To expand on what Tracer said…these problems are all caused by needles–specifically dirty needles, except for the collapsed veins. Needle-exchange programs, or a more widespread availability of needles for purchase, would reduce these problems considerably.
One could argue that if heroin could be obtained legally and inexpensively, users would have to spend less of their time and energy obtaining drugs and could take better care of themselves otherwise. (I’m not arguing that myself, but one could.)
Now, this may be another debate entirely, and may not even be noticed, but here’s something I was reminded of: I once read someone assert that we should encourage children (or young people; I forget how this was phrased) to use drugs, guide them through the using process, show them which have what effects, etc., in order to better educate them (not to mention opening them up to what the writer thought was a psychologically useful experience).
Should we also encourage them to experiment with all those noxious chemicals in the hardware store and drugstore aisles? That way, they’ll learn what their effects are, yadda yadda yadda…
There are many ways to learn. First-hand experience isn’t the only method, and it’s not always the best.
A private third party entity would be just fine. The problem would be getting the drug pipeline to go through whatever testing facility is setup, be it government or private.
Well, arguably, the reaction could be, so what? To play devil’s advocate, I thought the entire point of this thread is that using drugs wasn’t a bad thing? So why should it matter?
Related question: what is the scientific consensus on biological roots of substance abuse? I didn’t know there were any.
So what? The child is now physically addicted to a narcotic and either faces a painful withdraw period and possible life long cravings for the drug or a life long commitment to the drug with all the potential health problems that brings. No decent parent would expose their child to such an unnecessary risk.
Many in this thread have argued that drugs are not a bad thing, but I have consistantly argued the opposite. I just prefer to know the actual facts rather than anti-drug propaganda.
Biology is thought to play a major role in why some people get addicted to drugs while others can stop drug usage with no ill effects. A recent study with rats covers this topic:
I seriously doubt that MDMA is either theoretically or practically impossible to OD on. You can OD on anything, even water, as was discussed in a recent GQ thread. The LD-50 (the dose that is fatal to 50% of the population) of MDMA may be considerably higher than the normal amount of MDMA used, but an uneducated user can certainly screw up. Hell, people get alcohol poisoning from beer, and the amount of brew you’d have to drink to have that happen (depending body weight) is really ludicrous.
However, you are right that most raver deaths are due to impure MDMA. These fakes mimic the most dangerous aspect of Ecstacy - the increase in body temperature. Fatal or injurious body temperature elevation caused by pure MDMA is rare, and is easily avoided by an educated user (lots of fluids, etc.), but it is a real risk.
In general, the LD[sub]50[/sub]s of stimulants and hallucinogens are higher than depressants.
I don’t worry about most drugs except the opiate family and cocaine and its derivatives. Both, I think, are a function of brainwashing as everyone who I’ve known to use them used them recreationally and quit without a problem at all.
OK, everything Sua and The Economist said…I’ve read the study from The Economist and would recommend it to everyone. It is well thought out and provides a great case for the legalization of drugs in a rational way. The Economist is a fairly conservative magazine, they didn’t go into this lightly.
Blackclaw you tenacious little arguer! I’m beginning to respect you more and more. Very good points on many things. I think Sua covered most of the positions I would take, so I won’t re-hash it all. Come to Prague someday, I’d love to talk about this with you over a few beers.
Most everything has been pointed out, so I’ll just re-cap my positions, just to add $0.02:
The war on drugs causes more harm than the drugs themselves ever would.
Your Constitutional rights are getting eaten at, little by little, and most people accept this blindly. No-knock John Doe raids, police seizures of property before a day in court and car searches without due cause are just a few examples. Watch out! What are you going to do when the laws they enacted for the War on Drugs start getting used on you for other reasons? Be afraid.
You think having more people just sitting around getting high would negatively affect our productivity and workforce? How about having 1 million people sitting on their asses in prison (as there currently are for drug offenses)? They sure aren’t as productive as they could be. And what job skills are they learning there? Skills that aren’t good for you and me- how to rob, murder and cheat more effectively are the main courses offered in jail. And what about cost? Something like $65,000 per person, per year to keep them in jail. And if they were employed? What is the low-end survival salary in the USA these days? I know the mean salary is around $30k, so I’ll use $15k, just to be safe- So that’s a total of around $80,000 a year, per person in jail (c. 1 million for drug crimes) equals $80 BILLION a year that is taken out of your pocket and not spent in your stores or on your services. And that doesn’t include the $35 billion spent on the War itself…
Letting a rapist go so a drug user can stay is NOT the way to run our prisons.
We already have laws that protect us from the reported evils of drug use. As I said in another thread, Drug laws do not add any protection to our society that isn’t already there. You can strip away the drug laws and all of the bad things that you associate with drugs would still be illegal- murder, robbery, extortion, etc. are illegal in their own rights. Legalize drugs and weekend users can use, but murderers, robbers, etc. will still go to jail.
Och…I have to go. My $0.02 was getting a bit long anyways.
Dealers probably wouldn’t be selling like they had in the past. They’d have to open up stores, get some sort of business (liquor) license, and follow certain laws. The people who are on the street dealing probably won’t be the same ones who open shops.
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You’re going on the assumption that the same people who sold on the streets would open shops. And by the way alcohol used to be sold by gangsters who were also used to using violence against their competetion. Now we have liquor stores these days and I don’t think they shoot it out. Mom & Pop stores didn’t take the profit out of alcohol the government did when they repealed that godawful amendment. It simply wasn’t worth the effort or the risk because the profits were no longer there.
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Do we have these problems with alcohol? Nope. We can pick up a label and figure out exactly how much alcohol is in any given bottle.
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I don’t see this as being a serious problem. How many new drugs do you think will be created?
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Again, similiar to liquor stores.
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We’ve been fighting the war on drugs for 70+ years. Can you tell me what good has come from it?
No, I’m not making that assumption, but perhaps my post wasn’t clear.
I think what should be kept in mind is that prohabition lasted 13 years while drugs have been illegal for 70 years or more. Those folks who are profiting off of it now are not simply going to go away. After prohabition was lifted, mobs began to charge protection money and sought control of who sold what where. This did eventually die away, but I think we can expect to see an initial upswing in violence as dealers try to hold onto their profits.
But drug smugglers have now had over 70 years of practice eluding federal regulation and many recreational drugs are created outside of the US and regulation could be very hard to enforce. I think in time, trusted “brands” would emerge. But I also believe fake and possible harmful copies of these brands would appear. Remember that there are some very violent people that depend on the drug trade for their way of life and we cannot expect them to meekly give up their current profit margin.
New recreational drugs are introduced all the time.
But drugs have had a far longer time period as an illegal substance during thus building up a far worse stigma.
I’m not exactly a fan of the “war on drugs.” I would like to think that keeping the harsher substances outlawed would reduce the number of deaths and lives ruined. But I don’t think our current methods are as effective as they could be. I would prefer to spend more money on truthful education and rehabilitation than on intradiction.
It’s hard to establish a ratio for this, but I’m willing to label the current strategy as “ineffective.”
Clearly the idea of allowing law enforcement agencies to raise funds for themselves by auctioning off property confisicated through drug laws has opened the door to abuses. Our Constitution protects us against unfair seizure and I have faith that these practices will begin to be curtailed by the courts. Congress has already begun to act against such measures. http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/1999/06/24/forfeit0624_01.html
I have seen little crossover yet of drug laws being used for other purposes and with current drug laws power being scaled back I believe we will be ok.
When I am King, I mean president, I will place drug abusers in rehab, not jail. I will ignore pot smokers in the privacy of their own homes. I will not look in their gardens unless they are growing tasty watermelon and only then because I want to know how they did it. I just haven’t had any luck with watermelon myself.
Agreed.
True, but I worry that easier to obtain drugs means more addicts. I have concerns over the protection of minors. I think some substances are just too unhealthy to allow them to be legal.
And after 70 years we’ve got no real improvement in the war on drugs. In fact we’ve got cheaper more powerful drugs.
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The mob was always extorting money out of people. That wasn’t something that magically popped up during prohibition. During and before this time they also sold illegal drugs. I don’t think you’ll see an upswing in violence if the war on drugs is ended. There’s no way of getting blood from a turnip. If you can’t get the same profits from other crimes as you can from illegal drug dealing then most people will not take the same risk.
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I suppose fake brands could pop up. But I don’t see many people going blind because they got their hands on a bad batch of John Daniels or some other knock off liquor product. Of course it may surprise you to know that there are already brand name drugs circulating. Some of the more established dealers in NY or Chicago put little stamps on their drugs just like Coca-Cola or Pepsi might do.
If drugs were illegal I don’t believe there would be a strong incentive to smuggle or bypass most laws. Why would there be? Sure if they sell their products legally they might make less of a profit. On the other hand they won’t have to worry about going to jail or being whacked by one of the other cartels. Also keep in mind how many billions of dollars each year the cartels spend on bribing government officials and law enforcement. Legalization would remove a lot of the need to bribe officials and law enforcment.
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But people seem to stick with most of the big ones. Without the war on drugs I doubt crack would have been created.
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This really doesn’t matter and it isn’t entirely true. Before national prohibition alcohol had been demonized for decades and banned in many states. Kansas for example. Of course you’re right that we’ve got over 70 years of government propaganda and misinformation about the war on drugs. Supposedly over 60,000,000 have used illegal drugs at some point in their lives. So I have to ask you what affect this stigma really has?
Our current methods are ineffective and must be radically altered. But every couple of years we get a new drug czar, president, or congressman who wants to try the same old thing over and over. Anyone who does the same thing over and over and expects a different result is not sane.
Personally I think people are slowly getting the message. California and Arizona thumbed their nose at the Federal Government and decided the medical marijuana was a good idea. I feel it is only a matter of time before other states do the same thing and in fact work more towards legalization then prohibition. But as you said it has been illegal for a long time so I don’t expect this to happen overnight.
Blackclaw no worries, but no root beer. If you are an abstainer of all substances, cool. They market a mighty fine mineral water here called Mattoni- very refreshing. [sub]But the beer still tastes better![/sub]
I can understand your concern about the potential for increased addiction. I just have this feeling that addiction does not simply rest in the chemical folds of the drug itself. In my experience, addicts are addicts, be it alcohol, tobacco or illicit drugs. I believe that treatment programs would make a world of difference, and one could finance those easily with the profits from selling drugs to those weekend users like myself who go to work, raise families, help out their communities, etc etc.
I could go on and on, but the basic differences we have pointed out don’t necessarilly prove that either one of us needs to be right or wrong. We agree that the way things are now just isn’t working, and a newer better way needs to be found. And if that is a step-by-step easing into legalisation with soft-drugs first, and many controls, then fine. Do it slowly. But that means we all need to talk to our Congressmen, vote for the changes, and support proper research. Fight the good fight, as it were.
Gotta get back to work! Gotta earn that right to relax this weekend!
