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A society with no guard-rails will implode. I often hear the "war on drugs" is lost. If this is true, is the war on speeders lost too? Certainly there are people being ticketed and arrested everyday for speeding. What about the "war on child molesters". Not a day goes by that we don't read about a child molester being arrested. Should we give up on that war too?
It's all about what can a society put up with and still survive.
?????????
Speed, raping kids, and smoking weed aren't remotely comparable. Out of those 3 things only 1 doesn't risk the lives of anyone but the user, and ruin the live of an innocent child. Personally, I think speeding should be treated as a more seriously crime than dealing drugs. Disgusting. Someone going a little over is okay, but people flying around at 1.5 or 2x the speed limit. NO. Stop putting people lives on the line you immoral. Argh. I hate them.
For a little prrof smoking weed doesn't ruins lives, well, it's legal in Amsterdam and i've been over in my days getting high as the sky would permit.
When you ask why not legalize ALL drugs I don't think you are considering ALL DRUGS. Consider Krokodill, or scopalamine. Both are pretty terrifying drugs. Krokodil was cooked up by Russian addicts when they could not get enough heroin or cheap enough heroin and includes in it's ingredients a brand of eye drops sold in Russia. It turns their skin scaly and rough, hence the name, and it destroys their organs. They die pretty quick from using it.
Then there is scopalamine, which is used to turn people into zombies who will readily give up their PIN numbers on their credit/debit cards, and even sign away their houses, or allow the one who slipped it to them to empty their house of all their worldly goods on the spot. All one has to do is slip it into their drink or blow a bit of the powder into their face and they go stupid right away. Easy pickings.
And if what you say is true, no one will use those drugs. As I've said before, many delieriants such as datura and paint thinner are already legal, but use is near zero because of the risk of the drugs and the high is unfavorable.
We have three drug users: Addicts, habitual users, and recreational/social users. Addicts are those want to quit drugs but can't. Legalizing very physically addictive drugs like methadone or nicotine or caffeine would be harmful for addicts. Habitual users are those who don't want to quit using drugs, but use them regularly. These people generally have moderated use enough to function in life and it is debatable whether their life was better before or after the addiction. A significant amount of people addicted to painkillers prefer their life after the addiction in comparison to before the addiction. The biggest category is recreational users, by far. I fall into this category, mainly I just experiment safely (only with 'legal' ones so far) to see how drugs effect the brain. Of the drugs I have tried so far, I have found none to be either very altering or enjoyable. I see no reason why this group of people should be prohibited in their use.
Maybe for cocaine just legalize chewing on the leaves for a little extra energy? Or is their some other way to dilute it? Dr Sigmund Freud used cocaine to treat his depression, but the 20 cigars a day are what killed him (cancer of the jaw).
I keep wondering if illegal drug dealers could turn in their guns at the local police station & pick up a job application to join the legalized business? They'd already have at least 1 needed ability, growing, processing, transporting, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by burgler09
A friend of mine had a heart attack at the age of 21 because of cocaine. You really want to make that stuff legal?
What I do not understand is why do people think these drug dealers aren't going to go on and find something else illegal to do? Do you really think they're going to just become law abiding citizens?
Cannabis should be legal because it can help people be healhier & live longer. No harm to others, no significant harm to self compared to the 200+ medical conditions it can often help better & more safely than pills. Why should the harmless be harmed? Best wishes, all!
Quote:
Originally Posted by oceangaia
You could apply that same argument and substitute committing murder for using drugs. Or rape and robbery. Billions upon billions have been spent on law enforcement against these crimes, every society in history has punished them harshly, and still they are being committed at high levels. It's futile.
Fact is, nearly every law is trying to stop people from doing what they selfishly want to do. If nobody wanted to do it, there wouldn't need to be a law against it. And no matter how tough the laws are, people will violate them because they don't think they will be caught, or they just can't help themself.
The only drug that should be legalized is marijuana. All the other illegal drugs are way too dangerous to have legal. Do you really want to see people allowed to shoot up heroin in parks? I went to Portugal last year, and they have decriminalized all drugs. It really wasn't pretty in spots of Lisbon, because drug use was rampant.
Here's my simple argument why legalization, although perhaps preferable on many levels, is a primrose path.
1) Where do addicts get $ for drugs, whether legal or not, expensive or not? Not sitting at home wasting their lives away. Not initially anyways.
2) When governments decide to tax legal drugs, like they tax cigarettes, where will addicts get the $ for the now more expensive drugs?
3) A black market will crop up to undercut the legal drugs.
I'm not really sure if you're arguing for or against, since there are some real inconsistencies in the above points. But while I cannot speak for anyone else, I get my money for drugs (legal medical cannabis) from a job. You know, that thing where you provide a service and get paid for it?
I've been using cannabis for over 20 years now, with varying levels of regularity and legality... not once have I stolen or swindled to get the money for it, nor have I gone long without steady employment. I even finished both college and graduate school with honors while using, and have been in my current line of work for about 7 years now. What were you even implying with that question, and what drugs were you considering? I could see questioning how people fund addictions to heroin, crack, etc, since they usually render you unable to hold down a job. But cannabis or cigarettes? What makes you think people who use those substances aren't earning decent livings? I know lawyers and doctors who smoke pot, for goodness sakes.
Here in California, marijuana/cannabis has been basically legal for about two decades (as it doesn't take much to get a "prescription"). The prices are still right around where they were 20 years ago, plus a small rise for general inflation - and if I purchased on the streets it wouldn't be much less, possibly even more? We do have to pay a tax on the medical stuff, but the clubs I frequent make up for that by lowering the base price, including taxes, and/or offering special deals on certain days.
So I'm not sure why people keep arguing that prices will skyrocket with legalization, when that hasn't proven to be true here... pretty sure it won't happen in CO or WA either, since competition eventually drives down the market. We have some 100+ cannabis clubs just in the Bay Area, so they need to beat the other shops' prices to stay alive. Maybe if the cities only allowed 1-2 dispensaries, I could see your point, but that just isn't the case yet. Even when they forced a bunch of clubs to close in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Jose, I didn't notice any rise in overall prices.
People are not able to police themselves and have a normal productive active life and enhance the lives of others. It just ain't going to happen. If you have seen much people will sit and heap many bad things in their lives knowing that they hurt themselves but think it is O.K. to do it because it is them doing it. I have seen multi millionaires, top athletes, persons of great performing skills lose everything because of a high.
The families and friends of these people are the ones to get the worst of a addicts actions against themselves.
If you made all drugs legal, society would go back a couple hundred years at least, into the toilet. The upside of it might be less people in the end and I bet they would have great lives after a generation or two...
People are not able to police themselves and have a normal productive active life and enhance the lives of others. It just ain't going to happen. If you have seen much people will sit and heap many bad things in their lives knowing that they hurt themselves but think it is O.K. to do it because it is them doing it. I have seen multi millionaires, top athletes, persons of great performing skills lose everything because of a high.
The families and friends of these people are the ones to get the worst of a addicts actions against themselves.
If you made all drugs legal, society would go back a couple hundred years at least, into the toilet. The upside of it might be less people in the end and I bet they would have great lives after a generation or two...
I cannot agree with this. It's not like it's hard to get drugs now, so making it legal isn't suddenly going to make it available to people who couldn't otherwise get it. Even if they did, how on earth would that set society back "a couple of hundred years?"
Watch Boardwalk Empire. Making booze illegal didn't stop people from drinking, all it did was take the taxes out of it for government, and make organized crime grow bigger and richer than ever before.
For a little prrof smoking weed doesn't ruins lives, well, it's legal in Amsterdam and i've been over in my days getting high as the sky would permit.
Since people allways talk about the Netherlands, and Amsterdam in topics about drugs. Here's a little from the Netherlands to think about:
In my country, weed and hash isn't legal like you guys think. They made the biggest mistake ever by legalising it only half way, we call it the "gedoogbeleid" (still illegal, but let it happen in a controlled way).
In this "gedoogbeleid" it's legal to sell, but illegal to grow more than a few plants. Still following me?????? . So because of this policy it's impossible for coffeshops to buy their weed in a legal market wich makes it a lucrative buissness for criminals that grow weed. This has caused that all the weed that goes around in the shops is controlled by a few gangs that let people grow weed in their houses. Those gangs own those people. They ruin their houses, and make 'em steel elektricity from the power companies. Wich often causes uge fires due to poor engineering.
From time to time some criminal runs for "government" so we have a war. Not like a few hillbillies fighting, but a real war with executions and bombings. They blow up coffeeshops, execute people in the streets, endangering innocent bystanders and what more. This whole "growing" culture, again caused "ripping gangs". Gangs that do robberies on weed growers, also heavily armed, killing and hurting.
Sooo, people, if you want to legalise drugs, don't take an example of the Netherlands but do it good. Legalise it completely (selling AND growing) and then i think you'll do good. It will shut down criminals, making it no use for them anymore to get involved. Then i think you can actually win a war on drugs.
But DON'T take an example of the Netherlands please
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. So because of this policy it's impossible for coffeshops to buy their weed in a legal market wich makes it a lucrative buissness for criminals that grow weed. This has caused that all the weed that goes around in the shops is controlled by a few gangs that let people grow weed in their houses. Those gangs own those people. They ruin their houses, and make 'em steel elektricity from the power companies. Wich often causes uge fires due to poor engineering.
