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Decriminalize Drugs VS Bloody Drug War

Decriminalize Drugs Or Bloody Drug War?

  • Decriminalize Drugs

    Votes: 24 77.4%
  • Bloody Drug WAR for Cartels to Kill and Make Billions of Profits by Selling Amounts of Drugs

    Votes: 2 6.5%
  • Other- Explain

    Votes: 5 16.1%

  • Total voters
    31
I think abuse is a big enough problem while they're still illegal - it would probably grow with legalization.
Numerous studies have failed to demonstrate any correlation between drug laws and the rate of drug use. Assertions that drug use might or would increase if drugs are legalized must erroneously ignore this fact.
 
Numerous studies have failed to demonstrate any correlation between drug laws and the rate of drug use. Assertions that drug use might or would increase if drugs are legalized must erroneously ignore this fact.

I realize that and I'm aware of a few studies as well as Portugal's venture (thanks to Deuce). I don't think all society's are the same nor all cultures and I continue to be cynical as to how American society specifically - both urban and rural, would or could handle such legalization. I also cringe at the potential fallout on taxpayers given pressure by society and political groups to "help" these poor drug addicts who could not handle such responsibility or freedoms.
 
I realize that and I'm aware of a few studies as well as Portugal's venture (thanks to Deuce). I don't think all society's are the same nor all cultures and I continue to be cynical as to how American society specifically - both urban and rural, would or could handle such legalization.
Some of those studies pertain to the rate of marijuana use in U.S. states that have decriminalized marijuana, so these cultural differences in American society, whatever they may be, do not appear to have the impact you suspect.

I also cringe at the potential fallout on taxpayers given pressure by society and political groups to "help" these poor drug addicts who could not handle such responsibility or freedoms.
As opposed to taxpayer dollars going toward incarceration, which does absolutely nothing to address the addict's problems? Sales tax on drugs should go toward treatment options in order to minimize the burden on non-using taxpayers. I totally agree that you and I should not have to pay for other people's stupidity, they should pay for their own stupidity and leave us out of it. But if we have to pay something, I'd rather that money go toward something that actually has a chance of addressing the problem.
 
I realize that and I'm aware of a few studies as well as Portugal's venture (thanks to Deuce). I don't think all society's are the same nor all cultures and I continue to be cynical as to how American society specifically - both urban and rural, would or could handle such legalization. I also cringe at the potential fallout on taxpayers given pressure by society and political groups to "help" these poor drug addicts who could not handle such responsibility or freedoms.

How much tax money is going to Alcoholics Anonymous now?
 
As opposed to taxpayer dollars going toward incarceration, which does absolutely nothing to address the addict's problems? Sales tax on drugs should go toward treatment options in order to minimize the burden on non-using taxpayers. I totally agree that you and I should not have to pay for other people's stupidity, they should pay for their own stupidity and leave us out of it. But if we have to pay something, I'd rather that money go toward something that actually has a chance of addressing the problem.

I know - fiscally and politically I have no good answer on this subject. There are good arguments on both sides of the issue. It boils down to morals and societal values and those are much more grey areas than the previous political/fiscal views. My morals and values were passed to me by my parents and I decided which to keep and not to keep - and all of them are saying "no" to the legalization because we as humans cannot handle it. That might be the wrong answer but it's the only one I have.
 
My morals and values were passed to me by my parents and I decided which to keep and not to keep - and all of them are saying "no" to the legalization because we as humans cannot handle it. That might be the wrong answer but it's the only one I have.
Totally understandable, and much respect for the way you rationalize it.

Think of it this way: Legalization is not about giving up on the drug problem or ending the War on Drugs. Quite to the contrary, it's about addressing the drug problem by changing the way we've been waging the War on Drugs. You can't solve a problem until you've correctly identified it, and the current War on Drugs mischaracterizes drug abuse/addiction as a criminal problem when its true nature is a medical problem. Legalization would remove that mis-diagnosis from our policies and open more avenues for addressing it as a medical problem. I think everyone has the same goal of minimal drug abuse/addiction, we just have different opinions on the best way to achieve that goal.

EDIT: I should add that legalization by itself will not increase or decrease drug use. It has no known effect, we already know this. What legalization will do is remove the problems caused by prohibition. Education and deglamorization will decrease the rate of use (re: tobacco use rates over the last 40 years).
 
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Totally understandable, and much respect for the way you rationalize it.

Think of it this way: Legalization is not about giving up on the drug problem or ending the War on Drugs. Quite to the contrary, it's about addressing the drug problem by changing the way we've been waging the War on Drugs. You can't solve a problem until you've correctly identified it, and the current War on Drugs mischaracterizes drug abuse/addiction as a criminal problem when its true nature is a medical problem. Legalization would remove that mis-diagnosis from our policies and open more avenues for addressing it as a medical problem. I think everyone has the same goal of minimal drug abuse/addiction, we just have different opinions on the best way to achieve that goal.

EDIT: I should add that legalization by itself will not increase or decrease drug use. It has no known effect, we already know this. What legalization will do is remove the problems caused by prohibition. Education and deglamorization will decrease the rate of use (re: tobacco use rates over the last 40 years).

I'm wondering - is there a way to test this? Now I'd support actually putting some tax money aside and actually testing this in a few cities and a few rural area's for a year or two and gathering data. It might actually be a sound investment as the savings of fighting the war on drugs may be substantial and as was already said, some money from the sale of these drugs would go into treatment for those who abuse it.

The uphill battle will be the morals and values angle. People like me who maybe can rationalize it if they give it enough time will have a hard time swallowing when it comes down to seeing their kids go off to a party and the thought of them legally getting pounded or OD on a now legal substance. The outcry will be horrendous. We'll see a definate resurgance of the Women's Temperance movement and probably others as well.
 
The bottom line is that criminalizing drugs has not resulted in less drug use. If the purpose of drug laws are to save us from ourselves by giving government the power to choose which substances we may or may not ingest, then that purpose has not been realized. Of course, most laws that try to save us from ourselves by giving more power to an authoritarian government haven't worked, so the failure of the war on drugs shouldn't have been a surprise.

The result of forty years of combating drug use by prohibition has been violent drug wars, violent gangs supported by drug money, an insurgency in Colombia funded by cocaine, the Taliban in Afganistan being funded by heroin, prisons full of drug offenders, a de facto war on our southern border, hundreds of billions if not trillions spent for nothing, and no less drug abuse. It is past time to try a different approach to discouraging people from abusing drugs.
 
54 votes for bloody drug war! I love polls here sometimes.
 
Exactly my point - the cartels will still be *there* and *together* but they will just function differently. . . they will have something else to focus on if 1 of their cash crops is made legal - it will just shift. Maybe it won't, I might be wrong. But it seems that that once someone only knows how to live by crime then they continue to do so - no matter what.

So, your argument against legalizing drugs is that criminals will continue to resort to crime after it's happened?

Ah - see - I think it highly unwise to have parents doped up (legally) on lsd running around and gutting their children, thinking they're the devil. . .that seems like a situation we should avoid, not promote.

Why do you assume that drugs laws serve to prevent or even mitigate these types of occurrences? What evidence is there to suggest that drug laws are actually effective in preventing otherwise normal parents from taking LSD and savagely murdering their children?

To me, it seems your logic is analogous to the magic rock that keeps tigers at bay. You don't see any tigers around, do you?

Would it make a difference? In some ways, sure.

Compare the prohibition-era mafia to the post-prohibition mafia.

How much? We don't know.
What will these cartels do for a living instead? Will they just settle down and become responsible citizens? Doubtful, why would they? They'd just go to something else, for something else. Their main purpose is money - and if they aren't making it as much they'll just get into another ring of business.

That's my thought, anyway - but because we've never legalized something of this caliper before we don't have a compass on it.

What's your point, exactly? Of course many criminals will continue resorting to crime in the absence of drug laws. I don't think anyone has argued otherwise.

The main difference will be the absence of astronomical profit motives, which will eliminate the substantial financial means at the disposal of these criminal psychopaths. Instead of financing multi-billion dollar operations, they will be scraping by a living resorting to petty crime.
 
I like war. So I say keep it illegal and declare war on all the organized crime and gangbanger scum that are there. And send the special ops after them with orders to shoot to kill.

Of course, you'll be risking your life in the prosecution of this glorious war, won't you? Or are you one of those people who supports wars without actually placing yourself in danger?
 
Well - what's the point in legalizing various drugs? 1) To get rid of drug cartels which only make a portion of their profits from the sell of illicit drugs? 2) Or to take away one problem (illegal drug use)? 3) Or to deal with yet another - overcrowded prisons? 4) Or perhaps to curtail their activities, tone them down so they're less violent? 5) Quell the cartels from fighting between theirselves.

Ok - let's pretend that we make drugs legal - maybe a few extreme drugs remain illegal but most are deemed ok. Cocaine, marijuana, what else?
So - it's now legal to sell (with limits, regulations and taxes, of course, like any other legal product). It's legal to own, legal to use.
Let's set aside moral quandaries since those aren't related to the actual issue at hand.
That keeps users out of jail. Only non-drug crimes get one into jail, now (though, likely, DUI's would still be filed, etc - the routine stuff . . . we still expect people to be reasonable with their use).
How does it affect the Cartels?
They no longer have a solid crutch in the illicit drug-market. Their illicit drug market was just made legal. So, instead of gaining money illegally they, now, can gain that same profit legally. They must abide by whatever rules and regulations are now in place (licenses, fees, etc). But, they are now partially legitimate business "groups" if you will.

Problem 1) How does that, then, make them "go away" - the Cartels will still be there, they will just have a leg in a legal market - and legs in other illegal markets: weapons, auto-theft, etc. . . so, while altered, they're still *there.*

2 & 3) It does, however, keeps a lot of people out of jail, so if that's your goal then that's a plus. And certainly if you make using a drug legal then no one's using it illegally, are they? So that immediately nulls #2

4) Tone down their activities? Indeed - it will tone down their illicit-drug related activities as far as violence *only* related to drug smuggling occurs. But what about their other means of profit and violence? Weapons, auto-theft rings? What about that?
Since drugs are now legalized - the profit is severely curtailed. Note - when something is illegal the seller/provider can charge whatever they see fit - pure profit. So, if a government regulates it - then that profit has seriously been cut down . . . leaving them to possibly seeking to make up for that profit in other ways.
So, while reducing one issues: drug-related crimes. There will be an undoubted spike in other issues: non drug related crimes.

5) Will this end cartels fighting between their selves - which accounts for a good portion of issues that Mexico and other countries are dealing with?
The logical answer is no - their market has changed but their competition between each other will still there. They will still fight each other for dominance in the legal and illegal markets where they make their living, will they not?

And - as a result of altering how things currently are you come up with new Problems. . .
Problem #6) Enforcement of the rules. If drugs are purchased legally across country borders who will enforce them? Their government? Do you believe their government will be capable of dealing with a cartel merely because a portion of their business has been legalized?
If they don't keep them in check, then what?

There's no statistics to turn to - so we can only speculate.

There is one notable difference between Prohibition and our current drug legalities: Prohibition was short lived . . . it took what a lot of people enjoyed and made it bad. If they left it in place and it was still in place today would everyone have a different view of it?
How long have illicit drugs been illegal? Far longer than alcohol was illegal - it is, by majority, still socially and culturally unacceptable - unlike alcohol where more people than not drank to some degree to begin with.

I feel that this difference - well - it makes a huge difference when comparing a common and socially acceptable means of 'curing ones ails' vs a socially unacceptable means of 'curing ones ails'

So - on to Problem #7)
How do you get rid of a illegal activity?
You can't - it's been proven time and time again that you cannot completely annihilate "gang" activity - it will always be there. Weapons dealing, auto theft, jewelry theft, drugs, black market organs even.

You cannot make everything legal - there will always be illegal activity for someone to latch onto as a means of making mega profit and rendering underlings as minions in an army.

This is why we will never win the "war on terror" and why we will always have "street gangs" and other forces to fight - not everyone's a good soul or moral character.
 
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Problem 1) How does that, then, make them "go away" - the Cartels will still be there, they will just have a leg in a legal market - and legs in other illegal markets: weapons, auto-theft, etc. . . so, while altered, they're still *there.*

Well, some of them will and some of them won't. Those recreational drug companies who are involved in other illegal markets will be targeted by law enforcement for their involvement in those other illegal markets. However, those recreational drug companies who aren't involved in other illegal markets won't be targeted by law enforcement, thus giving an advantage to the legitimate recreational drug companies.

2 & 3) It does, however, keeps a lot of people out of jail, so if that's your goal then that's a plus. And certainly if you make using a drug legal then no one's using it illegally, are they? So that immediately nulls #2

That shows one of the major problems with our current drug law policies - how our legal system goes after drug users much more ardently than they go after drug suppliers. Drug users can go to jail so easily and for so long. Personally, I think treatment would be better than prison for most drug users. But our society would rather punish people than help them. I'm tired of potheads going to jail and junkies having to get involved in prison gangs to survive being locked up just because they've become a drug addict. I honestly think that just letting them be a drug addict until they choose to get treatment is a lesser evil than locking them up. Especially when you factor in the costs of taxpayers to pay for incarceration and drug courts. Those receiving those taxpayer monies, however, naturally want to keep it going, however.

4) Tone down their activities? Indeed - it will tone down their illicit-drug related activities as far as violence *only* related to drug smuggling occurs. But what about their other means of profit and violence? Weapons, auto-theft rings? What about that?
Since drugs are now legalized - the profit is severely curtailed. Note - when something is illegal the seller/provider can charge whatever they see fit - pure profit. So, if a government regulates it - then that profit has seriously been cut down . . . leaving them to possibly seeking to make up for that profit in other ways.
So, while reducing one issues: drug-related crimes. There will be an undoubted spike in other issues: non drug related crimes.

Personally, I think that a majority of things that are illegal in this country should be legalized and regulated. The major three I can think of are drugs, prostitution, and gambling. I want all three of those activities legalized in this country on a large scale because I think doing so would lead to better results than keeping them illegal.

There will be other activities that won't be worth any kind of legalization. Among these are human slavery and robbery. But while there will be a spike in those non-drug related crimes, we'll also have better resources to tackle them since we won't be going after drug-related crimes. What I mean to say is that if we make recreational drugs legal, much of the resources of the DEA can be re-tasked to other law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and the ATF, to go after other, more serious illegal activities.

5) Will this end cartels fighting between their selves - which accounts for a good portion of issues that Mexico and other countries are dealing with?
The logical answer is no - their market has changed but their competition between each other will still there. They will still fight each other for dominance in the legal and illegal markets where they make their living, will they not?

Not necessarily. Chevy and Ford don't engage in any violent activities for market dominance. So those cartels that become wholly legitimate will stop engaging in other violent and illegal activities. This is because if we legalize the drug market, consumers can choose which companies to buy their recreational drugs from. Since violence is an unacceptable quality consumers find in companies, consumers won't purchase products from companies that engage in it.

To put it into perspective, let's look at a company in an already legitimate market who has engaged in business practices unacceptable to consumers: British Petroleum.

The Florida Gulf oil spill and the response to it by BP has been extremely poor. As a result of this, protesters are getting consumers to boycott the purchase of petroleum products from BP and the company is also undergoing a Congressional investigation. Their stocks has dropped and heads will roll for their complacency.

And as a result, other oil companies who have not engaged in unacceptable business practices, such as Chevron and Shell and Exxon-Mobil, will benefit.

The same thing will happen to those recreational drug companies that pursue other illegal markets. Consumers will not purchase recreational drugs from a company that has ties to illegal activities when they can purchase recreational drugs from companies that don't. Therefore, those legitimate recreational drug companies will outlast competition with those still involved with illegitimate markets.

And - as a result of altering how things currently are you come up with new Problems. . .
Problem #6) Enforcement of the rules. If drugs are purchased legally across country borders who will enforce them? Their government? Do you believe their government will be capable of dealing with a cartel merely because a portion of their business has been legalized?
If they don't keep them in check, then what?

There's no statistics to turn to - so we can only speculate.

I don't think you realize how much revenue comes in from the illegal drug trade. A U.N. report in 2003 estimated the global illegal drug trade to be worth $321.6 billion. That's $321.6 billion that could be taxed and subjected to regulated competition. That would put a major dent in the pockets of criminal cartels. It would also reduce taxpayer money going to fund the enforcement and judicial process of these harsh drug laws as well as the incarceration of drug suppliers and drug users. Instead, those tax monies can be used for regulation of the drug trade and treatment of drug users.

As for foreign countries being able to still handle criminal cartels, it's iffy. I mean, yeah, organized crime could still be involved in legitimate drug companies who will influence the government. But money will also still go to companies in those countries that aren't involved in criminal cartels.

There is one notable difference between Prohibition and our current drug legalities: Prohibition was short lived . . . it took what a lot of people enjoyed and made it bad. If they left it in place and it was still in place today would everyone have a different view of it?
How long have illicit drugs been illegal? Far longer than alcohol was illegal - it is, by majority, still socially and culturally unacceptable - unlike alcohol where more people than not drank to some degree to begin with.

I feel that this difference - well - it makes a huge difference when comparing a common and socially acceptable means of 'curing ones ails' vs a socially unacceptable means of 'curing ones ails'

This is the equivalent of saying that women shouldn't have voting rights just because for a long time they had no voting rights, or that we shouldn't ensure the civil rights and civil liberties of minorities just because we hadn't for a long time. Justification of a policy just because "it's how we've done it for a long time" is no justification at all.

So - on to Problem #7)
How do you get rid of a illegal activity?
You can't - it's been proven time and time again that you cannot completely annihilate "gang" activity - it will always be there. Weapons dealing, auto theft, jewelry theft, drugs, black market organs even.

You cannot make everything legal - there will always be illegal activity for someone to latch onto as a means of making mega profit and rendering underlings as minions in an army.

This is why we will never win the "war on terror" and why we will always have "street gangs" and other forces to fight - not everyone's a good soul or moral character.

This may be true. However, not everyone who consumes recreational drug is evil or immoral. In the past, many people used recreational drugs for spiritual reasons. Psychiatrists have experimented with the positive use of the drug Ecstasy for therapeutic purposes.

You also have to realize the kind of hectic pace modern American living demands. Most Americans work hard. Therefore, I believe they should also be allowed to play hard. Recreational drug use is a coping mechanism for stress. However, Americans have a difficult time managing stress. This is mostly because of financial and work reasons. So until such a time as Americans get more labor rights to reduce stress with such things as tax-paid maternity and paternity leave, and government enforced 8 week vacation time every year, I think Americans should be allowed to smoke a doobie or shoot up some H in order to cope with the demands of living in the society that we do.
 
Personally I think all drugs ought to be legal but at the very least legalize Marijuana. I think a misconception people have is that if you legalize hard drugs the usage will rise. This is entirely not true, The dutch have legalized heroin and the usage has actually dropped. Not to mention the users are supplied with sterile equipment when they buy their drugs reducing the transitions of diseases. You also would do away with a massive, MASSIVE amount of criminal activity.
 
Well - what's the point in legalizing various drugs? 1) To get rid of drug cartels which only make a portion of their profits from the sell of illicit drugs? 2) Or to take away one problem (illegal drug use)? 3) Or to deal with yet another - overcrowded prisons? 4) Or perhaps to curtail their activities, tone them down so they're less violent? 5) Quell the cartels from fighting between theirselves.

6) because it is the Principled thing to do. Drug criminalization is unprincipled.

Marijuana has been criminalized since the Uniform State Narcotic Act of 1932. Marijuana has been classified as a narcotic through the Single Convention of Narcotic Drugs and the U.S. Controlled Substances Act. Why this is so escapes me. From the wiki page on Narcotics:

A looser usage of the word "narcotic" to refer to any illegal or unlawfully possessed drug including marijuana and herion is common worldwide, although these substances are not considered narcotics in a medical or scientific context. The central drug policy making body within the United Nations, for instance, is the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, although the United Nations officially defines a narcotic drug to be "any of the substances, natural or synthetic, in Schedules I and II of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, and that Convention as amended by the 1972 Protocol Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961"[5] Used in this manner the word "narcotic" is a useful if not wholly accurate label to denote any drug that is subject to the U.S. Controlled Substances Act, or similar legislation elsewhere.

There are good pragmatic reasons to legalize marijuana. These include the observation that drug use is a health problem and not a criminal problem, the removal of a black market for drug trafficking, the undermining and reduction in criminal enterprise associated with illegal drugs, both at the street level and at the organized crime level, the fact that the War On Drugs creates crime and criminal enterprise. It even has foreign policy and national security implications as international cartels destabilize our allies in central and latin america as they supply the drug demand of the USA.

However, it is not the intent of the website to rehash these arguments, which have been heard before. My intent is to focus on one thing. I aim to discuss the Principle underlying the criminalization and proposed legalization of cannabis. The principle we should use to evaluate the moral imperative of the criminalization of marijuana is what is known as the Harm Principle. Although there were previous mentions and outlines of this principle, one of the first known in writing is the Grandfather of the Constitution, John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government in 1689. This work was continued, and best enunciated, by John Stuart Mill in his On Liberty, published in 1859.

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right... The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

– John Stuart Mill

The harm principle is the bolded phrase quoted: "That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

A corollary to harm to others is regarding harm to self: "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."

So we must see if the use of marijuana, for medical or recreation use violates the Harm Principle. There is nothing in the smoking of marijuana which causes harm to others. Actions taken while under the influence may cause harm but that is the fault of those actions taken irresponsibly, like driving, and it is not the fault of the use of marijuana. A corollary is alcohol. It may be said that second hand smoke is harmful, but the legality of cigarettes belies this observation. Additionally, it is the responsibility of the other individual to avoid second hand smoke if they are concerned.

As shown, there is no violation of the Harm Principle. Under what principle, then, we may ask, is Marijuana to be considered criminal? The answer is none.

So, what can we do about it?

  • The classification of Marijuana as a Schedule 1 Narcotic should be overturned immediately. Marijuana should not be classified as on any Schedule. It should be classified as Alcohol is, regulated but not a Controlled substance.
  • All criminal code regarding Marijuana should be revised.
  • The DEA should be forced to stop pursuing Marijuana crimes, including the production, transport, distribution, sale and consumption of Marijuana.
  • The standards for security clearances should be immediately revised to exclude any mention of Marijuana as a substance investigated under drug use.
  • Release all non-violent drug offenders from prison.

These actions are to be taken under the firm principle that Marijuana use is not a violation of the Harm Principle. Another colloquial way to say this is the phrase "No Harm, No Foul".
 
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