Make all drugs legal; stop the myths~

Child porn, rape porn and snuff porn can only be created in the commission of violence and should be treated as violence. Material concerning consenting adults should be made unavailable to minors, but other than that remain unlegislated.

 

I agree completely with what I think you are saying: all drugs, theoretically, should be legal, provided people are knowledgeable and mature enough to use them responsibly. Of course, society is generally NOT responsible enough to handle this, and fighting a war against drugs has only kept people ignorant, and allowed an atrophy of individuals' capacity for self-control. There have been other developments in our modern society that have also contributed to this over-reliance on "experts," to be our nursemaids.

We should, therefore, start slowly, as with pot, which has many strong arguments in favor of its decriminalization, and legalization. I would also like to see-- though know that I will not-- a legalization of some natural substances, in unrefined forms, such as coca leaves (which both animals and people have long used, without becoming addicted or berserk), and eventually mescaline buttons, and psilocybin mushrooms.

As substances get unnaturally concentrated, they become too addictive to be considered safely manageable. Other drugs, just by their nature, like possibly methamphetamine, might be too powerful to ever legalize. But the availability of weaker drugs (e.g., dextroamphetamine), in a responsible society, would lessen, not magnify, the desire for the strongest ones.
If raw opium (both for smoking & for dissolving it laudanum) were made legal, we would first need to have evolved, as a civilization, our attitudes, understanding, and fortitude, for self-restraint. A good sign would be if fewer tobacco users let themselves become strongly addicted, by limiting their usage.

So, leading to that, there might be milder, man-made, substances that could be legalized, like tramadol and nitrous oxide. Certain other things might be allowed, at least initially, only under clinical conditions, such as LSD, in psychiatry.

 

Should be decriminalized .. as the Law is no longer letitimate .. lacking the required "Overwhelming consent - min 2/3rds" for Gov't to be granted "Legitimate Authority" to mess with essential liberty .. as per the definition of our Constitutional Republic - and Founding principle.

 

You just say things and then when asked about them, you immediately act as if you're embarrassed by what you said!

 

I don't care if a drug is beneficial or not. All drugs should be legal, period.

 

All the illegalization of drugs do is cause drug dealers and lots of shooting by drug dealers.

Make them legal, provide them by the government in controlled, quarantined and supervised environments to users, and they can rot in a place where they will not harm others because it's a free country, but it will put the drug cartels out of business.

 

Prohibition doesn't work, and always costs society more.

 

I can't speak for them, but if they did, it wouldn't require committing murder like it does today. They are armed and dangerous. They will sell to children and kill you if you can testify against them. When I used to smoke pot, I had to go to a bad neighborhood and look for a guy named Flaco, to get it.

Now, people can download an app and a guy with a beard and a man-bun will deliver!

Would you say this is an improvement?

 

I can never understand why you ask me off the wall questions. It's like you were talking to someone else and you got them confused with me.

 

That's unacceptable, because then you'll want us to bank-roll their drug use.

I'll let you have your fantasy drug fest under the following non-negotiable conditions:

1) Severe punishment for minors who possess, use or distribute drugs or drug paraphernalia:
a) cannot obtain driver's license until age 21
b) permanently barred from obtaining federal student aid

2) It must be licensed

3) Only "eligible" persons can obtain a license
a) requires a 40-hour drug-abuse class at their expense
b) requires written testing
c) a hefty fee for the license which must be renewed annually

4) "Ineligible" persons
a) any person receiving federal benefits such as HUD Section 8, Food Stamps, TANF-F, ADC, Social Security Disability (but not Social Security Retirement), etc
b) any person receiving similar State benefits, such as subsidized housing or SSI (Supplemental Security Income), including unemployment benefits (their license if they have one would be temporarily suspended)
c) all licensed professional, including doctors, RNs, other licensed medical, law enforcement, transportation including pilots, truck drivers, railroad engineers, chauffeurs, taxi drivers etc
d) any person convicted of a felony
e) any person on probation whether a felony or misdemeanor
f) any person employed by a school district or daycare

5) Employers can declare themselves "drug-free"
a) can refuse to hire drug users
b) can test anyone for any reason or no reason at all
c) can terminate any employee for drug use with no recourse

6) Annual audit by GAO
a) if at any time the cost to taxpayers is greater than the revenues, we go back to the way it is now.

If you don't like the way it is now, you have only the Media to blame, plus yourself for voting for the wrong Congress-critters, whoever they might be.

 

"Bank Roll" implies investment, and clearly, it's a subsidy. not an investment.

When you use terms that befit a partisan lens, then all we do is talk passed each other.

The government subsidizes a lot of things, so what's the problem?

All we are doing is taking money out of the hands of drug pushers.

If we don't, americans, instead of paying taxes to subsidize my proposed idea, it goes to drug pushers.

So, the money is going to flow somewhere, the question is, where do you want to go?

To pushers, or the government?

 

I simply asked you if you think drugs should be illegal.

 

Read post 130

 

From post 130: "I think if people want to kill themselves with drugs they should be allowed to." So you at least think that possession should be legal.

 

Would drug use increase or decrease if it was legal?

 

So, the production?

 

Good you'll get your answer there

 

And increase costs to businesses. While many companies do do drug testing at start of employment and sometimes randomly, the vast majority come out negative. There are some studies out there that showed that regular drug testing in government programs such as SNAP and welfare resulted in more money spent in testing than was saved by eliminating those who used drugs. An increase in the program spending, not a decrease. While I have no issue with a company deciding to waste their own money, I cannot support forcing them by law to waste such money.

 

I get the arguments, but baby steps here, one or two drugs at a time.. If they are solid arguments, then we will see the benefits a time over two then five and then 10 years and the political coalition will snowball and we will have the drug treatment facilities funded and in place as we get to the harder drugs. People will come on board because they will see the concrete impact of change in their loved ones, in their communities.
If the baby steps on the less dangerous addictive substances don't lead to a new utopia, then we will learn why not, where the problems and snafus are, and fix them before we move foreward. Take this slow and see how this theory actually works out in the real world.

 

Actually, while I would say that might be true about most substances, others are a danger in their manufacture. Meth immediately comes to mind. Given the nature of it's manufacture, that is one, at the very least, that should not be allowed for home manufacture.

Secondly, simply looking at potentials, and not trying to point to any drug in particular, we do have a lot of legitimate limits on manufacture, use, and trade of substances other than drugs, that are legitimately about actual safety. Look at nitroglycerin and other explosives.

Now I will grant that we could make an argument that limiting regulations are not the same as illegal with criminal offenses, but violating many of these regulations are in and of themselves criminal offensives. I find your statement to be too broad brush and not accounting for reality.

 

Like I said, you at least think that possession should be legal.

 

I don't know. Violent crime associated with drug laws would decrease significantly.

 

I only read the front page of this thread; I'm of mixed feelings about this because Portugal did successfully decriminalize all drugs and overall drug use actually decreased there after they did it, but Portugal is a tiny homogeneous country with a very well-established, consistent culture; Portugal and the USA couldn't be more different. So decriminalizing the hard and dangerous drugs might have more detrimental effects, here in the USA. On the other hand, marijuana is likely less dangerous than alcohol so it doesn't make a lot of sense to keep it criminalized given that alcohol is legal. If anything, maybe marijuana being legal would result in people consuming less alcohol, and while DWI with fatal accidents have happened with people impaired by marijuana, they are way less frequent than the ones that happen due to alcohol. Also, alcohol leads to cirrhosis, brain damage, psychosis, severe withdrawal with seizures, hallucinations, etc., and a number of other health issues (fetal alcohol syndrome, alcoholic neuropathy, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, etc.) while comparatively marijuana has much fewer medical downsides (although it does have a few). Several states have already legalized it; probably we should move to a full legalization of marijuana in all 50 states and DC. The other ones, I don't know. They'd merit more careful analysis of the consequences of legalization (or at least decriminalization).

Anyway, what I wanted to say to the OP is that the DEA doesn't just enforce drug laws. It has other functions, for example, licensing and monitoring physicians and physician extenders for prescriptions of controlled substances. So even if drugs got decriminalized, the DEA would not cease to exist. Its workforce might be shrunk some though, with some savings, but don't expect the agency's full elimination.

 

We can look at other repeals of prohibition (not specifically the era of Prohibition) as a good guide. In a vast majority of them, there has been an initial surge of increase, followed by a decline lower than before the ban was lifted.

 

And support. Having child porn generally requires paying someone else to pay someone else to sexually assault children. We wouldn't let murder for hire get away with such a scam, so not child rape either.