My opinion on the War in Drugs (in short) is more about the government's addiction to the monies seized through the legal system and the monies allocated to agencies to fight the 'war'. The war on drugs just criminalizes innocent people, increases real crime, facilitates Narco Terrorism and indirectly funds terrorism in the Middle East (the terrorist organizations provide safe travel for the drugs from Africa to Europe, that are shipped from South America).
I agree. The amount of man power we have on criminalizing pot smokers could be used to police the thugs that are carjacking, robbing, etc.
Pot being a "gateway drug" is a construct. Nothing connects the use of pot and harder drugs, other than the personality of the person who's actively willing to experiment up the ladder. If pot didn't exist, something else would replace it on the rung of the ladder. Pot doesn't cause people to do other drugs. Again correlation isn't causation.
Are you referring to all drugs or just marijuana? If you are referring to all drugs they you have lost your damn mind. A lot of drugs in the U.S. and especially here in Georgia is tied to gang activity which is blowing up nationwide and is really bad in Georgia. I really don't care one way or the other about marijuana but come spend a day with me and you wil change your tune about the hard stuff.
Right on zim. Heroin is out of control and has been proven to be much more addictive then alcohol, marijuana or cocaine. I don't agree on marijuana being a gateway drug. Almost everyone I know on the West Coast has tried marijuana or is a casual user. However, I only know 2 or 3 that got into hard drugs. So the gateway thing to me is a fallacy and I'd like to see the studies to back it up. To Baron's post I agree alcohol is the most dangerous but in my opinion that is only because it is the most widely used and socially acceptable. If everyone used heroin I think it would be 10x worst at a minimum. If everyone used crystal meth it would be much worse. If everyone used cocaine it would be much worse. So that argument is bunk to me and a very poor justification for legalization. I also agree with Potimus that we fight for the right to get high or put our extremities in fecal matter and make that honorable. I have failed to see any benefit for the latter but many downsides medically. From a pure biological point of view and keeping religion out of it it is tantamount to sticking your thing in a toilet. At least with pot it has some good effects. Also, codeine (cocaine variant) has medicinal benefits but doctors prescribe it. So marijuana can be helpful and I really don't see the harm as long as you are not operating machinery, working, etc. I agree that alcohol can be bad just as eating too much food can be bad but am not in favor of government monitoring of fat people (but wait that is coming). A lot going on in this thread.
I'm talking more about the consequences of how we're fighting the war on drugs. I mentioned nothing about any specific drug. But if you want me to address other drugs than pot, I will. Law enforcement and the court system will not keep someone from being turned onto drugs, or prevent someone from scoring. A big problem with other drugs is the criminal element tied to the black market. Both of which add to the dangers of drug use. The seedier element and the dirtier the drugs. There actually are exponentially safer strands of certain compounds, that will never see the light of day because the criminal dealers have no incentive to give the user anythng but the nastiest, cheapest stuff possible.
Ok, you just said drugs in general so wasn't sure. I will just say it's easy to say what you are saying when you haven't been in the trenches and fight the fight we fight. Going to leave it there and say good night and go dawgs!
Heroin and meth are much much worse than alcohol. Cocaine I'm not sure from a study perspectve but IMO it is. Please tell me you are not advocating for heroin in your post below as this is a horrific drug.
If you're trying to convince me how big the problems are, and what they cause, you don't have to. But the nature of the criminal activity and the seediness of the black market exacerbates the problem. The data is out, and the way Portugal handles this, is far better than how we do things accross the board. It will never be accpeted here because of our pride, but that is on us. But the data doesn't lie.
Last thing but I do agree that we punish users too much and do need more treatment than jail for them. Some of the State of Georgia ' s justice reform is changing.
Baron, link a couple of articles from credible sources and I will read it. Portugal is like a small state but I will not discount it until I read the article. I am a fan of rehabilitation but legalization is another matter for the hard drugs. Also, we have a pretty large border to patrol vs. Portugal but go ahead and link the articles and I'll try to keep an open mind.
I think the blue ribbon thing by Jim Webb and Arlen Specter is the first step. 10 years is a short amount of time. I think we need to have 20-30 years of evidence first on Marijuana before we jump head first. Just my opinion that being cautious is the best course (it may not be) but who knows. One article - I would like to understand why the DEA does not agree with the results?
Well, my answer to that is, we've known that the War in Drugs has been a failure longer than the 20 or 30 years you're talking about. And that much more time dedicated to building more prisons than schools, doesn't seem productive. BTW in California alone, there have been 22 prisons built in the last time they've built 1 university. We don't need more time to figure out that what we're doing, isn't working.
I mentioned that in another thread, but for whatever reason, people only seem to adhere to prefab talking points. Never taking into consideration that the talking points themselves are intentionally skewed POV's.
