I get where you're coming from Graybeard, but it looks like you've bought into government anti-drug brainwashing propaganda pretty hard. I used to be the same way.
Countries that have legalised drugs have not had happy histories; [after legalization]
This is not necessarily true, for example drug use dropped in Portugal after legalization.
[1]The idea is to restrict the amount of unhappiness. At the moment we have "X", do you want "X+drugs"?
False. You seem to be forgetting that drugs are already widely available and used. So, the truth is that at the moment we already have "X+drugs". The war on drugs has not, will not, and can not stop people from using them. What I would like to see is realistic prevention goals based on education and ridiculous overly-harsh punishments dropped. Punishment does not prevent use, in fact drugs are more widely available and used in prison than on the outside. Treatment and counseling would be far more effective and cheaper, but the government wants you to believe that imprisonment is a better solution because our politicians personally benefit financially from their investments in privately run prisons.
I think you are deliberately missing the point. Motorbikes and alcohol are experiences that most of us survive. Drugs are quite different.
False. Most people who do drugs survive. Marijuana in particular has never been cited as a direct cause of death, while more than 4,000 people per year die in motorcycle accidents in the US alone
[2]. Want to talk about hard drugs? Sure, 8,000 people die from cocaine and heroin use every year. Compare that to the 80,000
[3] that die from alcohol, and the 400,000
[4] that die from smoking. (Or even more sickeningly, the 500,000 that die from obesity.)
A slow, vile way of the crumbling of the character; a person you loved, changing to someone you don't know and don't want to know.
False. An over-dramatization. I could say the same thing about a minority of alcohol users, computer game addicts, or heavy metal music fans. This does not happen to the vast majority of drug users.
I could compare it accurately to self-induced Alzheimer's.
False. There are many different kinds of drugs with a wide range of effects. Some negative, some positive, some long term, some temporary. Prolonged use of tofu can lead to memory loss and dimentia
[5], and yet it is still legal.
Life is filled with danger, most of us make it through until something bad gets us. why do we want more things that cause misery.
False. Yet again you are assuming that right now we are living in a world without drugs. The drugs are already here. I'm not suggesting we add more, I'm suggesting we
reduce the misery in the world by eliminating unnecessary and demonstrably useless prosecution which destroys lives more than the drugs themselves.
So you are wanting universally free legal drugs? Yeah, good luck with that.
Clarified that for you. And it's already heading that way. In the past 5 years, more than 20 countries have taken steps to decriminalize or legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use
[6]. In most countries where it remains illegal, prison sentences have been replaced by fines, community service, and/or addiction counseling. Few countries still cling to harsh prison terms to deal with personal drug users.
right, you are agreeing that druggies are basically unemployable.
False. Do you see how you moved the goalpost there, then claimed that I agreed with your refined statement? I said I would not hire a crack addict. I did not say they were unemployable. The fact is that many crack addicts
are employed. Then you changed from "crack addicts" to "druggies" as if the two terms were interchangeable. They are not. Crack addicts are at the low end of the scale, but on the other end many drug users are highly functioning, capable, and successful.
Our last 3 presidents for example.Also, why are alcoholics and smokers employable but "druggies" are not? Not necessarily because of any effect of the drugs, but by the negative social stigma associated with drug use. If drugs were legalized, drug users would be seen no differently than smokers or drinkers, and they would be much more able to find work.
So, what do we do? Let them starve because they made the decision?
First, you have assumed that I agree that all drug users are unemployable. I did not.
Second, you are forgetting that there are already starving drug addicts on the streets. Not only has your war on drugs failed to prevent that, but it also has created a situation where addicts are afraid to seek therapy and counseling for fear of prosecution, thereby damning them to a cycle of continued abuse.
You have just spent a lot of time telling me how motorbikes and drugs like alcohol do affect others.
No I haven't, but that's an entirely seperate point. My point was that we shouldn't ban something that
can harm an individual but in the vast majority of cases doesn't harm others.
In the case of things that
can harm others but in the vast majority of cases doesn't, we should just punish those who do not act responsibly and harm others. We don't ban guns in the US, but that doesn't mean you are free to shoot people. We don't ban alcohol, but that doesn't mean you are allowed to drink and drive. Most gun owners do not shoot people and most drinkers do not drink and drive.
Drunk-driving accounts for more deaths than marijuana, cocaine, and heroin combined, yet alcohol is still legal. We could ban alcohol, but we tried that and it didn't work.
Banning drugs on the premise that drug use hurts the individual is a violation of personal freedom, and it doesn't prevent drug use.
Banning drugs on the premise that drug use hurts others is putting the cart before the horse, and it doesn't prevent drug use.
I would be more interested in the percentage of cases of thoses who listen to music and then cause great harm to society.
I've got a bad knee, so I hope you don't mind if I just hang back here at the last goalpost
alter behaviour to the danger of the user and others instead of hiking way down the field to your new goalpost
cause great harm to society.
So an example of music altering behavior to the danger of the user and others -- mosh pits.
I'm wondering what country you're in. Here we have "Drunk and disorderly" offence, applicable before the fight occurs. Here we have breathalysers that stop drunks before they do damage.
You don't punish for the drunk part, you punish for the disorderly part. And breathalysers stop drunks before they do damage? How nice it must be to live in a country with absolutely no drunk driving accidents. Which country is that by the way?
Your Strawman, It would be ridiculous to punish everyone who drinks as if they've already caused harm. only makes me think that you have no real arguments. Have a look at the correlation between consumption and harm; and I mean harm is the sense of harm to the consumer and to society.
Do you honestly believe that all illegal drugs combined cause more damage than alcohol? Let alone alcohol
and tobacco. My god, is the effect of government propaganda that strong that you really believe that?
Ah, all for State control, eh? No private enterprise? No "private drug pushers? Why? What's your problem?
I do not understand what you're saying here. I clearly said the state should regulate the drugs, I did not say the state should produce them.
You're in another world, aren't you? How many accidental deaths through guns? How many cases of poisoning? And you are happy with more, just because you have a poorly thought out plan?
Yet aaaaaaagain, you're presuming a world where drugs do not currently exist. Don't you think this is already happening now? Is it possible that with legalized and regulated drugs coming in child-proof containers instead of plastic baggies that
fewer children would get poisoned?
I earlier said that alcohol is a part of our culture and is, by and large enjoyed responsibly. After I have a pint of beer, I'm not basically a different person. I don't worry where my next beer is coming from. I don't worry that my boss will sack me. I don't worry that my veins might collapse or septicaemia might develop.
You are again painting broad with a broad brush dipped in confirmation bias.
Marijuana is a part of our culture and is by and large enjoyed responsibly.
Many alcohlics do become basically a different person when they drink. They do worry where their next beer is coming from. They do worry that their bosses will sack them.
Many drug users do not become basically a different person when they use. They do not worry where their next hit is coming from. They do not worry that their bosses will sack them.
Only the hardest drugs lead to the kind of crippling addiction you describe, and only by the most irresponsible of users. Even then, is it society's responsibility to protect these people from themselves when we don't protect others from other kinds of self-destructive behavior. And I use the word 'protect' loosly, if destroying a live by imprisonment can be called protection.
Who pays the bill? Does your insurance company cover cocaine addicts of meth users?
Who pays the bill?
We fucking do. Who do you think pays for inmates' medical care in prisons? Legalize it and we wouldn't have to! We would also save $50 billion per year housing and feeding them.
If it were legal, it would shift the burden of addict medical care cost to the addict himself. Does insurance cover the health problems of alcoholics, smokers, fatties, and adrenaline junkies? If so it should cover other forms of intentional avoidable personal health abuse too.
Would that drive up the cost of insurance for everyone else? Not by much. Do you have any concept of the astronomical cost to deal with tobacco and obesity related illnesses? I'll give you a hint, it dwarfs the cost of all illegal-drug related medical care about like the Sun dwarfs Mars.
Can't afford insurance? Well then you would be in the same boat as everyone else who doesn't have insurance. Get help from a charity, friends and family, go into debt, or die. People die every day because they can't afford medical care, and not just "druggies".
So far you have tried to equate heroin with motorbikes, and beer. Now you drag in eggs (eggs! FFS!) and make some vague and uncertain facts as if I would be impressed. Oh, and "complex artificial food additives and preservatives." Complex, eh? Well we can't possibly know anything about complex stuff! You must be right!!!!111! - Appeal to ignorance.
And your statement "What do we know of the long term ills of every possible drug?" is not an appeal to ignorance? Which is why I threw another appeal to ignorance about food back at you, which obviously went over your head.
You have reverted to the argument that goes, "I once knew a man who was hit on the head with a hammer and survived, so we all should be able to hit people on the head with bricks."
False. My argument is that
most drug users, including the past 3 presidents, have gone on to live happy, successful and productive lives.
But it does hurt others doesn't it? Families are destroyed, personalities disintegrate, health issues arise.
No, not usually. It does not hurt others in every case, only extreme cases. The same could be said of alcohol.
Here drugs are categorised by the harm they do to society. They all harm society. Society only wants so much harm. That harm is provided by tobacco and alcohol. Yet you would have more?
So many flaws in that statement.
First, you are, yet again, assuming a world where drugs do not currently exist. You are assuming I am suggesting we add something to society that is not already here. I am not. You are assuming that legalizing drugs would increase the harm to society. That has not been proven.
You are also ignoring all of the harm that the war on drugs itself has caused, such as empowering gangs, funnelling vast amounts of cash to corrupt governments where drugs are produced, violence against police and civilians, over a million prisoners in the US alone serving time for drug charges at a cost of over $50 billion per year not to mention the loss of a million workers in the work force and their contribution to the tax base. Legalize drugs and that all goes away overnight.
Every now and again, some poster comes up with this idea. "I know let's make all drugs legal." Not one of them has ever given any solid proposals or costed their scheme.
There are many well-written and thouroughly researched proposals to legalize drugs by people with more knowledge of the subject than you or I. Former US surgeon general Jocelyn Elders for example is in favor of the legalization of marijuana.
[7] the Transform Drug Policy Foundaton has some very good evidence-based research to support legalization, and their proposals have gained support from dozens of MPs, MEPs, AMs, Peers, Civil servants, Parliamentary committees in the UK.
[8] I can't force you to read them, but don't try to claim that they don't exist.
Not one of them has ever thought, "Why introduce more s**t into the world?"
Right. Because right now drugs don't exist.
None of them say, "Well if it all goes wrong, I'll take the blame. I'll admit that I was wrong and compensate all those people whose lives are now a mess and their families who are worried sick."
Explain to me why tobacco and alcohol are legal, in the context of your statement. Who takes the blame for those deaths, who admits they were wrong?
There is a better scheme. It worked to an extent in the UK. Do your research.
Be more specific. What are you referring to? Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union. Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.
[9] I'm not sure the UK is a model for anyone to follow.
