Legalisation of Drugs

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by nicnacuk, Jan 1, 2008.

  1. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    You're wrong about that. The cocoa solids contain caffeine as well as theobroma. Certainly, taking drugs in combination alters the effects, often in unpredictable ways, and many people find the theobroma mellows out the caffeine high. Still, a 3-ounce bar of today's high-test 80% chocolate has as much caffeine as the dishwater coffee in the company cafeteria.
    Well duh! It's called a "stimulant." Back in the days when most work was physical, both caffeine and cocaine were used to increase physical endurance. The Indians in Peru saw their llamas working harder after chewing coca leaves and found that it did the same thing for them.
    The point I'm trying to make is that "categories" are invalid because drugs don't work the same way on everybody. I'm really happy that all of you people can swill coffee and tea and get through your lives. But I'm really pissed off that nowhere along the way did anybody bother to tell me or my relatively dim-bulb parents that caffeine is nonetheless A DRUG and you might want to think twice about giving it to A CHILD.

    Considering the CRAP we have to put up with because a teeny tiny percent of people have a bad reaction to perfume or wheat--I mean geezie wheezie I LOVE perfume and I think the world is a sad and bleak place without it, and how would these people have survived life 500 years ago if they couldn't eat frelling WHEAT?--it's pathetic that we have LEGAL tv commercials that market caffeine to CHILDREN, who don't need to be STIMULATED.

    My acquaintance with druggies is too long ago to be able to talk about all these new chemistry-set drugs like PCP and MDMA and methamphetamine, but I know from still knowing those people that the vast majority who smoked pot, dropped acid and snorted coke had absolutely NO problems resulting from it. They all got their degrees (many of them advanced), they all got good jobs (many of them highly responsible, complicated and/or creative), and more or less in proportion to the general population they got married, had kids, bought houses, voted, and care about the country and the environment. And last time I checked, quite a few of them are still doing the pot, although coke was a fad and acid seems to be something they did enough times and they just don't need it any more because they still remember what they learned about the universe.

    And here I am, a caffeine junkie, with a life history full of disasters that are incontrovertibly linked to my "drug use."

    Anybody still wonder why I think this is all bullshit?
    So does religion, only worse. So can we please please please outlaw THAT?
     
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  3. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

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    That's a good point. I'd say very generally drugs can be catagorized by their effects, but they can always be used differently or have varying effects on different people.

    To me alcohol, marijuana, MDMA and cocaine come across as party drugs, more recreational have-a-good-time than the rest.

    Mushrooms, LSD, MDMA and mescaline are a more intense introspective mind trip, usually putting you face to face with aspects of yourself you usually ignore or didn't realize you had.

    Mushrooms, LSD, DMT, ayahausca, DXM and salvia can be very intense mind trips. Not necessarily limited to introspective stuff, but full ego loss and meaning of the universe stuff. These are the kinds of drugs you absolutely don't want to take at a party full of strangers. Set and setting can be the difference between a life changing religious experience and the worst nightmare you can imagine. Just about zero addiction potential, and many people get so much out of a few experiences they're happy to leave it at that and never touch them again.

    Methamphetamines, crack, heroin, tobacco and even caffeine to some extent are what I would consider the worst of the bunch. Not much positive use considering the very high addiction potential and negative effects on health. Alcohol could be in this catagory too.

    But again, they can all be used differently. Some are listed more than once, some could be listed in every catagory, some change catagories depending on who's using them. IMO it's still better than lumping them all into a single group.
     
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  5. Dr Mabuse Percipient Thaumaturgist Registered Senior Member

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    prohibition, and the repealing of it, answered this question completely and in full...

    i'm surprised any one has a question on the topic... amazing how little is known of history...

    as Shaw so wisely said... history teaches us how little people learn from history...

    on the drug laws...

    the drug laws in America were wholly racist in nature and in letter... and were passed as laws on racist grounds, on 'data' and 'evidence' that were complete lies and proved to be so... with the help of sleazebags like Citizen Kane... who in their actions were both racist and self serving...

    i'm surprised today's 'enlightened' PC perfectionist would support such a thing...
     
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  7. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    Hell yes. A lot of meth users would switch to marijuana immediately, and the same goes for crack users. I remember how many people my age would look for a safe high that got them a good buzz, so they would do marijuana instead of beer. Cocaine never meant much to them, either, and it's ridiculous to smoke a rock of crack when you have good bud.
     
  8. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Citizen Kane is a fictional character. He was inspired by William Randolph Hearst, if that's who you mean.
     
  9. Frud11 Banned Banned

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    Sure he is.
    Next you'll be saying John Wayne was fictional, too.
     
  10. Sangamon Registered Member

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    how many alcohol-dealers are in jail? not that many, perhaps maybe in islam countries

    It's silly to think that a drug-user (any drugs) would rather buy his stuff from some shady guy somewhere, than in a brightly-lit, reputable store that gives professional advice and guarantees quality. of course it would reduce crime. Enormously.

    the real question is: will there be more addicts if you legalize it? The answer to that i don't have..

    *sidenote* please don't equate drug-users with addicts. Only a tiny minority of drug-users become addicted to their drugs and get into real bad trouble. Most of us druggies use a couple of times a month for laughs and that's it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2008
  11. Dr Mabuse Percipient Thaumaturgist Registered Senior Member

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    i took it for granted that everyone would know i meant Hearst since it's such basic knowledge...

    took for granted everyone would know this and not consider themselves clever with some 'Citizen Kane is a fictional character' line...
     
  12. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    TV, the gateway drug. (this may seem a wild tangent, but I liked what you wrote and I wanted to extend it)
     
  13. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Posted by Fraggle Rocker

    Again: TV, the gateway drug.

    Fraternities, I think also fit the definition of something that makes you do stupid things, first to join and then for no reason at all.
     
  14. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Taking for granted that everyone knows something isn't usually a good idea. Especially regarding a movie from the forties.
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Many observers of the drug scene think that the War on Drugs has shifted marijuana use to other drugs. The reasons are:
    • Marijuana is bulky and therefore difficult to buy, transport and sell clandestinely in convenient quantities.
    • It is smelly, which compounds that problem, and the smell of the smoke makes it utterly impossible to use clandestinely.
    • It can be detected in a urine test for several weeks, when most others dissipate in a couple of days.
    People looking for a high try other drugs, and many of them find that nothing quite matches a pot high. So they use more of something else or try mixing more than one.

    Many drug users combine their drug of choice with alcohol simply to reduce the expense of the illegal drug while maintaining some semblance of the effect they're seeking. For many people alcohol is more dangerous than the drug they'd rather be using, particularly given the inconsistent and unpredictable effects of mixing drugs. If you read down to the bottom of the toxicology reports on most "drug-related" deaths, I think you'll find a rather high BAC.
     
  16. 420Joey SF's Incontestable Pimp Valued Senior Member

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    1,189
    I'd say alcohol is far more dangerous socially and health-wise for you in comparison to Marijuana. I believe Marijuana is harmless as a matter of fact. I also find weed alot more cost effective versus alcohol.....
     
  17. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Drunk drivers kill ten thousand Americans every year. Stoned drivers stay in the right hand lane and drive 10mph under the speed limit. The major personal health threat of marijuana is from the smoke, which some studies say is overblown. In any case if it were legal smokeless systems would be commonplace. The government cracks down on high-tech paraphernalia because they need the health risk to justify the prohibition.
     
  18. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Not to mention things like rape, domestic violence, assault, etc. All of which radically increase under the influence of alcohol but do not with pot.
     
  19. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    To put it in sound bites using the most common adjectives associated with the two drugs: Alcohol makes you confident; marijuana makes you paranoid.
     
  20. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Or: alcohol eliminates meta-cognition and marijuana turns your own sensory organs into a distracting landscape.
     
  21. flynch Registered Senior Member

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    the question:Would the legalisation of drugs reduce drug-related crime? starts for me with the crime of having "Declared War on Drugs" -
    the idea that drugs are "the enemy" ignores that people have always sought either a stimulant for productivity or a "relaxer" to facilitate social interaction & conviviality with their fellows -
    Making drugs the enemy allows society to pretend it isn't the choices that people make that could be improved with more info or better understanding. We can't rationally assess what the profit may be to "sin tax" it like they do for tobacco and alcohol - we would look more sanely at the cost of "treatments" and jail terms and the effect of losing otherwise creative contributors to society because they weren't quite creative enough not to violate capricious laws against "substances"

    I believe there would be less drug-related crime if citizens were given broader access to the chemicals of their choice. And more government related "crimes" like additional tax revenues, better social programs for education in all aspects of learning, and considerable less stratification of society because there would not be "drug-laws" like the one currently
    under discussion (i don't know if it's resolve) about the discrepancy between getting arrested for "powder" cocaine -a rich people crime and "rock" cocaine - a poor people crime.
     
  22. Dr Mabuse Percipient Thaumaturgist Registered Senior Member

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    if they are going to have even a hope of having a clue who Hearst was and what he did?... it's a safe assumption... i don't put much effort into spoon feeding the uninformed...

    including someone who thought i meant a character in a movie...

    assuming anyone would know who hearst was would also know of the movie about him, one of the most well known titles in motion picture history, and 'get' my point, is not a stretch at all...

    probably very few in the american society, or this forum, know exactly what i meant... in regards to 'Kane' and drug laws...

    but if they even had a hint of a clue... they could get the 'Kane' reference...

    maybe i aimed too high... lol...
     
  23. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    In a letter from Dr. Donald J. Boudreaux, Chairman of the Department of Economics, George Mason University (regarded by many as Virginia's top university) to Reason magazine, February 2008:
     

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