Drug Legalization

ponderingturtle said:
Exactly. Cocaine was made illegal to protect white women from "cocaine crazed negroes", and it serves the same purpose today.
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Surely if you're going to throw in racism, why not throw in the Cubans?

Cocaine did wonders for Scarface. :)
 
UserGoogol said:
I've heard that that can be explained away by "A person who is too depressed to do anything takes Prozac and suddenly has the energy to go to the store and buy a gun."
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I hadn't heard that, UserGoogol, but it does make a lot of sense.

I'm sure the appropriate actions will be taken when Prozac users suddenly have the energy to buy a gun and search for those they believe cause their depression. :)
 
Charlie Monoxide said:
I hoped I was implying that. It seems that some people are under the notion that we can control something by passing laws. The "war on drugs" has been a massive failure. Other than throwing more money, technology, and policing/incarceration, there has never been a serious look at legalizing.

In the US, it's political suicide to advocate any lessening of the drug laws.

As a tax paying salary guy, it perturbs me that a large amount of untaxed money is flowing to criminal organization both local, national, and international.

It also perturbs me to watch sanctimonious Cops episodes when they bust users caught in police sting operations. Especially the part when the cop preaches to the busted user, playing up to the camera.

Charlie (free the pot 10,000,000) Monoxide
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I agree with you 100%, Charlie. The "war on drugs" has gone about as well as the "war on poverty," and the "war on terror." I amazes me that it never occurs to us NOT to declare war on anything - we might then win. :)

Here's a link to a site that pretty much tells it all:

In the early part of this century the moral majority tried the penal solution to the use of the drug alcohol; and fourteen years later that law was repealed. This lesson is being re-taught with horrible consequences. The War on Drugs: . . . .


1). Has reduced the U.S. industries of drug cultivation and manufacturing to a fraction of what they were in the 70s.

2). Billions of dollars now flow out of this country to purchase drugs at greatly inflated prices.

3). Approximately 1/2 of all organized crime’ s revenues come from drugs.

4). Drug profits turn ordinary citizens into criminals. People because of association, need, and drug usage have become involved in the drug trade, but whom are otherwise law abiding.

5). Increased enforcement has caused the replacement at the top of the non—violent middle-class entrepreneurial smugglers, dealers, and manufacturers with the more violent lower class participants. In the seventies those coming of good families dominated the top position in the United States drug business. By the 90’s that was no longer true.

6). During the 70s when enforcement was increased, smuggler began bring in huge quantities of cocaine, because measured in dollars it occupies one-hundredth the space of marijuana. With decreasing availability of pot and an increasing availability of cocaine, sales of cocaine, the far more pernicious drug, skyrocketed. Violence also rose as South American Cartels set up shop in this country."

http://skeptically.org/recdrugs/id9.html
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And another site discussing the economic problems:

Economic Consequences of the War on Drugs

Compiled by Anonymous, Drug Policy Alliance. 2002.

How much does the drug war cost American taxpayers?

$40 billion per year and climbing. In 2000, the National Drug Control budget exceeds $18 billion(1) and the states will spend upwards of $20 billion more.(2) This is a dramatic increase since 1980, when federal spending was roughly $1 billion and state spending just a few times that.(3) Between FY1991 and FY2000 more than $140 billion(4) has been spent at the federal level to curtail drug abuse, yet drugs remain cheap, easy to obtain and with higher purity levels than before the war on drugs was initiated.

What competes with the drug war for budget money?

Education. Because prisons and universities generally occupy the portion of a state's budget that is neither mandated by federal requirements nor driven by population, they often must "fight it out" for funding. As state governments sink millions into corrections to house America's exploding population of incarcerated drug law violators - now nearly 500,000 nationally(5) - education loses.

From 1987 to 1998 state spending on corrections increased by 30% while spending on higher education decreased by 18.2%.(6)
State prison budgets are growing twice as fast as spending on public colleges and universities.(7)

http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/factsheets/economiccons/fact_economic.cfm
 
Lonewulf said:
Surely if you're going to throw in racism, why not throw in the Cubans?

Cocaine did wonders for Scarface. :)
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No I am citeing the orrigion of the laws agenst cocaine. They started in the south, because cocaine was orrigionaly used there by black doc workers as a stimulant at work. Then they started to use it recreationaly in part because alcohol was illegal for blacks.

I am unware of any role that cubans or anyone else had orrigionaly had in making cocaine illegal.
 
Lonewulf said:
Don't think they did, but I do know that Cubans and Cocaine became inseperable in public mind during the "War on Drugs".
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That was declaired long after cocaine was made illegal on a national basis. So is a result not a cause of that.
 
Mephisto said:
I hadn't heard that, UserGoogol, but it does make a lot of sense.

I'm sure the appropriate actions will be taken when Prozac users suddenly have the energy to buy a gun and search for those they believe cause their depression. :)
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Another potential confounder is the fact that really depressed people are more likely to take an anti-depressant (Prozac is the #1 prescribed in America) and to be suicidal. So is it correlation or causation?
 
ponderingturtle said:
That was declaired long after cocaine was made illegal on a national basis. So is a result not a cause of that.
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Well, I never said it was. I was just commenting randomly, really.

I would take issue if you are suggesting that the only reason cocaine is still banned is because of racism, however.
 
Lonewulf said:
Well, I never said it was. I was just commenting randomly, really.

I would take issue if you are suggesting that the only reason cocaine is still banned is because of racism, however.
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Oh of course not. Cocaine jumped the racial barrier years ago, now there could be arguements that legal distictions between cocaine and crack had a partialy a racial issue but that is not the point.
 
Mephisto said:
I hadn't heard that, UserGoogol, but it does make a lot of sense.

I'm sure the appropriate actions will be taken when Prozac users suddenly have the energy to buy a gun and search for those they believe cause their depression. :)
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Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have known for years now that severely depressed patients are more likely to be at risk for suicide while they are coming out of a depression than they are while in one. This is precisely because of their increased energy level and improved ability to formulate and execute plans upon coming out of a severely depressed state. Although it may sound marginal to those who have never been in or seen anyone in a severely depressed state, it does take energy and the ability to plan and execute that plan in order to take one's life. Often, patients in a severely depressed state lack even that small degree of energy and ability to plan.

So, in effect, anything that improves a severely depressed person's condition of being severely depressed temporarily increases that person's risk of committing suicide for the brief period during which the person is making the transition from being severely depressed to feeling more "normal" and mentally healthy. Prozac isn't the proximate cause of anyone's suicide, and any cases or studies indicating otherwise are based on faulty reasoning or incomplete facts. The mental state that results from coming out of a severe depression is the cause of the increased risk.

AS
 
Mephisto said:
Personally, I think that legal drugs are far more dangerous than drugs like marijuana, peyote or psilocybin mushrooms. I don't think any deaths can be attributed to those three fairly natural drugs (meaning they don't require refinement of any type to use), yet look at the side-effects for any legal drug.
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Actually, for someone who's mentally ill, ingesting any of those drugs is a disaster. Marijuana in particular has been indicated in schizophrenic episodes.

In the one psychiatric hospital my mother worked at (and this is anecdotal, but I believe that it's supported by the current literature), there was a section nicknamed, "the vegetable patch". I'll let you guess at to what state these people were in. The vast majority were there because of recreational drug use.

As well, recreational drugs haven't undergone the battery of tests that prescribed drugs are subject to, so I don't think that any of the lesser side effects are as well documented as we would like.

Prozac is rumored to cause terminal (pun intended) depression and has been blamed for murder and suicide. It's supposed to stifle depression.
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I noticed that AS answered this already, so I'll just second what he said. My mother worked as a psychiatric nurse for years (plus I've had a fair amount of experience with mental illness and treatment of), and it's commonly known that those at the highest risk for suicide are those coming out of depression.

It's kind of similar to some claims being made about Accutane possibly causing psychosis. The people most commonly prescribed the drug (male adolescents), are also the same groups where you most commonly see the onset of schizophrenia.
 
As long as alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are legal, the illegality of cannibis remains idiotic.

Alcohol is more deadly in OD situations, and cigarettes are more deadly in the long term.
 
Almo said:
As long as alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are legal, the illegality of cannibis remains idiotic.

Alcohol is more deadly in OD situations, and cigarettes are more deadly in the long term.
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See, this I agree with. I'm just much more leery about the stronger drugs.
 
shecky said:
I can step out my door and buy any drug in less than 15 minutes. It's more difficult to buy prescription athlete's foot medicine than pot or coke in these parts. Probably other illegal drugs, too.
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I've often thought about this. Suppose I lost my mind and wanted to consume a drug. I haven't the foggiest idea where or how to obtain one. For people exactly like me, it makes no difference whether they are legal or not as there's a very negative appeal. However, for people somewhat like me, legalization could make a difference in so much as it would not only be available but available through known channels.

Aaron
 
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