Anti-drug war advert

[mactbone]

So, if all drugs were legal, would we need an agency to make sure drugs in devolopement aren't harmful? I mean, if we're willing to allow coke, heroine, and ecstacy legality, what's the point of regulating the drug industry at all? If we still had an agency, would that agency have to test new versions of these drugs? Would they have to retest all of the illegal, now legal drugs?

[JohnT]

Ahhh. My mistake. Guess I should've read the link.

Oh, wait. I did. Guess what? Headline reads:

"Libertarian Party runs provocative anti-War on Drugs newspaper ads."

[drake]

I'm an individual, not a cog.

Now that is funny!

You're the living stereotype of what an American capitalist pig is. Sadly there's millions of others exactly like you buddy. You're practically a clone. Predictable in every way, on every issue. You make a very fine cog in fact Immy......you sound like a broken record

Fascist...heh....you boys and your hilarious righteous attitudes......

Nothing wrong with self-interest. Everyone has self interest, its an inherent trait...now selfishness....hmm....well thats probably one of the worst traits a person could have.

[Ramo]

You're missing my point entirely, drake. Petroleum, like certain drugs, is connected to terrorists.

[drake]

Why does it have to be affordable?

<Wakeup call to Imran>
Some people work for a living and weren't born into priviledge, and therefore cannot afford anything their precious hearts desire.
</Wakeup call to Imran>

[klesh]

The most widely abused drug by Ameri¢as' youth:

Steroids.

-FMK.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Some people work for a living and weren't born into priviledge, and therefore cannot afford anything their precious hearts desire.

Bingo! Yet you are abhored by the terrorists, and would even boycott all cheese, if the profits may be used in the killing of someone.

Spell it with me. H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E

You're the living stereotype of what an American capitalist pig is. Sadly there's millions of others exactly like you buddy. You're practically a clone. Predictable in every way, on every issue. You make a very fine cog in fact Immy......you sound like a broken record

Close your eyes too it. I see you as the one following blindly to the propaganda. I make my own decisions, whether they be popular or not, and you, who are so in awe of the law (whether it be right or wrong) declare me as a cog? Laughable... though I guess it is the last refugee of the lost debater .

You're missing my point entirely, drake. Petroleum, like certain drugs, is connected to terrorists.

He's not missing it, he's deliberately being vague and dense, so he doesn't have to answer

[Bosh]

"what's the point of regulating the drug industry at all"
Well you'd need some regulation to prevent fraud and then pretty strict control of anti-biotics and the like since if they're over-used resistant strains of germs evolve damn fast and hurt everyone. But besides that you wouldn't need that much...

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ramo


In years directly following the repeal of Prohibition the rate of alcohol usage went way down. I don't know the alcohol statistics about today, but they aren't particularly relevant anyways.

Really? Then why was the rate of death from alcoholic liver disease lower during prohibition than before or after? Why were hospital admissions for delerium tremens lower? The problem with making this comparison is that the method of estimating consumption is different during the two time periods. Direct estimates can be made when most of the product is coming from legitimate companies that keep records required by law. Estimates made during prohibition were just guesses.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by MacTBone
On a side note, many precription drugs, though legal, are expensive. Why would illegal drugs be any different?

Come to think of it some of the recreational drugs lend themselves quite nicely to price manipulation. Cocaine only grows in the mountains of South America. I remember in one of my pharmacy classes the professor mentioning that in the early 20th century several attempts were made to grow the plant elsewhere, but all of them failed. The areas where the plant grows are now mostly in the hands of gangs, and guerillas, so the cocaine trade would be controlled by criminals anyway.

Marijuana on the other hand is so easy to grow I don't understand why it's so expensive.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Zhu Yuanzhang
"what's the point of regulating the drug industry at all"
Well you'd need some regulation to prevent fraud and then pretty strict control of anti-biotics and the like since if they're over-used resistant strains of germs evolve damn fast and hurt everyone. But besides that you wouldn't need that much...

Many drugs are quite toxic, and there is a lot of misinformation about them. I know people who think that glucocorticoid steroids, i.e., Prednisone are the same as androgenous steroids. Imagine an amateur athelete taking prednisone thinking he's going to "bulk" himself up. I've known people who thought they could take tetracyclines for a variety of rashes just because they're used to treat acne.

Drug doses for adults and kids are different, but every year I come across parents who give their kids adult strength narcotic cough medicines left over from their own illnesses.

Many medicines have names that sound or look alike, i.e., Celexa and Celebrex, Accupril and Accutane, Zovirax and Zoloft. People often come to me to get a prescription for a refill of a medicine, but give me the wrong name. If the reason for taking the medicine sounds wrong I check on the original prescription. If the patient could just walk into a store and pull the medicine off the shelve a lot of people would get hurt.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Marijuana on the other hand is so easy to grow I don't understand why it's so expensive.

Nice point on the cocaine. But the price for kind bud that I quoted ($20/g) is really for a small amount of high quality stuff. It'll run about 300-350 per ounce, which drops to 1000 for a quarter pound. A quarter pound would roughly fill a plastic grocery bag. You can get lower quality stuff for as low as 30 dollars an ounce, or if you grow it yourself, for the cost of the seeds.

Kind bud, by the way, doesn't sell very well in a college town because of its price. It can take up to a month for a small time dealer to move an ounce. Lower quality stuff on the other hand pretty much flies off the shelves, so to speak.

The real reason why it's expensive is because it's illegal. If food were illegal (I know it's a rediculous hypothetical point, but . . .) you would find that farmers would have to grow in secret, mostly in parkland, and never be assured that they would ever see the end product, since the Department of Agriculture could sweep through and destroy everybody's corn crops and cattle ranches. As a result, end prices would be inflated to match the increased risks of investment and the higher shipping costs. The people that are hit the hardest aren't the bulk purchasers, but the indiviual consumers.

I think at the very least we can agree that people would be safer when the government can make sure that the drugs they are getting are the drugs that they pay for. One great danger, not so much with marijuana, but especially with pills, is that there are no safeguards to be sure that what a person is getting is what they think it is. Unscrupulous dealers can pass off lethal home-cooked recipes as anything they want. I've heard (anecdotally so this might not be true) of supposed MDMA pills that are actually a variety of poisons, as well as amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin. Of course, neither heroin nor Ecstasy are good things, but people should at least know that they aren't getting rat poison or whatever.

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Really? Then why was the rate of death from alcoholic liver disease lower during prohibition than before or after? Why were hospital admissions for delerium tremens lower? The problem with making this comparison is that the method of estimating consumption is different during the two time periods. Direct estimates can be made when most of the product is coming from legitimate companies that keep records required by law. Estimates made during prohibition were just guesses.

I lived in the Netherlands for several years, where "soft drugs" have been quasi-legal for more than a decade now. All estimates agree that drug usage among teenagers is now way lower than in the 70s when it was still prohibited. If you go into any "coffe shop" at any given day you'll be surprised to see mostly foreigners. The locals mostly drink beer. It just ain't fun if it's legal... And the people that smoke don't drink and vice versa, so it's mostly substitution (among alcohol and soft drugs) anyway. And don't start the rant about all heroin users having started with softer stuff... A lot of people who drive cars used a bike as kids as well.

[mactbone]

I would like to pose a hypothetical what if.

What if prices dropped dramatically for what are now illegal drugs? Right now, maybe I can buy a pound of heroine or whatever, but then the price drops. Now, I can buy 17 pounds or whatever for the same amount of money. So, what does that mean? Well, it'll be that much easier to OD. Instead of making one pound last a week, or however long, I have 17 pounds for a week. Yeah, if I never became addicted, I probably wouldn't OD, but the nature of drugs, is that you become addicted.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Mac, perhaps... but who are we to say people can't take drugs?