I could understand an agreement not to sue the provider for damages, but why on earth would you want them not to be revived? And why shouldn’t they get public housing or medical insurance?
Should drivers sign an agreement not to be revived in case of a car accident, too? Should you sign a similar agreement in order to be allowed to drink any alcohol (you could end up as a destitute relying on welfare if you abuse it too)?
It looks like, though I might be mistaken, that your only concern regarding drugs use is that it could end up costing you some tax money, which I find really unappealing.
I think opium tea products are just as dangerous as heroin, as you do get a lesser dose, but more of the dangerous and non-narcotic thebaine. No cite, but OTOH if they had a morphine/codiene mix that simulated a weak opium tea, that would indeed be safer than both of the above options.
But in any case, unlike todays opium teas, measurement and regulation of strengths would be easier.
In general to answer the OP:
Pros:
1 Less of an instrument for the police to control your lives.
2 Free up police and prison resources to combat real crime.
3 Purer product (to help with addictions and safety)
4 Measurable product (to help with addictions and safety)
5 Less gang violence.
6 More tax revenue.
Cons:
1 Unknown affect on todays American society on productivity and violence. But who’s to say this is actually a con, especially w/r/t marijuana and violence (esp. vis a vis alcohol)?
2 Possible terrorism against legislators from gang members wanting to keep drugs illegal?
3 Unknown affect on American health due to possible increase in drug use. But drug use would not necessarily increase, especially when you view pros 3 and 4
Now, if I were king, I would legalize every drug except PCP and crack. But even these I would legalize if it meant everything else is legalized too, since the freeing up of resources would be worth the damage even these drugs do.
Well, considering that in the wake of the Tobacco settlement payouts all governments, Federal, State, and local, are eager to now maintain a certain base of tobacco users out there, I question this assumption. There are restrictions on where one can smoke - but more often than not, I see those being broken, anyways. At least w/respect to outdoors areas.
For example, it is illegal to sell tobacco to a minor in, I think, all 50 states. However, how many times do you pass a high school around lunchtime, and see a small cluster of students across the street from the school (so they’re off school property) smoking cigarettes? When I was doing the travelling water thief thing, and taking water samples from schools across the Northeast - I saw this at every high school I went to.
I think a better comparison for the arguments for and against legalizing drugs would be a comparison to the various state run lotteries. At one end, these have pretty much dried up the numbers game rackets that used to be a staple of the crime families. At the other end, now that the government is dependant on gambling revenues, there is almost none of the promised support of problem gambling; and when gambling revenues drop - due to local casinos opening, or competition with other lotteries - the states go into a panic to regain all that ‘free’ money.
I can see legalizing some drugs currently on the verboten list - I would prefer, however, to have someone other than the gov’t selling the drugs. And many of the drugs that are talked about for legalizing I’ve got questions about. I’m not an expert on any illegal drugs so my information may be out of date, or miscolored, however, but LSD, for example of one of the prime ‘non-offensive drugs’ how much of a concern is flashback, really? If it is as common as it sometimes intimated, shouldn’t such a person be required to surrender their driver’s liscense, like anyone with epilepsy has to? It only takes one such incident while driving to give a pretty scary scenario.
Ludovic: see how profitable you would be, if you provided medial insurance to crank addicts. The point is, in return for the right to purchase these drugs legally (and for low prices0, you would absolve third parties (like health insurers) of the obvious damages you would be inflicting upon yourself.
Below is text addressing overall dangers including flashbacks.
Hallucinogens
Nichols DE
Pharmacology & Therapeutics 101 (2004) 131-181, 2004
*According to the latest SAMHSA surveys, nearly 25 million people in the US have tried LSD at least once.
Thanks for the information, II Gyan II.
As someone who spends a lot of time jammed into public transportation, I’d rather not share my ride with even more people who are high, thank you.
People seem to be thinking that folks could walk into a room somewhere, do drugs, have fun, and then walk out stone cold sober. Nope. We already have enough trouble with drunk drivers; how about people nodding out due to heroin?
That said, I think pot should be decriminalized–it’s just not in the same category as the rest and slackers won’t slack as much if they don’t feel they’ve crossed the Rubicon into criminality by buying it.
Is it possible to get a reasonably good sampling when you’re talking about driving and using these illegal drugs?
I think the best course of legalization is to pick a few common drugs of abuse and let them be legal. This would severely limit the amount of people looking for other sources. If mushrooms were legal, what would be the rush to find LSD?
Take DMT, for example, readily available from many plant sources across the world and naturally occurring in one’s brain (!) (so far as I know, no one has been arrested for being in possession of a schedule I substance, though I wish some pro-legalization cop would do it just to get the stupid law challenged). Peyote is yet another example of a naturally occuring drug. There is little reason to keep the use of these drugs felonies that I can see. DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, mushrooms, and peyote have been known to man for hundreds and hundreds of years. “Somehow” we made it. 
GHB is a naturally occuring chemical in one’s body that is schedule I. It’s immediate precursor is in milk for heaven’s sake, yet that is a list 1 chemical. Technically, selling milk, blood (Red Cross is a drug dealer!), and a host of other animal products is in violation of the drug war.
As a class of compounds, opiates are, to my knowledge, not crippling in their use except for the inevitability of tolerance build-up and increased dosage. But the primary problem that comes from opiate addiction is not overdosing, but trying to support a habit that, because of black market economics, is amazingly expensive. If we could find a way to get a suitable opiate to the real market, why would anyone turn to the black market?
This phenomenon of turning to the black market is seconded in danger (due to impurities, unregulated dosage, etc) only to people looking for new chemicals, completely untested, to use. There are still people trying belladonna for a legal high. This is ridiculous. Research chemicals are obtained and tried outside of a clinical setting to see if there are any “interesting” effects. Why do this when we have a host of drugs already available that have very low harm and can be very cheaply produced?
If marijuana, peyote, DMT, mushrooms, heroin or some other opiate, and some stimulant (diet pills anyone?) were legalized, it would significantly decrease the need for a black market and its associated negative effects in two ways. One, the cost of committing a felony cannot compete with the simple cost of doing business, so pricing would wildly tend to support legal channels. Two, with access to common drugs of abuse through legal channels, finding suppliers of alternative compounds would be more and more difficult.
The last point I think is most critical. While I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “gateway drug,” that does not mean I think there is no such thing as a “gateway.” A dealer in pot either is, or knows, someone who sells other drugs, who know other people who sell other drugs, etc. Cutting the link in this chain by supplying drugs that have demonstrated cannot be shut out of the market, drugs that have been used by humans for hundreds of years, will drastically help the proliferation of more and more drugs that we’ve seen by above ground and underground chemists that are of questionable quality and effect.
The list:
- Pot
- hallucinogenic mushrooms and cactus
- DMT
- methamphetamine
- morphine or heroin or some other pleasing opiate
Possible problems:
- increased DWIs, especially from hallucinogens except DMT, will require more severe penalties for driving while intoxicated.
- the meth version of amphetamine psychosis, unclear how it is to be addressed, but the simplicity of its chemistry means something has to get out because it cannot be stopped
- opiate overdosing, likely no more of a problem than it already is and possibly related more to setting than physiology (suggested reading for support)
Possible benefits:
- decrease crime related to drug production and distribution, including people in jail for drugs as such and people who have killed others to maintain black market territory
- decrease in crime to support a habit of an opiate or methamphetamine
- increase in reliable and honest information regarding drugs helping people use them responsibly
- decrease in the ‘separation’ issue that often is associated with drug use, likely caused more by a fear of being caught and punished by parents, work, or law enforcement than anything caused by such a wide range of pharmalogical compounds themselves (that’d be some chemistry paper if it were, maybe a forensic chemist can start that if they support the WoD)
- decrease in the use of substances which are probably legitimately associated with problems, like PCP, or drugs whose pharmacology is totally or relatively unknown (“designer drugs”, research chemicals), or tainted drugs (dirty meth and heroin being the big issue here)
- Given a heroin or other suitable opiate, decrease in the spread of disease by needles (also suitably addressed by needle exchange programs).
And, what I think is the most obvious benefit:
- the redirection of law enforcement officers, and their associated resources, to investigation of terrorism, murder, theft, etc.
As William F Buckley, Jr said so succinctly in 1996: “We are speaking of a plague that consumes an estimated $75 billion per year of public money, exacts an estimated $70 billion a year from consumers, is responsible for nearly 50 per cent of the million Americans who are today in jail, occupies an estimated 50 per cent of the trial time of our judiciary, and takes the time of 400,000 policemen – yet a plague for which no cure is at hand, nor in prospect.” I don’t think he meant the drugs themselves. The plague in question is prohibitionism.
The worldwide drug trade has been estimated to be around 150 billion dollars. Last time I checked, the video game industry in the US hadn’t hit 10 billion, for comparison (even if we suggest that the US only accounts for a fifth of the market we still haven’t touched drugs). That’s a lot of money. Even if every man, woman, and child became a law enforcement officer, all we’d accomplish is increasing corruption.
Drugs can, have been, and are used responsibly by a great number of Americans. Studies have shown that increasing penalties has not had a significant effect on drug use, which has hovered around 40 million Americans for years. This prohibition has been a remarkable failure as surely as the more common one with alcohol. We need to show the responsiblity millions of “experimenters” have shown over the years and find a way to legalize them.
If it hasn’t been read by anyone yet:
http://www.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html
Psychedelics are a different story. Psilocin and LSD have different psychedelic signatures. The point is not just to get high on something, but to explore all different types of altered states. Even Shulgin went to make & try 100s of chemicals.
The good doctor had the magical DEA license to get all the necessary chemicals for his synthesis. I agree that all the psychedelics have different effects, but for that matter, there are sublties to all drugs. The difficulty in LSD synthesis, combined with the decrease in trade networks, would make it much easier to control, if that was what was desired. Now, personally, I think all drugs should be legal, but for those unable to stomach that proposition I think we have alternatives. I don’t think drugs are a B&W issue, all or nothing. I think if we go some of the way, that will be enough.
That’s besides the point, which is that people will still want LSD if psilocin is easily available. The doctor went to synthesize many chemicals despite access to existing psychedelics.
Of course, but what you’re suggesting is akin to the hiring policy Lee Iacocca talked about, of hiring 1 candidate at most from each university in the 50s for a certain type of job. He remarked that if you had Einstein and Newton in the same university, only one could be picked. If a class of drugs exhibit insignificant physiological damage, none or low addiction potential, then there’s no need to contrive to pick one representative. The selective legalisation should be restricted to those class of drugs where there’s considerable difference in potency, toxicity and addiction potential, as in between crystal meth and plain amphetamine. In simpler words, legalize all beers and ban spirits instead of picking some beers and some spirits. Just ends up being an arbitrary policy.
Our current policy is an arbitrary policy. What I present is a means of realigning our laws and social views on drugs themselves. Yes, Shulgin synthesized a huge number of phenethylamines and tryptamines even though he could have just continued making any particular one for years. And I do not intend to deny that mushrooms will genuinely satisfy the demand for LSD any more than the opium that used to float around in my neighborhood growing up would satisfy the demand for heroin.
Even the legalization of alcohol, such as it is, hasn’t stopped moonshine production, and I hardly mean to suggest that legalizing a few drugs across the spectrum of abuse would enable us to win the rest of the war. Whenever there are significant controls on a highly demanded product there will be a black market that surrounds it. The “legalize and prescribe” theory will not significantly alter this, unless we consider “robbing pharmacies” an acceptable evil.
But by taking some particular drugs that have been remarkably resistant to prohibition and turning them loose, we do help ourselves in a number of ways. It would be easier to maintain a prohibition on LSD if we didn’t simultaneously have to stop people from obtaining indole precursors, phenyl-2-propanone, common catylists, and so on that are used legitimately besides their diversion to underground chemistry.
As society readjusts (which won’t take much readjustment since there’s plenty of users already) we can continue to lessen the restrictions. But they simply aren’t going to go away any more than requiring a perscription for antidepressants will go away. We need a sensible approach to integrating drugs into our society. I think a piecemeal approach is workable.
The goodly Discordians have a little saying that could pertain to our current discussion, II Gyan II. “Imposition of order = escalation of chaos.” There are no small number of underground cooks hoping to find so many ways to manufacture illegal drugs that every chemical will end up on the watch list. Given the staggaring number of methods that exist to synthesize drugs, if we are serious about maintaining the war then this will become closer and closer to fruition. Legitimate chemists need a lot of these compounds, too, and if they can’t buy them they look for more and more ways to synthesize them. And as they publish and/or patent their results for new synthetic routes or analogues, underground cooks who are usually trained chemists themselves find the articles and spread the tech. Round and round it goes.
That’s one path to a sort of de facto legalization. We’re still remarkably close to that, after all these years of imprisonment and property siezure: most high school kids I know could obtain such a wide array of drugs, grey market and black market, that should make every DEA agent seriously consider finding a meaningful line of work. But they’re not.
And they and those like them won’t support a total legalization. We’ve got to take it a little bit at a time. First marijuana gets decriminalized. Then legalized. Then the next drug… and the next…
What other course of action is realistically available to us?
I think you’ve missed my point. What’s the point of restricting LSD when you’re allowing psilocin and DMT? There’s a logic to restricting crank and allowing milder stimulants. By providing hassle-free legal access to quality products, you remove the incentive for a huge percentage of users to procure crank. This is good because crystal meth is more addictive, more toxic…etc What’s the logic to allowing psilocin and DMT, while restricting LSD? In terms of addiction potential and physiological toxicity, there’s no difference. In terms of psychological dangers, there’s a marginal advantage for psilocin, and disadvantage for DMT. Why would one want to prohibit LSD if one’s ready to accept psilocin & DMT?
Activity time is one difference. Public perception is another difference. I’ve known plenty who say, “Sure, we should legalize pot,” but when I bring up acid you’d think I just asked them politely to rape their mother. There are people who use acid who still think it gets lodged in your spine or some shit. It’s a great drug, I think it should be legal, but I think it is a poor place to begin legalization efforts. A naturally occuring drug like those in mushrooms would be much easier, seems to me. More, ah, palatable. I think it is psychologically easier to say, “We shouldn’t outlaw a plant” versus “we shouldn’t outlaw this chemical that has an 8-12 hour effect in hundredths-of-a-milligram doses and requires skilled chemists to produce.” Maybe its just me. 
Activity time is not much of a reason, but public perception sure is.
It would also help to devlove the issue to the state/local level (where it belongs in the first place – every attempt I’ve made to get an answer to the question of where the Feds got the power to impose drug prohibition when they needed a Constitutional amendment for alcohol prohibition has led to a swamp of pseudo-legal gibberish that reminds me of income tax protestor arguments).
I am completely against legalization of drugs. I simply believe people lead better lives when they are not addicted to dangerous substances, like meth ferinstance. I’m continually surprised by how many folks are more interested in the “right” to recreational drug use than the personal toll of large numbers of people being compulsive drug users. It is as bizarre to me as someone arguing that we should not promote safe sex or abstinance because AIDS is mostly a treatable disease these days: talk about missing the forest for the trees.
That’s my view, but I have two questions for the pro-legalization folks.
First, what would be done about prescription drugs intended to treat disease? If we legalized all recreational drugs, what sense does it make to compel people to see their doctor to get a scrip for Vicodin, or Viagara, or even chemotherapy?
Second, I am SHOCKED by the folks who advocate cutting legal drug users out of health coverage. Do you really advocate that hospitals should kick drug users to the curb and let them die on the streets? How is that ethical? Do you really believe that the Constitution would allow someone to sign a suicide pact in order for them to get their weekly fixes? Isn’t that a textbook case of entrapment, albiet the stakes are not about life in prison, but rather life and dealth in a hospital?
Moreover, if you are solely concerned about the cost of health care, doesn’t it make more sense to treat their illness (most likely addiction) before it spins out of control? Are you really so willing to put a price on the value of a human life, wretched as it may be?