Drug Legalization

[RoyJackson]

"Difficulty understanding simple ideas.

Paranoia and hallucinations (visions of things not really there).

Interference with normal daily activities.

Undependable and irresponsible behavior.

Difficulty learning and making wise decisions.

Loss of physical and mental motivation.

How would you like to have most people in your towns with these symptoms working for you, or for your town government making critical decisions about you life?"

Actually...sometimes I think they're already stoned!!!

Like it or not..people are going to get whacked out. I was a "Child of the 60's" and did my experimentation back then.

I just do not think the "Drug War" is worth all the adverse side affects. We, as a country, need to prioritize our expenditures. With the stock market diving (or, in my opinion..correcting itself to realistic values), revenues at the federal, state and local levels are plunging. We cannot fix all the problems..nor keep everyone happy.

From my point of view, the 25 Billion (plus any other costs) spent on the "Drug War" could be better utilized elsewhere..like maybe putting some of it back in my wallet.

 

[Scott_in_WVA]

Hey..what goes here???
I made a post a couple of weeks ago asking "should mariuanna be legalized"and the post was quickly yanked and I was sent a private message saying the discussion of illegal drugs was not allowed on this forum./w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

 

[hosejockey2002]

Re: Drug Legalization [re: RoyJackson] Reply




I do not think drugs should be legalized for recreational use. medical use is a whole different story. and I agree that a lot of money is being made off illegal drug sales. but with the long term side effects of drug use, what would happen to health insurance costs when they have to start treating people for these effects. plus the burden these people would put on our society. look at some of the effects of just marijuana use. and this is considered by some to be harmless.

MARIJUANA, MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS...

Hard to keep track of time and/or reduced short-term memory.

Unable to perform tasks requiring concentration, like driving, swimming, playing sports, reading, and writing.

Difficulty understanding simple ideas.

Paranoia and hallucinations (visions of things not really there).

Interference with normal daily activities.

Undependable and irresponsible behavior.

Difficulty learning and making wise decisions.

Loss of physical and mental motivation

For alcohol, you can say all of the above, as well as liver and gastrointestinal damage. I'm not a pot smoker, and probably wouldn't be even if it was legal, but I think alcohol use is at least as likely as pot use to make someone dysfunctional. There are lots of functional light to moderate drinkers (like me), and I am sure there are many functional light to moderate pot smokers. What slays me is that our government collects untold millions of dollars in taxes on alcohol sales, and then pisses a good part of it away on trying to stop marijuana. If we legalized pot and taxed it, then maybe we could put a dent in the use of truly destructive drugs like heroin, cocaine and methamphetimine.

 

[Wingnut]

my opinion is that I just love all the one-sided talk about the benefits of legalizing drugs. Everyone talks about the high cost of policing.
What about the high cost of not policing? Should they just let obviously incapable people drive because they blow negative on a breathalyzer?Should we let psychotics off after they blow away a college class after smoking some strong weed?
Where do we draw the line? Grass is ok but coke, smack and crack aren't?
We legalize it, there are ramifications .... like those folks that grow this stuff ... mostly in anti-American countries ... have even more money to use in terrorism.
Although grass is supposedly fairly innocuous, what about the stuff most pot-smokers graduate to? How harmless is coke, heroin, all the chemical stuff? Want a meth lab in your backyard?

Oh, and by the way, my attitude comes from experience. Have a cousin (from my weathly uncle's side) wo's spent a great deal of time in jail as a dope dealer ... and certainly isn't a great member of society now. I understand he's no longer welcome at home since he adsconded with a bunch of paintings to sell for his fix.
And I have a sister who, after years of beer and grass, shows all the classic signs of paranioa and is becoming very - well, to use a medical/scientific word - wacko.
Sure, legalize it ... but legalize my right to blow away anyone selling in on my street.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

"what would happen to health insurance costs when they have to start treating people for these effects. plus the burden these people would put on our society. look at some of the effects of just marijuana use."
Actually, as perhaps the resident Old Fart in this discussion, the health insurance system has already been nearly destroyed by treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. Since I won't threadjack, and my arthritic fingers are sore, I'll only briefly illustrate.
In the 50s, we considered ourselves lucky to have "hospital insurance" that paid the costs of hospitalization.
In the 60s, coverage was added that provided payment for Doctors in hospital.
In the 70s, Pregnancy and childbirth became covered, and the bleeding hearts demanded coverage for alcohol rehab.
Health insurance rates skyrocketed from $35 a month to $90 a month.
Thru the 80s, coverages continued to be added, and rates went up.
The 90s gave us the HMO concept, and we all know about rate increases.
Today, we have a pathetic health care delivery system, rates that are breaking the bank, and the insurance carriers are getting richer.

I'll guarandamtee that when Smith & Wesson or some other manufacturer markets a breathalizer that can determine Pot intoxication with equal accuracy to the current generation of alcohol sensors, pot will be decriminalized, and we'll see arrests for Driving while Doped.

A second guarantee is that the government and all the drug enforcment agencys do not want to eliminate illegal drugs. If drugs are eliminated what will all the cowboy enforcers do for a living. What other field of endevor will give them paid entertainment?

 

[gws]

If we would have a real war on drugs the problem could be reduced. So far most the only casualities are US citizens.

How about monthly bombings of south american popy fields with napalsm to solve the problem. How about a real war with real soldiers on forigen soil. Ther war on drugs was a joke. It spend more time in punishing people than stopping supplies. You need to eliminate the drug at the source along with those providing the product.

 

[hosejockey2002]

<font color=blue>Sure, legalize it ... but legalize my right to blow away anyone selling in on my street. </font color=blue>

If it were legal no one would be selling it on your street- they would buy it at a store, like liquor.

I am not in favor at all of decriminalizing hard drugs like heroin, coke or meth, just pot. In my 14 years in the fire service, I have never seen someone die from a pot overdose. I have seen quite a few deaths from the other drugs, but I have seen far more deaths caused by alcohol, in the form of car crashes, alcohol related health problems, and acute alcohol overdoses. I just think it's rather ironic that the two legal drugs in our country, tobacco and alcohol, cause more deaths than all the illegal drugs combined. I don't know the statistics, this is just my personal observation.

 

[Ozarker]

Your list describes the average alcoholic.

 

[patrickg]

Ozarker, et all: Libertarians would not require motorcyclists to wear helmets nor drivers to use seatbelts or put their kids in child seats/restraint-contraptions even though in our ever more socialistic PC society WE THE TAXPAYERS are asked to pick up the tab, MEDICAL and otherwise through loss of productivity for the results of unsafe practices. We need to normalize a lot of things. Let those not inclined to use safety devices NOT BE ELIGIBLE FOR ANY repeat ANY subsidized medical services, unemployment due to injury exacerbated by not using safety devices and so forth. As a group, under the current political climate, you couldn't deny a child medical treatment because a parent was stupid nor deny converage to the parent for his own injury because we are not logical and often not rational.

There is a cost to "doing the right thing" whatever that is. Status quo is costly. Legalization would be costly, just different costs to different people. It is naive in the extreme to think we would achieve utopia if only some currently illegal drug(s) were not illegal. Decriminalization would not make a utopia just a different kind of he!!.

Some of my feelings re the "war on drugs" is similar to my feelings about the war in Viet Nam. I was gung ho but grew to be quite ambivalent. We likely shouldn't have been there doing what we were doing. We should have done a far better job of what we claimed to be there for or stayed out. We are pursuing the same half a--ed approach to the war on drugs, trying to make it all better without pi--ing anyone off. We should defecate or remove our hindquarters from the porceline receptical. Drugs have placed our nation in a condition of extremis. Wishing will not make it all better. Legalization is a form of wishful thinking.

Positive measures, although extreme if the problem weren't so big and dangerous, are required. Consider amputation. Isn't is better to lose ones leg than your life? A bounty on illegal drug sellers payable to private citizens with a lisc gained in a mandatory class and practical weapons training with demonstrated proficiency would go a long way to making a difference in the war on drugs. What better way for an ex serviceman to serve his country while employing skills that cost the taxpayer so much to instill. Mount video cameras on riot guns, if that is what it takes and take back the street corners and housing projects from the dope dealers. Remove a vital link in the infrastructure of the dope distribution chain and growers/importers are disconnected from customers. If you can't sell it easily, demand for importation would drop drastically. Oh sure, stock brokers will still snort their nose candy through rolled up 100 dollar bills but total tonnage and availability on the schoolyard could be reduced.

I truly believe the country to be in a state of emergency that could be helped by partial martial law where the afore mentioned lisc citizen meets the mimimum evidentiary requirements required under the "emergency conditions" and proceeds to blow away anyone selling dope on or near a school, regardless of their age, creed, color, or national origin. If that seems to extreme, have the citizens (require two or more witnesses) show their evidence (video or whatever) to the equivalent of a grand jury and if the grand jury agrees they issue a dead or alive warrant for the suspect. Due process is a great and noble concept when we have the luxury to apply it. In a war for the survival of our great nation, as in a regular old fashioned shooting war, you don't arrest the enemy, appoint them legal council, and have a trial with plea bargaining and 3 hots and a cot at our expense. You fire for effect!

You could probably extend this to tagging and make some progress there too but some might think that extreme.

Patrick

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Ah-Ha!! I knew it! You are a liberal! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif