Recreational Drug Use Legalization

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Even back in the 50's and 60's, Judges would quite often offer a kid in trouble, a chance to join the military, as a plea bargain to avoid conviction.

Today, the army is professional. A recruit must have a high school degree and cannot have any felony convictions. How is the army reducing standards to maintain their recruitment quotas? Sometimes, those two requirements get ignored.

[piercehawkeye45]

All I know is that I know someone who got caught with cocaine possession got the choice of joining the army to avoid jail time. I think we are talking about the same thing.

[Aliantha]

PH, I guess your experiences have been much different to mine then.

Speaking as someone who did a bit of a stint back in the bad old days, I can assure you that all drugs cause you to lose a certain amount of 'control'. Different drugs, different behaviours, but all alter your perception of reality in some way. If you're not seeing 'reality' you're not in control IMO.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Even back in the 50's and 60's, Judges would quite often offer a kid in trouble, a chance to join the military, as a plea bargain to avoid conviction.

Ah, that makes more sense, since it's technically a substitute for the conviction (meaning they aren't really "guilty") as opposed to a substitute for the sentencing.

[DanaC]

I haven't followed this thread and haven't read the whole thing, so forgive me if I repeat ideas that someone else has posted.

I believe that prohibition of drugs or alcohol has a negative effect overall. That said I do believe that certain substances ought to be 'controlled', by which I mean only purchasable from those with a licence to sell. My rationale for this is: most of the serious dangers involved in drug use comes from the unreliability of the substance used and the lack of reliable information about its use and possible effects of different dosages and how they may interact with other substances; with the substances legal but in a controlled form, where the dosage and contents are measurable and guaranteed, there would be far fewer fatalities amongst heroine users, for example and certainly 'ecstacy' would be a far safer drug than it currently is given that MDMA seems to have been swapped in many cases with dangerous doses of ketomine and a chemical soup of other ingredients. Take drugs out of the criminal arena and bring them within legal controls, in the same way that alcohol, tobacco and caffeine are, and the levels of danger will reduce. Add a change in attitude towards addiction (look at how cigarette addicts are treated as compared to heroine addicts) and we may see less criminalising of people who are not naturally criminal in tendency.

In addition, the bottom would drop out of the criminal drug market if those drugs were available at a reasonable price (even with high taxation rates seen in alcohol and tobacco, their impact on prices is, I believe much less than the impact of 'black market' economics).

On an idealogical level I do not think that we should legislate what adults are and are not allowed to consume. This is my prime reason for believing that all and any drugs should be legal, but subject to whatever health warnings and controls are necessary in order for those adults to make a reasoned and informed choice on their consumption. I find it slightly strange that societies who have a horror of 'big government' or 'nanny states' also have very strict legislation as to what adults can and cannot choose to consume.


eta

Specifically on cannabis: I have never been able to understand how the state can legislate against the cultivation and use of a herb. Might as well ban nettles, or parsley. Hell ban apples, they can be fermented to produce a mind altering substance.

[Aliantha]

Researchers might say LSD is not addictive, but I disagree. You may not have 'withdrawal symptoms' when you decide to stop taking it, but it is definitely a drug that's hard to refuse once you've had a 'good trip'. What I mean of course is that it's a drug that's habit forming even if it's not addictive. Similar to marijuana for example although I think LSD is more harmful because for one thing, it's a chemical and you really never know what you're going to get. For another, some people make some very very very bad decisions when they're on a trip.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Researchers might say LSD is not addictive, but I disagree. You may not have 'withdrawal symptoms' when you decide to stop taking it, but it is definitely a drug that's hard to refuse once you've had a 'good trip'.

So it's as addictive as bacon?

[Griff]

mmmmm...

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

So it's as addictive as bacon?

Much worse. Although I do have a mild bacon addition, only if very crispy.

[classicman]

I almost killed myself twice while shrooming. Once chasing a frisbee off a cliff at the Sleeping Giant Mountain and another time doing something VERY STUPID at a concert. It involved lots of electricity and my body as a conductor. The fatality rate is not just from the drug itself, but also what one's perception of while "intoxicated."

[Aliantha]

Well you know, once you have one rasher, it's hard to stop.

[Shawnee123]

When I'm very crispy, I'll eat just about anything.

[Undertoad]

Nice editorial piece on this

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,...719872,00.html

The drug war has ravaged law enforcement too. In cities where police agencies commit the most resources to arresting their way out of their drug problems, the arrest rates for violent crime — murder, rape, aggravated assault — have declined. In Baltimore, where we set The Wire, drug arrests have skyrocketed over the past three decades, yet in that same span, arrest rates for murder have gone from 80% and 90% to half that. Lost in an unwinnable drug war, a new generation of law officers is no longer capable of investigating crime properly, having learned only to make court pay by grabbing cheap, meaningless drug arrests off the nearest corner.

What the drugs themselves have not destroyed, the warfare against them has. And what once began, perhaps, as a battle against dangerous substances long ago transformed itself into a venal war on our underclass. Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we've been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American collective. All to no purpose. The prison population doubles and doubles again; the drugs remain.

[TheMercenary]

"What the drugs themselves have not destroyed, the warfare against them has. And what once began, perhaps, as a battle against dangerous substances long ago transformed itself into a venal war on our underclass. Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we've been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American collective. All to no purpose. "

The author sounds like he is looking for sympathy for poor choices people make of their own free will. I have little of it. At least in this opening sentance he admits that drug use destroys the life of the user and that the substances are dangerous. Statements like, "a venal war on our underclass" and "demonizing our most desperate citizens" only try to garner sympathy for losers who choose to throw their lives away, steal, lie, cheat, in some cases injur and murder others, and kill themselves slowly through drug use. Poor fellas.

[xoxoxoBruce]

only try to garner sympathy for losers who choose to throw their lives away, steal, lie, cheat, in some cases injur and murder others, and kill themselves slowly through drug use. Poor fellas.

The point is, the war on drugs has not changed this one iota. It's still happening despite the distraction of the police away from what they should be doing.