The illegality of drugs is driving down the price of them. If they were legalised at least they could be costed according to the degree of harm they cause, as is now done with tobacco. The money raised could be spent treating addictions.
Hmmm... That sounds a lot like trying to push a chain. Treatment costs are very expensive and there would be lot more people in treatment. In order to pay for all that, the taxes would be SO high that the drugs would just go onto the black market - much like alcohol did during Prohibition. As a result, we've be right back where we started, nothing gained and probably a lot lost in the process.
It would mean that all the criminals in jail for drug use need not be chased and locked up, freeing police time to tackle illegal sellers. It would also leave scope for lengthy sentences for those illegally selling them. Anyone caught selling impure substances could be given a particularly heavy sentence. I think that drug taking is harmful, but I also think that it's a health issue, and could be better dealt with this way. They are far too easily available at the moment, and too cheap. Some senior police are of the same opinion.
I hate narcotics, but I still agree with you. It's not the government's business to be paternalistic about what you do to yourself. My view on drugs is basically 'it's your nervous system, fuck it up if you want to.' That and it's more than a little hypocritical that some drugs, like alcohol and cigarettes, are legal, while others are not. It's morally acceptable to fuck yourself up with nicotine, but not LSD/cannabis/insert narcotic here? Go figure.
But the government is not just looking at what you do to yourself but what you do to others. When you drive stoned you can kill others. When you do your job, like flying a plane, piloting an airplane or an array of other jobs that are dealing with many other people that trust your judgment when you are working for them. If you fuck up your nervous system then you need to get help with a hospital stay, counseling or confinement which the taxpayers must pay for since you cannot. Then you are not working because you are fucked up so who takes care of your bills? Who takes care of your family? Your logic makes no sense to me whatsoever. Alcoholic beverages as well as cigarettes with give you many problems that is a fact I will agree with you on. So now you want to add more drugs to this bad problem that society has? Are you nutz? That's like adding fuel to a fire to see how much hotter it will get and that means more people that will be fucked up driving, flying, doing their jobs. Just think about this one thought, if you were going to have major surgery done to you would you want your doctor to be pushing heroin into his arm just befor he/she begins the operation?
1. People also kill others while drunk driving, but the government does not respond to that by making drinking illegal. 2. If I go down in a moshpit and some huge guy falls on me and destroys my cervical spine, does that mean moshing should be illegal, since the taxpayer must pay for my hospital treatment? If I impale myself while down hill biking should that be made illegal, since again the taxpayer must pay for the operation to stitch me back together? Hell, according to that logic no one should ever be allowed to do anything remotely dangerous. 3. No - just that it is hypocritical that some drugs are legal and some are not. 4. No. But if he wants to take heroin in his free time when he's not operating on anyone and is only harming himself, no one else, good luck to him.
There's the problem! He/ she become addicted to heroin as well as other drugs so they are always stoned, they can't stop! BTW who pays for all of these drugs that people are high on? If they are high they can't work very well which means no income.
At the moment drugs are: Easily available Cheap Impure, sometimes poisonous All the money goes to the pockets of criminals. I am proposing that they become: Available from a pharmacy to an adult. Have the social cost built into the price. ie be expensive. Be pure and have a set dosage.
1. The same thing can happen with alcohol, do you suggest that alcohol be made illegal? Also, not everyone who takes drugs is a raging addict who needs to be stoned all the time if they are to function. 2. Again, why the assumption that everyone who takes drugs must be an addict, to the point that they cannot work? You don't make that assumption about people who drink alcohol, so why do you make it about people who take other drugs?
I've only said that why add another drug that we know is bad to the alcoholic ones we have now? If you know a mistake was made by allowing alcohol to be legalized why fuck up again with crack cocaine or heroin as examples? These drugs cost money, allot of money if you become addicted. How can they pay for their addictions if they aren't making enough to pay their rent? Alcoholics are the same, many people are addicted to it as well. People can hide their alcoholism for awhile but eventually it catches up with them. True SOME people can "handle" drinking but then again many cannot. Why waste your life on doing any drugs at all? You weren't born to drink alcohol because when you drank it for the first time and you drank to much you puked it up and had a hangover the next day! What does that tell you that your body is telling you? You just don't stop and start a heroin or crack addiction, they are hooked as soon as they start. They aren't nice people to be around either. They steal, rob, whore, mug and sometimes kill for money to get a "fix" with. And you think it should be legalized, you should just move to Holland where drugs are legal and see what goes on there. People will continue to buy anything they can find. I just don't think that legalizing more drugs is worth the problems it will cause just as alcohol has already done.
Fair enough, at least that's consistent. but where do you draw the line regards protecting people from themselves?
That is a very complex problem. I'd say the approaches we have today which are education of what drugs can do to your body over time, jail time for those what can't stay away from drugs but are doing things like stealing, robbing or mugging others to pay for the drugs and clinical help along with other legal drugs to help control the illegal ones that people ingest. The biggest problem is that people themselves should be in control of themselves but they aren't. Many can't help themselves to overcome the problems that make them turn to illegal drugs to begin with.
I agree with most of that. How would you decide which drugs would be legal though, I assume you would base that on how harmful or addictive they were?
Is it really anyone's job to protect people from themselves? It is my view that individuals should pay for the social and medical costs involved. There is no doubt that drug takers are harming themselves and others, but at least make them pay taxes for it instead of the money ending up in criminal pockets.
We have enough people taking legal drugs these days. I don't think making drugs more available would help anyone other than the pawn shops.
There is only one drug that I would consider legalizing, and that is Marijuana. I find marijuana to be less of a danger then tobacco and alcohol (and so do many researchers, scientists, etc.) The only reason marijuana isn't legal is because it is a street drug and the price would be too hard to contain.
Part of the problem is actually the value (meaning) we ascribe (because we've done it for so long, especially in the West) to everything, in economic terms. We have symbolic money (bits of paper and metal), that some people manage to accumulate. This gives them a lot of status and material things, but it's numbers in a computer. It has value because it "says" it does. And we all believe this crap. Proscribing drugs by punishing those who use or distribute them is definitely a mistake. Apart from the paradox that there are extant multibillion dollar pharmacos who sell them "legally", it creates an immediate market, with a heirarchy, doctrine and set of values that is necessarily outside the taxable regime.
There are increasing problems showing up with the use of this drug, particularly with regard to mental health. It is certainly less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco though.
I would legalized every drug, even the bad ones like meth and crack. They'll then be sold in a regulated environment, like liquor or prescription drugs, and highly taxed. The money made from tax will go directly into drug treatment, recovery and education programs to help offset the cost to society. Drug use in jobs for which you're directly responsible for the safety of other people should be highly controlled, if you're found under the influence on the job you should lose that job immediately. If none of this, the very least we should do is make research into narcotics easier. Some drugs, like LSD and psilocin, showed great promise in treating all sorts of psychological problems (including addiction) before they were outlawed and research on them made all but illegal. The biggest mistake we make today is lumping all narcotics into the same group, "drugs". LSD is nothing like meth, cocaine is nothing like heroin, yet they're all lumped together and given the same treatment.
