained."
Yes, and they'll remain unless you eradicate every possible way for a human to mess with his brain in a psychologically addictive way. Since that's highly unlikely to ever happen, why not try a more reasonable approach?
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 "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
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legalise "Them"?? (Score:4, Interesting)
You typically can't arrest a problem; you can usually only arrest its symptoms.
Nevada (I think) has legalized prostitution, with certain restrictions and such by the government. From what I've heard, legalized prostitution is less of a problem than illegal prostitution: less disease, less loitering, less time required by law enforcement, and less abuse of sex workers.
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!
There are some people who are mature enough to handle drugs. However, many people don't know the first thing about how drugs affect their brain and body...
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.
One potential problem is that employers might start screening potential employees against the list of people with licenses; I'm not sure if it would be possible to keep the license list private and unavailable to the public, except perhaps if it's considered part of freedom of religion. (Maybe a better name for the license would be "Ceremonial substance permit.")
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 "Them"?? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 "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, Interesting)
But if alcohol is legal, why is marijuana not? It's less harmful to the user and much much less harmful to others around the user. (Assuming you ignore second-hand smoke. And maybe even then.)
And yet instead, it are illegal and expensive. People are forced to break the law to get their fix, so breaking the law again to get the money to get their
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:5, Informative)
Money and control of money. Alcohol takes some equipment and knowledge to make and a way to distribute it to your end user. Marijuana is a weed. Anyone can grow it anywhere so no distribution channel. Which one is easier to control and make money from?
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Growing weed hard? Nonsense (Score:3, Informative)
Nonsense. Marijuana grows ALL OVER THE US. It grows in the wild very very easily. The tipoff is in the nickname: weed.
Weeds grow well in adverse conditions. And marijuana is NO exception. In fact, in certain parts of the US, it literally grows on the roads. In fact, I hunt in SW Kansas every year and one of the popular Dove spots is right in the middle of a giant marijuana patch. And
Re:Legalise Drugs (Score:3, Informative)
The pharmaceutical industry would take a huge hit when happy-pills and antinauseals take a falling out due to their replacement. Marijuana is INCREDIBLY good for clinical depression (in my experience). Also, the most "dangerous" thing about marijuana in the eyes of those in power is that the limits on it cannot be strictly defined. How much does it take to impair your driving? Depends on how big you are. How much does it take to overdose? For
Red Herring: Alchol & Tobacco are easy to make (Score:3, Interesting)
The Beer making process requires: (1) A Stove, (2) a Big Pot to sterilize water, (3) a Big Jug (such as a 5 gallon water bottle from the office cooler), (4) Wheat (and rice in the case of most american beer), (5) Yeast, and (6) Bottles - Most people still buy beer at the goverment taxed store. It's a case of speace effeciency and instanst
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 Drugs (Score:3, Informative)
the most convincing argument i've seen for why it was made illegal in the first place is actually the plastics and paper industry lobbyists, who may well have been responsible for the reefer madness hysteria of the 30's that led to the The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 [cannabis.com] Hemp being a major competitor to plastic and artifical fibre as well as timber required for paper.
it's a great shame because hemp is really real
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: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 Drugs (Score:3, Informative)
Second: Mind altering substances are not bad per se. Most people like caffeine. There is nothing wrong with Acetylsalicyl acid (Aspirin et.al.) Ac
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 act
Another "war" without end.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Feh!
Re:Another "war" without end.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Jaysyn
Re:Another "war" without end.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider the following scenario: you shop at various grocery stores. One of them has a habit of jacking up their prices right as you're checking out in an attempt to milk more money out of you. (Assume this is legal, and they give you the option to walk out entirely without buying anything.) Is this going to make you want to shop there? No, it won't. It may ensare you a few times, but long term it will just make people avoid that store. Now
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.
-1 Wrong (Score:4, Informative)
The experiment with drug politics has turned out to be quite successful. Or at least it showed that controlled sale of marijuana doesn't trigger the end of the world. Other parts of Europe (especially Belgium and Switzerland) have already taken steps into the same direction.
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:Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Then, in the 1980s, an actor named Ronald Reagen, ascending to the office of president from his former job as governor of California, where he knocked the state university down a few notches, decided that America needs to spend all the money it gave back in tax cuts on arresting people who use drugs. Furthermore, we would begin saturating our children with anti-drug propaganda, riddled with half-truths and missing information but disguised as legitimate findings. We would adopt the Christian 12-step programs' philosophy of lifetime addictions ("addiction" has no agreed upon medical definition, by the way. Doctors use the terms "abuse" and "dependence" to describe specific behaviors), then tell the parents that if their kids become intoxicated with any illegal substances they will be lying in the gutters and become complete failures in life. Then, we use this theory that if a drug is illegal it is fundamentally bad in order to justify keeping all drugs illegal, until a new generation arises that grew up surrounded by the propaganda who won't even think to question something that they have been told since the age of 5.
Don't believe me? Consider a substance known as Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; street name is ecstasy). MDMA was sometimes used by psychiatrists for its ability to help people open up, and some research indicated that small amounts of the substance (below the threshold for getting high) could help cure cluster headaches. Then, a couple of techno fans discovered that the high from MDMA was kinda cool at their parties, and soon MDMA became the most popular party drug after alcohol and marijuana. The response of the US government? Reschedule MDMA as a "schedule I" substance, which classifies it as having no known medical use, and tell everybody that MDMA is the new plague threatening their kids. Tell all the kids that MDMA is going to get them in a lot of trouble in life, but don't bother to tell them what effects MDMA actually has, and create mass hysteria about the substance. Then, perform an experiment on primates that shows MDMA is as neurotoxic as methamphetamine is, and then hide the face that the research was recalled because instead of using MDMA, the scientists accidentally used methamphetamine. Result? People are taken about at the suggestion of legalization.
The funny thing is that nobody ever needs to present any evidence to support a claim that drugs are a plague to our society. The claims don't even have to make sense: many people believe that crack is a worse substance than cocaine...because nobody informed them that they are the same drug, taken in a different form (crack is smoked and therefore absorbed faster; but cocaine can be injected, and absorbed still faster). What is the difference between morphine and heroine? One is prescribed by a doctor, one is not (pure heroine and pure morphine have similar effects, both physical and mental). Why isn't alcohol demonized the way other drugs are? What about caffeine, don't people become dependent (physically and ment
Free Power? (Score:3, Funny)
Details, please!
War on drugs (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found in 2004 that about 20% high school seniors had used marijuana in the preceding month.
If 20% of your kids are actively sleeping with the enemy, you've already lost the war. No technology in the world will help you when the enemy has wide spread grass root support in your own country. It'd probably be a good idea to start to negotiate a cease fire.
I'd rather see money be spent on helping those trying to get out of enemy territory than punishing those who want to be there
And before writing an angry rant about how your cousin's roomate was kidnapped by dealers and forced into drug addiction and prostitution, please see my sig.
Well, you *could* win (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason no one wants that is that the cure is worse than the disease.
Re:Well, you *could* win (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:War on drugs (Score:4, 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: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
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.
Re:Can we have a war on the term "war on" (Score:3, Interesting)
The "war on" isn't supposed to make you feel safe, terms like Social "Security" or Medi"care" are supposed to do that.
The "War on x" snowclone [wikipedia.org] is supposed to imply that it is worth a significant sacrifice to get rid of X. It also implies that everyone agrees that X is the enemy.
So the War on Drugs implies that everyone agrees that mary j is bad while b33r and smokes are not. Now,
The tin foil hats got it right... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The tin foil hats got it right... (Score:4, Interesting)
actually it's worse than that. Due to the laws of supply and demand, By failing to reduce the market for drugs, all the war on drugs has done is increase the financial incentives to be a drug dealer.
it is no suprise therefore that many of your local terrorist organisations.. already very criminal by nature have moved into the drugs trade, because of the vast amount of money to be made
so the war on drugs is in direct conflict the war on terror due to economics
the farce of the taliban and heroin in afghanistan is particularly depressing.
prohibition leads to vast wealth going to criminals... choose the lesser of two evils legalise it and make that wealth go to the state.
mind you from my limited knowledge of american history, i seem to recall that many of your blue blooded super rich political families made money bootlegging whisky during prohibition, the kennedy's in particular.
anyone know what the bushes were doing in prohibition?
Re:The tin foil hats got it right... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The tin foil hats got it right... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The tin foil hats got it right... (Score:3, Informative)
Don't you mean the war on... (Score:5, Interesting)
Caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco are all "psychotropic" substances.
Re:Don't you mean the war on... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
War on drugs is a myth (Score:5, Informative)
"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Evidence of this today in the article summary:
"Those who cultivate, manufacture, and smuggle illegal drugs can leverage vast sums of cash, generated by constant demand."
The war on drugs is a guise to control people and to actively have racial crimes on the books.
What negatively affects me the most about the "war on drugs" is that it essentially makes having mental illness a crime. Many, if not most, people with mental illnesses get addicted to drugs and alcohol because of their mental illness, and trying to quit because of legal reasons with little to no medical attention is next to impossible. Next time you see the wino-street-drunk, odds are he just needs medical attention, but you and the government would prefer him to just be "off the street" and out of our sight. I know one of these guys who happened to get medical help, and he is pretty cool. He used to be a "garden variety street drunk" who would badger people, spit when he talked, and all of that. And today he is better not because of going to jail and being punished, but by being helped.
'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.
Bill Hicks (Score:5, Funny)
Illegal drugs (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting twist (Score:3, Informative)
And just to toss in another favorite Slashdottery, you have to wonder if Monsanto will be doing something if those coca plants are violating the patent on Round Up resistant plants?
Talk and Action? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I popped into this thread, I was expecting to see the usual arguments. I was expecting to spend a little time combatting ignorance. I wasn't expecting any actual progress.
However, what amazed me was that every highly rated comment (I browse at +3) was pro-legalization. Every single one. Sure, they were responding to some of the same tired old arguments, but it seemed that the pro-legalization camp was far more strongly represented by both posters and mods. That surprised me and made me hopeful. I'm a regular financial supporter of The Marijuana Policy Project [mpp.org]. There are so many lost causes in the world, improvements I'd love to see that will never happen. But I believe this is one issue that we might actually see resolved in our lifetimes.
I live in the Las Vegas area, and there is a statutory initiative [reviewjournal.com] on the ballot this upcoming election [reviewjournal.com]. Please, please, please, if you live in the Las Vegas area get out and vote. There are initiatives in other states as well, but I don't know the details there.
I am convinced now there is more than enough support to pass legalization in many states. But people need to get active about it. They need to watch the issue an vote. If this is an issue you care about, please take the time. We're at a possible turning point in the next 10 to 20 years. We can make things better.
Cheers.
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:Legalization question (Score:3, Interesting)
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
The "war on drugs" (Score:5, Interesting)
Gigantic megacorps that run farms like factories can ride out yearly dips and rises in the commodity price of staple crops, but some peasant trying to grow wheat cant say to his kids "wheat is worthless this year, but we can eat next year"; so the peasant farmers of colombia have to find a crop that has constant demand no matter what the US government is subsidising, embargoing or shipping out as aid, and that crop is coca and cannabis.
From a former foot soldier in the WoD (Score:3, Interesting)
The WoD will never be won. Never, ever, ever. If the US Govt can't even keep drugs out of prisons how are going to keep them out of anywhere else? It's all about the money. The money drives the passion to find new ways to maximize profits. The illegal drug industry is incredibly creative. Here's a couple of examples:
- Back in the '80s New Bedford, MA was an entry point for heroin. Larger fishing boats would stuff the drugs in a trash fish (any type of fish with little or no resale valve) out at sea, flash freeze and bury them with their catch. The trash fish and drugs would be quietly put aside while unloading or prepossessing. We're talking a few fish out of hundreds of pounds of catch. Virtually impossible to catch.
- In the Pacific Northwest bails of marijuana are towed behind boats from Canada, sealed and partly weighed down. If they think they're going to get caught they note the position on GPS, cut the line and the bails sink. The weights dragging the bails down are held together with zinc connections that are meant to break in a day or two. The bails re-float and are retrieved.
- Large fishing boats with three fuel tanks. Well, one real and two for the drugs. To conceal the true purpose of these outer tanks they'd seal the sounding tubes and fill partly with fuel. A LEO would check the tank, see it had fuel and assume it was a real fuel tank.
- Submarine found in Colombian Andes [cnn.com]. Unreal.
It's a war that can not be won. IMO the solution is to legalize (and tax) marijuana like alcohol and allow MDs to prescribe Schedule I/II/III drugs "for maintenance" of a habit. The latter will greatly help slow the spread of blood born diseases and control dosing (a critical part in helping those addicted in finally stopping their habit).
Prohibition is a total fucking failure. The only proponents are those that make their living off of it: the Police, the rehab industry and those that sell them the tools. Go read Jacob Sullum's landmark book "Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use" for an eye openner.
Drug War is a sham (Score:3, Informative)
The UK isn't so bad. Atleast they have had the courage to allow medical marijuana research, which has resulted in the legal Sativex [wikipedia.org]. Cannabis is classified as Class C, resulting in warnings & fine for possession. And very recently, a parliamentary committee lambasted [scienceblogs.com] the whole classification system. Even many senior politicians (like David Cameron) and police chiefs have called for considering legalization. The US does have an equivalent movement in LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition [leap.cc]) with about 5,000 officers, but getting the word out relies on media accomodation, and unlike the UK, the US is not a very tolerant venue.
--posted on behalf of daksya
Re:Last Saturday (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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
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 happine
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:Pot is Illegal?? (Score:3, Funny)
Guess the thing about pot screwing up you memory is true. =P
Now that i think of it, maybe we just found what's responsible for all those dupes on Slashdot.
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