War On Drugs

Its kinda of funny that many people are not aware of the tremendous amount of addicts and illict drugs that have made up American culture. The 1800 was wrought with Opium use and with the advent of morphine gave rise to a enormous population of morphine addicts.Morphine was used to treat many civil war wounded, but this gave rise to a Army of addicts. Women who were very disinfranchised on many levels of American society were discouraged to drink in public and so took various tonics to calm and relax. Morphine elixrs and etc were rampant.With the advent of Heroin whole new drug culture was created and people purchased syringes and needles from the Sears company to get high at home. Herion, Morphine, Cocaine was used in many over the counter tonics and elixers to include Coca Cola's tonic ingredient Cocaine " the pause that refreshes."Marijuana was grown and smoked all over the US. Abolishionisht stamping out Alcohol were consuming vast quantities of narcotics how ironic. Lips that touch alcohol will never touch mine, but I will get stoned off of Laudnum.As late as the 1960s LSD was available in magazine ads. Once the US began to "classify" drugs by a schedule that is when most drugs became criminalized. As late as the 80's Gamba O, or "X" was available in health food stores. And now the government has decided to stop the commericial use of ephedrine as of last year. Every single law and every single attempt to stop the American public from getting high has failed. Why? Because Americans like to get high. Duh.. Even the ones taxed to uphold the laws indulge or have indulged The Presidents.... ..mayors..lawyers..doctors.. The War on Drugs is not working. It is time to rethink the whole thing in my opinion. Throwing people in jail for it is not working. As long as there are drugs people will take them. Just my 2 cents.

some excellent points and analysis...illegal narcotics are a symptom of our country imploding (addiction) as opposed to exploding (terrorists)...

Don't forget Sherlock Holmes, who was all up into the nose candy.

Both replies were interesting but this was the more important point. I am not suggesting that there are no drugs which have greater addictive qualities than other drugs. As far as I understand, crack is extremely physically addictive.My problem was with equating "drug use" or "drug purchase" with "drug addiction". It is not true across the board and even with some of the more addictive types of drugs not all would become major addicts to them (meaning have their life degrade and wholly centered on use of the chemical).I find it somewhat ironic that you went into pedantic mode on me regarding fat problems (which I did know was actually fat-type specific) yet in this post appear to be defending the generalization of drug use= addiction, when pedantically such problems are equally drug-type specific.In any case, once a person is down with an addiction, I don't see it as anything but a health problem. They tried something new (that's what humans do by nature, even things that society says are no no) and it has effected their health. I do not see any reason to beat them down further.This message has been edited by holmes, 03-15-2005 05:29 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Tolerance and legalization does not equal endorsement.As it stands I have seen absolutely no evidence to support the idea that making anything illegal stops things from being done. As far as drugs go, the only historical evidence I have is that making them illegal results in them becoming more harmful, more expensive, and so lines the pockets of criminals with money (as well as fill the streets with bullets as criminals fight each other and the police).People seem to have this notion that making something illegal is a solution, that is it makes things go away or get better.If that were true I'd be for it. But it doesn't. Even in the worse case scenarios of drug addiction, being illegal never helped the problem get better.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Getting one high does not inherently mean physical-chemical addictive. It can become habitual or emotionally addictive (one likes the pleasure), but that is different than actual chemical addiction.Yes cigs cause chemical addiction in many people. I don't see taxing them helping, do you? How the hell can I top Dan's "the winos have had it too good for too long"?I see a lot of people going to church and forking out a lot of money to get the pleasure of a religious "high", since these people seem to have more dough than the drug addicts I say tax them. Shouldn't we gain something from their God-addiction?Nope not as good, but maybe you see where you are being arbitrarily mean? There is no reason to look at a person getting high and say he deserves taxation more than a person going to a church to feel good. It is both about choosing to live how one wishes to live.When we talk about addicts this is something even worse. I honestly cannot look at an addict and think to myself we need to profit off of this person's misery. I just can't.Maybe that makes me a bad person?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

One good reason not to tax the church is because we volunteer and provide many government services that would otherwise be paid positions, negating any benefit in taxation. We should make sure that legitimate non-profits are getting the benefits as opposed to shysters.

This is not about taxes on non-profits but rather the war-on-drugs.Can we keep that discussion for a different thread?

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I like this idea and I would even take it one step further. I can't think of any drug which is particularly dangerous in its natural form. People have been chewing coca leaves for thousands of years with no overdoses or other major health problems but when we started synthesizing out the active ingredient we get a dangerous substance. My proposal is that if you can grow it you can have it (Unless it might otherwise pose some sort of an agricultural problem to the region). The only caveat would be that you aren't allowed to process the plant, except for drying. Then the government wouldn't get involved unless it became a matter of trafficking or manufacture.Also, we really need to get rid of mandatory minimums, property seizure before being convicted of a crime and no-knock warrants. But those are a different issue. Amen.

Holmes,Thanks for the replies. I should have known better than to post a message just before two days of my Japanese final exam... in other words, sorry for the slow response.--------------In writing up a reply to this post, I realized (duh) that both of our points are important. For those with your "religious pressure to legitimatize pleasure," I understand your point, and I agree.I guess my point was that, for those who don't feel that religious pressure, there's still some reason why the drugs in question are considered "bad." Some has to do with "what is normal." Some has to do with pragmatic concerns (i.e. legitimatizing pleasure within the framework of a co-dependent society (i.e. I don't want to work for somebody who is viewed as a "laze", i.e. lazy person)).With that in mind, here's a much shortened version of what I was in the process of writing as a response. I guess my "disagreement" now changes to "view from another important factor in the problem." Please read it as such.----------- I disagree with your example here. The effects of flu medicine are called "side-effects," and are undesired. A cold or flu medicine that works without side-effects would be greatly popular.The idea that pleasure must be legitimaized is a religious one and does not come from human assessments of normality. I feel that that is what is at work here, given examples like the above. But it is a problem. But the side-effects are not deemed "severe enough" (deviant from the normal) to be of concern. That's the (supposed) role of regulation of such drugs, to control the severity of side-effects of drugs available for public consumption. Drugs with "severe" side-effects are illegal to distribute.So in other words, it is a problem. Right. It's sad. The only basis we have for saying "it's sad" is simply that the kids are "not normal." And I think a lot of people don't like it, simply because of that idea. It just depends on what you think the problem is. For those who think "altering the 'normal' state 'artifically', and maybe for those with religious tendencies to legitimatize pleasure, it's bad to give the drugs to kids. So giving them more drugs to 'solve' the problem isn't the solution; it's just compounding the trouble. Best thing to do is to stop giving them drugs.And yes, I realize that's not really your point. And yes, I also realize that the position "altering the 'normal' state 'artifically' is a somewhat problematic position." But there are no non-problematic positions, at least given the thinking I've done so far.

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True drug addiction is ugly, but short of removing all drugs and the plants and chemicals they come from off planet, we will always have drug addicts.

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That is true.

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It comes down to a cost benifit analysis. Is it better to cut down drug and gang violence by making drugs cheap and legal which may increase the number of drug addicts or do we fight a war on drugs that costs trillions, lose anyway, put millions of non-violent people into prison, have hundres of violent durg related shootings and still have large numbers of drug addicts?

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I don't think that these are the only two choices, not by a long shot.We can keep them illegal to produce and distribute, and have high penalties for those people, but make posession a misdemeanor, not a felony.We could make high-quality drug treatment programs for addicts free and easy to get into.

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I would prefer less violence and less money spent on pointless wars on drugs myself. People will always use drugs.

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Yes, but the point is not to crimilalize the use of them, just the production and sale. Make rehab easy and free. Spend WAY more on prevention, which includes economic and educational opportunity for those groups most at risk to taking drugs.I just don't see where making crack cocaine and heroin free and available to all is going to make crack and heroin addicts want to do anything other than get and stay high 24 hours a day.

Many of those seem to lead perfectly normal lifes that are no different to that of their neighbours.

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Heroin addiction (as are many things) is very distructive

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I'm not sure that's true - recently in the UK there has been much interest in long-term professional heroin addicts (those who can afford their fix without having to steal). Many of those seem to lead perfectly normal lifes that are no different to that of their neighbours.

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Perfectly normal?I've been at work with people who were high on coke, or high on heroin.They do not behave normally, and they do their jobs much, much, much better now that they are sober.

But those are people with a problem, I'm not sure what you are getting at.I'll try and find the show I'm on about - but we are talking about teachers, lawyers etc who are taking the stuff for 40 years or so with no ramifications.

I'd be interested in looking at some of that info.A person in any profession who has been a heroin addict for 40 years with no ramifications has a story that a lot of people would be interested in.

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Yes on both counts and you can include other drugs as well. Now that that is out of the way, let's try to go on.

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So, what did they say about how much they cared about taking care of their chilren, achieving at work or school, or about anything else compared to how much they cared about getting and staying high?

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Agreed. Heroin addiction (as are many things) is very distructive. That's a given. Problems can range from mild to severe. Far too little is done to provide support and medical care and alternatives.

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And how is providing as much heroin and crack cocaine to anyone who wants it, for free, going to help anyone recover from addiction?

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Now back to the question of giving away drugs for free.

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If we gave away drugs for free, what effect would it have on those currently in the Drug Trade, the pushers, the cartels, the Drug Lords, the street thugs?

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It would put them all out of business.What effect would having all drugs free and plentiful have on neglect of children, frequency of unwanted pregnancy, date rape, domestic violence, regular old violence, worker productivity, the ability to keep a job, and petty crime?(the reason I mention petty crime is because people who just want to be high all the time are not reliable, nor do they think properly. They therefore cannot keep a job and pay their living expenses. Thus, they will become homeless.)Why do you think that there is no middle ground whatsoever between the "war on drugs" and a total free for all with all drugs available for free to everyone.Let me ask you a few questions.Should GHB, the date rape drug, be available to anyone who wants it?