Which drugs should be legalized for recreational use?

ARealConservative said:

The question does not ask if the federal government makes it illegal, but merely which should be legal.

I'm all for allowing all 50 states to ban meth/allow it independently.

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I totally agree with that. According to the 10th it should have been up to the states in the first place. The only reason it wasn't is because of a warped and abusive interpretation of the interstate commerce clause.

ARealConservative said:

As for what business is it of mine? The same business I have in not allowing an individual to possess radioactive material.

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Any idea how much radioactive material is in your TV and computer?

I think you're over estimating the effects that someone else's drug use could have on you. Unless they actually commit a crime, it doesn't affect you at all.

Goldwaters said:

What exactly will cause consumption of cocaine, meth, and opiates to increase if they are legalized? Everybody I used to know who did those drugs had an absolutely endless supply through thier connections. That stuff is pouring over the Mexican border.

So if drug users can get as much as they want anytime, how is legalizing it going to make it more available? There is no such thing as even more completely available.

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Hey man, I hear ya. And what you're saying holds a LOT of truth, I cannot deny that.

I wish I was smart enough to say it in the right way but I have only so much to work with here. :3oops: In fact, truth be known, I type with 2 fingers.

So, let me just say it from my heart. I got no sources, no links, so just take it for what it is. From me to you.

I am not a prude by most folks standards. In fact, I got a pretty decent buzz on, right now, as I type this to you. I just toasted a chamber of hydro I put away about 4 or 5 days ago and, (albeit rather harsh on my throat,) I am TOTALLY ready for some Floyd, but I digress..... (I do tend to ramble. please forgive me.)

I know all about the trip. Windowpane. 4 way. 8 way. Micro-dot. Paper. 25. Yada, yada, yada..

I know what you can do boiling up some fresh picked 'shroom's on a Friday night ( although, what you CANNOT do is make them taste good, no matter what you try. :rofl.)

I know how to hold the pipe up and roll it, while you just keep the torch/lighter just the right distance away. I also know that tunnel sound.

I know what you can do with the filter of a cigarette butt and two pennies.

I make the best hand rubbed hash (and even a pretty decent powder hash) as anybody I have ever ran across. I was good at splicing too.

I know what it's like, three days later, when your palms are purple and the enamel on your teeth feels like it's just about ground off.

I also know what it's like to touch your own lips and not feel them.

I have almost probably puked more alcohol than I have ever held down. ( I had a hard time stopping. :3oops

I ain't comin' at ya like no O'Reilly/Limbaugh rightwing kind of idiot.

I am coming from me to you.

Drugs are bad.

M'kay?

ronpaulvoter said:

Why don't you try to understand why the LP is so strong on legalizing drugs? It is NOT because they want to use or sell them. It IS because a free market is far superior than one run by government. We had that in 1900. Drug abuse was practically nonexistant. Ditto for drug CRIME.

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False.

Drug abuse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In the early 1900s, the first edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders referred to both alcohol and drug abuse as part of Sociopathic Personality Disturbances, which were thought to be symptoms of deeper psychological disorders or moral weakness [5]. By the third edition, in the 1940s, drug abuse was grouped into 'substance abuse'.

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How you can claim that drug abuse was non-existent yet it was being recognized by psychiatrists in a large enough number of people to give it it's own little section in their book of what at the time they considered 'mental' illnesses is beyond me. Either you're being dishonest or they are. I'll say : You.

As far as there not being any drug related crime. Address the fact that a free market on hard drugs would actually lead to more crime. Drug cartels won't let the government of any country cut in on their business and as it is they use the proceeds from their money to engage in gasp - more criminal activity. Like : prostitution(not the good kind - the human trafficking kind that takes place in Costa Rica and won't disappear because drugs are legalized), funding of militias like FARC and the gun related violence that already goes on between cartels.

Personally, I would never want to use these drugs except for legitimate medical purposes. But I am FED UP with our prisons being horribly overcrowded with extremist laws against actions that have no legitimate victims, billions of taxes being wasted for drug "wars," and dangerous criminals being created because of it.

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Agreed. You're not helping by making false statements though. Seriously. You're like those pro-gun rights guys who aren't willing to admit that not everybody feels safe around them. You're not helping.

The free market argument has some merit, but it depends on the drug. Things like cocaine can't be produced domestically in large amounts without the cocoa plant, and I'm not sure if that plant can even grow in North America. Heroin requires large scale poppy fields... this is probably more doable. The plants like marijuana, mushrooms, and cacti would somewhat remove the market from the equation since anyone can grow them cheaply. Basically, given any drug, if legalization means that it can be produced more cheaply and effectively than the cartels, then domestic product will win out.

The cartels would always win out over government taxation programs. They will simply undercut the government price. Legalization must not always accompany taxation if you want to challenge the crime element.

This is the main problem with the legalization argument right now. Whether or not the drug market is legal, the government is hesitant to legalize because there is no clear path to a system that allows the government to be on top (mostly financially), yet let the public do what it wants.

Yes, drugs are bad m'kay. I think everyone can agree that drug abuse is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. The only argument here is how to address it.

Both sides want to minimize drug use, and I think everyone agrees that education and deglamorization are good strategies that do work. However, prohibitionists believe the criminal justice system is also a contributing factor toward keeping drug use to a minimum. And we're saying it's not. Not only is prohibition ineffective at minimizing drug use, but it has a lot of negative side effects as well. It's like punching yourself in the head because you have a headache - it solves nothing and just adds to the overall problem. Since prohibition is not contributing to the goal, and its side effects are intolerable, obviously it's not a viable strategy in this war and therefore it should be discarded. Other strategies that we actually know are effective (education, deglamorization) should be the focus instead.

Imagine I'm going to change the oil in my car. I have a wratchet, a socket, and a chainsaw. If you tell me that the chainsaw won't help, and it will actually cause problems instead, does that mean you don't want me to change my oil? Of course not, it means that you know a chainsaw is the wrong tool for the job. So I'm saying prohibition is the wrong tool for the job, while education and deglamorization are the right tools.

Orius said:

The free market argument has some merit, but it depends on the drug. Things like cocaine can't be produced domestically in large amounts without the cocoa plant, and I'm not sure if that plant can even grow in North America. Heroin requires large scale poppy fields... this is probably more doable. The plants like marijuana, mushrooms, and cacti would somewhat remove the market from the equation since anyone can grow them cheaply. Basically, given any drug, if legalization means that it can be produced more cheaply and effectively than the cartels, then domestic product will win out.

The cartels would always win out over government taxation programs. They will simply undercut the government price. Legalization must not always accompany taxation if you want to challenge the crime element.

This is the main problem with the legalization argument right now. Whether or not the drug market is legal, the government is hesitant to legalize because there is no clear path to a system that allows the government to be on top (mostly financially), yet let the public do what it wants.

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What you are talking about just relates to the degree at which certain substances are taxed extra, by no means does what you are saying means that a switch from something being illegal to just being extra taxed will have simillar crime and gang problems as before the legalization.

Look at tobacco and especially alcohol. There is a certain degree of underground trade because of the excess taxes, however it is no where near what there was under prohibition.


The government is able to get most of both degrees of crime control and economic control (taxes) in relation to illegal substances today.

nerv14 said:

What you are talking about just relates to the degree at which certain substances are taxed extra, by no means does what you are saying means that a switch from something being illegal to just being extra taxed will have simillar crime and gang problems as before the legalization.

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It's not the degree of taxation, but the degree to which the government is prepared to compete with the drug cartels. You have to realize that the government would be introducing a free market approach to drugs and in order to keep them safe and effective there would need to be regulations. I'm usually against legalization for this very reason... I do not trust government and corporations to regulate the product, and they will, of course, want to.

nerv14 said:

Look at tobacco and especially alcohol. There is a certain degree of underground trade because of the excess taxes, however it is no where near what there was under prohibition.

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Tobacco and alcohol are different because they have historical precedent. People have been using them for thousands of years openly, so trying to take that away makes no sense as it will not curb demand whatsoever. It's why the black market had such an easy time taking over the trade.

Other narcotics have been outlawed long enough now that they are not socially acceptable anymore. Added to that, they have been outlawed long enough to allow for a well established underground to control supply and demand. In order to curb the crime of the hard drugs, the government would have to become (or subsidize) a supplier that outdoes all the others. Again, I don't trust government to do this or corporate powers.

I'm in favor of decriminalizing hard drugs but not legalizing them because it will transfer the ability to abuse users from drug dealers and cartels to government and corporate power.

nerv14 said:

The government is able to get most of both degrees of crime control and economic control (taxes) in relation to illegal substances today.

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For example?

ARealConservative said:

The question does not ask if the federal government makes it illegal, but merely which should be legal.

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And the correct answer is the federal government has ZERO authority to regulate chemical substances.

ARealConservative said:

I'm all for allowing all 50 states to ban meth/allow it independently.

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So, therefore, you agree that the federal government has ZERO authority to regulate chemical substances, otherwise you would not be arguing that it's a matter for the Tenth Amendment.

ARealConservative said:

As for what business is it of mine? The same business I have in not allowing an individual to possess radioactive material.

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So your fear of meth is that it the finished product irradiates the local surroundings?

You are aware that almost every home in America contains detectable amounts of radioactive substances, including deadly uranium and radium, not to forget the ubiquitous Potatssium-40 and every other naturally occuring unstable isotope simply found in the dirt,....:roll:

All of Em

Captain America said:

Drugs are bad.

M'kay?

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I kind of deciphered the same thing during 20 years of heavy drug use and addiction, 13 years of clean sobriety, and 7 years as a substance abuse counselor at a drug/alchohol rehab facility. Believe it or not, I'm not trying to offer this information to insinuate any greater grasp of the subject. I just want you to know that I'm not a proponent of drug use. I'm simply aware of it's permanence. It's been part of human life for over 3000 years. Right now the forcing underground of drugs makes them infinitly more dangerous.

Binary_Digit said:

It's nonsense to think that availability = use when there is no data at all to support that myth.


Yes, that's definitely part of the problem. You solve a problem by addressing it, not by using it as leverage to justify creating more problems.

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You don't really have an argument here except being a smart ass and claiming availability does not = use when that is simple supply economics. If more of a product is available, there will stadily be more demand based on its increased availability. If there is more demand, there will steadily be more supply based on its increased consumption. Welcome to supply and demand kid.

And how have you solved it? You haven't even mentioned it existed. A bunch of kids are going to be prone to ads glorifying substance use and soliticed by sellers of such substances. Harold and Kumar is enough glorification.

Look, if your agitated that you can't support your bad habit freely than its great you'd take your dream world fantasy argument to the internet. In this dream world, heroin only effects those who use it. Marijuana does not impair a persons ability to operate machinery, especially a car, and so would never effect anyone else but the user. And of course the law is meaningless or otherwise hapless when dealing with the average citizen. Only in your world my friend; and a wonderful world It must be

Orius said:

It's not the degree of taxation, but the degree to which the government is prepared to compete with the drug cartels. You have to realize that the government would be introducing a free market approach to drugs and in order to keep them safe and effective there would need to be regulations. I'm usually against legalization for this very reason... I do not trust government and corporations to regulate the product, and they will, of course, want to.

Tobacco and alcohol are different because they have historical precedent. People have been using them for thousands of years openly, so trying to take that away makes no sense as it will not curb demand whatsoever. It's why the black market had such an easy time taking over the trade.

Other narcotics have been outlawed long enough now that they are not socially acceptable anymore. Added to that, they have been outlawed long enough to allow for a well established underground to control supply and demand. In order to curb the crime of the hard drugs, the government would have to become (or subsidize) a supplier that outdoes all the others. Again, I don't trust government to do this or corporate powers.

I'm in favor of decriminalizing hard drugs but not legalizing them because it will transfer the ability to abuse users from drug dealers and cartels to government and corporate power.

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Marijuanna has a long history of use in this country right now, and that is why it should be allowed. We should look at its use in America to determine if it can be prevented from being used, and it apparently can't.

Like you said, cartells will always take advantage of it, because people will pay for it.


The government does a fine job regulating alcohol, and that is an example about how the government can suscesfully regulate substances. I understand that the government has major problems with some programs, but it does well regulating specific substances.

For example?

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I said alcohol and tobacco before. I don't them as having much more of a culture that is difficult to overcome then Marijuanna.

Goldwaters said:

I kind of deciphered the same thing during 20 years of heavy drug use and addiction, 13 years of clean sobriety, and 7 years as a substance abuse counselor at a drug/alchohol rehab facility. Believe it or not, I'm not trying to offer this information to insinuate any greater grasp of the subject. I just want you to know that I'm not a proponent of drug use. I'm simply aware of it's permanence. It's been part of human life for over 3000 years. Right now the forcing underground of drugs makes them infinitly more dangerous.

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Righty-o. I wish I had the answer. But after 3000 years maybe we should quit wasting our time looking for it.

But the words of Carol O'Conner (Archie Bunker) come back to me. "Get in between your kid and drugs anyway you can."

I am lucky with my kids. But a lot of parents aren't.

I wish we were allowed to grow our own and take that money away from the corrupt people who do bad things with it.

And I wish we were allowed to just go and shoot the dealers of these hard drugs, ourselves. Maybe even put a bounty on their ears.

Anyway we can. I wish I knew the answer.

Tubub said:

You don't really have an argument here except being a smart ass and claiming availability does not = use when that is simple supply economics. If more of a product is available, there will stadily be more demand based on its increased availability. If there is more demand, there will steadily be more supply based on its increased consumption. Welcome to supply and demand kid.

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That makes zero sense. More supply=more demand, it is the other way around which is why the drug war is an impossibility. Look at it this way, cigarettes are sold just about everywhere yet a ever shrinking proportion of our society uses them. There is a large supply of tobacco products but a decreasing demand for tobacco products. This example right here debunks your notion that supply increases demand, what an absurd proposition.

And how have you solved it? You haven't even mentioned it existed. A bunch of kids are going to be prone to ads glorifying substance use and soliticed by sellers of such substances. Harold and Kumar is enough glorification.

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I doubt the authorities will allow advertising of hard drugs, since they do not allow tobacco advertising anymore.

Look, if your agitated that you can't support your bad habit freely than its great you'd take your dream world fantasy argument to the internet.

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Ad Hominem.

In this dream world, heroin only effects those who use it. Marijuana does not impair a persons ability to operate machinery, especially a car, and so would never effect anyone else but the user.

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We don't let people drink alcohol and operate a motor vehicle or heavy machinery, what is your point? No one is arguing for this.

And of course the law is meaningless or otherwise hapless when dealing with the average citizen. Only in your world my friend; and a wonderful world It must be

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Ad Hominem.

Thoreau said:

That makes zero sense. More supply=more demand, it is the other way around which is why the drug war is an impossibility. Look at it this way, cigarettes are sold just about everywhere yet a ever shrinking proportion of our society uses them. There is a large supply of tobacco products but a decreasing demand for tobacco products. This example right here debunks your notion that supply increases demand, what an absurd proposition.

I doubt the authorities will allow advertising of hard drugs, since they do not allow tobacco advertising anymore.
Ad Hominem. We don't let people drink alcohol and operate a motor vehicle or heavy machinery, what is your point? No one is arguing for this.Ad Hominem.

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It really doesn't. Supply and demand effect one another, and with lower prices from more supply and the result of legalization there will be more demand.

There will always be a substantial demand for tabacco products because of that availability. There use has dropped significantly because of
more education about its use and less glorification but you cannot educate everyone... the difference between cigarettes and heroin is that heroin use is going to destroy the users life as well as his family and possibly lead to physical and emotional abuse and extremely violent behavior. Second-hand smoke is kind of bad I guess.

What's your point? Drugs would lead to more under the influence driving, which would lead to more accidents... many more deaths.

Man, this is a philsophical argument. Your an idealist and you disagree with the philosophy behind government banning use on drugs. I respect your opinion but it has nothing to do with the reality. If you really think that legalizing all these disgusting and very harmful drugs would not negatively effect society than shame on you for being so naive.

Tubub said:

You don't really have an argument here except being a smart ass and claiming availability does not = use when that is simple supply economics. If more of a product is available, there will stadily be more demand based on its increased availability. If there is more demand, there will steadily be more supply based on its increased consumption. Welcome to supply and demand kid.

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Thoreau already ripped apart your fallacious economics, so I'd just like to point out that you still haven't provided any evidence that drug use increases under legalization.

Tubub said:

And how have you solved it? You haven't even mentioned it existed.

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Please see post #255.

Tubub said:

A bunch of kids are going to be prone to ads glorifying substance use and soliticed by sellers of such substances. Harold and Kumar is enough glorification.

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I have mentioned deglamorization in this thread at least 4 times. Please try to understand the argument you're responding to.

Tubub said:

Look, if your agitated that you can't support your bad habit freely than its great you'd take your dream world fantasy argument to the internet.

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Why are you attacking my motives instead of my argument? Are you having that much trouble with it?

Tubub said:

In this dream world, heroin only effects those who use it. Marijuana does not impair a persons ability to operate machinery, especially a car, and so would never effect anyone else but the user.

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If you could post data to show any drug that has some inherent property which compels people to commit crimes, that would go a long way toward making this not sound like alarmist hyperbole based on myths and misconceptions.

Tubub said:

And of course the law is meaningless or otherwise hapless when dealing with the average citizen. Only in your world my friend; and a wonderful world It must be

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Several times I've posted evidence that the world's foremost experts are unable to find a correlation between drug laws and the rate drug use. Not once have you posted any evidence to support any of your contradictory assertions and assumptions. So I think it's your world that doesn't fit reality.

Captain America said:

And I wish we were allowed to just go and shoot the dealers of these hard drugs, ourselves. Maybe even put a bounty on their ears.

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I can't understand what it is about selling drugs to willing adults that gets everyone's panties in a bunch. It's a mutual exchange between consenting adults. It's not like drug dealers are out there shoving narcotics down people's throats against their will. Even besides that, lowering the supply is not the answer because that causes more problems than it solves. Lowering the demand is the answer, through education and deglamorization.

Tubub said:

It really doesn't. Supply and demand effect one another, and with lower prices from more supply and the result of legalization there will be more demand.

There will always be a substantial demand for tabacco products because of that availability. There use has dropped significantly because of
more education about its use and less glorification but you cannot educate everyone... the difference between cigarettes and heroin is that heroin use is going to destroy the users life as well as his family and possibly lead to physical and emotional abuse and extremely violent behavior. Second-hand smoke is kind of bad I guess.

What's your point? Drugs would lead to more under the influence driving, which would lead to more accidents... many more deaths.

Man, this is a philsophical argument. Your an idealist and you disagree with the philosophy behind government banning use on drugs. I respect your opinion but it has nothing to do with the reality. If you really think that legalizing all these disgusting and very harmful drugs would not negatively effect society than shame on you for being so naive.

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The only thing you have here is a desperate attempt to rationalize the following statement:

"Drug use would increase if prohibition were repealed."

For once I would like for someone, anyone, to support that assertion with some kind of evidence instead of repeating myths and hypotheses ad nauseum.

I can't understand what it is about selling drugs to willing adults that gets everyone's panties in a bunch. It's a mutual exchange between consenting adults. It's not like drug dealers are out there shoving narcotics down people's throats against their will. Even besides that, lowering the supply is not the answer because that causes more problems than it solves. Lowering the demand is the answer, through education and deglamorization.

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Can't understand that huh? I don't know what I can say to help explain.

How about this? Life is a picnic. Drug dealers are ants. They need to be sprayed.

The best way to get rid of ants is to not leave food for them around, for sure. And educating the populus, as starry-eyed of a concept that may be, would surely be a plus.

But you gotta bring food to a picnic or it ain't no picnic. Therefore, the next best option is to just exterminate them.

But that's just my 2 cents.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for live and let live. But I also know that if you give a monkey all the coke he wants we won't stop doing it until he's dead.

But sometimes you have to do what you gotta do to keep ignorant people from killing themselves. An addict has no control over his addiction. You would just as soon watch them deteriorate and die as to step in and save them from themselves? Do you think that is an acceptable downside to liberty?

Binary_Digit said:

I can't understand what it is about selling drugs to willing adults that gets everyone's panties in a bunch. It's a mutual exchange between consenting adults. It's not like drug dealers are out there shoving narcotics down people's throats against their will. Even besides that, lowering the supply is not the answer because that causes more problems than it solves. Lowering the demand is the answer, through education and deglamorization.

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It's simple. Drug dealers know damn good and well that the junk they sell is addictive, and that they are basically poisoning their customers. They know they are catering to addiction. And they don't care.

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that drug dealers are just creative business people. They aren't. They're vile and disgusting creatures, every bit as detestable as tobacco companies (who do pretty much the same thing, merely with the aegis of legality).

Legalizing drugs is not about saying it's ok to sell or use drugs; it's about acknowledging that liberty means people have the right to do vile and disgusting things (selling drugs) or stupid things (using drugs), and that so long as their conduct does not intrude on innocent bystanders, society/government has no right to coercively intervene.

Captain America said:

But the words of Carol O'Conner (Archie Bunker) come back to me. "Get in between your kid and drugs anyway you can."

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I can't count how many times I've used that quote when counseling the parents of drug using teens. Too many parents are busy trying to be friends with thier kids and not the teacher/protector.

Captain America said:

And I wish we were allowed to just go and shoot the dealers of these hard drugs, ourselves. Maybe even put a bounty on their ears.

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legalize, and most importantly, regulate the hard stuff and they'll be out of business. Nobody, even addicts, like going to a filthy heroin den, or some tweekers junk monument of a house. They would rather go to a place where the dope is clean and they won't get arrested.

For me...it's not about usage level or availability, these two things are fixed IMO...legalizing is to stop foreign drug cartels, bad dope deaths, and the domestic criminal element.

You make good sense Goldwaters.

But if something logical could be done it shoulda already been done. I think we need to try open season on hard drug dealers, offer regulated programs for the addicts, that doesn't deny them their fix, but rather makes them work for recovery, to get it. That's the education part of it you mentioned I suppose.

The industry must be taken away from the violent criminals running it. People who sell coke and meth and herion are no better than cockroaches and deserve no more consideration than a cockroach in my humble opinion.

The people should take back the streets. Just give us 6 weeks of immunity, and I bet you'd see a lot of drug dealers find God.

Captain America said:

You make good sense Goldwaters.

But if something logical could be done it shoulda already been done. I think we need to try open season on hard drug dealers, offer regulated programs for the addicts, that doesn't deny them their fix, but rather makes them work for recovery, to get it. That's the education part of it you mentioned I suppose.

The industry must be taken away from the violent criminals running it. People who sell coke and meth and herion are no better than cockroaches and deserve no more consideration than a cockroach in my humble opinion.

The people should take back the streets. Just give us 6 weeks of immunity, and I bet you'd see a lot of drug dealers find God.

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From my perspective, the drug world is filled with criminals, sociopaths, addicts, recreational users, innocent victims, sicko freaks, and many well intended people. I counseled a heroin addict who shot her own son up on heroin at the age of six on a dare from her 1%er biker boyfriend. Try getting past the guilt of that when you make your best effort to recover. There are very few clean and sober meth and heroin dealers. If we go up and down the street cutting off heads, we deny those people any chance to have thier conditions treated, and thier spots will be filled in no time. The eventual standpoint I've observed Addiction Specialist MD's, and SA Counselors take is that our jobs are to stay positive, supporting, and welcoming for anyone who wants to recover. Which means not holding against them what they've done.

I hear ya Goldwater.

I think I'm gonna go put on some John Lennon. Maybe calm myself down a bit.

"All you need is love."

"You may say, I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one."

Yeah, I feel much warmer now.

But I can get the same feeling peeing in my pants. :shock:

On second thought. I wanna go back to plan A.

Wipe 'em out. Life's too short to be pissin' up a rope.

Binary_Digit said:

Thoreau already ripped apart your fallacious economics, so I'd just like to point out that you still haven't provided any evidence that drug use increases under legalization.


Please see post #255.


I have mentioned deglamorization in this thread at least 4 times. Please try to understand the argument you're responding to.


Why are you attacking my motives instead of my argument? Are you having that much trouble with it?


If you could post data to show any drug that has some inherent property which compels people to commit crimes, that would go a long way toward making this not sound like alarmist hyperbole based on myths and misconceptions.


Several times I've posted evidence that the world's foremost experts are unable to find a correlation between drug laws and the rate drug use. Not once have you posted any evidence to support any of your contradictory assertions and assumptions. So I think it's your world that doesn't fit reality.


I can't understand what it is about selling drugs to willing adults that gets everyone's panties in a bunch. It's a mutual exchange between consenting adults. It's not like drug dealers are out there shoving narcotics down people's throats against their will. Even besides that, lowering the supply is not the answer because that causes more problems than it solves. Lowering the demand is the answer, through education and deglamorization.


The only thing you have here is a desperate attempt to rationalize the following statement:

"Drug use would increase if prohibition were repealed."

For once I would like for someone, anyone, to support that assertion with some kind of evidence instead of repeating myths and hypotheses ad nauseum.

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Ad Hominem.

You sound like an 80 year old Republican screaming how his support are "FACTS"... Your argument isn't fact. It doesn't take a genuis to realize that legalizing drugs would increase use. Does Amsterdam have less drug users than the United States? I didn't think so. When reprimand is zero and the drugs are even easier to attain(I understand already easy in some cases) then demand is going to increase... at least for the short-term. Long-term is subjective and there's no way of really knowing how it would turn out besides going ahead and doing it.

I suppose we can both agree that education and deglamorization are key to curbing drug use. I just don't see place for heroin, meth, or any other hardcore drug in our society. I mean, the thought that the person using it is the only one affected is just flat wrong... its not some isolated incident where a person uses heroin in a cubicle and then goes through with his/her life. The person will become addicted and it will tear not only their life up, but that of their family and possibly friends or strangers if it turns violent enough.

I know people from school that use drugs regardless of education. Regardless of all the schooling and the counselors and the former users giving speeches... they still use drugs. And increasingly more hardcore drugs. The law has caught up with 1 of them in one way or another(he was selling drugs to some dumbass 14 year old) and the rest will eventually follow suit. That's where my thinking comes from, and from elsewhere of course.


Moreover, alcohol is bad but it is part of Western society. We drink wine at mass and basically sip alcohol at every occasion and in every mood. That is why alcohol prohibition failed. Hardcore drugs do not play any part in our society and never should.

I'll re-state my belief that marijuana legalization is not a completely taboo idea. The economy and drug war suck and taking some measures like legalizing marijuana is not out of the question. On the other hand, drugs like heroin and meth? No way man.

I know not all of this pertains to your comment. I wanted to have my say anyway

Legalize marijuana? Not so fast. - Yahoo! News
Drug Decriminalization In Holland Has Increased Crime and Addiction

Tubub said:

Legalize marijuana? Not so fast. - Yahoo! News

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Finally, some evidence. I was starting to wonder if you'd ever come through. But dude, seriously, an opinion piece from the CSM? Have you no shame?? :2razz:

Rosalie Pacula, codirector of the Rand Drug Policy Research Center, poses this question: "If pot is relatively harmless, why are we seeing more than 100,000 hospitalizations a year" for marijuana use? Emergency-room admissions where marijuana is the primary substance involved increased by 164 percent from 1995 to 2002 – faster than for other drugs, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network.

Prior to 2002, the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) used collecting and reporting techniques that were so poor and problematic that they needed to be completely overhauled. They came under scrutiny for this, and now they even call themselves "The New DAWN" on their website Under the old rules, the mere mention of marijuana was sufficient grounds for DAWN to consider it an ED associated with marijuana, even if marijuana had nothing to do with the ED visit at all. And the report being quoted actually specifies that "marijuana mentions" were what rose 164%, not emergency room visits due to marijuana.

New DAWN: Why It Cannot Be Compared with Old DAWN
http://dawninfo.samhsa.gov/old_dawn/pubs_94_02/edpubs/2002final/files/EDTrendFinal02AllText.pdf

Research results over the past decade link frequent marijuana use to several serious mental health problems

Yeah, they've been making that claim for years. But when you research it, it turns out that people who have schitzophrenia like to smoke weed, so these people are happy to conclude that weed causes schitzophrenia. :doh :roll:

Still, health consequences are good reasons why drugs shouldn't be used, they're not good reasons why drugs should be illegal.

Tubub said:

Drug Decriminalization In Holland Has Increased Crime and Addiction

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I'd like to know where Rep. Solomon got his information on the Netherlands. Apparently they came straight from his behind, because the Duch Embassy website schooled him and similar claims not long after this.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Dutch Embassy website[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]August 6, 1998[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Press, Public and Cultural Affairs
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Drug Policy and Crime Statistics
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Recent accounts in the U.S. press about the Netherlands drug policy have included incorrect and misleading statistics about drug use and drug-related crimes in the Netherlands. What follows is a short list of facts and comparisons to refute those accounts, and sources are given to permit and encourage third party verification of facts. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Last month use of cannabis (marijuana) by high school seniors:
18.1% in the Netherlands (1996);
23.7% in the U.S. (1997).
(Sources: The Trimbos Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Monitoring the Future Survey, University of Michigan and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Any lifetime use (prevalence) of cannabis by older teens (1994):
30% in the Netherlands;
38% in the U.S.
(Sources: Center for Drug Research, University of Amsterdam; Monitoring the Future Survey, University of Michigan and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Recent (last month) use of cannabis by 15 year olds (in 1995):
15% in the Netherlands;
16% in the U.S.;
24% in the U.K.
(Sources: Trimbos Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Monitoring the Future Survey, University of Michigan and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy; Council of Europe, ESPAD Report)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Any lifetime use of cannabis by 15 year olds (in 1995):
29% in the Netherlands;
34% in the U.S.;
41% in the U.K.
(Sources: Netherlands Institute of Health and Addiction, U.S. National Institute for Drug Abuse; Council of Europe, ESPAD Report)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Heroine addicts as a percentage of population (in 1995):
160 per 100,000 in the Netherlands;
430 per 100,000 in the U.S.
(Sources: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport;
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Murder rate as a percentage of population (in 1996):
1.8 per 100,000 in the Netherlands;
8.22 in the U.S.
(Sources: Netherlands Bureau of Statistics; White House Office of National Drug Control Policy)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Incarceration rate as a percentage of population (1997):
73 per 100,000 in the Netherlands;
645 per 100,000 in the U.S.
(Sources: Netherlands Ministry of Justice; White House Office of National Drug Control Strategy)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Crime-related deaths as a percentage of population:
1.2 per 100,000 in the Netherlands (1994);
8.2 per 100,000 in the U.S. (1995).
(Sources: World Health Organization; Uniform Crime Reports, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Per capita spending on drug-related law enforcement:
$27 per capita in the Netherlands;
$81 per capita in the U.S.
(Sources: Netherlands Ministry of Justice; White House Office of National Drug Control Strategy)
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.ukcia.org/research/DutchPolicyAndCrimeStatistics.html
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The Netherlands is lower than the U.S. in all these categories (crime and drug use), in spite of their drug policies. Clearly, decriminalization in the Netherlands ("allowing" drug use as you call it) has not led to widespread drug use and crime.

Also consider the experience of Portugal:

Portugal in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe.

But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise. The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work? - TIME

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The following countries have also decriminalized marijuana, yet nobody has produced any reports showing an increased rate of crime or marijuana use:

Italy (1990), Spain (1992), Portugal (2001), Luxembourg (2001), Belgium (2001), and Austria (1998).

Tubub said:

Ad Hominem.

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What happened to normal words like "insult" or "verbal abuse"?