XShipRider said:
...other drugs are less dangerous... must disagree. Cocaine (in all it's forms)
and heroin are most definitely very dangerous drugs. Potency certainly
plays a part. I would agree with you if you had kept it in context by saying
marijuana is less dangerous in some respects.
As for creating crime, addiction, corruption, and hypocrisy. Not sure where
you were going with those. How do you correlate legal status to creating
addiction? If you had said alcoholism is prevalent due to the legality of
alcohol I could agree. But to declare addiction is created through legislation
is absurd unless the law dictates the use of drugs.
As for enforcement, there must be a token effort to make any law
reasonably effective else we have anarchy. Look at the traffic laws.
The cops stop maybe 1/1000 of all speeding cars (if that). This effort
keeps just enough check on speed to declare the law effective (except
in and around Cleveland).
How many countries have legalized hallucinogens around the world? Not
many. There is a reason for the overwhelming majority of nations keeping
drugs illegal. Either they are against them morally, spritually or economically.
(Not that drugs aren't an economic force in and of themselves.)
First off all, if you read this post you would know that the drugs we made illegal were based on political decisions and had very little to do with a perceived threat to society, the people using the drugs were the targets, rather than the drugs themselves. Other cultures have used hallucinogens for thousands of years, which is why we fear those drugs, whites never used them. Indians used peyote, south american natives (mexicans and aztecs and mayans) used mushrooms for example. These drugs are natural yet illegal because white cultures have historically had unfriendly relationships with these cultures.
The reason every other country has identical drug laws is because America pushed these laws on other countries in the 1960's. We convinced every other nation through the UN to stop the use of the drugs in their native countries because we didnt want the supply coming to America. But we see this has failed.
Yes, other drugs are less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco. That was a generalized statement, meaning
most other drugs are less harmful to society or at least equal in damage, but no worse in my opinion based on the effect they have on the user. Cocaine and stimulants like amphetamines are closer to the danger of alcohol since it creates more bold behavior, but it is certainly no more dangerous. It takes only 4 times the amount of alcohol to kill you as to the amount it takes to get you drunk. People commit horrible crimes while drunk. That is dangerous. And even if one or two drugs were more dangerous than alcohol to a human body, it is not a reason to jail someone. You cant be jailed for poor health decisions. If you are irresponsible on drugs, take too much and commit crimes in wild state, you should be prosecuted harshly and swiftly to discourage people from overusing drugs, but we accept that responsible and moderated use is not anything to worry about just like we do with alcohol. A small percentage of society that will always overdo it and will get out of control, and they will pay the price when they are caught. In my opinion we need to punish the irresponsible use far, far, far more than we do today. I think DUI should be a no exceptions crime, if you are stumbling at a field sobriety test you should be in prison for years. That is how I feel.
Other drugs, Heroin, for example, is far less dangerous in how it effects people. You can die using any drug that can kill you with overdose, but today most heroin overdoses are caused by unregulated purity. If its normally 30% pure and an user gets 95% pure product, they have no way of knowing and they die as a result of not knowing.
The fact is that people on heroin are slugs and not a threat like alcoholics. They pose little danger to society because opiates make people slow, mopey, and tired. Whereas alcohol makes people have blurred vision takes 30 minutes to absorb creating an overdose death that hits unexpectedly when people may go to sleep and die in their sleep, (people pass out hours after drinking and then die when no medical attention can reach them because others around them assume they are just sleeping), it makes people bold and reckless, they feel like fighting and driving fast and wildly for example.
crime, addiction, corruption, and hypocrisy
Yes. Yes. Yes. and YES, it creates all of those problems as a result of their illegality.
Crime: Keeping drugs illegal creates prohibition related crime. People steal, rob and murder to get money to pay for drugs that have vastly inflated prices. Gangs and drug dealers kill people who dont pay because the drugs are so expensive people need huge amounts of money and often come up short. Dealers and gangs fight it out in turf wars killing each other, doing drive bys and killing innocent bystanders.
Addiction: Keeping marijuana illegal acts as a recruitment tool to the harder drugs. If it were legal it would be no more of a gateway than alcohol or tobacco. But today we have a drug war for political reasons and so government wants it to continue, this is why they need a gateway drug so that a small percentage of users will cross over.
When we equate marijuana with hard drugs by keeping the market as one, we create ignorance. We put them in the same market sold by the same people, consequently people smoke some grass and find out its not a big deal and then a small percent will try other drugs equating them because they are also illegal and foolishly get addicted to these truly dangerous and physically addictive drugs. We need to seperate the hard from the soft drugs.
Not only that, but by creating this category of drugs that is supposed to be different, we create curiosity. People will always have the desire to try these drugs, but by making them illegal we create far, far more interest. These drugs are not special! We have to make them as boring as alcohol and tobacco! No, more boring, because we shouldnt allow them to be advertised and hyped up with packaging and presentation. We have to succeed in making drugs boring, which they are! By making them expensive and forbidden fruit, we create addicts because people are attracted to the rare, expensive, and taboo pleasures in society, that will never change. Caviar doesnt taste special, but its expensive. Its the same concept. Cocaine is the champagne of drugs for a reason, not because it is special. It wasnt special 100 years ago when it was dirt cheap. We must do our best to make drug use what it truly is, unglamorous, boring, and wasteful.
Corruption: Even the most uninformed anti drug people must know that prohibition creates corruption. Police officers and vice cops are on the pay roll for local drug dealers in every city. Border patrol and customs agents are paid massive amounts to ensure that shipments get through. And the fact that high priced lawyers always get people out of drug crimes is an indication that the justice system is full of corruption. You are foolish to think money isnt changing hands, its not just better debate skills you get with a high priced lawyer over a free state appointed lawyer, you are paying for pay offs, money talks. Cops, judges, vice agents, border patrol, customs, even military personnel have been linked to the drug trade because the money corrupts. Money and power to enforce law will always corrupt. People will always be enticed by the drug dealers who make massive amounts of cash in the illegal drug trade because they sell a black market product in high demand.
We have to take the money out of it to stop the corruption. Alcohol prohibition corrupted local police forces unlike anytime in our history prior to this. Drug prohibition has created far more widespread corruption.
Hypocrisy: Politicians admit to drug use as the standard these days. Its hypocrisy at its worse for these people to use drugs and then later throw us peons in jail for the same activities.They can’t have it both ways. For those who want to respond: "ya but they were just in their youth and they learned their lesson and cleaned up." That’s retarded circular logic. It proves they were able to use drugs and didn't need jail to get them to stop. There is a reason why kids use drugs and then stop on their own. If someone wants to do something as boring, wasteful, and stupid as drugs for a long period of time, they will pay the price naturally. Drugs are vices, like alcohol and any other vice, it has drawbacks which are built in, and you don’t need the law to prevent people from overusing vices. Almost all people stop when they experience the drawbacks of drug abuse. The health decisions catch up with them. And we don’t lock people up for making poor health decisions.