What evidence do you have for this rather arbitraty line drawing? Recreational drugs are recreational drugs are recreational drugs. Are you assuming that because a certain substance causes someone to make worse decisions on average than another drug that noone can possibly take it responsibly? What about if they arrange an environment where decisions are unlikely to have longer term effects, like say their apartment with friends rather than the drivers seat of their car. Or are you assuming that because a substance is more addictive that it can't be used responsibly? That presupposes that it's literally impossible to take meth once. What have I missed?

Snoman

Canada191 Posts

June 08 2011 22:25 GMT

#402

On June 09 2011 06:03 ggrrg wrote:

Show nested quote +

In my opinion:
- recreational drugs should be just as easily available as alcohol. Maybe they shouldn't be sold everywhere like alcohol is, but confined to places like coffee shops in the Netherlands.

Why shouldn't legal substances be just as readily available as alcohol?

- drugs that couldn't possible be used responsibly (like heroin, meth) should not be decriminalized/legalized.

-As the poster above said, what evidence do you have that lets you make such a statement truthfully?

2) If your answer is that they ought to be roughly as available as alcohol, do you hold the same opinion on current prescription drugs (i.e. everything from antidepressants to antibiotics), and if not, which drugs do you think should still require a prescription, and what is your reasoning?

- prescription drugs that couldn't possibly be used recreationally (e.g. antibiotics) should require a doctor's prescription to avoid the danger of people misdiagnosing themselves and mismedicating themselves to death.

I agree with this statement, I can't see many people getting up in arms over protecting medication and prescription pharmaceuticals. Problem is if someone wants to take oxicodone recreationally, there needs to be a way to protect doctors and the healthcare industry as well.

Maybe a recreationally branded opiate, and then seperate opiates still only available as a doctors 'script.

- other drugs can be made available depending on how dangerous they are (more like weed or more like heroin).

Same as earlier... what are you using to justify this statement?

iNSiPiD1

United States140 Posts

June 09 2011 16:57 GMT

#403

On June 09 2011 04:41 Dapper_Cad wrote:

Show nested quote +

-First you begin with a straw man where heroin is treated like tobacco. That is not an end to the war on drugs. That's an end to the war plus a whole bunch of assumptions you seem to have pulled from nowhere.

-You go on with a hypothesis that some members of society seek illegal ways to make money no matter what and that once they couldn't deal drugs they would magic up some demand for slavery and then fulfil it.

On one side we have mountains of evidence brought together by a group of experts in the field comparing the war on drugs with other drug policies.

On the other side we have you with unsubstantiated hypothesis based on feelings. Don't worry too much though, you're in good company, the US government does the the same thing.

I'm confused by your first sentence. If we end the war on drugs is that not essentially the same thing as making drugs legal? Because from what other people are saying they want the cops to stop arresting people for possession, but the only way that can happen is if it's not against the law to be in possession, else the cops aren't doing their jobs. So to stop arresting people for possession we have to make possession LEGAL.

My hypothesis is most likely correct. Consider that people are running drugs because it's illegal which is the sole reason they can make A LOT of money off it. As soon as that goes away what the hell do you propose they are going to do with their lives? Become saints?

I don't even know what you're talking about with the "one one side..." arguments so I'm not even going to address them.

Dapper_Cad

United Kingdom964 Posts

June 09 2011 20:09 GMT

#404

On June 10 2011 01:57 iNSiPiD1 wrote:

Show nested quote +

On June 09 2011 04:41 Dapper_Cad wrote:

On June 09 2011 04:20 iNSiPiD1 wrote:
If one were to end the war on drugs I think we would have a lot more problems than we do currently. I believe that if we were to legalize drugs then there would rise huge corporations that would control the distribution of the substances to the population (much like cigarettes and alcohol).

Keeping this in mind we would realize that the little guy who is running drugs around would no longer be necessary, since I can now purchase pot and cocaine from my local grocery store.

These people who were running the drugs around do it for MONEY! If they could no longer make money from their illicit drug activities then they will do it through other means, like gun smuggling, or human trafficking. They would just replace the current drug running illegal activity with another (probably more crazy) activity that has huge payoff because it's illegal.

Long story short, if we end the war on drugs we will not be solving any problems. We will just have to start a war on <insert another illicit activity here> because all the low lifes who make money off running drugs will start doing something else instead.

So my argument is that the war on drugs isn't really a war on drugs at all. It's a war on a certain type of person who contributes nothing but negativity to society through the exploitation of illegal activities.

Possession when talking about drug use is different from intent to supply. You don't arrest people with enough drugs for themselves, that's an end to the war on drugs as it stands which is, effectively, a war on an underclass.

The question of what drug dealers do when prices fall is a good one, an enormous amount of jobs could be created by the money saved by ending the war. You seem to be conflating "wanting to make lots of money" with evil, which is pretty silly when you think about it.

The fact that you won't address evidence is a problem, again, we would all be a lot better off if people looked more at evidence and less to their own gut feeling when talking about social issues.

Samuel Neptune

United States95 Posts

June 10 2011 06:12 GMT

#405

drug addicts just want to be hopelessly addicted to their drugs in peace, guys

geez

gboytazz

United States73 Posts

June 10 2011 16:37 GMT

#406

so has any one got any updates on this??? a co worker just told me that one of our state just legalized everything not too sure which state though but if this is true dun dun dun !!!!!