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Ecuador to legalize all drugs - from marijuana to heroine

Is this a better solution to the Drug Problem?

  • YES!

    Votes: 10 52.6%
  • NO!

    Votes: 3 15.8%
  • It's better than the current Drug War!

    Votes: 4 21.1%
  • Other! Explain, please.

    Votes: 2 10.5%

  • Total voters
    19
  • Poll closed .

DaveFagan

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Ecuador to legalize all drugs - from marijuana to heroine
< Ecuador to legalize all drugs - from marijuana to heroine - English pravda.ru >
"In Ecuador is expected to become the second country in the world and the first in the Western hemisphere to legalize all drugs. With new legislation to be approved, Ecuador is said to legalize drugs from marijuana to cocaine. Even heroine is expected to become legal in the country. Portugal became the first country in the world to have ended the drug war within its borders in 2001. The Portuguese society has improved considerably since then. The number of drug-related deaths has decreased along with the number of juvenile drug addicts, as well as the number of people doing drugs in general. Infectious diseases spread through needles and dirty drug practices have declined rapidly in Portugal since the end of drug prohibition. Many prisons have even shut down because there is not enough crime.Ecuador's new bill would set a new example of a country without drug prohibition for Latin America."

How many people know about the success in Portugal?
This sounds sensible to me.
Would it be tough on Big Pharma?
No more Drug War, but where would arms manufacturers sell their product?
 
Camino por recorrer Ecuador!

Only ignoramuses on this subject and/or idiots think this a bad idea...which unfortunately is probably most people.

It is none of the state's business what sane, consenting adults do in private or ingest into their bodies.
 
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I think Drugs, Drug Wars, and Drug Laws are business oriented, not citizen oriented. Corporate Correctional facilities make a profit. Drug warriors make a profit. Weapons manufacturers make a profit. DEA makes a profit. Big Pharma makes a profit. Afghanistan (somebodies in Afghanistan because the USA has increased opium production by forty fold since the USA has been in charge) makes a profit. Whassamatter with those numbskulls in Portugal making drugs legal and decreasing drug problems? They must not know where the profits are made. Legal drugs must be anti Business, anti USA, and anti Corporate, don't ya' know?
 
Camino por recorrer Ecuador!

Only ignoramuses on this subject and/or idiots think this a bad idea...which unfortunately is probably most people.

Considering that drug use and drug crime have gone up since Portugal legalized them, its the idiots that think legalization is a solution to any problem

It is none of the state's business what sane, consenting adults do in private or ingest into their bodies.

Thats a naive and shot sided way to look at it. The majority of drug addicts especially the hard drugs cant hold jobs and must commit society harming crimes to continue their addiction
 
Considering that drug use and drug crime have gone up since Portugal legalized them, its the idiots that think legalization is a solution to any problem



Thats a naive and shot sided way to look at it. The majority of drug addicts especially the hard drugs cant hold jobs and must commit society harming crimes to continue their addiction

How do you rationalize telling other people what their subjective benefits would be from an individual action in comparison to your own subjective benefits, and yet consider yourself a conservative?

Have you ever thought that the legality of drugs, or making the demand curve inelastic, is actually the reason addicts spend so much time energy and money trying to fulfill the faulty propped up price due to the legality of the actual substance, further more, how can you possibly say with certainty that society has actually benefited from the restriction on drugs considering there is absolutely nothing to compare it to

I think any rational adult would not only say that what they value in life and consider healthy has no consequence over anyone else's health, and that the drug war seems to do more harm because of propped up rates of return as well as propped up prices due to the inelastic demand curve
 
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Considering that drug use and drug crime have gone up since Portugal legalized them, its the idiots that think legalization is a solution to any problem

Sources?
 
Considering that drug use and drug crime have gone up since Portugal legalized them, its the idiots that think legalization is a solution to any problem



Thats a naive and shot sided way to look at it. The majority of drug addicts especially the hard drugs cant hold jobs and must commit society harming crimes to continue their addiction

"The Portuguese society has improved considerably since then. The number of drug-related deaths has decreased along with the number of juvenile drug addicts, as well as the number of people doing drugs in general. Infectious diseases spread through needles and dirty drug practices have declined rapidly in Portugal since the end of drug prohibition. Many prisons have even shut down because there is not enough crime."
 

Cocaine use also increased in Portugal over the 2001-2007 period, from 0.3% to 0.6%, reflecting the growing importance of Portugal as a cocaine transit country between South America, Western Africa and continental Europe in the last few years

Portugal suddenly had the sixth-highest cocaine seizure total in the world. The number of murders increased 40% during this same period of time

http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2009/WDR2009_eng_web.pdf

Portugal faces a worrying deterioration of the drug situation. The facts prove "With 219 deaths from 'overdose' per year, Portugal has one of the worst results, with one death every two days. Along with Greece, Austria and Finland, Portugal registered an increase of deaths by more than 30% in 2005 " and " Portugal remains the country with the highest increase of AIDS as a result of injecting drugs (85 new cases per million residents in 2005, when the majority of countries do not surpass 5 cases per million). Portugal is the only country that recorded a recent increase, with 36 new cases estimated per million in 2005 when in 2004 only 30 were registered" (European Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction 2007). The European report also confirmed that in 2006, Portugal had registered 703 new cases of SIDA, which corresponds to a rate eight times higher than the European average!

The decriminalization of drugs in Portugal did not in any way decrease levels of consumption. On the contrary, "the consumption of drugs in Portugal increased by 4.2% - the percentage of people who have experimented with drugs at least once in their lifetime increased from 7.8% in 2001 to 12% in 2007 (IDT-Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction Portuguese, 2008).

Decriminalization of drugs in Portugal
 
"The Portuguese society has improved considerably since then. The number of drug-related deaths has decreased along with the number of juvenile drug addicts, as well as the number of people doing drugs in general. Infectious diseases spread through needles and dirty drug practices have declined rapidly in Portugal since the end of drug prohibition. Many prisons have even shut down because there is not enough crime."

you think if you keep repeating it, that it will magically come true?
 
Considering that drug use and drug crime have gone up since Portugal legalized them, its the idiots that think legalization is a solution to any problem
Incorrect.

One - drugs are not legal in Portugal, they are just decriminalized...HUGE difference. What is being discussed in the OP is full legalization in Ecuador.

Portugal Drug Policy: Decriminalization Works - Business Insider

Two - both drug usage and STD's are down. And the homicide stat you list has nothing to do with drug use...it is just the number of homicides for the whole country, for any reason. And with the economy there sucking for years, naturally, homicides will rise.

portugal-gdp-growth-annual.png


Portugal GDP Annual Growth Rate | 1996-2015 | Data | Chart | Calendar


Thats a naive and shot sided way to look at it. The majority of drug addicts especially the hard drugs cant hold jobs and must commit society harming crimes to continue their addiction

And what do you think would happen to the price of drugs were they legalized? They would plummet. Some estimates are as much as 80-90%. Obviously, when you make something illegal, the price for it will skyrocket - that is just common sense.

'Legalizing the production and distribution of marijuana in California could cut the price of the drug by as much as 80 percent...'

Legalizing Marijuana in California Would Sharply Lower the Price of the Drug | RAND

The price to get high on crack - depending wildly on where you live - but when I was using (from 1999-2002 - been clean ever since) it was about $400 per quarter (which is 1/4 of an ounce). And that would last me - depending on the quality - about 12-16 hours by myself (and I used a LOT). And, based on my sources, the price has dropped ever-so-slightly since then.
Now if you legalized it, the price would plummet and the quality would rocket upwards. So, based on this, an addict could get high for about 16 hours for about $80.

So if crack came down to $80 for 16 hours or even $160 for a weekend's worth (about $640 per month)...then you could be an addict, work at some $15/hour minimum wage job (in Seattle, for example) during the week and take home about $425-475 per week? That is about $1,800 a month.
If you take $640 out for crack, that leaves about $1160. Times 12 months equals $13,920 for the year for living. The official poverty line for the lower 48 states in 2015 is $11,770.

2015 Poverty Guidelines

You would be a law-abiding citizen, work at a Seattle McDonald's, pay your taxes and live above the poverty line...all as a legal drug addict getting high EVERY weekend, (almost) all weekend. And since crack is emotionally but NOT physically addictive, every weekend as a user is definitely doable. Most guys I knew only got high every week or so - as did I - but we would binge for those couple of days. The gals were different as they were almost all in the adult entertainment industry, so they were getting a constant supply of funds, so they usually got high in smaller doses but more often. (BTW - I had lots of money back then, so I could easily afford my habit without having to do illegal things to support it).


Now if you tried to do that today, the crack alone would cost you 5 times as much ($3000+ per month!?!). Most would have no choice but to turn to a life of crime to support their habit.

This is why legalization reduces crime...massively. Yes, petty crimes (like pickpockets) might go up. But major crimes go way down because addicts simply do not need to commit major crimes/prostitution to support their habit.
 
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Considering that drug use and drug crime have gone up since Portugal legalized them, its the idiots that think legalization is a solution to any problem

Thats a naive and shot sided way to look at it. The majority of drug addicts especially the hard drugs cant hold jobs and must commit society harming crimes to continue their addiction
Decriminalization or legalization? The two are vastly different and will produce different results.
 
Ecuador to legalize all drugs - from marijuana to heroine
< Ecuador to legalize all drugs - from marijuana to heroine - English pravda.ru >
"In Ecuador is expected to become the second country in the world and the first in the Western hemisphere to legalize all drugs. With new legislation to be approved, Ecuador is said to legalize drugs from marijuana to cocaine. Even heroine is expected to become legal in the country. Portugal became the first country in the world to have ended the drug war within its borders in 2001. The Portuguese society has improved considerably since then. The number of drug-related deaths has decreased along with the number of juvenile drug addicts, as well as the number of people doing drugs in general. Infectious diseases spread through needles and dirty drug practices have declined rapidly in Portugal since the end of drug prohibition. Many prisons have even shut down because there is not enough crime.Ecuador's new bill would set a new example of a country without drug prohibition for Latin America."

How many people know about the success in Portugal?
This sounds sensible to me.
Would it be tough on Big Pharma?
No more Drug War, but where would arms manufacturers sell their product?
Not to worry, Big Pharma will find a way to make a profit....
 
I'll have to ask my sister about this. She is an English professor at a university in Qito. Her views may vary a bit from mine as we are polar opposites. She has spent the last 30 years on college campii, and is an honest to god socialist (buddhist vegan). To be fair, loosening up some of their drug laws is far overdue. Some OTC drugs we have here (such as ibuprofen) are script only.

The government of Equador is interesting too. In the past few years they have opened up large areas of oil exploration in the Amazon rainforest against the will of the people (there was a referendum vote). The drilling resulted in displacing at least 2 indigenous groups of people, and resulted in a huge oil spill that threatens the entire region. Before that, Equador had floated an idea to the UN that would collect monies from other more developed counties (that would be us, carbon offsets anyone?) and pay Equador to NOT drill. Yup. So the government of Equador extorted the rest of the world to NOT drill, then decided to do it anyway and f$%^ed it all up. So now they want to legalize drugs? What is the hope here, a stoned populace is a compliant populace?
 
I'll have to ask my sister about this. She is an English professor at a university in Qito. Her views may vary a bit from mine as we are polar opposites. She has spent the last 30 years on college campii, and is an honest to god socialist (buddhist vegan). To be fair, loosening up some of their drug laws is far overdue. Some OTC drugs we have here (such as ibuprofen) are script only.

The government of Equador is interesting too. In the past few years they have opened up large areas of oil exploration in the Amazon rainforest against the will of the people (there was a referendum vote). The drilling resulted in displacing at least 2 indigenous groups of people, and resulted in a huge oil spill that threatens the entire region. Before that, Equador had floated an idea to the UN that would collect monies from other more developed counties (that would be us, carbon offsets anyone?) and pay Equador to NOT drill. Yup. So the government of Equador extorted the rest of the world to NOT drill, then decided to do it anyway and f$%^ed it all up. So now they want to legalize drugs? What is the hope here, a stoned populace is a compliant populace?

A point that might be made here is that everything in the USA is Corporate, even the Drug War. This generates Corporate profits that are in a feedback loop to politicians to maintain the status quo so even bad, stupid, unsuccessful, counterprodutive programs get a life of their own and continuity in perpetuity. This is a negative feedback loop and probably compares to the Iraq War, Libya, Syria, etc. That means the status quo spends big money to maintain the status quo and then they become the spokepersons and regulatory administrators (Nuclear Industry) bandying one-sided rhetoric to prevent change (think reduced profits). I mean, this system really works? I mean, this system really sucks? Irregardless, we have been sucked into the system.
 
This directly affects national security in the USA.

Now drug runners have a "safe haven" south of the border where they can stage operations and smuggle drugs in to this country.

We need to keep an eye on this
 
I am generally opposed to legislating morality, particularly of substances like alcohol and pot. I think the unintended consequences of doing so far outweigh the 'benefits' of such legislation. E.g. prohibition gave us organized crime; drugs the international cartels and the virtual destruction of our penal system - to name but a few.

That being said, some drugs are safe for no one - meth and heroin being two good examples. Nor do I think there are effective measures we can take either legislatively or via regulation to curb their damage to society at large. Therefore, I am definitely not for the summary legalization of all drugs.
 
Its about time I would say, the worldwide Drug War is a disaster and helped create narco states, massive corruption and strengthened organized crime. Banning something is never a solution. It didnt work for Prohibition and it took US politicians only a few years to realize it but it seems they are dumb when it comes to drugs.
 
You don't need to go legalizing everything, but kudos to them for ending their part in the travesty that is the drug war.
 
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