iamthecreaturefromuranus

Just out of interest. For those of you calling for the legalization of drugs I have a few questions.

Which ones would you legalise?
All of them?
Anything that anybody can invent in the future?
How would you square the global attempts to cut tobacco use with legalising other harmful substances?

Alan2005

You ask like these are trick questions. It's easy, all of them. This doesn't mean no regulation, no health warnings, no scientific studies on their impact etc.

If drugs were legal, real bona fide companies would be involved in their production, paying taxes and employing people etc. This would also lead to higher quality and safer products - i.e. people don't drink meths when they can have whisky. I don't understand why government thinks it is preferable to leave this market to violent criminals who kill people and have the ability to destabilize entire countries.

Re-tobacco; there is nothing to square. There is a big difference between telling people that smoking is bad for them and making it illegal. The former is allowing people to make an informed choice based on scientific facts, the latter is removing that freedom - never a good thing.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Not trick questions at all.. just your defensive nature jumping to the fore.
So we spend billions world wide trying to curb smoking and at the same time legalise any and everything else? Just seems a strange postion to take.

Alan2005

Billions eh? Where do you get that from? How much do you think is spent on enforcing prohibition?

Why is it strange anyway? Plenty is spent on telling people to eat less and exercise more, but you don't see governments making it a crime to consume too much chocolate or to sit on your arse all day.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

You don't see them jumping to legalise car theft either just because plenty of people do it and its run by criminals.

The "legalise the lot' approach is simplistic nonsense. What happens if the next designer drug gives a massive high but just happens to turn all the people who take violent? Still legal? I guess it would have to be wouldn't it?

zRichi

Given that all drugs equate roughly (related deaths and every drug, from caffeine to heroin) equated to one fourth of alcohol related deaths.
All drug use to deaths by tobacco equates to 1/20th.

Sorta puts things in perspective.
Prohibition is hopeless and criminalises functional users (clubbers, stoners) that use recreationally. The difference with drugs is that it makes criminals rich and powerful to the point where they have political influence. Columbian cartels, mafia etc.

4od has a good war on drugs thingy at the mo. One guy was getting high off mechanical fluid. They criminalised that so he went onto another legal fluid that was worse.

It's a social darwinism(much like tuition fee rise) I despise but people like that, literally kill themselves.
Afterall if there were no drugs I'm sure someone would just invent a game say, where you put a round in a six barrel chamber put the gun to your head and pull the trigger..oh wait...

Alan2005

The reason car theft should always be a crime is because it has this thing called a victim. Your analogy is unsound.

Yes, it would still be legal. But why would anybody produce such a drug? If violent criminals have managed to mostly avoid it, then I'm sure that pharmaceutical companies with clinical trials will manage. You should note that legal does not mean deregulated - there is a big difference. Done right, legalization would push drugs like crystal meth, pcp, crack into the same position as moonshine. Sure there will be still be people taking them; but very few.

Almost Canadian

So what happens to all of the "unregulated drugs" (those that cannot obtain regulated status for whatever reason). Doesn`t that put society in the same position it is now: the drug is unlicensed, people will want to produce and sell it, they will be prosecuted for doing so, etc

Alan2005

The thing is we know from the precedent of what happened with alcohol that this wouldn't happen. You don't see organized crime producing it's own alcohol to sell - there just isn't any money in it when you can buy decent stuff perfectly legally in the pub.

Oink

Would posit that the same thing would happen with the legalization of prostitution? Do you think the product would be a lot nicer and cleaner and you would have to schlep all the down to East Hastings for some relief?

Alan2005

In Canada there would probably be a unionized crown corporation to go along with the ones that run gambling and booze. You see the state really is like the Mafia.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

So your answer is to make drugs, all drugs, as readily available as the two already available mass market drugs, that we know kill millions every year?

zRichi

You're arguement only works provided you take the following, a base for reality

1. That by illegalising something you have rid the world of it.
2. That if there were no means to get drunk, stoned, high on crack no one would search for a means.

Given those 2 things aren't a grounding for reality we have to look at alternatives.
Look at prohibition in Canada in the 1920's outlawing of alcohol. Sure I'm sure some people lost weight...but for the majority of alochol users it pushed alcohol into the hands of criminals.
Your arguement would make sense if by banning something it got rid of it. The truth is instead of your money (when you buy a pint) going into a grocer, a pub, a brand beer name and paying taxes which go to our society - it would simply put go to prostitue rings, racketteerers, loan sharks and child abusers.

To outlaw alcohol now would be ludicrous - it's far too easy to brew your own beer/cider/wine. It would simply criminalise most of an ordinary working population.
The same applies to a vast majority of drugs - anyone with a gcse in science could cook up meth, crack or grow marijuana. (In fact the UK now grows so much marijuanna we now export..)

Legalising and regulating is simply the lesser of two evils - no deaths from amateur batches of meth, no cutting drugs with very harmful substances, less HIV/AIDS transmissions but more importantly it cuts off a massive cash supply to organised criminals that delve into trafficking, chop shops, various elements of forced prostitution etc.

zRichi

Just saw in news today interesting snippet on Bob Ainsworth views on prohibition.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/9292599.stm

ExKiwilass

The fact is people like drugs. They like getting off their faces. Even if you banned all 'drugs' incl. alcohol they'd be busy sniffing glue/petrol or doctoring some other thing to get the same effect. We've been doing it for eons.


Better to be realistic about the people with addictive personalities and provide help, rather than pretend like you can control it. hayhahaha. good luck with that.

I don't know what you can do to stop that except create a new cyborg race of humans through genetic engineering that don't have the need.