Legalization is a term used by prohibitionists to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). Regulating mar1juana much like we do alcohol would mitigate many of it's dangers and would help to decrease levels of underage drug use. Again, it has been proven. In Holland, where mar1juana use by adults is tolerated (not legal as many think, but tolerated), teen drug use is lower than in any other country in the world.
Legalization is a term used by prohibitionists to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). Regulating mar1juana much like we do alcohol would mitigate many of it's dangers and would help to decrease levels of underage drug use. And to think, I always thought the correct term for alcohol was "legal", not "regulated". Yeah, saying that making drugs legal (with restrictions) is "legalization" is just a scare tactic. And certainly the regulation of alcohol has prevented underage alcohol consumption. That's definitely the strategy we should look to.
Don't you get it? EVERYONE in this country has access to drugs at any time. The biggest problem is that the people who can get drugs most easily are kids. Many adults in this country would find it difficult to acquire drugs if you asked them to, but any high school kid could get you anything you want. Actually, I am talking about doing away with the black market entirely. I never said anything about junkies, I think we need to keep drugs from kids first and foremost. After kids can't get drugs, we can talk about junkies. The dealers will have something to think about if their ONLY market is kids and selling to kids gets you 5, 10, or 20 years in the can. Not only that, but if we have less drug offenders in prison, people who sell to minors can rot for their entire sentance as we won't have any prison overcrowding anymore. Goes the same for murderers, child molesters, and rapists, you know, the people that SHOULD be in jail for a long time.
Yes, it is, just like the commercial where the guy starts spewing some tripe about "legalization" making drugs available in vending machines. That kind of propaganda is what keeps the general populace quivering about the "drug menace." The statistics say that since we started programs like the "WE CARD" system, teenage drinking has decreased significantly. In fact, it was found that now, kids have a harder time getting alcohol than drugs.
What is this based on? We've seen teen alcohol use increasing in recent years as has teen tobacco use. Perhaps it's lower than in 1972, but that doesn't mean it isn't on the increase now. According to the statistics I've seen, drug use is lower than it was in the 1970s and early 1980s when 39% of high school seniors were monthly drug users. In 1992, that percentage was down to 5.9% (though they added 8th through 11th graders to the survey in 1991). Though the stats increased from 1992 through 1996, it never reached the peak years of the 1970s and early 1980s, and teen drug use has declined or stayed stable in the six years since then. As of 2002, 25.4 percent of high school seniors reported drug use in the past month, down considerably from the 39 percent of the peak years. All in all, it sounds as if we were doing something right in the mid 1980s to the very early 1990s when teen drug rates were falling considerably. And what of cigarettes, which are legal but regulated, especially in regards to their sales to teens? Two and a half times as many high school seniors smoked cigarettes in the past month as took some sort of illicit drug. And what of alcohol, a legal though regulated substance? 48.6 percent of high school seniors have illegally used alcohol in the last month despite it being completely illegal for them to even possess alcohol. But you can't necessarily say it's a cause and effect thing. The two things may actually be completely unrelated. Culturual differences that we would not see in the U.S. could make the difference. Gun backers can point to countries where gun ownership is unrestricted as proof that guns don't cause crime, but that doesn't make it any safer on the streets of Detroit. Evidence from other cultures may not translate to the United States. But could we regulate it to end the problems? If someone wants it, they can get it. We regulate cigarette sales, yet we see an increase in teen smoking as the laws have gotten tougher. We're seeing black market cigarettes to avoid high sin taxes in some states. It's illegal for teens to drink alcohol, but roughly 2/3 of teens engage in high risk drinking at least once over the course of a year. I'm not saying that the war on drugs needs to be rethought, but I don't know how you solve the problem by increasing supply and making drugs cheaper. Straight economics says, all things else being equal, we'd see an increase in demand at the new, lower price. It seems to me that, at the very least, any kind of decriminalization would see an increase in drug use in at least the short term. If we focus on curbing demand first through education, treatment and whatnot,, perhaps we could eventually get to the point where allowing a freer reign on the drug supply would be feasable. As it is now, we're likely to just exacerbate the problem. And there is something to be said for social norms in regards to behavior. If the general consensus is that something is okay, people are more likely to use it. If I tell my kids that mar1juana isn't harmful and isn't any big deal, they are certainly more likely to at least try it than if I tell them (in a truthful manner. The scare tactics and overkill when it comes to drugs can very easily backfire) the risks involved and the reasons why drug use, alcohol use, cigarette use, whatever is a bad idea. That's one reason children of smokers are more likely to be smokers themselves, etc. And it's likely the reason that alcohol use is twice as high among teens than illicit drug use (an especially high number given your theory that regulated items are harder to get than non-regulated drugs). Decriminalization could have the effect of saying using these products is okay. That's why attacking the demand side is the key to the problem. http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/HSYouthtrends.
Talk about baseless claims! teen alcohol and tobacco use have been on the decline since the mid-90's when we started the "We Card" program nationwide. That's according to the ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy or the drug czar). "Every year from 1975 to 1998, at least 82% of high school seniors surveyed have said they find mar1juana fairly easy or very easy to obtain. In 1999, 88.9% of high school seniors said it was fairly or very easy to obtain." That stat is from a paper called Monitoring the Future: National Results on Adolescent Drug Use Overview of Key Findings in 1999 (Page 48, table 6). "Despite the fact that federal spending on the drug war increased from $1.65 billion in 1982 to $17.7 billion in 1999, more than half of the students in the United States in 1999 tried an illegal drug before they graduated from high school." That one is from the Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Drug Control Strategy: Budget Summary in 2000. Drug use rates have not fallen significantly since the 1970's when we spent 100 times less than we do now. What of cigarettes? We should regulate them more strongly as well because, as we have seen over the past decade or so, we can reduce rates of teen use dramatically when we have a regulated product. One third of the people in the United States have used mar1juana according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. In Holland it is almost 16% according to the University of Amsterdam's Centre for Drug Research. In fact, according to these two studies, Holland's system yeilds about half of the rates of drug use across the board at 1/7th the incarceration rate and 1/3 the cost. Maybe we wouldn't see those kinds of results in a year, but over a decade we could drop drug use rates significantly and save a trillion dollars or more. Yes, that is exactly what I am proposing. Your numbers are off about smoking (cigarettes) and drinking as I believe I have shown (with evidence). With stronger regulations including writable RFID tags for cigarette and alcohol containers, we could further reduce the rates of teen alcohol and tobacco use. A new system might not take out the black market altogether, but it would hamstring it so that it wouldn't be able to reach into every high school in the country. The black market would be relegated to anti-government freaks who want to avoid paying taxes, not teens. Not to mention that this whole system would be predicated around finding and punishing the animals who would stoop to providing these substances to children. If you know you will go to jail for a year per beer you give to a kid (and the beer is tagged with your ID number), you will think several times about doing it. I think that the drugs should not get much cheaper. The reason that there is supply is that people are willing to pay VERY steep prices for these chemicals. This creates an opportunity for a very nice tax rate to pay for the various regulatory agencies that would need to be created. I would also earmark half of that tax money to prescription drugs for our senior citizens. If people are willing to spend tens of billions of dollars on unnecessary drugs, why shouldn't the profits go to pay for necessary drugs for our seniors rather than enriching criminals and terrorists? Decriminalization doesn't work either because that type of system still criminalizes distribution but not use, which invites all of the problems of drugs but keeps the profits in the hands of criminals. I agree that we would see a short term spike in usage like we did with alcohol after prohibition, but you also have to consider that the stats we get now are for REPORTED use. How many paranoid potheads are going to answer honestly when asked over the phone if they smoke pot? OK, the ones that are too high to lie answer honestly but our numbers are unreliable. With a regulated system, we are able to get a hard number on how much of this stuff is used because the government (and responsible businesses) are controlling the distribution. Long term, we can study the issue to find the best ways to reduce overall usage. The general consensus will always be that drug use is reckless, irresponsible, and stupid. I think that any system of regulation will have to have education as its centerpiece. Before someone can be licensed to purchase a substance, they will have to attend classes to educate them about that substance, be it tobacco, alcohol, or mar1juana. I remember very clearly when I made the conscious decision to never, EVER use cocaine, heroin, LSD, and a host of other drugs including Valium and other prescription drugs. I attended a class as part of my training to become a drug abuse counselor that the teacher called "Drugs 101." After I took that class as an adult, I was able to make an informed decision about what I would choose to put into my body (incidentally, this class is what also turned me off to alcohol). If a fully educated adult makes a conscious decision to use that poison, the government's role should be to make sure they don't overdose or have a cross reaction and to tax the substance to pay for the social costs. The message we need to get across to the kids is that they should defer making the decision until they are adults. Once they are adults, they can decide for themselves, but with proper education, most of them will decide to leave drugs alone. In addition, with a regulated system, if someone does develop problem usage, we can detect it much more quickly and get that person into treatment.
And as usual, as soon as someone who actually knows something about drug policy arrives to debate the topic of prohibition, the drug war hawks run because they know that the drug war cannot stand up to the light of day. Once you look at the horrendous effect the War on Drugs has had on our society, it is redily apparent that we must change this misguided, racist, socioeconomically discriminating policy. Does anyone else have anything intelligent to add?
Just trying to do my part to make sure that everyone knows that the truth is out there. You just have to look for it sometimes.
Don't you get it? EVERYONE in this country has access to drugs at any time. The biggest problem is that the people who can get drugs most easily are kids. Many adults in this country would find it difficult to acquire drugs if you asked them to, but any high school kid could get you anything you want. Again, you're simply proposing that everyone have easy access to it. Kids already have access to it and will continue to do so (see below). Adults, who as you say may have trouble now, would under your legalized system also have easy access to it. Actually, I am talking about doing away with the black market entirely. No, you're not. You said: <I>I want to create a set of regulations that make it somewhere between difficult and impossible for children to get their hands on drugs.</I> If you make it difficult or impossible for kids to get it legally, they <B>will get it illegally</B>. Black markets are created by unfilled demand, which is exactly what will continue to exist in your scenario. It solves absolutely nothing. You did not address the unfilled demand anywhere except your snippet about education - which is entirely unrelated to legalization.
Talk about baseless claims! teen alcohol and tobacco use have been on the decline since the mid-90's when we started the "We Card" program nationwide. That's according to the ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy or the drug czar). True. Drug-use, however, has also dropped. If you're going to credit "We Card" then I would think you have to credit the Drug War too. http://www.redding.com/news/national/past/20021217nat047.shtml <I> Other findings in the survey: • Twenty percent of eighth-graders said they drank alcohol in the last month, a 23 percent decline from the 26 percent who answered similarly in the 1996 survey. • Cigarette smoking decreased in each grade, expanding on a recent trend. There has been a 50 percent decline for eighth-graders since its peak year in 1996. Eighth-graders who said they had smoked in the last month fell from 21 percent in 1996 to 10.7 percent, and daily smokers fell from 10.4 percent to 5.1 percent. Smoking rates for 10th-graders fell by nearly half since 1996. • Percentages of eighth- and 10th-graders using any illicit drug declined and were at their lowest level since 1993 and 1995, respectively. • mar1juana use decreased among 10th graders, and in the past year, the rate of use of 14.6 percent among eighth-graders was the lowest level since 1994, and well below the recent peak of 18.3 percent in 1996. Roughly 30.3 percent of 10th graders reported mar1juana use in 2002, compared with 34.8 percent in 1997. • LSD use decreased significantly among eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders. LSD use by 12th-graders reached the lowest point in the last 28 years. </I>
The reason the black market for children will go away is because the risk/reward ratio will be dramatically different. The economy of the black market woday consists of both adults and children. While children do use drugs, they are a much smaller market than the combined pool of adults and kids. Since adults will not be contributing to the criminal enterprises, those enterprises will not be able to support themselves by selling to kids alone. In addition, the measures taken against people who supply children will be draconian. I think it is a travesty that someone caught in possession of a drug is put into jail. In the system I am talking about, someone who supplies children can be put into a jail cell for 5, 10, 20 years or more and without possession offenders clogging the jails, dealers can sit their whole sentance. At that point, murderers, child molesters, and rapists can also sit out all of their time. Once you change the risk/reward ratio, very few dollars available vs. risk of long time incarceration, the black market dries up much like it did for alcohol. The only difference is that we have the technology today to control distribution much more closely. It is a waste of law enforcement dollars to incarcerate someone for drug possession when a violent criminal is set free early.
If you nitpick individual statistics, it is easy to find instances of slightly decreased levels of use among certain groups. The important things to look at are long term trends: Availability - I quoted a stat in an earlier post that since 1973, over 30 years, 83% of seniors find it easy to acquire illegal drugs. Price/Potency - The price of drugs have dropped since the drug war started in 1972 and the purity has increased. In other words, not only has the drug war failed to take drugs off the street, it has made those drugs cheaper and more dangerous. I did note the significant drop in smoking and drinking alcohol. Those stats are significant, I mean smoking was reduced by half! Drinking declined 23%. Those are the kind of results we can have in a regulated market. The rest of those stats are very specific, talking only about one or two grades on individual drugs. Those stats did not point to a long term or empirical trend. We need to have a drug policy that significantly reduces the levels of drug use by children. After 30 years of prohibition, havent we proven that banning something doesn't work? I thought we were supposed to have learned that 80 years ago.
The reason the black market for children will go away is because the risk/reward ratio will be dramatically different. The economy of the black market woday consists of both adults and children. While children do use drugs, they are a much smaller market than the combined pool of adults and kids. Since adults will not be contributing to the criminal enterprises, those enterprises will not be able to support themselves by selling to kids alone. The majority of users are kids or others you don't want using them. Unless you allow the legal market to serve the mass of users, the black market will still be there and will be extremely vibrant. The total demand <I>will be the same</I> because you haven't done anything to curb it. The market will exist and kids will still get the drugs. In addition, the measures taken against people who supply children will be draconian. I think it is a travesty that someone caught in possession of a drug is put into jail. In the system I am talking about, someone who supplies children can be put into a jail cell for 5, 10, 20 years or more and without possession offenders clogging the jails, dealers can sit their whole sentance. This again has NOTHING to do with legalization. You can change the current sentencing system to what you want without changing the legal status of drugs. Once you change the risk/reward ratio, very few dollars available vs. risk of long time incarceration, the black market dries up much like it did for alcohol. The black market disappeared for alcohol because any kid can get it without a black market. Either through older friends, brothers or sisters, fake IDs, or by going store to store until someone doesn't card them. It is a waste of law enforcement dollars to incarcerate someone for drug possession when a violent criminal is set free early. Then don't incarcerate them. Fine them a bunch of money. Now it becomes a source of revenue for the government instead of an expense. Nothing you've argued supports legalization in any way.
I do credit the drug war. Here is a list of the things the drug war has given us: - No-knock raids - 2 million people incarcerated - People jailed on the word of one lying police informant - A homicide rate much like the rate in the 1920's when Al Capone ran things - $50 billion per year prison budget - Racial profiling - A ban on industrial hemp - DEA raids of medical mar1juana facilities in states that have approved prescribed mar1juana - Neighborhoods that view the police as the enemy rather than as trusted protectors - Hospitals that call police when people test positive for drugs - African Americans incarcerated at 10 times the rate of whites - The requirement to lie to your children about your drug use - A system where the poor are punished for sins committed at all socioeconomic levels - Involvement in civil wars that have been going on for half a century - Police who shoot innocent people and are not even indicted - A justice system that is endlessly clogged with drug cases - Overdoses and cross reactions that cause death due to lack of information and because nobody wants to call an ambulance for fear the police will show up - The ability to shut down unpopular political rallies with the RAVE act - A drug czar that asks for the power to spend up to a billion dollars to advertise and promote prohibitionist views in elections, both ballot initiatives and when electing officials who might be critical of drug policy Tell you what, I'll add on to this list as I think of more. But that is what our drug policy has given us.
Sorry, Major, the majority of users are adults. There is no way that kids could support a $400 billion dollar per year enterprise (that is according to the UN office of drug control). The regulated market would serve the majority of users and the people that develop problems can be identified and treated much more efficiently if the user is not scared that they will be arrested for coming in for help. It has everything to do with making the black market go away. If the mass of users (adults) can get what they want within certain limits and the penalties for giving drugs to kids are outrageous, there is not a market to sell to and the criminals go elsewhere, as happened after alcohol prohibition ended (they moved into drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc.). The black market dried up because adults could acquire it legally and the mob couldn't make enough money selling to kids to stay in that business. An older brother or sister might think twice about giving a younger sibling drugs if the initial penalty was 5 years in jail. Add to that the change in mindset this system would entail. The whole thing should be designed to identify the best method to get drugs out of the hands of children and then execute that method. The drug user education I mentioned in an earlier post gives us a way to let people coming of age know how serious we are about keeping drugs from children. I do believe that we should keep drugs off the streets, so there should be a penalty for using these substances in public. A series of escalating fines with a trip to a treatment center for chronic offenders. You have not defended the current policy. You have not addressed the serious problems inherent in prohibition. You have not convinced me that the policy we have is worth more than a trillion dollars over the next decade.
Please won't someone find the flaws in my logic? Can't anyone come up with a good reason to continue the current policy? Are we just admitting that I am right about this after all?
We've been taught since we were toddlers that drugs are bad, that drugs ruin lives and that drugs will kill you. These claims, which are based on political (not scientific) principles, are valid to an extent. But the vast majority of drug-users are NOT addicts and are NOT harming anyone or dropping out of society. Most people handle themselves and are responsible in their usage. There are always people who go too far, but this percentage would be the same whether drugs are legal or illegal. Legalizing drugs won't eliminate -- or worsen -- today's drug culture. But it will take much of the violence, bias, oppression and wasted tax dollars out of the system. Even a modest shift in sentencing and education would make dramatic improvements in today's society. Andymoon outlined excellent reasons why today's "War on Drugs" isn't worth the cost. In actuality, it is debilitating to a culture that prides itself on freedom of choice.
Those claims can be very valid. My problem with them is that they make the same claims about pot that they do about crack. Crack is to pot like an uzi is to a bananna. Crack kills, pot giggles. I mean, what is the worst thing that could happen to you if you run into a crazed pothead? OK, you might get fleas. - Will Durst, comedian Actually, I believe that levels of use would drop to slightly lower levels than we have today after a brief spike like we saw after alcohol prohibition ended. With a regulated system, we could more easily identify and treat the problem users as well. Again, I am not a fan of the term "legalize," but a regulated market would have all of those effects on our society. We are supposed to be the "land of the free," yet we give up more and more of our civil liberties so that the politicians can "protect" us from the "evil drug scourge." He who would give up freedom for security will have neither. - Paraphrase from a quote by Ben Franklin
