Make cannabis legal. Make it available in shops. Pass laws to control the quality and price. Make it only available to over 21s. This will eliminate the need for the black market, taking the pushers off the streets.
Crack down hard on countries that export opium poppies. Get internation agreement that these countries cannot legally export opium poppies. These poppies have to leave the country somehow. Check all modes of transport to make sure no opium poppies leave the country. If individuals or companies flaunt this, punish them. This can be through sanctions, international trade restrictions, imprisonment of key people.
Crack down hard on the cocaine producing countries. These countries are in South America. Find the drug barons who control the production and exportation. Get international police / intelligence forces to gather enough evidence to bust them. Lock them up for a long time, and break up their cartels. Make the punishment severe enough to deter other potential drug barons. Again, check all ports of entry to prevent the importation of further cocaine. This would solve the cocaine and crack cocaine problem.
Well, this is a start. There are plenty other drugs out there but these probably are the most popular. Are governments making any progress on these issues? Why don’t they have a plan along the lines of the points above? Am I oversimlifying, and if I am, can you explain a better plan?
I should point out that the only illegal drug I have ever used was cannabis. I’m not proud of this, and I’m certainly not advocating the use of cannabis. Cannabis is not good for you, but it is a widely used recreational drug. I think cannabis is not as bad for you as cigarettes. Thousands of people are made to feel like criminals for using a small amount of cannabis every once in a while. These people hold down jobs, have families, live normal lives. I don’t think these people should be made to feel like outlaws.
You lost me after #1. I think it should be legalized but you’d have to get a license to use it. Kind of like the requirements for consealed carry. You go to some classes that teach the pros, cons, and long term health risks to drug use. Not propaganda BS, just the straight dope. Then you trust people as adults, having been presented the facts, to make the right decision for themselves.
I wonder if they made pot legal if it would deter or promote drug use of other illegal drugs. Do people smoke pot just to feel good and being illegal is just a coincidence, or is the thrill of doing something illegal factored in? I liken it to alcohol abuse by minors in the U.S. to abuse by minors in say Japan where you can find it in the vending machines.
Here’s why #2 sounds like a great idea, but doesn’t work. Politicians are too open to influence. Someone will always have some reason NOT to crack down (or not to do so as hard) on a certain country (see: Afganistan). We can’t do it right now, it’ll “destable” things, etc., etc., etc. BTW, we put Noriega in jail. Didn’t that make drug use plummet in the US…?
No. 1 won’t work. Too much money in the manufacture, packaging and distribution of alcohol. Those who drink, usually smoke, and with legal pot, who would need booze? You’d see a HUGE hit taken by the manufacturers and distributors of alcohol, although Cap’n Crunch sales would be through the roof.
No. 2 and 3 fail because… There is no way to decrease the supply, until you decrease the demand, and there is no way to decrease the demand without an increase in money for treatment programs. That increase would cause a major league drop in the enforcement and corrections budgets, which have lead to other inroads the feds and locals have into our privacy. Once you’ve lost privacy, and rights, you will NEVER get them back, NEVER.
What’s more, the corruption in these third world countries is so rampant, that the more money we toss down the collective gullets of the local drug lords and politicians, the bigger the problem becomes.
bullshit to #1 in the above. i smoke weed and i drink. i like them both. i see problems with both, but only with abuse. even with abuse, if it is only hurting the abuser, what is the problem? nevertheless, marijuana being legal would not hurt the alcohol industry. myself and my friends are evidence of this. they are different drugs with different effects, and both have their place.
ditto to most of the comments in regards to #2 + 3. we have been doing this. i say, legalize all drugs. it sickens me that marijuana offenders get much larger jail terms than rapists. what the fuck? do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law until you violate the rights of another…
legalize all drugs. educate (truthfully) as to the dangers of drugs. tell black people, for example, that the CIA used crack to keep them down. tell people the truth. people will still use (even very dangerous and detrimental) drugs, but education will help alleviate the problem. let people have whatever they want. regulate it. no dirty shit. leave the prisons for the fuckers who murder and rape and rob and all that shit. (those who violate the rights of another).
I totally agree with you. We should legalize everything. I think it’s the best possible alternative for the government to control drugs. People are going to do drugs no matter what, and it least if they are legal the government will have much more control over quality and be able to limit access to minors. I remember when I was in high school it was 10x easier for me to get weed than alcohol. Plus, any time a substance is made illegal it becomes much more dangerous - look at all the people who went blind or died from alcohol during the prohibition. On top of all this, instead of wasting money trying to stop drugs we will be able to tax them. Honestly, if crack was made legal, how many of you would suddenly go and buy a bunch of crack to smoke? People are motivated to use drugs for reasons other than the law.
Amarinth, my cite is 10 years of going to bars. Futher, the statement is less assertion, and more assumption, based on my own experiences.
[soapbox]It kills me that the life a person has lived is hardly evidence enough for this crowd, they chatter on about needing a ‘cite’, needing to examine the life of someone else to validate ones’ own experience or statement of opinion. [/soapbox]
As I was saying, just my time spent in the world that give me this info, that’s all.
Cannabis is not a “replacement” for alcohol. Alcohol is a social lubricant, it loosens you up; but cannabis makes you, you know, stoned.
Think of the last time you went to a beer-chuggin’, music-pumpin’, foot-stompin’, cutie-scammin’ party. How exciting would it have been if everyone was just sitting on the couch smoking weed and staring at the TV?
Or worse yet, think of the last time you arrived at a party a couple hours after everyone else. Would you rather try to make small talk with a group that’s been drinking for the past hour, or smoking pot?
I think we should make every drug that is currently illegal both legal and free. No one would need to steal,kill or prostitute themselves to get their fix. This should help drop crime rates a little. Possesion and distribution wouldnt be illegal. This should empty the jails a bit. With free and plentiful drugs addicts will all O.D. and die within a few days. This should clear up the drug problem a bit.
If it was all free and legal we could just leave it in bins and leave it up to mother nature. No one will be forced to take it, but no one will be stopped from takeing it either. The stupid and weak wil be weeded out in a few days and the rest of us can get on with the business of being productive citizens.
Close, Denis Leary. samarm,another reason it wouldn’t work is because #2 and #3 require the assistance of other countries. The US can’t just go into every country that produces opium or cocaine and say “you’re going to let us check every package that leaves here, search every truck that crosses the border, do a five mile wide sweep of every outhouse, boathouse, dog house and bird house in the area for wayward bagel toppings.”
The leaders of these countries will not say “why sure Mr. President. And if you’ve brought enough lube, I’ll be happy to have my assistants spread apart my ass cheeks so someone can check in there to make sure no illegal drugs get transported across my borders through me.”
To do what you’re proposing would take military intervention. Military intervention would lead to royally pissed off natives because that’s exactly what would happen if any country tried to do that to us. How many honest to goodness wars did you wish to start in order to stop the war on drugs?
Ah but could the U.S. get the UN to send in UN Narcotics Inspectors looking for smoking gun proof that the countries have the narcotics we’re accusing them of having?
I wouldn’t put it past this administration to get marajuana, cocaine and heroin declared as bio-chemical warfare agents.