A lot of drug users here...

The BBQ Pit
41

I could’ve put it in Great Debates, but I figured it may get heated, so i put it in the pit. Also, because it was, in a way, a complaint. Sort of.

None at all. I’m not trying to stop you from doing it. I can’t do that, you’re gonna do whatever you want anyway. I also do things that are dangerous to my health - mostly the crappy food I eat. And I’m gonna keep doing that no matter what anyone says.

I guess I just look on drugs as such an obviously unnecessary thing, a dangerous thing, and a clearly illegal thing in most countries. I figured that would be enough for most intelligent people to steer clear.

Okay, so they don’t. But do they have to say people should be using them? That they feel they’re justified in breaking this law? That’s going too far, isn’t it?

Well, I think so anyway.

-PIGEONMAN-
Hero For A New Millennium!

The Legend Of PigeonMan - Back in the new year! Honest. I promise. No, really.

42

Off topic, but Guano, ain’t it Y2K in your location. Did you just make the very first SDMB post by a person on the other side of the Big Odometer Rollover[sup]TM[/sup]?

Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine

43

Matt, you’re basically saying that you decide when the law applies to yourself

Well, maybe he’s sort of saying that … in that a decision to obey or flout a law is indeed a decision. And we all make those decision, consciouly or unconsciouly, one way or another, many times each day.

I believe that his point was that “legal” and “moral” are two concepts that may overlap but are not identical. If you accept the premise that Hitler’s actions were legal, do you believe that they were therfore moral? If you accept the premise that the Hungarian revolutionaries’ actions were illegal, do you beleive that they were therefore immoral?

Or, to introduce another example, were the people who revolted against George III acting morally or imorally?

jrf

44

Apples and Oranges!

You’re talking about people needing to survive, and an insane dictator who bent the rules to suit himself!

I’m talking about a drug that is deemed harmful enough to be made illegal. I consider that enough to stay away, quite apart from the fact that nobody needs it. (short of being prescribed for them by a trained professional, in small controlled doses) They all just want to get high because they think it’s “fun”.

I think that’s sad in itself, but I wasn’t really talking about that aspect originally.

-PIGEONMAN-
Hero For A New Millennium!

The Legend Of PigeonMan - Back in the new year! Honest. I promise. No, really.

45

Gee just think of the possibilities for future threads!..

A lot of fast drivers here…

A lot of people that have kinky sex here…

A lot of people that take pens home from work here…

A lot of people that fudged their charitable deductions on their 1040 here…

What a trailblazer!

46

The facts on marijuana use.

<FONT COLOR="#228B22">K</FONT COLOR="#228B22"><FONT COLOR=“red”>e</FONT COLOR=“red”><FONT COLOR=“purple”>w</FONT COLOR=“purple”><FONT COLOR=“teal”>l</FONT COLOR=“teal”>

Happy New Year Everyone.

47

I did drugs for thirty years.

I spent nearly ten of those years trying to stop.

I learned a few things.

Addictive isn’t limited to opiates.

No one can get someone else off drugs.

The law had nothing to do with it.

It was a big mistake, which cost me half a lifetime.

I got over it.

I have a drink now and then, there are two bottles of booze here in my apartment, along with one bottle of wine, and two bottles of acetominophen. All five are getting near the end of their shelf life.

Don’t do drugs. But then, don’t take advice from strangers on the Internet, either.

<P ALIGN=“CENTER”>Tris</P>

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
–Chief Seattle

48

I dunno. I smoke hash with some frequency, myself. Then again, I live in Spain, where possession of small amounts of cannabis and the use thereof is legal. This “saddened” and “sickened” stuff is ridiculous. Smoking a little hash is not going to hurt anybody. If you let it take over your life, like some people let computer games or porn or posting to Internet message boards take over their lives, then it is pretty pathetic. However, most people who smoke dope don’t let it take over their lives.

Gee, this thread has really made me feel like firing one up. Think I will.

49

Guano said:

Coldfire, speeding is illegal, dangerous, and wrong. I will not do it, no matter how much you promote it towards me.

I’d say it is by definition illegal, it can be dangerous and, consequently, it can be wrong. Still, you didn’t answer my question Guano. Regardless of the fact that you would never do it, am I morally wrong in promoting it because it is illegal ?

The answer is of course: NO. And the same reasoning applies when promoting (or rather, debating) drugs with non-users. It is the decision of the tempted party whether to try something or not. Goes for speeding, goes for drugs. Both illegal, yet the morality is in the eye of the beholder. Or so it seems.

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
50

Breaking the law is immoral in itself, in my eyes. So yes, speeding is also immoral. If you think it’s not, then obviously we’re on such different wavelengths about the issue, we’ll never agree.

-PIGEONMAN-
Hero For A New Millennium!

The Legend Of PigeonMan - Back in the new year! Honest. I promise. No, really.

51

If you believe that breaking laws is immoral, that would mean, to me, that you place the responsibility of setting your moral standards into the (capable?) hands of politicians.

Some things in New York (my home state) that are illegal:

According to law, it is a misdemeanor to arrest a dead man.
It is illegal to flirt with a woman, punishable by $25 fine.
Albany - it is illegal to play golf on the street.
Carmel - it is illegal for a man to appear in public with pants and shirt that do not match.
Greene - it is against the law to eat peanuts and walk backwards when a concert is on.
New York City - it is against the law to have an unclothed mannequin in a store window.
New York City - according to the law, “it is legal for a woman to ride the subway topless since it is legal for a man to ride the subway topless.”
Staten Island - it is illegal to water your lawn with a sprinkler.

In other parts of the country:

1-When visiting Louisiana, remember that it is illegal to gargle in public…you can do just about anything else in public, but NO gargling!

2-And be careful that you do not get caught shaving while driving in Massachusetts or you’ll be in real trouble.

3-If you’re going to be driving through Utah, be alert because the birds have the right of way on the state highways.

4-And walking down the streets of Maine with your shoes strings untied is also illegal.

5-Oh, and in Atlanta, not only is it illegal to tie your giraffe to a telephone pole but if you get caught dressing a mannequin without shutting the window shades, you
could be in big trouble.

6-When in Nebraska, keep in mind not to spit against wind because not only is it messy, its also illegal.

7-Eating out in Connecticut became so much more pleasant once the law requiring restaurateurs to provide separate nose-blowing and non-nose-blowing sections,
went into effect.

8-And if you decide to order cherry pie while eating in Kansas, don’t waste your time asking it to be served with a scoop of ice-cream on top…it against the law.

9-In California, its against the law to peel an orange in your hotel room…I guess its ok to peel it in the hallway & then go into your room.

10-If you’re planning to do any fishing while visiting Chicago, be sure you don’t do it in your pajamas or you might spend the rest of your vacation in jail.

11-And if you’re going to set a fire under your mule, don’t do it in Ohio…yep, its against the law. Can you believe it?

12-Whistling under water will result in more than getting water in your nose, it will also get you put in jail if you do it in Vermont.

13-And while you and your beloved spouse are enjoying the Florida sun, don’t throw dishes if you happen to have a little disagreement with each other. If you break
more than 3 a day, you could spend the rest of your vacation eating off of metal trays in the county jail.
These “laws” were obtained from: http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Cove/6126/law.html
http://members.tripod.com/~Kellovision/wacky.htm

52

Oh, of course you can’t. Law is binding in a given jurisdiction. But it doesn’t equal morality!

Think of it this way. Homosexual sex was illegal in Canada until (I think) the seventies. Did it suddenly switch its moral status?

Something can’t really suddenly switch from moral to immoral, but it can switch from being legal to illegal (and vice versa). This indicates that the law is a matter of definition, not of fact. Unfortunately, it is enforced as though it were a matter of fact.

To review: yes, many things that are illegal are unethical too. But many illegal things are ethical (or ethically neutral), and a great many unethical things are legal. Law doesn’t have a monopoly on morality, and so it’s not immoral, of itself, to break the law by committing a morally neutral act.

By the way, two of your statements don’t jibe:

Make up your mind. The Hungarian resistance activists broke the law. For that matter, Gandhi broke the law when he marched to the sea to make salt, and so did everyone taking part in your beloved American Revolution. Were they behaving immorally? This is going to get pretty difficult for you to defend in a little while.

53

I should clarify: the law is legally binding, not morally binding. Since it’s somewhat challenging for a state to enforce ethics, we have instead the law, breaking which is punishable by imprisonment, fines, etc. But that’s all it is. It’s an abstract system imposed by a state to maintain order and a semblance of public ethics. It may approach ethics asymptotically but never necessarily reach it.

The law should not be mistaken for ethics, which are 1) real and 2) a matter of practical concern. As for smoking pot, everybody (except Coldfire :slight_smile: ) can see that it’s illegal. That’s banal and uninteresting as a topic of debate, because all you need to do is refer to your criminal code.

Is it unethical? That’s more interesting. Whether it’s illegal or not is irrelevant, since that’s a matter of definition.

54

Guano said:

Breaking the law is immoral in itself, in my eyes. So yes, speeding is also immoral. If you think it’s not, then obviously we’re on such different wavelengths about the issue, we’ll never agree.

Granted. And that’s fine. But my question (and I may not have been clear enough) was foscused at the promoting of an illegal act. You stated before in this thread, that it is immoral to promote drug use to others, based on the premises that drug use is illegal (for your reference, I responded by stating that it would only be immoral if the promoting was aimed at people unable to make a proper judgment call [children, mentally handicapped, etc.]). So, my countering question was (rephrased): is it then also immoral to promote speeding, since that is also illegal ?

Note that I don’t care about the morality of the act of speeding itself. I’m merely interested if you will draw the analogy the same way as I am picturing it here.

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
55

I think either you guys are confused, or (more likely I think) I’m getting confused. We seem to be straying a bit from my original point, which was a simple “I don’t like what I see here regarding this issue, well, that’s all I have to say.”

Unethical? Hmm. That may be a better word than immoral, and more accurate to what I’m getting at.

It doesn’t matter what the law says. Sure, list amusing antiquated laws that haven’t been removed from legislature. Haha. It means fuck all to the original point of course, but it’s a giggle.

But guys - to knowingly break the law, that is a serious law that is so contentious that it has constantly been under review (so it’s not just some arbitrary thing), but really any serious law - is wrong! It really doesn’t matter what the law is, breaking it is wrong!

Getting to the drug issue - clearly all of the drug-users out there feel that they should be allowed to do this if they want to, despite the law and the perceived health risks (and there are so many contradictory statistics out there, that I really don’t know what the facts are, and I wonder if anyone truly does). I personally don’t think they should do it, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to stop them, because it just isn’t going to change anything.

However, I can feel a bit sad that it’s so prevalent, that they talk about it like it’s a good thing, that they recommend everyone does it so that now they can make an ‘informed choice’. Because I, personally, don’t like that. It just doesn’t seem like a good thing to me at all.

Thank you. That is ALL I will say. Sorry if I didn’t answer your questions, but we’re straying too far from my point now, and I fear I’ll end up saying something severely stupid that I’ll regret.

-PIGEONMAN-
Hero For A New Millennium!

The Legend Of PigeonMan - Back in the new year! Honest. I promise. No, really.

56

As I understand it, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court desion of 1896 was serious law. The Supreme Court decided, after years of back-and-forth, that the laws in various Southern and Midwestern states that required that black people and white people be “separate but equal” were OK constitutionally.

Then Martin Luther King and the Freedom Riders and the lunch counter sit-ins and the Montgomery bus boycott came along and said, “No, this is not OK. In fact, this is very wrong.” And they were right and the law was wrong.

I do not wish to equip the struggle for black people’s civil rights with the right or lack thereof to use certain drugs. But the fact that the law is the law does not mean that the law is right.

57

By the way, GuanoLad, cite me some source outside High Times that shows illegal drug users promoting drug use on the grounds that everyone should do it in order to make an informed choice. Jeez. This makes me want to fire up another one. Legally. With pleasure.

58

lawrence, I’m talking about members of this board, not the general population of the world.

And thank you once again for missing my point totally.

-PIGEONMAN-
Hero For A New Millennium!

The Legend Of PigeonMan - Back in the new year! Honest. I promise. No, really.

59

GuanoLad said…

  1. Er, GuanoLad, if it’s a contentious law, doesn’t that tell you something about it? I.e. that a large enough number of people to introduce change don’t agree with the law as currently defined?

  2. As a very rough definition (I’ve asked a lawyer friend) “the law” is a set of guidelines on prevailing acceptable behaviours within a society, with punitive measures for those who do not observe said guidelines. The law reflects a particular view of morality at any one time, not a moral absolute.

  3. If you don’t like casual drug-taking, then that is your right and I respect you for attempting to defend such beliefs here. However, you’re not convincing me that just because you don’t like it I should feel bad for doing it.

I never touched him, ref, honest!

60

I’ve re-read Guanos OP. I think that ,originally, he was simply surprised to learn that drugs, when enjoyed in moderation, are not the “destroy your life” demons wreaking havoc on society that they are portrayed to be on television. Drugs destroy those who use not to enhance life but to escape it. There is only one way to escape life, and it aint drugs. That’s why a pattern of abuse develops. In the end, the results are not pretty in most cases. Most often they are an ugly, mean, down and dirty struggle against that which started out looking like the answer.

That intelligent people with successful, stable lives can maintain their desired lifestyles, which might include drug usage, might seem strange to anyone who only sees that part of drug usage that is taken to extremes i.e. abuse and destructiveness. Who the hell wants to read about the person who smoked some bones and enjoyed a good novel that particular evening? Or the person who who ate some mushrooms and gained a little insight about themselves while lounging on the couch?

Guano, don’t be sad for those of us whose many interests in life may also happen to include drugs. Do be sad for those whose lives are overtaken,controlled, and sometimes ended by their addictions. Believe me, they never intended it to happen.