pan6467

And your point, I never said alcohol wasn't deadly, in fact alcohol's effect on the body is far worse than most other drugs.... it turns into adelhyde (Like formaldehyde) in your body. It does very nasty things, especially in great quantities.

Legal or not the demand will be there, yes, but with legalization, the demand will definately go up as will addiction.


Crime is down in a European country that has legalized drugs and that is supposed to mean what in the U.S.?

If your argument here is to say I am arguing crime would go up because of marijuana use, you are partially right and partially wrong.

I argue that the same exact things we see people blame alcohol on will be the same exact things they will blame marijuana on.

But until weed becomes truly legal and use is comparable to alcohol use... we may not know. ANY DRUG has differing effects on people. Weed may make most people mellow but it may also cause some to become very violent. Especially those who will abuse it and not have the ability to control their use.

Same with alcohol, far more users of alcohol drink and can control themselves because they drink responsibly. You hear of the wife beaters and so on because far more people drink alcohol because of it being legal....

I disagree with you there is no onus on my claim because you are comparing apples to carrots. The Netheralnds probably has far less alcohol "crime" also. Plus, I may be wrong but I don't believe there is as much road traffic as there is in the U.S.

As to whether or not I have partaken, and if I have what effect it has had on me..... that really has no bearing on my argument.



Again, your point is? So because alcohol and cigarettes are legal and destructive, every drug should be legal? I really don't see the point.
Also, with the hooha over cigarette secondhand smoke imagine the full blown hoohas over secondhand pot smoke, or opium smoke, or herion smoke, or freebase coke smoke.



Do you work with addicts also on a daily basis? And the drug addict can get all the help they want, it's there and trust me they know about it. You honestly believe that Opioids, Cocaine, Meth and so on if "pure and government approved" would be les addictive or safer than the street drugs????

I deal with this for a living.... Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone... BENZOS all legal, all prescribed have addiction rates that you would not believe. Oxycontin is nothing more than pharmaceutical heroin. And there are people who started taking these drugs, who never did another drug in their life, were social drinkers and have no addictive characteristics and became addicted and lost control not realizing it because they were prescribed and they thought the drugs would be harmless until they hit a rock bottom.... DUI, car accident, missing family time because they were whacked out, whatever..... I deal with it EVERY DAY. THESE DRUGS ARE PHYSICALLY ADDICTIVE.

By all means contact the drug rehab centers in the US and ask them about these "legal and safe drugs".

After that you expect me to believe that making these drugs available to everyone would lessen addiction rates in the US?

Prohibition lasted 10 years, during prohibition it truly is hard to say what the rate of alcoholism was. I have a feeling far far fewer people drank and that the rates were less. As was the crime, as were all the negatives attributed to alcohol. So in fact, by using this argument that during prohibition alcoholism was less and has since grown, the same could be said about other drugs. Legalize them and watch the numbers in addiction and crime increase.



I'm a drug and alcohol counselor, I have in the field experience.... I'm on the battle lines.... ask drug counselors, ask others on the front lines dealing with true drug addicts and alcoholics every day what they think. You might get a different answer from the Hazeldon, Betty Ford, Glenbeigh people who deal primarily and only with those who have HUGE money, and have relapse rates greater than places like my employer or some of the other city/county/state/fed funded places. Mainly because the people that go to them were court ordered, job ordered and so on. Places like the small city/county/state/fed funded places or those places that fight to keep their doors open, because they treat the addict that doesn't have the money, usually get clients that are truly in rock bottom of addiction and want to better their lives.

The country club places are just those, don't get me wrong Betty Ford, Glenbeigh, Hazeldon are great places. Any addict will get whatever they truly want (whether it is recovery, a pit stop or whatever) from any rehab place. It is all in what the addict puts into it, and the staff. If the staff teaches the client to hold themself accountable and to teaches them ways to live without using then that place will have a higher success rate.


If I gave you that impression, I truly am sorry. No the drug business is as big as any Fortune 500 company. I don't argue the economic side.

Tax legislation on marijuana would be beneficial, I already stated, I truly am a big advocate for its legalization. However, Cocaine, Opioids, Meth, Benzos.... a tax on those might if we were lucky be enough to cover the users hospital bills and the damages to innocent non users.


Believe what you will, I can pull a HOST and give you article after article after article written by people like me ON THE FRONT LINES OF ADDICTION, confirming everything I say..... but you'd dispute them also because you obviously want to believe what you want to believe and people who deal every day watching what true addiction does to people and lives, like myself you won't believe.

By all means come to work with me for a week and take a look around at the people you say don't exist or wouldn't be in the condition they are in if the drugs were legal, marijuana addicts, coke addicts, opioid addicts.... then listen to them and compare their stories to the alcoholics and see for yourself....



I don't think we have the strictest drug laws .... Japan, China, Turkey, Arab countries, to name a few, are far worse than us.

We also have more people, more income/debt spending, a more free society, a more drug oriented, feel good, change reality society, we have family units that are not as close as other countries and so on. So to compare countries without taking in the cultures and atmospheres is comparing apples to carrots. They may not even be in the same class.

We also have more people, so we may have more users but the percentages maybe the same. Not many legal or not are going to admit to addiction. So claiming the US has more or fewer addicts is truly unproveable.

I stated possible reasons why this is above in a previous post.



You are seriously wrong there.... where are your facts????? Again I work in the industry and I know how easy it is for even the poorest of addicts to get help.... granted the help isn't funded very well (I will skip the politics), but the help is there, available and the street and suburban addicts know it. As with any other public service it is understaffed, underfunded and the demand is high so there tend to be waiting lists and treatment going to the worst cases first..... but I can guarantee, at least in the facility I work in and the organizations I have dealt with.... not 1 of them has ever turned away anyone because the drug was illegal or because of finances (except those "name places" that will only take insurance clients).

So don't give me bullshit and say the help isn't there.... when I work in the system and I know better.

The true issue is the suburban types who worry more about image and what others will say, are usually too proud to go into the same treatment centers that treat the poor drug addicts. So they continue until they have serious problems where rehab becomes their only hope.

Their insurance IF they are lucky will pay 50% for a 28 day program, 1 time.... and most insurance companies will even fight that. If for instance in my report on group if I don't include a client remark..... they can flag the client's whole stay. Regardless of whether or not the client wanted to say anything.

As for purity..... obviously you don't deal with addicts.... an addict can tell almost right away how good the drug is and how pure it is. If it's not good then business to that dealer will shrivel up fast because his name will be dirt on the street, if he isn't seriously hurt or killed for the cut. So the belief that drugs are cut to any major degree is just a fallacy. There's no money in cutting the purity that much.

In the end, if you are for legaliztion of all drugs again, it doesn't matter what someone on the front lines says because you already have you opinion. It's just like anything else.

Before I started working in the field I argued for legalization to, I though if government controlled or regulated the distribution to some degree and the drugs were purer, we could tax them and make massive money and noone would be harmjed. But working in the field and seeing the losses, legalization would destroy us. Even the vast majority of addicts I deal with believe legalization would destroy far more people. People who chose not to do the drug because it was illegal and they didn't want to go to jail, people who chose not to buy because they were scared of what they may get, but if it were legal and available and they didn't have to worry about jail or the purity....... they'd be there. Opioids, Cocaine, Meth and Benzos are all very physically addictive..... even if they were ever regulated by the government.

BTW..... the DSM-IV does have Marijuana as addictive.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"