The War on Drugs is Useless

Virus said:
Why not? If someone sits in a bar and has a drink there's no victim. Which proves there are no victims of alcohol abuse.
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This piece of absurdity seems to indicate that you are having trouble defending your postion.
 
I personally think the War on Drugs is ridiculous, some of the drugs may be bad, but the governments reaction to drug-users is far worse. We have enormous amounts of people in prison for drug-related offenses, not necessarily even dealing, and sometimes very light drug like marijuana. The laws are flat-out not reasonable.

The amount of power given to police and law enforcement to enforce these laws are also absurd.


Quarky,

War on anything is suspect.
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Agreed. It kind of sends the message that anything can be done to deal with the problem; even things that are not necessarily ethical, not necessarily even in line with our Constitution, or even our basic principles (such as the War on Terror).

The war on terror? Same deal.
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The War on Terror, I personally believe was all about power. The government wanted the power to do all sorts of stuff they could never do otherwise. Spy on everybody, jail people indefinitely, denying them the right to a lawyer, beating and torturing people, even exporting them off to other countries where it's okay to torture people, driving up military spending, waging wars of aggression, etc.

How about the war against drivers speeding? How much does that cost, and how hard would it be to prevent speeding through technology?
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It would be extremely easy, of course you'd have to monitor every single car that moves which most would consider excessive government intrusion into everyday life, and a 4th Amendment issue.

These wars give people jobs. That's what's good about them.
Inventing crimes allows crime-fighters employment.
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Gives them jobs, gives them all the resources and power to combat the threat whether it be serious or nonsensical.

Unfortunately, it hurts a lot of innocent people. I'm for creating jobs within reason. I don't want to create jobs by causing hardship, pain and suffering to a great many people.

Unfortunately, these "wars" end up doing exactly that.

If only pot was legalized, many, many people would be put out of work.
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True, but there would be plenty of jobs created out of that too, and it would cut down on crime a great deal.
 
Virus said:
How much do you think it's going to cost to keep all the addicts, plus the new pool of them you've just created, supplied with high quality, pure gear? Gonna pull that money out of a hat are you? Gotta pay for it to be produced. Gotta pay people to work in crack factories. Better keep that gear flowing nice and good too. I hear addicts can get pretty nasty when they don't get their fix.
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Cocaine would be about $10/kilo if it was a legal product. Far cheaper than imprisoning millions every year.
 
Do you not see a problem with cokeheads being able to walk into Coke-R-Us and buying a kilo for the price of a take-away? The high cost of coke keeps the number of users down.

In Australia, there are ~3000 deaths a year attributed to illicit drug use. The homocide rate is about 200 a year. 12% of those murders are drug related.

It wouldn't make an ounce of sense for us to legalize hard gear in Australia. The figures would have to be reversed before that argument made sense.

Sources:
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.aspx
http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/6461
 
The prisons are not full of harmless users;

Most users get rehab according to the DEA;

Most cases of simple drug possession are simply not prosecuted, unless people have been arrested repeatedly for using drugs. In 1999, for example, only 2.5 percent of the federal cases argued in District Courts involved simple drug possession. Even the small number of possession charges is likely to give an inflated impression of the numbers. It is likely that a significant percentage of those in prison on possession charges were people who were originally arrested for trafficking or another more serious drug crime but plea-bargained down to a simple possession charge.
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http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speakout/10so.htm

Very few addicts volunteer for rehab. Most are sent by the courts. Legalizing hard, highly addictive drugs would remove a major incentive to kick the habit.
 
Virus said:
Do you not see a problem with cokeheads being able to walk into Coke-R-Us and buying a kilo for the price of a take-away? The high cost of coke keeps the number of users down.
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Cocaine is cheaper than ever despite the War on Drugs. Using cocaine (at least for people who are not addicted) is cheaper than a night out drinking at bars. Of course if you want to maintain a habit it becomes much more expensive. And many addicts will do anything for a fix, leading to more crimes with actual victims.

In Australia, there are ~3000 deaths a year attributed to illicit drug use.
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How many of these deaths were due to people taking drugs of unknowable purity. Or drugs that wren't even the same as they thought they bought?

The homocide rate is about 200 a year. 12% of those murders are drug related.
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How many of these crimes were due to people trying to getting money for drugs due to their highly inflated cost?

It wouldn't make an ounce of sense for us to legalize hard gear in Australia. The figures would have to be reversed before that argument made sense.
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By your "logic" you should ban alcohol and tobacco in Australia because they surely cause more deaths than illegal drugs. Do you want to do that? You will, of course, ignore the question.


Virus said:
America: Illicit drug abuse costs the country $161 billion a year.
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How much of this is due to the fact that they are illegal?

Cost of drug prohibition; $19 billion.
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Maybe for enforcement for the federal government. What about enforcement for state and local governments? What about locking up millions of people for victimless crimes?

The economic argument doesn't make sense either.
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Does making murderous Mexican/South American drug lords richer and more powerful than they could have otherwise imagined factor into your equation?
 
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Virus said:
The prisons are not full of harmless users;

Most users get rehab according to the DEA;



http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speakout/10so.htm

Very few addicts volunteer for rehab. Most are sent by the courts. Legalizing hard, highly addictive drugs would remove a major incentive to kick the habit.
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That's the feds. No, most of the time they will not go after users. But if the state/local governments catch you, you are screwed.
 
Virus said:
If anyone is still prescribing cocaine, heroin and meth as a therapeutic I'm pretty sure it would only be in extreme cases, closely supervised and only for the short term. There are derivatives now that are less addictive with fewer side effects.

Besides, that's not legalization in the sense that people here are talking about.
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Strange...It felt like I was on topic.

Not so sure about the side effect-thingy, though.
I see kids doing huge doses of zanax and valium.
They'd rather trip, but what can you do?

Sure, they wreck their cars doing these crappy drugs...and the withdrawal is hellish, but at least they aren't doing "street drugs".

Wannabe speed freaks take gross amounts of ritilan. Pure meth would actually be much kinder.
Wannabe opiate addicts snort crushed up percocets, with all the tylenol and fillers and crap; trashing their livers with the farking acetaminophen they inadvertently consume...

It would be healthier for them to do heroin.
Clean needles, of course.
 
quarky said:
Strange...It felt like I was on topic.

Not so sure about the side effect-thingy, though.
I see kids doing huge doses of zanax and valium.
They'd rather trip, but what can you do?

Sure, they wreck their cars doing these crappy drugs...and the withdrawal is hellish, but at least they aren't doing "street drugs".

Wannabe speed freaks take gross amounts of ritilan. Pure meth would actually be much kinder.
Wannabe opiate addicts snort crushed up percocets, with all the tylenol and fillers and crap; trashing their livers with the farking acetaminophen they inadvertently consume...

It would be healthier for them to do heroin.
Clean needles, of course.
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Yeah but people here aren't calling for meth as a treatment for ADHD.
 
Virus said:
Yeah but people here aren't calling for meth as a treatment for ADHD.
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Limiting pesticide consumption may be indicated for that.
My point was that meth is a less crappy drug than ritilan.
We compromise.
The good drugs have strong potential for abuse.
The crappy ones do too, which is a pity.

Prescription drug abuse rules.
Illegal drug abuse lags behind, hugely.
 
BenBurch said:
So, we can dole out ethanol, a poison, to anybody and that's OK?

We can dole out tobacco, a leading cause of morbidity and premature death and that's OK?
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I really don't see how this is relevant to legalizing even more such products. Aren't two more than enough already?

McHrozni
 
indeed marijuana abuse hould be punished harshly.
there are enough people that know how to use it properly, no need to abuse it.

peace man.
 
McHrozni said:
I really don't see how this is relevant to legalizing even more such products. Aren't two more than enough already?

McHrozni
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It just shows the hypocrisy and inconsistency of those who want to throw people in prison for selling/using drugs that are currently illegal. And the two are clearly not enough. Evidenced by the fact that there is a large demand for other substances. A demand that is currently being largely met by Mexican thugs who just kill anybody that gets in their way.
 
Virus said:
Weed? . . . heroin . . . . society will be forced to subsidize your drug habit . . .

heroin . . . . coke . . . . . meth . . . all the other drugs you want legalized that are habit forming . . .
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And these being illegal has helped how?

None at all is how.

Time to get a clue, time to develop a strategy that has a chance of working.
 
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