What do you think about preventing drug overdoses by legalizing drugs?

[OddBall1st]

Ever see the DT`s ? Ever see their kids ? Wanna let them drive ? F` the other half....Right ?

 

[cannabineer]

Hang on. I'm strapping on my Slippery Slope Pitons.

 

[curious2garden]

Ever see the DT`s ? Ever see their kids ? Wanna let them drive ? F` the other half....Right ?

Let's see the prize in my cracker jacks was my Public Health license that attests to my training and education So I'd say I have a ticket to this conversation, you?

 

[OddBall1st]

Of my choices, ..I`ll go with ....I`m the other half.

I left witness out so this will be fair.

 

[kinetic]

We have legal heroin. Get injured and go to pain managment. There ya go, whats the ptoblem? Get a nail gun amd fire a few shots into yourself. Get opiates and win. When a junkie cant get their legal fix that's socially condoned what do you think the next move will be?

Will you give your kids and grandkids a ride to pick up their smack at walgreens?

 

[cannabineer]

We have legal heroin. Get injured and go to pain managment. There ya go, whats the ptoblem? Get a nail gun amd fire a few shots into yourself. Get opiates and win. When a junkie cant get their legal fix that's socially condoned what do you think the next move will be?

Will you give your kids and grandkids a ride to pick up their smack at walgreens?

Hell no! They can walk just like dad did. ~grumble~ whippersnappers.

 

[curious2garden]

We have legal heroin. Get injured and go to pain managment. There ya go, whats the ptoblem? Get a nail gun amd fire a few shots into yourself. Get opiates and win. When a junkie cant get their legal fix that's socially condoned what do you think the next move will be?

Will you give your kids and grandkids a ride to pick up their smack at walgreens?

Condoning and legalizing are two very different things.

As for blaming the doctors for handing out opiates. Maybe we should think back to all the suicides that got the physicians sued because they wouldn't hand out opiates.

So damned if they do and damned if they don't. We need to stop blaming others for adult's choices good or bad.

 

[TheNameless]

Look at Portugal.. All drugs are legal. They did this because they had a terrible heroin problem and nothing was working. So now its totally legal, and if you get caught, all you get is a citation for free rehab. It's working wonders. I believe we should also adapt these policies..

Look at any prohibition.. Didn't work on alcohol, isn't working on other drugs, and wouldn't work for anything else. Imagine if they made lets say, guns illegal... All that would happen is there would be sketchy ass home made guns every where and we would be in a worse problem than to begin with.

Prohibition exacerbates the cause its trying to stop.

 

[OddBall1st]

Portugal is about the size of New England, and population is about the same. The US is closing in on 300 million. Portugal isn`t exactly a booming economy. For the third consecutive year it is in decline. It has in the past been recognized for it`s participation in world economy. What works in a small place doesn`t always mean it would work in a country 50 time larger.

You should prefix prohibition because it pertains to many other things.

But still, sometimes you don`t know until you try.

I`d definitely run it by medical universities and current doctor associations first.

 

[gR33nDav3l0l]

What ya'll ain't keeping in mind, is that prisons would seem vastly less populated if legalization occurs. This won't roll with many riches and powers. Opiate trafficking brings money to the DEA, CIA and US Army (we've seen some gringos in uniform patrolling poppy fields in Latin America). Weed got out their control, harder shit won't.

Ya'll should know that that tax money goes into arming cartels, terrorists and overall fuck ups around here and Asia. There's a reason why Pablo Escobar got gangraped and the Chapo Guzman is out and about.

 

[OddBall1st]

What we save in prison space might bite back with over crowded hospitals and higher health costs. I`m not a numbers cruncher but it might happen.

 

[TheNameless]

Portugal is about the size of New England, and population is about the same. The US is closing in on 300 million. Portugal isn`t exactly a booming economy. For the third consecutive year it is in decline. It has in the past been recognized for it`s participation in world economy. What works in a small place doesn`t always mean it would work in a country 50 time

True, but do you think that just because it's smaller, with an economy that is less than thriving, would mean that their drug policy would have more or less of an effect?

Idk, if it works on a small scale for their country, I don't see why it couldn't apply to a larger scale such as the US.

 

[OddBall1st]

On the economy or the people ?

 

[BSD0621]

What ya'll ain't keeping in mind, is that prisons would seem vastly less populated if legalization occurs. This won't roll with many riches and powers. Opiate trafficking brings money to the DEA, CIA and US Army (we've seen some gringos in uniform patrolling poppy fields in Latin America). Weed got out their control, harder shit won't.

Ya'll should know that that tax money goes into arming cartels, terrorists and overall fuck ups around here and Asia. There's a reason why Pablo Escobar got gangraped and the Chapo Guzman is out and about.

And these corporations who now OWN private prisons want a bigger paycheck.. so they WANT more prisons and them FILLED!

 

[cannabineer]

Who wants to turn the US into Sodom and Gomorrah ? Are we suggesting that junkies have some kind of redeeming qualities ? Should we let narcotics be legal so junkies can continue to be junkies ? Who the F` wants to tolerate and live with junkies ? Should we legalize it and make 70% of the fixes lethal poison and let them take their chances ? Who said junkies have any kind of value ?

Can the people who don`t tolerate them and despise them get free shots at will to rid us of them ? You gotta give the other half something !i

I`ve lived around junkies all my life and there`s not much else worse than those phony F`s

I've had time to think, and I owe you an explanation of from where I'm coming here.
I could be wrong - but - I get the impression from your posts that you classify drug addicts as not human any more, as having surrendered their rights to be in our society.
I don't know if this is a moral argument (good Methodists don't even drink, so imagine what sort of sin is involved in shooting the smack!) or a sociopolitical one (don't waste resources on the losers in Evolution's race) but either way, I disagree.

I think it is wrong to state or imply that drug addicts have given up their humanity. I don't deny that addictive drugs put their users into self-destructive habits. but most of what the public sees as the evils of drugs has nothing to do with the substance being used ... and much to do with the criminality of seeking very expensive subsytances in the outlaw underground.

Most of these social ills disappear if one legalizes the drugs in question and makes them cheap. Because of the potency and breadth of sources, feeding a drug addiction (narcotics, stimulants, various sedatives) will be cheaper than an alcohol or tobacco addiction. (The latter is expensive primarily because of taxation. People are easily sold on "sin taxes", which implies that smoking is morally wrong.)

I add my voice to the ones of those who say prohibition is inherently bad. it is an instrument of social control, and it is routinely dressed up in the cloak of moral need. Remember the rhetoric of the alcohol prohibitionists? When they weren't being explicitly religious, they were warning of the evils of a drug that made for people around whom we didn't want to be raising our children. Morally corrosive. It was a blatant instance of the "slippery slope", the claim that alcohol led inescapably to complete moral dissolution. I write this while sipping my IPA. Alcohol was positioned as a gateway drug - not necessarily to other drugs but to the sort of amoral life in which there was no barrier to other outlaw and outcast actions.

We look back (most of us; not the Methodists, Mormons and others who lament the lost opportunity at imposing their vision of a better, Godlier world) upon Prohibition and realize how trumped-up those fearmongering warnings were.

None of this detracts from the cold fact that alcoholism ruins lives today. So does addiction to legal prescription drugs. But look at the moral difference between the unfortunates (but still in good moral standing) who fell into the trap of pill dependency ... and those evil. morally bankrupt junkies who seek their thrill&escape from shadowy back-alley criminals. Why do we morally posture pill dependency one way, and meth or smack habits another/ medically, biologically, there is no difference. Morally, one has been manufactured. We should speak out against this. This sort of moral argument is the enemy. Who is promoting it, and to what end?

The others (beside moral crusaders) who have an iron in this fire are the prison profiteers. Criminalizing an attractive nuisance like drug use - and setting the penalties as stiff as years in prison - is a sure way to make certain that these nice shiny (!) expensive prisons have a continuity of new clients. the shareholders love that.

Finally, i want to point a finger at the drug elitists. "Weed is good and green and natural, but i have a contempt for those corrupt users of other drugs". This is an insidious argument. Not only is it wrong, but it is the wedge by which we are divided prior to conquest. there is NO moral difference between doing weed and doing coke or shrooms or name the synthetic drug. Cocaine is just as natural and botanical as weed. It is quite addictive. I imagine that, had it not been pushed underground into the status quo mentality of the cartelistas, we'd see 10+% cultivars of E. coca today.

We hang together or we hang separately. i won't support the "ours is the better drug" argument. I certainly won't support the argument that addicts have surrendered their humanity. And i will waste no time on the idea that drug use is unconditionally a sin or moral failing.

We need to legalize drug use and possession. We need to promote an understanding that addicts are fellow humans and citizens who are probably trapped in a way of life from which they want out. We should support these people and assist any effort they make to get clean, without holding their reputations or humanity hostage. I don't hold with the sort of bigotry that suggests "distribute lethal loads into the supply so they are removed from my sight". I don't want such a morally hypocritical idea made policy.

 

[gR33nDav3l0l]

Opiates and other salts ain't the worst thing a person could get addicted to.

 

[curious2garden]

I've had time to think, and I owe you an explanation of from where I'm coming here.
.......snip.......

We need to legalize drug use and possession. We need to promote an understanding that addicts are fellow humans and citizens who are probably trapped in a way of life from which they want out. We should support these people and assist any effort they make to get clean, without holding their reputations or humanity hostage. I don't hold with the sort of bigotry that suggests "distribute lethal loads into the supply so they are removed from my sight". I don't want such a morally hypocritical idea made policy.

Well said and I agree, but I know you know that. Essentially you can not legislate morality and any government that tries to, for whatever 'good' reason, ends up a tyranny.

 

[OddBall1st]

I've had time to think, and I owe you an explanation of from where I'm coming here.
I could be wrong - but - I get the impression from your posts that you classify drug addicts as not human any more, as having surrendered their rights to be in our society.
I don't know if this is a moral argument (good Methodists don't even drink, so imagine what sort of sin is involved in shooting the smack!) or a sociopolitical one (don't waste resources on the losers in Evolution's race) but either way, I disagree.

I think it is wrong to state or imply that drug addicts have given up their humanity. I don't deny that addictive drugs put their users into self-destructive habits. but most of what the public sees as the evils of drugs has nothing to do with the substance being used ... and much to do with the criminality of seeking very expensive subsytances in the outlaw underground.

Most of these social ills disappear if one legalizes the drugs in question and makes them cheap. Because of the potency and breadth of sources, feeding a drug addiction (narcotics, stimulants, various sedatives) will be cheaper than an alcohol or tobacco addiction. (The latter is expensive primarily because of taxation. People are easily sold on "sin taxes", which implies that smoking is morally wrong.)

I add my voice to the ones of those who say prohibition is inherently bad. it is an instrument of social control, and it is routinely dressed up in the cloak of moral need. Remember the rhetoric of the alcohol prohibitionists? When they weren't being explicitly religious, they were warning of the evils of a drug that made for people around whom we didn't want to be raising our children. Morally corrosive. It was a blatant instance of the "slippery slope", the claim that alcohol led inescapably to complete moral dissolution. I write this while sipping my IPA. Alcohol was positioned as a gateway drug - not necessarily to other drugs but to the sort of amoral life in which there was no barrier to other outlaw and outcast actions.

We look back (most of us; not the Methodists, Mormons and others who lament the lost opportunity at imposing their vision of a better, Godlier world) upon Prohibition and realize how trumped-up those fearmongering warnings were.

None of this detracts from the cold fact that alcoholism ruins lives today. So does addiction to legal prescription drugs. But look at the moral difference between the unfortunates (but still in good moral standing) who fell into the trap of pill dependency ... and those evil. morally bankrupt junkies who seek their thrill&escape from shadowy back-alley criminals. Why do we morally posture pill dependency one way, and meth or smack habits another/ medically, biologically, there is no difference. Morally, one has been manufactured. We should speak out against this. This sort of moral argument is the enemy. Who is promoting it, and to what end?

The others (beside moral crusaders) who have an iron in this fire are the prison profiteers. Criminalizing an attractive nuisance like drug use - and setting the penalties as stiff as years in prison - is a sure way to make certain that these nice shiny (!) expensive prisons have a continuity of new clients. the shareholders love that.

Finally, i want to point a finger at the drug elitists. "Weed is good and green and natural, but i have a contempt for those corrupt users of other drugs". This is an insidious argument. Not only is it wrong, but it is the wedge by which we are divided prior to conquest. there is NO moral difference between doing weed and doing coke or shrooms or name the synthetic drug. Cocaine is just as natural and botanical as weed. It is quite addictive. I imagine that, had it not been pushed underground into the status quo mentality of the cartelistas, we'd see 10+% cultivars of E. coca today.

We hang together or we hang separately. i won't support the "ours is the better drug" argument. I certainly won't support the argument that addicts have surrendered their humanity. And i will waste no time on the idea that drug use is unconditionally a sin or moral failing.

We need to legalize drug use and possession. We need to promote an understanding that addicts are fellow humans and citizens who are probably trapped in a way of life from which they want out. We should support these people and assist any effort they make to get clean, without holding their reputations or humanity hostage. I don't hold with the sort of bigotry that suggests "distribute lethal loads into the supply so they are removed from my sight". I don't want such a morally hypocritical idea made policy.

First, There are different phases of narcotic addiction. At the first level, most people can get off the drug by themselves. The second level is when help by professionals assist in defeating the addiction. But the possibility of jumping off the wagon is there and happens throughout multiple treatments. The third level is when the drug take control of you, it destroys any hope of cure and death follows without it. So they continue to do them to stay alive. This is where there humanity is lost forever. They are just a breeding ground for the drug to thrive. Useless and hopeless and become a danger to civilization around them for they care not about anything but their next fix. Will do anything for that fix as well. I stand my ground with the third level. The other two can be tolerated, and the second level only to a point. I have witnessed all three and the final results.

The criminality you speak of whether expensive or cheap, legal or illegal is a direct result of the drugs addiction made by a choice said person made. You cannot blame the drug. If the drug is readily available cheap and common, you can blame society and or the person addicted because it is one the same.

I disagree that the ills will disappear if the drug is legal or cheap or reduced dosage. it will prolong the trip through the levels to which out of control exists. The prohibition of alcohol failed because the majority of citizens did not oppose it but wanted it. This is how you decide whether or not to prohibit. You don`t see the majority of citizens wanting to legalize all drugs for rec. use or even controlled use. Your Country will fail as a whole when you damage trust and set in place laws to satisfy a select few against the will of the majority.

Please leave Religion out, for Jesus Christ himself drank wine, when talking about alcohol. It`s not a drug when abused, it`s more like a disease. Jesus did not abuse it. I myself do not drink.

Legal script drug addiction is a choice made by the addict just as a addiction to a Class 1 is. Crime exists is all phases of civilization including the medical profession. Drug companies such as Pfizer have cornered the market as to what drugs become available and wich do not see production and cost plus profit have much to do about that.

I don`t wanna hear the prison BS because we can put drunk drivers under stiff penalties in there so much faster and often.

I truly believe you are wrong about your comparison of pot, alcohol with manufactured mind and body controlling drugs you cannot defeat once addicted to them. Both pot and alcohol are defeated simply by not doing them anymore.

We hang together but think separately. You don`t have to support or not support the "our is the better drug" because it`s about risk and control, not winning.

Your last paragraph is where you fail. You fail to include citizens right to govern by majority. You mention not how you consider what the non partisipants feel or wish to have as government and law. You will never Skipper my ship because you put the ship before the crew. You absolutely cannot ignore the vast majority in favor of the select few and your ship is just Iron without it`s crew.


It will suck if this took too long for my limited typing skills and I get logged off.

 

[Padawanbater2]

First, There are different phases of narcotic addiction. At the first level, most people can get off the drug by themselves. The second level is when help by professionals assist in defeating the addiction. But the possibility of jumping off the wagon is there and happens throughout multiple treatments. The third level is when the drug take control of you, it destroys any hope of cure and death follows without it. So they continue to do them to stay alive. This is where there humanity is lost forever. They are just a breeding ground for the drug to thrive. Useless and hopeless and become a danger to civilization around them for they care not about anything but their next fix. Will do anything for that fix as well. I stand my ground with the third level. The other two can be tolerated, and the second level only to a point. I have witnessed all three and the final results.

The criminality you speak of whether expensive or cheap, legal or illegal is a direct result of the drugs addiction made by a choice said person made. You cannot blame the drug. If the drug is readily available cheap and common, you can blame society and or the person addicted because it is one the same.

I disagree that the ills will disappear if the drug is legal or cheap or reduced dosage. it will prolong the trip through the levels to which out of control exists. The prohibition of alcohol failed because the majority of citizens did not oppose it but wanted it. This is how you decide whether or not to prohibit. You don`t see the majority of citizens wanting to legalize all drugs for rec. use or even controlled use. Your Country will fail as a whole when you damage trust and set in place laws to satisfy a select few against the will of the majority.

Please leave Religion out, for Jesus Christ himself drank wine, when talking about alcohol. It`s not a drug when abused, it`s more like a disease. Jesus did not abuse it. I myself do not drink.

Legal script drug addiction is a choice made by the addict just as a addiction to a Class 1 is. Crime exists is all phases of civilization including the medical profession. Drug companies such as Pfizer have cornered the market as to what drugs become available and wich do not see production and cost plus profit have much to do about that.

I don`t wanna hear the prison BS because we can put drunk drivers under stiff penalties in there so much faster and often.

I truly believe you are wrong about your comparison of pot, alcohol with manufactured mind and body controlling drugs you cannot defeat once addicted to them. Both pot and alcohol are defeated simply by not doing them anymore.

We hang together but think separately. You don`t have to support or not support the "our is the better drug" because it`s about risk and control, not winning.

Your last paragraph is where you fail. You fail to include citizens right to govern by majority. You mention not how you consider what the non partisipants feel or wish to have as government and law. You will never Skipper my ship because you put the ship before the crew. You absolutely cannot ignore the vast majority in favor of the select few and your ship is just Iron without it`s crew.


It will suck if this took too long for my limited typing skills and I get logged off.

To me what automatically defeats this opinion is the fact that far, far more peoples lives are ruined by the legal consequences they're faced with after they get caught using/producing/transporting illegal drugs. Also the fact that completely legal pharmaceutical drugs have created more addicts and killed more people than all other illegal drugs combined puts a bit of a wrinkle on this theory.

We need to legalize all scheduled drugs and face the issue as adults, these people are addicts in need of treatment, not punishment. They turn to these substances because they lack something in their life, why would you punish someone for making a poor decision that only affects themselves? If anything is immoral, it's that. Punishing them does not solve the problem, statistics show prison inmates have a high degree of returning to prison because it is not used to rehabilitate people, and only serves to damage otherwise law abiding citizens who could still become productive members of society.

Punishing people makes their lives worse because the record prevents them from attaining certain jobs, living in certain areas and maintaining a necessary type of lifestyle to become that productive member of society. In other words, sending addicts to prison for simply using an illegal drug ruins their lives and makes our society worse because what do you think these sorts of people will do once they get out and can't find decent work? They immediately turn back to crime, except this time it's much more serious offenses because now instead of just scoring their next high, they need to make money. This means robberies, murders, stick ups, etc. Violent offenses.

Is that your solution?

 

[OddBall1st]

To me what automatically defeats this opinion is the fact that far, far more peoples lives are ruined by the legal consequences they're faced with after they get caught using/producing/transporting illegal drugs. Also the fact that completely legal pharmaceutical drugs have created more addicts and killed more people than all other illegal drugs combined puts a bit of a wrinkle on this theory.

We need to legalize all scheduled drugs and face the issue as adults, these people are addicts in need of treatment, not punishment. They turn to these substances because they lack something in their life, why would you punish someone for making a poor decision that only affects themselves? If anything is immoral, it's that. Punishing them does not solve the problem, statistics show prison inmates have a high degree of returning to prison because it is not used to rehabilitate people, and only serves to damage otherwise law abiding citizens who could still become productive members of society.

Punishing people makes their lives worse because the record prevents them from attaining certain jobs, living in certain areas and maintaining a necessary type of lifestyle to become that productive member of society. In other words, sending addicts to prison for simply using an illegal drug ruins their lives and makes our society worse because what do you think these sorts of people will do once they get out and can't find decent work? They immediately turn back to crime, except this time it's much more serious offenses because now instead of just scoring their next high, they need to make money. This means robberies, murders, stick ups, etc. Violent offenses.

Is that your solution?

All the more reason to not make that wrong turn to substance over person. Why do the civil have to watch over their shoulders looking for the "just in case " ? Their decisions affect the civil through crimes committed to support addiction, time spent caring for them is a personal sacrifice I can understand and respect but not mandate. There are 300 million people in this country, it is not a compound with a supreme leader. Their needs go right out the window the minute they infringe on our freedoms.

BTW, It is not my solution and I would never take on this problem alone. It can all be avoided but it is not. That does not make it everyone`s responsibility, it makes it their problem.