I have no guarantee about ANY of your future behaviour, but I am not making calls to limit you personal freedoms today.
It’s interesting to read that so many posters think that an increased availabilty of drug, will create more addicts. I’m going out on a limb here, not quoting a source, but recent studies, and freinds of mine who work with rehab, say this is simply not true. The existance of any drug, will not create the addict. It’s their personality. If narcotics is not available, then they will turn to alcohol, or sniffing glue or whatever.
If availability created the addict, we would have many more people holding up 7-11’s and snatching purses. At least 75% of everyone in my highschool class smoked pot every now and then. No one turned out addict. I have a few friends who have turned out alcoholics. None of them used to smoke pot.
Basically, if you’re getting drunk to party, you run less of a risk getting addicted, than if you drink to numb the pain (of a heartbreak or whatever).
Also, doctors used to be careful with morphine, lest they cause addiction with patients. Recent studies show this is not so. If used to relieve pain, you don’t become mentally addicted. Of course prolonged use can cause physical addiction, but patients post-surgery are usually not under the influence for that long a time.
The arguments about how illegal drugs force prices up, and thereby creates crime has been argued 'bout enough. But don’t forget that the economics deriving for this goes both ways. Security companies, prison builders, alarms systems and cops…
So why is it a problem? Because politicians made it so. Drug use is easy to target and a good way for a pol, be it nationally or locally, to appear strong and win votes. The “war on drugs” prey on peoples fear, as is evident when reading here, and a sure vote catcher.
As always - follow the money (or power). there is usually the answer to the “why” when it comes to politics.
Shoeman83 do you read this thread as it proceeds at all???
On no less than 1.345.879 occasions have various posts furnished you with cites that indicate that drug abuse does not increase when drug use and possession is decriminalized.
Maybe you were drunk while you wrote your latest post?
Please read the previous posts before posting!
Sparc
I want to aknowledge that I am trying to stay as up to date with this debate as possible. I can also see that I am in the minority here. So I apologize that I can not reply to the pluthera of good responses to my posts. IMHO, the responses to my question about the “redeeming value” of drugs were tip-toed around. I promise, this will be the last time I post a reply with this wording. I don’t want to beat a dead horse here (or is that too late?). Scotth thanks for your straightforward reply. I don’t think there is anything wrong with a glass of wine for dinner. I believe that studies have shown that a glass of wine a day is great for the fight against heart disease (I don’t have a cite handy but if anyone contests that I will try to track it down). So I think that minor alcohol consumption is not a bad thing and therefore has a redeeming value. I still don’t see how minor RECREATIONAL (not medicinal) drug use has any value.
The point I’m trying to make (and not very well apparently) is that the difference between drug use and say a yo-yo is that while a yo-yo has no redeeming value, it doesn’t have any negative aspects either. Twirling a yo-yo 3 times a day won’t kill ya. But using drugs the same amount will (eventually) But I concede that
I am just beating this point into the ground. So I’ll drop it from
here on out.
I would much rather give up my right/freedom to use drugs, then have them be legal and see them hurt others (and I’m keeping to my opinion that legalization would lead to more use/more addicts). They’re just not that important to me.
You have all made good points and I see the merit in them. Thanks for the great debate.
SUA SUA SUA…
You have put such an exaggerated spin on my last post! . “Don’t try to go trading real life stories w/ me”…
I was not adressing you exclusively and your experiences could just be different or intrepreted differently than mine–neither less valid. That is an unnecesarily condescending remark.
I never said all drug users were addicts-in fact, I acknowledged the difference between recreational use and abuse in a previous post.
“You don’t know jack about physiology”… So in one sentence you are able to sum up all I know? I was not attempting to give a lecture on all of what I know about physiology. I never said the ONLY factor to addiction and its severity was how much money one has to spend–I realize that there is only so much coke one can do in a night. I’m just saying when we are talking addiction we are talking (in very simplified terms) a lack of self control. It would be easy to eventually let the habit grow out of control if cash was originally the rate-limiting factor. We may have to agree to disagree, but plz don’t put word in my mouth and give me a little credit–I wasn’t born yesterday! (and I know u weren’t either) I don’t expect this to be a love-fest, but if you would kindly retract the claws…
PS–I don’t drink BUD 
I’m not sure about my stance on this issue (I’m slowly leaning towards legalization the more I read), but I do have one question:
Can we really apply cites based on Europeans for America? I mean, isn’t that sort of like trying to argue for massive gun control by using foreign countries as “proof” that it works, and can/should be done? Granted, the culture of America impacts the gun control issue more than the drug legalization issue, but I do think that it’s unwise to point to (generally) smaller countries with very different cultures and use them as evidence of what to do here, especially on an issue like this.
FWIW, I believe that in the few years immediately following legalization, there will be a significant upswing in drug users due to the novelty. What effect that has, and what happens after five or so years, is anyone’s guess, really…
BTW, what are the loosest drug laws in the world right now? Anyone allow Ecstacy, K, black tar heroin, and crack to be sold openly? If so, where? (No, I’m not looking for a hit, thank you. :))
As another aside, why is it that I hear all the time about drunk driving cases in the news, but almost never about an accident caused by drug use? Surely it must occur… Do drugs generally floor a person so much that he or she can’t even drive, or what…?
This debate is getting extremely muddled & difficult. And it also illustrates how effective one of the major tactics in the “drug war” of the last twenty years has been. It’s the lumping together of all illegal mind-altering chemicals into the same class!
PEOPLE…don’t buy into the fallacy that a drug is a drug is a drug is a drug! Those of you who are over 40 must remember that once upon a time we distingushed drugs into two classes: HARD DRUGS: Cocaine, heroin, PCP etc. and SOFT DRUGS: Cannabis, Psilocybin Mushrooms, LSD.
The reason this debate is so difficult is because one poster can talk about how relaxing & enjoyable “drugs” are, while another can argue that “drugs” destroyed the life of a loved one. We’re not even talking about the same thing!
Most people who are for drug “legalization” are for decriminalizing soft drugs. All but the most libertarian of us still feel we need some restrictions on hard drugs. William Bennett et al wanted to erase the distinction between hard & soft drugs precisely because they wanted this very type of debate to become impossible! Let’s not allow them this victory!
ALSO…to the posters that argue against any type of redeeming value of drugs, I’ll add my two cents to the other posts…
Drugs with entheogenic properties, such as Psilocybe “Magic” Mushrooms and Peyote can give users profound religious/spiritual experiences. The ancient Mayan civilization, the Mazatec Indians of Mexico, and Native Americans have incorporated psychedelic substances into their religious rituals with great success. They are very important parts of their religious lives, and help keep them connected to “the great spirit”.
Even in our modern society these drugs have many proven beneficial uses:[ul] [li] In the Concord Prison Psilocybin Rehabilitation Project, Psilocybin was given to inmates in a controlled setting. The recidivism rate was 23% compared to an expected 65%. []Psychedelics have been used to successfully treat alcoholism.[/li][li]Ibogaine has had amazing success in treating heroin addiction.[]The treatment of cluster headaches with LSD and MushroomsBefore the US prohibited its use, LSD was being used in psychotherapy. There were many breakthroughs achieved with this drug–one therapist wrote a book chronicling his experiences:The Secret Chief[/ul][/li]It’s a shame that this “war” has caused people to view all drugs as being the same. The fact is that most people I know that have experimented with psychedelic drugs have had overwhelmingly positive experiences. And I’m sure that many users of this message board can confirm that. I’d love to start a thread: “How psychedelics changed my life”, but I’m sure that would be locked in seconds. Once again proving that the war on drugs has also become a war on intellectual freedom…but I digress…
[quote]
Originally posted by Leaper
[…] but I do think that it’s unwise to point to (generally) smaller countries with very different cultures and use them as evidence of what to do here, especially on an issue like this.
[quote]
[nitpick]You might argue that EU is not a country, but since the Nice Treaty of about a year ago we pretty much fulfill the qualifications for a nation. If you are speaking geographically we are indeed smaller, but with 390 odd million inhabitants ‘we’ outnumber ‘you’ guys at a factor of 2 to 3.[/nitpick]
Although I understand what you mean some people would argue that we have the same culture and I would argue that viewing America or Europe as useful terms when describing cultures is misleading, since both places are far too large and far too culturally heterogeneous. Fly from New York to Minneapolis and tell me that you are sure that you are still on the same planet. Actually better take a walk from 70th and 5th in Brooklyn to lower Queens and tell me if you are in the same country… hell, they don’t even speak the same language anymore at the end of that walk.
Be that as it may… although drug use is definitely a culture based phenomena in as much as that the type and form of drugs consumed will be vary slightly across cultures, addiction is a worldwide phenomena and it could be argued that the dynamics of it are rather equal across humanity. Having had the pleasure to enjoy a wide variety of substance use and the displeasure of witnessing a wide variety of substance abuse in places as disparate as Tinfu, Sahara and Clackamas County OR, I’d say that this looks valid on observation. It also holds true if you look at the statistics, as is indicated in the UN World Drug Report. WARNING it’s a pdf!
The report might also answer your last question on DUI deaths, since it indicates the relative uncommonness of other drugs than alcohol (above 50% of pop.) and Tobacco (above 20%) - the report indicates that illicit drug use is below 10% worldwide.
As re the place with the most lax drug laws I think that you will find that pretty much every nation on earth has outlawed most illicit drugs, but that de facto legalization by the penal system in places like the Netherlands would mean that you could pretty easily find and buy any of the substances you list without being afraid of any harsh repercussions, save what might happen when you ingest them.
Sparc
Sorry about the formatting
…and the ratio of EU vs. US population should of course be 4 to 3 and nothing else.
Sparc
Legalise all soft drugs, let the government set guidelines as to how they are sold, similar to cigarette smoking laws, tax these drugs and the money made could be put into rehabilitation centers for serious addicts.
Crack and Heroin are evil, they destroy people plain and simple, I can’t sugest how to tackle these but punishing the addicts is wrong, they are punished enough from the addiction alone.
Instead of penalising drug users with fines, jail time and criminal records that will ruin any hope they have of getting a job that could pull them out of the gutter we should be careing for them, de-toxing them, supplying them with work. But only the ones that want to quit, if they don’t want too then no matter how much treatment you give them they will just return to their old ways.
I speek with some knoledge in this area both as a former drug user myself (though luckily never addicted to anything), and from seeing the effects of heroin and crack cocain on some of the people I have met during my own journey down the drug path that where not so lucky.
“smoking canabis (soft drugs) does not lead people to harder drugs, Curiosity does”
This stance is one of the fatal faults in your reasoning. Alcohol is without doubt a more dangerous substance than even heroin. This is true medically, psychologically, and socially.
It is true there have been studies indicating possible health benefits from moderate drinking of wine. There are more recent studies indicating those studies were flawed. The issue isn’t settled yet.
What is true without any doubt, alcohol is spectacularly destructive when chronically abused. It is unique among known mind altering chemicals in its effects to incite violence and anti-social behaviour in the user.
The above quoted from here.
It was a fairly common practice among doctors in the late 1800’s was to deliberately hook alcoholic patients on opiates. It was understood that if you were going to have an addict, an opiate addict was much preferrable. The opiate addiction usually supplanted the one to alcohol and the following benefits were seen.
- Great reduction in the amount of domestic violence.
- Near elimination of unacceptable public behaviour (and consequently much fewer arrests).
- Better work attendance and performance.
- Far better health for the addict.
- Far less money spent. Legitimate opiates are far cheaper than alcohol per user per day.
Chronic alcohol abuse destroys your health very directly. Opiates, on the other hand, only cause the problem of requiring their continued use. They are exceptionally non toxic to the body and brain.
From the same source as above:
It is nearly the same story across the board comparing alcohol to other drugs. I am not try to suggest that is a good thing to be a chonic/dependent user of any substance. What I am trying to point out is that trying to say that alcohol is in any way more redeeming than other substances is an invalid arguement.
I fully grant you your right to judge other substances as too dangerous to be legally available. However, I strongly condemn basing that opinion on factually incorrect data. In the sake of brevity, I primarily focused on opiates (heroin) in this post. The same analysis can be made for most of the others.
It is important in making a well thought out decision to be able to seperate its current dangers brought on solely by its status as illegal from its inherent physical and psychological dangers.
- The vast majority of its overdose risk is due to varying strengths of product on the black market.
- Opiate induced crime is almost completely a product of black market effects.
- Damage to a user’s health is almost completely tied to the unavailability of clean drugs and paraphenalia due to its illegal status.
You have seen with your own eyes what responsible use of alcohol looks like and you approve. Responsible use of other substances exist as well, it is just well hidden. Generally, when somone becomes aware of another’s drug use, it is when things have gone bad. If the only evidence you saw of alcohol use was the meltdown of an alcoholic, your perceptions of it would be much changed.
Actually, it wasn’t condescending at all. It was in response to this statement of yours:
As for the rest:
Me putting words in your mouth? Hardly.
You wrote this, and it is patently incorrect. You didn’t write about “self-control” or anything else.
Sua
I find it much more useful to drop even those classifications and examine each substance on its own merits.
I have a number of suggestions. I am holding these while I try to achieve a concensus that the current system multiplies the damage done by drugs rather than abates it.
I have to take issue with this on several levels. First of all, “personality,” divorced from physiology, does not explain dependency. There have been scads of studies in which dependence was induced in rats and other critters. Even assuming rats have personalities, I don’t think only the depressed rats get addicted.
Second, the very existence of the two differing types of dependence, physical and psychological, demonstrates that personality alone does not play a role.
Third, while the physiology of dependence is not fully understood, both the science and everyday experience shows that dependency is not necessarily or fully transferable.
On the science side, dependency appears to develop from the effect certain psychoactive substances have on the production and retention of various neurotransmitters. Different psychoactive substances affect different neurotransmitters.
If addict X gets addicted to substance Y because addict X has difficulty producing or retaining serotonin, and substance Y replaced serotinin, addict X is unlikely to become addicted to substance Z, which affects dopamine levels. Etc.
This lack or limit to cross-dependency can be seen every day. How many nicotine addicts do you know? Do they drink? If so, are they also alcoholics?
But, in any event, I am aware of some studies that have come out saying that increased availability of drugs does not cause increased levels of dependency. I am skeptical on a few counts.
First, the cities/countries that have decriminalized drugs have tended to decriminalize only those drugs that have low rates of psychological dependency and almost non-existent physical dependency. Cocaine and heroin, two of the more addictive illegal substances, have not be decriminalized anywhere.
Second, it defies common sense. If, for a given drug, 10% of the population has a propensity for physical or psychological dependency. Under a criminalization regime, only 50% of the population has access to it, and of that 50%, 50% won’t do it because of the social stigma and/or fear of arrest. So, only 25% of the population will try it, and 2.5% may become dependent (that’s very high, I know - addiction doesn’t start from the first dose of a drug - but I’m just playing with numbers here). Say it is legalized. 100% of the population has access, and only 25% won’t try it because of the remaining stigma. The dependent population increases to 7.5%.
The overwhelming majority of addicts don’t fit into the “junkie” stereotype.
I reject the idea of legalizing soft drugs while keeping hard drugs criminalized, but not because I’m a hard-core libertarian. I’m definitely not.
I’m opposed to making this distinction because legalizing only soft drugs doesn’t solve the problem. It’s the hard drugs - particularly cocaine and heroin - that are the immense profit makers, due to their illegality. It’s hard drugs that lead to gang shoot-outs. It’s the illegality of hard drugs that have damaged or destroyed civil society in Columbia, Peru and Burma, as well as other places.
Decriminalize pot, and some problems will go away. But inner cities won’t be much safer, police and judges won’t be that much less corrupt, etc.
Sua
I have to take issue with this on several levels. First of all, “personality,” divorced from physiology, does not explain dependency. There have been scads of studies in which dependence was induced in rats and other critters. Even assuming rats have personalities, I don’t think only the depressed rats get addicted.
Second, the very existence of the two differing types of dependence, physical and psychological, demonstrates that personality alone does not play a role.
Third, while the physiology of dependence is not fully understood, both the science and everyday experience shows that dependency is not necessarily or fully transferable.
On the science side, dependency appears to develop from the effect certain psychoactive substances have on the production and retention of various neurotransmitters. Different psychoactive substances affect different neurotransmitters.
If addict X gets addicted to substance Y because addict X has difficulty producing or retaining serotonin, and substance Y replaced serotinin, addict X is unlikely to become addicted to substance Z, which affects dopamine levels. Etc.
This lack or limit to cross-dependency can be seen every day. How many nicotine addicts do you know? Do they drink? If so, are they also alcoholics?
But, in any event, I am aware of some studies that have come out saying that increased availability of drugs does not cause increased levels of dependency. I am skeptical on a few counts.
First, the cities/countries that have decriminalized drugs have tended to decriminalize only those drugs that have low rates of psychological dependency and almost non-existent physical dependency. Cocaine and heroin, two of the more addictive illegal substances, have not be decriminalized anywhere.
Second, it defies common sense. If, for a given drug, 10% of the population has a propensity for physical or psychological dependency. Under a criminalization regime, only 50% of the population has access to it, and of that 50%, 50% won’t do it because of the social stigma and/or fear of arrest. So, only 25% of the population will try it, and 2.5% may become dependent (that’s very high, I know - addiction doesn’t start from the first dose of a drug - but I’m just playing with numbers here). Say it is legalized. 100% of the population has access, and only 25% won’t try it because of the remaining stigma. The dependent population increases to 7.5%.
The overwhelming majority of addicts don’t fit into the “junkie” stereotype.
I reject the idea of legalizing soft drugs while keeping hard drugs criminalized, but not because I’m a hard-core libertarian. I’m definitely not.
I’m opposed to making this distinction because legalizing only soft drugs doesn’t solve the problem. It’s the hard drugs - particularly cocaine and heroin - that are the immense profit makers, due to their illegality. It’s hard drugs that lead to gang shoot-outs. It’s the illegality of hard drugs that have damaged or destroyed civil society in Columbia, Peru and Burma, as well as other places.
Decriminalize pot, and some problems will go away. But inner cities won’t be much safer, police and judges won’t be that much less corrupt, etc.
::sigh:: Shoemaker, I didn’t “so quickly pass over” anything. The question asked was “what are the redeeming value of drugs?” That was the question I answered.
Sua
An experiment of a similar nature was done in Liverpool, England.
In summary, heroin was made available by prescription in the area to registered addicts. The results were stunning.
- The dealers left the area.
- Crime went way down.
- Death rate and disease of users improved.
- Users’ self sufficiency improved.
- New users were created in far few numbers.
- Many users were successful in quitting with the extreme hardship of their situations alleviated.
You will find the details in a cite post earlier in this thread by me. Page 33 of the cite is where this experiment is detailed.
I will link it again here, to make it easier to find.
Congressional Testimony Record
Damn, I should have previewed my last post better.
My apologies.
minor recreational drug use has as much redeeming value as minor alcohol consumption.
As for the distinction between hard and soft drugs, I think it is important, since it will lead to decriminalization of soft drugs much quicker. However, I believe that even hard drugs should eventually be decriminalized, personally.
scotth, I read the bit, and I found support for everything you said except for the assertion that new users were created in far fewer numbers.
To be fair, this wasn’t an experiment in legalization. The heroin wasn’t available at the clinic to non-users, but instead to people already addicted. So it wouldn’t have affected the numbers of new users (or new addicts) anyway.
Sua