Legalize drugs to stop the violence?

[Alcibiades]

And as i stated before, that really is only educated guesses. So is mine of course, but i think mine is based more in reality than their economic rules and number crunching.

So...your speculation trumps the economic projections of renowned economists? Hmmm, that makes sense...

I'll post something if I can find it.

It does if they think that people will buy more expensive drugs over cheaper ones. That's basic economics isn't it?

 

[Scorpio]

There probably will be people stealing drugs from stores & depots, robbing delivery trucks or producing them illegaly and then selling them at a cheaper price...
(which is more violence )

Soo....wild speculation on a non-drug market? Huh?

Please people, stick to evidence and facts rather than knee-jerk speculation.

Well you can't tell it either so you're just suggesting to take a risk. You have to decide for a whole society, are you willing to take such a big risk for such a stupid thing?

 

[Hobbezak]

And as i stated before, that really is only educated guesses. So is mine of course, but i think mine is based more in reality than their economic rules and number crunching.

So...your speculation trumps the economic projections of renowned economists? Hmmm, that makes sense...

I'll post something if I can find it.

It does if they think that people will buy more expensive drugs over cheaper ones. That's basic economics isn't it?

I'd like to quote a research here.
In a kindergarten somewhere in Israel, they had a problem with parents not picking up their children in time. So the logical step was to demand a fee added on their bill every time they picked up their kid late.
The experiment showed that the amount of late pick-ups didn't decrease, it actually increased. Logical explanation: People felt they were buying off their guilt (of picking up their children late).
So people don't always go for the cheapest solution, there are other factors involved too. I do think that if you give people enough incentive (Legal drugs are of proven quality, illegal drugs aren't, could be washing powder; the moral incentive of not doing something illegal...), they'd go for the legal one.

 

[TheNamelessWonder]

It does if they think that people will buy more expensive drugs over cheaper ones. That's basic economics isn't it?

Now you're just being goofy

You know that I was arguing that they've figured that legal drugs can and will be cheaper than illegal ones.


Anyway, here's a very relevant article from no less an economist than Milton Friedman:

Prohibition and Drugs

by Milton Friedman

From Newsweek, May 1, 1972

"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and comcribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."

That is how Billy Sunday, the noted evangelist and leading crusader against Demon Rum, greeted the onset of Prohibition in early 1920. We know now how tragically his hopes were doomed. New prisons and jails had to be built to house the criminals spawned by converting the drinking of spirits into a crime against the state. Prohibition undermined respect for the law, corrupted the minions of the law, created a decadent moral climate-but did not stop the consumption of alcohol.

Despite this tragic object lesson, we seem bent on repeating precisely the same mistake in the handling of drugs.

ETHICS AND EXPEDIENCY

On ethical grounds, do we have the right to use the machinery of government to prevent an individual from becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict? For children, almost everyone would answer at least a qualified yes. But for responsible adults, I, for one, Would answer no. Reason with the potential addict, yes. Tell him the consequences, yes. Pray for and with him, yes. But I believe that we have no right to use force, directly or indirectly, to prevent a fellow man from committing suicide, let alone from drinking alcohol or taking drugs.

I readily grant that the ethical issue is difficult and that men of goodwill may well disagree. Fortunately, we need not resolve the ethical issue to agree on policy. Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse-for both the addict and the rest of us. Hence, even if you regard present policy toward drugs as ethically justified, considerations of expediency make that policy most unwise.

Consider first the addict. Legalizing drugs might increase the number of addicts, but it is not clear that it would. Forbidden fruit is attractive, particularly to the young. More important, many drug addicts are deliberately made by pushers, who give likely prospects their first few doses free. It pays the pusher to do so because, once hooked, the addict is a captive customer. If drugs were legaily available, any possible profit from such inhumane activity would disappear, since the addict could buy from the cheapest source.

Whatever happens to the number of addicts, the individual addict would clearly be far better off if drugs were legal. Today, drugs are box incredibly expensive and highly uncertain in quality. Addicts are driven to associate with criminals to get the drugs, become criminals themselves to finance the habit, and risk constant danger of death and disease.

Consider next the test of us. Here the situation is crystal clear. The harm to us from the addiction of others arises almost wholly from the fact that drugs are illegal. A recent cominittee of the American Bar Association estimated that addicts commit one-third to one-half of all street crime in the U.S. Legalize drugs, and street crime would drop dramatically. Moreover, addicts and pushers are not the only ones corrupted. Immense sums are at stake. It is inevitable that some relatively low-paid police and other government officials-and some high-paid ones as well-will succumb to the temptation to pick up easy money.

LAW AND ORDER

Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?

But, you may say, must we accept defeat? Why not simply end the drug traffic? That is where experience under Prohibition is most relevant. We cannot end the drug traffic. We may be able to cut off opium from Turkey but there are innumerable other places where the opium poppy grows. With French cooperation, we may be able to make Marseilles an unhealthy place to manufacture heroin but there are innumerable other places where the simple manufacturing operations involved can be carried out. So long as large sums of money are involved-and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal-it is literally hopeless to expect to end the traffic or even to reduce seriously its scope. In drugs, as in other areas, persuasion and example are likely to be far more effective than the use of force to shape others in our image.

Also, I'm going to stop replying to Scorpio until he actually thinks instead of spouting reactionary bullshit.

 

[Scorpio]

Lol, you open up a general discussion where I'm just debating and telling how I feel with all this, but my reactions are bullshit?
Fine.

 

[Alcibiades]

It does if they think that people will buy more expensive drugs over cheaper ones. That's basic economics isn't it?

Now you're just being goofy

You know that I was arguing that they've figured that legal drugs can and will be cheaper than illegal ones.

Argue away, i think that's insane. Government taxes = higher drug costs. Or the government sells 'drug production licenses' and then the corporations tax us to pay for the licenses. They can make money off it, or sell the cheapest drugs, i can't seriously believe they can have both. Drug addicts will buy the cheapest source, and I don't think the government can compete with the cartels. Period.

As for Mr. Friedman, renowned tho he is, I don't agree with his opinions on government intervention. Governments have a right and a duty to intervene to maintain the safety of their population. Many 'responsible adults' are anything but; and the belief that age imparts wisdom is laughably false. yes i know that's a slippery slope, but it's no less hard to control than legalized drugs.

Street crime might be reduced as a result of cheaply available public drugs, but since I don't believe the drug cartels/dealers will vanish, I don't think street crime will be reduced in any significant way.

This argument has gotten pointless, since I'm not going to be swayed from my opinion, no matter how 'esteemed' your back up is simply because I believe they're starting on a series of false premises. My opinion/point is out here, no sense in repeating myself like a broken record anymore.

 

[TheNamelessWonder]

Lol, you open up a general discussion where I'm just debating and telling how I feel with all this, but my reactions are bullshit?
Fine.

When I'm posting well-thought out arguments based on facts and research, and you respond with "Well you can't tell it either so you're just suggesting to take a risk.", then yes you're spouting reactionary bullshit

 

[CFalcon]

For a start, I want to make it clear that there is a distinction between weed (non-addictive) and harder (addictive) drugs. Why marijuana is illegal is beyond me, it isn't addictive, it's not the kind of drug that will make you want to get up and commit a crime (believe me, getting up is NOT what you want to do!), and the overwhelming majority of users won't have any serious long term effects. Admittedly *some* research (and I do mean *some*, this is far from universally accepted) points towards heavy users having adverse long term effects. But the same applies to tobacco. The same applies to chocolate for christ's sake. Should we ban that because a tiny minority will over indulge and get diabetes/heart conditions, whatever?

So the legalization of marijuana I'm totally for. The injustice of condemning someone as a criminal, giving them a criminal record, and sending them to jail, who has done, essentially, nothing different to a tobacco smoker or a chocolate eater, is beyond belief.


As for harder drugs, I'm naturally inclined towards Hobbezak's argument that, as long as they aren't doing any harm to others , then people should have freedom of choice. I mean, people damage or kill themselves all the time doing things that are clearly risky, but that they enjoy, and which we allow them to do because they aren't hurting anyone else. Should we ban rock climbing, or skiing, or riding a motorbike, just because some people take too much of a risk or because occasionally something goes wrong? Obviously not. Clearly we regulate it so that sensible users aren't at unneccesary risk, but we still allow it.
We can't have the government stopping us from ever making a poor decision.

That said, because of the addictive nature of harder drugs, although I agree with freedom of choice in principal, I honestly can't see any upside to completely legalizing the addictive ones. Nobody is really going to benefit. Whether legal or not, people using the hardest drugs are going to have much more serious problems than whether their supplier can be trusted.

However, while writing this, I read a little bit into the Switzerland Heroin Experiment. Those who think that making hard drugs legally available (with government regulation) will lead to thousands more people getting addicted and spiralling out of control might want to take note of the experiment's initial findings:

[size=-1] 1) Heroin prescription is feasible, and has produced no black market in diverted heroin. 2) The health of the addicts in the program has clearly improved. 3) Heroin prescription alone cannot solve the problems that led to the heroin addiction in the first place. 4) Heroin prescription is less a medical program than a social-psychological approach to a complex personal and social problem. 5) Heroin per se causes very few, if any, problems when it is used in a controlled fashion and administered in hygienic conditions. Program administrators also found little support for the widespread belief that addicts' cravings for heroin are insatiable. When offered practically unlimited amounts of heroin (up to 300 milligrams three times a day), addicts soon realized that the maximum doses provided less of a "flash" than lower doses, and cut back their dosage levels accordingly.[/size]

The experiment, where people who were already heroin addicts are allowed to legally buy three daily dosages and take it in a controlled setting, has been going on for 13 years now, and although hardly any of them are now off heroin, their standard of living has definitely gone up, particularly their ability to hold down a job.

This is a far cry from allowing heroin to be sold in shops, and I'd agree that isn't a good idea. But there is clearly something to be said for stopping the treatment of drug users as criminals. Sure, treat it as a health problem and regulate it heavily. But criminalising people who have essentially done nothing to anyone else has clearly not worked up til now, and just doesn't make sense.

 

[TheNamelessWonder]

A bunch of nifty tidbits about the fail that is the drug war:

Despite the fact that federal spending on the drug war increased from $1.65 billion in 1982 to $17.7 billion in 1999, more than half of the students in the United States in 1999 tried an illegal drug before they graduated from high school. Additionally, 65% have tried cigarettes by 12th grade and 35% are current smokers, and 62% of twelfth graders and 25% of 8th graders in 1999 report having been drunk at least once.

"The number of offenders under age 18 admitted to prison for drug offenses increased twelvefold (from 70 to 840) between 1985 to 1997. By 1997 drug offenders made up 11% of admissions among persons under 18 compared to 2% in 1985."

"For years, CASA has been asking teens: 'Which is easiest for someone your age to buy: cigarettes, beer, marijuana, or prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin or Ritalin, without a prescription?'"
In 2008, CASA reported that 25% said cigarettes, 23% said marijuana, 19% said prescription drugs, 15% said beer, and 7% said it was the same for all.

"Research and clinical experience teach that when, as here, the personal risks of seeking medical care are raised to intolerably high levels, it is more likely that prenatal care and patient candor - and not drug use - will be what is deterred, often with tragic health consequences."

A case argued before the US Supreme Court (Ferguson, Crystal v. City of Charleston, et al.) involved the rights of mothers to seek medical care during pregnancy without fear of prosecution for a positive urine drug test. The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University reports that "because a live fetus was a 'person' under South Carolina law, a woman who used cocaine after the 24th week of pregnancy could be found guilty of the crime of distributing an illegal substance to a person under the age of 18."

 

[CFalcon]

Just to add to my point, this is from a 2006 study of the Switzerland Heroin Experiment:

Dr Nordt states: "As the Swiss population supported this drug policy, this medicalisation of opiate dependence changed the image of heroin use as a rebellious act to an illness that needs therapy. Finally, heroin seems to have become a 'loser drug', with its attractiveness fading for young people. Nevertheless, whether drug policy had a positive effect on the number of new heroin users or not, our data could not confirm an increase of heroin incidence as expected by the critics of the liberal Swiss drug policy."

-

The harm reduction policy followed by the Swiss authorities has also been successful in reducing heroin-related deaths, which have fallen by more than half over the course of a decade, and the transmission of Aids.

And there is more good news concerning the fight against crime and prostitution.

"Compared with countries like Britain, where crime is very often linked to substance abuse, this trend has almost disappeared in Switzerland over the last few years," said Nordt.

"Personally, I don't think either a repressive or a liberal policy can do much to free a heroin user from addiction," Nordt said. "We can only decide whether to increase the suffering of drug victims or alleviate the consequences of addiction – for users and society alike."


-

They found that the incidence of heroin use dropped from 850 new users in 1990 to 150 in 2002. The authors contrast the situation with heroin use in the UK, Italy, and Australia, which has continued to rise.

 

[Scorpio]

Well having read everything and doing some more thinking, I can agree that the "softer" drugs can be acceptable (although they can also cause addiction and over-usage). But I don't think it is smart to legalize the harder drugs.

My main concern is that we cannot know for sure what the aftermath may be.

For example, opium was legalized in China earlier last century. That decision resulted in 90 million addicts and it took a half-century to repair the damage.

In Holland, official tolerance has led to significant increases in addiction.

"Amsterdam's officials blame the significant rise in crime on the liberal drug policy. The city's 7,000 addicts are blamed for 80 percent of all property crime and Amsterdam's rate of burglary is now twice that of Newark, New Jersey. Drug problems have forced the city to increase the size of the police force and the city fathers are now rethinking the drug policy."

There are loads of pros and contras....

It's a bit of a gamble with our society, which is not worth the risk taking, imo

 

[Garrett]

My main concern is that we cannot know for sure what the aftermath may be.

For example, opium was legalized in China earlier last century. That decision resulted in 90 million addicts and it took a half-century to repair the damage.

and same with the holland example... did they just blanket legalize?

not that I disagree with your refined viewpoint... it's just that knowledge about lasting effects etc have more data/research... and with legalizing anything education and awareness would need to be upped.

like did they do it just to tax it or get lobbyists off their backs? or did they do it intelligently and it failed? lots of circumstances go into evaluating either side no matter what.

 

[TheNamelessWonder]

Some Holland data perhaps?

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/67

Look at the table, it won't C+P right


Btw if anyone has the wrong impression, I'm not calling for just making everything legal right away. If you vote for President Nameless, I will tomorrow make pot just as legal as alcohol (both of which will have their legal age dropped to 18). And I will, gradually and over time (once people see that legal pot hasn't led to a downfall of civilization), legalize the rest of the stuff. There is a certain adjustment period to account for.

 

[Scorpio]

My main concern is that we cannot know for sure what the aftermath may be.

For example, opium was legalized in China earlier last century. That decision resulted in 90 million addicts and it took a half-century to repair the damage.

and same with the holland example... did they just blanket legalize?

not that I disagree with your refined viewpoint... it's just that knowledge about lasting effects etc have more data/research... and with legalizing anything education and awareness would need to be upped.

like did they do it just to tax it or get lobbyists off their backs? or did they do it intelligently and it failed? lots of circumstances go into evaluating either side no matter what.

Couldn't it be that a bigger amount of people who use pot then, will also lead to a bigger amount of people who get addicted to it?

The way I look into it:

Now: Most people use a way around to get to soft drugs and stay with those for a longer time, as they aren't widely available.

Your case: With more pot users, there will also be more addicted users that need harder drugs, thus searching an illegal way around to get their hands on those.
And surely you can't agree with all that toxic stuff being pumped in people's bodies? :/
You just can't be sure about the effects imo. A lot also depends on the background of certain countries, their social class, etc.
I don't think that more addicted users is a good combination with the actual state of recession.

 

[Forwyn]

Argue away, i think that's insane. Government taxes = higher drug costs. Or the government sells 'drug production licenses' and then the corporations tax us to pay for the licenses. They can make money off it, or sell the cheapest drugs, i can't seriously believe they can have both. Drug addicts will buy the cheapest source, and I don't think the government can compete with the cartels. Period.

You're forgetting the costs involved with an illegal organization as opposed to a legal one.

A legal company growing pot on their land does not have to go through extensive measures to avoid detection, then come up with increasingly expensive smuggling costs, as well as maintaining a chain of command, from the big fish to the dealers, to protect the big fish.

 

[Azzer]

Considering that alcohol, a legalised substance, is causing more damage to British economy (in volume of crimes it creates and the cost of damages associated with it) - I can't see how the legalisation of hard drugs would do anything but worsen society.

Take a drive through any big town or city on a weekend (and most weekdays too, now), hang around for a while, and you'll witness en-masse the effects of legalised alcohol on society.

Now imagine all these binge-drinking alcohol drinkers are also on even more physically damaging substances that can cause an even greater loss of control (and in some drugs increase of aggression, paranoia etc.) - and that access to very addictive substances is available to anyone to get hooked on to the point of needing it, and what they will do when they can't afford more but are physically addicted (either costing our health service to get them off the drugs, or cost in crimes committed to fund the drugs)....

No, it's ridiculous.

The evidence of a legalised substance is visible for all: Alcohol. The thought of all of our streets and pubs drunken population also being fuelled by heroin, crack cocaine, crystal meth... or staggering around the streets hallucinating on acid as they try to make their way home at closing time... it's not a happy world.

 

[timtadams]

im havnt read all the post, frankly there is a lot and no-one is going to change my opinion. Although i did skin over a few.

Firstly ask yourselves why drugs are illegal.
Many people die from taking drugs. Its called overdosing and it is real. The reason this is a problem is because drugs are addictive. And every time a person uses them they usually require a larger dose to achieve the same hit. This one of the reasons drug users overdose. The point is it happens.

Drugs also make people do crazy things. Have you ever heard of an 'ice rage'? People in this state can kill innocent people. People have broken into peoples houses at night. They can kill people for no reason because they dont have a clue what is going on.

I also know that there are children how take drugs because their parents sell them. Thats really good for their future. Get them addicted while they are young.

The effects of drugs is negative on not just the people taking them, but also on the whole of society.
People cant keep jobs because of their addiction. These people are a drain on society. Often living on the dole, us tax payers support their addiction. It comes out of our pockets.
People also steal to pay for drugs. Usually not from those who deserve it (more innocent victims).
And they put more strain on the public health system. These places are under enough stress without having to deal with sick people because they cant live independently of drugs.

Now you make drugs legal, you will multiply these effects by at least a thousand times. So read over those points again and think about the effects that tens of thousands of sick people will have on each one. As well as you.

One main problem is that by legalising drugs is that they will be much more accessible to children. Young teens start smoking because smokes are easily accessible. Legalising drugs will mean that young teens who dont know any better will be addicted before they even have drugs. They will steal to pay for addiction, destroying their relationships, and carrying that addiction into adulthood where it will probably haunt them forever.

And there are rehabilitation services for drug addicts. That is much more money for the tax payers.

I honestly dont know if some people think about what they say sometimes.

By legalising drugs you might save some lives over there, but just destroy thousands more over here. Great idea.

And to those of you wanting to know why cannabis is illegal. It is bad for you. Worse than cigarettes. Much more in fact if you are younger than about 21-22. This is because your brain still isnt fused. Cannabis will therefore affect you brain forever. And these effects are real, such as memory loss. You should really do research and it will become obvious. There are lots of reasons.

These drug users cost everyone, including themselves and each of us, through our pockets as they are just another drain on society

[edit] Forwyn, you have no respect from me whatsoever. Dunno about everyone else, but you are just being immature. Grow up.

 

[CFalcon]

With more pot users, there will also be more addicted users that need harder drugs, thus searching an illegal way around to get their hands on those.

Sorry Scorpio, but firstly an 'addicted pot user' doesn't really exist. Secondly, the idea that hard drugs are a natural progression from weed just isn't true. I'll admit there's something to be said for people who like to experiment discovering one high and then wanting to try another. But the idea that cannabis somehow makes you crave harder drugs is just wrong.

[size=-2]ps. luv you[/size]

 

[Forwyn]

[edit] Forwyn, you have no respect from me whatsoever. Dunno about everyone else, but you are just being immature. Grow up.

Because of a sig?

Rofl. Get a tampon and a pamprin, and get some sleep.

 

[timtadams]

thats just one of many

[edit] dunno what you are talkin about, but i think you mistook that statement as a gripe, it is just a factual statement with no emotion involved