Legalise all drugs

[Berzerker]

I'm "addicted" to cigs, and given what I used in my early years, nothing I used is as addictive.

[Wezil]

Amen.

[Omni Rex Draconis]

Define your terms!!!

Addiction: Needing (or feeling need) for something artificial, such that stopping causes you pain or harm. People are not addicted to air - they need it. People aren't addicted to sunlight - they just like it. If you go several days without wanting a coffee (like me), you are not addicted. If you hate cigarettes with a passion but still smoke them (again like me), you are addicted.

You can be addicted and functional on most things. But many people have personalities and physiologies that will implode if exposed to the wrong thing.

Does that mean I have to do without my evening toke? No more beer for your baseball? Nothing but decaf?

Ain't going to happen. People like their pleasures, and they will get them any way they can. Legally is preferred, but millions of people in US jails attest to the will to do it knowing the consequences. More enforcement and tougher sentencing just puts more people in jail.

Legalizing drugs will not bring on a great wave of catastrophic addiction. A single dose can put someone predisposed onto the slippery slope. People have pointed out how ridiculously easy it is to acquire illegal narcotics, so I believe most addiction-prone people today are already addicted.

There will no doubt be a large rise in the the functional users - people who don't use drugs simply because of the stigma. Making drugs legal will also start them on the path to becoming acceptable. Yes, more people will succumb to the bad drugs but it will immediately halt any growing popularity if it happens too often.

I'm a libertarian. I don't think the government (or anyone else) should have a say in what goes on between two consenting adults.

I'm also on the left. I believe that some of my taxes should go to help the people whose lives are destroyed by the availability of drugs.

Take all the money spent on enforcement and turn it over to the social agencies dealing with the problem. I wouldn't complain.

[Berzerker]

Addiction: Needing (or feeling need) for something artificial, such that stopping causes you pain or harm.

Like withdrawal from heroin or those tremors alcoholics get. I used alot of meth in my time and never had a problem when I ran out and didn't have any for a few days or a few weeks. Same with pot, but cigs dont cause pain either. And when I did quit meth and pot I had no problem at all. But I was out in the desert so maybe not having the stuff around made it easy.

If you hate cigarettes with a passion but still smoke them (again like me), you are addicted.

Cant say I hate em, I actually enjoy smoking. But I also know how tough it is to quit, I did about 4 years ago and stopped for almost a year and a half. I started back up, not out of any desire to smoke, but because I used a painkilling cream called Super Blue Stuff on my strained rib cage muscles and it penetrated into my lungs and somehow screwed up my taste buds. Pepsi tasted like crap so I switched to Mtn Dew, but foods didn't taste good anymore. I went to the Doc, waste of time and money. I tried mints and other chemicals to suppress the "taste" of the medication, and finally tried a cigarette - it worked. Smoking brought back the taste of food I imagine now if I wanted to quit, the medication should have left my body.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Darius871
While I'm all for legalizing all drugs in principle, in practice I have to think that bulk quantities of meth, crack, & heroin being freely available at any corner drugstore at a lowered price would undoubtedly cause rates of chronic addiction to skyrocket.

Why would you make them freely available? You'd give them at least the same restrictions as alcohol and tobacco, if not more.

Why would you make them cheap? We tax alcohol and tobacco highly to make the price unnattractive?

Those drugs are already freely available on street corners, isn't having them sold through pharmacies (or the equivalent of off-licences) where the quality and percentages of the drug and any cutting agents can be monitored and the age of purchasers can be checked a much better idea? Also, presumably you could regulate drug shops to ensure that people who come in for soft drugs aren't pushed into buying hard drugs...

Opium used to be legal here, it didn't cause society to collapse.

[Berzerker]

Opium used to be legal here, it didn't cause society to collapse.

I read a book on California geology by some guy named McPhee I think where he talked about the Chinese gold miners who used opium. They said the white miners drink booze and look down on the opium smokers, and the Chinese let them have their stereotype so the whites wouldn't think much of competing Chinese miners. Not surprisingly, this stereotype was employed when opium was banned - they banned smoking it which is how the Chinese used it. Other ways favored by whites remained legal.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Omni Rex Draconis
Addiction: Needing (or feeling need) for something artificial, such that stopping causes you pain or harm. People are not addicted to air - they need it. People aren't addicted to sunlight - they just like it. If you go several days without wanting a coffee (like me), you are not addicted. If you hate cigarettes with a passion but still smoke them (again like me), you are addicted.

Addiction means that you use the substance even if it causes you or someone else harm. You aren't just harmed by attempting to stop. That's why I say that simply using drugs like heroine and meth is the sign of addiciton. It's harmfull to yourself and others to do that.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MikeH
Why would you make them cheap? We tax alcohol and tobacco highly to make the price unnattractive?

You have to make them cheaper to get rid of the black market.

[MikeH]

That's not the only way, you could also pay the producers more than the black market price.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil


No, I got tired of being a "quitter". I'm going to stick with it this time.

No you are sick of smoking.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MikeH
That's not the only way, you could also pay the producers more than the black market price.

How are you going to get someone to go to the store to buy drugs for more than they can have someone deliver them for cheaper?

[MikeH]

If you pay the producers of the drugs/raw materials more than they can get on the black market, they'll sell you their drugs not the black market.

If I was buying drugs and I had a choice of cheap, but from a drug dealer down some back alley, or a bit more expensive (or at least the same price) from a reputable store where I could guarantee what I was getting I'd go to the store every time. I think almost everyone would.

[Spec]

Get a lung infection, works great to help you quit smoking. Worked for me Couldn't have done it without it.

Spec.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MikeH
If you pay the producers of the drugs/raw materials more than they can get on the black market, they'll sell you their drugs not the black market.

So the govt is going to pay $200 an oz of pot. Wow! I never would have grown it myself for $100 and oz, especially if I was going to go to jail for it. But I sure will for $200 an oz. I'm sure a lot of people will be thinking the same thing. Can you follow that to the logical conclusion?

If I was buying drugs and I had a choice of cheap, but from a drug dealer down some back alley, or a bit more expensive (or at least the same price) from a reputable store where I could guarantee what I was getting I'd go to the store every time. I think almost everyone would.

Well you don't think like a drug addict. Drug addicts don't think twice about buying crack from their neighbor.

[C0ckney]

think of the situation with alcohol, i mean how many people drink moonshine or similar stuff? not very many, becasue a legal, cheap and safe alternative is available.