# Under no circumstances should someone be given a felony for drugs. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 18, 2019, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239 "2019-07-18T01:49:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/21 "2019-07-18T16:42:15Z")
Drugs should be legal, if for no other reason than the war on drugs is a failure of _epic_ proportions. The people who want to use drugs will do so, regardless of the criminal penalties. If there is a market, someone will step in and supply it. Criminal penalties drive up the risk. Risk drives up price. Increased prices means more illegal profit potential. Profit potential means…and so on and so on… It is unavoidable. The war on drugs did not create a drug free America. It created powerful Cartels and the associated ills, including police and political corruption and hypocrisy. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/22 "2019-07-18T17:04:12Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > What, they are gonna buy heroin with their milk money? Uh, assuming this isn’t a whoosh, yes and any other money they can get their hands on. Anyway, getting back to the OP, should distributing heroin to minor only be a misdemeanor? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/23 "2019-07-18T17:17:52Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > The war on drugs did not create a drug free America. It created powerful Cartels and the associated ills, including police and political corruption and hypocrisy. You say this like it’s a bug in the system. That’s weird to me. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/24 "2019-07-18T17:35:03Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Ricin’s a drug. Want folks making that? That’s really more of a natural product extraction, ricin being a lectin and all. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/25 "2019-07-18T18:28:57Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > What, they are gonna buy heroin with their milk money? Middle school kids have money. They mow lawns, babysit, get allowances, money from grandma. And hooked, they steal money. Kids doesn’t necessarily mean six year olds. It also means fourteen year olds - who are notoriously bad at making decisions. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/26 "2019-07-18T22:49:30Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > Drugs should be legal, if for no other reason than the war on drugs is a failure of _epic_ proportions. > > The people who want to use drugs will do so, regardless of the criminal penalties. > > If there is a market, someone will step in and supply it. > > Criminal penalties drive up the risk. Risk drives up price. Increased prices means more illegal profit potential. Profit potential means…and so on and so on… > > It is unavoidable. > > The war on drugs did not create a drug free America. It created powerful Cartels and the associated ills, including police and political corruption and hypocrisy. So should we just make everything legal? The war on crime is a failure. Clearly criminal penalties don’t keep people from stealing or committing murder. I believe most murders are a spur of the moment action and not premeditated therefore the are clearly committed regardless of criminal penalties and by your logic should be legalized. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/27 "2019-07-18T23:02:53Z")
Most people that start meth labs are not making it for personal consumption. They are making it to sell. Do most consume their own product, yes, but it is done as a business. In states that permit recreational use of marijuana, there is a limit on how many plants you can grow for your own use. To mass grow, you must be licensed, have permits, and pay taxes. Even given this structure, one of the biggest issues these states face, is bootleg marijuana production and dealing, so that growers can illegally bypass the taxes. Tax evasion can be a felony. ---
**Author:** ![Barack\_Obama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Barack\_Obama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barack_Obama)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/28 "2019-07-18T23:40:45Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Ricin’s a drug. Want folks making that? I’ve already addressed this is unsound logic, you’re operating on a false premise that by making something legal, you instantly get millions of people cooking meth in their moms basement. Most of the posts after my last replies have reiterated the same things I already refuted or addressed. Disappointing ---
**Author:** ![Barack\_Obama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Barack\_Obama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barack_Obama)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/29 "2019-07-18T23:43:36Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Uh, assuming this isn’t a whoosh, yes and any other money they can get their hands on. > > Anyway, getting back to the OP, should distributing heroin to minor only be a misdemeanor? Yes. (I thought the title made that clear) ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/30 "2019-07-18T23:52:27Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > Yes. (I thought the title made that clear) Nah that’s just a straight up stupid idea, sorry OP. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/31 "2019-07-19T00:10:10Z")
Yeah, that’s just dumb. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/32 "2019-07-19T00:53:53Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > I’ve already addressed this is unsound logic, you’re operating on a false premise that by making something legal, you instantly get millions of people cooking meth in their moms basement. {…} How many meth labs you comfortable with? CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/33 "2019-07-19T02:02:34Z")
Forget about giving heroin to children. Is it okay for a pimp to give heorin to his hookers to keep them working for him? Is it okay for a football team to give amphetamines or meth to amp up players before a game, or to give them opioids to help them play when hurt? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/34 "2019-07-19T02:39:46Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > > [@madmonk28](#): > > > > Anyway, getting back to the OP, should distributing heroin to minor only be a misdemeanor? > > Yes. (I thought the title made that clear) Sorry Mr. President, you’ve lost any hope of winning my support. Children are especially vulnerable to an overdose because the dosage required to overcome their developing body is lower than it would be for an adult. I feel like there are other factors but as I am not a doctor, I won’t speculate. A quick search on the internet for the effects of heroin on children probably got me put on the FBI watchlist, but to my bittersweet satisfaction people find occasion to talk about the effects of losing a parent to heroin rather than the effects of heroin itself on a minor child. Even so it is a fact that kids overdose on opioids such as methadone or oxycodone (Leiber, 2018). The point is that giving heroin to a child is never justified, and doing so will very likely ruin multiple people’s lives, forever. Giving heroin to children is beyond the pale, and deserves a felony charge at the very least. ~Max Leiber, M. (March 5, 2018). Opioid overdose among children nearly doubled. _CNN_. Retrieved July 18, 2019 from [https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/05/health/opioid-overdose-children-doubles-study/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/05/health/opioid-overdose-children-doubles-study/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/35 "2019-07-19T19:04:35Z")
Your history is way off. One of the first things the Congressional Black Caucus did was to go to Nixon and demand that drug abuse and addiction by declared a major national crisis. In response to this Nixon declared the war on drugs 3 months later. The harsh New York drug laws were passed under Nelson Rockefeller, the liberal republican and long time NAACP member. The harsh California drug laws were passed under the very liberal democrat Jerry Brown. Liberal Senator Ted Kennedy was the first to propose a federal sentencing commission to make drug dealer sentences longer. Private prisons only house 9% of the total inmates in the US. Only 20% of US prisoners are in for drug offenses. Private prisons and drug offenses are not large contributors to mass incarcerations. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/36 "2019-07-19T19:12:32Z")
So if people manufacture underground drugs for the purpose of distribution, we should just put that person in a gateway program? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/37 "2019-07-19T20:00:06Z")
I’m all for the full legalization of drugs. Glad to hear you’re for it too. I guess that means you’ll join the campaign to abolish the FDA? People should be within their rights to develop, produce and sell drugs of all sorts without FDA approval? I’ve never understood people who on the one hand say that drugs should be legal, that people have a right to put whatever they want in their own bodies, and yet support the FDA being the sole arbiter of which medicines you can take and which ones you cannot. The meth lab thing is a red herring. It’s possible to regulate meth labs without regulating meth, in the same way that you might regulate the manufacture of industrial chlorine. I would make one exception to legal drugs - those drugs which, when taken, make someone a danger to society. For example, if someone developed a drug which removed your inhibition to kill and harm others, and the mere fact of taking it constitutes reckless endangerment of the public, there’s a rational, even libertarian basis for banning that drug. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/38 "2019-07-19T21:25:23Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m all for the full legalization of drugs. Glad to hear you’re for it too. I guess that means you’ll join the campaign to abolish the FDA? People should be within their rights to develop, produce and sell drugs of all sorts without FDA approval? > > I’ve never understood people who on the one hand say that drugs should be legal, that people have a right to put whatever they want in their own bodies, and yet support the FDA being the sole arbiter of which medicines you can take and which ones you cannot. One word: [Thalidomide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wIBCoxuOJ0). > [@](#): > > In 1960, Frances Kelsey was one of the Food and Drug Administration’s newest recruits. Before the year was out, she would begin a fight that would save thousands of lives — though no one knew it at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/39 "2019-07-19T21:59:24Z")
But you are for the legalization of heroin and meth? What if pregnant women take them? The FDA hadn’t approved them. Marijuana has not gone through trials for efficacy and safety, but is used for medical reasons. What’s the difference? BTW, if you are going to list a single success of stopping a drug by the FDA, you also have to also consider the body count of people who died because a drug they needed was held up by the FDA, or who died because drugs that could have saved them were never developed because of the high cost of the certification process. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239/40 "2019-07-19T22:16:37Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But you are for the legalization of heroin and meth? What if pregnant women take them? The FDA hadn’t approved them. Marijuana has not gone through trials for efficacy and safety, but is used for medical reasons. What’s the difference? > > BTW, if you are going to list a single success of stopping a drug by the FDA, you also have to also consider the body count of people who died because a drug they needed was held up by the FDA, or who died because drugs that could have saved them were never developed because of the high cost of the certification process. If you had checked the history of thalidomide you would had noticed that while there can be cases when people could had been saved, overall the evidence points at more people dying if the process and organization was not there. What I posted was a way to explain why it was a bit nonsensical to declare that there are no good reasons to have a group like the FDA. One should mention here that the current FDA is being looked approvingly by many private pharma groups thanks to their accelerated approval moves for some medicines and one should point out that a group like that is a good way to save the private companies’ [del]ass[/del] bottom line 🙂 from their own biases as it happened in the thalidomide case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-no-circumstances-should-someone-be-given-a-felony-for-drugs/837239.md?page=3)