Do you favor legalizing drugs

Quote: JohnnyQ

What is the purpose of restricting drugs but not
alcohol ? Both are drugs.

There is actually a qualitative difference. As far as I know, if you take any drugs you get high. You can get high on alcohol, but there are degrees. Most people just get a pleasant buzz, not quite high you might say, while most adults can handle 1 or 2 drinks without any intoxicating effect at all.

Of course, you can also get high on glue, pain thinner and even too little oxygen. I'd like to see prohibition on that.

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DUI drivers kill many many innocent bystanders. Yet I have seen several articles in my state on repeat offenders with more than 10 DUI convictions still out there driving. Why haven't they been locked up and the key tossed out ?

That's a very good question.

Quote: AZDuffman

To think that drug use will not go up under legalizatgion is fantasy.

If heroin were legalized tomorrow, would you shoot up, AZDuffman? Of course not. Responsible Americans will not be shooting up heroin regardless of its legality.

From Forbes magazine: "Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or decriminalize drugs in the United States. Fortunately, we have a real-world example of the actual effects of ending the violent, expensive War on Drugs and replacing it with a system of treatment for problem users and addicts. Ten years ago, Portugal decriminalized all drugs. One decade after this unprecedented experiment, drug abuse is down by half..."

When Prohibition was repealed did alcohol consumption skyrocket? A couple Harvard economists determined: "We find that alcohol consumption fell sharply at the beginning of Prohibition, to approximately 30 percent of its pre-Prohibition level. During the next several years, however, alcohol consumption increased sharply, to about 60-70 percent of its pre-prohibition level. The level of consumption was virtually the same immediately after Prohibition as during the latter part of Prohibition, although consumption increased to approximately its pre-Prohibition level during the subsequent decade."

Quote: AZDuffman

To think if I could buy a vial of cocaine next to the cigarettes will keep illegal sellers from popping up is also not likely...

If coke was legal and I was already a junkie, I'd go for the 100% pure pharmeceutical-grade stuff at the drug store, I wouldn't be buying from the shady guy in the alley who might be cutting his product with impurities.

Quote: reno

From Forbes magazine: "Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or decriminalize drugs in the United States. Fortunately, we have a real-world example of the actual effects of ending the violent, expensive War on Drugs and replacing it with a system of treatment for problem users and addicts. Ten years ago, Portugal decriminalized all drugs. One decade after this unprecedented experiment, drug abuse is down by half..."

I'd be curious to know how it impacted organized crime, though they didn't mention it there. Although I'm sure criminals find a different venue to work lacking drug traffic, addicts are a sure source of constant funds.

Quote: Nareed

There is actually a qualitative difference. As far as I know, if you take any drugs you get high. You can get high on alcohol, but there are degrees. Most people just get a pleasant buzz, not quite high you might say, while most adults can handle 1 or 2 drinks without any intoxicating effect at all.

They work the same. You can take a puff or a bump and have a very minor, yet noticable, effect. You can still problems solve, do work, follow a story, compose yourself, just like having one beer. You could smoke a joint or do a line and get silly, same as you could drink a six pack and get silly. Or you could do the whole bag in a sitting same as you could drink a fifth in one sitting and get schnockered. Hallucinogens are more of an "all or nothing" experience, but most others are no different than alcohol.

Quote: reno

If heroin were legalized tomorrow, would you shoot up, AZDuffman? Of course not. Responsible Americans will not be shooting up heroin regardless of its legality.

If coke was legal and I was already a junkie, I'd go for the 100% pure pharmeceutical-grade stuff at the drug store, I wouldn't be buying from the shady guy in the alley who might be cutting his product with impurities.

Good points. Just look to tobacco and alcohol for examples. Both are legal, yet not everyone does it. And while a select few brew their own, you don't have a massive underground operation that sells possibly poisonous swill at 40x's market value, and a multi-billion dollar inept operation trying to stop it.

Quote: rxwine

I'd be curious to know how it impacted organized crime, though they didn't mention it there. Although I'm sure criminals find a different venue to work lacking drug traffic, addicts are a sure source of constant funds.

In the drug section of organized crime, I don't see how it couldn't improve. Money is the only way this works. Let's use weed as our example. The actual cost to make one plant is beyond minimal. If you grow a veggie garden from seed, you already have all the skills necessary. Corn is amazingly more difficult to grow than weed, and even corn's not that hard. Plant seed, water, wait, water, wait, water, harvest. The cost is cents. The worth, at least in street value, is hundreds if not thousands of dollars, depending on quality and size, and that's just ONE plant.

A green pepper plant, in weight of usable product, is comparable to that of weed. How much is a few green peppers at the local farmers market? $2? $4? So due to it's illegal status, weed is 500x's more expensive. Legalize it, put it into the hands of farmers, the private sector, and tax the bejeezuz out of it, and you have a new "industry", a new tax revenue, and could still do it at a fraction of the cost of the current blackmarket rate. Weed is no longer worth it to the kingpins to go to all the trouble of growing, harvesting, shipping and distributing. So not only don't you have a Narc army to support, you have less police work in cathcing mules crossing the border, or the violence the drug cartels create.

I honestly can not think of, nor have I been suggested to, any single reason why legalization would be worse than "America's War on America".

Quote: reno

If heroin were legalized tomorrow, would you shoot up, AZDuffman? Of course not. Responsible Americans will not be shooting up heroin regardless of its legality.

Would I? Nope, espically not heroin. But I would bet lots of people would snort cocaine.

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If coke was legal and I was already a junkie, I'd go for the 100% pure pharmeceutical-grade stuff at the drug store, I wouldn't be buying from the shady guy in the alley who might be cutting his product with impurities.

You are a logical person. If the street guy is selling it for half the price the junkies will still be buying. Illegal cigarettes sell well.

Quote: pacomartin

The public desire to legalize marijuana has been growing weaker over the decades. The time has come and gone.

Paco wrote this in an old thread from 2010, so maybe he's changed his mind since then. Based upon this graph released by Gallup today, it's only a matter of time before pot is legal: