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- Thread starter Pandora
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It's like this. Drugs are available everywhere. Yay. We all know that. I never said they aren't.
Look at kids and young adults and the average person afraid of obtaining those drugs and getting busted and ruining their lives because of it. That's a massive discouragement, and it's effective. Official published statistics, surveys and clinical studies have already show that.
Make those drugs legal and available, with no risk of punishment, and that many more people will certainly jump on them. I'm not talking about the people who never cared anyway, I'm talking about those who want to experiment or use them to begin with. I think it's effects on those who already fail to see the allure will be negligible. Common sense and logic alone hold that to be true. Experimentation, usage, and the shock of a society coming to terms with an explosion of drug usage and drug-related circumstances will most likely follow. Everyone, even the advocates of legalizing drugs, have said exactly that if not something only slightly less antagonistic.
It's not a question of "omg kids already have drugs available to them." No shit. It's a question of removing all of the associated legal risks and fears.
In terms of intoxication and driving under the influence already being illegal, who cares? How many of you routinely drive after happy hour or other social events when a legal test could land you behind bars? I do it a lot. I only ever get buzzed, not drunk, and yet the law doesn't care. It's black and white, and it doesn't deter anything. Now pump some meth into my system because it's perfectly fine to do so, and turn me into a raving lunatic behind the wheel. Ever seen someone high on meth driving? It's crazy. They hit the windows, scream, nash their teeth, and then slip into a silent, apparently calm state before doing it again a few minutes later. Whether it's illegal or not won't stop anyone.
So you have more people doing more harmful substances, and more people not caring what the law says and then piloting devastatingly large and powerful machines down roads at high speeds. You're adding a new variable to the equation without taking one away, which imbalances it.
This is the kind of thing you can't really successfully argue either way because it's mere speculation. You have to let the facts speak for themselves. You would have to legalize them, look at the figures later and then conclude for yourself whether it was a good or bad idea to begin with. I say keep the truly mind-altering substances off the map. Marijuana? Who cares. But we don't have anything to gain whatsoever from opening that kind of a flood gate and unleashing more users and addicts on society. There's really nothing positive about it. Other than a few people feeling like they have the liberty to live how they want. To the rest of us though, who have to live with the spectacle and the burden, where is our liberty to not have to deal with it?
Of all the relevant issues in the nation, making hard drugs legal isn't really one of them in my opinion. I'd rather focus on education. The more educated and well off people are, the more affluent they become, in general, the less likely they are to turn to that sort of lifestyle. They have more to lose from it which is another of the aforementioned discouraging elements.
Should we repeal speed limits too, so people can blaze down city streets at 110 mph? Societies actually need some limits. Chaos isn't beneficial to anyone.
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Dharma1521
Soooo do I look as young as I look?
Lol you can always tell when a driver is high when its a younger person going 20 under the speed limit.
i didn't imply that remaining status quo with our current enforcement would do the job either. maybe not many people have experienced this side of reckless endangerment, losing someone to a drunk driver or a 3rd party drug-related incident, but i'd like to think that something can be done to prevent what we've gone through.
not always the case. my friend was stoned and crashed into a parked car going 40 in a 5mph parking lot.
Yes, something can be done. Punish those who commit crimes due to drugs with stiffer penalties. We can't do that right now because prisons and courts are clogged with potheads and coke fiends that have hurt no one.
...Crimes due to drugs?
How to you intend to go about proving that people commit crimes "due to" drugs? The concept of "beyond a reasonable doubt" comes to mind, it being the standard in felony cases. So burden of proof on the prosecutor to show that this person did what they did beyond a reasonable doubt (or with clear and convincing evidence in some places) BECAUSE OF (not under the influence of) narcotics...
Yeah, that'll work out well.
Think of it like causing an accident while intoxicated. You get charged with a harder DUI than you would if you'd just gotten pulled over.
That's driving. Stabbing someone because you thought they were aliens is a very different crime.
In most states voluntary intoxication is a defense to specific intent crimes. Criminal negligence is a specific intent crime for example. So the prosecutor could by proving they were intoxicated actually provide them with an excuse for leniency. Doing away with that defense though is inherently unfair because there are crimes where it is a just excuse.
To note, involuntary intoxication is a defense to general intent crimes, like murder.
eileenbunny
Druish Princess
I will probably respond to this more later with details. I don't have all the reports saved on this machine that I would need to accurately back up my statements, but here's my rebuttal anyway.
I don't think this really stands up. I'd like to see the official published statistics that state that the law is a deterent for kids to use drugs. How many kids use alcohol even though it is illegal for them? They don't appear to be afraid to me. Show me teens that don't drink. Certainly keep drugs illegal for minors, but I don't think it's going to be any easier or more difficult for them to get the drugs than it is now. Kids that want drugs are going to get them regardless of the law, and I believe I have some reports to back that up.
In fact, it might be more difficult. I could buy pot in high school with little fear of being caught. However, I had to go stand in a parking lot and pull a "hey mister" or steal from my parents to get alcohol and there was a very real risk of being caught in either of those situations. Perhaps if drugs were legal and regulated the way alcohol is it would be a different ballgame, but that's just speculation. I haven't really thought it through yet or read anything about it.
Addressing the issue of adult usage going up and drug related incidents increasing is more difficult. This is the reason that I think education is soooo important to the plan of legalizing drugs. If we spent the 45 billion dollars on education instead of our current war on drugs I think that we could educate every educatable person in America. Heck, I don't think it would cost that much. Once the education is there I think the risk of a drug explosion is decreased.
I love this last sentence in your paragraph. In the first part of your argument you claim that the law is a deterent and in the second part you claim that it isn't. Perhaps we should stop putting marijuana sales people in jail and start putting the intoxicated drivers in jail, especially the ones that are repeat offenders or murderers. Harsher penalties for drunk/drugged driving is the way to go as far as I can tell.
I also harshly disagree with your idea of going out to happy hour and getting buzzed and driving home, but that's just my thing. It's easy for me to say that since I don't drink. I've seen the way people who say they are just buzzed drive and it scares me just as much as the meth user scares you. Perhaps people should just stop driving after using any drugs including alcohol. That'd be nice in my book.
I think the thing we are removing by legalizing drugs is violent crimes by drug dealers and users who need a fix. It's an important thing to remove from our society. If people aren't killing each other over the drugs and the money involved in them, dealing with the addicts might be easier.
I think that people stand to gain a lot through the legalization of drugs, but it's mere opinion that makes me say that. I feel bad knowing there are people that don't use some drugs because they are afraid, it is illegal, it is looked down upon by our current society, or for whatever reason. I'm one of those crazy people that think drugs can be good for you and can expand your horizons in some ways. The liberty of people to not have to deal with it doesn't exist now. I want the liberty to not have to deal with angry drunk people, but I do. It is a problem and we have to deal with it. The drunk driving statistics show that alone. So what do we have to gain by keeping alcohol legal? People LIKE it. I think that's a pretty good reason honestly. Perhaps we can teach people to use responsibly and not infringe on other people's rights, but I doubt that very much. There is no easy solution, but I think we have to try.
As I said, education is the topic of another discussion, but a good discussion and one I'd like to have sometime. Chaos isn't beneficial, but believing that drugs cause chaos is naive in my opinion. It is this type of idea that makes the general public afraid of drugs. There are lots of responsible users out there that don't bother anyone at all. You never read about them because they aren't news worthy.
I don't think this really stands up. I'd like to see the official published statistics that state that the law is a deterent for kids to use drugs. How many kids use alcohol even though it is illegal for them? They don't appear to be afraid to me. Show me teens that don't drink. Certainly keep drugs illegal for minors, but I don't think it's going to be any easier or more difficult for them to get the drugs than it is now. Kids that want drugs are going to get them regardless of the law, and I believe I have some reports to back that up.
In fact, it might be more difficult. I could buy pot in high school with little fear of being caught. However, I had to go stand in a parking lot and pull a "hey mister" or steal from my parents to get alcohol and there was a very real risk of being caught in either of those situations. Perhaps if drugs were legal and regulated the way alcohol is it would be a different ballgame, but that's just speculation. I haven't really thought it through yet or read anything about it.
Addressing the issue of adult usage going up and drug related incidents increasing is more difficult. This is the reason that I think education is soooo important to the plan of legalizing drugs. If we spent the 45 billion dollars on education instead of our current war on drugs I think that we could educate every educatable person in America. Heck, I don't think it would cost that much. Once the education is there I think the risk of a drug explosion is decreased.
I love this last sentence in your paragraph. In the first part of your argument you claim that the law is a deterent and in the second part you claim that it isn't. Perhaps we should stop putting marijuana sales people in jail and start putting the intoxicated drivers in jail, especially the ones that are repeat offenders or murderers. Harsher penalties for drunk/drugged driving is the way to go as far as I can tell.
I also harshly disagree with your idea of going out to happy hour and getting buzzed and driving home, but that's just my thing. It's easy for me to say that since I don't drink. I've seen the way people who say they are just buzzed drive and it scares me just as much as the meth user scares you. Perhaps people should just stop driving after using any drugs including alcohol. That'd be nice in my book.
I think the thing we are removing by legalizing drugs is violent crimes by drug dealers and users who need a fix. It's an important thing to remove from our society. If people aren't killing each other over the drugs and the money involved in them, dealing with the addicts might be easier.
I think that people stand to gain a lot through the legalization of drugs, but it's mere opinion that makes me say that. I feel bad knowing there are people that don't use some drugs because they are afraid, it is illegal, it is looked down upon by our current society, or for whatever reason. I'm one of those crazy people that think drugs can be good for you and can expand your horizons in some ways. The liberty of people to not have to deal with it doesn't exist now. I want the liberty to not have to deal with angry drunk people, but I do. It is a problem and we have to deal with it. The drunk driving statistics show that alone. So what do we have to gain by keeping alcohol legal? People LIKE it. I think that's a pretty good reason honestly. Perhaps we can teach people to use responsibly and not infringe on other people's rights, but I doubt that very much. There is no easy solution, but I think we have to try.
As I said, education is the topic of another discussion, but a good discussion and one I'd like to have sometime. Chaos isn't beneficial, but believing that drugs cause chaos is naive in my opinion. It is this type of idea that makes the general public afraid of drugs. There are lots of responsible users out there that don't bother anyone at all. You never read about them because they aren't news worthy.
Edit^ duh.
Who said drug dealers are going to go away? Or violent crimes by addicts trying to get their next fix?
Liquor has been legal since the beginning of the US and there have always been illegal dealers, only flourished spectactularly under prohibition. Non tax alcohol is still a huge problem in PA, WV, etc., it's just not publicised but it makes up more than half of the ATF's work.
Violent crimes by people trying to secure money to purchase their addiction of choice, even through legal channels will not go away. If anything it might increase through the increased number of addicts.
I'd not be surprised to see a public benefit introduced to keep addicts happy. You know it'd be cruel if they needed something they couldnt buy.
It's also not entirely unthinkable that maybe 15%~ starts taking drugs for the first time and then half of them go insolvent through abusive drug use causing a vast economic slowdown.
Through personal experience I know exactly how a perfectly normal fine person can go from bright futures to raped to 2 years prison for B&E in 10 months all because, hey one hit of meth isnt going to do anything.
That said I'm not against legalising the possesion of pot for personal consumption in one's own home. Anything else is too risky socially and medically. The best thing would be to keep current laws and introduce a defense of 'no harm'. If you just have a bit of drugs you have a defense, if you are found to have drugs or under the influence of narcotics through investigiation for any other penal crime you get prosecuted normally.
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Don't be daft and pick out one microscopic thing and then take it out of context. It's weak. DUI legislation doesn't really deter many people at all. That's what I was talking about. Why? Because alcohol is like water in this country. It's everywhere, everyone drinks it, and it's considered a mostly harmless component of the general social scene. Drug legislation, on the other hand, does still deter people for the most part. Drugs are still taboo, people still don't want felony convictions sending them to prison for years, and no one ever had a grand, funny, outspoken time with friends after taking part in something like shooting up heroin. Are they still easy to obtain? Yes, unfortunately.
Have you ever done smack? Have you ever been exposed to someone who does? Be honest. It's a pretty hardcore substance. Shuts down the nervous system, and the user looks like they're sleeping with their eyes open. I've known several people addicted to that shit. Not as happy, easy, or freewheeling a time as knocking back some beers and a few shots of tequila.
I know first hand from working at the Department of Justice as an investigator that our nation's drug program works. Laugh at it all you want, or ridicule the costs associated with it, but it honestly has an impact on people and especially kids and teenagers. Go out and talk to them. Volunteer at your local DOJ initiative. See for yourself. People respond because we're helping preserve their communities.
If you want reports and statistics, simply hit up Google for every anti-drug body in America. They publish figures, surveys, and clinical studies readily. Everyone from the federal government to family-values oriented midwestern social groups. They aren't difficult to find, and a lot of them are completely objective about it. Why lie? They tell it exactly like it is and usually just let rehabilitated addicts speak for themselves.
If you're saying that legalizing drugs will reduce or eliminate drug crime you are insane. There will always be drug lords, and they will always be totalitarian and violent when they feel they need to be. They aren't going to go home and watch t.v. just because their product is being offered locally at some underground tar clinic. If you believe that you are grossly underestimating the need for certain breeds of people to make vast sums of money and control markets. It's greed and economics at its most basic.
Take the Netherlands for example. The premier example for what happens when a western nation legalizes even only soft substances and procedures. They aren't swimming in problems yet, but they aren't doing peachy either. What happened to their instances of drug-related crime after they passed their famed legalization legislation? It rose.
Interesting, but rather easy to explain.
Before we do that though, let's look briefly at the key points of Dutch drug policy:
* legal to sell up to 5 grams of marijuana and hashish per person, per transaction, to persons over 18 in licensed coffee shops;
* Large-scale dealing, production, import and export are still illegal. i.e. the suppliers of marijuana to the coffee shops are still criminalized.
* No drugs may be advertised anywhere
* Hard drugs still illegal (those with 'unacceptable risks' such as cocaine, heroin, meth, and ecstasy; a distinction determined by whether the drug is only psychologically or also physically addictive)
Now then, back to the crime issue.
What Holland discovered after legalizing hash and marijuana was a phenomenon called 'nuisance', the result of combining lots of undesirable people with drug tourism. Since the legislation's passage, problems and fringe activities associated with nuisance have increased exponentially, causing the government to tighten its controls on coffee houses (which naturally function as local problem centers due to the people specifically attracted to the availability of pot) and even commercial facilities used to create products such as hemp rope.
Another thing that Holland discovered is that by breeding generations of children who think that a marijuana subculture is okay, they were breeding young adults with a far greater propensity to progress from smoking joints to shooting up heroin and taking other hard drugs, a ratio that far exceeded that of other European nations.
This unanticipated leap caused a massive explosion in hard drug production which further exacerbated the problem already posed by Rotterdam being the largest seaport on earth and thus the primary transit point for trans-Atlantic and trans-European trafficking. With this increase in both soft and hard drug use came the logical increase in related criminal activity and the further increase in anti-drug and customs efforts. So crime wasn't the only thing that rose. Tack onto that the hundreds of millions invested in building and maintaining over a dozen treatment and rehabilitation clinics and also the research and development of government controlled marijuana production facilities.
But wait, there's more. The Dutch government couldn't just increase its efforts to combat drug related crime without making an effort to attack the root of the problem. That wouldn't make sense. So they responded to this massive cyclical cluster fuck (which they themselves created) by pumping millions into school initiatives aimed at educating kids and keeping them off of drugs.
Sound like fun? Keep in mind this is just within the confines of the Netherlands, a country about twice the size of New Jersey. Imagine what we could do with a couple hundred times that much space and twenty times as many people!
So even while I advocate legalizing pot in this country, it could be a massive can of worms that 20 years from now we would greatly regret ever having opened.
Let's start by going through the list of the benefits of drugs like meth, or cocaine, or heroin, or opium, or LSD.
1. Interesting music and song lyrics.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Now then, let's go through a very brief list of only some of the negatives.
1. perpetuation of HIV/AIDS infections
2. perpetuation of hepatitis infections
3. irreversible damage to the central nervous system
4. cellulitis
5. infection of the walls of heart valves and arteries
6. pneumonia
7. respiratory infections and failure
8. spontaneous abortion and hemorrhaging
9. seizures
10. skin ulceration
d11. cardiac arrest
12. stroke
13. total loss of cognitive function
14. paranoia
15. hallucinations
16. total loss of motor function
We could probably go on all night. So please explain these wonderful benefits that you think people can experience from using drugs, how they are good for you, and how they have set your soul free, or whatever it is that they have done for you.
As far as the liberty of not having to deal with high or intoxicated people, of course it exists now. PI laws, DUI laws, trafficking and sales laws, every law on the books associated with keeping chemical abusing retards off the streets is there for a reason.
No, being high isn't itself a crime if that's what your alluding to, but the liberty exists in the laws designed to prevent the widespread distribution of those substances via vast public networks. THAT is what prevents the majority of people from having to deal with that crap. You don't think they're effectual? How many garages in your area have signs advertising crack? How many houses have revolving doors on them? Forcing those people to remain secretive and illicit is what tells you it's working. That's all the laws can do. Force people who want to do illegal things to do so secretively, out of the public eye, lest they be prosecuted. If the deterrent isn't working, why hide? So it IS doing something, no matter how ambiguous it is, and that's better than not doing anything at all.
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Sp`ange
Flaccid Member
It just doesn't make sense to put someone in jail for having some weed on them.
A)
The tax payer foots the bill for some minor offense. The person in jail will lose their job and have problems finding another job. Their family will suffer as well.
B) Collect a heavy fine.
Seems like an easy choice.
A)
The tax payer foots the bill for some minor offense. The person in jail will lose their job and have problems finding another job. Their family will suffer as well.
B) Collect a heavy fine.
Seems like an easy choice.
There's been some new developments on this story.
From the Atlanta Journal:
The Cato Institute (a prominent Washington Libertarian think tank) has a map of botched paramilitary police raids. Apparently this incident isn't just a freak accident. They also have some interesting reading material on the militarization of law enforcement and the rise in paramilitary police units used for routine police work.
From the Atlanta Journal:
The Cato Institute (a prominent Washington Libertarian think tank) has a map of botched paramilitary police raids. Apparently this incident isn't just a freak accident. They also have some interesting reading material on the militarization of law enforcement and the rise in paramilitary police units used for routine police work.