OK -- Debate on Drugs

Blah Blah Blah....
nah you dont even REMOTELY look the part of a pothead do ya?

BIG BROTHER is your friend

These harmful substances are illegal for a reason.
What reason? Doesnt matter. Big Brother said so.
Big Brother will say lots of things you dont like.
Big Brother will contradict you at every turn.
Big Brother should start a zero tolorence policy and begin dropping illegal drug users on SIGHT.

Four More With GW and then we can let the little brother from Florida take a turn.
Big Brother backs the Church of the Painful Truth with proposing constitutional amendments.
Big Brother is your friend.
PERIOD!

As you were.

Let's see if I can manage to stir up hostility from everyone with my opinions on this:

In this country we've got an insanely inconsistent view of psychotropic substances. We freely take caffiene, nicotine and alchohol. We throw pot-smokers in jail. We prohibit use of heroin, but then promote methadone to treat it! We constantly warn school children of the dangers of cocaine and methamphetamines, but then turn around and load them up on Prozac and Ritalin.

What kind of message are people supposed to get in a society that warns them off of some drugs while at the same time telling them that you are supposed to take others if you don't feel happy or can't concentrate, or want to be social and hip? It's bonkers. Total chaos.

Drugs are not harmless! They are also not uniformly harmful. Caffiene and nicotine don't impair mental functions, so they are generally accepted and legal. They are both addictive and lead to eventual health problems, but use of them doesn't pose a threat to others generally. Alcohol use can pose a big acute risk to self and others, but the effects fade rapidly and usually a person is back to normal within a day. It is also thoroughly established in society.

So what about marijuana? Its use has also become entrenched in society. It impairs mental functions and effects of it can linger up to a week or so. But generally people can moderate their use of it and remain productive citizens. Why not make it legal?

Actually here's what I'd propose:

Revise the law so that use of a psychotropic drug is not illegal, but restrict it to home use or in specially licensed public houses. All such drugs would be subject to FDA quality regulations, and could only be sold by pharmacists who are trained in typical dosages and drug interactions.

Prohibit doctors from precsribing psychotropic drugs for any purpose other than a PHYSICAL medical condition or a mental condition with a KNOWN physical cause. If someone wants to procure any such drug, be it cocaine, heroin, prozac, for mind or mood altering effects they should visit the licensed pharmacist instead.

Sell only through licensed pharmacists and only FDA-standardized doses. Anyone else caught selling or manufacturing psychotropic drugs should continue to be subject to criminal penalties at least as harsh as we have now on the books.

Prohibit all forms of coercion to take psychotropic drugs. This includes schools pressuring parents to put their kids on drugs, courts assigning treatment or counseling as a judgement against someone, etc.

These laws would apply to ALL psychotropic drugs whether currently illegal or not. It would have the following exemptions: Low concentrations of caffeine such as in coffee or soft drinks would not be regulated. Tobacco, alcohol and marijuana with low concentrations of THC could be sold to adults by more lenient licenses similar to our current liquor licenses. Alcohol or marijuana use would of course be prohibited except in private residences or licensed public houses.

How's that? Our planet has got to get its head on straight and realize first that mind-altering substances are NOT good for you regardless of their legality, and second that laws that go against the values of the culture are unenforceable and lead only to oppression. If folks insist on poisoning themselves, all y'all others should let them be idiots and not commit further acts of degradation on them.

I am curious what you base your infomation on Chip, and how it is any less "propaganda" coming from a side that promotes the use of drugs versus one that opposes it. You have hardly taken a survey of the vasty majority of users of illegal drugs to know if they are using them responsibly or not. - I am sure a large number of drug abuse counselors would disagree with you on that However, the statement that pot has less side effects than aspirin, and somehow is harmless, is patently false.

Having watched several friends ruin their lives (or lose them altogether) over drug use (and "harmless drugs" like pot and E, I might add), it angers me to see blanket statements about how harmless the drugs are. There is proven medical evidence of the effects of marijuana use on the body, and its relationship to lung cancer, depression, brain damage, increased heart rate and blood pressure...the list goes on and on. The most serious side effect of marijuana is the fact that it acts on the same pleasure receptors in the brain as cocaine and many other drugs do, causing the diminishing return effect. This ultimately leads to the burnout and depressed condition you see with long term pot use.

I am not going to jump into whether or not it should be legal - I am only going to state that marijuana is hardly a hamless drug. The medical evidence is there, but proponents of the drug just like to label that "propaganda". Is it more harmful than alcohol? In some cases yes, in some cases no. Is it harmless - absolutely not, and anyone who tries to claim that is in denial.

Cristiano

Frighteningly enough, that sounds more like a gang rape than anything else. Interesting analogy actually for the Bush presidency.

No shit Cris
We're at war, alert and vigilant... against who exactly?
Well it could be ANYONE!
All that we know is the that the war continues, and that we must be ever vigilant and do our part.
Don't question why, or who, that would be unpatriotic.
Be sure to always be alert, and keep an eye on your neighbour while you're at it - they could be one of 'them'.
Don't question, don't do anything out of the ordinary.. you don't want to alert the suspicions of your neighbours.
The government can, and will, use the powers at it's disposal to take you away without notice.. Forget your rights - we're at WAR and they have to make us all safe!!


Bet a few ppl out there really have their knickers in a knot at the moment -- fear not I'm not talking about any REAL country - I was refering to the totally ficticious world of 'Oceana' , invented by George Orwell..

I mean that crap couldn't happen in real life... surely!

Siggy

Wow! GREAT idea, Ananda, and a fresh look at how our society might go about legalizing drugs.

Brava!

Whatever you need to say to yourself to go quietly, Cristiano.
Just keep it quiet and orderly. Its for your own good.

Weird.... and I thought the tongue in cheek aspect was evident in my post.
Guess not.
*shrug*
Still, in the end, it goes this way. Not a lot you could do to stop it.
Big Brother is your friend, neighbor, or even your coworker... but he aint gonna live with you.
I leave it up to me to regulate my own environment.
Not Big Brother. I toss the gauntlet at my property line.

'Cris' <sic>

Nuff said.

[/B]

dont ya just love these idiotic kneejerk reactions sometimes?

Beer - Legal, yet does impair people so... ok. Make it illegal
*shrug*
Cigs - Legal, dont see how they impair anyone so... no. *shrug*
Sex - Both legal and illegal.
Lets clarify
a) consensual not for money sex or
b) prostitution?

Sex a - no
Sex b - yes toss the lawbreakers in jail!

Dancing - legal, but ok.. deem it illegal as well.
I dont give a rats ass one way or the other *shrug*

Be realistic would ya?
I am ALL FOR LEGALIZED DRUGS!
Just keep all of the fucking druggies TOGETHER!
Why is this so hard to understand?
Do you not admit there are people that would choose free livin and free drugs over their current "9-5 ham and egger" life?
Do you not acknowledge that there is a large segment of the current population that would just "disappear" if we opened up a theme park where they could do all the drugs they wanted?

Then why the hell not?
Why NOT let the fucktards do as they damned well please and willingly pollute their bodies to the point of death so we can be rid of them?
I am ALL for loading all of the potheads up that want to go and taking them to Disney, giving them tons of high quality, free herb, letting them bong their asses off at all of the trip toys down there.
But dont get me wrong, if this is the choice they make, the choice they take, I want them fucking GONE from the real world.

Do you not admit there is a large segment of society that if they KNEW this was an option, they would jump ALL OVER IT?
At least it would get rid of the willing.
As for the rest of us, compulsory drug tests.
Pass? Keep on keepin on!
Fail? Hi Ho! Hi Ho! Its off to FuckTardville you go!

For the record,

I thought you were being sarcastic, Chris .

I didn't say that pot wasn't harmful, personally, it can and does do damage to the lungs and Ananda is right that is a drug that impairs mental functions. I actually like Ananda's suggestions, it seems reasonable to me. I guess I'm just pissed off right now personally because the laws have finally come down to a serious personal issue -- my father, who has cancer and is going through chemo and has to rely on substances MUCH WORSE for his condition than, say, a marijuana cookie, to control his nausea is still being drug tested at his job. Which means that, despite the morphine and the other drugs he's on, he CAN'T have a single marijuana cookie. And the logic of that boggles my mind. It's inane. OK, before I start to rant, I'm shutting up.

Zana

Biggest problem with the drug war is you take and end user and you throw him into the rape camps (i.e. "prison" and he comes out real pissed off and possibly with AIDS. The propagation of AIDS in the rape camps is becoming so large a problem that Congress is starting to take a look at ways of stopping it from happening.

Tell me something, how is someone with a drug problem going to be helped by getting raped and beaten bloody? Why do they deserve to have forced anal intercourse perpetrated against them because they smoked a fucking joint in their fucking garage?

I fail to see how this barbarianism is in the best interest of society. We pay tens of thousands of dollars per head per year to turn drug users into AIDS victims. And for what exactly?

'

You've never heard of people dying from E?


A girl I know died from E last week, this kid wanted to fuck her and he kept feeding it to her, she passed out and never woke up.

You can die by taking too much, and this is not just taking too many pills, but if you get one that is too strong for you and you don't know what its cut with. So you could take just one pill and die.

JV

Vast Majority?

speak for your own friends and cities. I have never met anyone who has done hard drugs, that hasn't eventually screwed their lives up.

I've been clean for almost 3 years and I know tons of people from my past who are dead, in jail, or have no future.


JV

Personal experience

So you personally have spoken to the vast majority of drug users?

You know, my experience is about the same. I know lots of pot-smokers. Those who manage their habit "responsibly" are, you might say, severe underachievers. They get by, but they are only faint shadows of what they might have been. Those who don't manage their habits responsibly are, well, as you've said, dead, in jail, or futureless.

But you know what? I still think all recreational substance should be legal.

Not that I have any intention of using them. I would never personally try a harder drug and probably would only do marijuana extremely rarely. I'm a libertarian on this issue -- people should be allowed to do what they want as long as it doesn't directly infringe upon the rights of others to do the same. If that means they fuck up their lives, well, so be it.

Actually, the evil part of me kind of wants them to fuck up their lives. The way I figure it, is if the younger generation screws up their lives doing drugs and going to shitty schools, well, that just means the job market's going to be that much easier on me when I get older, won't it? I'll be able to compete against those pot-smoking, value-less, drifting chimps because I can read, even more because I can read well.

But that's the evil side of me. It doesn't motivate any of my actual thought. Not really. Not most of the time. Really.

Do you pesonally know them all Cristiano? What studies have you read? My point is that you can't have a realistic discussion about drug use unless you toss out the moral stigma and emotional response. We've had nothing but propaganda about drugs shoved at us for the past 40 years. It's not honest, it almost never cites actual objective data, and it makes having an honest discussion about the subject difficult since you have to get through the indoctrinated bias first. If you want to read the same arguments I have you should check out the book I linked to, which incidentally is written by someone who does not do illegal drugs. I know many pot smokers and users of other more potent substances and have for the past 30 years of my life. Not a single one of them has ruined their lives as a result. They're all smart, hard working, accomplished people who do not in any way fit the stereotype. But they aren't the ones you hear about. You only hear about the addicts, overdoses, and arrests. Your experiences may have been much different than mine, but they do not represent the typical user.

Here are some good articles about marijuana use from New Scientist Magazine...

The Report the WHO Tried To Hide

"As the WHO's first report on cannabis for 15 years, the document had been eagerly awaited by doctors and specialists in drug abuse. The official explanation for excluding the comparison of dope with legal substances is that "the reliability and public health significance of such comparisons are doubtful". However, insiders say the comparison was scientifically sound and that the WHO caved in to political pressure. It is understood that advisers from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse and the UN International Drug Control Programme warned the WHO that it would play into the hands of groups campaigning to legalise marijuana.

One member of the expert panel which drafted the report, says: "In the eyes of some, any such comparison is tantamount to an argument for marijuana legalisation." Another member, Billy Martin of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, says that some WHO officials "went nuts" when they saw the draft report."

What is left after smoking 10 joints a day for 30 years?

"Most people think of marijuana users as dreamers with the attention span of a gnat and no memory worth the name. Wrong. The picture emerging from psychology labs is that there is at most a kernel of truth in this stereotype, while some studies find no evidence of even subtle mental impairment in heavy users. And even those that do are open to a range of interpretations -- not necessarily worrying to marijuana users."

Which is most addictive: coffee, alchohol, marijuana, or shopping?

"Last year, experiments showed that cannabis presses the same dopamine button in rats, leading to claims that the drug must be more addictive than previously thought. To critics, it is just another example of those old exaggerated fears.

What nobody tells you, says John Morgan, a pharmacologist at City University of New York Medical School, is that rats don't like cannabis. It's easy for them to get hooked on heroin or cocaine -- but not marijuana. Nor, Morgan claims, are researchers exactly open about awkward observations, such as the fact that there are plenty of nonaddictive drugs that stimulate dopamine in the brain."

Decriminalisation, Yes. Totally safe, No.

"What's changed today is that our attitudes towards illegal drugs are becoming more sophisticated and discriminating. After thirty years of research into the harmful effects of cannabis, there can be no hidden dangers left to discover. We know that it is plain nonsense to regard cannabis as a performance-enhancing drug, just as it is a myth to think the substance rots the brain or leads inexorably to harder substances.

And despite the anti-dope propaganda that circulates in the US, most people are thankfully well aware that no great social disaster has befallen the Netherlands, where cannabis has been sold openly in coffee shops for years. It would take a perverse mind to twist the data from Amsterdam into a argument for continued prohibition (see The Dutch experiment).

While no sensible person believes cannabis is totally safe, even police chiefs back moves to decriminalise the drug. Only the politicians still seem irrationally terrified by the idea of any relaxation in the law: they think they can continue in the old way, lumping all drugs together."

It seems to me that the PRO POT crowd get all defensive and start citing rhetoric that supports their case.
As do the NO POT crowds.
Bottom line though is this... it is illegal.
Standing up for something illegal is bullshit, rhetoric included.

Hey PRO POThead, Hows your stance on rape?
Does "She deserved it" about cover it and make it ok?
Murder? "He was a prick", will that keep you out of jail?

Pot is illegal, as are rape and murder.
I am not comparing apples and oranges either. I am comparing illegal with illegal.
If you take a stand to legalize pot, you are promoting something illegal. Period.
Are your morals and values really THAT selective?

But the problem with this is it rarely effects just them, and it damages our nation. To have a nation of underachievers would destroy our economy. What about the people they steal from. Yes we can still punish them for stealing but if they weren't doing drugs in the first place they would be stealing either.

The problem with being a libertarian on this one is that libertarians (which hold some similar ideas as I do except for drugs and abortion) believe that if it effects only yourself you should be able to do it, but drugs never just effect one person, so it can not be a libertarian idea by definition.

JV

You can't say that antidrug info is propaganda without giving prodrug info the same scrutiny, any study set out to prove a point is biased. And rarely does anyone do a study not to prove something.

Also you can't say because his and my experience is that most drug users screw up their lives (not even in the worst way but even the most responsible it causes them to achieve less than they could) is counteracted by your experience and yours is the right one.

JV

hmm.. and women voting was illegal once too. and slavery was legal.

so, does that mean that women who wanted to vote, and those that supported them, were spouting BS?

and those that fought against slavery were fighting against something that was legal, does that mean they were wrong to think that way?


sorry, but just because the government tells us something is right or wrong, doesn't mean that's the way it should be.

No, but I'm not the one making blanket statements about the vast majority of drug users. It seems to me the only information you will ever view as non-propaganda is that which supports drug use. Anything that challenges that is propaganda and dismissed by you as "not honest".

It is also interesting that you say my experience and Jonathan's may be different, but they do not represent the typical user. How do you justify that your group of drug using associates does represent the typical user? They are the only group you know. Of course they are the typical user to you, but that is not to say they represent the typical user of drugs. I have worked in the drug abuse field, and have friends currently in the field as well, and your blissful story of the hard working, dedicated drug user whose life is totally unaffected by their drug use is just not the case. If anything, you are lucky, but certainly not typical.

As far as what studies I have I read, here are a few:

Reasearch Report on Marijuana Effects
http://www.drugabuse.gov/ResearchReports/Marijuana/default.html

From the New Scientist as well:

Cannabis Link to Mental Illness Strengthened
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/marijuana/schizophrenia.jsp

Cannabis Smoking More Harmful than Tobacco
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/marijuana/moreharmful.jsp

My original point was that you made wild claims about how harmless pot is, with absolutely nothing to back it up, and further claimed that the vast majority of people who use drugs never have any problems. and that you represent the norm. For every article you post supporting your side, one can be posted to support the opposite, but of course that is propaganda.

I am not even opposed to marijuana use, though I do not use it or any other drugs, as I have a serious genetic heart condition, and personally find the whole concept lame anyway. My only point is this is to dispel your statement that pot is not harmful, because it is as harmful if not more so than alcohol and tobacco.

That said, I do believe in its legalization, for purposes of regulation and taxing. I have always found it hypocritical that it is illegal while tobacco and alcohol are not.

Cristiano