Should Meth/crack be legalized?

[Eddie Dane]

Two of the above anecdotes are about cannabis.
A substance that is somewhat apart from the other drugs in that it is relatively harmless in its effects on society and in the incredible ease of production. (Processing essentially consists of drying the plants and cutting them up in little bits).
There will probably always be a black market for all drugs, but cannabis is so easy to produce that some individual will produce it to sell to minors or others who cannot get the legal stuff.

The cocaine example is more interesting.
The user perspective: harm reduction on health of the product being legal is minimal. The effect on that gentlemen's finances is not.
I guess he got in trouble due to a combination of being addicted to something he could not afford and the fact that cocaine use made him a messy bookkeeper and less productive worker (both are also affects of excessive cannabis use, BTW)
However, he became a retail outlet for organised crime. that option would probably be taken away in a legalisation scenario. Although there might still be a market for black-market cocaine if prohibition was abolished.
For instance: problematic users might be refused the product by a state-owned outlet, based on their buying behaviour. These users might refuse help and go the illegal route to get their fix.

This happens quite a lot in the Netherlands in gambling.
Gambling is essentially a government operation here, through a franchise called Holland Casino.
Gamblers are monitored, problematic gamblers are called in for a talk with the manager. If the situation does not improve, they are refused access to the casino.
There have always been illigal gambling operations, but the advent of Internet gambling has blown this system all to hell. Holland Casino is going bust actually.

 

[JJM 777]

Doesn't sound doable, or affordable.

A doc or two for a full crowded night club? Plus the stuff for a price unaffected by an illegal status. Much cheaper per person than what users now pay.

I say good information and reliable products are the solution.

The problem is that mind-blowing stuff is not safe even if the stuff itself is safe. Because of the unusual and headlong behaviour, and tireles patying without paying attention to one´s physiological needs such as thirst, that it leads to.

Your suggestion is similar to assigning a doctor to each bar and have them monitor the drinking behaviour of the customers.

Alcohol does not so radically change a person´s ability to correctly perceive reality around himself. I don´t remember any moment when I would have imagned myself to be a tomato under influence of alcohol.

There will always be a small percentage of people who will abuse any substance they can get their hands on.

Yep, but the question is, which policy leads to lowest statistical occurrence of drug-related problems in the society. Zero is impossible I guess, but little is better than much.

 

[Antiquehunter]

However, he became a retail outlet for organised crime. that option would probably be taken away in a legalisation scenario. Although there might still be a market for black-market cocaine if prohibition was abolished.
For instance: problematic users might be refused the product by a state-owned outlet, based on their buying behaviour. These users might refuse help and go the illegal route to get their fix.

I think here you have a very slippery slope. You're suggesting that there would be a 'cap' on how much 'legal' (insert narcotic substance here) you'd be able to buy. That sort of regulation will absolutely foster a black market niche where you'll see much of the same problems that we're trying to solve by suggesting legalization is the way to go. The only way to enforce such a restriction would be through laws. That would mean penalties for people who break them, and an impetus for people to find workarounds. The nature of the substances themselves doesn't lend them to have 'reasonable limits'. Under this model, I think you have the worst of both worlds. You have people who have increased access to dangerous substances, while the same societal and economic issues we have under the current structure.

From my perspective, legislative / maintenance heavy 'solutions' such as this measure of regulation and some of JIM777's ideas are just as bad if not worse than what we have today. I see this as fairly cut and dry. Either we as a society say it is OK to use drugs - even to use drugs irresponsibly, and to your personal detriment - or we continue to have a legal structure.

People are allowed to eat at McDonalds every day if they want. They're limited only by the size of sweatpants one can buy at Joe's Tent & Awning. Hell, McDonalds will even deliver in some cities. If someone buys two bottles of wine a day and drinks them every day, they might start to get recognized at the liquor store, but no one is going to stop them until they show up at the hospital with a shot liver - and even then, if they get released there is nothing to stop them from going right back to drinking irresponsibly. Why should we apply different standards to any other substance that people wish to injest?

 

[Antiquehunter]

My answer is:

Ban all drugs which are a one-way road to hell: people getting seriously hooked, demanding increasing doses, which lead to health problems.

For the rest of drugs which have potentially serious health effects, legalize them in medically controlled environments such as night clubs where a doctor is present and people might wear a wrist band that alerts the doctor if something is going wrong with somebody (for example dehydration because the raving person forgets to drink anything for hours). With some drugs the drug itself is not what kills, it is the uncontrolled behaviour changes (or dehydration after tireless partying) that kill people.

What are you smoking, and is there enough to share?

Who is going to fund a house doctor or two to hang around at a nightclub? If its user pay (ie through cover charge) then I suspect the black market dealers will be happy to see this put in place, since they'll be able to undercut.

And what insurance company is going to insure a doctor for malpractice where dangerous substances are being doled out to say... 100 clients in a nightclub atmosphere, and a doctor is supposed to provide some sort of meaningful care and attention to this dancing, spaced out mob?

People engage in all kinds of dangerous activities all the time. Whether it is driving to work, crossing the street, or bungee jumping. At some point in time it is fair to expect adults to behave as such and to accept responsiblity for their actions & what they choose to put in their body.

 

[psionl0]

Make drugs legal but don't allow drug us as an excuse for commiting crime. The war on drugs is useless and expensive.

That's my thinking but I would go further. Intoxication should be seen as an aggravating factor in the commission of a crime. Anybody committing a crime while intoxicated should face a much more severe penalty than one who commits a crime while not intoxicated.

Anybody who chooses to use drugs must be held fully accountable for their drug use.

 

[billydkid]

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'm sort of amazed that so many people casually accept the notion that the government has any business telling individuals what they may or may not ingest. You either own yourself or you do not. I you don't believe you own yourself then any talk about freedom or liberty is absurd. There are laws against people harming each other. The usual argument boils down to "drug users do bad things". Well, then punish those people who do bad things. There are plenty of drug users who lead harmless and productive lives. The drug war has cost more and done more harm than the use of illegal drugs ever has.

 

[Virus]

Not all freedoms are equal. Public nudity doesn't hurt anyone. Is public nudity an important freedom? Not really. The freedom to indulge in drugs does not enrich or benefit society.

The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one’s whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexities of human existence; a man whose appetite is his law strikes us not as liberated but enslaved. And when such a narrowly conceived freedom is made the touchstone of public policy, a dissolution of society is bound to follow. No culture that makes publicly sanctioned self-indulgence its highest good can long survive: a radical egotism is bound to ensue, in which any limitations upon personal behavior are experienced as infringements of basic rights. Distinctions between the important and the trivial, between the freedom to criticize received ideas and the freedom to take LSD, are precisely the standards that keep societies from barbarism.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a1.html

 

[psionl0]

Are you saying that if people are free to "indulge in drugs" then society will descend into barbarism?

 

[Dessi]

Not all freedoms are equal. Public nudity doesn't hurt anyone. Is public nudity an important freedom? Not really. The freedom to indulge in drugs does not enrich or benefit society.

The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one’s whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexities of human existence; a man whose appetite is his law strikes us not as liberated but enslaved. And when such a narrowly conceived freedom is made the touchstone of public policy, a dissolution of society is bound to follow. No culture that makes publicly sanctioned self-indulgence its highest good can long survive: a radical egotism is bound to ensue, in which any limitations upon personal behavior are experienced as infringements of basic rights. Distinctions between the important and the trivial, between the freedom to criticize received ideas and the freedom to take LSD, are precisely the standards that keep societies from barbarism.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a1.html

So people who enjoy LSD are "enslaved to their appetites"?
People who enjoy smoking pot "sanction self-indulgence as the highest good?"
Shroomers who admire the organic melody of raindrop hitting a roof are "radical egotists"?

Wow. Don't you think if the author actually had a serious argument to make, he could do it without totally mischarcterizing his opponents?

The article states:

And we even recognize the apparent paradox that some limitations to our freedoms have the consequence of making us freer overall. The freest man is not the one who slavishly follows his appetites and desires throughout his life

In what possible, convoluted way could you argue that restriction on me smoking pot actually increase my freedoms?

Every restriction on behavior is, be definition, a loss of freedom. People have the maximum amount of freedom in the state of nature, their behaviors are not restricted by anything but their own whims. For example:

- Prohibitions on murder are, by definition, a loss of freedom, but are inordinately practical on the basis that murder tangibly harms others and prohibitions are murder promote one's own safety and happiness.
- Paying taxes is, by definition, coercive but governments provide an enormous range of benefits like roads and public education that exceeds the burden of building those things for yourself.

If you want to restrict a person's freedom, you need to have a good reason for it, or at least explain how the restriction promotes a set of goods that people are rationally interested in. What exactly does a person gain by criminalizing recreational drug use?

(For that matter, is the comparison public nudity even valid? There are tons of spaces where people can be nude in public, New York in particular has laws which permit women to be topless wherever men can be topless, and last time I checked, I can strut around as naked as I want in my own house but I have no such freedom to light up a joint at all.)

At best, the author says drug use harms people because they are "enslaved to their appetite" -- really? On what basis does this guy distinguish the "appetite enslavement" of recreational drug use from the "appetite enslavement" and pursuit of petty whims like buying a nice car for the status system or recording your favorite shows on DVR so you can skip commercials? The author mentions in his article that people physical harm themselves using drugs, but the author appears to make no distinction self-harm that everyone is free to engage in, such as overeating, being inactive, excessive sun exposure, gambling, etc.

I'm not saying that some drugs aren't highly addicting to the point where they control people's lives, but rather the author's argument is based on such speculative, philosophical, intangible harms that its either meaningless or it unintentionally criminalizes almost all ordinary behaviors that people enjoy everyday.

One of the most striking characteristics of drug takers is their intense and tedious self-absorption; and their journeys into inner space are generally forays into inner vacuums. Drug taking is a lazy man’s way of pursuing happiness and wisdom, and the shortcut turns out to be the deadest of dead end

So this guy regards pleasure from recreational drug us as "lazy" and simply not up to his standards of how people ought to have fun, therefore drug use should be criminalized? Yeah, talk about judgemental.



I hope I'm not the only one who finds the authors reasoning somewhat less than persuasive. It seems the authors position is a blanket ban on drugs, including alcohol, which seems a rather extreme view for such speculative arguments.

Incidentally, nearly all of the arguments in that essay are eerily similar to the arguments social conservatives have used in unsuccessful attempts to criminalize pornography as well as most non-hetero sexual orientations, transgender feelings, criminalize any and all manner of "taboos" that don't actual harm people at all. (e.g. people are "enslaved by their appetite", that enjoying [porn, same-gender relationships, whatever] is a "trivial, lazy, self-absorbed" activity, that the freedom to enjoy those things sanctifies self-indulgence and ultimately dissolves society, etc).

Instead, I propose a more mainstream position that that people should take care to use drugs in moderation, have fun, be safe, and seek professional help if it becomes a problem.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Perhaps what the author is getting at is that dependence on and addiction to a drug are about as far away from freedom as a person can get. For example, if cocaine was legal there would be a lot of people who would end up addicted and more still who would be dependent on it. Such people may have made a 'free' choice to use the drug in the beginning, but future choices would be heavily influenced by the physiological and psychological need to receive the drug.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

If drugs were legalized, I don’t think we would legalize meth and crack as they exist on the street today. There are limits on the amount of alcohol that can be in beer and wine. I would expect that legalized drugs would have similar regulations regarding potency. I think meth and crack would have less concentrated legal equivalents.

ADDICTION: Some people would still do too much. It possible, and even I think likely, that there would be slightly more users of recreational drugs. There would be somewhat of a tradeoff. There would probably be slightly more people who try recreational drugs than there are now, and a fair percent of those would be people with addictive personalities who will have problems with the drugs, which may include some people who would not have tried the drugs in the first place if they remained illegal. I would think that population would be rather small. But there would also be people who want drugs who would go for the safer, lower potency, legal drugs rather than the unsafe higher potency drugs they would go for in an illegal market. There would probably be a few more addicts from the people who get into legal drugs who would not have gotten into drugs because they were illegal. It’s nearly a wash, but would probably be on the bad side of things, especially initially. But it would be better overall. We can’t get into “If it saves just one life…” when we legalize other killers, like automobiles. And overall, deaths from drugs would probably drop significantly.

TAXATION: The effect on crime would depend on how it is implemented. If decent quality drugs were available legally at prices that are less than or equal to (or even slightly over) current street value, drugs dealers would be out of business. One problem, initially, would be taxation. Politicians would likely want to tax the hell out of the drugs. If this drove the price up significantly, the drug dealers would remain in business. Cigarettes used to cost about $2 per pack. With tax increases, it is now about $6 per pack. But there isn’t a huge black market for the manufacture, distribution, and sale of black market cigarettes. But if cigarettes were illegal and available from drug dealers for about $2 per pack, and then cigarettes were legalized but costs $6 per pack, many people would stick to their drug dealers. Because an infrastructure exists for black market drugs, legalized drugs would have to, at least initially, undercut the black market prices in order to eliminate that market. After maybe 10-20 years, when the black market has been eliminated, taxes could be raised, and even raised very high like on cigarettes, without recreating a huge black market.

RESTRICTIONS: The other issues for politicians would be restrictions. The more restrictions there are, the more opportunities for a black market. Requiring prescriptions or limiting purchase amounts is going to create a black market. If some drugs are only available in safe houses, there will be some people who will want the drugs without going to a safe house who will go to the black market. But with the more dangerous drugs, we walk a fine line. We would certainly need some restrictions, but also try not to force a black market as the best alternative (and increasing punishments doesn’t seem to work well in these cases, so we would have to look at alternatives, but it would be a much smaller and more manageable problem than we have now).

CRIME: If drugs were legal (and affordable), it would take a huge blow to gangs and organized crime. The illegal drug business would become so small that it could be manageable. Many of the small-time drug dealers would just cut expenses or work more. Many (or maybe most) drug dealers aren’t interested in crime. Dealing gets them essentially free drugs, or a few extras, or possibly even supports them. But if they couldn’t deal, they would got to work. There are some who have chosen to be criminals and dealing drugs is their crime of choice. If dealing drugs is not an option, they may turn to other crimes. I don’t think most of them would go for robbery or kidnapping. Initially, theft and prostitution may rise. But at least in my area, the war on robbery or kidnapping, and even theft and prostitution, is going much better than the war on drugs. Robbers and kidnappers, and murderers are almost always found. Even thieves and prostitutes and pimps are mostly caught. If the criminals are forced to turn to actual crime, and the police are focused on actual crime, I think the gangs and criminals on the street will decreased dramatically.

REHAB: If somebody is convicted on driving under the influence, public intoxication, or any crime where the perpetrator was drunk, the court almost always orders alcohol abuse rehab. The same is true for anyone under any other illegal drug. I don’t see why this would be any different with any legalized drug.

 

[HansMustermann]

Is that really true? If someone ate 20 cigs they would likely die?

Or if a dog ate them?

As was already mentioned, you might be saved by the being extremely ill and vomiting part. It also doesn't happen instantly, so there is time to get you to a hospital and pump your stomach. It can take up to 4 hours to die from nicotine poisoning. (Though the good or bad news is that if after 4 hours you're still not dead, you'll live.)

So I wouldn't really advocate eating cigarettes as a way to commit suicide. There are better ways to go than being ill for hours. (And arguably getting some anti-depressants might be an even better choice than suicide in the first place)

But otherwise, technically, yes, there is enough nicotine in there to kill you 3-4 times over if you get all of it instead of burning most of it like happens when you smoke those cigarettes normally. And yes, you don't even need a whole 20 cigs. The average non-smoker could get a likely fatal case of nicotine poisoning out of 5 cigarettes. If you're a chain smoker and built up some resistance, you might need to gobble a 6'th cigarette to seal your own doom.

And, as you correctly suspect, this applies to pets too. And for that matter to small children. As toddlers try to chew on anything they can get their hands on, including dolls and whatnot, they'll do the same with mommy and daddy's cigarettes if they can get their hands on them. And for a small enough child even one cigarette may well be enough.

And yes, it happens. Many children each year are taken to the hospital after eating cigarette butts, or chewing daddy's nicotine-based chewing gum, or such.

ETA: it's funny really, if you think about the whole legality rhetoric. Nicotine is actually more toxic (as in, lower LD50, the dose needed to have a 50-50 chance to meet your maker) in humans than strychnine or, I kid you not, sodium cyanide. But if you kept your cyanide pills in a pocket where a kid can get to them, most people would want to crucify you for it. But cigarettes? Nah, that's harmless

 

[3point14]

Lots of good stuff

Well said.

 

[HansMustermann]

So this guy regards pleasure from recreational drug us as "lazy" and simply not up to his standards of how people ought to have fun, therefore drug use should be criminalized? Yeah, talk about judgemental.

"Puritanism : The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." H. L. Mencken

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

I think drugs could be distributed by government-run pharmacies.
Booze is distributed this way in Sweden, I think. The off-licenses are state-owned.

It would be difficult to give some of those substances a FDA approved status, as they are too harmful. Others, like LSD are too small of a social problem/cartel cash-cow to even bother with.

Things like MDMA are significantly less dangerous than for instance horseback riding.

The real dilemmas come with things like cocaine and heroine. Organised crime thrives on it, there is a big market and it is also in the top five most dangerous drugs according to professor Nutt.

Generally, I think if it's controlled enough that the government are OK with it then its probably not going to be free enough for the average user to eliminate dodgy dealing.

If we are talking about a proper industry for say Meth with big companies developing it, branding it, marketing it and paying taxes etc I wonder too what the street price would actually be for the stuff and whether there would still be a market for cheap and not so cheerful homemade alternatives?

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

I'm sort of amazed that so many people casually accept the notion that the government has any business telling individuals what they may or may not ingest. You either own yourself or you do not. I you don't believe you own yourself then any talk about freedom or liberty is absurd. There are laws against people harming each other. The usual argument boils down to "drug users do bad things". Well, then punish those people who do bad things. There are plenty of drug users who lead harmless and productive lives. The drug war has cost more and done more harm than the use of illegal drugs ever has.

Well I don't know about controlling what I ingest but I kinda see the benefit of them controlling what people are able to sell to me. I don't really have time to investigate every possible thing I might want to ingest and see if it will do me harm in the short medium or long term so I quite enjoy the mental shortcut that 'if the government says its OK to sell then it probably isn't TOO bad' gives me.

I also quite like not having to avoid crack addicts on the drive home when I'm busy trying not to run over the drunks that sometimes wander into the street. Given that I have no real inclination to try crack myself I'm OK with taking a pragmatic view of it and having the government decide that its not OK for you to ingest it and then leave the rest of us having to deal with you on crack. An ounce of prevention and all that.

 

[Information Analyst]

Who is going to fund a house doctor or two to hang around at a nightclub? If its user pay (ie through cover charge) then I suspect the black market dealers will be happy to see this put in place, since they'll be able to undercut.

And what insurance company is going to insure a doctor for malpractice where dangerous substances are being doled out to say... 100 clients in a nightclub atmosphere, and a doctor is supposed to provide some sort of meaningful care and attention to this dancing, spaced out mob?

It may be worth noting that many nightclubs in the UK already employ medics, usually qualified nurses or paramedics, and as distinct from "ordinary" first aid trained staff. You don't necessarily need fully qualified MDs on site. And these are nightclubs that are already awash with illicit drugs, being used by far more than the low number you suggest, yet medical "emergencies" are relatively rare. Someone I know who does security and is a trained first aider reckons that most of the time it's just a question of sitting with someone who's over-indulged for an hour or so while they calm down.

 

[Dessi]

Well I don't know about controlling what I ingest but I kinda see the benefit of them controlling what people are able to sell to me. I don't really have time to investigate every possible thing I might want to ingest and see if it will do me harm in the short medium or long term so I quite enjoy the mental shortcut that 'if the government says its OK to sell then it probably isn't TOO bad' gives me.

Many governments criminalize cannabis which, and let's be honest here, is the playful kitten amidst the entire ecosystem of other drugs.

And in relation to other drugs, substances like MDMA, LSD, and cannabis are about equal to each other:

Legal drugs, particularly prescription drugs are way more dangerous, particularly the hydrocodone/acetaminophen family of drugs (vicodin, percoset, lortab). There is an interesting comment about these drugs on a pain killer comparison chart:

The inclusion of high amounts of acetaminophen with all these medications is a rather CRUEL attempt by the pharmaceutical companies to prevent abuse, since overdosing will result in the destruction of the liver. I would describe this, at best, as "not very nice". The Puritanical ethic at work, destroying livers, and lives. "Let's kill off all the druggies." This is way beyond cynical.

Knowing that these drugs are abused, and then filling them up with the poisonous acetaminophen, is criminal malfeasance by the drug companies. One more reason to prosecute them.

Fed Seeks Less Acetaminophen in Combo Pain Pills - Jan. 13, 2011
FINALLY!

 

[Eddie Dane]

WTF!

I just don't know what to say about that last thing.
Is that correct? They lace a drug with a drug that causes liver damage when over used?

That sounds insane.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Thanks for the chart Dessi. I had no idea that ecstasy was that light. Not that I'm convinced of taking it, but it is certainly much less harmful than I had originally thought. But this confirms what I thought about cocaine and heroin. Meth should still be illegal too. They need to hurry up and legalize weed too. That would be great for taxation and commerce. Plus we can start a new weed paper industry. I’d love to dig my hands into a weed paper industry. Lots of bucks and cheap investment.