The War on Drugs

I see that there is a thread on marijuana but none on drugs, that’s just not right!

How do you feel about the war on drugs?
Do you think it’s winning or that we can ‘win’ it?
If you think we can win it, when is your prediction for victory?
Do you think it’s effective?
Do you think it’s the government’s job and jurisdticion?

Also, if you could change anything about the current policy of this war what would it be?

I wanna get a feel for this crowd and get into a quality debate.

Please post links to support your arguments if you are referencing numbers and statistics or studies so that we can avoid a pseudo-debate. If you can’t back up your numbers or claims by a reference then make sure that you point it out. I suppose that any reference works even if it’s DEA or freevibe.com .

We aren’t winning the war on drugs, and we can’t win through prohibition. The best way to go is legalisation of all drugs, not just marijuana. It wouldn’t fix all the problems surrounding drugs, but it is in my mind the best option.

Why would you want to do that?

Originally posted by Kapowshazam:

Why would you want to do that?

Why wouldn’t you?

i agree with woody id also like to add if we banned guns in the US the same thing would happen as in criminals would be able to acquire guns and people would not.

but i dont think its the governments jurisdiction on some drugs but the harder ones i can understand why we fight against.

Originally posted by woodythedon:

We aren’t winning the war on drugs, and we can’t win through prohibition. The best way to go is legalisation of all drugs, not just marijuana. It wouldn’t fix all the problems surrounding drugs, but it is in my mind the best option.

Well what would be the terms for this legalization?

How do you feel about the war on drugs?

I feeeeeeeeeeeeel good, danna danna danna da…

Do you think it’s winning or that we can ‘win’ it?

Probably not. It is difficult to enforce controls as the prevalence of drugs attests to, and there aren’t enough negative aspects to any given drug to justify its being banned. There are exceptions of course, but it is easier to regulate those if you distract people with the benign crap.

Do you think it’s effective?

No.

Do you think it’s the government’s job and jurisdticion?

I would say yes, in that the government is best suited to ensuring quality control and safe distribution. However when the government closes its eyes and pretends there isn’t a problem this doesn’t work out so well.

There is no war on drugs – that’s about as absurd and stupid as a boxing match with concrete or playing poker with cats and dogs. What the United States government and those who work under it call the “war on drugs” is nothing more than a war on human beings.

Nobody should ever be locked up or murdered over drug use, trading, or production.

At least drugs are tangible though, got to give them some credit there. Lately we started waging wars against emotions.

Originally posted by Kapowshazam:

Originally posted by woodythedon:

We aren’t winning the war on drugs, and we can’t win through prohibition. The best way to go is legalisation of all drugs, not just marijuana. It wouldn’t fix all the problems surrounding drugs, but it is in my mind the best option.

Well what would be the terms for this legalization?

It would be an imperfect system, but we’d be in a better position than we are in now.

Government regulation and taxation of the trade would bring in an awful lot of revenue. Not to mention the money saved from enforcing prohibition (http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm) approximately 20 billion. This money should be used to educate the public on the dangers of drugs and help to treat current addicts.

This reduction of information assymetry, coupled with appropriate pricing levels would steer consumers to less harmful drugs.

As a separate point, legalisation would enable legitimate pharmaceutical companies to carry out research on currently illegal drugs, to try and decrease the lows you get with drugs.

Actually, the “revenue” from the currently illicit drugs is greatly inflated by prohibition. It wouldn’t be a 500 billion dollar per year market if it weren’t for all the police, militaries, and politicians doing everything they can to keep that segment of the market suppressed. Some of these drugs are trading at over a thousand times the actual cost of production…

I’m not in favor of government trying to replace the drug lords as the primary extortionist in the drugs trade. Governments murder and extort way too much as it is…

None of that makes any sense. How would allowing the government to regulate the drug trade result in murder or extortion?

Actually, the “revenue” from the currently illicit drugs is greatly inflated by prohibition.

That was his point. It is easy to undercut the criminals once it is legalized.

Originally posted by Eketek:

Actually, the “revenue” from the currently illicit drugs is greatly inflated by prohibition. It wouldn’t be a 500 billion dollar per year market if it weren’t for all the police, militaries, and politicians doing everything they can to keep that segment of the market suppressed. Some of these drugs are trading at over a thousand times the actual cost of production…

I’m not in favor of government trying to replace the drug lords as the primary extortionist in the drugs trade. Governments murder and extort way too much as it is…

The latest UN stats for last year put the global drugs trade at around 320 billion US $.

The mark up from cocoa field to the street averages at about 5000%. The reason drugs are so expensive is because of the cost of smuggling it in and out of producer and consumer nations.

You may not like government, but you are being exploited worse now by the drug dealers, than you would be under a legalised, government run system.

Best: Decriminalization of all drugs with social programs to assist those on hard drugs to get off of them. We should also work on designer drugs that can ween people off of some of those harder, destructive drugs.

Arresting people for getting high is like red carding a soccer player for tripping and hurting himself.

Originally posted by TheBSG:

Best: Decriminalization of all drugs with social programs to assist those on hard drugs to get off of them. We should also work on designer drugs that can ween people off of some of those harder, destructive drugs.

Arresting people for getting high is like red carding a soccer player for tripping and hurting himself.

Why not full blown legalisation? Why stop at decriminalization?

Government, in general, is a violent institution. Every action taken by government is implicitly backed by the threat of fines, murder, or imprisonment – try making a couple million dollars without paying taxes if you don’t believe it.

As far as drugs are concerned, I was suggesting that stuff like legalized cannabis wouldn’t sell for $500 an ounce, or some other outlandish figure like that, and that legitimate businesses would drive the price of just about any drug down to a small fraction of the current black market pricing. I would absolutely like to see the criminal gangs undercut.

I just don’t think it is proper to think of drug legalization as a means either to earn more money for politicians or to cut law enforcement costs.

Because there’s no reason for Meth to be a legal product? Legalize non-serious experiential drugs like psychoactives and other non-destructive drugs, but don’t condone the use of black tar heroin. Give heroin addicted individuals a shot of low-impact LSD and they’ll never do another hit again. The gangs make their money on desperation, not the fact that it’s illegal.

Even something as destructive as meth should be legal and permissible.

It will be much easier to oppose and much less dangerous, if its traded openly and honestly at a brightly lit drug store than it is now in unrecorded transactions between unseen people in unknown places.

what about the poor man who sells drugs for money to live?
those who are underprivileged that can only make enough money to support a family through selling drugs?
should they stop because the government tells them they cant have/sell those drugs, who is the government to push the poor around?

I just don’t think it is proper to think of drug legalization as a means either to earn more money for politicians or to cut law enforcement costs.

It’s not just the economic reasons, )although I don’t think it would be a bad thing to give the police more time to deal with other issues), but that it would enable more money to be spent on treating addiction, and preventing addiction from occuring in the first place through increased educative spending.

Originally posted by TheBSG:

Because there’s no reason for Meth to be a legal product? Legalize non-serious experiential drugs like psychoactives and other non-destructive drugs, but don’t condone the use of black tar heroin. Give heroin addicted individuals a shot of low-impact LSD and they’ll never do another hit again. The gangs make their money on desperation, not the fact that it’s illegal.

If it weren’t for the fact that drugs were illegal, those 5000% mark ups would not exist due to much reduced production and distribution costs. Of course if the price was regulated by the govenrment it would have to strike a balance between being damping down use and discouraging an illicit black market.

If drugs were legalised, and were distributed in centres where free clean needles and medical staff were present, this would make it safer for the drug users and would help people get off the serious drugs like meth and heroin. Decriminalisation does not let addicts be treated in the appropriate manner.

There is another factor to legalization

Many of the currently illegal drugs are dangerous because of their illegal state. Given proper production conditions and research into “safe” dosage or modifications, most drugs would be harmless, you’d get high but not dead using them.

In the war on drugs, there are no winners, regardless of who succeeds.

Originally posted by sotanaht:

There is another factor to legalization

Many of the currently illegal drugs are dangerous because of their illegal state. Given proper proper production conditions and research into “safe” dosage or modifications, most drugs would be harmless, you’d get high but not dead using them.

In the war on drugs, there are no winners, regardless of who succeeds.

Yeah, I kind of adressed that with this point:

As a separate point, legalisation would enable legitimate pharmaceutical companies to carry out research on currently illegal drugs, to try and decrease the lows you get with drugs.

But yes that’s definitely a reason.

And man will be man, whether drugs are legal or not, it will barley effect sales. i think the war is just trying to determine who will get the drug money.

what about the poor man who sells drugs for money to live?

Are you really going to try and use that as an argument?

Meth cannot be made effective or cleanly. By its very nature, it’s a cheap and easy to make drug that bastardizes complex molecules and screws with receptors. If it were made “clean,” it wouldn’t work or it’d be heroin. I don’t think you people really understand the chemical properties of some of the worst drugs. Yes, lighter drugs can be re-manufactured to be healthier and non-harmful, but something like Dope is effective because of the way its made. If you made it differently, it wouldn’t give you the same high. These people are medically sick and need to be given a chance to break the dependency, not encouraged to do the same drug in a pretty place. Like I said, you give a meth addict a hit of clean LSD, and they’ve got a great chance of breaking dependencies. It’s an age old treatment for addiction that has been present in some form in a number of different cultures, some highly experienced in medical treatments, and others that thought God was doing all the work. Both have learned the benefits and perspective psychoactive drugs can provide.