It seems to me the War on Drugs has certainly not been won, and it’s questionable whether it’s even winnable. So for the purpose of this thread, let’s assume there arises a national consensus to end this particular war. Just how should we go about it? What would be the details?
Just stop prosecuting users and dealers?
Free all current prisoners convicted of drug use? Possession?
Legalize currently controlled substances? Which ones?
Impose taxes on legalized substances? At the state or federal level? How much?
Would the pushers still be in business to avoid the taxation?
Charge higher insurance premiums to users to cover rehab?
Restrict legal use to age 21? 18? 16?
Would we then just imprison underage users? Those who sell to underage users?
Would we just be trading one set of problems for another?
Legalize it - treat like alcohol, tobacco. FDA-regulate it. Then open treatment centers with a fraction of the money saved by closing down the DEA and other associated ‘war on drugs’ departments in other agencies. Reform education to include a real daily health curriculum in which diet, exercise, real biological affects of narcotics, etc are taught. Discourage the use by educating people what it does, but let people make their own decisions - not this whole ‘this is your brain - this is your brain on drugs’ scare-tactic BS.
I agree-declare victory and legalize. For eally dangerous drugs, combine a policy of “carrot and sticK”-encourage users to quit (drugs like heroin and meth). For chronic users, jail time for multiple offences.
[ul]
[li]Legalization of all substances immediately[/li][li]Tax at the same rates as alcohol and tobacco[/li][li]Use at least 25% of that tax money to fund treatment, education, and rehabilitation programs[/li][li]Amnesty without retstitution for all incarcerated offenders convicted solely on drug charges[/li][/ul]
I support legalization, but if you gave me a magic wand that could bring it about, I wouldn’t use it for atleast 10 years. The lopsided attitudes sustained by, and sustaining prohibition for the past few decades, make it very unwise to quickly change the environment from socially condemning any & all drug use to expressing official tolerance of drug use per se. In the interim, I would phase out criminal penalties for personal possession and non-violent low-scale activities like “dealing” (such as one friend selling some MDMA to another). In fact, this is what the Shafer Commission recommended for marijuana in 1972.
Attitudes towards drugs in the US are hostile, relative to Europe. Look at heroin prescription i.e. supplying treatment-resistant severe addicts with a controlled legal supply of pharmaceutical grade heroin. Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain, UK all have such programs. The Swiss were the first to implement it in the modern era in 1994 (the UK had it from the 1920s to the 1960s, when it was stopped due to concerns over diversion of the heroin) and they have had very good results. The Swiss population consequently has a more favorable disposition towards liberalizing the laws: a 1998 referendum for legalization (“DroLeg”) had 28% in support - a dramatic result considering the almost certainly single-digit positive response likely here, in the US. Drug consumption rooms for injecting drug users, in order to provide clean needles and a discreet private venue for drug use, are common in Europe, but forget about that in the US. There’s a strong moral component in the US that actually drives hostility towards drugs, even if the formal public expression is disguised as Public Health.
As the British organization campaigning for legalization, Transform Drug Policy Foundation, says, what is likely to happen is that parts of Europe, within the next decade, will take the bold first step, and accede from the global drug control treaties viz. the UN conventions which mandate a crime-based approach to drugs. The US will very likely follow, not lead.
Let me use this post to request that interested posters participate in the drug policy survey I put forward in an earlier GD thread. Thanks.
If we legalize lots of stuff, would use of those drugs then
[list][li]increase greatly because those whose only impediment is the illegality would start using?[/li][li]stay about the same because legal status makes no difference to most potential users?[/li][li]decrease because the forbidden fruit aspect is removed?[/ul][/li]I would suspect use would increase because the reason for
But then
Would this present an even greater challenge to the health care system?
Would the economy be degraded by a lowering of overall productivity?
[QUOTE=jebert]
If we legalize lots of stuff, would use of those drugs then
[ul][li]increase greatly because those whose only impediment is the illegality would start using?[/li][li]stay about the same because legal status makes no difference to most potential users?[/li][li]decrease because the forbidden fruit aspect is removed?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Use after legalization depends on how it happens, especially the rhetoric on the justification for legalization. In popular culture, there is an implicit recognition that when ordered by harm potential, drugs fall along a gradient with smoked meth (“ice”), injected heroin, smoked cocaine at one end and marijuana at the other, with the remaining drugs in between. I foresee a U-shaped increase in drug use, with the former seeing modest increases in use, the latter also seeing only modest increase (due to saturation), but the drugs in between having greater increase, especially MDMA & powder cocaine.
Now, in a best-case scenario, users wouldn’t be injecting, smoking or snorting any drug but taking it either orally, sublingually or in select cases, inhaling (like the amphetamine inhalers of the 40s and 50s). Hopefully, legalization allows new users to be steered towards these latter methods of use, which are quite safer compared to the former.
In the long run, acceptance of drug use may also permit pharmaceutical industry to make use of modern psychopharmacology & neuroscience and come up with safer alternatives. Many of the drugs in use today are either descendants of crude plant principles or accidental discoveries which turned out to have desirable psychoactive properties. Modern technology hasn’t really gotten a shake at drug design for non-medical use, due to the War on Drugs.
[QUOTE=jebert]
If we legalize lots of stuff, would use of those drugs then
[ul][li]increase greatly because those whose only impediment is the illegality would start using?[/li][li]stay about the same because legal status makes no difference to most potential users?[/li][li]decrease because the forbidden fruit aspect is removed?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Use after legalization depends on how it happens, especially the rhetoric on the justification for legalization. In popular culture, there is an implicit recognition that when ordered by harm potential, drugs fall along a gradient with smoked meth (“ice”), injected heroin, smoked cocaine at one end and marijuana at the other, with the remaining drugs in between. I foresee a U-shaped increase in drug use, with the former seeing modest increases in use, the latter also seeing only modest increase (due to saturation), but the drugs in between having greater increase, especially MDMA & powder cocaine.
Now, in a best-case scenario, users wouldn’t be injecting, smoking or snorting any drug but taking it either orally, sublingually or in select cases, inhaling (like the amphetamine inhalers of the 40s and 50s). Hopefully, legalization allows new users to be steered towards these latter methods of use, which are quite safer compared to the former.
In the long run, acceptance of drug use may also permit pharmaceutical industry to make use of modern psychopharmacology & neuroscience and come up with safer alternatives. Many of the drugs in use today are either descendants of crude plant principles or accidental discoveries which turned out to have desirable psychoactive properties. Modern technology hasn’t really gotten a shake at drug design for non-medical use, due to the War on Drugs.
I support legalization, but as a devil’s advocate, what if we went the other way? For instance, suppose any citizen or legal resident could be sent a random “piss ticket”, like a jury summons, that would require you to submit to a government drug test? And suppose that failures of such tests would on your public records permanently?
Employer drug testing has done to stamp out casual marijuana use than all the laws that have ever been made to prohibit it.
Legalize all illegal drugs and release anyone from prison in there for drug charges and clear anyone’s record who has had marks on their record because of drugs.
Theres a bonus. If we legalize it ,it will clean up corrupt police and prosecutors. It will impact governments that rely on drugs for their economies. It would remove the junkie from having to steal to feed an expensive habit. We could put money into rehabbing the ones who want help. It would help clean out jails.
As long as we provided it cheaplyto the ones who could not afford it otherwise. It would also remove the pusher from trying to get the first taste.No profit .no point.
Use would deminish. Partly because of no motivation for pushers. But also because the doing something illegal appeals to some people. Also to some kids as part of growing up.
I’m about as pro-legalization as it gets, but I’ve been wondering: methadone is legal now, and at a much lower cost than street heroin; why are people still using heroin? Is it an availability problem in the areas where users are most greatly concentrated? Or are there really people out there who would rather:
Spend hundreds of dollars a week
on a product with no safety regulations and of unknown purity
which, to be cost effective, requires sticking needles into yourself many times a day?
I can’t imagine why a true long-term addict would prefer heroin to methadone. So why aren’t they all on methadone now?
I hate to have a stupid reply to this but is methadone “legal” in the sense that I can go to CVS and buy some without a prescription? I don’t think so.
It’s probably not cheap either.
If it were legal it would be pretty darn cheap. Probably not as cheap as opiates, which you can grow in your backyard so will prevent the most egregious price-jacking, but still dose for dose prolly much cheaper than alcohol.
Once we legalize drugs, should we shield the drug mfgs. from lawsuits? I mean, you can kill yourself 9by over-dosing on heroin). So should legalizaton include a limitation of liability? Drug users are not known to be careful people-so i would include the shielding of drug mfgs., from lawsuit, in cases of death resulting from drug use. of course, our lawyers INSIST that McDonalds is responsible for making people obese, so what the heck! :eek:
From what I’ve read, it isn’t always easy to get into a methadone clinic, but it is easy to get kicked out of one. Also, addicts are given just enough of the drug to feed their habits, but not enough to experience any pleasurable effects. Thus, some users supplant their prescribed methadone with street heroin.
You’d have to go to a clinic, and, IIRC, most of them require you to take it on-site.
It is affordable, though - cheaper than just about legal prescription synthetic opiate of similar strength.
You’d need a pretty big backyard to grow enough poppies to feed a heroin addict’s habit, and extracting the opium from the flower pods is a laborious process.
Leagalize, but continue to ostracize users as much as we do smokers today. The social consequences seem to be much more effective than prohibative laws. I’d also give employers great leeway for pre-employment and random drug screens. Basically, drug users should be free to use what they like. Likewise, the rest of society should be allowed to make fun of them and refuse to employ them at will. Tax the crap of them, too. Some of the taxes should go to anti-drug ad campaigns and rehab projects.