Drug Legalization: How far is too far?

[Perinquus]

How do you justify legalizing marijuana while simultaneously criminilizing tobacco? There's no reason to believe that marijuana smoke is any less carcinogenic than tobacco smoke.

Because Marijuana taken orally removes those benefits. Tobacco taken orally causes cancer of the mouth and throat.

All you would do is set up a new black market, and create a new niche for organized crime. Do you really think this is a good idea?

[Perinquus]

I don't see why. Unless you also advocate a ban on alcohol, which is also physically addictive (and we all know what a resounding success prohibition was the first time around).

And we can all see how well the current prohibition is doing too...

But the problem is, comparing alcohol, and heroin or crack is not exactly a perfect analogy.

Let me be clear. I favor legalizing marijuana. I don't use it myself, and didn't even before I became a cop. But marijuana is no more addictive than alcohol is, and no more dangerous in its side effects than alcohol is. Legalizing it would make it possible to free up all the law enforcement reasources at federal, state and local level dedicated to interdicting the traffic in it, and devote them to something else. Likewise, I'd legalize LSD and the other hallucinogens if I had my way, and for the same reason. They are not chemically addictive at all. There are also likely a few other drugs out there that we ought to legalize, because they simply don't present that great a danger.

However, I am afraid I must draw the line at heroin, cocaine, PCP, crystal meth, and the other hard drugs. As I said, comparing the ban on these drugs with the prohibition of alcohol is somewhat of a false analogy. To begin with, alcohol was something already in very widespread use when the Volstead Act became law, so there was an enormous demand, backed by a centuries long tradition in our culture of alcohol use. This meant that there was a level of demand for alcohol that was just orders of magnitude greater than that for hard drugs. In the second place, while alcohol is somewhat addictive, it is relatively mildly so. Hardcore alkies may suffer the DTs when they are forced to lay off the sauce for a while, but most people will never know what that is like, because they have no trouble leaving alcohol alone. Hard drugs are very, very different. With only a short period of use, one can become a chemically dependent addict, and this applies to everyone, not just a small percentage of the population.

As I said, I am a cop. And I have seen firsthand what hard drugs do to people. They are addictive as hell. So much so that your body can form a chemical dependency on them, and in some cases, it is severe enough that the withdrawal symptoms can kill you if you try to quit cold turkey. I don't know from firsthand experience, obviously, what this level of addiction is like. But I know from talking to people I've arrested. The craving never goes away. Even if you've successfully kicked it, no longer have actual withdrawal symptoms, and have been clean and sober for years, you always have that craving. You have to live with it every day. And it takes more willpower than a lot of people have to deny that craving every single day for the rest of your life. Why do you think Robert Downey keeps getting arrested for drugs? You think he wants to keep going to jail? He just can't leave it alone. He can't resist that craving. I just finished up the trial of a young lady I arrested when I was still in general assignment investigating larcenies (I'm now working in the sexual assault squad). She got arrested for stealing several hundred dollars of those Gillette Mach III razor blades. (They're actually a high theft item at most stores, which is why you have to go to the counter to get them at a lot of places.) Her day, all day, every day, consisted of visiting various stores, shoplifiting various items, which she would then take to one of the local flea markets and sell for money to support her $400 per day drug habit. Her drug was heroin. She had the worst looking track marks on her arms that I have ever seen. She was a complete slave to this drug habit. It consumed her entire life. Literally. Her entire day revolved around simply getting enough money together to feed that monster. Other considerations like food, clothing, hygiene, etc. simply fell by the wayside. Nothing was as important as getting her next hit. And she didn't take the stuff to feel good anymore. She took it to temporarily alleviate that painful withdrawal. It was no work at all getting her confession. She wanted to go to jail, because it would make her stay away from heroin, and get treatment for her addiction. She simply couldn't leave it alone herself. So she was willing to confess, go to jail, and become a convicted felon, with all the long term consequences that entails, because even that was a more attractive option that living with this addiction any longer.

Now, I know what you are about to say. "If we legalized heroin, it wouldn't be nearly as bad. She wouldn't have to buy from a street dealer at such high prices. If it cost a lot less, then she wouldn't have to resort to what she does to come up with so much money, and maybe it wouldn't ruin her life so much." Sorry, but it would. Just because it wouldn't be costing her as much, the drug would still be just as addictive, and she'd still be just as much a slave to it. And it would ruin her life as much, because it would destroy her ability to make a living. No employer is going to keep a hardcore druggie on the payroll any more than he's going to keep a hardcore alcoholic around. They're both too unreliable. Hardcore drug addiction would still ruin lives just as hardcore alcoholism ruins lives. Only because hard drugs are far more addictive than alcohol ever was, there'd be a bigger problem with it.

Hell, take a look at hard drugs that are legal. Look at oxycodone, a.k.a. oxycontin. It's legal, though it is controlled, and demands a prescription. This was the drug that Rush Limbaugh got addicted to. Now whatever you may think of Limbaugh, do you imagine he ever said: "you know what? I think I'd like to be a junkie. I'd like to have an out of control drug habit that will endanger my livelihood"? He started out taking this stuff with a doctor's prescription. But oxycontin is so addictive if you don't follow your doctor's instructions precisely, or if your doctor overprescribes (it happens; not all doctors are created equal), then hey presto! You have a chemical dependency. And you will now go to extreme lengths to obtain more of this stuff, so that your terrible, painful withdrawal symptoms will go away. For a while.

Folks, hard drugs are bad news all around, and as unsatisfactory as the war on drugs is, I simply do not see how we can safely legalize and control these things. They are that addictive. A lot of the people who are advocating legalizing them have no experience with them, either firsthand, or through dealing with addicts.

[Petrosjko]

Folks, hard drugs are bad news all around, and as unsatisfactory as the war on drugs is, I simply do not see how we can safely legalize and control these things. They are that addictive. A lot of the people who are advocating legalizing them have no experience with them, either firsthand, or through dealing with addicts.

Here's my conundrum, for which I do not have a satisfactory answer. I live out where the War on Drugs is a big business for everyone involved. I've been around the hardcore junkies, so yes, I know what the human cost is vis a vis drug usage.

On the other hand, I've seen the cost of the war, too. The money that floats around this has dirtied everyone involved. The legal system in my area is complete shit because the lawyers inevitably end up laundering, at the very least. The prosecution and the judges continually recycle the low-grade offenders through the system, stringing them along on probation because the fees associated with probation form a significant portion of the municipal budget. Among the police, this encourages the tendency to do such things as arrest for paraphanalia but not drugs. Even if the police involved are totally clean, they're still facing pressure to work their arrests to support the probation system while also angling for confiscation money where the big ticket items were available. (My hometown was notorious across the state for the zeal with which our county sheriff chased the confiscation money.)

Therein lies the conundrum- what is the greater cost here? The loss of people who will become addicted once hard drugs are more commonly available, or the corruption of our institutions in fighting the war? And I haven't even gone into the cowboyism of the DEA, or the no-knock search shit that was introduced because of the war, a war that will never end and never be won.

If I could wave a magic wand and make the damned things go away, I would in a heartbeat. There's just no way for society to deal with them and stay clean.

[J]

To me marijuana's a sure bet for legalization, as are pretty much all hallucinogens since they tend not to be physically addictive and their side-effects are relatively benign.

And that's as far as I'm comfortable with going. While I recognize that alcohol and tobacco are physically addictive and cause many long term health issues, I feel we can't use that as a reason to legalize cocaine, heroin, or other such drugs. The only reason alcohol & tobacco are legal is because they were more or less "grandfathered in" since their use has long since become ingrained in our society, and the costs of outlawing them, well, there's no need to go through Prohibition again, it was bad enough the first time. I do not feel comfortable with legalizing additional drugs which have proven to have many negative effects on quality of life. As Perinquus noted, the addiction potential and withdrawal effects are quite ugly and it's far too easy to become trapped in a cycle of substance abuse. It's not like with marijuana where a person can try it once to see if he likes and then quit for life if he doesn't, with heroin for instance the odds are pretty good that the first try will lead to years of use, abuse, rehab, and suffering.

[Robert Walper]

I drink a fair amount of alcohol (somewhat, sometimes only a drink or two) on the weekends (which I've only recently had off), yet I have no addiction towards it whatsoever. I was always under the impression you needed to seriously drink a lot of alcohol for a long time for an addiction kick in.

[Petrosjko]

I drink a fair amount of alcohol (somewhat, sometimes only a drink or two) on the weekends (which I've only recently had off), yet I have no addiction towards it whatsoever. I was always under the impression you needed to seriously drink a lot of alcohol for a long time for an addiction kick in.

It's heavily tied into genetics. People from cultures which had little exposure to alcohol for much of their history can become addicted very quickly. The Injun side of my family is rife with alcoholics who were hooked from early on, whereas the Dane/Finnish side tend to drink like fish in their younger years and then wind down to the point of hardly drinking at all as they get older. Fortunately, I've followed the pattern of the latter with regards to the booze.

The question is 'Can you walk away?' If you can't easily walk away, then you're addicted.

[Junghalli]

I'd keep the laws about as they are now. Light stuff like cigarettes, alcohol, etc. is OK, anything heavier is out. Basically my rule of thumb would be that if small quantities of the substance results in you acting totally fucked up it probably isn't good.

[Robert Walper]

I drink a fair amount of alcohol (somewhat, sometimes only a drink or two) on the weekends (which I've only recently had off), yet I have no addiction towards it whatsoever. I was always under the impression you needed to seriously drink a lot of alcohol for a long time for an addiction kick in.

It's heavily tied into genetics. People from cultures which had little exposure to alcohol for much of their history can become addicted very quickly. The Injun side of my family is rife with alcoholics who were hooked from early on, whereas the Dane/Finnish side tend to drink like fish in their younger years and then wind down to the point of hardly drinking at all as they get older. Fortunately, I've followed the pattern of the latter with regards to the booze.

The question is 'Can you walk away?' If you can't easily walk away, then you're addicted.

Well, at any point where I feel I "need" alcohol rather than just choosing to have some is the point I quit on the spot.

[Robert Walper]

I'd keep the laws about as they are now. Light stuff like cigarettes, alcohol, etc. is OK, anything heavier is out. Basically my rule of thumb would be that if small quantities of the substance results in you acting totally fucked up it probably isn't good.

I'd hardly call cigarettes "light". They're very addictive, harmful and disgusting to boot.

I sell them, I see a lot of people who smoke. Nothing sickens me more than seeing someone grab a loaf of bread, some milk and then a pack of smokes. Can't afford the bill? Ok, drop the milk. Still not enough. Ok, drop the bread. There, got my smokes at least.

Not to mention some of the heavier smokers...disgusting shit on their hands and teeth. Grosses me out really.