New Study documents the brain damage caused by marijuana

[cosmicaug]

Court order, family pressures, pressures from society and drug testing for employment -- no doubt all figure into the mix. What's interesting though, is that none of these seem like a strong enough motivation to give up weed in many cases. That's the part that I find hard to explain when marijuana is touted as non-addictive. What am I willing to give up to continue using it?

It's about as addictive as unhealthy food, except that can actually kill you over time. Perhaps any fatties caught with a bag of Cheetos should be sent to counseling?

True, that. What sorts of long term success rates tend to get quoted in the literature for people attempting fat loss? I couldn't give you a number but the numbers are shockingly closer to zero than to 100%, that much I know.

 

[Dancing David]

What are the relative risks? Do we even know? How many relationships and careers are in jeopardy because of pot? Compared to alcohol, tobacco, religion, porn? It strikes me as an issue that is relatively low in risk but high in public concern.

Addicts is addicts, those who are suffer negative consequences from their use and continue their use despite the negative consequences.

Pot addicts are no different. I am not discussing physical consequences but teh consequences of addicted behavior.

You know, selling the family cow for three magic pot seeds and all that, addiction has much more than possible physical consequences.

Loss of employement is a severe one in this economy. Now the addiction profile for pot is low compared to other substances, but there are dope addicts none the less.

 

[3point14]

Addicts is addicts, those who are suffer negative consequences from their use and continue their use despite the negative consequences.

Pot addicts are no different. I am not discussing physical consequences but teh consequences of addicted behavior.

You know, selling the family cow for three magic pot seeds and all that, addiction has much more than possible physical consequences.

Loss of employement is a severe one in this economy. Now the addiction profile for pot is low compared to other substances, but there are dope addicts none the less.

Evidence?

 

[cosmicaug]

The thing is addiction means different things. It can mean a physical dependency with withdrawal symptoms if you don't get it. But you also get things like internet addiction, gambling addiction or porn addiction. These are behaviors that people might want to stop but can't. Of course so are a lot of OCD behaviors so are they addicted to say washing their hands?

On the physical side of things, when people try to look beyond whether there are withdrawal symptoms or not they tend to focus on dopamine. As an aside (and touching upon what I understand might be another forbidden subject), I certainly have heard of people getting grumpy when they stop getting regular sex (and I can't imagine being truly depressed while having regular sex as it can be a definite boost to one's feelings of well being --the converse of this being that, if predisposed, I can easily imagine becoming depressed when regular sex stops). Does that mean that sex is physically addictive?

I took a class once (in fact, I have taken a class many times --but I digress). It might have been on pathophysiology but I don't recall for sure. At one point the instructor asked what topics we wanted to cover toward the end of the class and we covered one or two. We talked about addiction and read a bunch of articles on it. A lot of it had to do with dopaminergic pathways. In fact, maybe all of the reading material touched on that (again, memories are fuzzy and, even assuming I had the notes, I am certainly not going to retrieve them to make this post). This seems to be the standard view. I suppose it is because we found something that we can measure experimentally with various clever laboratory techniques (thus the saying, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail). Therefore, you have NIDA funded researchers scrambling to find even the slightest hint of dopaminergic pathway involvement being associated with use of a particular drug and jumping for joy when they do find it: in this script they might say something like "Yes, looking at these brain slices we have found dopaminergic pathway activity. It means cannabis is addictive! We knew it all along!"

I found this approach to be somewhat naïve. Yes, with some specific drugs there's clearly a huge component of massive dopamine release and it seems reasonable to suppose that this is related to their addictive properties. After all, dopaminergic pathways are all about rewarding behaviors. But the problem with this approach is that all things which we find rewarding involve dopamine releases and yet we do not class all rewarding activities as addictive (though, as you and others have pointed out, they can be*). I'm fairly sure that having a piece of cheese, all by itself (no other drugs, legal or illegal, being involved), will involve dopamine release for me (specially if it's good cheese) but no one tends to call cheese addictive. Heck, the release will happen even before I eat the cheese, for that matter (dopamine release is funny that way)!


* If not addictive, since we are, essentially, arguing about definition, definitely something very much like it.

 

[Dancing David]

Something interesting from the NIDA (http://www.drugabuse.gov/publicatio.../available-treatments-marijuana-use-disorders) :


and...



Are they making this stuff up to support the current administration's drug policy?

Just for clarity, these are people who have been assessed as being substance dependant, not your normal users, but people who continue use despite significant negative consequences.

The levels are no where near the estimated 10% or higher for alcohol users.

 

[Dancing David]

If you have some data, post it.

The numbers I am aware of a rather low, and anecdotal, myself (although my primary was LSD) and two other people.

An old Jama artcile talks about levels but I haven't really read it deeply or looked for more recent.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=198686

As far as I know teh addictive profile for mj is rather low compared to other substances of abuse.

Most of these are older, I have not looked through them yet.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=NIDA+marijuana+"dependence"&hl=en&as_sdt=0,14&as_vis=1

 

[marplots]

As a society we value individual freedom. We also claim to value democracy. A corollary of that value is the necessity for educated adults with capacity to reason, therefore a decent public education system is required to create the functioning adults to fill the role of citizens. Adults need the room to make their own choices about how they want to live, and to make their mistakes... we can't grow and mature without life experiences, and part of maturation is making and learning from mistakes. We need autonomy.

I think it's the autonomy part that makes it easy to regulate the "hard" drugs. We recognize that the addicted person has lost the element ofchoice and, in fact, would make a different choice if they were capable of it.

In a sense, the question is also about what it means to have a healthy mind. If I believe that no one who is mature and responsible would choose to use marijuana (which I don't, so get off my case -- it's a hypothetical), then their opinion doesn't count. It's as if I were dealing with a petulant child who refused their vegetables -- I justify forcing them on the basis of not recognizing them as fully human.

This idea, that "if you were healthy you would be like I am" is very dangerous and I think it's similar to how one religious group can act so outrageous toward another, one political group, even an entire culture, or how we are not very disturbed about jailing people, even killing some.

In a world were morality is subjective, who gets to be the "reasonable man?"

Was it Nietzsche who pointed out it was the one with the biggest gun? In the war on drugs, law enforcement has the better toys.

 

[Dancing David]

Are you trying to imply that because of the latter (with the emphasis added) you have the former?

Because, as far as I know, it does not. The only implication of the latter is that heavy cannabis users will occasionally fail urine tests even weeks after the last day of use. It's not like as long as they have metabolites in their system they are stoned (not even a little bit).

It also means that any withdrawal syndromes are going to be buffered by it.



I have no idea what you question implied, I was talking about the potential for WD.

Something to ponder when considering the meme of 'physical addiction', there is no such things some drugs have withdrawal syndromes and sequelae from chronic use, some don't. Marijuana use by its nature has a very long wash out as well, some one who smokes a lot of great weed will have THC metabolites in their system for at least thirty days.

 

[Dancing David]

No, but you have to look at the % of people affected vs the number who smoke pot every day.
.

Which is low, hence mj has a low addictive profile, especially compared to cocaine and nicotine.

 

[RandFan]

Addicts is addicts, those who are suffer negative consequences from their use and continue their use despite the negative consequences.

Pot addicts are no different. I am not discussing physical consequences but teh consequences of addicted behavior.

You know, selling the family cow for three magic pot seeds and all that, addiction has much more than possible physical consequences.

Loss of employement is a severe one in this economy. Now the addiction profile for pot is low compared to other substances, but there are dope addicts none the less.

With all due respect I find nothing here that would compel me either way regarding pot. Let's grant all of your premises and go back to my question that was left unanswered as far as I can tell.

What are the relative risks? ... How many relationships and careers are in jeopardy because of pot? Compared to alcohol, tobacco, religion, porn? It strikes me as an issue that is relatively low in risk but high in public concern.

Look, if the relative risks are low then I really, really, really, really (did I say "really) don't give a ****.

Let me be clear in case anyone isn't getting the drift, I think those who care about the dangers of marijuana use are silly. Seriously silly. They don't know what the relative risks are and won't take the time to find out.

So yes, marijuana can destroy relationships and cost you your job. But SO CAN FACEBOOK.

When you figure out the relative risks get back to me and we can have a serious discussion. And please, I would be happy to have that discussion. As it is I don't think any discussion has any serious merit.

 

[cosmicaug]

Court order, family pressures, pressures from society and drug testing for employment -- no doubt all figure into the mix. What's interesting though, is that none of these seem like a strong enough motivation to give up weed in many cases.

You get caught with some pot. You get to talk to a judge (or however this works). You get told that you can either go to trial and have a very good chance of being found guilty and go to jail for a short (or long, depending on specifics) time or go into treatment. You do your treatment for a few weeks, not really thinking that you ever had a problem (maybe you didn't have a problem, other than getting caught, of course*). Then, 6 months later, you "relapse".

What your motivation was to get into treatment (not getting thrown into jail at that particular moment) matters a lot. If you didn't think you had a problem and if maybe in most respects you didn't have a problem, is it really that surprising that you would "relapse"?




* Did Obama have a problem when he toked up? I don't know, maybe he did. I suspect he probably didn't. It seems that somehow, with many people, what determines whether they have a problem or not is whether they get in trouble with the law or not.

 

[cosmicaug]

It also means that any withdrawal syndromes are going to be buffered by it.



I have no idea what you question implied, I was talking about the potential for WD.

It implied that if the metabolites have either reduced activity, no activity, or a changed receptor activation profile (there are two types of CB receptors, at least) and if they are mostly stowed away into compartments away from cannabinoid receptors then they may have little or no relevance to the physiology of withdrawal.

Basically, it means that having references for your claim would please me.

 

[mgidm86]

If the harmful effects of pot are so minimal as to be still open to such wide debate, then it probably is not harmful enough to worry about. It's not like people are mysteriously dying from pot use, yet others are looking very hard to find good reasons to deem it harmful and make it illegal. Why? If you have to look this hard for this long, there probably isn't a real problem.

It's known how harmful alcohol is. People die in car crashes every day, beat their wives, fight at sporting events, cancer. In other words, the harmful effects of alcohol are obvious.

And people think stoners are clueless?

My Dad asked me "Would you hire someone who smokes pot?"

"Yes. I'd fire him if he/she were stoned at work. Would you hire someone on antidepressants? Or an alcoholic who might crash your company vehicle while drunk? What kind of meds was the guy taking who shot up the theater/crowd of innocent people/office full of coworkers? Guarantee you it wasn't the pot that made him do it."

I managed a bar for several years. The pot smokers never ever caused a fight, or caused any other real problems (other than smoking pot in the parking lot).

But, whatever...

 

[Dancing David]

It implied that if the metabolites have either reduced activity, no activity, or a changed receptor activation profile (there are two types of CB receptors, at least) and if they are mostly stowed away into compartments away from cannabinoid receptors then they may have little or no relevance to the physiology of withdrawal.

Basically, it means that having references for your claim would please me.

It was a theory many moons ago, I have no idea of its follow up , just that the withdrawal potential might be mitigated. Not that you are high after the receptors are unbound.

 

[cosmicaug]

Yeah, lets start fresh.
My response was to an allegation of political machinations against minorities (and I think something about the cotton business and hemp). So I started out with the challenge that if that were so, would you expect to see prohibition worldwide -- and I think not.

However, my point doesn't mean there has to be the same rationale in every country, although I think the simplest explanation is that marijuana really is harmful (or is perceived to be harmful) pretty much across the board.

I'll also grant that the situation is different in different countries. Much like alcohol (which has demonstrable harm) a cultural tradition that includes marijuana use (such as in Mexico) will produce less harsher penalties. But I could find no country where marijuana use, sale and production was legal.

I think mostly it's illegal but sometimes the illegality is not enforced. So mostly we seem to be talking about decriminalization policies.

For instance, in India it is definitely, technically, illegal everywhere but traditions of use exist in certain states and during certain festivals and it is openly available in those contexts (it might even be regulated).

Checking Wikipedia it seems I'm mostly right:

Used during observance of certain Hindu rituals. Government-owned shops in holy cities like Varanasi sell cannabis in the form of bhang. Despite the high prevalent usage, the law makes it illegal to possess any form of the psychoactive. However, this law is rarely enforced and treated as a low priority across India. Further, large tracts of cannabis grow unchecked in the wild in many parts of northern and southern India in many states such as West Bengal, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamilnadu.[44] Many states such as West Bengal, Tripura, and the North East have their own laws allowing cannabis, locally known as ganja.

So maybe, unlike what I thought, it's even legal in some Indian states.

Since I am at it, let's check out the other oddballs by looking at the word legal. Do note that Wikipedia does not seem to be comprehensive on this (I don't see Thailand --which, IIRC, has the death penalty for cannabis traffickers). Also note that a lot of the information might be quite out of date:

Argentina:

Legal for personal use in small amounts and for consumption in private locations. Public consumption is generally accepted among young adults. Consumption for medical purposes is accepted but not legislated (only in private locations). Cultivating, selling and transporting large amounts is illegal and punishable by present laws.[

With the caveat that Wikipedia is marking the source as unreliable (it's in a website with the domain name "webehigh.com"), Iran is somewhat curious:

Growing cannabis is legal if planted for food purposes as the seeds are eaten by the Iranian people, and companies often draw oil from the seeds which is sold legally. A person is allowed to carry up to 15g of cannabis legally; for every gram above they will be charged 10000 Rials

Pakistan:

Laws prohibiting the sale and misuse of cannabis exist, but are very rarely enforced. As with hash, the occasional use of cannabis in community gatherings is broadly tolerated as a centuries old custom, despite its association with lower-income groups. The open use of cannabis by Sufis and Hindus as a means to induce euphoria has never been challenged by the state. Further, large tracts of cannabis grow unchecked in the wild.

Peru:

Possession of up to eight grams (0.28 oz) of marijuana is legal as long as one is not in possession of another drug.

Sweden:

Further information: Legality of cannabis#Sweden and Drug policy of Sweden
It is illegal to sell, transfer, purchase, use or possess any quantity of cannabis. Fines are the most common sanction in matters regarding personal use.

Switzerland:

Main article: Cannabis in Switzerland
Cannabis is illegal to possess, consume or distribute. However, usually only the minimum penalty is imposed for possession and personal use, even for larger amounts. The federal council has committed to implement changes as to decriminalization of personal use and possession already in 2001, and the parliament is currently tasked to tender concrete approaches. As nothing is coming forth on a parliamentary basis, a referendum was launched in 2008, however abolished by the voters.
As of January 1, 2012, the cantons Vaud, Neuchatel, Geneva and Fribourg have allowed the growing and cultivation of up to 4 cannabis plants per person, in an attempt to curb illegal street trafficking.

I'll skip the United States since it's not what I was wondering about.

Uruguay:

Possession for personal use not penalized; law does not specify quantity for "personal" amount.

Looking for the word decriminalized ends up with oddballs actually being rather common. So I guess I'll stop here by mentioning the countries with decriminalization in some aspect of cannabis regulation rather than actually quoting Wikipedia: Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

Note that decriminalization seems to mean vastly different things in different places. Note that I am also missing some countries which have de facto in which the Wikipedia editor didn't happen to use the word "decriminalization" (Jamaica comes to mind).

A curious case is Indonesia and I can see there that the information is obsolete. There, as of fairly recently, cannabis is legal for culinary use. As I cannot imagine this being compatible with "Personal use in small amounts: Maximum sentence of four years in prison (additional fines may apply) if caught by the police in possession, intoxication or by positive urine test." so I have to assume that those laws must have been amended (unless there's some sort of schizophrenic legal situation where they are de facto decriminalized and not enforced).

What I was interested in was another explanation, other than my guess about perceived harm, that would explain the popularity of marijuana prohibition in so many disparate countries. For example, if the UN came out with a policy (driven by US wants) and other countries signed up just to go with the flow, that would be a good explanation and it would contradict my hypothesis.

Yes, that is exactly what I contend. The US does have a lot of influence. Other countries often follow the US lead. The UN often follows the US lead. Other countries often follow the UN lead.

Thinking about it, the signature of laws being adopted by external influence would be to see countries where the laws prohibit this but where such laws are ignored, either de facto or by explicit policy (a country like Pakistan might be a good example but I can't be sure as I am not competent in history). I am not sure that I am making a terribly meaningful observation with this, though, so I will not make any strong claims of having found a "signature".

 

[cosmicaug]

If the harmful effects of pot are so minimal as to be still open to such wide debate, then it probably is not harmful enough to worry about. It's not like people are mysteriously dying from pot use, yet others are looking very hard to find good reasons to deem it harmful and make it illegal. Why? If you have to look this hard for this long, there probably isn't a real problem.

That's a good point. There's a model of addiction which involves trying to get rats to self administer drugs. I have no idea how much research effort has been spent in looking for this in cannabis but it's probably a lot. They finally achieved it a few years ago (by priming them with co-administration of cocaine even though that part was not emphasized in the press releases --if it was mentioned at all).

It's kind of like the benefits of organic food. If it takes huge literature reviews to find out whether it has real benefits it probably means that if real, tangible benefits are there they are probably not large enough to justify the much greater cost of such produce.

 

[marplots]

I think mostly it's illegal but sometimes the illegality is not enforced. So mostly we seem to be talking about decriminalization policies. (excellent analylsis and review snipped -- go back and read it!)

Let me move my goal posts in the face of the great work you've done. I think we can say that, from a paper tiger perspective, marijuana is a target for governments to address almost everywhere (leaving out some backwater in Somalia).

It's different, say, than salvia or morning glory seeds. It's closer to coca and poppies as far as I can tell. Khat I don't know about.

What is it that makes marijuana a target? My guess is the mere fact that it's psychoactive and more popular than Hawaiian rosewood. It's less popular than alcohol and tobacco. So there seems to be a range where you can regulate and expect some compliance and where you don't have to regulate at all, since no one is really using it.

For plants, particularly marijuana, I think there isn't a good place to put the boot of authority down and stamp usage out. It's too easy to grow in small, but usable quantities -- unlike coca or poppies.

Popularity probably matters too. You might expect magic mushrooms to be in the marijuana camp, since I can grow a usable quantity at home, but I don't think they reach the popularity level.

All this is why I think medical use is so important. Citizens are less likely to prohibit something their fellow citizens want on the basis of compassionate care, rather than the basis of "I want to get high."

But medical use comes with a poison pill. Scientists get involved and the active ingredients are separated from the plant as a whole. Now you have another way to regulate things and compassion is assuaged. For example, no one is calling for poppy legalization for medical care -- why should they, when we have the derivatives right on the shelf?

 

[Brown]

Call out the experts.

 

[cosmicaug]

Let me move my goal posts in the face of the great work you've done. I think we can say that, from a paper tiger perspective, marijuana is a target for governments to address almost everywhere (leaving out some backwater in Somalia).

If this was not clear before, it ought to be clear after going through that Wikipedia entry.

It's different, say, than salvia or morning glory seeds. It's closer to coca and poppies as far as I can tell. Khat I don't know about.

Clearly it is at least partly an issue of popularity. Who even knows about Salvia divinorum and morning glory seeds? In fact, a few years ago we started seeing a few scare stories about Salvia divinorum and then the talk about illegalization started. I'm not sure if the aftermath is that it has been made illegal in a handful of states or not (maybe Erowid might have that information --though they are hardly consistently up to date given the ad hoc manner in which their information gets collected). I'm not sure if these stories are still going around or if they've been supplanted by stories about "bath salts".

Danger is probably not the biggest issue here or else plants in the Datura genus would be illegal since they have the unfortunate combination of wide variability in the concentration of active chemicals in plan material and a very narrow therapeutic (recreational?) window of said chemicals. Such legal inconsistency is not necessarily a bad thing, per se (though parents of kids who manage to stupidly kill themselves in this way would probably disagree). If we do not want legal regimes enacted "for our own good" to be comprehensive (and I think that we should not) we should focus only on areas which are a significant problem.

Also, it's curious that cannabis in the United States is a schedule I substance but it's often (but not always --it depends on the state) treated as if it were, I'm guessing, something more on the level of a schedule III or IV drug. Of course, the biggest difference between the other schedule drugs and schedule I drugs (like heroin) is whether they have accepted medical applications in the US so maybe that shouldn't be totally surprising.

What is it that makes marijuana a target? My guess is the mere fact that it's psychoactive and more popular than Hawaiian rosewood. It's less popular than alcohol and tobacco. So there seems to be a range where you can regulate and expect some compliance and where you don't have to regulate at all, since no one is really using it.

For plants, particularly marijuana, I think there isn't a good place to put the boot of authority down and stamp usage out. It's too easy to grow in small, but usable quantities -- unlike coca or poppies.

I would guess that it depends on your intended use. I would think that for chewing a few coca leaves (or is it usually just stashed in one's cheek?) or making a tea every once in a while you shouldn't need huge quantities, right? Still, I have never read of any stories of people growing coca anywhere in the US so I assume it just isn't done (It might be because coca is just nut that interesting to American potential drug users). I don't know how much poppy you need to make usable amounts of opium (though I do know it requires fairly labor intensive processing).

Popularity probably matters too. You might expect magic mushrooms to be in the marijuana camp, since I can grow a usable quantity at home, but I don't think they reach the popularity level.

Mushrooms are a bad example. They are considered containers of a schedule I substance so in the US they actually share the classification of cannabis and heroin.

Now, if you talk about psilocybian mushroom spores, that's when things get fun. There are a small number of states (California is one of them) which specifically ban the spores of psilocybian mushroom. For the rest the law relies on the fact that there's apparently no psilocybin or psilocin in detectable quantities which makes them legal (though if you spoke to some DEA agent they might tell you otherwise). Of course, to get said spores there exists a high likelihood that someone, somewhere has grown these mushrooms which is illegal (though the spores could also have been collected in the wild) and the moment you allow these spores to germinate you would be breaking the law (so if you ever managed to get your hands on them you better make sure that you get them for microscopy use only*).

I suppose cannabis seeds would be a good analogy for this situation except the law of the land in the United States specifically makes them illegal, if I am not mistaken.

All this is why I think medical use is so important. Citizens are less likely to prohibit something their fellow citizens want on the basis of compassionate care, rather than the basis of "I want to get high."

I would think that one implication from widespread adoption of medical cannabis would be a rescheduling. This may not necessarily be as significant as one might think if the shift is from schedule I to schedule II (you can get in a hell of a lot of trouble for cocaine and it is schedule II). However, I suppose it is possible that once medical utility comes into play various lines of evidence alluded to in this thread could be considered to make the rescheduling into something other than schedule II. I don't see this happening soon, though. The other thing which could happen is that people might actually start taking a serious look at medical applications. As a scientist, one is likely to simply avoid the study of schedule I substances for practical reasons.

But medical use comes with a poison pill. Scientists get involved and the active ingredients are separated from the plant as a whole. Now you have another way to regulate things and compassion is assuaged. For example, no one is calling for poppy legalization for medical care -- why should they, when we have the derivatives right on the shelf?

Anything which encourages studies in the pharmacology of these compounds is a good thing, in my view.




* If you look around the internet you might notice that a lot of people seem to be interested in the microscopic observation of basidiomycetes spores and that this interest seems to have a very peculiar and almost exclusive focus on spores from the genus Psilocybes (very often P. cubensis). Yay, science!

 

[ServiceSoon]

If you'd read my posts more carefully you'd see that I'm calling for the end of the law--I want the law to not exist. So no, I'm not a philosopher-king. Do whatever you want, and if you violate the rights of others you'll suffer consequences.

If you choose not to decide (to make a law) you still have made a choice

First, this is irrelevant nonsense--demonstrably so. We allow people to do all sorts of things that can potentially harm them, or cause them to harm others; therefore, this is not the actual criteria being used to determine these laws. Second, we'll never know. I've chosen to not smoke pot, for my own reasons (same reasons as for why I don't take antihistemines or pain killers outside of medical necessity--the law doesn't come into it).

Again, that's demonstrably not the issue here. People who can't drive are a negative impact on society. People who eat too much sugar are. And so on. That's not the criteria by which the necessity of prohibition is judged, so we can ignore that line of reasoning. It's irrelevant to this discussion.

I agree what the law on various other topics that may or may not harm society, or yourself is not relevant to the discussion! That was the point of my first post and how I got involved in this dicussion in the first place. Thank you. It didn't take to long to get you here

It's ironic that you chose to use this example, for several reasons. First, I know those professionals. They don't actually work that way. What actually happens is that the government tells them what safe speeds are, based on politics. Second, it's been shown that removing speed limits doesn't actually decrease safety--people generally understand what a safe driving speed is, and drive at safe speeds. This was demonstrated by the lack of increase in accidents in areas where speed limits have been removed. So you're wrong, on numerous fronts, and your own example--viewed in terms of the real world--demonstrates that quite well.

The amount of risk based on speed isn't exactly linear. There is certainly a component of politics in these decisions. Generally they try to set the limit based on what speed the majority of drivers will travel. The reason for this is to gain the support of the "majority." If the majority of public disagrees there will be negative sentiment for the law and law enforcement. The point of this example is that the decisions and behaviors of others, in both circumstances, effects the laws set for everybody.

Besides, you're conveniently ignoring the fact that I've already addressed that: I've stated that driving under the influence of any chemicals should be considered automatic attempted manslaughter. Please note that I never said that an accident had to occur--all that I think should be required for such a sentence is driving under the influence of mind-altering chemicals. So the only actual social harm attributable to drugs (rather than to the war on drugs) has already been addressed.

I did not intend to give any indication in that example about the topic of driving under the influence. You missed my point entirely, but that's ok. Unfortunately, rights are open to interpretation and regulation when you live in society.

This is perhaps the single most disturbing--I'm very tempted to say disgusting--thing I've ever read. This is the justification for the Inquisition, verbatum. Rights aren't optional. They aren't something open to negotiation. They are inviolate. Otherwise anything--and history amply demonstrates that it will be the worst kind--will ALWAYS find some justification for violating rights. And not just property--your logic leaves open the very real possibility of rulers determining that some people need to die in order to protect others. After all, life is a right, and we've already accepted that we can violate the rights of some to protect others! Congratulations: you've just justified lynchings.

Ha ha ha! Lynchings? You just jumped off the deep end. I see common sense and logic have departed your mind. Out of curiosity what is your opinion of laws against smoking tobacco in public places?

Is that a serious question? The War on Drugs has turned sections of the Desert Southwest into WAR ZONES. There is a BODY COUNT associated with this--a body count that's as high as most wars. And the ONLY reason for it is that drugs are illegal. If drugs were legal, there'd be a few idiots that ODed, sure, but the violent gang warfare fueled by drug money? The armed drug cartels INVADING THE STATE I LIVE IN? Not so much. Importing bananas doesn't have that level of violence. Besides, read history. Alcohol prohibition presented the exact same symptoms as our current regulatory prohibitions. People selling beer aren't particularly violent. I'm in a good position to know, as I'm quite fond of ales and hefewissens.

Based on your sentiment, you agree that the majority of these deaths are rival gangs. Do you honestly think that these gangs will disperse upon the decriminalization or legalization of drugs?