The Drug War Thread

[C0ckney]

Far too much.

any is too much, but you haven't provided any compelling reason to believe that 3rd world workers in the drugs industry face worse conditions than those in other, legal industries.

Because you can't say an owner-operator's income is all wages, most of it would be from ownership if you did separate it out. I specifically said wages.

i don't think that's a meaningful distinction when it comes to small owner-operators. i'm a freelance translator, so i don't have a wage as such, but it would be absurd to say that one cannot compare my earnings with a company's in house translator, who is paid a wage. but in any case the reason that prices, and therefore profits and earnings are very high in the drug trade is that drugs are illegal.

to give a concrete example, some friends of mine are hired every harvest season to pick marijuana. they earn very good money for doing so because what they are doing is illegal and the owners of the weed farms need trustworthy people; they are paid a premium for running a risk and keeping quiet. yet picking a plant is a low value activity, and after legalisation the wages will fall to be more in line with the wages of other people who pick plants because these premiums will cease to exist.

Compare wages paid to workers between those ecstasy factories and coca/poppy farms. Alcohol and tobacco don't have any good info to offer. Tobacco was never illegal so there's no comparison to be made. Alcohol was only illegal for a relatively short period of time, and much of the input into it's production was still legal.

you've misunderstood my point. i mean that the alcohol and tobacco industries provide a guide for what the drugs industries will look like after legalisation. you'll most likely have a mass production industry (like cigarettes and lager beers) and more specialised industries for niche/high end products (like quality cigars and craft beers), with worker conditions and wages to match. obviously there'll be some variation given the particular drug and the local circumstances.

With legalization wages will increase. Production will move out in the open where workers have legal recourse. Much of production will move to developed countries where pay is higher. Almost all of production will be more efficient, with more product produced per worker, using methods which require more technical jobs. Transport/seizure/protection/corruption costs will be vastly reduced leaving more of the value of the product to go towards ownership and production.

yes this is essentially what i said in post 19, with a few additions. i think that things will improve overall for workers because of the disappearance of risks and violence, but that wages/earnings will fall because of the disappearance of the premiums paid for the same.

[kentonio]

there are already legally available opiates, which are widely used in medicine; in fact abuse of these is a big problem in some places (see korn's posts). most of physical dangers from drugs come from either impurities or a lack of clarity about strength. with legalisation, a system of clear labelling and controls could be set up for things like heroin, so that people would know what they are ingesting. this would pretty much stop deaths from overdoses and impure products, but of course it does little to solve the problem of addiction to opiates.

I'm not talking about legality as the goal but rather companies actually competing to produce safe legal highs.

MDMA is totally different to heroin. basically the former goes up and the latter goes down; you couldn't really replace one with the other. i do think though that we could save health services and polices forces millions, and make the world a better place (), by encouraging people to consume MDMA instead to alcohol.

I know the difference, but the path to heroin use isn't just based on that drug providing the exact type of high someone sets out looking for in the first place. If people could get something like MDMA readily available, then I think you'd see a lot less people ending up on smack.

[C0ckney]

I'm not talking about legality as the goal but rather companies actually competing to produce safe legal highs.

one thing i would say is that the effects of illegal drugs (in their unadulterated forms), are well known, whereas the effects of new 'legal highs' are not. this can and does pose risks. but i certainly agree that research may lead to better, safer drugs.

I know the difference, but the path to heroin use isn't just based on that drug providing the exact type of high someone sets out looking for in the first place. If people could get something like MDMA readily available, then I think you'd see a lot less people ending up on smack.

in my experience working with heroin addicts, i found that there was often some pain in their past, child abuse of one sort or another was a depressingly common theme, that they wished to blot out and heroin was the perfect drug for that. but there are thousands of stories and it's hard to say anything too definitive.

[Aeson]

any is too much, but you haven't provided any compelling reason to believe that 3rd world workers in the drugs industry face worse conditions than those in other, legal industries.

I thought we were agreed on legalization improving working conditions?

"i think that things will improve overall for workers because of the disappearance of risks and violence"

[pchang]

I forgot. Add bath salts and its relatives (e.g. flakka) to the list of drugs that are so dangerous, I think they need to be remain illegal.

[kentonio]

one thing i would say is that the effects of illegal drugs (in their unadulterated forms), are well known, whereas the effects of new 'legal highs' are not. this can and does pose risks. but i certainly agree that research may lead to better, safer drugs.

The current legal highs market seems to be largely grey market at best. I was thinking about the huge pharma corporations actually investing massively into this, the results would almost certainly be much better.

in my experience working with heroin addicts, i found that there was often some pain in their past, child abuse of one sort or another was a depressingly common theme, that they wished to blot out and heroin was the perfect drug for that. but there are thousands of stories and it's hard to say anything too definitive.

There's definitely a base of users who feel they need it to comfort the pain of their lives, but I was thinking about the large numbers who just end up drifting into it and getting hooked.

[I AM MOBIUS]

There's a little smirk on my face as I think that the reason why Ben has been mugged so much is because of his support of the very policies that force users to steal in order to maintain their habit...

[loinburger]

It's also likely that a panhandler asked him for money and he thought he was being mugged

Panhandler: Spare some change?
BK [throws his wallet at the panhandler]: Ahhhh, take all of my money, just don't have your way with me sexually!
Panhandler: Thanks mister!
BK: Ummm... are you sure that you don't want to have your way with me sexually?

[rah]

BK: And can I assume that you're black and a drug user so I can use it as justification for my bigotry? WOW I'm up to 8.

[C0ckney]

I thought we were agreed on legalization improving working conditions?

"i think that things will improve overall for workers because of the disappearance of risks and violence"

i don't see your point.

[Bereta_Eder]

I believe something that will put me at odds with otherwise likeminded posters but it's basically that a society that needs drugs is inherently ill. So all societies are basically to some degree ill.
I dislike drugs (even pot) and think that the ideal is to try and find containment in life itself.
I only "allow" (to myself) a little wine (now only once in a blue moon, maybe 1 time every two months) as I consider it a good "social lubricant". But even that doesn't ring any bells.

I also believe that pot is illegal because it can lead to psychosis and other psychiatric problems for some people. I believe there is a reason it is illegal and I agree with that reason.

Every attempt to legalize drugs finds me at the beggining opposite to it, but willing to talk, if it leads to more problems than it solves.

So my approach is more ideological than pragmatic I'll admit.

also I'm not "Above and beyond", I smoke and cigs are considered drugs by some.

[kentonio]

Every society in human history has used recreational drugs in some format. The mystery is why after thousands of years we're still fighting against that simple fact.

[jsorense]

Every society in human history has used recreational drugs in some format. The mystery is why after thousands of years we're still fighting against that simple fact.

Probably more like Tens of thousands of years. Although, IIRC all societies have some restrictions on who, what and when can use.

[Aeson]

i don't see your point.

"i think that things will improve overall for workers because of the disappearance of risks and violence ..."
"but you haven't provided any compelling reason to believe that 3rd world workers in the drugs industry face worse conditions than those in other, legal industries."

You agree that legalization would lead to better overall working conditions. Then you claim there isn't compelling reason to believe that legal industries provide better working conditions. So which is it, do you think conditions for workers will improve or not?

[C0ckney]

oh, i see. i said that you have provided no reason to believe that 3rd world workers face worse conditions than those in other, legal industries at this time (the clue was in the present tense). this was in response to your claim about workers in the drug industry being slaves and does not contradict the statement i made about the future.

so just to be 100% percent clear, i believe that legalisation will improve conditions generally. however, this improvement will be greater in countries with decent labour standards, as workers in the drugs industry will come to enjoy the rights and protections that workers in legal industries currently do. conversely, workers in countries with low labour standards may not see much improvement in their conditions; ample evidence to support this view can be obtained by looking at the conditions that many workers in legal industries suffer at present. therefore, the improvement in worker conditions is likely to be far greater in 1st world than in 3rd world countries.