No it wouldnt, you have no evidence of this, and by restricting drugs for the underaged your simply quadroupeling the demand for drugs for the drug cartels to give to the underaged. What difference does it make, what are you stopping? Now what you have done is made it easier for people to access drugs and no less harder or easier for the underaged to obtain them illegally.
By legalizing it, you remove the cartels from the equation. Just like ending prohibition removed the mafia from teh alcohol equation.
Rubbish. Are you unaware that if the government legalized drugs, your gonna have all the dealers running off trying to obtain a better, higher yield then what the government is achieving by adding cheap ****ty substances to undercut government prices and run a greater risk of health to those who take it.
You got that backwards. Prohibition being repealed (aka the evidence) suggests the exact opposite will happen.
Age group is irrelevant in drug use as far as im concerned. Its all outlawed, and hopefully it shall remain.
Why? You say it's the logical argument, so present one. Thus far you have relied on "Drugs are bad. Banning drugs acknowledges they are bad. therefore banning drugs is good" without actually supporting the efficacy of these bans for reducing drug use.
It's just an emotional appeal devoid of logic.
I'm arguing for using the resources effectively, not throwing money at a failed program.
Why is that met with resistance?
Because people think that legalization = saying drugs are "good".
You honestly think thats how dealers think?
Legalizing drugs will remove the criminal element from the equation. And I have discussed this with a former heroin dealer before.
That is exactly how they think.
...by outlawing drugs but decriminilizing drug users (and instead look it at as a health issue like we do in Britain. We dont stick them in prisons like you do in America). They have to go to rehab centres.
That's preferable to the US methods.
Doesnt change anything for god sakes. Most people on drugs are so deep they dont want to get better. What use is it legalizing drugs yet discouraging there use and offering rehab programmes? We're simply running in circles and wasting our money because we are funding rehab programmes while at the same time being the cause of there being there.
As a person who has personally worked with a number of people during their worst stages of addiction, the exact opposite is true. Most really do want to get better, but have difficulty doing so because it is so difficult.
Rehab programs won't become any less effective because of increased funding and less funding towards the legal prohibition.
Drug use will not increase because of legalization. That fear is allayed by the prohibition statistics.
Tuck, your in fantasy land mate.
Unfortunately, I am living in the harsh reality.
I have more experience with the actual perils of addiction than most people ever will.
I have personally done more in my life to help people overcome addiction than most people ever will.
I don't pay lip service to fighting addiction, I've actually put forth my own sweat and tears.
I've walked into a crack house and carried someone out of it and taken them straight to rehab. I've been to funerals and I've had interventions.
My opinions are actually based on what can potentially work, not on what I would really really like to see happen.
If anyone knows the devastating affects of drugs it's me, yet I argue against prohibition even though I personally despise most drugs not because I want to see them legal, but because I want to see REAL effective measures instituted, not the bull**** lip service of the so-called "war on drugs".