When it was legal there wasn’t any information about them, that’s the difference. Heroin was thought to be a non-addictive wonder drug when it came out. Cocaine was put in sodas.
Regulating does not mean hide information and encourage use. On the contrary. Portugal has fewer addicts now than they had when it was still criminal. And the addicts they still have are much healthier.
No more of this, thanks. Save the insults for The BBQ Pit.
Drugs? Legalise the lot and tax them. It’s sad that we have not learned from the Prohibition era.
The WoD is both profitable and a great guise for domestic militarization and foreign intervention. It’s not going anywhere.
I’m not convinced that legalizing hard drugs is a panacea for what ails the Western world, but it can’t really be much worse than status quo.
Well, people who jump off buildings don’t die from jumping from buildings, per se, but from poor landings.
Well then drunk driving isn’t very dangerous either. People have died from crashing their car (while they were driving drunk) and people have died from alcohol poisoning (I don’t know if you could drive if you were even close to alcohol poisoning) but noone has died from the act of driving while they were drunk.
It’s turning into one of those ‘guns don’t kill people, bullet holes kill people!’ conversations, isn’t it?
Does this work? The physiological instability caused by ecstasy is an integral aspect of the body’s reaction to the drug. Take a little and you get a little. Take a lot and you get a lot.
Cf. snowboarding, in which you don’t get a small amount of ‘crashing into trees’ from doing it a little. Crashing into trees isn’t an integral aspect of snowboarding.
Cf. drunk driving, in which the incurred risk involves other people’s lives, whereas with snowboarding or ecstasy it is pretty much only your own skin on the line.
Don’t know much biology,
Don’t know much about a science book,
Don’t know much about the pills I took…
What a wonderful world this would be… for 3-4 hours or so, assuming you didn’t get bunk.
As you say, you don’t know much about ecstasy; and crashing into things and falling is certainly an integral aspect of snowboarding. The effects of crashing into things and falling are undoubtedly cumulative.
Tell that to Sonny Bono.
Good point. Which is why the death threat from E is such a load of tosh. Hundreds of thousands take it every weekend without any serious side effects, but some people would rather focus on the one person who died in a 6 mth period.
Or indeed ecstasy or the horse? From the establishment-leaning right-of-centre Daily Telegraph: Ecstasy ‘no more dangerous than horse riding’ says head of [UK] government’s drug advisory body. This is old news - Prof Nutt was later forced to resign for not telling the government what they wanted to hear wrt cannabis. Later, five members of the drugs advisory panel quit in protest.
I don’t do either ecstasy or horses, but combining the two does sound like a lot of fun.
No, no! It would depend entirely on the horse. If it was one of those that went crazy when a piece of paper blows by, it’d be absolutely terrifying.
What is being done is comparing drugs to not taking drugs. And that way anything that isn’t vitamins is going to look bad. Because yes, recreational drugs are in general not healthy. That’s why they’re recreational drugs and not health food. And people will use them, and have used them for as long as we have any historical record. Of course the best option would (probably) be that people stopped doing drugs at all. But that’s a pipe dream (excuse the pun).
The only reasonable thing, to me, is to compare drugs with other drugs used for simmilar reasons and see what can be done to make the use safer and less unhealthy. That starts with actually learning and understanding the effects of them. We’ve tried prohibition. It made things worse. We’ve tried (real) information, rehabilitation and treatment. And it seems to work. You won’t get a drug free world, but you’ll solve a lot of problems and make even more problems less serious.
Here’s my proposal for a more rational drug policy:
Less dangerous drugs should be commercially available, taxed and regulated. Any current drug or alcohol store should be able to sell them if they have a license. This creates revenue from taxes as well as licensing, the licensing also gives control over the distribution. They should be required to print information about the medical effects and side effects on the package. You could also ban advertisment of the drugs or at least regulate it.
More dangerous drugs should be available to addicts, but not legal to sell without a prescription. Revenue from taxes and licenses from the less dangerous drugs should be used to sponsor campaigns and information discouraging use. Drug addiction should be treated as a disease. It won’t be illegal to use even these drugs, but it will be illegal for anyone other than the government to manufacture or sell them. Yes, I think the Government should be producing AND distributing heroin (to addicts). Everyone using these drugs should be offered rehabilitation programs, and the price of the drugs should be so low that a minimum wage worker should be able to support his addiction without committing crimes.
Less dangerous drugs would be: Cannabis, LSD, Ecstasy, Tobacco and GHB (Khat should just be sold as a vegetable in grocery stores, it’s not a “real” drug). Alcohol should be in this category but the majority of resources for reducing drug use should be focused on alcohol, since it is both the most dangerous and most commonly used drug in this category. You could have a “booze for pot or ecstacy” exchange program if you wanted, or you could just adjust the system so that retailers make bigger profits on other drugs. That will cause an incitament to say “Hey you sure you want a keg of beer? People throwing up and getting into fights are your party… You could try some weed and this cool water pipe if you’re having a laid back party, or some ecstasy if you’re more into dancing and stuff. It’s more fun, less cleaning up…”
More dangerous drugs would be Heroin, Cocaine and Meth.
This would remove the main revenue income for criminal networks. Hard for colombian drug lords to get their stuff sold when the junkies can just go to the drug store and get their drugs at minimum cost. It would also completely remove the incitament for crime for the addicts themselves. You don’t need to rob people or prostitute yourself to support your drug problem. Obviously this should also be retroactive, meaning that all sentences for drug use are nullified. All sentences for selling drugs are in the case of the less dangerous drugs mentioned either reduced to reflect the new system, or offered amnesty. Sales of the more dangerous drugs remains a serious crime, but obviously won’t be a very profitable one once the addicts can get their drugs prescribed.
You will reduce total crime and reduce addiction. You will improve health and increase tax revenue. The only drawback is that people will get more individual freedom, but I can live with that. 
Anyone interested in drug-related anecdotes could do worse than have a read of Howard Marks Book Of Dope Stories. There are all sorts of insights and titbits of drug lore in there.
:rolleyes:
I just LOVE how everyone here argues for legalization. Yes, it would remove the crime factor from addicts committing crimes b/c they’re so desperate for cash for the drugs. BUT, a lot of addicts have misplaced priorties…like they might not have enough money for food or gas or to pay the electricity bill, but they spend it on drugs first and foremost. I saw that with my friend who didn’t have enough money to pay the electicity bill, but had enough money for cigerettes and cheese flavored potato chips.
Also, why the hell should we condone addicts giving themselves brain damage/mental illness? I know the theroy has been " oh they’re just “self medicating” And maybe that’s true in some cases…BUT how do we know that the drug abuse isn’t creating brain damage/mental illness by itself, rather then trying to use illegal substances to “self medicate?”
I do think that the mental side effects from drug abuse are a reason to keep them illegal. Yes, we should treat addicts, as mentally ill and not nessarily criminals…I support programs like that. But then again, on the other hand how sucessful are rehab programs? There are sucesses true, but there are also many many multiple relaspe and death and living on the street and jail stories.
My understanding is that heroin itself is virtually harmless, aside from the lifestyle one leads in order to afford it, and the likelihood that what you’re buying is not pure heroin. Legalise it (or more exactly, make it a prescription drug) and you remove both those factors. Is this not so?
That’s a serious question, BTW.
Do you support making cigarettes and cheese flavored potato chips illegal?
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying here. The theory has not been, and is not “oh they’re just self medicating.” The theory is “criminalizing drug use is not effective as a deterrent, and may be doing more harm than good.”
Compare rehab success to the success of prison sentences for drug use. Which do you suppose is more destructive?
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to stop financing Al-Qaida and Mexican gangs. How about you? Bad (like, really bad) people make money because drugs are not legally available. Even if de-criminalizing drugs was bad for addicts, taking away the biggest source of income for criminal organizations would be worth it.
If that is an argument at all it is an argument FOR legalizing. Drug addicts WILL get their drugs whether it’s legal or not, the only question is how much money they have to make to get it, the more money, the more crime. And of course, this money is now going to criminal organisations.
Legalizing does not equal condoning, it equals controlling. If you legalize it, you can do something about the problems.
So you ARE against people dying or going to jail? So am I. I want to keep drug use to a minimum and at the same time remove revenue from criminals, increase revenue for the state and help addicts get treatment.