Marijuana and every other drug.

[shanedk]

There's a reason why people with certain positions shouldn't be involved in decision making that affects all of us... and "selfishness as a virtue" is one of those disqualifying positions.

As I pointed out above, my position is NOT IN ANY WAY "selfishness as a virtue"!

Apparently, though, YOUR position is "irresponsibility and not facing the consequences of your actions as a virtue"...not to mention "lying as a virtue."

 

[Ozymandyus]

Yes, by all means, let's play around with something that's never, ever, ever been shown to work anywhere in the history of mankind, hoping that there's some kind of "better way" to do it, while people continue to die.

Yeah, you're one of those crazy there should be no laws at all kind of people then? Because I'm pretty sure that prohibiting things like murder, beating, property damage etc stops a lot of people from doing a lot of things. If you mean only with regard to consumables, religious prohibitions of pork and such things have worked pretty well, and completely banning certain hazardous materials like cfcs etc has worked.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Yeah, you're one of those crazy there should be no laws at all kind of people then? Because I'm pretty sure that prohibiting things like murder, beating, property damage etc stops a lot of people from doing a lot of things. If you mean only with regard to consumables, religious prohibitions of pork and such things have worked pretty well, and completely banning certain hazardous materials like cfcs etc has worked.

Yeah, but weed is different because it is from the Earth! It is about personal freedom! :lol:

To be fair, I don't care either way about marijuana legalization. I just think the reasons people give are usually kind of silly.

 

[Otokogoroshi]

I only got to page two but I was curious if anyone here has personally and closely dealt with harder drugs? I'm not only asking if someone here has done hard drugs but knows people who have. Not distantly, not casually but closely.

I'm the type to give personal accounts as to why I believe in certain things. I'm against decriminalizing all drugs. You can yap on about personal freedom and 'its my body' but the affect it has on a person doesn't stay with just that person.

There are the medical ramifications. The productivity ones.

My eldest brother did meth for years. I don't doubt that he did other drugs too but meth was his drug of choice. He's clean now (thank goodness) but for years his life was destroyed because of this. Now his teeth are destroyed and for years he was completely useless to society in fact he was a detriment. I'm sure someone might say "Well if it was legal then he wouldn't have stolen to feed his habit"

However all he was interested in was the next high. He hardly worked and couldn't hold down any jobs and was homeless for a good amount of the time.

I'm fine with pot being legal. It's less harmful and less likely to kill you than aspirin. I think that the addicts to harder drugs should stop being treated as criminals. They should be treated as addicts and all efforts should be made to clean them up. The traffickers and other people who profit off of drugs should still be punished and dealt with and reformed but not the addicts. It's ridiculous.


Heroin is the most addictive drug there is. After only a single use a person is hooked (the exceptions to this are few). However the same thing that gives us heroin, opium, gives us our powerful painkillers that help people deal with all sorts of medical issues. There are plenty of pills derived from opium that are legal with a prescription and many times those too are sold illicitly...


I'm not happy alcohol destroys lives. My best friend lost his father to it, my other good friend no longer speaks to her father and my dad also has issues with it. However the good majority of people drink it without addiction or even ill effects. I myself enjoy a drink now and again but never get drunk and doubtfully will become addicted.



Some things just... shouldn't be legal. Meth for example... do you know what goes into that shit?!

 

[shanedk]

Yeah, you're one of those crazy there should be no laws at all kind of people then?

False dichotomy.

Because I'm pretty sure that prohibiting things like murder, beating, property damage etc

Show me where I have EVER advocated that, ANYWHERE, EVER. You CAN'T. Because I NEVER DID.

If you mean only with regard to consumables, religious prohibitions of pork and such things have worked pretty well,

Oh, yeah, it's NEVER been the case that a ban on priests having sex has resulted in child molestation...

 

[shanedk]

I thought this one deserved a separate post all on its own:

and completely banning certain hazardous materials like cfcs etc has worked.

Here's how people are being directly harmed by the CFC ban:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=unlikely-victims-of-banning-cfcs

A federal ban on ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), to conform with the Clean Air Act, is, ironically, affecting 22.9 million people in the U.S. who suffer from asthma. Generic inhaled albuterol, which is the most commonly prescribed short-acting asthma medication and requires CFCs to propel it into the lungs, will no longer be legally sold after December 31, 2008. Physicians and patients are questioning the wisdom of the ban, which will have an insignificant effect on ozone but a measurable impact on wallets: the reformulated brand-name alternatives can be three times as expensive, raising the cost to about $40 per inhaler. The issue is even more disconcerting considering that asthma disproportionately affects the poor and that, according to recent surveys, an estimated 20 percent of asthma patients are uninsured.

So, yes, if you HATE THE POOR, then by all means the ban on CFCs is great!

 

[shanedk]

Yeah, but weed is different because it is from the Earth! It is about personal freedom! :lol:

No, idiot, it's different because the act of smoking weed in no way initiates force against anything else, unlike murder etc.

REASONABLE people know this. But you're not reasonable; you're a dogmatist defending the cult.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I only got to page two but I was curious if anyone here has personally and closely dealt with harder drugs? I'm not only asking if someone here has done hard drugs but knows people who have. Not distantly, not casually but closely.!

Yeah, and everyone who has been involved with them has been destroyed by them. Even the ones who survived and have gotten cleaned up have lost a great deal, and left tons of damage in their wake.

 

[shanedk]

There are the medical ramifications.

Which should be dealt with medically, not with prisons.

The productivity ones.

If they lose their jobs as a result, they've got no one to blame but themselves. As it is, they could lose their jobs even if it's not affecting their productivity! What sense does THAT make?

My eldest brother did meth for years. I don't doubt that he did other drugs too but meth was his drug of choice. He's clean now (thank goodness) but for years his life was destroyed because of this.

And how different do you think it would have been with years of prison added to his woes?

However all he was interested in was the next high. He hardly worked and couldn't hold down any jobs and was homeless for a good amount of the time.

Again, it's a medical issue. 50% of addicts THAT WE KNOW OF have an alternative diagnosis, usually some sort of depression. It's probable that your brother was/is suffering from something like that as well.

I think that the addicts to harder drugs should stop being treated as criminals. They should be treated as addicts and all efforts should be made to clean them up.

At least we agree with that.

The traffickers and other people who profit off of drugs should still be punished and dealt with and reformed but not the addicts. It's ridiculous.

And what if he had started making his own, having no other source to get it from? And what about those who sell alcohol, given that it's been shown to be far more dangerous than any of the other drugs?

Heroin is the most addictive drug there is.

Incorrect; nicotine is more addictive than heroin.

After only a single use a person is hooked (the exceptions to this are few).

Actually, that's very rarely the case, despite what government propaganda says. In fact, addiction was rare (albeit not unheard of) back when heroin was a legal product sold by Bayer.

Some things just... shouldn't be legal. Meth for example... do you know what goes into that shit?!

Well, do you know what shit went into bathtub gin back in the days of Prohibition? That went away with legalization. There's no reason to think it wouldn't happen that way again.

 

[shanedk]

Yeah, and everyone who has been involved with them has been destroyed by them.

Everyone? Every single one?

So, if I could find just one person who used heroin or cocaine with no ill effects, what would that be?

 

[You]

Yeah, and everyone who has been involved with them has been destroyed by them. Even the ones who survived and have gotten cleaned up have lost a great deal, and left tons of damage in their wake.

Drugs are potentially destructive, no doubt. Prohibition is just a really bad way to deal with that reality. Support for drug decriminalization does not *always* come from a desire to do them.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Drugs are potentially destructive, no doubt. Prohibition is just a really bad way to deal with that reality. Support for drug decriminalization does not *always* come from a desire to do them.

No, sometimes it comes from the possibly worse notion that government regulation is wrong on principle, and that "principle" is worth more than people's well-being, and worth more than the overall health of the society.

 

[Ozymandyus]

So, yes, if you HATE THE POOR, then by all means the ban on CFCs is great!

Don't be ridiculous. The problem there is that we protect 'brand names' so much that we refuse to be reasonable when it comes to things like this. The cost to make non-cfc propellants is nearly identical to making cfc propellants - its the worship of patents that causes this kind of injustice.
As a sidenote: the 'brand name' propellant inhalers can be had at Walmart for $9, no where near the $40 you claimed.

False dichotomy.
Show me where I have EVER advocated that, ANYWHERE, EVER. You CAN'T. Because I NEVER DID.

You said prohibition has never ever worked in any way or some such bullshit. I was honestly asking if that was your position - every law is prohibition. I framed it as a question because I was honestly wondering if you believed that.

 

[You]

No, sometimes it comes from the possibly worse notion that government regulation is wrong on principle, and that "principle" is worth more than people's well-being, and worth more than the overall health of the society.

Could be, but that's not me. This is the second time that you appear to have mistaken me for someone else.

Prohibition does almost nothing to keep drugs out of the hands of people who want them. On the other hand, it creates very powerful gangsters, who do some of the most horrific things you could imagine, so that they can maintain their supply of money and power. Never mind the great deal of money that has already been spent on the War on Some Drugs, with little to show for it.

 

[shanedk]

Don't be ridiculous. The problem there is that we protect 'brand names' so much that we refuse to be reasonable when it comes to things like this. The cost to make non-cfc propellants is nearly identical to making cfc propellants - its the worship of patents that causes this kind of injustice.

Hey, listen, you don't have to sell me at all on the problems of patents! But don't you recognize the corporate protectionism inherent in the CFC ban, the Clean Air Act, etc.?

every law is prohibition.

No, it's not. Prohibitionism is a political philosophy which believes that you can stop people from doing things that aren't inherently criminal (like murder, etc.) if you treat them as crimes and ban them, enforcing them with the same law enforcement system. Not just drugs and alcohol, but gambling, prostitution, exotic dancing, pornography, doing business on Sunday, dancing within 100 yards of a church, etc. And it NEVER works.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Could be, but that's not me. This is the second time that you appear to have mistaken me for someone else.

With a screen name like that, you probably expect it... :lol:

Seriously, though. I haven't mistaken you for someone else ONCE. Just because I'm talking TO you, it doesn't mean I'm talking ABOUT you. I was speaking about arguments I've heard, and not about any specific person in this thread. Sorry if there was some confusion about that.

 

[Ozymandyus]

Hey, listen, you don't have to sell me at all on the problems of patents! But don't you recognize the corporate protectionism inherent in the CFC ban, the Clean Air Act, etc.?

No, I don't recognize that. A well done prohibition on these sorts of things is actually a major impediment to huge businesses who have to rework an entire production line in order to compensate, leaving room for a smaller more agile company to step in - especially if they paid attention to such harmful effects and anticipate bans like this. The fact that big companies can pre-patent all kinds of alternate options without using them and that they have entirely too much influence in governments and bills like these is shameful, but clearly something that can and should be corrected - and inherently has nothing to do with banning dangerous things.

No, it's not. Prohibitionism is a political philosophy which believes that you can stop people from doing things that aren't inherently criminal (like murder, etc.) if you treat them as crimes and ban them, enforcing them with the same law enforcement system. Not just drugs and alcohol, but gambling, prostitution, exotic dancing, pornography, doing business on Sunday, dancing within 100 yards of a church, etc. And it NEVER works.

You can try to make this the definition if you want, but using the word loosely necessarily leads to confusion, as it did earlier between you and me. With a capital P, Prohibition just refers to the banning of alcohol in the early 20th... Prohibitionism can be defined as you have defined it. But as you used it, prohibition with a lowercase p is just the condition of being prohibited. That's what it means in english if you use it that way. You are trying to include this blurry line of 'things that are not inherently criminal' which is a completely insubstantial concept and makes that definition nearly useless in my opinion.

 

[You]

With a screen name like that, you probably expect it... :lol:

Seriously, though. I haven't mistaken you for someone else ONCE. Just because I'm talking TO you, it doesn't mean I'm talking ABOUT you. I was speaking about arguments I've heard, and not about any specific person in this thread. Sorry if there was some confusion about that.

:lol:
No sweat - the interwebz have made me cynical. Carry on.

BTW, it irritates the bejeebus out of me that a political party that has assumed as its operating principle that the very organization it seeks to administer is evil and unnecessary is enjoying as much success as it is, little as that may be these days. It's kind of like a drop-out running for student council.

 

[shanedk]

No, I don't recognize that.

So, let's review:

People lobby for environmental legislation.
Corporations lobby for things that will make it harder for smaller companies to compete with them.
Congress makes Clean Air Act. This act:

• Makes a buttload of regulations that industries must follow
• Provides for no means for the industries to recoup the cost of complying with said regulations
• Issues a grandfather clause for all industries currently running at the time of passage

And you DON'T see ANYTHING corporatist about that???

A well done prohibition

is something that's always promised but never materializes.

are actually a major impediment to huge businesses

No; they're somewhat of an impediment to huge businesses. They're a major impediment to SMALL businesses and start-ups. Since the big businesses can better absorb the costs of compliance, the little guy is driven out of business and they don't have as much competition.

Why do you think big corporations keep lobbying FOR these kinds of regulations?

You can try to make this the definition if you want,

That IS the definition! Look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibitionism

but using the word loosely necessarily leads to confusion,

YOU'RE the one using it loosely! You're the one trying to make it include MURDER!

 

[ImprobableJoe]

BTW, it irritates the bejeebus out of me that a political party that has assumed as its operating principle that the very organization it seeks to administer is evil and unnecessary is enjoying as much success as it is, little as that may be these days. It's kind of like a drop-out running for student council.

I'm with you on that... as soon as Reagan said "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." his next step should have been to resign the presidency and ask for the dissolution of the Republican Party. And Ron Paul should just shoot himself in the leg with a harpoon gun, that hypocritical fuck. But he's pro-drugs! Anti-rehab, anti-social programs to mitigate the harm of drugs, but against restricting drug use. What an asshole... sucking the government teat for the past few decades while complaining about the government?

Do you want a doctor who doesn't believe in the effectiveness of medicine or surgery? Then why would you want a government run by people who don't think a government can possibly be run correctly for the benefit of society? When they complain about the government being ineffective, they mean governments THAT THEY ARE RUNNING INTO THE GROUND! A bit of self-fulfilling prophesy, isn't it?