RE: War on Drugs "killing our children"

RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (Full Version)

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tazzygirl -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/4/2012 9:46:20 PM)
In relation to pot, I agree. quote: With 'hard' drugs, the first step in helping people is keeping them alive. It's far more productive to help the living rather than the dead. This entails approaching the issue as a health/medical issue rather than a moral or legal one. Almost every death associated with 'hard' drug use could be prevented through drug administration in a safe hygienic medical/health oriented environment. I still think we also need the legal aspects as well. Such as sales to minors or close to schools. Lets not kid ourselves, even if its legalized, it will still be a black market product.

tweakabelle -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/4/2012 9:57:16 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl In relation to pot, I agree. quote: With 'hard' drugs, the first step in helping people is keeping them alive. It's far more productive to help the living rather than the dead. This entails approaching the issue as a health/medical issue rather than a moral or legal one. Almost every death associated with 'hard' drug use could be prevented through drug administration in a safe hygienic medical/health oriented environment. I still think we also need the legal aspects as well. Such as sales to minors or close to schools. Lets not kid ourselves, even if its legalized, it will still be a black market product. I don't have any issues with your suggestions tazzy. The practical features of distribution/administration require careful consideration and thoughtful design. Overall the key element would be de-criminalisation - shifting the focus from punitive law enforcement to a more enlightened health oriented approach and policies

kdsub -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 7:22:44 AM)
Rich I believe we must protect those people from themselves if possible so I can't agree with your ideas...but at least you have ideas that make sense as opposed to the lets make all drugs legal crowd. Butch

SoftBonds -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 7:34:23 AM)
So just to be clear, is anyone defending the current "You used drugs, so we are sending you to prison for 5 years," model? If not, then we are just arguing over what should replace it, which pretty much means some sort of decriminalization... Personally (and this will get all sides mad at me), I don't care if folks want to use drugs, OD, and die. It is their body and their choice...

Aswad -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 11:02:01 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kdsub Rich I believe we must protect those people from themselves if possible so I can't agree with your ideas...but at least you have ideas that make sense as opposed to the lets make all drugs legal crowd. I believe that we must put down the idea that people can be- or should be- protected from themselves, as it would be rude to put down those that promulgate the idea before they've attempted to put it into practice. Few things are worth suffering on the scale drugs cause. Getting rid of the notion of protecting people from themselves is one of those few things. As for drugs, it's very simple: people want drugs, and if you won't supply it, someone else will. People want what they want, and so long as it can be had, they will have it. Oil is the classic example, but it's far more expensive to make oil than to make drugs, and we use far more of it, so there's far fewer oil cartels and oil smugglers and the like. Alcohol is another, and we know how that worked out. I don't care how you think it should be. And neither does reality. Nobody is willing to do what it will take to end the cartels, except that some are willing to legalize and thus take away their income base. From there is a long chain of dominoes that will end in effective near eradication of most forms of drug abuse, and complete eradication of the crime issue and associated costs. You will still see some demand for pot and alcohol as culturally acceptable drugs that have limited problems in comparison to the rest, but that is manageable enough (if DeBeers can pretend diamonds are worth something, and convince everyone else, then Monsanto can sell the idea that pot is better than alcohol, despite it being true). Stop trying to make the world a worse place that feels better... we have drugs for that. Health, al-Aswad.

SoftBonds -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 3:47:34 PM)
I'm just curious, is anyone against the insurance mandate in Obamacare and for drugs being illegal? Seems like a pretty hard tightrope wire to walk if they are. Course, a lot of folks who think paying for health insurance instead of freeloading on others is freedom, but two guys doing whatever they want in the privacy of their own bedroom is wrong and should be illegal...

kdsub -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 6:05:34 PM)
quote: As for drugs, it's very simple: people want drugs, and if you won't supply it, someone else will. People want what they want, and so long as it can be had, they will have it Will then some people want to kill...so lets make it legal...Oh don't forget pedophiles heh make it legal too. Some would like machine guns and tanks...maybe even a few bombs in the cupboard lets make it legal. Damn I want some of your money and if I don't take it someone else will...so lets make robbery legal…hell legalize all crimes it will relieve us of supporting our prison system. All bad ideas just as yours. Butch

tazzygirl -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 6:13:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kdsub quote: As for drugs, it's very simple: people want drugs, and if you won't supply it, someone else will. People want what they want, and so long as it can be had, they will have it Will then some people want to kill...so lets make it legal...Oh don't forget pedophiles heh make it legal too. Some would like machine guns and tanks...maybe even a few bombs in the cupboard lets make it legal. Damn I want some of your money and if I don't take it someone else will...so lets make robbery legal…hell legalize all crimes it will relieve us of supporting our prison system. All bad ideas just as yours. Butch The difference between them is that the drugs only hurt themselves... the rest hurt someone else. Yes, someone under the influence of any drug may hurt someone else in a car accident, for instance, or they may merely be using at home and never go out of the house. All of your other examples require a victim other than themselves.

MrBukani -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 6:30:02 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kdsub quote: As for drugs, it's very simple: people want drugs, and if you won't supply it, someone else will. People want what they want, and so long as it can be had, they will have it Will then some people want to kill...so lets make it legal...Oh don't forget pedophiles heh make it legal too. Some would like machine guns and tanks...maybe even a few bombs in the cupboard lets make it legal. Damn I want some of your money and if I don't take it someone else will...so lets make robbery legal…hell legalize all crimes it will relieve us of supporting our prison system. All bad ideas just as yours. Butch Yay! Lets make guns legal in Holland. What was it again. Guns dont kill people. People kill people. Bad Idea, just like yours. But pot oh pot is so bad it doesnt kill people so lets make it illegal. I am loosing the p(l)ot here!

TheHeretic -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 7:44:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kdsub Rich I believe we must protect those people from themselves if possible so I can't agree with your ideas...but at least you have ideas that make sense as opposed to the lets make all drugs legal crowd. Butch First and foremost, the price of being a free people, is that some people will always be free to destroy themselves. I cannot agree with your position. I must not have been clear, Butch. I'm very much in the "let's make all drugs legal, crowd." [:)] We need to be realistic about the impact, honest about what we are unleashing into society, and pragmatic in how we handle the inevitable values conflicts and gray areas that will come up, but I think legal drugs are going to have a less harmful overall impact, than what the war on drugs has done to us. Now some will say that we should just decriminalize, and I think that is the dumbest fucking idea out there. We get all the negative impacts of drugs coming into the open, and none of the broader social benefits. What broader social benefits, you might be asking? We instantly take away the cash flow that puts bullets in gangbangers guns. We can slit the throat of the cartels, maybe give Mexico a chance to be a decent, safe place to live, and make a cut into the incentives for illegal immigration. Our police forces can completely reinvent themselves, to focus on crimes that actually have a victim who wants help. Yes. I would legalize all of it, in some form anyway, because the first goal is to eliminate organized crime from the trade. Pot no harder to get than a six pack. And whether alcohol is legal or not, since your boss can fire you for showing up drunk, stoners would be subject to the same. Just off the cuff, I'd want a tiered system of access, but with any damn drug people want available through legal means. I'd even want it lax to begin with, to ensure that the inevitable black marketing is coming from our supply. (I am wondering though, how would they ever get the warning label onto a hit of blotter acid? It would have to come in a cereal box!) Instead of drugs being a hole our government pours money into, the whole industry becomes a tax paying member of society. Treatment funding (and oh Lord, we will need a lot of that) stops stealing money from the schools and roads. We aren't just collecting taxes on the individual sales. We're getting income taxes and SSI contributions from the meth cooks and pot growers. We're getting our cut of the profits in the discos booming with cokesters, hash bars, opium dens (yes, opium dens) and acid resorts, and collecting from the legal, tax paying, employees who have jobs there, too. It's an instant job creator, as there is suddenly a need for things like display cases, and exhaust fans that can simultaneously keep any cheapskate pothead from walking into the club, and getting a free contact high, and not having all the occupants of the church next door saying, "I'm hungry, but I don't know why." Printers making packaging, trucks making deliveries. There is something to be had over there. Commercial hemp has some serious logistical issues to overcome, but whether a new Eli Whitney comes out of a shed with the right invention, or John Deere decides to put some top engineers on it, we could gain an entire new industry that just sucks the carbon out of the sky, rather than pouring more in. Don't look at this as a good and an evil decision. See it as, what direction does the least harm.

PeonForHer -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 8:21:38 PM)
Bloody hell, TH - drugs as not just stimulants for the brain, but stimulants for the entire US economy back towards recovery - and other economies, too? Now that is far out! By Crack-ey (gedditt??) you might have something there!

kdsub -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 8:49:11 PM)
quote: only hurt themselves Tazzy...come on...there are very few drug abusers who do not hurt someone beside themselves. I seem to remember you saying someone in your family had a drug problem...Tell me the truth did they hurt someone besides themselves? Drug abusers destroy families and relationships... They often abuse their children or love ones... When high they often hurt themselves AND others...They spread disease...does that hurt others?...Children or often born deformed by abusing mothers... does that hurt someone else... I could go on and on because your statement is tragically wrong you must see this. Butch

tazzygirl -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 8:54:39 PM)
quote: remember you saying someone in your family had a drug problem I meant as part of the crime. You cannot have a pedophile without a victim, you cannot have a murder without a victim, you can have a drug user without a victim. quote: Drug abusers destroy families and relationships.. They often abuse their children or love ones... When high they often hurt themselves AND others...They spread disease...does that hurt others?...Children or often born deformed by abusing mothers... does that hurt someone else... I could go on and on because your statement is tragically wrong you must see this. All of that CAN be true, but it doesnt have to be true to commit a crime under current laws. Making your analogy wrong.

kdsub -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 8:59:08 PM)
You are the one saying drug abuse is a victimless crime and you are wrong...so any analogy of human wantonness works just fine. You can’t pick the few that are victimless ignoring the majority that do have victims…often more than one. Butch

tweakabelle -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 9:04:05 PM)
Good post Mr TH! The other side of turning drugs into a legal revenue generating business is that funds currently set aside to fund the 'War on Drugs' are now freed up for more productive use elsewhere in the economy. I haven't been able to get a single figure or calculation for this amount. But it must be astronomical, as it includes all the costs of enforcing current policy - countering, prosecuting and punishing all involved in the production distribution and consumption of 'illegal' drugs. We're probably talking in the hundreds of billions annually in the US alone. Just one example: c80% of prisoners in Australia are serving time for drug related offences. So the costs of investigating, prosecuting and imprisoning all these people would go from the minus side of the ledger to the positive. The massive amounts of tax $ we're talking about here would be freed up for far more productive use elsewhere. Such massive amounts, as well as the extra funds generated by the tax take on a legalised drug industry, would be especially appreciated during periods of budget stringency, which is precisely the situation that applies in the US and throughout the West currently.

Edwynn -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 9:19:30 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad Nobody is willing to do what it will take to end the cartels, except that some are willing to legalize and thus take away their income base. From there is a long chain of dominoes that will end in effective near eradication of most forms of drug abuse, and complete eradication of the crime issue and associated costs. I underlined the point made above that is overlooked, or rather, not even understood by most. With legalization or at least significant decriminalization (no felony) the price of cocaine, heroin and meth would drop pretty quickly to a level that would make both production and long distance transport not worth the while. The cartels, not willing to make the same money exporting cocaine as they would exporting oranges, would be gone from that venture within a year. Turning to the subject of cost/benefit, the tremendous amount of savings to be had from vast reduction in court and prison systems cost would more than pay for treatment for those who need it even as required at today's levels. This aside from the fact that a large number of those arrested have steady jobs or attend school full time, this contribution to society being thereby removed. As the use and whatever abuse decline due to less supply, less treatment will be needed, and along with the reduction in associated crime (arising from the illegality-enhanced profit more than the drug use itself), before long we would be seeing a noticeable change for the better in the poorer neighborhoods and certainly in local and state budgets. Finally, only a small percentage of those who partake of alcohol OR whatever illicit substance in their life become addicted, in any event the legal status of the substance in question having no bearing on that outcome (or not) whatsoever. There are less addicts per capita in Amsterdam than in New Amsterdam (NYC) by far.

tazzygirl -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 10:21:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kdsub You are the one saying drug abuse is a victimless crime and you are wrong...so any analogy of human wantonness works just fine. You can’t pick the few that are victimless ignoring the majority that do have victims…often more than one. Butch I never said it was a victimless crime.. I said you dont have to have a victim for it to be a crime. The difference between them is that the drugs only hurt themselves... the rest hurt someone else. Yes, someone under the influence of any drug may hurt someone else in a car accident, for instance, or they may merely be using at home and never go out of the house. All of your other examples require a victim other than themselves. The operative word is require.

SoftBonds -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/5/2012 11:12:11 PM)
You want to fight a war on drugs, make it a war. Shoot the addicts, shoot the dealers, heck, take the drugs we seize, lace them with cyanide, and put them back on the street. Once you have killed most of the folks who like drugs, the war is over. Of course, as those who claim that drug abuse isn't a victimless crime would argue (thus destroying any ability to argue in favor of the war on drugs), the purpose of putting these folks in prison isn't to stop them from hurting someone else with their drug use, but to protect them from themselves. Killing the addicts wouldn't protect them. Talk about your bleeding heart liberal politics... Or you could do something that makes sense, regulate it, tax it, and use the tax money to try to keep it out of the hands of kids. Of course, prostitution is still illegal in most of the US because if it was legal, it would somehow give money to the mob (who probably control prostitution in most US cities, but who get far more money since it is illegal, and thus the hookers can't go to the cops for help).

tweakabelle -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/6/2012 12:41:34 AM)
A victimless crime ......? For most of the many millions of Americans, Europeans and Australians who smoke pot regularly, it goes like this: Once or twice a week, they will have a few joints or bongs in some kind of social setting - a party, after dinner with friends, listening to music or watching a DVD or something like that - then go to bed. They'll wake up in the morning and go to work or do whatever they do ..... Shocking as it may seem, they won't reach for the nearest axe or machine gun and go on a murderous spree, they won't slit the cat's neck with a hunting knife for fun, they won't abduct a virgin and offer her as a gift to their god, they won't eat an infant for breakfast (regardless of whether the infant is raw or cooked). These mindless pathological criminals will hide behind a screen of pure normality, even eating at MacDonalds occasionally to maintain their cover, while they secretly pursue their evil ways ......, Some people who seem to believe that pleasure is dangerous insist on lumping this kind of harmless behaviour in with child abuse, crime and violence and declaring it all "drug-induced". These claims are never supported by research or data - hardly a surprise as no research or data exists to support this view that I have ever seen. In another context, it's easy to imagine the same people insisting that all BDSM is abusive, violent and exploitative, a claim facilitated only by a complete ignorance of BDSM behaviours. For the overwhelming majority of drug takers, drugs are consumed for pleasure and consumed without hurting, violating or abusing any one else, developing a dependency or causing any discernible negative effect on their lives.

truckinslave -> RE: War on Drugs "killing our children" (4/6/2012 1:43:25 AM)
quote: I can see the concept of changing the laws that drug addicts receive treatment rather than incarceration, but that isn't what you or others are calling for. The response to that is of course that only voluntary treatment, freely sought by the addict, is even remotely useful. I agree with that response, but the times they are a-changin' There is a Swiss (I believe) company working on a vaccine for cocaine use (and tobacco and Alzheimer's and a bunch of other stuff). Their treatments essentially will, hopefully, turn the immune system into a reuptake inhibitor. In other words- you can snort, but you don't get high. Or drunk, or whatever. Of course, it would be an interesting experiment to tell an alcoholic: "Joe, you can do ten years in jail or you can take a series of shots over the next month, after which you will be released. The shots will make it impossible for you ever to get drunk again". Twenty-one and a half years ago I would have had to think before answering the question....

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