The case for legalizing drugs

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Do you believe in laws against drunk driving?

ruveyn

Including "100%" does not change the fact that this is your opinion. I can be irrational too...look...I am 1000% sure that 50,000% of everyone is an alien.



Why would you doubt that? I went to college in downtown Seattle. I've had crack smoke blown in my face while walking down the street. A friend of a friend was a heroin junkie. I watched him shoot up.



Is this going to be the placebo argument you guys stick with? It's just so weak.



Is that my stated argument? I'm pretty sure it was a touch more complex than that.



The argument is that drugs would not be sold out of convenience stores. There would be designated using facilities for hard drugs. You don't buy crack and go home to smoke it, you buy and smoke it on the premises. If you open your mind, you would realize there is a world of possible ways to properly regulate drugs.



I think I have a pretty good grasp on human nature. The vast majority of meth labs are only in existence because of the economic incentive. As was previously mentioned, if a few folks wanna do it "for kicks" and win a Darwin award, that's not really going to bother me.



People are paranoid (often with good reason) regarding regulation because of a lack of transparency. Obviously you would need a new level of multi-tiered regulation for drugs.



I never suggested that. I'm very well aware of the legislative process. The first step is changing minds, because you need massive public support for something like this.



You're the one lecturing, and I don't need to read a book to understand what I learned in middle school.



Let's not even go there. I'm the Libertarian, remember?



Logical fallacy that you've repeated a number of times. I'm well aware of the harm caused by drugs, and that is WHY I am for legalization.



Again, I have.



That is 10,000% not the argument I made.

Anyone reading this notice that, the more I wreck these emotional and irrational arguments, the more emotional and irrational they get?

Fight fire with fire friend, right now yer just stickin your face in there and getting burned.

*FLEX*

Do we need to go over Libertarianism 101 again?

Driving drunk directly affects the right of other drivers not to be put directly in harms way.

Laws against driving drunk? Yes.

Laws forcing you to wear a seatbelt? No.

Both of my parents, as well as my stepfather and uncle, were or are still abusers of hard drugs. It ruined the lives of my father and stepfather and ultimately killed them both (AIDS and cancer respectively). Luckily my mother was able to quit them for good before they harmed her irreparably, and my uncle is at least a productive member of society, although I am not sure of his current drug habits. I was taken on drug buys to the worst areas of The Bronx during the height of the crack epidemic (approx. age 3-4), watched my mother overdose on heroin when I was 4, and was taken away from her because I was left in the backyard overnight, and the neighbor called the police. She was arrested and sent to rehab (her 3rd stint). She was also incarcerated several times for posession (after which she found getting a job considerably more difficult) and once for petit larceny. Why did the last rehab seem to actually rehabilitate her? Her own words: "I thought I was going to lose my son forever." She was lucky to find a reason to quit. I've smelled the sickening sweet smell of crack first hand, and I'll never forget it. You want personal experience, there it is.

As for the rest of your baseless claims, please, if you decide to post in response to anything I or anyone else say, try to have some basis in fact or at least an informed opinion.



Drugs hurt people. Prohibition exacerbates these issues tenfold. Education & regulation are much more effective at preventing negative behavior than harsh, often disproportionate, punishment. I believe you will find it rather difficult to assert the claim that anyone said legalization will magically whisk away all drug related problems. However, if eradication is impossible (which it is), the best course of action is to reduce the harm as much as possible. The WOD fails to do this. Legalization makes a strong argument that it will, in fact, further this end.




All the more reason to educate yourself as much as possible, and not just swallow whatever WOD propaganda is thrown at you. It is extremely difficult to pass laws in this country that go against the accepted norm, because nobody knows that this is not always the best or correct way. People in general are content to let government happen and believe that it is in their best interest.



Kids come to school high also, and surveys have found that most high schoolers view illicit drugs as easier to obtain than alcohol. I know they were when I was in school.

Ultimately you will make up your own mind, but please do some research. It will benefit you and this country to have as many people educated on this serious and relevant current issue as possible.

I am sorry but you clearly have more faith in humans then I do. And you have yet to address my main question, if this is such a "good" idea, then how come no goverment any place in the world has allowed the sale of hard drugs? There are many places that allow you to legally buy pot (Netherlands for example) but the very nature of drugs is the harm. If someone is addicted to crack, their focus will soon be only on the drug. And given the current economy, I can see a lot of families falling into poverty as parents turn to chemical escape. I can see your side, that if we legalize it, then a lot of the drug crime will drop off, however, I don't think you grasp my view. I am not sprouting what I have been told but researched things myself. The thing is, kids get into bars with fake idea, or try to home brew. Look at how many home brew kits are for sale. Look online and you will find websites that will ship everything needed to grow shrooms or pot. I know for a fact that if meth is legalized, people will try to make their own home brew, cutting it with different things or kids doing it themselves because they are too young to legally buy it. Or how about this, if a drug is legal, then people will buy it and we all know at least one person who isn't a very good parent. There are cases of kids getting getting into their parents liquor cabinets and what not. If, say, Cocaine was legal and you could legally own a stash, I can promise you at least one kid will raid their parents cache, or sell it themselves to other underage kids. Consider this, there are cases of kids stealing alcohol from their parents and selling it to their underage peers, along with tobacco products. If drugs are legalized, it means kids have easier access and will sell it because they are too young to buy it themselves.

Take a look around you... is the Drug War working? Obviously it isn't.

I don't like hard drugs, I too have seen the damage they cause. But it should be obvious to all of you that putting users in prison isn't solving the problem, and is very costly. We need to try a different approach. Education, for one thing, and I don't mean some stupid ad showing a couple of frying eggs, or a first lady saying "just say no."

Treatment is another, and it is much cheaper than prison. There are prescription drugs that help.

The United States, with 7% of the world's population, has 25% of the world's prison population. We should be ashamed of ourselves! We are "put people-in-prison" happy, and we need to break ourselves of that habit.

The effect prohibition has is not to exterminate the desire for something, but to create a black market for it. I tend to agree with the Libertarian view here, where it does not infringe upon others should be the option of the individual. Choosing to do something does not excuse you from keeping with your responsibilities, whether it is running a business to washing your car... the amount of resources expended vs. the results is astounding. Addiction occurs whether or not the substance is legal; whether the effects are physical or mental, the fact that there are effects remains. What one does is their choice; they bear the responsibility for their decisions. I would prefer a system that educates and assists instead of creating a system of dependent welfare in the prison system, one that reduces the number of criminals instead of increasing them.


M.

I agree, simply jailing addicts does no good but legalazation won't help either, I am sure you can think of at least one person who hurt themselves and others doing legal intoxicants. Take a drunk driver, he legally is drunk but he is hurting others. Or a parent drunk and forgets to pick up their kid at school, or take tobacco, taxes on them are bankrupting people, which is a good incentive to quit but because its addictive, its quite hard.

Given the choice between legalization and regulation vs. prohibition and punitive measures, I choose the former each time. It is not a black and white issue, and there will be always be instances where the choices that an individual makes will negatively affect their life, and even the lives of those close to them. But legalization has nothing to do with that - it happens now, and it happens with legal substances. Society would be better served getting past its' puritanical views. What is interesting is that for many of the substances in question, before the technology existed to refine them, were either fatal or incredibly mild in comparison. A bit of a tangent, but something I found interesting.


M.

people who complain that the FEW countries who decriminalize or legalize "still has a drug problem"
well duh.

as if every other country is drug free thanks to prohibition?

this little gem of logic seems to go ignored by the entire planet, which leads me to conclude with: its not about drugs, people or health, but about principles and politics.

Cognito, I am trying to have an informed argument with you, but every time you post, it is full of baseless assertions, and often does not address any of the issues put forth. I will try again, and if you must reply, please make a point by point argument for your side of the discussion, as you have seen us do this entire thread.

The main reason noone allows the sale of hard drugs is because most people believe blindly that prohibition is the best option, despite evidence to the contrary. Noone is arguing that hard drugs do not cause harm. The point is that prohibiting them causes far more harm than the drugs themselves.


Parents can turn to chemical escape now. Prohibition has not succeeded in stemming the flow of drugs in this country, it has only made them more dangerous. The economy is irrelevant to this point, and in fact would be helped by legalization.


And kids can buy illicit drugs easily in most major cities in the US without any ID. What is needed to grow mushrooms or pot? These are naturally occuring organisms. You can find them in nature. There is no crystal meth tree, it's production carries implicit dangers, to yourself and those around you. These are not equivalent.


Complete conjecture. Kids can buy drugs now, from people who could care less for their safety. Is that better than your proposed scenarios?


Again, as it stands, kids have access to these drugs, in street form, right now. If a kid wants to do it, he's going to, the war on drugs hasn't changed that. Additionally, kids are selling drugs for drug dealers today. This is obviously not a desirable alternative to your proposed scenario.


Being drunk is legal. Driving drunk is not.


Forgetting to pick up your kids at school is not only not a crime, but I'm sure is caused far more often by simple absent-mindedness or busyness than being drunk, not to mention the implication of drunk driving from your statement, which is a crime.


Who is being bankrupted by cigarette taxes? That is just laughable.

I give up, since you refuse to even consider my point of view on this issue and any point I raise up, you say I am just spouting proganda, which can applied to you (spouting libertain propoganda) and you make it sound like it a global conspiracy to keep hard drugs out of peoples hands for some sinster reason. The real reason is that DRUGS CAUSE HARM! I direct you to china and the opium wars. Opium was legal, and only made illegal after a large portion of the populace was addicted and even that didn't work because opium was too addictive, it was only brought under control by the communist goverment because they enacted harsh measures, like public excution for possesion.

LOL

Yes, it is easier to eliminate drugs if you are a dictatorship. Is that what you want us to be?

I am not saying that, what I am saying is that, yes some drugs should be legal but others, like PCP, Herion and the ilk shouldn't be.

I think we should vote whether or not to put people in prison for possessing drugs. If the vote is to imprison, then those who voted for it would have to pay for it.