MadHound (32,762 posts)
Let's legalize meth, and every other such recreational drug.
The War on Drugs has been lost, lost long ago. Destined to be a losing proposition from its inception. It is past time for us to recognize this simply fact, and alleviate the massive harm that the WOD is inflicting upon the American people by ending it.
The plain, pure, simple fact of the matter is that a vast majority of humanity feels the need to alter their state of consciousness at some point or another, with various drugs. Prohibiting those drugs is not going to change human nature, but rather force people to endure all sorts of dangers in order to fulfill that need.
Worse, we are losing our country, our civil liberties to this prohibition. All the time while enriching the national security and prison industries needlessly.
If you look at other experiments in legalization, you will see that they are successful. Britain has legalized heroin and look what's happened. A heroin addict gets up in the morning, goes downtown on the tube, stops in at a NHS office, gets his clean, legal shot of heroin. He then goes to work, is a productive, tax paying citizen, gets off work, goes back by NHS to get his evening shot, goes home and is a law abiding citizen at home. No need to rob or assault to get money to feed his habit, no need to place him on the public jailhouse support system, and if he wants help for his addiction, since there is no longer any legal stigma, he can get his addiction treated for what it truly is, a health issue.
The same applies to meth. Do you think meth addicts want to ingest a product that has been made in a back room, that consists of battery acid, sulphur and other toxic ingredients? No, they are ingesting meth because they can't get pharmaceutical grade amphetamines. Why do they want that? Well, meth, speed, those are working class drugs, drugs for the poor. They allow that poor fellow to continue to schlup his ass to two or three jobs he needs just to get by in this world. Perhaps if we started addressing the root problems of drug use, poverty and such, we would actually lower the rate of drug use.
But until we do, it only makes sense to legalize all drugs. There are several advantages. First, we would stop the massive crime wave that is associated with the current drug world. No need to shoot innocents, no need to rob or murder if you can get your drugs legally and cheaply.
Second, we can remove the stigma of illegality from drugs, and treat them as what they really are, a public health problem. We can tax drugs, and use those revenues to provide much needed attention to the problem of drug addiction. The funny thing is, in countries that have legalize drugs, even hard ones, the rate of drug use goes down because that aura of glamor and danger that surrounds drugs, that aura that appeals to many a rebellious youth, is gone, no more rebellious than your old man drinking a beer. Furthermore, with legal drugs comes clean drugs. During alcohol prohibition, far too many people died from bathtub gin, under today's drug prohibition, far too many people are dying from drugs they cooked up for themselves, the modern equivalent of bathtub gin. Safe, legalized pharmaceutical grade drugs would go a long way to alleviate the suffering, and health problems, of drug users.
Third, we would get our civil liberties back, and stop our progress along this road we're traveling down towards a police state.
Prohibition hasn't worked in the past, in fact it has only made things worse. Why not learn from that, and end this prohibition against all drugs. We would be better off as a country, as a society.
Awww.
They want their civil liberties.
They deny you the right to opt out of Social Security, the Educational Industrial Complex, the compulsory charity of the welfare state. They shit on your right as a Catholic to not fund birth control. They steal the entire national health care system. They force unionization and overturn dult enacted laws by fiat...
...but they want their civil liberty to be a meth head staggering around your streets being housed and fed on your dime.
gateley (60,074 posts)
2. When I took drugs (and I
took them all for a big chunk of my life)
'nuff said
Cleita (60,742 posts)
18. However, don't you think that if they were in the open and regulated you
could have some assurance that you won't get something toxic in the mix you weren't expecting, or wouldn't get thrown in jail for using? That to me is the issue in legalizing drugs, that and taking the illegitimate profit out of it. I don't know how you could in good conscience sell meth or other debilitating drugs to a user, but at least that user might feel safer to seek help than if they might end up in prison or dead from poisonous ingredients.
Maybe it should only be available, legally, in a clinic, where the user has to promise to undergo therapy to stop using. Since I've never used drugs, it's just a theory with me, and I'm interested in what a real drug user would want to happen.
buzzkill
think (1,669 posts)
4. K&R. Safe regulation is better than bath tub science.
Although your headline is pretty bold your arguments and examples are well thought out.
Well done.
Sellin' to the pregnant 19 y/o mother of 3.
YEAH!
Recursion (19,091 posts)
7. Unfortunately that would take international action since we're signatory to several UN drug treaties
Last edited Sun Dec 9, 2012, 11:06 AM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
And I dislike unilateral actions even when it's something I agree with. But, good arguments.
(Incidentally, we're already catching hell at the UN for the states that have legalized pot; there's a conference this spring in Quito and it's going to be quite a show.)
Warren Stupidity (29,311 posts)
12. As Bush established it takes nothing more than a signing statement.
Taverner (50,924 posts)
30. I agree 100%. Without exception.
Did anyone expect differently?
Aerows (11,951 posts)
32. Meth is not the same as Marijuana
I view Marijuana as benign. I can't say I've ever done meth or cocaine, or spent any time with people who did because I left as soon as hard drugs ever come out, but amphetamines and opioid drugs ruin lives.
Pot? Pfft. I don't like it but the worst I saw was vigorous snacking.
MadHound (32,762 posts)
58. No, it's not,
However the simple fact of the matter is that meth is going to be around and in use whether it is legal or not. Furthermore, various examples, both in studies and real life, have shown that once you make such a substance legally available, treat it as the health problem it is, your rate of usage goes down.
Furthermore, you're not going to get rid of any such substance, be it alcohol, meth or dope until you start addressing some of the major root problems that cause such usage. Life can be utter hell for many people, and thus they turn to drugs, be they legal or otherwise, for some sort of relief. When that happens shouldn't we be thinking of the health of the user in order to minimize the costs to both them and society at large?
Remove the word "drugs" and replace it with "money" and this post wouldn't last 5 minutes in front of a DU jury.
MadHound (32,762 posts)
60. Mainly because they are addicted to an expensive black market substance,
Whose cost is high, and their need is overwhelming. Addicts will do anything to feed their addiction, including commit crimes and endanger those around them.
However if you legalize meth, bring the costs down, take it out of the dangerous back alley black market, they won't pose near the danger that they do now. They won't feel the need to commit crimes in order to feed an expensive habit.
I live in Missouri, meth capital of the country. I've had things stolen because of meth, I've had to deal with more than one tweaked out person wanting to get what I have. I know exactly how dangerous black market meth is. Like any sort of prohibition, be it alcohol or meth, the drug doesn't go away, it is simply joined with crime and violence. The only way to severe that connection is doing away with prohibition.
Warren DeMontague (41,937 posts)
55. If the only choices are the imbecilic drug war & full legalization of all drugs, I vote legalization
Last edited Sun Dec 9, 2012, 09:09 PM USA/ET - Edit history (2)
And I admit to having a decidedly small l left-libertarian (ooh! That word!) disposition when it comes to the government telling consenting adults what they can do with their own bodies.
Legalize, regulate, tax pot. Maybe psychedelics as well. Also fully investigate the therapeutic potential of substances like MDMA. Psilocybin. LSD.
Adopt a harm reduction, as opposed to law enforcement, approach to other hard drugs. Education. Treatment on demand.
How about a double-tap behind the left ear?
Zero recidivism and the users make strenous efforts to ensure their activities never make it on to the public radar.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021950651
