Im not gonna comment on anything but Justinh’s response to my statement. Im also going to limit what I say to one sentence.
What exactly do we have to lose?
Drug users face many dangers…users of heroin in particular. For example, you never know exactly what purity level is in the fix your buying-it can range from 5% to 90%. A few years back, there was an epidemic of dead junkies in the NE. The police were finding addicts dead, some with needles still in their arms. It was traced to a batch of very high purity heroin, that had not been “cut”(diluted) by the pushers, before selling it.When the unfortunate users shot up with the high test stuff, they overdosed!
So, a drug addict is NOT going to be deterred by reports that his “fix” has been poisoned. Frankly, the best thing would be for the US to abandon the war on drugs, and spend the money on education and treatment instead.
I don’t know why I’m responding to this moronic idea, but I should point out that a good percentage of the pot available on the street these days is grown hydroponically, inside buildings. You can’t spray it. If you sprayed all the open fields, it would just raise the price of the hydroponic pot, and stimulate the production of lots of hydroponic pot growing facilities. You might lower supply slightly for a while, at the price of killing a lot of recreational drug users, but supply would catch up to demand relatively quickly.
The same can be said for a lot of the other major drugs like Ecstacy and Methamphetamines, which are made in labs from commercial materials.
So even if you could wipe out all the open fields of drug plants, the best you could accomplish would be to shift drug use to different types of drugs.
Hey, I’ve got an idea! How about we just let people decide what to put in their own bodies? I know, freedom seems like such a radical concept to you ‘Drug Warriors’, but I say give it a try!
- Big-ass poster on the highway, showing joints, pipes, etc. Caption: “Why do you think they call it DOPE!”
Saw it three or four times, grumbled on past, then one day saw it had been graffitoed.
“Because WE have a sense of humor!”
Would you care to provide some counter-evidence refuting the basic point, which is that legal drugs cause far more health and social problems than illegal ones?
You know, deaths from lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease…not to mention falling asleep and burning the house down.
Not difficult. Impossible.
I refer you to a little experiment performed in the last century called Prohibition. Sort of a 1920’s-era War on Drugs, except the drug was alcohol. Intended to “save the poor, benighted alcoholic”…all it did was produce an awful lot of extensive criminal enterprises designed to sidestep the ban on ethanol-enhanced beverages. Sound familiar yet?
It should also be pointed out that Prohibition is the only Constitutional amendment to be repealed. Which means that not only did 2/3 of the Congress at the time realize that the War on Booze was a failure and causing more problems than it solved, but 2/3 of the state legislatures did, also.
I’m just wondering when we’re going to come to that level of realization with the War on Drugs, and recognize all of the rights that we’ve allowed to be eroded because someone with a good propaganda machine is scared to death that someone may be altering the mood God gave 'em.
And while I sympathize with you folks who have to try to figure out how to convince your children not to do things you don’t think are good for them, I still want to introduce the next person (in general, not necessarily in here) who utters the words “for the children” to a large, hungry and belligerent gorilla, after hanging three bunches of bananas around his/her neck and pinning a small tuft of female-gorilla-in-estrus fur to his/her back belt loop.
jayjay
Justinh:
So the addicts aren’t innocent?
I take it you mean “It’s supposed to be a war on DRUGS, not a war on DRUGGIES.”?
MEBuckner:
You mean no one gets lung cancer etc. except smokers?
How is this relevant? Are you implying that the high rate of lung cancer among smokers is just coincidental?
Hey now, there are still plenty of asbestos-removal contractors and manual extraction coal miners out there–surely you’d admit that they account for more cases of lung cancer than those who simply smoke a few packs of cigarettes per day! Hey, I even have a cite/site:
http://phillipmorris.com/propoganda/socfig2001/utterrubbish.html
No, I’m implying that there are people who get lung cancer who never smoked. Something that some people don’t semm to realize. Just how do you get from “not all cases of lung cancer are caused by smoking” to “no cases of lung cancer are caused by smoking”?
[In case you’re curious, the board wouldn’t take my post because I had subitted another one in the last minute (even though it didn’t accept that one either), and when I pressed “back” it showed what I thought was my post, but was just the quote part]
The Ryan, do you actually disagree that cigarette smoking causes health problems, or that cigarettes and alcohol currently cause more health problems and more social problems than do illegal drugs?
Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer is not the only cause of serious head trauma, but if you hit yourself in the head with a hammer, then you will by God get serious head trauma, and I would recommend you not do that. On the other hand, I don’t want the government to launch some huge, expensive, civil-liberties-infringing War on Hammers, complete with heavily armed raids on the local Home Depot and guys like me having to take some sort of personally invasive test to ensure we don’t have any of those ee-vil hammers in our homes in order to get a job.
im with ya justinh. only in my plan, the DEA activly distributes tainted drugs, flooding the market. (they poison all the siezed stuff they got, and put it on the street) the casual user stops or dies, and the junkies with no choice just die.
booze, tobbaco and pot are excluded from the plan. just stick with the herion, smack, junk, meth, coke yada yada yada.
problem one: cottage industry springs up for home testing kits, drug use continues
problem two: cottage industry springs up for “clean” drugs with verifiable source/history, drug use continues
problem three: all problems previously posted
the point is, if we wanted to eradicate the hard-core junkies, it would be no problem. impossible to eliminate all drug use.
thats just what i think. (i don’t think much, it hurts my head)
This has changed from a “how do we win the war on drugs” to a “why do we have a war on drugs” . not my intent. I am starting a new thread on history of successful wars on drugs.
I can make one prediction about successful drug wars, they were never waged in a society like ours.
Are we debating utopian propositions now? The reason the debate has veered away from “How do we win the war on drugs?” is because there is no way to win the war on drugs without a draconian and authoritarian law enforcement mindset and the loss of of most, if not all, of our civil liberties. This has already started. You can have property confiscated because you were accused of dealing/ingesting drugs! Horror stories abound. Takings laws all but give local law enforcement carte blanche to go after any property, real or personal, they want to. After all, even if there’s no conviction they get to keep your stuff.
Drugs have become the Red Peril of the 90s/00s. Drug users are obviously morally bankrupt slackers who will all eventually end up living under bridges and stabbing bypassers for drug money, after all.
Pfui…
jayjay
I don’t see why people are so sympathetic to drug users. Consider the following:
I could put two jars of clear liquid in front of someone and say, “One of them is water, the other is poison. DON’T drink either of them, you could die, it’s real poison so DON’T DO IT.” And then the genius chugs a bottle. Now, when their dead body slumps onto the floor, am I a murderer? All I did was put something they weren’t supposed to consume on a table and informed them not to consume it and told them why they shouldn’t. I’d say the person committed suicide, they knew it was a 50% chance of being poison, but they played the odds anyway, when the only choice with an hint of logic would have been to walk away no matter how refreshing the water may have appeared.
It seems that there is a school of thought that people cannot help but take drugs, as if it’s not a choice. Poisoning drugs is looked upon the same as poisoning half of the Starbucks’ on the outskirts of suburbia just to thin the yuppie population. However, no innocents would be harmed by it, only people who make that choice. I remember hearing about a case where police did tests on some marijuana and found that it was 80% horse manure. Whether or not it was true, roflmao @ people smoking horse crap.
Feeling a “need” to get high is a sign of ultimate weakness. There is no logical reason to take drugs to begin with, so I have no pity on the weak-minded people who have to rely on some kind of chemical crutch to obtain a certain “feeling.” I certainly think a huge amount of publicity would be required, and a date set saying “poison drugs starting Dec. 15” or something along those lines. Inform people that poisoned drugs will begin heavy circulation, then the decision is theirs, they should move on to a new hobby. If not, well, they are responsible for their actions under the explained circumstances, let 'em be an example to the rest of ya. Maybe the world would have a few less dumbasses. And if you give drugs to a kid, and those drugs happen to be poison, you are a murderer not the government. After all, is Remington responsible if someone shoots and kills you with one of their guns?
I know I’ll get flamed for this post, but really, don’t go all flamey on me, just point out a flaw in my logic please.
I don’t see why you have such hatred for drug users. Personally, I don’t use drugs. I agree it’s probably not the most rational thing in the world to ingest some potentially hazardous substance for purely recreational purposes. But why the desperate need to make this behavior illegal, to trample the Constitution, even to resort to poisoning people? People do lots of stupid things. I think the government should rig all cars so that they explode in huge Hollywood-style fireballs if they exceed 80 mph! I think the government should put cyanide in Twinkies! (Surely no one needs to eat a Twinkie.) I think the government should put strychnine in sugary nutrient-free carbonated beverages! (No one needs to drink that stuff–you should drink water instead!) I think any couple who agrees to appear on Temptation Island, or anyone who agrees to appear on Jerry Springer after their significant other suggests it, should be summarily shot!
And, of course, I re-iterate my demand that we poison all the beer and liquor–snooty French wine, too–and most definitely exterminate all the tobacco users.
'Cause if people do all this stuff, they’ll hurt themselves or get sick and die, so in order to Save Them From Themselves, and keep them from doing Bad Things That Might Hurt Them, we need to, um, kill them!
God will know his own.
You asked for it… here it comes.
This is a almost completely false analogy, but ok, lets go with it. I am sure there is some thing that you enjoy. Lets say for example that you really enjoy a nice juicy steak. Now, you find out that a bunch hard core vegetarians are poisoning shipments of meat on the way to market. What is your personal reaction to that plan? (keep in mind, you really like a good steak now) The ONLY difference between these two situations is legal status of the two substances.
If this ever happened, and I doubt it… It would be much more likely that someone fooled the some redneck cops and handed them a bag of manure on purpose. I can GUARANTEE if someone has bought and smoked pot before, it would be impossible to make a substitution like that. Do you cook maybe? Are you familar why Thyme? If not go grab a bottle and take a look… smell some… play with a little pile of it. Now, tell me after you know what it looks like, feels like, smells like, that I could sell you a bag of horse shit and you wouldn’t know the difference? Being able to even think this might be true reveals an incredible amount of ignorance and misunderstanding.
Lets just take this next section a sentence at a time. This is just embarrassing to read.
I love the brain washed ideas that get tossed about. Yes, there are substance that are habit forming. THEN there is a need… Tobacco and Opiates are the serious ones. But, people simply don’t just feel the “need” to get high, No more than you might feel a “need” to go bowling, go fishing, or have that big juicy steak the evil vegetarians don’t want you to have. By the way, I HIGHLY discourage people from smoking and opiates. But who am I to say that I am gonna try to kill them if they decide to start. (At the end, I will discuss the REAL dangers, beware there is gonna be real facts)
Is there a “logical” reason to eat that steak you so love? You could eat something else, right? You enjoy that steak, why should anyone else be able to tell YOU, that YOU shouldn’t be able to have a steak if you want to. You are probably thinking that this isn’t a good parallel right? Well, actually it is. First, most people who use drugs don’t NEED them as a crutch, it is a form of recreation Sure some do… Some people (alot more I am sure) use food as a crutch. I will grant you that food is a necessity. But, there is actually food abuse.
I feel confident that most, if not all of the people that I know that use drugs are probably mentally stronger and more intelligent than anyone who would write this post. Wow, that is close to a flame, but I don’t intend it to be. The total lack of any working knowledge and understanding of subject on which you chose speak, reveals quite a lot. If you feel I am being unfair here, I will be happy to stand up with ya to see who’s dick is longer.
There are two ways to target this, but on the issue of practicallity would be best I think. So, how do you propose they GET to those drugs to poison them? If they could find them coming into the country or in the distribution channel, they would have arrested those people a LONG TIME AGO and hence no drug problem. Obviously, our law enforcement simple does not have the ability to do this.
I almost don’t trust myself to respond to this line. got to hold the flames in… There is no difference between this and terrorism.
I almost agree with you here. Handing drugs to kids is wrong, period. Children are not ready to make the decision to take up this activity, for themselves yet. However, if the gov’t poisons the drugs and the kid died from, the gov’t deserves some of the credit here.
I wouldn’t consider this a flaming, just exposing how ignorant of the world and how brainwashed you are.
It is also pretty clear you didn’t read many of the postes ofter the OP (or didn’t understand them?). Please look at some of those again to see why there is no way the poisoned drugs would get widely distributed even if the gov’t tried something that stupid.
Dangers of Drug use.
risk of addiction health problems overdose
tobacco high high moderate
alchohol moderate high moderate
heroin high low high
LSD none low none
pot low moderate none
XTC low moderate moderate
Actually, that isn’t a fair comparison… heroin gets a bad rap… most of the risk from heroin from overdose is due to the inconsistent dosages because it isn’t legal.
Back before opiates were stigmatized with the medical profession, Alcoholics were commonly, deliberately hooked on opium or morphine. This solved many problems… Obviously a substance dependence still existed, but it was much more manageable.
- Wife and kids didn’t get beat anymore.
- Patient was in much less trouble with law, stayed home in the evening instead of heading to bar.
- Health risks (brain, liver, cardiovascular) were nearly eliminated.
Dale The Bold,
I have been a lurker here for some time, but seeing your post forced me to go ahead and register. I would like try and show you a different way of looking at things. Try to have an open mind before you start reading this post…that’s all I ask.
Yes. The way society seems to be nowadays, selling a cup of coffee at too hot a temperature is enough to make someone liable. Maybe the “genius” was dying of thirst and no other water could be found at the time. By you not properly labeling the containers, you are to blame. The “genius” didn’t have enough information to make a “logical” choice.
Maybe the “genius” saw things in a way that only allowed two possible (logical) choices, with one being more favorable than the other:
- don’t drink either of the two, and die from dehydration
- drink either of the two, and have a 50% (+) chance of living
Having lived half of my life without “drugs”, and the other half with “drugs,” I for one can say I’ve been on both sides of the fence, and I’ve never attended, nor heard of, the school of thought you mention. It is a choice (except for extreme cases where individuals are “introduced” against their will in some form or fashion).
Yes, like scotth mentioned, this was obviously a “caper” done to make the Police look silly, if in fact it was a real case. Details of the case would be interesting to read…post a link if you can.
Wow. Look up the word “high.” I guess anyone that has achieved a goal, or taken pride in their work, or been rewarded for a good deed, has the “ultimate weakness” too? “Highs” can be induced by a number of different things and ways. Different strokes for different folks. Some people even induce highs in multiple ways…combining them. Feelings are a big part of what makes us human. To deny us the “highs” of life would break our spirit.
Maybe “logic” is a “relative” term. Maybe what’s “logical” to you isn’t “logical” from someone else’s point of view. One could argue that getting “high” helped them to write a song, which made them tons of money down the line. One could also possibly argue that getting “high” provided a form of cheap entertainment that couldn’t be experienced any other way. People have all kinds of driving forces (to get the “high” they desire), and they seek out that which will do the job for them. Skydiving might seem illogical to you (jumping out of a perfectly good airplane), but to someone who wishes to progress to their next attainable level or goal, might see fit to jump.
I noticed you said “my logic.” It seems that other people have their own “logic” as well…so it will be hard for all to agree.
Take care,
M-Pire