Mexico Legalizes Personal Possession of MJ, coke, meth, LSD etc.

True, nothing really changes, but you have to do your job. You cant have zombies walking around, bumming, stealing, shooting, and all kinda crap to support their habits. Its a double-edged sword, because once they lock em' up, they'll just get drugs through the prison system, distribute it out on the street, and now youre back to square 1. As far as weed, thats different. Weed has no real threat to the human body, but can be bad for the memory and energy. Thats about it, so I think making that legal, which will eliminate all the millions of dollars being spent to stop trafficing, can be used towards the economy. Congress is in the process, but are kinda afraid of how the rest of the country (those who oppose it) will respond. Its legal in many states, I believe San Fran, Utah, and others. So, thats the first step, but the next step will be the most dramatic.

 

Yeah because you've done or do drugs means you do that

There are a bunch of fat, hungry people wobbling around stealing food to support their habits. No consistency in that argument

 

according to Gladiato (who has covered this already).. your prediction as above wouldn't occur because of how highly regulated the legalised drugs would be.

All of you that are arguing against Gladiato are under the assumption that if drugs were legalised, people who take them will be like the addicts you see on the streets.

If the ability to attain these drugs were so highly regulated, it would be very difficult for anyone to abuse a drug. They would have to attain a prescription everytime they want some, and a doctor wouldn't approve if their patient asks for a heroine prescription every 3 days.

To be honest, I only agree of the legalisation of pot, however I do not know about other drugs.

Gladiato seems to really know his stuff, especially as he has worked in the drug rehabilitation field. Everyone else who is arguing against him only does so out of assumptions based on morals and what their parents and teacher say.

Ultimately, I think Gladiato has more credibility than anyone else here in regards to this topic as he has worked in the field.

Do I agree with him? I don't know. Maybe not for ALL drugs, however to totally disagree with all he is saying simply makes you a blind sheep following the heard.

 

Right, because we don't have doctors handing out vicodin now like they are tic-tacs. No doctor would allow somebody to buy too much heroin. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Gladiatorowdy, here is the link you ask for,
http://www.layover.com/features/features/danger-text-messaging-ahead-092608.html

texting was the worst, followed by being high, with legally drunk 3rd. I think the numbers were 35% slower reaction time for texting, 21% for being high, and 12% being legally drunk.

And how is it off topic for me to point out how you want the government to step in to keep me from my property, but think the government shouldn't be able able to tell you what kind of dope you should be allowed to possess, no matter how dangerous it is to you or those around you? Do you not think that more people drink now because it is legal? You kept worrying about rescue people who it was proven didn't respond during a storm, but What about the cops who have to deal with more people doped out of there mind or the rescue workers who have to try and save them? What about the innocent people who suffer because the drugs are now legal creating more dopeheads who are willing to kill you so they can get a hit? What about your child who picks up your legal acid, not knowing what it is and the LSD soaks into their skin or the child who finds your coke and thinks its sugar candy and downs a bunch? At what age is it okay to be a dopehead. 18 like a pack of cigarettes, 21 like alcohol? Do you want your child throwing their life away at that age because it is legal now and much more common. At what age are you just a washed up doper? Is 35 too old or 50 or 60? At what point are you just an ignorant pookie who sits around getting high all day as oppossed to a recreational user? There really is no such thing as a recreational crackhead, speedfreak, or herion addict, so where do you draw that line? Lets face it, if you still smoke pot ,trip on acid, or snort coke past 30 you are a pookie. You are not quitting and you don't just get high recreationally. You have a problem. If you are over 25 and have children and do any of these things, you are a worthless human being. You need to grow up and rasie your children and quit trying to tell people how theres nothing wrong with getting high. Under no circumstances should it be legal. Its not good for anyone.

 

Again, if you look at statistics, you will find that we had a MAJOR impact on the rates of teen alcohol use in the mid-90s with the "We Card" program, a program that saw teen access to alcohol drop by over 50%. It is truly amazing what you can do in a regulated market.

 

No, pharmaceutical grade amphetamines, which is exactly what people would buy in a regulated market.

 

The thing is, it is an incredibly small percentage of drug users that engage in that kind of behavior. Also, the only reason that people are forced to steal to support their habit is because prohibition raises prices to exorbitant levels.

No good comes out of the current system. If anyone can show me a positive effect of prohibition, it will be the first benefit I have seen to this misguided policy.

Actually, the only place it is "legal" is Alaska, where their Supreme Court found that criminalizing mar1juana posession and use by adults violated the privacy clause in their constitution. Unfortunately, it is still illegal under federal law, which makes it illegal in all 50 states.

 

Out of curiosity, would you support a prescription heroin maintenance program for addicts that had not responded to other treatment modalities? They have had one going for over a decade in Switzerland and the participants have seen lower criminality, higher recovery rates, and integration into mainstream society (keeping jobs, paying taxes, etc.).

 

Nice find! I hadn't seen that one and virtually nothing related to drug policy gets past me in the news.

However, it doesn't damage the point that prohibition is the worst way to deal with the issue of drug use and abuse in our society. We have DUI laws that I would enforce for people driving high just as I would for people driving drunk.

Because that is a completely different topic, one for which we already have a thread. The topics are distantly related and extremely loosely analagous, but tying one to the other will only serve to muddy the discussion of either topic.

Actually, what I want is for the government to have complete control over what people are allowed to possess and use, under what circumstances, and what limitations they have. In that way, my answer to both of these points is the same.

As it is, the government has NO control over the drugs people can and cannot use, what they can and cannot acquire, or how easily kids can acquire drugs. Prohibition cedes control over these drugs to criminals and thugs, which is the reason we have drive-bys, gangs, and the Mexican military occupying several border towns.

According to the statistics, alcohol usage spiked briefly after prohibition, but then leveled off to a point only very slightly higher than the estimates during prohibition.

The only "rescue workers" who would be trying to save someone on drugs would be EMTs, who would be responding to a situation that is far more under control than during a natural disaster. Police already respond to people who are truly "out of their mind" on drugs, regulating their manufacture and sale wouldn't increase the danger to police at all.

Regulating drug sales and manufacture will not create a society of "dopeheads," much as you seem to want to create that strawman. In a recent survey, 99% of those polled said that they wouldn't try cocaine even if it were legal. Most people are smart enough to avoid the truly dangerous drugs, as they do now.

In addition, prices would drop in a regulated system, reducing the need for people to "kill you so they can get a hit." I would also suggest we track sales so that we can intervene with treatment before someone gets so far gone that they feel like they have to rob someone for their next fix.

Another strawman. One component of the regulated system I would create would be education and a requirement to keep the substances secured from any minors that might be present. If your child gets it, you would have your license to purchase suspended or revoked, and might spend some time in jail for allowing a minor access.

BTW, we have the exact same situation now except that the people whose child is overdosing would be far less likely to call 911 or take the child to a hospital because of the legal repercussions they would face. IOW, now we have what you described except with gasoline being poured on the fire.

This discussion is difficult enough to have without using perjoratives like this.

Personally, here is about how I would do it...

18 for cigarettes
22 for alcohol and mar1juana (raise the legal age for alcohol to help keep it off of college campuses), perhaps also for MDMA (X)
25 for LSD (and its analogues), weaker opiates, and cocaine (served as a part of a beverage only
Heroin by prescription for abusers who have failed other treatment modalities

A science and healthcare based commission would place all drugs on the scale and rank them based on the drugs' incidence of misuse and abuse as well as personal and societal damage.

I would support my child choosing to use drugs at the ages above provided they were fully educated as to the proper use and potential negative impacts of the use of the drug in question. I don't see it as "throwing their life away" any more than I believe you have thrown your life away with alcohol use.

Do you understand that the VAST majority of people who use drugs do so responsibly? Over 10% of the people in this country use illegal drugs regularly, yet only 1.3% of Americans are addicts. This means that 8.7% of Americans, more than 20 million people, use drugs regularly without being addicts.

I would not allow recreational use of crack or heroin, so you have swung at a target that I didn't put up there (another strawman). Amphetamines are used regularly by nearly all active Air Force pilots, are they all "speedfreak" that we should be worried about?

So now we get to the meat of your "argument," which is simple bigotry.

 

The drug war also destroys people's lives by imprisoning nonviolent 'criminals', reducing them to slaves with no income, giving disenfranchisement against society, and breaking up families. The prison system also has a lot to gain by criminalizing drugs, because they can gain a lot of money by paying the criminals pennies to do contract work that they'd otherwise have to pay a lot more to a noncriminal.

The strawman argument about kids finding drugs in their parent's home and using them is absurd and out of line. The government has NO right to interfere with what you do at home, UNTIL you do it (putting your kids at jeopardy, at which point they may legally interfere). What you are advocating is precrime, in which case we should all give up our 2nd amendment right to bear arms, because someone with a gun 'could' kill someone else.

If you think the correct answer is to dissolve the Constitution just to protect people from something they may or may not do, then we're headed for a bigger police state than the one we already live in.

 

This is a very uninformed, naive post. Do you have any idea how much it costs to incarcerate people? Do you honestly think that they have inmates working all day in slave conditions? There's no economic incentive to create incarcerate people; the penal system is a definite money loss to the state all the way around.

Inmates spend their time watching TV, working out, sleeping, eating, reading. They have phone access and can get on the internet. If you're envisioning a chain-gang system of inmates working construction projects or hammering license plates all day long, you're mistaken.

 

If there was evidence that supports the notion of being able to safely reduce the level used until that level becomes zero under the watchful eye of a physician, then of course I would support that. Methodone isn't effective for everybody.

If there is no such evidence that this will be effective, it becomes a much closer call. I would not blanketly say no until I had a ton more information on it.

 

This is exactly the reason why I say treatment for the addict (with no criminal record implications) and under the jail for the dealers.

 

As a former coke user I'm not sure what I would do if it became legal. The only way I was able to give it up was due to me breaking off ties with friends because I knew if I was around them I would be around drugs, and I wouldn't be able to say no. Having it easily accessible at all times is a scary thought to me.

 

Do you find that the illegality of cocaine makes it easier or harder for you to stay off of it?

This is a serious question, and I am not trying to be a smartass. I really would like your input given your life experiences.

 

I don't think it's legal in Utah. But, it is legal in San Francisco, California to a point.

 

Red Chocolate,
You talk about pre-crimes. What is a DWI? You have technically done nothing wrong and might have been driving better than anybody else on the roadways, but it is a crime because of something you might do. Is that not the same thing? You might be a better driver drunk than you are sober, but statistics say most are not, so all are punished for an act that might lead to something. There are many crimes you can commit, where you technically have done nothing wrong yet, but there is a chance you might so it is against the law.

 

DWI is not a crime because of what you might do. It is a crime because of what you did - consume enough alcohol to put you over the legal limit and then get behind the wheel of a car. That is a crime at that point.

 

Regardless of how they feel about the law or the fairness of the law, if these folks chose to not break the law, they would not be imprisoned.