So if cocaine is legally sold at every convenience store, regulated and known to be pure, and cheaper because of the lower costs of selling it, is there even a question that massively more people will use it?
I’m of the opinion that cocaine, pot, heroine, and so on should be legal in the same way that morphine is legal. There are documented medical uses for these drugs. But then, I’m also of the opinion that a non-aggressive casual pot-smoker who doesn’t deal shouldn’t be given more years in prison than a rapist or child molester. shrug Also, why is pot even on this list? Isn’t it like trying to regulate dandelion-growing?
Geez, same old same old.
I remember about 15 years ago, some moral majority (or something like that) arguing against the legalization of Cocaine, claiming that everybody would be coked out of their brains at all times and it’d be the end of the world for our society.
Then the interviewer asks him, if it were legal, would HE be using cocaine?
Well, no…
Ok, so not “everyone”, right?
Totally deflated that retarded thought baloon of doom with one fair question.
What if 15% of our society were coked out of their brains?
Polls show that over 70% of adults drink alcohol and over 40% have tried marijuana, so you can’t say the number is outrageous. And don’t forget cocaine is addictive.
Yes. First of all, it’s not going to be sold at every convenience store. Liquor isn’t even sold at convenience stores. It would probably be sold at liquor stores and/or special drug stores. Secondly, while I’m sure there are some people who would try it who otherwise wouldn’t, I doubt it would be a huge number of people. I’ve never heard anyone say they’d try cocaine (or any recreational drug) if it was legal. Then again, I don’t know many people who haven’t tried cocaine anyway. Also, it’s often said teenagers are more easily able to get illegal drugs off the streets than alcohol. People don’t walk the streets selling whiskey illegally. They won’t do it with drugs either if they’re legalized, assuming the government doesn’t do something stupid.
There’s a big difference between trying something and doing it frequently. I’m sure the number of frequent marijuana smokers is much, much smaller than 40%. Likewise, I wouldn’t be surprised if 15% of people have already tried cocaine, but I doubt anywhere near 15% would become coke heads if it was legalized.
But marijuana is generally not considered addictive; cocaine is highly addictive.
No doubt. That doesn’t mean everyone that tries it gets addicted though. Like I said, I know several people who have tried it but none got addicted. There were many people addicted to it and heroin before they were made illegal, but it happened before people knew just how addictive they were. I don’t doubt some people will try it who wouldn’t before, but I doubt the number is alarming. It seems like the benefits of controlling the production and sales more than make up for it to me.
It depends on what you mean by “freely available”. If you mean abundant and free, then of course, yes. Many people today are turned away by the costs and difficulties of acquiring drugs. I don’t think that means that “all” ppl would become addicted by any means, but an increase for sure.
If you only mean “available” but at current prices, then I still think the answer is yes. You’ve only removed one of the difficulties, but you still removed one.
FWIW, I support the legalization of drugs, but I support it at taxes that lead to prices (state regulated?) that are at least as high as now, and with much of the proceeds going into education about the adverse effects thereof and cleanups from ppl breaking the laws and going overboard (driving while coked). I believe that this is a more effective kind of “drug war”, and it doesn’t cost taxpayers nearly as much. With good education, I believe drug use would go down.
A difference? Sure. But I still don’t think it’s the right way to do it.
Maybe a lot of the “organized crime” yes…but there would still be a lot of crime from users. People who are all " Yeah legalize it!" probaly have NEVER seen an addict in action. Even if it’s legal, addicts will commit all sorts of crime to get their substance du jour. Also, the thing is…addiction can and does cause psychosis. It’s not just " self medicating" for a already existing condition. I mean meth and PCP cause issues almost identicial to schizopherinia.
And besides…if it was legal, then the pushers would still BE THERE…after all they gotta make some money!
It is in California. I don’t know about other states.
Still, there is a reason that drugs are illegal…THEY ARE ADDICTIVE! Much more so than alcohol and more quickly too. (Barring marijuana of course.) They fuck up the way you think and act, and cause phyical changes in your body’s chemistry that make you need more and more and cause you a world of shit if can’t get it – meth and heroin particularly.
Do you really want to live in a country full of meth, heroin and cocaine addicts? And if so, how do you propose to deal with those who can’t afford to finance their ever-increasing need for more dope and the vast increase in crime that would result from a hugely increased population of dopeheads without a fix, not the least of which would be a huge uptick in the number of meth labs, which present significant dangers all their own?
(And besides, do we really want to fuck up the world’s tourist economy because so many of our citizens would be afraid to leave the country because they’ll go into withdrawal? :D)
The idea of legalizing anything other than weed is ridiculous!
Um… I had an answe… oh yeah, you aren’t gonna like it though. Socialized Drug Abuse! (:p)
There are other (mostly hallucinogenics in my limited knowledge) drugs that aren’t addictive, what about LSD, mescaline, or sage? The latter of which isn’t Federally controlled, granted (probably because from what I’ve heard anyone that wants to keep doing sage after one trip DESERVES it). I’ll admit, LSD can have some pretty nasty semi-permanent aftereffects, at least if any of those scare tapes they show us are even half true. What about those, would you support un-controlling them?
ETA: FWIW I support legalizing marijuana, the hallucinogenics I mentioned (which have the honor of being the only substances I’m the least bit interested in trying), and heavily controlled cocaine and heroine (not sure why not meth, it’s just oogie to me). By heavily controlled I mean a semi-expensive prescription-like system, I doubt it would solve much for the addicted people and probably wouldn’t prevent too many overdoses, but it might help.
The logical next step, eh? 
Admittedly, I don’t know about the quality or intensity of the stuff that’s out there now but I knew a ton of people who took in the late sixties and that stuff would FUCK YOU UP!!! Like melting rooms that looked the same whether your eyes were open or not, all kinds of weird images and insights and stuff, flashbacks that could happen months later. I ran into one of my best friends one night who had just dropped acid and he couldn’t even see me or acknowledge who I was because of the weird shit going on in his brain. People taking trips on it then had to have someone with them for eight to eighteen hours to get them safely through it. It took my buddy a good eighteen hours himself.
I have had other friends more recently however who claim to have done it hundreds of times and allegedly were on it even around me, but their experience was a good deal less intense. In fact, I couldn’t even tell they were on it. So again, I don’t know how the current stuff stacks up but the acid of the late sixties/early seventies would put you in another world and keep you there for a long time.
So, if it’s still like that do you really want people driving around or walking on sidewalks with a psychedelic movie playing before their eyes and in their head and with no idea what going on in the real world, like cars and stuff?
ETA: But this is all really outside my area of expertise…
ELUCIDATOR!!! Paging ELUCIDATOR!!!..
I wouldn’t.
I have never hidden the fact that I tried coke back in the day [late 70s] and found it intensely underwhelming. I tried it 3 whole times.
If I want to spend $150US and end up with nothing but numb teeth, I at least want to get a tooth cleaning and filling out of the deal.
I got no feeling of power, energy or wellbeing, or anything I was supposed to get. I got numb front teeth. No matter what grade of coke I was trying. I have NO idea why anybody would want to spend that kind of cash on something that does absolutely nothing.
I also tried marijuana at the same timepoint, also at parties.
I could do grass, but it has the same effect on me that alcohol does, a nice sociable buzz. I can get arrested for buying or using pot, so why bother when I can go out and for a lot less trouble and money get a nice bottle of wine I wont get arrested for having and drinking [as long as I dont drive drunk, everything is cool.]
IF pot were to become legal, I would be interested in using it, as I dont use alcohol because of drug interactions [and it is empty carbs I would rather have something else instead of, being diabetic] but if it never is legalized, I have no problem not smoking it.
As I and many others have pointed out it was easier to get Pot in HS than alchohol. With alcohol we had to go find an adult, so unless someone had a sympathetic older brother (my friends tended to be the oldest in their families for whatever reason) who was also in a good mood and extra cash to buy the purchaser a six pack, it was easier and cheaper to obtain pot, which was sold by our friends.
While that’s relevant I think there are cultural issues surrounding alcohol that make it a difficult case study. Western society has a long social tradition with alcohol, and as such people are ENCOURAGED to use it by society at large. With drugs legalization won’t suddenly establish a tradition stretching back millenia like the one alcohol has. So it’s likely that there are those who drink alcohol just because it’s what is done in the culture, who would likely not drink alcohol under prohibition. Like my friend for instance who enjoys marijuana and doesn’t drink alcohol. His brother on the other hand is an afficianado of alcohol and enjoys it quite a lot, he has never smoked pot that I am aware of. So the one friend has drinks on occasion, but would likely not miss it under prohibition and likely would cheerfully conform to the rule overall because he just doesn’t like alcohol. Just like I who used to smoke a cigarette occasionally when I was out drinking was more or less unaffected by the public smoking bans, and therefore I hardly ever smoke, maybe a rolled cigarette when I am out and about once every three-six months. My cigarette consumption was hundreds of percentage points higher than what it is today before the smoking ban. But the reality was that it just made it harder for us who don’t really care about the product to obtain it. Those who are committed will stand out in the cold to smoke. On the other hand I smoke pot whether it is legal or not, because I like it. I think the usage statistics would change but that the fluctuation would be slight.
The biggest issue I think would be the cultural change from punishment to treatment. So casual use may increase while habitual use may decrease.
One of the pathologies that comes from drug use these days is that the biggest fear from drugs is being arrested. Being arrested is generally considered a more miserable fate than some of the other possible side-effects of the drugs. And the reality is that though people overdose with casual use, it is a statiscally insignificant fraction of casual users who overdose. And the fraction of total users who overdose that were casual is also a small subset of that number. Usually the people who get hurt by drugs are the serious users and those immediately around them obviously. But being a drunk when it is legal isn’t socially condoned, so there is no reason to believe that suddenly the world will be happy with cokehead assholes just because it’s legal. Treatment without fear of prison time might make it easier for an addict to receive treatment.
Hell you want to fund UHC? Fund it ONLY with drug taxation but legalize drugs for recreational use. Pot will generate billions in a single month.
Interesting. Beer and wine can be sold in convenience stores here, but liquor is restricted to liquor stores.
As was said, there are a lot of drugs that aren’t addictive. The whole class of hallucinogens is a major example. I’ve done salvia (what Jragon calls sage, a currently legal drug) twice and after neither time did I have the urge to do it again.
Also, you underestimate alcohol’s addictiveness. See here at the bottom of the page. Note that alcohol is considered most serious for withdrawals and intoxication. You ask if I’d want to be on the road with someone high on cocaine. It’s a hell of a lot better than being on the road with someone who’s drunk! I saw a study a few years ago (I could never find it) where scientists tested the likelihood of someone crashing while under the effects of different drugs. I question their methodology but their results seem believable to me. Drunk people were 25 times more likely to crash than sober people. People high on heroin were about 8 times as likely to crash. People on coke and meth were less than twice as likely to crash. I think I’d rather be on the road with someone high on crank than someone running on a few hours of sleep.
All the information I’ve gathered on the subject suggests that alcohol has the worst withdrawls followed by benzodiazepines (xanax, klonopin, valium, etc.). Both can cause seizures and death. Opiates, including heroin, are far from a picnic to quit, but they don’t threaten your life except in rare cases of complication. Note that nicotine beats out cocaine in one study, tying it in the other. Hard stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine just don’t have very bad withdrawals.
Notice which drug causes the highest dependence according to both studies. That’s right, nicotine. It’s more difficult mentally to quit smoking than to quit smack, coke, crank, or anything else. Smokers will do anything for a cigarette. Good thing they’re affordable or else people would be jacking cars to pay for their tobacco habits. Of course if we legalized other drugs, they’d be more affordable too and such crime would certainly drop.
In retrospect, the drug causing the greatest dependence and the most intoxicating drug with the worst withdrawals are both legal. I think this kind of shoots down the argument that we should keep illegal drugs illegal because they’re addictive and people might drive around high.
If these drugs were legalized and the government didn’t overtax them, then their prices would drop to a fraction of what they are now. What’s now a $100/day habit could become a $20/day habit which could be afforded with a part-time job at McDonald’s. I couldn’t see that leading to a vast increase in crime. If the government did tax the hell out of them, then the black market would remain where it is and nothing would change.
I also don’t see why meth labs would increase if people could buy meth legally. I’m not sure why you think this at all. Can you explain?
The Meth lab in a trailer would go all but extinct. There would be far fewer labs but they’d be the size of industrial parks and be produced by companies like Phillip-Morris.
The cop who was the inspiration for" DaVincis Inquest" is part of an organization of vice cops who want to get drugs legalized. I saw a documentary on his group. They have found the same percentage of users as always. Yet if you have an interest in them ,they are readily available. Ask your teen if they know how to get drugs. They are in every school. Kids who are not interested are just not interested. Those that are, can get them.
The drug war corrupts prosecutors, cops and politicians. Some countries are run by drug lords. Taking the profit out would do so much to change the legal system. We jail millions of users. How is that working? WEe are pissing away billions for nothing.
My favorite book on the subject is this one:
There are a large number of factors that influence the prevalance of drug use in society, the amount used by a typical user, and the dangerousness and proportion of users who consume to excess. The best estimates for usage increases in the wake of legalization 1.) vary wildly and 2.) are based on fairly flimsy evidence.
If we took a Netherlands approach to pot, the authors would predict only a fairly modest increase in use, but they are the first to admit that their estimate could be mistaken in either direction.
Drugs should be legalized. All of them. And it has nothing to do with whether legalization would result in more or less use.
Simply put, you have a right to your own body, and that includes the right to inject chemicals if that’s what you want to do.
Also, who’s to say drug use is bad? If you’re a manual laborer with little education and you work your ass off all day, who am I to say you aren’t allowed to relax by going home and getting high as a kite on the drug of your choice? If it makes your life more comfortable, go for it. You also will have to take responsibility for the results, however. You’re an adult.
Will drugs wreck some people’s lives? Undoubtedly. My father was an alcoholic, left my family when I was two, and died in his 60’s of liver failure. Alcohol destroyed his life and made everyone’s else’s much more difficult. But that’s part of the price of freedom - the freedom to screw up. You know what else can wreck your life? Mountain climbing. Going on spending sprees you can’t afford. Mouthing off your boss when you feel lke it. Cheating on your spouse. Sitting on your ass and watching TV all night while ignoring your family.
The government isn’t supposed to be our nanny or our stern parent. My social contract with society does not involve society controlling my behaviour to make sure I don’t do stupid stuff, unless I begin to directly endanger others.
By all means, make laws stiffer for cases where impairment with drugs (or cell phone use, or anything else ) endangers others. Other than that, I’ll make my own choices, thanks.
As for the practical aspects of legalization, I think if we could get every drunk in North America to become a pothead instead, it would be a much better place. And healthier, too. And there would be fewer spousal assaults and suicides and broken families. We’d also probably develop better munchies and funnier comedy shows.