Should drugs be Legalized?

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 4:56 am Post subject: Should drugs be Legalized?

i believe they should be legalized..we are fighting a losing war on drugs...we will NEVER win it...i drugs are legalized, at least people will get clean stuff, not the crap on the street...petty crime will drop a lot, as well as lots of other crime...and the government can tax the hell out of it

the government in past years spent 3 billion something dollars to shut down a one billion dollar cartel...why not just pay then 2 billion to not operate and save a bill?

drugs should be legalized...drugs are going to be done anyway

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 1337 Location: The Collective

Take a look at what havoc the LEGAL drugs have done to the people of this country. Do you really think adding a huge amount of deadly and addictive drugs will help this country in any way? I dont want my daughter smoking crack or shooting up even with "clean" stuff. There is a reason most of those drugs are illegal.....they are deadly poison with a power to destroy. Look what drugs have done to the black family structure in this country. Booze and perscription drugs do enough damage without letting the rest of the shit into the world. IMHO

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 1337 Location: The Collective

PS Thanks for NOT posting a poll on this question! Very Happy

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 321

Wow, how many drunk driving deaths a year? Now you want to increase the number of people on acid driving?

ICKIMORE

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 6:07 am Post subject:

Wow... the knee-jerk is strong is this thread.

The poll is loaded: where's the option for decriminalization?

Alcohol comes with a much greater cost to society as a whole than the types of drugs a metric-assload of regular people use casually.

Most casual use drugs are not "deadly" and are not "addictive".

Cocaine, for example, while psychologically addictive (like fast food or your favorite TV show) is not physiologically addictive ie: you can't develop a chemical dependancy on it.

Same goes for maijuana and its derivatives - habit forming but not harmful otherwise.

The opiates are where you run into trouble but hey, you can get those with a prescription anyways! Rolling Eyes

Anyways, regulating the levels of harm an individual can do to themselves is an utterly stupid concept.

Outlawing harmless intoxicants, while proven destructive substances like alcohol and prescription opiates are encouraged, is entirely hypocritical.

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 1337 Location: The Collective

They are not harmless by any description....and you are right "knee jerk" is so correct! Crystal meth is addictive, and dangerous. Marijuana is more benign I admitt...but Heroin, Angel dust and the like are far more dangerous than alcohol.....it is not hpocritical to say ALL are bad....Footie brought up a point you did not answer...we have enough problems with drunk driving now....all we need is even more legal drugs to get loaded on and drive......Freedom does not mean doing whatever feels good. Some say it does not affect others...that is a cop out to society. A society of drug addicts would not be my idea of freedom. Clarity of mind and body is essential to a happy productive life. There are millions of ex drug addicts that would be more than happy to tell you this......or if you prefer, go to a AA meeting and ask somebody there.

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 321

Look, in 2001, 37% of all teenagers used marijuana at least once (federal government figures). Do you not think that having 37% of our teenagers just learning how to drive and also experimenting with marijuana is a bad thing?

Every day 3000 children and teenagers become regular smokers (from a 1995 study by Columbia University).

How much would you like to increase the rate at which teenagers use marijuana?

ICKIMORE

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 6:37 am Post subject:

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 321

Actually, alcohol and tobacco should both be illegal to maintain a lack of hypocricy. However, US law involves hypocricy in many circumstances. Also, economocally we could not afford as a country to outlaw tobacco or alcohol.

That's an interesting subject though. Because I often laugh at the hypocricy of many political leaders when they speak about how evil tobacco is. Or how individual states file lawsuit after lawsuit against tobacco companies, saying the whole time they want to drive the tobacco companies out of business.

I have an easier way to drive them out of business: outlaw their product. Can't very well have a tobacco company if convenience stores can't sell tobacco can ya?

But the issue is this. In reality, every political leader wants you to smoke and drink a lot. They want you to get hooked to smoking and drinking as a kid. They want everything they tell you they don't want. Why do they want it? Because they can't run the government each year without those 3000 new kids getting hooked on tobacco. Over 50% of the price of a pack of cigarrettes is tax. What would happen if everyone quit smoking tomorrow? The government would lose billions of dollars per year.

Now as to drugs, you want to stop drugs? No problem. Put troops on the US borders with Mexico and Canada. Enough troops to man every inch of border. How many people will be smoking crack when it costs $10,000 per hit?

ICKIMORE

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 1337 Location: The Collective

Prescription drugs are CONTROLLED, yes they are legal....maybye the controls are inadequite but there is some control.

Increasing the ease of getting blasted in no way help the problem of druken driving.

When you get stoned and get behind the wheel or kill someone on a bad acid trip you are infringing on my rights!

OK what is the FUD?

So you will argue that clarity of mind and body is not impotant or essential in a happy life???? Wow......

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 7:29 am Post subject:

Ick,

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 1337 Location: The Collective

Even though I get frustrated by the arguements in these threads, I enjoy them quite a bit! Very Happy

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 1337 Location: The Collective

I see the point you are making....happiness is in the eye of the beholder??? So dying in the street with a needle in your arm just might be happiness to somebody? OK maybye so. To the vast majority or for my children??? I dont think so....

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 3:50 pm Post subject:

*I would argue for Medical Marijuana for adults.
*I would argue for the legalization of non-"smokeable" Hemp as a good resource.

But more then any of these things, I will argue more strongly for the banning of giving children any kind of legal drug-- Zoloft, Prozac, etc, without at least 6-9 months of regular therapy first. I am sick and tired of a kid acting "abnormal" once and then they are immediatley drugged by a doctor that may not even have seen them before then. Quick care doctors can perscribe these to kids.... As someone who has worked with kids in the classroom for years, I can atest to the staggering amount of kids that show up to class barely lucid because they are on horrific amounts of Riddlin, zoloft, etc. If you've ever taken some of these you will know what I mean. Sure, you are complacent, but you are also only half there!

I have a cousin who was put on all kinds of these drugs because he was over acting all of his life-- and he was a more violent kid then most of these kids who are drugged for not coloring in the lines... after years of hard medication and such the one thing he ended up needing to do was stay away from red Dye 49 on foods and some sugars-- such a simple thing. He does this and he just graduated highschool, with good grades and a great mind in tact.

If only parents would take an active interest in thier kids, instead of slapping them on meds the minute something is "off"... I can't imagine when all of these kids grow up what the world will be like for them-- having gone through childhood in a foggy haze.

Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 39

You have to be kidding .. " Clean stuff " So that makes it better.. What have you been smoking?????

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2003 12:24 am Post subject: Re: Should drugs be Legalized?

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2003 12:52 am Post subject:

I think marijuana, the most widely used and least harmful drug should be legalized. It would reduce crime, add billions in tax revenue and save billions of dollars on the war on drugs not to mention the money spent to keep people in prisons for years. Vote yes on the Bong bill, make marijuana legal. Lets look to Canada and see the effect of their new marijuana laws.

Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 39

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2003 2:38 am Post subject:

i am not for drug use...i actually believe we should take al the money used on busting druggies and DEA stuff and put it towards drug EDUCATION...that is where the money is sorely needed...and what better way to get the money for drug education than taxing drugs once they get legalized? make the drug users pay for education

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 1337 Location: The Collective

Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 39

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 422 Location: Woosta

this may be a little off topic, but you can never trust government figures when it comes to drug or alcohol use. when i was in high school i remember reading this article in the newspaper about how the number of incidents between police involving underage drinking was down 29%. a few days later there was this giant billboard on one of the main roads saying "underage drinking down 29%!" i don't think they realized that just because they weren't catching people drinking underage they weren't doing it.

we actually had a little competition to see who could throw an empty jack daniels bottle onto the platform below the billboard without breaking the bottle. none of us ever pulled it off.

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 321

One issue that has not been brought up on this:

Up until the early part of the 20th century or so all "illegal" drugs were actually legal. We tried it once and people obviously thought it was a problem, why do you want to re-run an experiment that already failed once? Ever read any Sherlock Holmes books? Ever realize he was hooked on opium in the books? Because Arthur Conan Doyle was hooked on opium when he wrote the books. If it wasn't for the clever glossing over of this little issue in every follow up Sherlock Holmes movie, tv show, cartoon, etc. we would have generations of young people being told by example that opium isn't so bad.

ICKIMORE

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 422 Location: Woosta

cocaine used to be a common medicine

Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 6:27 pm Post subject:

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