My disagreement with Miron’s assessment is that we need to legalize all drugs. I think the populace is ready to accept grass but I can’t see that same populace supporting the legalization of heroin, coke or meth. He may be right long term, but trying to bring all drugs under a legal umbrella will do more to prevent the legalization of grass then to get that legislation passed.
My only requirement is that, as always, people be held completely accountable for their choices and actions.
Ditto, get stoned out of your squash if that;s your deal. Break into my house while your stoned…go to jail, directly to jail, do not pass go…and give me my 200$ back.
The problem there is they can only be punished after the fact. If some guy is stoned out of his mind and runs over some little kids crossing the street, there can be no proper retribution or punishment. Sure, you can give the guy the death penalty or something, but that doesn’t bring back the kids that were killed while he was under the influence of that drug.
We had a really good discussion about this a while back. The conversation challenged the fine line between what should be legal and why. Should meth vs weed?
I’ll see if I can dig it up.
I’m torn about where to draw the line. Booze causes more deaths, either violently or through physical deterioration, than pot but I wonder if that is an availability thing. I am all for legalizing pot, it seems to be a big double standard and I’ve yet to see a study to shows it is physically addictive, like cigarettes. So, addiction doesn’t make sense for the Litmus test. Effects on society at large, again, I don’t see how that can be used because of the booze problems and the impact on our paying for cigarette health issues.
And, if it is legal treat it like cigarettes, regulate and ensure minimum standards.
Same could be said for anything. Baseball bats, kitchen knives or fluffy bunnies.
Our society is leaning toward a level of “Safety activism” that infringes at the expense of the individuals rights. We are trying to protect everyone from being harmed by anything, not going to happen. In the mean time people become more ignorant as to how to keep themselves safe because they expect everyone to do it for them.
A big downside is the additional revenue stream would be a short term advantage. Like most tax revenue streams our elected officials would cancel it out with additional spending in no time. Remember the tobacco settlement?
Then there would be the long term cost of additional drug addicts, cancer, and general health loss. By this time the government’s blown the additional revenue, and starts looking for new sources of revenue to pay for these poor individuals who were tricked into using a dangerous product by industry.
Wow - I think this is one of those rare moments when someone completely agrees with me.
The whole idea of continually legislating to protect us from ourselves and others is getting ridiculous. Pre-emptive strike has carried through our entire culture.
People tend to assume that the case for legalization is strongest in the case of “milder,” less addictive drugs like pot. I contend that on the contrary the case for legalization is even more compelling in the case of hard-core, strongly addictive drugs. In the first place, the users of the latter are less likely to be deterred from continuing to use those drugs by the threat of legal sanction. Furthermore, to the extent that government attempts to eliminate trafficking in such drugs drives up the price, heavily addicted users are driven to crime in order to finance their habits.
Finally, where severe legal penalties are present, addicts may be more reluctant to seek medical treatment to overcome their addiction, for fear of legal reprisal or of perhaps getting caught up in the war between the dealers and the cops. For that reason, it is not at all clear that prohibitive drug laws tend to reduce the use of those drugs at all, and conceivably they may even increase it in the long run.
Break into my house while your stoned…go to jail, directly to jail, do not pass go…and give me my 200$ back.
What stoned guy breaks into a house? When I’m stoned - I’m so paranoid that I’m afraid to go into my own house! *
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Funny! I don’t smoke pot myself (I tried it in high school and did inhale). But, honestly how many pot heads are violent? Not any I’ve heard of. It’s not like being a crack head, who often cause deadly violence.
Question for those that may know, is it as dangerous to drive stoned as it is to drive drunk? My guess is no.
A big downside is the additional revenue stream would be a short term advantage. Like most tax revenue streams our elected officials would cancel it out with additional spending in no time. Remember the tobacco settlement?
Then there would be the long term cost of additional drug addicts, cancer, and general health loss. By this time the government’s blown the additional revenue, and starts looking for new sources of revenue to pay for these poor individuals who were tricked into using a dangerous product by industry.
As opposed to the cost of the “war on drugs” which seems to be increasing and which includes some small amount of prevention and treatment costs and very much larger enforcement costs including incarceration, aid to Mexico(just bought em a bunch of helicopters) and additional law enforcement.
I’m thinking the drug war is going to turn out to be the most expensive and biggest social engineering failure in America’s history.
So, I’m curious; would legalization of drugs include lessening controls over prescription medications? How could we justify legalization and taxation of heroin and pot, but tell people they can’t get prescription drugs just as freely? In other words, if we’re telling people they can do illegal drugs but they have to face the consequences, how can we not also allow them to freely use what are now prescription drugs, so long as they’re willing to face the consequences for that as well? It seems that complete legalization of what are now considered “illegal drugs” would essentially do away with the entire prescription system, or at least any rational justification for it.
Who said anything about not putting controls on them if they are legalized?
Simply sell them as we would alcohol. That being said I really don’t have a problem with selling prescription drugs as “Recreational pharmaceuticals” either. In fact it is my understanding that some drugs, morphine for instance, is less harmful to the human body than alcohol.
I’m guessing most drug companies wouldn’t do it though because the lawsuits would likely outweigh any gains in sales. Not to much call on a Saturday night for blood pressure meds.
“Who said anything about not putting controls on them if they are legalized?”
Someone was talking about personal responsibility and telling people they could use drugs if they want, but they need to be ready to accept the consequences if something bad happens. You can’t really say that, and then also say, “Well, except we aren’t going to let you use certain drugs, in certain ways.”
“Simply sell them as we would alcohol.”
And that brings us right back to my question. Does this apply to ALL pharmaceutical products? Sleeping aids, cancer meds, pot, meth, allergy medicine, etc? As long as you’re 21, you can buy any and all of them? And do we really think that won’t result in a continued illegal drug trade to provide the drugs to people who aren’t 21?
