legalize all drugs - free money and freedom

You don't need to legalize drugs to solve this problem, you can simply just decriminalize them.

 

Commerce must be well Regulated in the US to discourage the current sloth we have by not having an FDA label on any drug on any market in the US.

 

In fact illegal drug use is not the real problem when we address drug overdoses that result in death. Overwhelmingly drug related deaths are general from prescribed pharmaceuticals that are the most abused drugs in America. Some mistakenly believe that heroin, cocaine, and meth would be responsible for most drug overdoses but they barely show up on the chart in the following link.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/04/26/graph-on-drug-overdose-deaths

I oppose prohibitions completely but what is more than apparent is that our drug prohibition laws were never about preventing harm.

 

Simple decriminalization doesn't get rid of the criminal element being the distribution chain. Only true legalization, and getting legitimate business involved in the manufacture and distribution will eliminate the cartels. It won't make the individuals involved in those cartels any less prone to commit violence, but it will completely eliminate their source of funding, rendering them evil people without any money.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War

The numbers are pretty high. Even the most conservative estimates put it at about 60,000 people since about 2006.

Thousands have died since before 2006 as well.

What's even more significant are the number of people displaced by the war -- 1.6 million.

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Decriminalization would be at least a good first step. It's worked quite well for Portugal.

 

How many of those at least 60,000 deaths do you think was civilians?

 

Decriminalization alone does not provide for regulation. It is far better IMO if we regulate the production of these drugs. For example the purity of heroin is a serious issue because I recall a massive outbreak in heroin overdoses around 1980 when a highly pure form of heroin hit the streets of New York. Addicts that had been safely taking heroin for years started dying because they used the same amount as always but the heroin was much stronger and lead to overdose and death.

On the flip-side I've seen "condemnation" of the increased amount of THC in marijuana today than in the past but this really doesn't affect the user. They just smoke less because it's stronger so it's actually healthier because they smoke far less for the same high and it's the smoke that's bad, not the THC.

 

Two wrongs does not make a right. Let's not make the problem worse by legalizing even more harmful and addictive substances. I personally believe that prescription drugs should also be made illegal and all replaced with medicinal marijuana.

Now, there's absolutely no comparison between tobacco and substances such as alcohol, cocaine, and crystal meth, etc. Smoking tobacco does not cause car accidents and violence, which is what some other drugs do. It may harm one's health horribly, but it does not affect somebody's judgement.

Now, the ONLY reason why heroin, crystal meth, and cocaine, make up for less overdoses than prescription drugs do, is because those substances are nowhere near as available and widely used by so many Americans, as are prescription drugs.

 

It's hard to say, but according to the site --

1,000+ Police and prosecutors killed
138 Army soldiers killed
14 Marines killed
318 Federal Police killed
58 reporters killed
~1,000 children killed

The number of adult citizens not part of cartels isn't specified, but when considering the fact that the Mexican military had to stage a siege of Juarez a few years ago, it seems reasonable to assume that a large portion of that number consists of more than just cartel members.

Apparently, 16,000 are unidentified bodies.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/mexico-drug-war_n_1832954.html

 

Thinking about this it would actually pragmatic for marijuana to be decriminalized related to growing and consumption by the person while prohibiting the commercial trade. Marijuana will grow anywhere including an apartment and taking the "money" out of it completely is not a bad thing.

We have "legalized" marijuana for recreational use here in WA but we're prohibited from growing it for our own consumption. Our rights as a person are still being violated for the nefarious purpose of taxation alone and that isn't right. If I wanted to "legally" grow and consume my own marijuana here I believe I could but I'd have to purchase a $1000 annual license (and pay a 25% tax on any I sold wholesale but I wouldn't sell any). That seems like a rather stiff cost to me. Hell, I can get a license from the federal government to own a fully automatic machine gun for 20% of that cost and it's only a one-time fee.

 

Are you assuming that the # of Americans that partake in "hard core" drugs like cocaine and heroin would suddenly sky-rocket if they were decriminalized? I highly doubt that. As easy as illegal drugs are to acquire now-adays.. if you want them... you can get them.

That mentality would also assume that if alcohol were made illegal today.. the use of alcohol by people that use it now, would drastically drop.. we all know how that would turn out.

 

Is "marijuana is way stronger than it was in the 1960s", just a myth, or not? Was the marijuana that people smoked in the 1960s just as potent as it is now? Some people believe that pot years ago was just as potent as it is now, but the DEA just couldn't measure it's potency for various reasons during those days. Is this true, or is there really evidence that THC's potency is actually increasing nowadays?

 

The legalization of marijuana wont be won on the grounds of a minority group of smokers rights. It will be won on the economic reality that Hemp is a crop that could lift this country out of debt and secure a renewable domestic energy source.... of course.. thse two reasons are also the biggest reasons it will remain illegal.

 

You seem to have a default position that mind altering, harmful, and/or addictive substances is "wrong". You need to establish that to be the case, not just assert it as fact and argue from there.

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I have no idea, but I know it only takes me 2 or 3 hits to get where I'm trying to get. If I ever smoked an entire joint, I'd be too stoned to move. But I'm a very occasional user, once a month at most, so that might have more to do with it than the strength of the product.

 

The THC content really is higher but because marijuana smokers seek a certain "high" the consumption has been reduced. Compare it to wine and whiskey. People will drink more wine because it has less alcohol content than whiskey (and that's about the only comparison I can find between alcohol and marijuana because marijuana use doesn't lead to "more" use because the person is intoxicated like alcohol often does).

In the 1960's people would smoke an entire joint to get high and today they smoke a small bong hit to get just as high. I don't know of anyone that still smokes joints today but if they did they'd take a hit or two and put it in the ashtray.

 

http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2007/dec/05/poll_99_percent_wouldnt_use_hard

99% of Americans still would not use harder drugs if there were just suddenly legalized, but somewhere around 1% of them would use harder drugs. So, this means that if harder drugs were legalized, we would have 3 million more harder drug users.

 

I heard the statistic that about 8% of the population uses "hard" drugs and that has never changed. I don't know if the statistic is correct but no one has disputed that the number of users has never changed and would not change with legalization. As noted the prohibition laws have never blocked access so those that would do hard drugs already do hard drugs today and that won't change.

 

Why does Washington State have laws that state that people that are 21 and over can only possess certain amounts of marijuana? There's no laws in any states which have legal limits on the amounts of alcohol and tobacco that adults can legally possess, so why is there legal limits on the amounts of marijuana the adults can legally possess?

 

I strongly disagree with you. Most people that do drugs do so out of curiosity. If drugs were being legally sold at local shops right next to the supermarket, then more people would easily just walk into those stores and get them out of curiosity. If these substances were kept illegal, then people probably would not even notice them or casually go to get them. There's no question that legalization makes them more available, which means that the usage of these substances will skyrocket if they were legalized.

Some people drink alcohol just because seeing alcohol at their local liquor stores got them curiosity about having a drink. If alcohol was illegal, it would be way less available and some people probably wouldn't even notice or think about trying it out. If harder drugs were legalized, due to their newfound availability, some people that probably wouldn't even do them in the first place would suddenly start doing them just because they see them being sold right next to their supermarkets.

 

A good question.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/05/us/washington-marijuana-legalization/

The limitation really doesn't make any sense but then, on the other hand, an ounce of marijuana today could probably last an average consumer two or more months so it's not like it's a huge limitation.

 

I don't get it either. Probably want to make sure they get their cut, rather than having people growing their own. Follow the money usually answers any question.

 

The state of Colorado actually allows people that are 21 or older to cultivate up to six marijuana plants. Washington state probably has different laws, but Colorado actually allows people to grow some plants of their own.

 

I hate to sound cold blooded... but.... I would think... There would be a rash of deaths at first but it would taper off rather quickly with easy access to the poison of choice.

 

I still don't get the whole purpose of this picture.