Why is it illegal to get high?

[sphenisc]

New Scietist Report on "legal highs"

http://www.newscientist.com/channel...-mindaltering-drugs-does-legal-mean-safe.html

 

[JFrankA]

New Scietist Report on "legal highs"

http://www.newscientist.com/channel...-mindaltering-drugs-does-legal-mean-safe.html

Excellent article! Thanks.

I've heard of Salvia, though I doubt I'll ever try it.

 

[quarky]

Legal drugs are a much bigger problem than illegal drugs, in the U.S. That should tell us something. I pity the kids that start huffing solvents for the lack of an occasional joint.

 

[Mister Agenda]

Its against the law to get high because dopers assault and murder people. meth will do that, Crack cocain will do that, PCP will do that. Alcohol will do that. Pot doesn't (as far as I know) cause violent behaviour although in my case it causes panic disorder.

I was once stalked and harrassed by a crack smoker and I had to call the police. Also one of the most miserable times I have ever spent in my life were when I had to put up with my roommates brother who was on PCP every other day. I've always associated getting high on dope with criminal activity. The drugs such as pot merely cause a person to waste a lot of time.

Ironically, drugs like PCP, crack cocaine and meth are what you get in an environment where marijuana and powder cocaine are criminalized. These are the modern analogs of bathtub gin and moonshine: more potent or concentrated highs are easier to smuggle and and conceal. It's often easier to obtain crack than it is to obtain marijuana, which is bulky and smelly and HARD to smuggle and conceal. Before Prohibition, we didn't drink much liquor, and cocktails that make hard liquor more palatable were almost unknown. Before drug prohibition we didn't smoke any crack and regular old amphetamines were all we needed for uppers. And we walked 10 miles through the snow to get to school...uphill, both ways.

 

[robinson]

Okay, there has been several threads dancing around this issue, and it may be a stupid question, but I find it interesting that getting high is illegal. Getting drunk isn't. If you are home drinking and not driving a car or hurting anyone else, even if you an alcoholic, getting drunk is legal.

Well, there are a multitude of issues in that statement. But no question yet.

First, getting "high" is not illegal. You can get high, be high, stay high, and not only will nobody care, they may never know. Alcohol is pretty much the number one drug for getting "high". So we have a strange dichotomy right off the bat here.

But what about being in your home, not driving, no hurting anyone else, but smoking pot? or snorting coke? or taking LSD? All illegal.

As somebody pointed out, the laws are about possession, and especially distribution. If you really are not harming anyone, or society, and you stay in your home, you can pretty much do what you want. At least in the USA. But that brings up the Americentric issue, in which conversations revolve around the US, maybe England as well.

Different laws for different countries. In Japan, you can't even get into the country if you have a drug record. The mountains of Columbia, a different set of rules.

But if done in the privacy of your own home, where no one else is being hurt, why?

That gets right into the philosophical, moral, religious and socioeconomic issues. As well as the Mores. Understanding the Mores will answer many questions.

In the US, the Mores have become legislated, always a bad thing. In the dark underbelly of US society, many things deemed illegal are considered normal behavior. This echos, or eflects the top levels of Government and Society, where illegal acts are considered SOP, and everybody knows it.

But to speak to the core issue, why would a society consider sitting at home being "stoned", "high", "inebriated", or whatever you call it, a bad thing? Something to be punished for?

It isn't hard to figure it out. You could apply an ancient philosophical maxim to the problem. What would happen if everybody did it?

Or, do you want children doing it?

It doesn't take long to see why all successful societies have strict limits on substances, as well as amounts of, and especially behavior while under the influence.

 

[Smackety]

Let me rephrase. Alcohol isn't chemically addictive, but it is addictive in the same way that gambling is.

Actually it is the most addictive drug - the only drug featuring frequently fatal withdrawal symptoms.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Actually it is the most addictive drug - the only drug featuring frequently fatal withdrawal symptoms.

From memory it also kills about 5 million people per year worldwide, more than every other drug including tobacco put together.

 

[gumboot]

Alcoholism is a psychological condition, not a chemical addiction.

I'm inclined to think that tobacco smoking will eventually be made completely illegal in many countries. That process is already well under way.

Alcohol is a different kettle of fish. I think it's hard to argue against the simple facts that alcohol is far more destructive and costly to society than any drug. The problem with alcohol, unlike any of the other drugs being mentioned, is that it is deeply ingrained into society. Humans have been drinking alcoholic drinks for thousands of years. It's a well established part of most cultures. Thus getting rid of it is much much harder.

Had alcohol suddenly been invented 50 years ago I suspect it would be illegal now as well.

 

[Dazed]

I think drugs are illegal because society wants you to buy an expensive car to be happy.
Society wants you to not be happy without an iphone and an ipod nano, and a cellphone and... pogs? Tomagotchis? Pokemon? Designer clothes... Whatever, you get the point.

Drugs enable you to be happy with nothing but your drugs.

The problem is apparent.
Society is geared towards keeping you hooked on some ****. Look at the way the technology industry goes, with its little incremental updates, making you rebuy your crap to keep up. Its the whole "keeping up with the joneses" mentality that keeps capitalism from crashing and burning.

In the case of pot at least, chronic users get their pleasure from living life on pot, rather than commercial fads and stuff. I think that's why it's illegal.

And to stray from pot for a minute... What about magic mushrooms? These are addictive in no way, shape or form, and I've read dozens upon dozens of recent articles about how magic mushrooms are just the greatest thing ever for depressed or mentally disturbed people.
Illegal.

Drugs represent a loss of control. Look how much effort some people/corporations put into brainwashing everybody. Paying off scientists to lie about global warming, lying about iraq, lying about everything pretty much. Potheads tend to overanalyze things and come up with paranoid theories. (if you haven't noticed) Thinking outside the box, if you will.

Can't have that.

 

[Dazed]

I feel I should mention that I'm high and that was my paranoid theory.
Take it as such.

In retrospect I missed a glaring point, If pot was regulated, the government could cash in big on it, and keep you hooked on one of it's products.

But the underlying problem is still there... namely, your mind is influenced by the drug more than CNN.

I'm sure McDonalds would have no problems with it being legalized though.

 

[JFrankA]

Potheads tend to overanalyze things and come up with paranoid theories.

Now that's scary.... I tend to overanalyze everything and I'm not a pot smoker by at all!!! Sounds like I better never start!

 

[Gurdur]

Alcoholism is a psychological condition, not a chemical addiction.

Actually, it's both, or to be more accurate, it can be both or either.

Alcoholism is a psychological condition, with a chance of a genetic predisposition.

OTOH, alcohol addiction can be chemical, psychological or both. It is entirely possible to get a lab rat or a human chemically addicted to alcohol, and when they come off the alcohol, they will suffer withdrawals. However, only around 10% of any human adult population are at risk of classical alcoholism (and are cross-addictive for opiates), so it is entirely possible to get a person chemically but not psychologically addicted to alcohol, so when they come off it they will not feel like going back onto alcohol, despite withdrawal symptoms.

The same is true for the opiates like heroin; only around 10% of any human adult population anywhere is at risk for real addiction, and in practical terms, only 1 out of every 3 who actually try heroin (in Britain, Brit stats) will use it more than four times and get addicted.

 

[Smackety]

Alcohol withdrawal can kill you. You become so chemically dependent on alcohol that the heart cannot maintain it's rhythm without it, and you die. There is no other mainstream drug that causes a life and death dependency, making it the most chemically addictive drug.
Alcohol Withdrawal

 

[gumboot]

Drugs enable you to be happy with nothing but your drugs.

I've known quite a few people who were addicted to various drugs to varying degrees. None of them were particularly happy. Many of them were quite frankly miserable.

 

[robinson]

If drugs were the answer, the only problem would be not running out.

 

[Arthur Denton]

If drugs were the answer, the only problem would be not running out.

I've known quite a few people who were addicted to various drugs to varying degrees. None of them were particularly happy. Many of them were quite frankly miserable.

I've studied with some brilliant folks. Two of the most brilliant were completely stoned persons. They made tests under the influence of hemp, cocaine and alcohol. One of them has cirrosis now, and can't drop alcohol because exactly of the withdrawal and because he associates happiness with drunken stupor: along with his wife. Bound to die. Brilliant person. The other was a dude who made tests while stoned (on hemp, cocaine, whatever he got his hands into). His average was around 95% of success in all tests, even with drugs, and he wasn't a guy who studied hard. Married a woman who allowed him to smoke hemp at home, divorced, is currently trying to take his life back - smoking. Both brilliant. Both suffered with withdrawal and admit it. Both lives damaged. That's why I never tasted hemp, got really drunk two or three times in my life and I'm currently trying to drink wine only, with my father, and that only because he has made his cellar with my help.

Drugs suck. Really.

 

[gumboot]

Alcohol withdrawal can kill you. You become so chemically dependent on alcohol that the heart cannot maintain it's rhythm without it, and you die. There is no other mainstream drug that causes a life and death dependency, making it the most chemically addictive drug.

That's rather debatable. Alcoholics only get to a point of dependency after substantial periods of continuous substance abuse, consuming enormous quantities. Fatal withdrawal symptoms (Delirium tremens) typically appear in severe cases where alcoholism has significantly degenerated the person's health.

Most users of other drugs never get even remotely close to that level of substance abuse because fatal overdose occurs first, and sustaining that level of drug input is virtually impossible. But numerous other drugs - both legal and illegal - can have potentially fatal withdrawal symptoms, including cocaine, heroin, a lot of antidepressants, anticonvulsants, beta blockers and corticosteroids.

 

[Dazed]

I've known quite a few people who were addicted to various drugs to varying degrees. None of them were particularly happy. Many of them were quite frankly miserable.

Quite true, I'm sure.
I guess it would be more accurate to say that they make you not care if you're really happy, or trick you into thinking you are. While you're on them anyway.

 

[Smackety]

That's rather debatable. Alcoholics only get to a point of dependency after substantial periods of continuous substance abuse, consuming enormous quantities. Fatal withdrawal symptoms (Delirium tremens) typically appear in severe cases where alcoholism has significantly degenerated the person's health.

I agree, and since we agree, I am not sure what debate there is to have.

Most users of other drugs never get even remotely close to that level of substance abuse because fatal overdose occurs first, and sustaining that level of drug input is virtually impossible. But numerous other drugs - both legal and illegal - can have potentially fatal withdrawal symptoms, including cocaine, heroin, a lot of antidepressants, anticonvulsants, beta blockers and corticosteroids.

You are right, there are cases of addicts dying during withdrawal from other drugs, and some non-mainstream drugs that cause a more deadly chemical dependency than alcohol. This does change the fact that alcohol withdrawal is potentially fatal, more than any other mainstream drug.

Saying that alcohol is not chemically addictive is incorrect.

 

[JFrankA]

Regarless whether it is chemically addictive or not, is this a reason to make it illegal?

I mean, I know it was stated earlier that cigarettes are getting more and more illegal, but I have yet to see it being illegal to smoke in your own home.

I just can't believe that something can be illegal because it's addicting - chemically or no.

(And I must apologize to the rest of the world, here, I know I'm being very USA centric, I am simply because I really don't know the details of the law in other countries. Please add that information to the discussion, Thanks).