ClassIsInSession
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Joined: 7/26/2010
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Drug use and abuse is such a multi-faceted and complex issue I don't think anytihng can be branded in black and white terms.
As I grew up around a lot of drugs, and the people who dealt them and did them, I can say that in my experience, the tendency for drugs to create problems is very much a matter of personality and self esteem. The vast majority of people I witnessed playing graduating steps, like from marijuanna to coke to crack etc, were typically extremely insecure people who because of their insecurities made very poor choices based on priorities that were not in order. I think quite a few of these people would hit rock bottom regardless of legality and many wind up dead as a result.
On the other hand, I've known drug users that range from casual pot smokers to full blown heroine addicts who were able to maintain their lives just fine. Sure, they did drugs, and perhaps they did them to excess on occassion, but they managed to hold jobs, keep relationships and otherwise acted in a healthy manner.
If we went purely from a "health" perspective, and started banning anything that was bad for our health, most of our diets would have to go away, with the trans fats, the GMO foods, the gluten, etc. And the list would change every 5-10 years because new research would be linking a health problem to something. Health should never be mandated. Death is caused by a disease called life, and it inevitably comes to all of us, when it does, it is the result of the failure of one or more of our vital organs. How we get those organs to fail is sometimes a known and sometimes a mystery. Not insignifcant is the number of deaths that result from prescription medications, whether it is an unusual reaction to it, an improper usage of it, or a misdiagnosis of the underlying problem that was to be treated. MRSA staph is increasingly killing a significant number of people in the hospitals around the country.
That said, we have a very long journey ahead before we can definitively say what really causes what, we have statistics and research, some better than others to give us a guide, but often medicine is as much an art as it is a science.
Personally, I think legalization from a liberty standpoint and from a very practical economic standpoint makes very good sense. I would still think there should be penalties for driving under the influence or coming to work under the influence, but beyond that, what a person does to themselves in the privacy of their own home or the home of a friend shouldn't be anyone's business so long as it doesn't cause harm to anyone else.
What I have noticed over the years though is that cocaine/crack seems to cause a permanent emotional imbalance for long term users, and even if they stop it doesn't seem to go away. The emotions become more turbulent and apt to change for what seems to be no good reason.
My parents were pretty smart in the way they approached the drug issue with me at a fairly early age. They presented me with a book that gave unbiased facts about every illegal substance. Because I read it, I never did cocaine or heroine, MDMA (XTC), and quite a number of other drugs, mainly because of the addictive properties, but also because I never had the desire to run from life and the effects seemed to numb the senses rather than enhance them.
Marijuanna is a drug I think is ridiculous to criminalize, but it isn't without potential problems. Everyone knows about the potential cancer causing properties of inhaling it, but moreso than that, I think the greatest drawback to marijuanna is what I call the "Rip Van Winkle" effect. Many people who smoke frequently have big dreams (perhaps even more so because of the enhanced creative/visualization properties) but often fail to produce real and measurable strides toward their dreams, so one day they wake up and realize 10 years have passed and they don't have nearly as much to show for it as the peers around them who didn't smoke or didn't smoke regularly.
Ultimately though, these are things that while I agree, the true facts should be presented, should be left for the individual to determine for themselves.
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RE: Global leaders call for a major shift to decriminal... - 
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