What do we do about the drug problem?

The solution is clearly the extinction of all the plants that get turned into popular harmful drugs. Sure, people will still huff paint, but it'll never be like doing coke.

Now if only it were possible.

Treatment for users: just locking them up isn't working, and research in treatment programs has shown that the cost is far cheaper due to fewer repeat offenders.

Decriminalization of possession: Far too many users want treatment but are afraid to seek it because of the draconian treatment they can expect to receive. Some of these harder drugs like heroin are addicting on their first use, that's firmly into "bad mistake" and not "criminal neglect" area. Decriminalizing possession will remove one of the biggest deterring factors to users self-electing for treatment. Treat it more like driving without a seatbelt: it's not legal, but you're only hurting yourself.

Maintain criminalization of distribution. Use of currently standing laws, especially in the realm of organized crime, should be more than enough to provide the flexibility the court needs to crack down on street gangs while providing some form of leniency to back-yard pot growers.

End the political games that keep the drug cartels in power as proxy warriors against "unpopular" regimes. Afghanistan wasn't the largest producer of poppy (used in producing Heroin and other opiates) until the Taliban came into power, and the Taliban didn't come into power until the CIA gave them the tools and training necessary to combat the USSR.

Liberalize urban self defense laws and offer personal defense courses in the same vein as driving courses. Every law abiding citizen, regardless of their socioeconomic background, should be able to be certified in and equipped for personal defense. Combat the tyranny of violence that street gangs reign over inner city neighborhoods. Nobody cares if the cops are going to catch their own murderer. People need a chance to prevent crimes happening against themselves.

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Original post by BeanDog The solution is clearly the extinction of all the plants that get turned into popular harmful drugs. Sure, people will still huff paint, but it'll never be like doing coke. Now if only it were possible.

I did think of that. However, if that were to even be tried it would require such a massive invasion of freedom and liberty that it just wouldn't be worth it, because someone somewhere is going to slip through the cracks anyways with a few plants and keep them growing until such a time as the vigilance dies down.


Plus there are some legitimate medical uses of the plants used to create recreational drugs, don't forget. Morphine and codeine for example.

Have the US military buy up all the land long the boarder, and turn it into live fire training grounds. Who needs a fence when you have artillery shells raining down?

But really, this is where the concept of military-civil policing forces is really actually needed. Soldiers that would otherwise be on random training grounds around the USA for national guard units would instead be used to inspect all movement in the region right along the boarder, and guard against unlawful acts. Regular police deal with normal crime and warrants, military units guard key check points to control unlawful boarder incursions and smuggling.

Yes, it isn't ideal, yes military policing cities is generally a bad thing, but they're the only force most countries have that can afford to put the needed number of boots on the ground.

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Original post by BeanDog The solution is clearly the extinction of all the plants that get turned into popular harmful drugs. Sure, people will still huff paint, but it'll never be like doing coke. Now if only it were possible.

Even if you kill off all the plants, drug makers know enough about chemistry to make plenty of drugs without having to grow the plants themselves.

The fastest way to neuter gang/cartels is to have the government provide all known illegal drugs to anyone for a price that organized crime simply can't compete with. Gangs/Cartels would lose ALL of their drug-based income and would have to find completely different ways to make money.

Unfortunately, you'd have to deal with problems from a boom in use of those drugs as a result...

Which is a bigger problem and harder to deal with? That is certainly up to debate.

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Original post by Mithrandir But to me it feels tantamount to throwing in the towel.

Well, it would be, yes... but I would think you of all people would be keenly aware of the drawbacks of value-laden phrases like "throw in the towel" or "cut and run". That the penal system has failed to minimize the harm of drug use, and isn't going to un-fail any time soon, seems clear.

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I think the best case scenario for decriminalization would be if hard drug use were minimized due to social stigma, much like where cigarette smoking is heading today. In the 50's they used childrens cartoons to advertise smoking, and everyone thought it was cool. Now most new college graduates I meet at work either do not smoke or have never even tried it. I'm at my first job ever where not a single person in the office even smokes.

It's arguable (and I'll say right now that I'm not willing to stridently defend this position) that decriminalization would help stigmatize abuse. Taking a criminalized drug is an act of defiance, which increases its attraction, even to excess. Moreover, criminalization forces drug use into private. You don't do it around all your friends, or let your friends who don't do it know that you do it. Essentially, the current system stigmatizes ALL use, and thereby loses its chance to stigmatize overuse.

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'm beginning to believe that this is a problem that doesn't have a solution.

QFT.

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Original post by Mithrandir Drugs destroy lives. I have personally seen this happen to several people whom I care for.

Bummer.

I had a good friend several years ago who stepped in the drug pool and swam to the deep end, eventually leading to dealing coke with a gun on hand at all times. He was by most standards a very normal person. Nobody's heard from him in months, and I was told he overdosed and is now in rehab. Or jail. Who knows.

So I can sympathize. At the same time, I think World of Warcraft destroys more lives than drugs. Should we criminalize WoW too? Where do you draw the line between personal freedom and saving people from themselves? That's what this comes down to. If everyone lived life in moderation, there would never be a problem.

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The situation in mexico and the southern US is getting ridiuclous. The other day I read that Phoenix Arizona now has over one drug-related kidnapping per day. Cartels from Mexico are invading and kidnapping people for ransom to provide funding for their operations.

The situation down in Mexico is absurd. I heard about this on the news warning spring break students. I hope the federal government can regain control (if they ever had it).

Decriminalising soft drugs should have always been done. My own opinion is that anything that is naturally occuring should be free to be smoked/eaten/inhaled/whatever. Quite frankly it's absurd that it's illegal in the first place.

Like so many other things, the fact that drugs are illegal makes them far more dangerous than the drugs themselves (see also: prostitution). If the dealers couldn't cut in other stuff to bulk their product, if drug deals weren't done in dark alleyways and if people were actually educated on drugs rather than being scared away from them, I doubt the deaths would be as high. Even if they were legal (well, maybe not some of the exceptionally bad drugs like heroin).

If the US government is serious about stopping drugs then they need to stop perpetually destabalising countries well known for producing drugs (as Talroth said).

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Original post by Mithrandir Two of Mexico's deadliest drug cartels have reached a combined force of 100,000 foot soldiers, wreaking havoc across the country and threatening U.S. border states, the U.S. Defense Department told The Washington Times.

Do you think that Fox News might have an interest in stirring up fear? Mexican organized crime - the next terrorist threat justifying the destruction of the Constitution?

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Original post by Mithrandir Marijuana proponents like to say that it's a harmless drug, ...

No, they say it's less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. There's a lot of evidence to back this up, as well as reports by commissions set up by Federal Government to look into this subject back in the 60's and 70's. LaGuardia headed up one of them. Nixon hated the results.

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Original post by Mithrandir but I've seen it destroy the life of formerly productive people, sap their very essence and destroy their motivation to do anything but smoke weed.

Sounds to me like smoking weed manifested previously existing conditions.

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Original post by Mithrandir ... Phoenix Arizona now has over one drug-related kidnapping per day.

I understand, however, that the victims of those kidnappings are involved in the drug trade: “The victims are not likely to seek police assistance due to their immigration status or their involvement in illegal activity,” according to Stratfor, a global intelligence firm..

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Original post by Mithrandir 1 in 31 American adults are in prison, where the majority of offenders are there on drug related charges. Yes, more than 3% of our population is in prison.

That reflects more on the stupidity of mandatory sentencing and three strikes laws. Reform is still slow in coming: New York Legislature to Vote on Overhauling Draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws.

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Original post by Mithrandir I think this situation has become a complete and utter failure of our current policies. I commonly hear that the solution to this problem is decriminalization, but honestly, I cannot agree with that.

Legalize it!

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Original post by Mithrandir Decriminalization will have some benefits. I don't think anyone can disagree with that. The bootlegging gangs of the 1920's during prohibition died fairly quickly after prohibition was repealed. But to me it feels tantamount to throwing in the towel. Alcohol is one thing, and not nearly as dangerous as some of the harder drugs out there like Meth or Coke. Hundreds of Millions of people are able to function in their daily lives while enjoying alcoholic drinks on the side. But on the other side of that, millions of lives are destroyed by alcohol abuse each year, and as I said before, it's not nearly as dangerous, mind-altering, or addicting as some of the harder drugs.

Wait - Are you talking about legalizing pot or legalizing meth and coke? It looks like you're mixing things up. I'm not aware of any serious movement to legalize harder drugs. Why are you lumping these together? And why haven't you complained about the abuse of pharmaceutical drugs? That's a bigger problem than cocaine and heroin.

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Original post by Mithrandir My friend who lost his job/home/wife because of pot didn't lose those things because of the price of it, he lost them because of the demotivational effects of the drug. The high black market price only served to deplete his savings faster, which meant in the end he was forced to kick the habit faster since he could no longer afford it. Cheaper weed would have made his addiction that much easier (yeah cue the "pot isn't addicting" crowd; that's nonsense. It may not be physically addicting like alcohol, but it is mentally addicting, which in reality turns out to have the same exact effect), and recovery that much longer.

As I wrote above, he probably had a preexisting condition that he wasn't aware of that the pot brought out in him. Psychological addictions do not "in reality have the same effect" as physical addictions. They are much easier to recover from actually.

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Original post by Mithrandir Ok so that brings us to violence. Many of the harder drugs' addicts', once their supply is cut off, will then turn to violence to obtain more of the drug. Clearly a very bad thing. Clearly caused by black market prices for a banned substance. This will possibly decrease if the drug is legal and cheaper. But will it really? I theorize that there will be more addicts of hard drugs if they are legalized. More supply, less stigma, lower prices. It's only natural that more people will try the stuff out. More people will become addicted, and more people will ruin their lives by constantly being high on this shit. Then they lose their jobs and have no income. So we reach the same situation as before, people addicted to a drug, and desperate to find more. I think that they'll still turn to violence to obtain it. The lower prices may mean they need to steal less to obtain more, but I feel that the higher number of addicts is likely to negate that "benefit".

Who is calling for the legalization of hard drugs and how well organized are they? It seems to me that you're working up a phantom menace. It also seems to me that shifting the response to hard drug use from the criminal realm to the medical realm would mean that addicts would get their fix from doctors rather than from the street. And people will come to seem them as sick and not to be emulated, rather than as rebellious and chic. If done smartly, addicts will turn to doctors for relief not to violence.

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Original post by Mithrandir Then we'll have to put up with more people driving around in cars while high on drugs. I'm not naive enough to pretend that this doesn't already happen, but simple math tells you that if you've got more people addicted, then you'll have more people driving around while high.

MADD campaigns have reduced drunk driving. The same can be done for other drugs. Watch out for those oxy-contin drivers!!!

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Original post by Mithrandir I'm beginning to believe that this is a problem that doesn't have a solution.

The solution is harm reduction.

---

People have been smoking cannabis for thousands of years: World's oldest marijuana stash totally busted Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world's oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.

The one big problem with drugs is that they are illegal (same goes for prostitution and some other things). And honestly, the governments are being quite hypocrite in that respect. The reason why these things are illegal is not because the governments want to protect the people, it's just because the dealers and prostitutes pay no taxes. If the governments really cared about people, they'd focus on education and giving people a job and a goal in life, which helps combat drugs a lot better.
Let's not mention how many "high society" politicans take drugs and such on a regular base.

Only because drugs are illegal, they can be sold for high prices on the black market. If they were legal, nobody would pay the present prices, and the business would not be in the hands of criminal organisations. The dealers would simply not have the money to muster their own private armies.

Remember the alcohol prohibition in the USA in the 1930s, and where it led to. Outlawing alcohol only made it attractive, and people were actually drinking more. That and the fact that it sold for real money made it a big business for gangsters.
Look at the nordic countries where you can only buy alcohol for ridiculous prices in "systembolaget" and such. Restricting it did not make one person drink less.

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Hundreds of Millions of people are able to function in their daily lives while enjoying alcoholic drinks on the side. But on the other side of that, millions of lives are destroyed by alcohol abuse each year, and as I said before, it's not nearly as dangerous, mind-altering, or addicting as some of the harder drugs.

I've never heard anyone (sanely) argue for decriminalizing anything other than marijuana because yes, hard drugs are extremely dangerous and even considering doing any of them is extremely dumb. Marijuana itself, however, is less dangerous than alcohol by far.

Sure, you can be addicted to pot, much in the same way you can be addicted to anything that is enjoyable. Kids are dying because their WoW obsessed parents won't take 10 minutes to feed them. Koreans go on 72 hour Starcraft binges and die of starvation. Couples divorce because they won't stop looking at porn or cheat in Second Life. It may sound cruel but your friend who lost his job over weed is an idiot. He chose to prioritize a recreational activity over his job/home/wife. That's entirely his fault. I know many intelligent, successful people who smoke pot and do it responsibly without letting it interfere with important parts of their lives.

"Mental addiction" is a bullshit term to try and avoid responsibility for making terrible choices. It's not my fault I ruined my life, it's just the choices I made! Feel sorry for me!

Let me tell you what's really dangerous about marijuana: All the people running around lumping it into the same category as hard drugs. We send kids to school and educate them as to how dangerous heroin and cocaine and marijuana and crystal meth are... and then the kids find out (because kids always find out) that we were lying about the weed. And if we're lying about that, then heroin can't be that bad, right? We must have been totally blowing it out of proportion! I mean, porno never made me blind either.

What we should really be doing is providing honest and truthful education about drugs to our kids. 1) Most of them are extremely dangerous and some can kill or addict you with a single use, 2) Some of them can be enjoyed responsibly, and 3) Even those drugs are dangerous if you are not responsible.

Beyond that, people can always choose to kill themselves if they want.

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My gut instinct is to agree with drug criminalization. Drugs destroy lives. I have personally seen this happen to several people whom I care for. Marijuana proponents like to say that it's a harmless drug, but I've seen it destroy the life of formerly productive people, sap their very essence and destroy their motivation to do anything but smoke weed. Job lost, family torn apart, home lost. No one can deny that drugs, and especially the harder ones, have a profoundly negative impact upon people.

The legal status of controlled substances cause far more harm than any physical effect.

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But I'm finding that increasingly, reality doesn't really agree with me on the benefits of drug criminalization. Clearly, anyone who wants to get ahold of these substances is able to.

Yes, they are able to, as you probably know it's easier to get pot when you're under age than it is to get alcohol.

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The situation in mexico and the southern US is getting ridiuclous. The other day I read that Phoenix Arizona now has over one drug-related kidnapping per day. Cartels from Mexico are invading and kidnapping people for ransom to provide funding for their operations. Tijuana is rapidly becoming a warzone, with thousands of people being murdered there due to the drug trade. 1 in 31 American adults are in prison, where the majority of offenders are there on drug related charges. Yes, more than 3% of our population is in prison.

It's good that you realize that these cartels are created by government. Try and expand that to other areas that suffer from cartelization, you may find that government is very fond of creating and granting monopolies.

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Decriminalization will have some benefits. I don't think anyone can disagree with that. The bootlegging gangs of the 1920's during prohibition died fairly quickly after prohibition was repealed. But to me it feels tantamount to throwing in the towel. Alcohol is one thing, and not nearly as dangerous as some of the harder drugs out there like Meth or Coke. Hundreds of Millions of people are able to function in their daily lives while enjoying alcoholic drinks on the side. But on the other side of that, millions of lives are destroyed by alcohol abuse each year, and as I said before, it's not nearly as dangerous, mind-altering, or addicting as some of the harder drugs.

We would be "throwing in the towel" on what is nothing short of a severe breach in liberty. That marijuana is arbitrarily controlled and criminalized when tobacco and alcohol are far more deadly is ridiculous.

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Decriminalization will have the effect of lowering prices and increasing availability of these drugs. Those of us who are smart will obviously be able to live our lives without being addicted to them. But that's a pretty selfish view. Just because you are smart enough to avoid drugs doesn't mean you won't be affected by a loved one who succumbs to the temptation.

To buy in to this line of reasoning Mith one must believe that somewhere out there are a large percentage of people that would normally be crack fiends but aren't because it's illegal.

If crack were legalized would you decide to become a crack head? Where are these mythical people that lack the self respect and self control required to not become chemically dependant on a deadly substance but respect the government so much that they abstain?

They don't exist.

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My friend who lost his job/home/wife because of pot didn't lose those things because of the price of it, he lost them because of the demotivational effects of the drug. The high black market price only served to deplete his savings faster, which meant in the end he was forced to kick the habit faster since he could no longer afford it. Cheaper weed would have made his addiction that much easier (yeah cue the "pot isn't addicting" crowd; that's nonsense. It may not be physically addicting like alcohol, but it is mentally addicting, which in reality turns out to have the same exact effect), and recovery that much longer.

Your friend was going to take that ride regardless. Instead of pot it could have been alcohol or hookers or cocaine. You should strongly consider divorcing yourself of this myth while you investigate the problem. You could force a quarter ounce of pot a day habit on someone that was strongly motivated and they'd remain strongly motivated + high.

Pot isn't addicting, it's habit forming. So is posting in the lounge.

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Ok so that brings us to violence. Many of the harder drugs' addicts', once their supply is cut off, will then turn to violence to obtain more of the drug. Clearly a very bad thing. Clearly caused by black market prices for a banned substance. This will possibly decrease if the drug is legal and cheaper. But will it really? I theorize that there will be more addicts of hard drugs if they are legalized. More supply, less stigma, lower prices. It's only natural that more people will try the stuff out. More people will become addicted, and more people will ruin their lives by constantly being high on this shit. Then they lose their jobs and have no income. So we reach the same situation as before, people addicted to a drug, and desperate to find more. I think that they'll still turn to violence to obtain it. The lower prices may mean they need to steal less to obtain more, but I feel that the higher number of addicts is likely to negate that "benefit".

You're still relying on this mythical group of people that aren't crack heads because crack is illegal. What percentage of kids in your graduating class never tried alcohol because it was illegal? I'm guessing very very few, and then from those remove some number that backed their abstinence in religion or self respect, or love of clarity, and you're down to roughly none.

I also believe you're underestimating the amount that prices will go down, and its effect on behaviour.

Let's focus on pot first because it's less controversial. A pot habit cost less than a drinking habit today, even while it's illegal. In the course of legalization the price of pot would remain largely unchanged due to government and state taxes being imposed on it. However, most people would likely grow their own in their backyard. Assume for a moment the government isn't dumb enough to make that illegal(which is a big assumption)

For those people a pot habit would cost no more than a potato habit or a tomato habit.

When you start looking at other drug prohibitions, like cocain or heroin, you'll see a marked difference.

Today, one eighth ounce of cocaine cost $180. 1/8th ounce is the amount a hard core user can consume in a 24 hour period. The cocaine refinement process, and the plant itself is very very simple. Utilitarian market price for this good should be roughly equal to that of a potato. So after the taxes imposed lets say you can get 3 lbs of cocaine for $5. So 384 days of useage for $5.

Now let's double the cost(for shipping and handling, who knows) and let's use $10 per year. How many crimes are commited over a discounted annual subscription to your local newspaper? Because that's the type of cost you're looking at. The entire population could be coke fiends and crime would still go down.

You can do the same math with heroin or meth(which would cease to exist in all likelyhood, as it's a product of cocaine prohibition)

Job loss due to a drug habit is exacerbated, if not caused entirely by prohibition. Millions of people have a job and smoke pot daily, millions of people have a job and a hardcore cocaine habit(I'm looking at you Wall Street), and that's in spite of prohibition. Removing prohibition would remove many of the problems assosciated with drug use.

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Then we'll have to put up with more people driving around in cars while high on drugs. I'm not naive enough to pretend that this doesn't already happen, but simple math tells you that if you've got more people addicted, then you'll have more people driving around while high.

Again you're relying on your premise that drug use would explode if decriminalized. Pot smoker and cocaine users are safer drivers than drinkers already. It may be annoying to see all of the pot heads in the slow lane doing 40 miles per hour on the highway but it's not going to make the streets unsafe.

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I think the best case scenario for decriminalization would be if hard drug use were minimized due to social stigma, much like where cigarette smoking is heading today. In the 50's they used childrens cartoons to advertise smoking, and everyone thought it was cool. Now most new college graduates I meet at work either do not smoke or have never even tried it. I'm at my first job ever where not a single person in the office even smokes.

Prohibition makes drugs cool, just like it made smoking cool at one point. To be a rebel in highschool all you had to do was light up a cigarette. Prohibition lends that same status to drug use. Once stripped of its mystique drug use will be seen for what it is, whether the calculus makes you a user or not the incidence of "rebel without a cause" users will evaporate.

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So I don't know. There are compelling arguments on both sides of the issue. We'll save billions of dollars in government by not locking up drug users anymore. We'll lose billions of dollars in economic productivity by having more addicts. We won't have organized cartels running a black market. We'll have corporate or government cartels promoting drug use to profit off of substance addiction.

We'd gain billions of dollars in economic activity due to a new sector emerging(or rather hitting the main stream rather than the gray and black markets). We'd add productive workers as people on the margin that would be cast out of productive society and relegated to theft and violence would be able to support their habit working at a burger joint.
We would replace a series of government created cartels outside the country with a series of government created cartels inside the country, you're right about that, but that's a problem with government and cartelization through regulation, not drugs.

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I'm beginning to believe that this is a problem that doesn't have a solution.

Sure it does my man, decriminalize victimless crimes including drug use, production, and distribution. Would there be problems? Yes, very likely there would be, but they would be far more manageable than the existing system that perpetuates violence, murder, racism, and authoritarianism.



Interestingly, alcohol prohibition ended because government couldnt afford to enforce it due to the great depression, perhaps this depression will afford the same result of marijuana.

Here's a link making that argument briefly.

Link

Well we could take drugs out of the hands of violent criminals by making them regulated and legally available. With the side-effect of creating many many new jobs and saving tons of money in enforcement/interdiction.

Or we could keep dumping tons of money fighting violent wars against abstract concepts with no real quantifiable victory possible.

:shrug:

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Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom .....

What he said.

If you insist on straying away from the question of individual liberty and instead looking at it from utilitarian standpoint - there is still revising to do now.

Also studies from the UK show that a perceived "hard" drug like Ecstasy actually is less dangerous than alcohol, tobacco and pot.

Link

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The final rankings placed heroin and cocaine as the most dangerous of the 20 drugs. Alcohol was fifth, the class C drug ketamine sixth and tobacco was in ninth place, just behind amphetamine or "speed". Cannabis was 11th, while LSD and ecstasy were 14th and 18th respectively. The rankings do take into account new evidence that specially cultivated "skunk" varieties of cannabis available now are two to three times stronger than traditional cannabis resin.

Also new studies now possible by examining the first large generation of Ecstasy users (Summer of love in Britain '89) 20 years later shows no large damage of any sort.

Article

and

Full report

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Original post by BeanDog The solution is clearly the extinction of all the plants that get turned into popular harmful drugs. Sure, people will still huff paint, but it'll never be like doing coke. Now if only it were possible.

I sure hope you're being sarcastic...
In case you're not: for fuck's sake, you'd like to drive quite harmless plant species extinct simply because some idiots can win themselves a Darwin Award by sniffing/smoking/etc those? That's full blown retarded.
What's next, outlaw the law of gravity (along with ropes, and plants used to make ropes) coz of suicides by hanging? Outlaw basic chemistry because of synthetic drugs?
Turn nature into sort of sucidal's room at mental hospital, by removing everything that one can kill oneself with?

Legalize cannabis, and regulate and tax its distribution. Just like alcohol, tobacco, gambling, perscription meds, guns, and automobiles. This will transfer considerable revenues from the black market economy into the legitimate economy, reduce the harm related to the black market economy (which surpasses that af the drug), and provide more personal freedom and responsibility (always a good thing). The same argument can and should be made for opiates.

Continue the stricter control over stimulant drugs (cocaine and crack, amphetamines like ecstasy and meth, LSD).

Legalize, regulate, and tax prostitution as well.

The underground economy will switch to the hard drugs (with a smaller market), weapons dealing, and internet fraud.

I probably have a more radical viewpoint on this than most. I think making drugs illegal is as stupid as making suicide illegal. If people want to do it, they're gonna do it.

I think drugs should just be allowed, across the board. There are an infinite number of chemicals out there that can get you high if you smoke/ingets/inject them, and its impractical and expensive for the government to play babysitter and try to protect everyone from all of them.

People who do drugs, even for the very first time, know they're harmful and addictive, but they just don't give a shit. So I say who gives a shit about them? Don't use my tax dollars on those losers. Similar for less serious drugs, like Marijuana. If you decide that the harmful effects arnt so bad and its worth it for the good feelings, then fine.

I understand once you're hooked, it can be extremely hard to quit. So there should be detox clinics (which there currently are), but no one should ever be forced go to. If you would rather keep injecting heroin until you die, fine. See ya.

Now, drugs can make people do crazy things, including driving them to crime. I don't know if this is already true, but there should be different penalties for committing a crime on drugs vs the same crime without drugs. I believe the same is already true with guns. If you rob a store with a gun, you get much more jail time than if you rob a store with a knife. If you stab someone for 20 bucks to buy some smack, it should be game over for you.

I dont have statistics but I think the vast majority of drug users arnt hurting anyone but themselves. I just dont think its the place of the government to intercede.

Yes drugs CAN hurt other people, for example if your loved one becomes addicted to a drug it can be very difficult and tear families apart. Even so, that still doesnt make it the job of the government to step in. Once again, just like suicide, it doesnt make sense to make drugs illegal. It has to be tackled at a family level.

On the other side of the coin, there are a ton of non-violent and otherwise normal kids in prison just because they smoked a little weed. That can also be very difficult for loved ones, and can also tear families apart.

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Original post by LockePick I've never heard anyone (sanely) argue for decriminalizing anything other than marijuana because yes, hard drugs are extremely dangerous and even considering doing any of them is extremely dumb. Marijuana itself, however, is less dangerous than alcohol by far.

Well, you've just heard me do it, and I hope I didn't sound too insane. I simply wouldnt want my tax dollars spent trying to keep dumb people from doing dumb things. Fuck dumb people.

The question is not "are hard drugs bad?", because they obviously are.
The questions are: What is criminalization of drugs supposed to accomplish? Does it accomplish that? What is the cost of the drug war (in terms of dollars and lives)? Is there a better solution?

I'd like to hear someone who knows what they're talking about, do an in-depth study of what would really happen if drugs became de-criminalized. Some people are so afraid of it, it seems irrational to me. Its as if they think that if drugs became legal, they would be doing heroin by the end of the week. There is a difference between legal and mandatory, people!

To restate what I stated in the thread about taxing tobacco:

Legalization is long overdue. A report released in 2006 found that marijuana was the top cash crop in the United States, exceeding corn, soybean and hay. Using data from a 2005 State Department report on cannabis cultivation, the author estimated the nationwide value of the crop to be $35.8 billion.[1] That's slightly more money than the federal government spends fighting the drug war every year.[2] Marijuana prohibition has failed like alcohol prohibition failed 75 years ago. It costs too much money and doesn't deliver. It's wasteful spending at a time when Republicans in Congress are crying over the minutia in the stimulus bill. And let's not forget that the drug war is tearing Mexico apart as well, with more than 5,000 killings last year.[3]

[1] Marijuana is top U.S. cash crop, pro-legalization analysis says (2006)
[2] Marijuana Becomes Focus of Drug War (2005)
[3] Death toll in Mexico's drug war surges (2008)

FWIW, I dropped the above paragraph earlier this week on a website associated with the local newspaper (here).

See also:

Taxing pot could become a political toking point
Legal pot: Bill sees cash harvest for state
Smoke This Recession - It's simple: First we tax the booze. Then we legalize the pot. Done.

Addendum:

U.S. to yield marijuana jurisdiction to states

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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is sending strong signals that President Obama - who as a candidate said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana - will end raids on pot dispensaries in California. Asked at a Washington news conference Wednesday about Drug Enforcement Administration raids in California since Obama took office last month, Holder said the administration has changed its policy. "What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing here in law enforcement," he said. "What he said during the campaign is now American policy." ...

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Original post by LockePick I've never heard anyone (sanely) argue for decriminalizing anything other than marijuana because yes, hard drugs are extremely dangerous and even considering doing any of them is extremely dumb.

Is there evidence that, say LSD is either addictive or particularly dangerous (except in exceptionally high doses, which is dangerous for any substance)?

I'd say it has less of a potential for psychological addiction than marijuana because it's not something a person would do every day to "relax."