Should Meth/crack be legalized?

[Eddie Dane]

As many of you may know I favour legalization of drugs.

As a general line, I've long thought that all drugs should be legalized.

However, I watched Meth in Montana on Youtube yesterday.
It seems that Meth is actually as bad as the government has always claimed drugs are.
Meth is thankfully rare in Europe, so I didn't know much about it.

It doesn't seem to destroy just a small percentage of users that cannot handle it, but rather all users.
Addiction comes fast, even after the first time.
The substance causes great physical deterioration, though this might be the result of impurities as the ingredients are isolated from battery acid and Drano.

So what I'm pondering is this:
Should we ever stop the war on drugs, should we legalize all drugs or keep the worst of them illegal?
Would there still be a market for them? Would a person who could buy legal cocaine still buy illegal meth?
Would keeping some substances illegal still provide a significant marketplace for criminals? Or would the availabilities of legal, superior substances kill that market (almost) entirely?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

Would keeping some substances illegal still provide a significant marketplace for criminals?

I think so.

Or would the availabilities of legal, superior substances kill that market (almost) entirely?

So long as criminals can offer a cheaper or novel fix and make a profit they will be in the recreational drugs business.

 

[Reivax]

Should we ever stop the war on drugs, should we legalize all drugs or keep the worst of them illegal?

It's not an easy question. You'd have to analyze and see if the banning of some of 'worst' ones would outweigh the alternative of allowing them to be legalized, which in turn may allow them to be moderated and may reduce the number of impure imitations. As you said in some cases:

ingredients are isolated from battery acid and Drano.

I think consistency is important as well. Currently, legal drugs such as nicotine, alcohol and caffeine have been said to be more addictive than other illegal drugs, and as we are aware cigarettes and alcohol are big culprits for the death of many. However, due to lack of research, I'd say it's premature in saying where they all stand in terms of their detrimental effects and addictiveness.

There are a lot of drugs out there as well as many analogues, so to fully decide what their impact is and how people respond to them, there would have to be significant testing and experimentation. Even with some more common drugs, there is a lot of research that still needs to be done.

That's my 2 cents anyway.

 

[Virus]

Probably not. It's banned for a reason.

 

[Skepticemea]

Probably not. It's banned for a reason.

So is gay marriage in some states of the US.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Probably not. It's banned for a reason.

Everything is banned for a reason it does not mean it is a good reason or that the ban is the most effective means of helping those hurt by it.

I mean pot is banned to keep the Mexicans in their place and cocaine is banned because it makes blacks into white woman raping machines.

The harmful effects tend to ne secondary to control at least in the initial push to ban.

As for the documentary if it is case studies you can do the same with most any drug. I am sure you can find plenty of really messed up alcoholics to make a alcohol in Missouri documentary.

 

[JFrankA]

As many of you may know I favour legalization of drugs.

As a general line, I've long thought that all drugs should be legalized.

However, I watched Meth in Montana on Youtube yesterday.
It seems that Meth is actually as bad as the government has always claimed drugs are.
Meth is thankfully rare in Europe, so I didn't know much about it.

It doesn't seem to destroy just a small percentage of users that cannot handle it, but rather all users.
Addiction comes fast, even after the first time.
The substance causes great physical deterioration, though this might be the result of impurities as the ingredients are isolated from battery acid and Drano.

So what I'm pondering is this:
Should we ever stop the war on drugs, should we legalize all drugs or keep the worst of them illegal?
Would there still be a market for them? Would a person who could buy legal cocaine still buy illegal meth?
Would keeping some substances illegal still provide a significant marketplace for criminals? Or would the availabilities of legal, superior substances kill that market (almost) entirely?

I completely agree with you here. And this is something that, being on the side of legalizing all drugs, I've been pondering this same question for not only Meth, but for other drugs such as Heroin, LSD, PCP, etc.

If there is complete legalization, there has to be something in place to dispense and keep track of what and how a drug is being made, who is taking it, how much they are taking, what they are mixing that drug with and how often they are dosing.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I completely agree with you here. And this is something that, being on the side of legalizing all drugs, I've been pondering this same question for not only Meth, but for other drugs such as Heroin, LSD, PCP, etc.

If there is complete legalization, there has to be something in place to dispense and keep track of what and how a drug is being made, who is taking it, how much they are taking, what they are mixing that drug with and how often they are dosing.

Why?

 

[Information Analyst]

As many of you may know I favour legalization of drugs.

As a general line, I've long thought that all drugs should be legalized.

However, I watched Meth in Montana on Youtube yesterday.
It seems that Meth is actually as bad as the government has always claimed drugs are.
Meth is thankfully rare in Europe, so I didn't know much about it.

It doesn't seem to destroy just a small percentage of users that cannot handle it, but rather all users.
Addiction comes fast, even after the first time.
The substance causes great physical deterioration, though this might be the result of impurities as the ingredients are isolated from battery acid and Drano.

So what I'm pondering is this:
Should we ever stop the war on drugs, should we legalize all drugs or keep the worst of them illegal?
Would there still be a market for them? Would a person who could buy legal cocaine still buy illegal meth?
Would keeping some substances illegal still provide a significant marketplace for criminals? Or would the availabilities of legal, superior substances kill that market (almost) entirely?

It seems to me that methamphetamine in particular flourishes because in some places it is the only or by far the most easily available drug. It's notable that in the United States and Australasia, methamphetamine is a common substitute for MDMA, because MDMA is much more scare. Conversely, in Europe methamphetamine is hardly ever encountered as a substitute for MDMA.

It's also worth considering that in the UK while mephedrone and other cathinones wer still legal and easily obtainable, cocaine use dropped dramatically, and so did the number of deaths associated with it. It seems very much to be the case that the easy availability of a legal high under-cut a more dangerous illegal drug. Unfortunately, the press rabidly pursued a campaign that mephedrone was causing deaths, virtually none of which we now know to be true.

Contrary to the "gateway" theory, it is probably more the case that the vast majoirty of users are satisfied with a certain level of "high," while those who aren't would have gone on to something stronger, regardless of whatever weaker intermediate was available, anyway.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I guess it depends on why you support legalizing drugs. If you believe a person has a right to put something in their bodies because he or she is the only person to own it, then it is hypocritical to keep it illegal.

If you want to keep meth illegal then you are not on that side. You want to substitute your judgement for theirs; like other prohibitionists. You know the old joke about we already know what you are, we are just haggling over the price.

 

[Max_mang]

cocaine is banned because it makes blacks into white woman raping machines.

Who's on the what now??

 

[HansMustermann]

Who's on the what now??

Sadly enough, yes, that was the main bogeyman in the campaign to make it illegal in the first place. Most drug scares rode on such xenophobic and/or racist scares. Opium was supposed to make the Chinese rape white women. Cocaine was supposed to do that for the blacks. Cannabis was supposed to make the Mexicans all scary and lawbreaking. I guess when peddling something to racist twits, tying it to their own prejudices and fear of some minority makes it an easier sell.

 

[Darat]

I completely agree with you here. And this is something that, being on the side of legalizing all drugs, I've been pondering this same question for not only Meth, but for other drugs such as Heroin, LSD, PCP, etc.

If there is complete legalization, there has to be something in place to dispense and keep track of what and how a drug is being made, who is taking it, how much they are taking, what they are mixing that drug with and how often they are dosing.

If there was complete legalisation I wonder how popular some of the illegal drugs which are claimed to be very harmful would be? For example would people not be quite happy with heroin rather than trying something else?

 

[Darat]

Why?

Safety. But I wouldn't deal with it by regulating certain drugs, just expand on when it is appropriate to question what drugs you are on. It would just be an extension of how we currently regulate this, for instance the "do not operate machinery when taking this drug" or you can't drive with a level of above X of Y in your bloodstream.

 

[NoahFence]

So is gay marriage in some states of the US.

Gay marriage doesn't screw you up to the point where you can't function in everyday life.

: no it shouldn't be legalized. Pot, sure. Even that's iffy as being high impares your reflexes. So you can't drive high. Coke, meth, crack? NO WAY. May as well legalize acid.

 

[HansMustermann]

@Eddie Dane:
Well, have you considered what alcohol does to the body? And I'm not just talking about the liver. How does a sponge-like brain sound to you? (Granted, via lack of vitamin B1, but severe alcoholism does that.)

I mean, even the addiction, we're not talking as in "I feel unmotivated without my drug", but as in, severe enough alcohol withdrawal can actually KILL you. Stone dead. Down in the ground with dirt on your head.

And not only that, but unlike some drugs which seem to be maligned with those claims without actual data to support them, alcohol

- does make you dumber. Even without getting to the stage of killing neurons, the changes in synapses seem to actually affect you.

- does have a well known link to domestic abuse. (Think, the stereotypical angry drunk husband.)

- does correlate with rape

- does cause psychotic episodes, especially alcohol withdrawal (it's funny how that gets blamed on hash, when hash actually wasn't shown to do that, but alcohol is well known to do that.)

- does cause people to be killed every year, e.g., in car accidents (where by comparison hash was not shown to cause much impairment)

Etc.

If we don't forbid that one -- and, really, we can't, same as with drugs -- then why should we bother with cocaine or meth?

But really, ok, alcohol sounds bad, and is considered a vice, and all. But how about caffeine? Withdrawal syndrome includes headaches, irritability, an inability to concentrate, drowsiness, insomnia and pain in the stomach, upper body, and joints. It's physiological addiction fair and square.

But since it's legal and relatively accessible, you don't see people mugging for money for coffee. Nor, to answer your question, much of black-market for caffeine substitutes brewed in someone's bathtub.

 

[CJW]

I wonder what would happen if the government provide crack, coke, pot, heroine etc. free to anyone who wanted it for two years. Ridiculously extreme - but what do you think would happend to drug cartels and the drug related violence? The cost of law enforcement? the state of society?

 

[brodski]

I wonder what would happen if the government provide crack, coke, pot, heroine etc. free to anyone who wanted it for two years. Ridiculously extreme - but what do you think would happend to drug cartels and the drug related violence? The cost of law enforcement? the state of society?

we used to do that in the UK with heroin. The explosion in use, addition and socially damaging effects occurred sometime after we stopped.

 

[L.Y.S.]

I grew up in black neighborhoods in the early 90s when crack nearly tore our communities apart. I'm all for the legalization of drugs like marijuana which have little medical side effects or long term damaging effects, but crack and Meth are simply too destructive and I've seen the destructive potential of each. Meth in particular has more of an effect as a suburban drug, and it's nicknamed "the mom drug" because so many stay at home moms take the drug and invariably rip apart their entire families.

As I've said before, I support the integration of light drugs (marijuana, alcohol, some synthetic drugs (buzz without the negative effects)), hardcore destructive drugs however, I generally would like to keep those illegal. I think it’s worth fighting to keep drugs like that off the streets and although there will be a black market for those the social cost of keeping those types of drugs off the streets are much more beneficial than legalizing them. I can of course speak from firsthand experience on this situation. To legalize crack or meth would be a horrible idea.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

Contrary to the "gateway" theory, it is probably more the case that the vast majoirty of users are satisfied with a certain level of "high," while those who aren't would have gone on to something stronger, regardless of whatever weaker intermediate was available, anyway.

There might be a substantial number of people whose lives would be ruined if recreational drugs became more easily available.