Legalising drug use

Great Debates
21

It would appear that most of us are in favor of the decriminalization of most, if not all drugs, but I don’t see any hard facts being tossed about to support these positions. This is unusual for Great Debates.

Everyone seems so perplexed that this absurd problem still exists, yet I would bet that 99% of the posters in this thread have not even written their elected officials to see what their position on this issue are. Or, searched for sites on the internet that deal with the re-legalization of marijuana.

This is the fundamental problem with the “war on drugs”, why this absurdity will not end and why it doesn’t really matter to most of us if things change at all.

We don’t have to spend a lot of time researching facts and figures because no one is going to pay any attention to them, the people that are against re-legalization are not going to change their minds by being asked to, they are only going to change when they are forced to. London_Calling makes an excellent point about being forced to change your mind with mention of pharmaceutical companies entering the fight when they realize there is money to made. The ones calling the shots right now are the lobbyists for alcohol and tobacco manufacturers that are intent on keeping their clients’ products the only legal intoxicants from which an American adult can choose. I assure you this will change if the pharmaceutical companies want it so (although right now they are vehemently against medicinal marijuana because it deprives them of their profits). Currently the largest contributor for the Partnership for a Drug Free America is Anhueser-Busch, can you imagine the result of Merck or Watson (both major pharm corporations) contributing millions to Norml (Norml.org) or lobbying a few key officials?

But, as I said, it doesn’t really matter to most of us whether the current law change or not, hence the lack of facts or any real enthusiasm to make it change. I enjoy drugs of all types, I have experimented with most drugs that don’t involve a needle (I don’t like needles :wink: ) and I have had some good times and some not-so-good times but I haven’t ruined my life and I can still remember my phone number.
The “war on drugs” has not changed my views on drugs, nor has it made it all that hard to get what I want. If anything it has actually helped my highs as the purity of and potency has gotten a lot better and the price has dropped dramatically. I have also, from time to time, made quite a bit of money providing other free minded ADULTS with what they desire.
Yes, I would love to be able to walk into a liqour store and grab a pack of “Firewoods” or slap down a $20 to walk out with a gram of Coke to get me through a weekend of grass cutting. But, even if things don’t become this simple, it’s not going to stop me, or anyone else from making these personal decisions for themselves and law or no law, when you want to do something you generally just do it. To make matters worse, because the laws are so arbitrary, most people have no regret for breaking such laws just as homosexuals don’t care that their activity is still illegal in some states and openly show affection to one another. It only fosters resentment against the very people that we are supposed to trust and respect; the police and other officials.
Bottom line, the problem with drugs is not the drugs themselves but the laws against them. Every single problem, save for the damage done to the actual user’s body, can be atributed to the law prohibiting it.

Overdose- Illegal drugs are not manufactured under controlled conditions, you have no idea of the potence until you have ingested them. You don’t have this problem with your Valiums and Vicodins because the user know what amount constitutes a “dose”.

Drug related crime - Artificially inflated prices require a user to choose between thievery or dealing to support their habit. If coke or heroin were competively price, using sound business models, a user, hardcore or casual, could afford these drugs with the wages of a normal job.

Prostitution - Refer to the above, remember the artificially inflated prices and the need for cash.

HIV - The government doesn’t want to appear soft on drugs so getting a clean needle is actually harder than getting the drugs.

Welfare- When your spouse is in jail for possession of a joint or a personal amount of coke you need help from welfare. Your kids are resentful of a system that takes away their mother or father for such causes. Imagine losing your own father over a beer, the pain and disbelief would be the same.

Gangs - Without the profits of an illicit product, gangs have no reason for being.

Police corruption - Remember the money, it’s all about money and police are human too.

Bloated government - Imagine if we took all of the current drug prevention personnel off the payroll or put them to other uses such as fixing the pothole in front of my home.

Decent schools and affordable healthcare - With the $18.5 billion dollars we spend directly on drug prevention (this does not include the money that is spent out of the defense fund to send our military all over the world to help other dictatorships deprive their citizens of their rights),you could build a quite a few decent schools and maybe even staff it with a couple of well-payed teachers. Healthcare would receive a boost as well after you release all of the prisoners of this “war” and return them to the job market where they can pay some taxes. We currently have more people incarcerated than China, a country with 4 times the population and yet we chastise them as being a inhumane.

Constitutional rights - We are all losing our rights in the name of drug prohibition. You and I are forced to piss in a cup, not to see if we are currently inebriated, but to see if we were high on Saturday night. Even if you don’t do drugs, you are assumed to. A barking drug dog can immediately take away your protection against “illegal search and seizure”. If I were a crooked cop, I would train my dog to “alert” whenever I whistled Dixie and then I could search any car, suitcase or person that I wished (people would think I was just a bored redneck, what with all the whistling). Whether you have done or do drugs is irrelevent, you lose your rights along with the rest of us. Welcome to the club!

I could go on and on, I have probably gone on too far as it is but, if I could make everyone gather one bit of information out of all this, I would just ask you determine where you stand on drugs. Not what someone has told you to believe, but what you truly believe and base your decisions on this. Also, if you have children, take a long look at them and decide if you think they should go to prison for possession of marijuana of cocaine. There are thousands of sons and daughters in prison for nothing more that simple possession, some for life-no parole. If you think this would be best for yourselves and your families, don’t do anything, don’t write your congressman, don’t write a letter to Anhueser-Busch telling them that you are on to their hypocritical bullshit. Don’t do anything. If, on the other hand, you think you are the best judge of how to conduct your life and treat your body, and you think you would be a better parent to your children than Big Bubba in prison, then you must do something - anything.

22

**Bottom line, the problem with drugs is not the drugs themselves but the laws against them. Every single problem, save for the damage done to the actual user’s body, can be atributed to the law prohibiting it. **

Every single problem - I disagree. Relationships with family and friends are damaged. The user will gradually lose the capacity for emotional growth and self-awareness. Drugs distort reality.

It might be helpful to decriminalize pot. Maybe regulate and tax it. I think kids have an easier time buying pot than buying booze.

I think it would be tragic to legalize coke or other drugs.

23

Well, I knew I was going to be outnumbered on this one.

SAILOR, I don’t think that your’s is an unreasonable question to ask,but…
Can the majority of us agree that legalizing will create more addicts?
Of what good does the drug culture do any of us?
Is it really true that gangs will disappear if drugs are legal?

AT the risk of sounding more and more like an IMHO post,
I by no means believe that the book should be thrown at every person caught with drugs. There is an obvious difference between possession and poss w/ intent. Between 1st offender and repeat. I’m not condoning a no mercy policy. What I personally think about occasional recreational drug use is separate from what I think our gov’t policy should be . That may sound like double talk, but it isn’t. (think of… ‘I like to speed but I don’t believe it should be legal’ concept… ) Whether or not we choose to get involved w/ drugs and to what extent is ALWAYS going to be our choice whether it is legal or illegal. But we currently do it w/ the understanding that it is a gamble and that we may lose.

Some have interpreted my statesments as meaning that I think the government needs to “save us from ourselves” Actually, what I thought was pretty clear in my statement, was the need (and apparant inability of some addicts) to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBLITY vs. blaming public policy for the problems some peoples’CHOICES are creating.
If it is legal and gov’t regulated who is going to pay for your rehab? I’m sure your friendly HMO will be happy to reimburse you!
:rolleyes: Many don’t pay for substance abuse programs(including alchohol) now. It doesn’t seem logical to say that more addicted people = lower health care costs. Regulated potency doesn’t negate possibility of OD, either.

You’re saying to the next generation, it is okay with us if you do drugs. Huh?

I will concede that the hysteria has gone too far–w/the @work drug screens etc. I dislike the attitude that all drug addicts are “BAD PEOPLE”, but that doesn’t mean I should make it legal to make them FEEL better.

As for a "free market’ for drugs:
I realize it is only an analogy, but we are not talking about simple supply and demand economics here;
No one is addicted to bread. (If they are, then they’ll just be fat, their body, right?) :wink:
Are you suggesting that we set up a corner drug store: “Crack, Smack with your Big Mac” and ALL the dealers are going to just walk away from a multi billion dollar business? Who here wants to go with me to South Bronx and help me run this shop? Anyone want to place bets on how long it will take for one of us to get shot, or bought by a dealer? How pissed off do you think these dudes are going to get? “Thanks, man! You saved me from a life of crime and violence! You LEGIT drug dealers ROCK!”
Rhumrunner:
"Plus if the drugs were legal in Columbia, you would see legitimate farmers move into the market. "
It is highly doubtful that the Farc is going to let you garden in their yard.
If you widen the use of drugs, the trafficking will get worse-they are not separate in a practical sense.

24

Nevermind,
So, in your world, does the mob still control the alcohol business?

Also, you seem to be setting up a specific scenario of legalization, and rebutting only that. Cigarettes are legal, but regulated, taxed, and illegal to sell to minors. Alcohol likewise. Prescription drugs are available only at from individuals with special training, and only with a doctor’s permission.

There is no reason that legalization necessarily entails complete availability. Marijuana really needn’t be any harder to get than cigarettes, but heroin might be restricted to prescribed maintenance programs as they have had in England for several years.

25

Jacksen9- You are correct, decriminalization will not undo or prevent the damage that someone can do to relationships or their families by abusing son called “hard drugs” like cocaine or heroin. But, there are too many other resources available with which to tear apart the family unit, some are outright legal, others are illegal but the laws are not enforced:
Adultery
Gambling
Porn Addiction
Alcoholism and drinking and driving
Addiction to cigarettes
etc.
I condone none of these activities and abstain from all, save for cigarettes. An irresponsible person will do damage to themselves no matter the legal concern, there is no way to legislate this fact away.

26

Just wanted to add that in my city (Philly), they are doing a crackdown on 400 street corners that are known for their drug activity. Estimated cost per month is 1.2 million dollars.

Just in case you haven’t heard, we also have a woefully underfunded school system and last year we had to beg the state for money. Sure sounds like there could be other good uses for 1.2 mil a month huh?

27

Why is it so hard for people not to do drugs? Not everyone is going to want to, or even do drugs to begin with. If they choose not to they are not responsible in anyway for what the gangs do with it, unless they are there shoving it down their throats. Sure they make you feel good but they impair your judgement. People in gangs and cartels OBVIOUSLY already have an impaired judgement.

28

Pshaw. Why educate people when we can just wait a few years and throw them in jail?

29

That 1.2 million dollars would not be such a waste to Jdeforrest
if it stops a drug dealers stray bullet from catching his son or daughter in the head one day. I’m also sure its not a waste to the people that home school their kids :stuck_out_tongue: Philly’s schools are bad for many given reasons not just a lack of funding.

30

Legalizing drugs sounded like a great idea to me as well until a good friend of mine hung himself off a dam 2 years ago. He was in drug rehab on and off for years. He had a family that loved him and was one of the best freestyle wrestlers in the state. He had a great future ahead of him. But his “occasional joint” lead to heavier drug use and he was kicked off the team. His mood swings due to the drugs also lead to problems and fights at home. He was the nicest guy and would never have hurt a fly (and didn’t). But the drugs changed him. He wanted to be off drugs and tried so hard. But the pain of the addiction finally pushed him over the edge and he killed himself.

I am constantly amazed by the number of people who think legalizing drugs would be a viable solution. I have to think if you had a friend or family member who was affected so deeply by it, you would change your mind real fast. You can’t tell me that by having the drugs regulated and monitored, that my friend wouldn’t have killed himself. I just don’t buy it. I am not saying that our current approach is good either. A person like Darryl Strawberry does not deserve to go to jail for his addiction. But legalizing drugs is not the answer either.

31

Very true that the schools are bad for many reasons. And yes, i am very grateful for their effort to keep me safe. My overall point was that if drugs are legal and administered in a more controled environment, we wouldn’t have drug dealers on the corner, nor would we have to spend the 1.2 mil a month nor have to contribute so many police to such an effort. All they are really doing is standing on a corner so the drug dealers go somewhere else. Methinks that maybe their time would be better spent on other activities.

32

Well, if you were like many of us who have lived through using drugs, and friends who used drugs, and had no harm come to you or your friends except for the police action, then you might change your mind.

If religion did the same thing to your friend (Jonestown, anyone?) you wouldn’t be clamoring to ban god. Would you?

33

“Well, if you were like many of us who have lived through using drugs, and friends who used drugs, and had no harm come to you or your friends except for the police action, then you might change your mind.”

Well hes NOT like you. Maybe if you were in his situation you would have the same views as him, but your not so you won’t know. Your fortunate to have not had any bad effects to your or your friends with the use of drugs besides police action. This is a problem that can’t / will not be solved wether it is legal or not.

34

Absolutely.
Drug use will increase for 3 definite (and 1 speculative) reason.

  1. The price would drop. Some economists believe that the legal price of drugs would be about 1/20 the current level. This estimate ignores possible taxation, but said taxation cannot be too high, lest it encourage smuggling again to beat the tax. Let’s say that a 100% tax is the max, so drugs will be, at most, 1/10 of their current price.
  2. There will be easier access to drugs and drug quality will be assured.
  3. There will be less social stigma attached to the consumption of drugs.
  4. (Speculative) commercialization may drive up drug use. Image an Anheuser-Busch ad campaign “for all you do, this toke’s for you.”

If drug use increases, the number of addicts will likely increase.
Currently illicit drugs have a dependency rate of about 5% (for inhalants) to 33% (for opiates). http://www.economist.com/surveys/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=708516 (see the chart 2/3 down the page).
However:

  1. Addiction is self-evidently not the basis for deciding whether a drug should be legal or illegal - nicotine is hands-down the most addictive drug out there, and alcohol ranks higher than some other drugs that are illegal.
  2. Is it right or proper that an activity should be prohibited for the majority because of the harmful self-effect of that activity on a minority? If 10% of pot users get dependent, should this be held against the 90% who don’t? We don’t take this approach for any other potentially harmful activity, from gambling to driving.

Probably none. But not a reason to legislate. What good does baseball do for any of us?

Yes. The incredible profits in the drugs trade is directly because of drugs’ illegal status. The price of enough coca to produce a kilo of cocaine is $400-600. The retail price of that kilo of cocaine is $110,000. The overwhelming proportion of that increase is to cover the risks involved in smuggling the drug.
As noted above, it is estimated that the retail price would be 1/20 current prices if drugs were legalized. That would bring that kilo of coke down to $5,500. With the huge money gone, gangs have less incentive to be in the business (as with happened with Prohibition and alcohol.
Second, gangs do not have the knowledge or skills necessary to compete with legitimate businesses in a legitmate market. A legitimate business, with economies of scale and the ability to increase productivity, will beat a gang on price and quality.

Some have interpreted my statesments as meaning that I think the government needs to “save us from ourselves” Actually, what I thought was pretty clear in my statement, was the need (and apparant inability of some addicts) to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBLITY vs. blaming public policy for the problems some peoples’CHOICES are creating.
[/QUOTE]

The two are not exclusive. Yes, personal choices create some of the problems associated with drugs. But public policy creates many others and exacerbates the problems associated with drugs.

Take your junkie. Currently, said junkie has a $500/week habit. To support said habit, junkie steals purses. To make the $500/week junkie needs, junkie must steal 50 purses a week.
After drugs are legalized, that $500/week habit is now a $25/week habit to get the same amount of dope. Now, said junkie must steal 2.5 purses a week, assuming they can’t find a legitimate way to get the much lower amount of money they now need.
Second, the amount of people in prison drops dramatically. Not only is that a good in itself, a person without a prison record is much more likely to be able to get a legitimate job and is therefore less likely to fall permanently into a criminal life.
Third, without drug shoot-outs, we are much less likely to have by-standers caught in a drug shoot-out.

Actually, treatment costs of individuals will likely drop (dunno about overall costs - that depends on how much drug use and the number of dependents increase). The reason treatment costs will drop is the reduction of the social stigma. A drugs user in a legal regime will be more likely to get treatment earlier in the dependency cycle than they are now, because they are not going to have to admit to addiction to an illegal substance.

Toleration and encouragement are not the same thing. Do we currently “encourage” the next generation to smoke cigarettes?

::Sigh:: People are addicted to nicotine and alcohol. Gangs don’t control these industries. And yes, gangs will walk away from the multi-billion dollar drug business because it won’t be a multi-billion dollar business anymore. Once again, the high price and high profits of the drugs business exist because of the prohibition on drugs. Take away the illegality, and drug gangs can no longer charge their risk premium.

Thanks for bringing up FARC. FARC is able to increase its funds to buy weapons and recruit people because of their “tax” on the cocaine trade. If the profits drop, drugs traders won’t be able to afford the tax. So FARC’s revenues would go down. Less weapons, and a smaller FARC is the result.

Yes, they are. If you make anything that people want illegal, the price of that product will go up, and therefore trafficking (with its inherent ills) will get worse. This is true even for bread. Make it legal, and price and trafficking drops.

Sua

35

Unlike you, I’m not one of the people that has survived drug use (by a friend) and come out unscathed. And to have the attitude, “Well nothing happened to me or my friends so what’s your beef” is as dumb as it is ignorant. I’m not trying to be rude and I apologize if I am being harsh. But this is very personal to me. I lost a friend forever to drug use and callous, flippant attitudes to the subject piss me off.

And your religion analogy is apples and oranges. If a monkey mauled your sister wouldn’t you want all monkeys to be banned?! I know. It’s dumb… because it doesn’t corellate to drug legalization whatsoever!!!

36

Well, gee, it can’t possibly be personal to me. One of my best friends is a felon now because he provided people with a product that they demanded from him. So he can’t vote now to overturn the law that has basically ruined his life. No problem, all is fair in love and war, right?

Apart from that, I have known, indirectly, two people who have struggled with heroin. AFAIK both of their lives are pretty much ruined by the exorbitant cost of the drug, and the withdrawl that they experience which drives them to do some very bad things in order to obtain this money. Well, the last can only be said of one of them, and again, this is all second hand information. The other of the two was going to a clinic for some time. It is a shame to see something like that happen. Having the drug be illegal doesn’t seem to be stopping it, and instead only serves to drive the cost of the material up because of black markets and local monopolies on said black markets.

Drugs are going to hurt—if they hurt—whether or not they are illegal, we should both be able to agree on that. The drug war adds additional hurt to that existing hurt. It is very simple math, and it isn’t meant to slight real pain. I have no doubt that that pain exists. I merely want to point out that the drug war itself creates additional pain on top of that. That pain, too, is real.

And my attitude is most certainly NOT “Well nothing happened to me or my friends so what’s your beef” it is “Nothing happened to me and my friends so you can see why some people support legalization.” I guess I was wrong; hopefully this post remedied that.

37

For the record, I view my stance on this much the same as I do gun control. We can thoerize and hypothicize until we’re blue in the face. We can debate and debate until there’s nothing left to debate. Until the day your kid, or a friend is gunned down in the streets. I just have a hard time with this kind of stuff. It seems like we take the people it does effect out of the picture. Yes, I would give up some of my freedom if it meant getting guns and drugs off the streets. If I could have my choice of having my friend back and in prison, or swinging from the end of a rope, well I’m sorry but I’d take prison. Again, I don’t agree with locking drug users up. That’s not helping anyone. I also realize there is a hypocricy because of alcohol use. I’m sure that alcohol destroys many more lives per year than pot use. But selecting the lesser of two evils still does not justify it in my mind.

I want to apologize to erislover for the rude remarks I made. I was offended by what I perceived as an insensative remark and a shot at my faith. My stance on drugs has little to nothing to do with my religious beliefs. I am glad that none of your friends were affected as deeply as my buddy. I know many people can handle minor drug use with no ill affects. But I also would trade that all to have my buddy back. :frowning:

38

I am truly sorry that you’re buddy is a felon now. But I have to be honest, I have a lot less sympathy for a seller than I do a user. Taking in to account my limited knowledge of his particular situation, nobody forced his hand to sell. And demand for the product is not a justification to sell. I have a hard time understanding (and enlighten me if possible) as to why someone should sell drugs. I mean, what’s the benefit of drugs? A temporary fix for a bigger problem? To make money of someone else’s pain? Sellers are the ones who destroy lives, though I also aknowledge that every individual is responsible for his/her own actions. But that is also my point.

I do agree with you on your second paragraph. The existing drug war does add more pain. But I don’t see how the lowering the price of drugs and monitoring it is going to help. Gangs still will exist because they were around before drugs. They will just find something else to do. It seems to me that gangs are attractive because of the protection and “family” they provide to those who have none. The drugs is just a way for them to make cash.

Sure, maybe the lower cost will keep someone from robbing or carjacking, but it does nothing to address the addiction of the user. Your two friends are still going to shoot up and drive themselves closer to death. None of us want that!

39

Well, no one forces any of our hands, be that non-user-non-dealer, dealer, or user. He only got into selling ecstacy, LSD, and a little pot or mushrooms here or there. Actually, I think he went with cocaine for a bit, but didn’t want to stay associated with it. He was busted, however, on the LSD. Ouch!

I’ve known three people personally to try heroin, two by injecting and one by snorting, and all three never did it again. The two that injected it were actually scared away by how good it was, and the third wasn’t impressed with the effect from snorting it. So there is also some conception that rational users can make informed choices about drugs. Granted, this population will be smaller than the users prone to addiction (if we consider alcohol and tobacco as any indication, and I see no real reason to seperate physically addictive drugs) but I don’t think any country which has started trying to turn a blind eye to this sort of drug use has seen anything like an exponential growth in use rates.

I don’t think the primary motivation for most people who don’t use drugs is really the law; at least, I’ve rarely heard anyone mention that this was what really stopped them from using many of the available drugs. Like you they usually have more personal reasons. I don’t see that decriminalizing—or outright legalizing—many drugs is really going to change that. Sure, there will always be a group willing to experiment, and within that group there will be persons wanting to use, and within that group there will be persons willing to abuse, and within that group will be persons unable to stop abusing… but I don’t think we would reach an epidemic level of uncontrollable abuse simply because the illegality of use isn’t (seemingly) what drives people away from drugs. See what I mean?

40

Good points. I agree that we can lump alcohol, tobacco and drugs all in together (for the sake of this conversation). All serve no purpose (other than to alter moods). All of them damage and destroy the physical body as well as the quality of life (which is what separates them from… say… caffeine. I’ve never heard of a family torn apart from caffeine addiction). I don’t see why alcohol and tabacco should be legal either. Fact is, they are too engrained into our societies and line to many “special interest” pockets to become illegal (see prohabition for details). I do see drugs being legalized worldwide within the next 20 years. And probably 50 years from now they’ll be as accepted as tobacco and alcohol. Still doesn’t make it right. Apathy and conditioning does not make it right. Again, what purpose is all this? If “people are gonna do it anyways, let’s make it legal” is our philosophy, then God help us all.

I was in Amsterdam about 2 months ago and it was interesting. I wasn’t there long enough to form an educated opinion on the matter. It would be good to have someone from that region like Sparculees weigh in on how things have changed there.