Drug Legalization: How far is too far?

[J]

I was talking to one of my classmates earlier today about politics and the topic inevitably drifted to marijuana & drug legalization. We were discussing how Canada has plans to legalize marijuana, and she said "that's progress, but why stop at marijuana? Why not legalize everything?" And so started a good half hour debate on whether or not this is right and if and where a line should be drawn. Should people be allowed to purchase and use any drug they want including hard drugs such as cocaine & heroin? Or is there a limit, and if so, where should it be and why?

[Enforcer Talen]

age limit of 18. after that, your responsible for your own bloody self, and should be able to abuse yourself or sign whatever contract you like.

[Uraniun235]

Seems to me that the biggest dangers from so-called "hard drugs" is an ignorance of your limits leading to the potential of a fatal overdose. However, there are plenty of people who manage to make the very same fuck-up with alcohol; see "binge drinking".

[Elheru Aran]

There are some substances out there that do very real damage to your body over time with usage. This includes crack cocaine and most artifical drugs like meth. Marijuana I've no problem with, as long as you're over 18; 'party drugs' like Ecstasy, no. Too many people die from messing with that shit.

Seriously, aside from marijuana, there's too much bad going on with most drugs for any good to come from legitizing them *unless* making them legitimate would lessen abuses which lead to bodily/mental damage. In this case, I merely ask for a limit of age 18 for marijuana, 21 for the heavier stuff; for the rest? Well, let's just say that meth brewers can enjoy their product as much as they want till their brain fries, and then they can be put on public display with a big fuckin' sign saying, 'Here, this is what you're gonna be like if you try this shit!'

[Illuminatus Primus]

'party drugs' like Ecstasy, no. Too many people die from messing with that shit.

The proportion of actual deaths from Ecstasy itself (as opposed to cut drugs or dehydration) is extremely low. The overall rate is also quite low. And the evidence on long-term damage is extremely spotty. All things considered it appears, at least superficially, to be a relatively safe psychadelic. It definitely seems to the safer side of the use of ethanol, if you will.

[Darth Raptor]

The real issue with drugs is what people on drugs can do to everyone else. In a world where everyone went to the padded cocaine bar and there they stayed until morning everything is peachy. It's in the world where they go to the crack house, snort up, and try to drive home that you have problems.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I've heard some people say that if hard drugs like cocaine were legalized, it wouldn't make much of a difference, since most of the people crazy enough to do it are probably doing it already, and not many people are going to start using it if it is (Four 2-letter words in a row!) made legal. Is there any legitimacy to that argument?

[Sea Skimmer]

I've heard some people say that if hard drugs like cocaine were legalized, it wouldn't make much of a difference, since most of the people crazy enough to do it are probably doing it already, and not many people are going to start using it if it is (Four 2-letter words in a row!) made legal. Is there any legitimacy to that argument?

Some. But then people tend to be stupid, and if something is suddenly legal then many might think 'well then it must be safe'. Really what that means though, is that drug legalization can't end drug education campaigns. But that's no big deal, it just means we won't save quite as much money. In any case, with drugs legal and taxed, money for that will be no issue.

[Uraniun235]

The real issue with drugs is what people on drugs can do to everyone else. In a world where everyone went to the padded cocaine bar and there they stayed until morning everything is peachy. It's in the world where they go to the crack house, snort up, and try to drive home that you have problems.

We already have problems with the legal drugs, and it's as easy to recognize as replacing all the cocaine references in your post with alcohol references.

[CommanderRazor]

As far as that stuff's concerned I'm a believer in the the ideal of 'whatever a person does behind closed doors is their business.'
So long as no one else is negatively effected by someone's vice or is not forced to be around it, go for it. I'm not for drugs myself, but I figure that the War on Drugs is wasting so much money that could be put to better use. Besides, it could give pharmecutical companies something to work with, plus take away loads of control from the Cartels and other drug producing/distributing groups. Look at the most obvious place one could think up for an example; Amsterdam. They allow quite a bit and you rarely ever hear of too many bad things caused from drugs.

Hell, I see alchohol as a bigger problem than most drugs anyways.

[Darth Raptor]

We already have problems with the legal drugs, and it's as easy to recognize as replacing all the cocaine references in your post with alcohol references.

Which is exactly my point. There are numerous very good arguments for legalizing currently illegal drugs, and they've been covered numerous times. If you think that legal adults should be able to do whatever they want to themselves, that's fine; the only real problem lies in keeping the consequences from everyone else.

But what's easier to enforce? Responsible use only or no use at all? Is either one even possible? I'm not saying drugs should be illegal, I'm simply saying the real issue to consider is how said drugs are used, not which ones they are or how potent they may be.

[Sam Or I]

I think most drugs should be legalized except the very hard drugs. They should be treated like cigarrettes. If this were to happen though, I also think an employer should have every right to drug test you when ever they feel like it, and discriminate against drug users. (Some jobs I think should discrimanate against alcohol users as well.)

[Darth Fanboy]

Case by case basis.

[Robert Walper]

age limit of 18. after that, your responsible for your own bloody self, and should be able to abuse yourself or sign whatever contract you like.

Except people like me take offense to the idea of dishing out health care funds to assholes who use said drugs. If they're willing to give up health insurance on the basis of drug use, then by all means, fuck up you body all you want. So long as we have a adaquate system in place to reduce dead druggies into fertilizer for crops to feed starving people of the world.

[Frank Hipper]

I can think of few if any reasons to legalise meth and PCP.

[Terr Fangbite]

I have no problem if you want to screw up your body. Just be sure that I'll fight any medicare support you might beg for. However the thing I have with drugs is that people like taking their habits and forcing them on others. For instance the smoking in public places. I don't need you crap fowling up my body. Drunk drivers, (actually any drivers under the influence of mind altering drugs) will always be a problem if drugs keep legal. People are morons, and while I don't care if they plow into a tree and removed themselves from the gene pool, that kinda fowls up traffic and sometimes its not a tree they hit, rather another car or a pedestrian, or a pet.
My opinion is that all of these drugs should be banned (including smoking and booze) but I'm not stupid enough to think it could happen any time soon.

[RedImperator]

Some drugs are easy. Marijuana and MDMA should be legalized immediately--marijuana for reasons that I've been over so many times I feel no need to repeat them, MDMA because there's no evidence the drug is any more dangerous than alcohol. Meth and PCP, on the other hand, make their users violently psychotic and in PCP's case, resistant to pain. They should be kept illegal no matter what happens with other drugs.

Where I get hung up is the medium-hard drugs like coke and heroin. I don't know if I can be entirely rational in my view of them, because I've seen firsthand just how much damage they can do. On the other hand, alcohol can wreck people's lives too, and there's quite a bit of data from the early 20th century that suggests that widespread opiate and cocaine use don't necessarily lead to the societal problems associated with them in the prohibition era.

[RedImperator]

I have no problem if you want to screw up your body. Just be sure that I'll fight any medicare support you might beg for. However the thing I have with drugs is that people like taking their habits and forcing them on others. For instance the smoking in public places. I don't need you crap fowling up my body. Drunk drivers, (actually any drivers under the influence of mind altering drugs) will always be a problem if drugs keep legal. People are morons, and while I don't care if they plow into a tree and removed themselves from the gene pool, that kinda fowls up traffic and sometimes its not a tree they hit, rather another car or a pedestrian, or a pet.
My opinion is that all of these drugs should be banned (including smoking and booze) but I'm not stupid enough to think it could happen any time soon.

So rather than try to mitigate the effects on non-users, with strict driving under the influence laws, mandatory non-smoking sections in places of public accomidation, etc., you'd prefer the titanic expense, corruption, and violence of prohibition laws which will be widely ignored anyway. Is this an accurate summary of your argument?

[RedImperator]

age limit of 18. after that, your responsible for your own bloody self, and should be able to abuse yourself or sign whatever contract you like.

Except people like me take offense to the idea of dishing out health care funds to assholes who use said drugs. If they're willing to give up health insurance on the basis of drug use, then by all means, fuck up you body all you want. So long as we have a adaquate system in place to reduce dead druggies into fertilizer for crops to feed starving people of the world.

Wrong. You like living in a society where people are free to make their own choices, that necessarily means paying for other people's bad ones. At any rate, nobody has ever shown me a shred of evidence that recreational drug use has anywhere near the impact on health care costs that obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and longevity itself do. And once again, you've failed to take the costs of prohibition into account.

Oh, and as for your suggestion for the bodies of drug users, and the implication that they're more useful dead than alive: I have friends who OD'd and died, and I have other friends who nearly joined them. So suck my dick, you loathsome, slimy, self-righteous, creepy fanwhore. I'd suggest the same for you, but likely the only thing that would grow on you are toadstools and slime mold.

EDIT: And by the way, you asswipe, just what the fuck do you think ethanol is? You really are a self-righteous, hypocritical little turd--either that, or you're too stupid to realize that an addictive chemical that interferes with brain function is still a drug even if it's legal. In one thread, you're proclaiming that "drug users" should be barred from health insurance to save you a quarter-cent on the dollar or whatever minimal savings you get, and in another, you're talking about how you went drinking last night!

[HemlockGrey]

For heroin and cocaine, I think a modified 19th-century style system is appropriate; the drugs are decrimalized, instead of time in a federal prison, there's government-run rehab clinics (which are much cheaper than prosecutions and jailings) and doctors are authorized to administer small doses of the drugs to addicts, allowing them to function normally in society.

[Castor Troy]

I don't think that violent inducing drugs should be allowed.

Also, I sure as hell am not going to pay for some other guy's rehab.

[RedImperator]

I don't think that violent inducing drugs should be allowed.

Also, I sure as hell am not going to pay for some other guy's rehab.

So what do you do with poor addicts who want to clean up? Tell them "tough luck"? How is that cheaper in the long term?

[Illuminatus Primus]

I don't think that violent inducing drugs should be allowed.

Also, I sure as hell am not going to pay for some other guy's rehab.

So you're comfortable paying their costs of living ten to twenty years minimum in prison?

[HemlockGrey]

I don't think that violent inducing drugs should be allowed.

Also, I sure as hell am not going to pay for some other guy's rehab.

Neither cocaine nor heroin have been shown to have any violence-inducing effects. Furthermore, to cost to prosecute and imprison a single drug user is astronomical (I believe the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy cited a $450,000 figure), whereas the cost to rehabiliate is much cheaper and longer-lasting.

And its nice to see that you have no compassion. Asshole.

[Master of Ossus]

Wrong. You like living in a society where people are free to make their own choices, that necessarily means paying for other people's bad ones.

Just because I occasionally HAVE to pay for other peoples' bad decisions does not mean that this is morally right or even acceptable; nor does it mean that it's something I enjoy doing.

If people fuck up, they should have to deal with the consequences of it themselves with as little involvement from society as is possible given the ultimate goal of rehabilitating the individual.

At any rate, nobody has ever shown me a shred of evidence that recreational drug use has anywhere near the impact on health care costs that obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and longevity itself do.

Other things are bad, so drug use should be allowed?

And once again, you've failed to take the costs of prohibition into account.

Prohibition was a disaster only because alcohol had already ingrained itself into American culture. Alcohol should instead be subjected to HUGE taxation.

Oh, and as for your suggestion for the bodies of drug users, and the implication that they're more useful dead than alive: I have friends who OD'd and died, and I have other friends who nearly joined them. So suck my dick, you loathsome, slimy, self-righteous, creepy fanwhore. I'd suggest the same for you, but likely the only thing that would grow on you are toadstools and slime mold.

EDIT: And by the way, you asswipe, just what the fuck do you think ethanol is? You really are a self-righteous, hypocritical little turd--either that, or you're too stupid to realize that an addictive chemical that interferes with brain function is still a drug even if it's legal. In one thread, you're proclaiming that "drug users" should be barred from health insurance to save you a quarter-cent on the dollar or whatever minimal savings you get, and in another, you're talking about how you went drinking last night!

Since I neither drink nor do drugs, this is a totally moot argument.