Why is the United States backing Mexican drug gangs?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Well I just can't see making access easier as a solution.

Drinking rates rose during prohibition. Sometimes we act different sociologically than we expect.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

My stance is that while cocaine and heroin are extremely unhealthy and have negative effects that go past the individual that uses it, in the big picture, its legalization will be better overall than what we have today.

I have not seen any conclusive evidence that legalization of these drugs will cause a definitive increase in numbers and frequency of hard drug use.

I am not really sure that you could provide concrete objective studies which show that legalization will not cause an increase in use. I agree the money spent on the war on drugs could be better spent, legalization of Heroin and cocaine is not one of them.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Not in my opinion. Increasing access does not help people with addiction. I could really care less about pot. Heroin and cocaine is another class altogether.

The only thing that can solve addiction is rehab and preventing its use in the first place. Making it illegal will push addicts to the black market, which is not positive in any way.

Like my safe sex example, real education about drugs will prevent its use as much as possible without resorting to overly expensive and rights eating methods. With legalization, addicts will be easier to spot and money can go to rehabilitation to actually help the problem.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I am not really sure that you could provide concrete objective studies which show that legalization will not cause an increase in use. I agree the money spent on the war on drugs could be better spent, legalization of Heroin and cocaine is not one of them.

I can't, too many factors involved. But since there are many other benefits of the legalization of drugs, legalization can be beneficial without a lower in usage.

Also, you never specify your reasons for being against the legalization of heroin and cocaine besides addiction, which I addressed.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Well I just can't see making access easier as a solution.

Me either. I was responding to UT.:p

I think part of what keeps some alive, is the inability to find a source at the right time. Just striving to get a line on something keeps their usage from being fatal sometimes.

I imagine that if it were legalized someone would always have a connection, which could be the fatal one at that time.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

The only thing that can solve addiction is rehab and preventing its use in the first place. Making it illegal will push addicts to the black market, which is not positive in any way.

Like my safe sex example, real education about drugs will prevent its use as much as possible without resorting to overly expensive and rights eating methods. With legalization, addicts will be easier to spot and money can go to rehabilitation to actually help the problem.

Sorry but that does not follow the common sense rule for me. Make it more available, and then redirect the money to rehab. Which essentially is an admission that you made a problem but you are going to have the money to treat it, so no problem. I can't buy that. Certainly taking money from the current approach and redirecting to better education it is one thing, similar to what is being done with smoking. The anti-smoking approach has been effective in decreasing the number of people who smoke, in the form of education and bans on when and where you can smoke. You are going to have a hard time convincing me that legalization of heroin and cocaine is a good thing.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

Also, you never specify your reasons for being against the legalization of heroin and cocaine besides addiction, which I addressed.

Sure I have. I addressed them here:

Because I don't think that you can control the addiction. Alcohol is bad enough. I believe it ruins lives, families, and it would further burden the healthcare system.

IMHO you did not provide me with a convincing argument based on objective studies.

[TheMercenary]

Here is one use that I could support, Heroin for medical use only.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...5AC0A964948260

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Sorry but that does not follow the common sense rule for me. Make it more available, and then redirect the money to rehab. Which essentially is an admission that you made a problem but you are going to have the money to treat it, so no problem. I can't buy that. Certainly taking money from the current approach and redirecting to better education it is one thing, similar to what is being done with smoking. The anti-smoking approach has been effective in decreasing the number of people who smoke, in the form of education and bans on when and where you can smoke. You are going to have a hard time convincing me that legalization of heroin and cocaine is a good thing.

First, the legalization is not a "good" thing, I am arguing that it might be better than what we have now.

Second, education and rehabilitation will have to work hand in hand. Education will work to prevent people from start using those drugs in the first place and rehabilitation will work to keep people who are addicted from using the drugs in the future.

Third, my reason is not that it will change the individual usage and those negative effects, but the negative social effects. There are NO positive effects to pushing drugs to the black market, none. That is my main reason for my stance and reason I posted the article in the first place and you have never addressed that part.



To look at this issue rationally we have two main factors, individual negative effects and social negative effects and both need to be addressed.

To address the individual effects, we have to do what I said in my second point, focus on education and rehabilitation. I am very confident, as with your smoking cigarettes example, that education can lower drug abuse in teenagers. I am also confident that rehabilitation can get people to quit drugs and lower the massive amounts of negative effects that come with addiction. There are other methods to keep people from abusing drugs than making it illegal and as far as I am concerned, making drugs illegal hasn't worked at all so far so other methods should be explored.

To address the social effects, we need to keep drugs off the black market. I have personal experience with this and am aware of how negative and far reaching the social effects can be and it all stems from the black market and organized crime. Take a look at organized crime during the prohibition, it booms from popular illegal (emphasis both popular and illegal) substances. If full out legalization works, fine, if prescriptions work, fine, if alternative methods work, fine, but the goal of legalization is to get the drug trade off the streets.

That is why I believe proper education, rehabilitation, and the legalization of cocaine and heroin can have positive effects on our society. Education will prevent kids from abusing drugs in the first place. Rehabilitation will reduce the number of addicts. Legalization will take the drug trade off the black market. With those three, we can easily be efficient in lowering drug abuse and still be able to put money elsewhere as UT suggested.

[TheMercenary]

I still have not seen data which supports your assumption that legalization of heroin or cocaine is a good thing. Other than the one article I posted about heroin for medical use only. I believe that there would be negative social effects to legalization of these two drugs.

Because I don't think that you can control the addiction. Alcohol is bad enough. I believe it ruins lives, families, and it would further burden the healthcare system.

You are not the only one with personal experience. Individual and social negative effects cannot be delt with separately. Just because you gain some perceived social benifit on one hand does not mean that it would in someway outweigh the negative individual effects. you have stated over and over now that you believe proper education, rehabilitation, and the legalization of cocaine and heroin can have positive effects on our society. I disagree and to this point you have not shown me any objective data to support that.

[TheMercenary]

Maybe if we legalize pot the use of other drugs would decline.

[richlevy]

I would assume the worst aspect of the "War on Drugs" to libertarians here is civil asset forfeiture. This is where the government steps in and seizes 'drug money' in your bank account without ever accusing you of selling drugs. You then have to prove your innocence to get your money back.

[piercehawkeye45]

TheMercenary, first let me make sure we are on the same page with a few things. It seems that we both see the current drug situation as very negative but I believe that legalizing the drugs will be worth it since I believe the chance of it benefiting our society is greater than the chance it will hurt it while you do not think it is worth it because you believe the opposite. Even though you disagree with me, if you still see how there is a chance of the situation getting better with legalization keep reading, if you see zero chance of the situation improving and will not change your mind, state it and we will drop the argument.

Second, let me make it clear that there is no objective statistics on this matter for two reasons. First, there are no instances where cocaine or heroin have been legalized before and second, there are so many other variables involved it is impossible to objectively relate legalization with positive or negative effects. For example, if we look at marijuana abuse in British Columbia in the past ten years, that will not be proof that legalization of marijuana will either increase, decrease, or have no effect on abuse because there are so many other factors. First, since BC is a token place to smoke weed, it will get a disproportional amount of attention for weed smokers. Second, marijuana usage increased in BC from 1992-2004 so there are obviously other factors involved. Third, marijuana works differently than cocaine and heroin and are seen differently by teenagers so results could be completely different. Social effects are the same way because it is impossible to get reliable data that actually represents what we are talking about.


If you still require 100% objective proof to change your mind even though it doesn't exist state it and we can drop the argument. If you disagree with this, argue. If you do not require objective proof keep reading


Back to your argument

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Because I don't think that you can control the addiction. Alcohol is bad enough. I believe it ruins lives, families, and it would further burden the healthcare system.

My first response is that education plays a much bigger role in preventing addiction than availability. The anti-smoking campaign versus prohibition shows this. In 1964, 44% of people smoked, in 1991 it dropped to 21%. Education and lack of availability determined this, not legalization. During the prohibition, alcohol use went up despite it being illegal. So, in conclusion I can say that with proper education and controlling availability, we can lower the amount of abusers while still legalizing it for other reasons. Keep in mind that these two examples do not prove my argument because of the reason I gave above but they do support it. I have yet to see anything that supports your argument.

My second reason is that with the extra money not being thrown into worthless "drug wars", we can spend it on rehabilitation and education. Most addicts will do anything to get the drugs whether it is illegal or legal and the only way to keep addicts from abusing drugs is through rehabilitation. So, I don't see how your argument makes sense until you provide evidence that legalizing the drugs will increase use to counteract education and rehabilitation.

So to sum it up, legalization doesn't have much effect on being able to "control the addiction". Addicts will get the drug whether it is legal or not and by legalizing the drug, we can take measures to provide better education and rehabilitation to lower the addiction rates, not to mention take out the black market.

I am willing to take the chance of raising individual abuse by legalizing the drug and it seems that you are not. If you feel that way fine, we can agree to disagree.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

I am willing to take the chance of raising individual abuse by legalizing the drug and it seems that you are not. If you feel that way fine, we can agree to disagree.

Yea, I guess we just have to respectfully disagree.

But on one of your other points I have to point out these links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/1..._n_147245.html

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-...ccluskey.shtml

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/...ths/myths4.htm

[piercehawkeye45]

Good links.

[classicman]

Cocaine and heroin are both physically addicting - that means the body become dependent upon them. This differs from pot which is only psychologically addictive not physically. Furthermore no one, no one is going to die just from sparkin a dube. However, trying cocaine or heroin can and has killed many who just tried it out of curiosity. Additionally, once addicted to either of the harder drugs requires, in virtually all cases, other drugs to break the physical dependency. Another difference from pot.
Legalizing either of these would increase the drug related deaths and addict exponentially. Then again, that would reduce the number of users and therefore reduce the number of addicts. Hmm - At what cost is this scenario acceptable?