My logic behind ending the War on Drugs

I've always said that if you do something like crack, and are smoking it in your house, harming no one, you should not be arrested. If you smoke crack and rob a bank, throw the book at the guy. Fortunately we already have laws on the books covering rape,theft,murder,et all. There are many legitimate arguments against the war on drugs, but I'd like to a make one that I haven't heard much, one I came up with.

People always say, "Well, the reason we arrest people who are smoking crack in their house and haven't hurt anyone else is because there's a good chance that person will go on to commit some sort of crime later on, so it's kind of like preventive maintenance."

That sounds good on the surface, but please take into account my hypothetical situation based upon the same logic:

You are at a bar drinking a beer. You are not driving, nor bothering anyone. A cop comes in and arrests you. When you point out you are harming no one but yourself, the cop says to you, "Well that may be true, but a large number of people who get drunk at bars end up driving home drunk, so were just gonna arrest you NOW in the form of preventive maintenance."

Now please explain to me how there's any real difference here.

 

Good one. I know people will say that harder drugs are more destructive and addictive to counter. If there's a strong case to address that part of the argument, more people may accept an end to the WoDs.

 

Same thing as arresting me on my way home from a bar, right? So yeah, I agree. Get rid of drunk driving laws because there are already laws on the books that say I shouldn't hit pedestrians while driving my car.

And yes, get rid of drug laws as well. If I take drugs and do something illegal as a result, the law is there and we don't need further laws.

They are nanny state laws, and the constitution does not have some minority report clause in it.

 

While I agree with your conclusion – ending the War on Drugs – your logic is flawed because you do not understand the history of how drugs became illegal in this country.


Almost all of our illicit drugs today were at one time or another completely legal. Heroin and cocaine can in fact be credited for the start of modern pharmacology. However, what was not known in the beginning was the highly addictive nature and side effects of these drugs. Once those were known and the science of pharmacology increased to the point of understanding the chemical compounds that were responsible for the wanted benefits, then substitutes were introduced to replace many of those drugs.


Almost all illegal drugs served at one point or another as legitimate tools for healing.The abuse of these drugs have always been with us, which is why addiction needs to be treated as an illness and not a crime. Not everyone reacts the same to a given drug. The context in which one ingests a drug plays a key factor in whether or not it's inherent addictive nature will be destructive or beneficial. Plenty of US soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam experimented and got hooked on heroin, but not all of them continued to chase the Dragon when they came home and were reunited with their families.

The principal reason the war on drugs needs to come to an end is because it does not stop drug addiction. What it does do is benefit the few who have a lot to gain by keeping the status quo. We have set our entire justice system upside down with these ass backward laws that only winds up locking up a huge portion of the population behind bars and turns addicts into hardened criminals.Not to mention, it also creates the most lucrative black market in the history of civilization. While it may be debatable as to whether or not we will ever be able to eliminate organized crime, there is no doubt that current drug laws are responsible for their proliferation and success. Already the with the few states that have legalized marijuana in one form or another, its impact has made a big dent in the cartels that used to smuggle it. That cannot be denied.

 

Sure, why not legalize drugs just as long as when someone becomes sick and disabled after years of abuse we go ahead and put them to death so taxpayer dollars are not wasted on taking care of them. Same with smoking and drinking. If they or someone else besides the public can pay for their own caretakers then do all the drugs they want. If no one can pay for them then adios.

 

I will say at least your point of view is consistent

 

You want to put people to death because they become sick or disabled after years of abuse?

That's kinda... well, I can't agree.

 

Legalizing pot I am okay with. Legalizing crack, not just no but hell no. Have you ever met a crack addict? I mean like a real hard core chronic crack user. Their brains are fried.

 

I can actually respect a point of view such as yours - I'll admit I have my own hesitations about legalizing other drugs. It really boils down to "Do the laws prohibiting drug X do more harm than the drug itself" - you can make a worthwhile argument that for heroin and crack and all, the cure is not worse than the disease. With marijuana, no way in hell. The people who really tick me off are the raging alcoholics who think they have the "high road" and look down on smokers of pot.

Another thing I was thinking, what if the US Gov't made alcohol illegal tomorrow, and legalized Crack? People would be like, "that's so backasswards!".

That's how I feel about every state where marijuana is illegal and alcohol isn't.

 

What if there's a new drug on the market that turns violent people into passive people. Would you be in favor of legislating against that drug?

 

Could also have a sin tax to pay for everything.

 

I do not agree with drunk driving laws, if your reckless driving or fail to maintain control or break any laws, that is when you should be arrested, being drunk should come into play during the penalty phase, being drunk of course carrying a worse sentence

arresting people for not wearing a seat belt is another bad law

arrest people for real crimes, not for made up ones

not sure, but I think you have to be committing a crime before a cop can pull you over, they can't just pull you over cause it's after bar closing time and they think you "might" have been drinking

.

 

You do realize that "crack" is a direct byproduct of the politics surrounding our schizophrenic approach to the drug problem?


From Wiki:

In the early 1980s, the majority of cocaine being shipped to the United States, landing in Miami, was coming through the Bahamas and Dominican Republic.[SUP][1][/SUP] Soon there was a huge glut of cocaine powder in these islands, which caused the price to drop by as much as 80 percent.[SUP][1][/SUP] Faced with dropping prices for their illegal product, drug dealers made a decision to convert the powder to "crack," a solid smokeable form of cocaine, that could be sold in smaller quantities, to more people. It was cheap, simple to produce, ready to use, and highly profitable for dealers to develop.[SUP][1][/SUP] As early as 1981, reports of crack were appearing in Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, Houston, and in the Caribbean.[SUP][1][/SUP]
Initially, crack had higher purity than street powder.[SUP][2][/SUP] Around 1984, powder cocaine was available on the street at an average of 55 percent purity for $100 per gram (equivalent to $230 in 2015), and crack was sold at average purity levels of 80-plus percent for the same price.[SUP][1][/SUP] In some major cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, and Detroit, one dosage unit of crack could be obtained for as little as $2.50 (equivalent to $5.68 in 2015).[SUP][1][/SUP]
Crack first began to be used on a large scale in Los Angeles in 1984.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP] The distribution and use of the drug exploded that same year. By the end of 1986, it was available in 28 states and the District of Columbia. According to the 1985–1986 National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee Report, crack was available in New Orleans, Memphis,Philadelphia, New York City, Houston, San Diego, San Antonio, Baltimore, Portland, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Atlanta, Oakland, Kansas City, Miami, Newark, Boston, San Francisco, Albany, Buffalo, and Dallas.


I just don't believe crack is as big a problem as it once was. It has fallen out of favor as the "in drug", not to say that there are still users out, but if you notice a trend now over the past 20 years has been methamphetamines (which is not a new drug at all, it's been around since the early 1900s) and more dangerous still are the synthetic drugs, which aren't even classified.

What's driving the synthetic drug push is greater ease to chemistry, greed, and staying several steps ahead of the law.

What we need to ask ourselves is, if people had access to safer and legal psychoactive drugs for recreational purposes, would there even be a market for these riskier synthetic variants?


Keep in mind that beyond the addictive nature of some of these drugs, the greatest danger is in the impurities present in these drugs which further compound an already bad situation by the mere nature of its black-market status.

Our society still clings to a moral spin on drug use. Prohibition does not work, but the propaganda machine still cranks out horror stories. It's all a ruse in order to protect the biggest drug dealer of all – the pharmaceutical industry. More people are addicted to prescription medication than all the illicit drugs available.

 

People become sick and disabled by many different means, and not all drug users become sick and disabled. Why is it that you think you'll have to take care of drug users? You do realize that every drug user (including alcohol, nicotine, etc.) is not a street bum? Drugs are used by all types of people, from CEOs to janitors. Most of them take care of themselves. Their drug use isn't costing you anything, so your argument falls short.

 

So funneling money to a foreign country doesn't bother you?

Especially when that money is being used by criminal cartels to corrupt an entire government which ends up hurting people in the other country? People get shot and killd and enslaved over this stuff just so you can get high.

Yeah sure. It harms no one.

 

If you don't know who Carl Hart is, then I highly recommend you look him up, the information on drugs that he teaches is astounding.. but perhaps not for the reasons some people would assume


[video=youtube;C9HMifCoSko]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9HMifCoSko[/video]

 

That is what's already happening. Legalizing these drugs will allow production in America and would actually lower the amount given to foreign countries. Amazing , isn't it ?

 

Great video!

 

I do, if your goal is to prevent serious accidents and fatalities. People gotta know there's a serious downside to just getting behind the wheel while drunk.

 

Sorry, but it really wouldn't change anything, and a lot of people's lives would just be destroyed in some way.

Keeping drugs illegal is a good thing.

The only real way to win the drug war is to send in the military and wipe out those cartels and to hell with the fallout from the world.

You see, that's the thing I hate about the most that pot heads do.

They think it's okay to do anything they want to get the drugs and get high. They don't care about private property, they'll just break in to the buildings or trespass on private property or other things like that. They think it's okay to do anything they want to just so they can get high, making drugs legal will not do anything to slow that kind of thing down.

There is all kinds of problems that druggies ignore because they just want to get high.

But who (*)(*)(*)(*)ing cares.

 

This idea that if legalized every single human being on earth will become a drug fiend has to stop. If crack was to be become legal tomorrow it most likely wouldn't increase the number of crack consumers. Most people don't choose to be drug addicts either, alot are prescribed painkillers users (talk about ultimate hypocrisy), people who have back pains and instead of fixing it through other ways choose, or the doctor does, (because they know better right?) and give you the quickest and easiest solution avaiable.

Pot never was and is not a gateway drug, painkillers are. The only way pot can be considered a gateway drug is because you're probably purchasing from dealer that wants to push you a harder drug to make more profit.

War on drugs needs to end, it doesn't work, never did and never will, its the war that can't be won.

 

Horse crap.

It too can be won.

Giving in to them is just an excuse to get high and go kill people.

 

After 40 years of this war you can honestly say that with a straight face?

Maybe you need to get out of the house more often.

 

Thanks for sharing your opinion, but I beleive you are not looking at it informed. Cartels and other c9untries make money because we can't produce it here and it's worth the risk for them to bring it here because of the profit. If people manufacture it here , it will cut into there profits... and won't have to be smuggled. And your idea of sending in soldiers is horrible, the moment someone is killed another will step in and take their place ... the rest of your rant is already happening and fails to take into consideration that people do such crime to get money for drugs because they are expensive. Home production will lower cost and we can use money on rehab instead of new police toys.

 

Sorry, but that's all jus topinion and not fact.

Making drugs legal will not change a damned thing and people will just continue to be hurt as always.

And your justification is a very poor on to make drugs legal.

You can just that same justification to , well, make everything legal. That's how poor of an argument it is.

You might as well just allow terrorists to bomb our courthouses and churches and kidnap your ten year old daughters and sell them into sexual slavery with that kind of incredibly poor justification to make drugs legal.

Drugs destroy lives. Drugs get people killed no matter if legal or not.

But you really can wipe out the drug cartels and greatly reduce the flow of them into this country.

in short to really get anything done you have to play hardball ebcause strength is the only thing those people understand or respect.

You make drugs legal they will just muscle in and take it over and hurt and kill a lot more people.