Legalization of Drug use...

[ahartman]

Last nite, there was a story on 60 Minutes (a TV news magazine for non-US folks) about the governor from New Mexico who wants to legalize drug use. His attorney general is opposed to it. They had a debate and both quoted opposing facts centering around the Netherlands policy of legal drug use.

Since we have a goodly number of folks from that part of the world, I'm interested in their thoughts.

My girlfriend and I have discussed this quite a bit and I'm opposed to legalization of drugs, she thinks it could have positive effects.

BTW, the Governor wants to legalize & control ALL drugs (cocaine, heroin, etc), not just marijuana.

Does the legalization of drugs in your country have a negative or positive effect on crime in your opinion?

I'm not talking about crime going down because you can't get arrested for the crime of buying or using drugs, either.

[This message has been edited by ahartman (edited 24 April 2000).]

[Hunsow]

I can see 60 minutes, didn't watch it though. It has a positive effect, not only the crime goes down, but also the number of drug users. Forbidding it doesn't make it go away, it will only get worse. The problem is that almost all people refuse to see that.

[ahartman]

I don't follow your logic. Why does simply making drug use legal make less people use drugs?

I think right now, there are fewer drug users because of the (relative) difficulty of obtaining drugs and the high cost of buying them.

It seems to me that if the government steps in and regulates it, drugs become more obtainable and cheaper. Why would numbers go down?

What am I missing?

[ALBPM]

Yup, that's my Govenor alright

A lot of violent crimes, robberies and burglaries are motivated by people trying to get their drug money or are related to drug smuggling or selling activities. I think Gov. Johnson's main motivation is why do we continue to waste billions of dollars of taxpayers money every year to fight a battle we can't win. Of course the main opposition is from law Enforcement who would ultimately loose funding if drugs were legalized.

Prohibition did little good. It created higher crime rates and opportunities for Organized Crime, just as the illegal drug trade does now. Maybe, it's time for the Government to legalize, control and Tax drugs. I guess, I'd rather see my tax money spent on more constructive things than fighting a battle that we can't win.

And also part of what Hunsow said about drug use declining may be that it looses it's appeal if it legal. Maybe some one else can expand more on this.

Paul

[Hunsow]

It's really simple, if you forbid something it only makes it more interesting to try it out. It will become a luxury article. People have been using drugs for as long as they exist, and it became a problem right after they forbid using it.

BTW I never have used any sort of drug.

[Helevitia]

ahartman,

I think that some crime would be siginifcantly reduced although there would still be the addict that would steal to get his/her money for there addiction. There is also the drug user that could kill someone via drunk driving or losing control of one's ability to be rational. The latter could lead to many criminal situations. The bottom line is, there will still be the meth lab cooker, the coke plant, the pot grower, the dealer, the middle man, the buyer, the thief, th addict, blah blah blah...and as you can see, even if we legalize 'drugs' we will still see crime from all of the areas. The beneficial part is that we will now get taxes from the sell of drugs, and I mean LOTS of taxes since many, many people do drugs. This could help pay for many things such as education, poverty, etc...I could go on all day re: this subject but I think you get my point. And just to set the record straight, I'm speaking from experience. I've used lots of drugs in the past, I grew up around drugs being sold, made, smoked, injected, stolen, lost, snorted and I've seen a lot of the crime to go with it. There is no winning solution at this time so you might as well use it to your advantage and make it legal to benefit from the tax dollars alone. People will always do drugs and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that your statment about drugs being more attainable is absolutely false. Drugs are so easy to get it's scary. I and anyone else can get any kind of drug they want without much of an effort.

Dave

[ahartman]

I guess what I mean by 'more attainable' was that cheaper=more people can afford it.

I live in Chicago and I can get a hamburger, an 8-ball, a crack whore, and a room by the hour all within a block of each other. But I make good money...

Regulate it, someone buys it from the gov't for x dollars and sells it on the street for x+1 dollars (or whatever, it's still cheaper than it is now). All of a sudden, income isn't a limiting factor.

Anyway, do we have anyone from Malaysia here? I'd be interested in THEIR thoughts.

Don't tell me you can't stop drugs. I concede that as a people, Americans don't have the STOMACH to stop it.

I don't buy the argument that the majority of people try drugs because they're "not supposed to". I believe people try drugs because of peer pressure or because they're curious. People get hooked because they're too stupid to realize the consequences of their actions.

Paul, please don't tell me you think the law enforcement community is opposing legalization of drugs because they'll lose money...

And to fess up, I was a recreational drug user (several kinds) but when I had my daughter, that all stopped as I couldn't justify doing them but telling her they were wrong.

Good thoughts, people! Keep them coming.

Andy

[ALBPM]

Hi Andy,

I hate to say this but there is big money at stake for some agencies and for some countries in Central and South America. And what's worse is some of these officials are more corrupt than the criminals they put behind bars. I don't mean this as an insult to Law Enforcement but there are those few bad seeds who line there pockets with our Tax money and drug money. There are a lot of people making careers out of a winless War on Drugs. And it always seems that the "little Guy" is the one put behind bars instead of the big "Drug Lords". Heck, even our Government was suspected of selling cocaine to get money to supply the Contras with weapons.
It just seems like one big nasty waste of time, money and lives. We definitely need a change of some kind.

Maybe some more members in Europe could share more of their observations with us.

Did it really make a positive difference to legalize drugs??

Paul

[Himself]

First off, the people dependent on drugs have my deepest sympathy, life can be screwed up enough without drugs enforcing it, I am amazed that anybody does make it out of it.

Is there a good solution? I think time has proved that nobody has come up with one or is likely to. As long as there is poverty, emotional abuse, etc, people will abuse something to escape from it. Also, nothing is going to get other people to get involved in other people's problems outside of religion and fewer people are willing to get involved in religion to the degree where it would matter.

What would legal drugs do?

For the drug user? It would enforce their habbit, they would get to the bottom faster and likely die sooner from drug overdose. They would probably still be involved in crime to pay for the drugs, unless the price of them were extremely low and restrictions on sale were unlimited. Making it easier to buy drugs won't help them in any way. Making it harder for them to buy drugs is just about impossible to enforce, the populations are just too large for effective policing.

For kids? They would not be affected, they would still get into drugs for the rebel factor and peer pressure. I don't imagine any govenment making it easy for kids to get drugs. Legal drugs would just be cheaper.

For the drug pusher? A lot less profit to be made, they can be undercut by just about anyone, a supplier can be found anywhere. Too much competition, low margins. They are in it solely for the money, this would hit them the hardest. Less incentive to pursue the drug trade for profit, more use of drugs to get young people into prostitution. Less cash, less power to throw around, less influence, the motivation for assembling in gangs would change.

For Law Enforcement? No law to enforce, fewer incidents of drug/gang related gun play perhaps, more prostitution, but that seems to me to be easier to control in a lot of ways, the market is more public, the customer more exposed and the market is not self increasing in nature. Less smuggling of drugs across the border perhaps. On the other hand, having to watch people kill themselves and not being able to act, would be lead to more burnout. Domestic violence would probably increase, if alchohol causes as much as it does, just think what junkies en masse would do.

For the Government? They get more money from both drug sales and spending a tiny bit less on drug enforcement and "say no" advertising.
Could solve the nation debt problems in a few years, but who'd be left to applaud it?

I am of two minds over the whole thing, I don't think it's a good thing, but I wonder if it would improve matters in other areas a bit. Everything else has been tried and has failed and the problem will not go awayI wouldn't want it tried here, but if other places are doing it, I would be interested in how it turned out.

[Gurm]

>As long as there is poverty, emotional >abuse, etc, people will abuse something to >escape from it.

This is too true. However, you must consider the fact that there is a massive difference between use and abuse. We could get into the SPEED with which someone can move from one to the other, but alcohol is addictive as well. Cigarettes are as addictive as crack. Yet these things are legal and regulated. Cigarettes kill more people each year than ALL OTHER ILLEGAL DRUGS COMBINED.

>What would legal drugs do?

Lots.

>For the drug user? It would enforce their >habbit, they would get to the bottom faster >and likely die sooner from drug overdose.

Wrong. For the drug ADDICT, you are correct. But it would keep them safer while they did it. I know that sounds harsh. But there will always be winos, drunks, and junkies. It is a sad truth. It will ALWAYS happen. If you take away drugs they will use shoe polish and cleaning fluid. If you give them cheap drugs from a clean, government regulated source, they would at least be marginally safer and healthier.

Drug USERS, on the other hand, would simply benefit economically, as their recreational habit would no longer be prohibitively expensive - not to mention dangerously illegal.

>They would probably still be involved in >crime to pay for the drugs, unless the >price of them were extremely low and >restrictions on sale were unlimited.

DUH, that's what we're talking about. If the feds regulate drug sales, drugs will be MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper.

>Making it easier to buy drugs won't help >them in any way.

I think I've just addressed this.

>Making it harder for them to buy drugs is >just about impossible to enforce, the >populations are just too large for >effective policing.

Bingo. This is the problem. Without creating a police state, you can't effectively eliminate crimes that essentially happen behind closed doors. See the earlier posting on prohibition. It was just a silly idea.

>For the drug pusher? A lot less profit to >be made, they can be undercut by just about >anyone, a supplier can be found anywhere.

Correct. They would be eliminated - taking a large element of crime out of drugs.

>Less incentive to pursue >the drug trade >for profit, more use of drugs to get young >people into prostitution.

Umm... you mean LESS use of drugs to get the youth into hooking, right?

>For Law Enforcement? No law to enforce, >fewer incidents of drug/gang related gun >play perhaps,

ABSOLUTELY. Nobody would kill anybody over drugs any more. Well, almost nobody. There will always be the small percentage of people who will kill one another over anything. However, if drugs cost as much as cigarettes, almost nobody would kill anybody over them.

>more prostitution, but that seems to me to >be easier to control in a lot of ways, the

I still don't see why you feel legalizing drugs would increase the amount of prostitution. Please explain this twisted logic.

>Less smuggling of drugs across the border >perhaps.

NO smuggling. Where would the profit be in smuggling? GONE. Nonexistant.

>On the other hand, having to watch people >kill themselves and not being able to act, >would be lead to more burnout.

Oh, come on. This happens already. Drinking, cigarettes, Nutrasweet, you name it. I know a dozen people who WILL die an early death, and I can't do a friggin' thing about it. The cops know a lot more - habitual drunks, junkies, etc. It won't get any worse.

>Domestic violence would probably increase, >if alchohol causes as much as it does, just >think what junkies en masse would do.

You are presuming that EVERYONE who does drugs becomes a junkie. This is a dangerous assumption. Not everyone who drinks becomes an alcoholic. Not everyone who smokes pot becomes a stoner.

>For the Government? They get more money >from both drug sales and spending a tiny >bit less on drug enforcement and "say no" >advertising.

HAHAHA. A "tiny bit"? Do you have any idea how much money the government THROWS AWAY each year on "drug enforcement"? WAY TOO FRIGGIN MUCH.

>Could solve the nation debt problems in a >few years, but who'd be left to applaud it?

Once again, you are being fatalistic. Many many many people use drugs and do not abuse drugs. And I mean drugs of all types.

I'm not saying that there wouldn't be an UGLY period. Honestly, there would be a several-year period where people went nutty.

"WOOHOO! Cocaine at the corner drugstore! YAHOOOOOOIE!"

It's like the drinking age. If we didn't HAVE a drinking age, we wouldn't HAVE an underage drinking problem. If you got wine with dinner like you do in much of Europe, you wouldn't see wine as something you COULDN'T HAVE.

But of course nobody wants to accept this. All they see is that if there is no drinking age, all of a sudden you'll have a generation of teenagers drunk all the time. This is true. However, the NEXT generation won't have as much of a problem.

However, there's also the problem of American mixed morality. Nowhere else in the world will you find a group of people that so violently speaks out against something while doing it themselves behind closed doors.

Me? I'm all for legalization of drugs.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[ahartman]

Interesting. I still don't buy the argument that if you make it legal, it's not a big deal and people won't do it.

In the prohibition thread, I said if someone wants to drink themselves to death in their own home, I don't care. Likewise with drugs. If someone wants to get geeked out of their gourd AT HOME, let 'em do whatever they want, provided they harm no one else but themselves.

Very simplistic since you never do anything that affects just you.

[Compton]

I'd rather see the deregulation of prescription drugs than the legalization of illegal drugs. I don't want cocaine or heroin, I want prozac!

[HollyBerri]

I still don't buy the argument that if you make it legal, it's not a big deal and people won't do it.

Check your assumptions at the door, please: I for one would rather that people who feel that they need drugs to handle the problems of their life and psychology have those drugs, than that they <u>not</u> have them...

... because if you think things stink with people doing all the hideous things described above.... imagine all those people unwillingly and unendingly sober, face to face with what they're so desperately trying to avoid.

I gotta go with Gurm, Paul and Hunsow.

It'll be ugly, yeah. But then again, I've seen enough 12-step programs to know the deep and lasting value of 'bottoming out', to both the individual and the polity--- so 'ugly' doesn't scare me as much as it used to.

"Bring it on," I say... (actually, more like "Let's get on with it, already!!!")

----------------------------
Holly

[Hunsow]

I still don't buy the argument that if you make it legal, it's not a big deal and people won't do it.

Statistics prove otherwise, of all western countries the Netherlands has the lowest percentage of drug users. Also noone made the argument that people won't do it, just less people.

[paulcs]

I suspect deregulating antibiotics would cause *far* more harm than legalizing marijuana and some of the other halucinagens.

I'm not a user, but I think we should legalize and tax the snot out of certain drugs, as we do with cigarettes.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net