Dude, no need to write an essay! This has taken me ages to reply to!
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Originally Posted by pan6467
Legal or not the demand will be there, yes, but with legalization, the demand will definately go up as will addiction.
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The demand may go up slightly (or more, who knows), but I'd imagine drug related deaths/crimes/etc would go down. A fair trade off in my opinion.
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Crime is down in a European country that has legalized drugs and that is supposed to mean what in the U.S.?
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I don't think the US is fundamentally different to any other Western Democratic country. Which means that, aside from the adjustments that would have to be made for the differences in US society, the end result would likely be the same. My point is not that it would without doubt work ina similar fashion as it has in the Netherlands, only that it is possible (if it didn't work it would be the fault of whichever politicians worked upon the details of the legislation).
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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.
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I don't mean to be rude here, but this is partly where personal experience comes into play. We do know that marijuana does not have the same effects as alcohol on people. Marijuana may have a negative psychological effect on people, perhaps, but this hardly ever (as in, to pull a estimated statistic out of a certain orifice, 0.0001%) manifests into any sort of physical action which could bring harm to others. To say that it may cause "some people to become very violent" is simply false. It doesn't. Those who abuse marijuana may become an emotional wreck, but if they become violent, or steal (etc etc), it is not the drug that is the precipitator, it is that the person was just an arsehole to begin with.
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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....
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People who beat their wives do so not because they're alcoholics, but because they're the excrement of the human race. If alcohol was unavailable to them they'd just find another substance to abuse/blame.
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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.
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Sorry, but of course it does. I wouldn't attempt to argue about string theory unless I'd done a few dozen physics courses at uni; nor would I discuss the finer points of piloting an aircraft unless I had actually flown one extensively. You may argue that drugs react with different people inv arying ways, but for the most part the effects different people experience on the same drug identical, or at the least extremely similar.
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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.
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Both alcohol and cigarettes have restrictions placed on them. Obviously the trouble with any physically or psychologically altering substance is placing a reasonable set of restrictions upon it. Just because I believe most illicit substances should be legal, doesn't mean I also believe they shouldn't be highly regulated, controlled and restricted.
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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????
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Things aren't so black and white. Perhaps you're not considering the problem of perception. Those with an alcohol or smoking problem may be looked down upon by society, but a junky? They are seen by the wider population as trash, as people to be scorned. How many hardcore junkies still have the support of their families and friends? And how much easier for them would it be to get the help they needed if they still did?
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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.....
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Did you consider that the problem in this case, then, is not with the drug, but with the careless doctor who prescribed it?
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THESE DRUGS ARE PHYSICALLY ADDICTIVE.
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No, really? In other breaking news, THE SKY IS BLUE!!!
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After that you expect me to believe that making these drugs available to everyone would lessen addiction rates in the US?
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Available to everyone? Who said that? There is a rather large difference between making something legal and selling it in aisle 5 of the local supermarket, next to the mars bars and doritos.
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I'm a drug and alcohol counselor, I have in the field experience....
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Yes, we both seem to lack experience in the opposite areas. Hah!! One's as relevant (or irrelevant...) as the other.
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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....
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Sorry, but I think you have me confused with someone else. I'm not claiming what you've seen "ON THE FRONT LINES" (this isn't the Somme, dude) isn't real, or doesn't happen, and I fully acknowledge the problems of drug use. I'm not arguing about that, I'm arguing that these problems are partly perpetuated by society's attitudes and laws relating to drugs, and its methods of treating them.
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I don't think we have the strictest drug laws .... Japan, China, Turkey, Arab countries, to name a few, are far worse than us.
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I never claimed you had THE strictest laws, merely that the they were strict.
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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.
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I'm not convinced. The last thing I mean to be is patronising, but while the point you're trying to make may have merit, the above paragraph suggests that you have extremely limited personal experience of other western cultures, and/or have not studied them in depth. What do you mean by a "feel good, change reality" society? How is US society "drug oriented"? And "family units that are not as close as other countries"? These statements are too vague and generalised to support an argument.
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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.
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Most things cannot be proven beyond a doubt, and in any case, debtaing this particular point won't really get us anywhere because I doubt you, like myself, have the time to dig up facts and figures that support or refute the two sides to the argument.
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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.
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I've in part addressed this earlier, I think, but anyway...so the help isn't funded very well, is understaffed and is in short inadequate to meet the high demand. I'm arguing that this would improve, were the drug legalised. Public perception needs to change, junkies need to be treated less like criminals and more like people with a medical problem - and the way to do this is to legalise drugs, or at the very least decriminalise possession and use. I mean, how popular would increasing the funding for rehab clinics be with middle America at the moment?
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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.
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I've pretty much already addressed this, so see above, I guess.
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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.
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Yes, and if you're against the legalisation of drugs, it doesn't matter what I say "because you already have you opinion". Anyway, I'm not entirely sure about the legalisation of ALL drugs, but I do think most should be, with varying degrees of regulation.
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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.
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Look, I completely respect what you're doing, and I also respect your views on legalisation, I just disagree, heh.
I know I haven't replied to everything you've said, but I simply don't have the time, unfortunately. Please don't make your reply too long.