Drug polls:

[bholdr]

I've been wondering what the drug related experience of the users of this forum have been:

[ThaSaltCracka]

I use to smoke a lot of pot, but now I just like heroin.

[nolanfan34]

I'm a "no" for the first box. Haven't ever even smoked a cigarette. Now alcohol on the other hand...

[Mike Gallo]

I use to smoke a lot of pot, but now I just like heroin

They do call pot the gateway drug.

[JackWilson]

I think you need to PM a certain user called BrownThumb about this thread. I'm sure he'd be able to make an invaluable contribution.

Isn't ecstasy a form of methamphetamine?

[bholdr]

X is from the same general family of drugs as meth, hiwever, it's usually used in totaly diffrent situations and for different reasons, which is why i gave it and the new designer exoctics their own category.

[wonderwes]

Rastafari???

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't ecstasy a form of methamphetamine?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but their pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics are completely different. So much so, they would appear to be unrelated, atleast on the surface.

[TStoneMBD]

the problem with polls like these is that people who have an active history in drug use are more inclined to vote than someone who has no interest in drug-related topics. therefore, the results will be skewed. however, ty for posting it.

[dr. klopek]

What does everybody think about the general legalization of illicit drugs?

[SackUp]

I find it rather funny that over half the people suggest that we legalize or at least decriminalize weed, yet over half the people say that drugs have a negative effect on society and the rest are neutral at best.

How does that make any sense? If things are bad for society then why would you want to support them?

[eric5148]

[ QUOTE ]
If things are bad for society then why would you want to support them?

[/ QUOTE ]

Has making drugs illegal made them go away? No.

Has making drugs illegal helped addicts recover? No.

Has making drugs illegal decreased crime? No, in fact it increases crime significantly.

Drugs have a nuetral, at best, effect on society. But prohibition creates more problems.

Have you ever read about all the mobs that popped up all over the country during the prohibition of alcohol? Selling alcohol was their main source of income. These days, organized criminals sell drugs.

[dr. klopek]

I think that prohibition has more negative effects than drugs do.

[bholdr]

I personally believe that the continued illegal classification of most drugs ('cept for alcohol, tabbacco, and some rare ones) artificially inflates the price for those drugs, making it profitable for the criminal element to involve themselves with their distribution and production.

Thus, drugs like crack, heroin, X, meth, etc(and even ganja to some degree), are erronously associated with violence and crime. If they were fully legalized, then those negitive connotations would disappear, and we'd be left to deal with the negitive direct effects alone.

For exmple, if a city or state keeps such hard drugs illegal, esp theit distribution and production, but NOT their consumption, then it becomes much easier for that society to deal with the negitive effects of those drugs. Vancouver B.C. is a perfect example; Since they decriminalized the use and possesion of heroin, but incresed the penalties for distribution and production, along with providing 'maintence doses' and clean needles to already addicted users, they have seen a signifigant drop in the number of new HIV infections and overdose deaths.

Decriminalzation and preventive education (not the U.S's current 'drugs are the devil' approach, mind you; real, accurate education) are, IMOP the only plausable long term solution to the problems posed by highly addictive and unhealthy drugs.


Marajuana, on the other hand, should be LEGALIZED, flat out. there is no convincing argument for it's continued illegal, schedule one status, where pot is treated the same way as heroin in the eyes of the law. I applaud cities like seattle, which has recently passed an initiave requiring the authorities to treat Ganja as their lowest possible priority. States like Nevada and Alaska, which have recently decriminalized pot use and the possesion of small quantities, are also on the right track, IMO.

I defy anyone to provide a good argument proving that marajuana is in any way more harmful to society and the state than alcohol. I believe that the default condition of any substance, idea, or object should be legality, and that, lacking a good, objectivly quantifiable reason, those substances, ideas and things should be legal.

[bholdr]

Raastafari is a semi-chrstian religion/ belief system based on the idea that A: marajuana is a gift from god meant to enlighten and improve society, and B: Halie Salassie, emperor of ethiopia, was a modern prophet, spreading the gospel of peace and acceptance. It's heavily tied into Regge music and Jamica.


the Rastas (dredlocked, usually) smoke a lot of Herb.

[SackUp]

I must say that I don't understand this argument at all.

[ QUOTE ]
Has making drugs illegal made them go away? No.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, of course drugs won't go away regardless of what penality we impose for having them. However, this doesn't mean people aren't deterred from using them or that society is better off by having restrictions. Please show me one stat that would show anything but an increase in drug use if it was legalized.

[ QUOTE ]
Has making drugs illegal helped addicts recover? No.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, do you think that legalizing drugs would help addicts? If anything it would decrease the amount of help available as we would have so many more addicts out there and less aid available.

[ QUOTE ]
Has making drugs illegal decreased crime? No, in fact it increases crime significantly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have stats for this? And it might increase the amount of "drug crime" out there, but it doesn't increase crime on the whole and I would argue there is much less crime with drugs being illegal. Have you ever really hung around fools who are high? They do some stupid [censored]. I'm not saying people don't do stupid [censored] anyhow or that they don't do stupid stuff while drunk. But that doesn't negate the fact that people do stupid stuff while high...like commit crimes even (often not caught!)

[ QUOTE ]
Drugs have a nuetral, at best, effect on society. But prohibition creates more problems.

[/ QUOTE ]

How does this make any sense at all? If the best you can do with drugs is neutral, then how can prohibiting drugs be anything less than neutral? Do you have any stats that show prohibition of drugs creates more problems? And what problems would these be? Stealing for drugs?? If that is the best you can do, then you might want to reconsider.

[ QUOTE ]
Have you ever read about all the mobs that popped up all over the country during the prohibition of alcohol? Selling alcohol was their main source of income. These days, organized criminals sell drugs.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you think there are more drugs when it is underground than when it is legalized? You think there would be more alcohol right now if it was illegal? That would be rather unbelievable.

Most people are law abiding and the threat of criminal prosecution is a fricking HUGE deterrence. that's why most people aren't criminals. And if you don't think drugs aid in the amount of crime in society then I would say you are severely mistaken.

It is nice and easy to say "oh drugs aren't that bad" and "alcohol is worse" without really looking at hte ramifications. There is no question that alcohol abuse can be horrible, but that doesn't make drug abuse or drug use in general any less worse. And the allowance of both would not have a beneficial effect on society. You can show no positive impacts of drugs and yet you want to legalize? And your only support is saying that criminalizing drugs is worse, yet you have no support for this what so ever.

[SackUp]

[ QUOTE ]

Marajuana, on the other hand, should be LEGALIZED, flat out. there is no convincing argument for it's continued illegal, schedule one status, where pot is treated the same way as heroin in the eyes of the law. I applaud cities like seattle, which has recently passed an initiave requiring the authorities to treat Ganja as their lowest possible priority. States like Nevada and Alaska, which have recently decriminalized pot use and the possesion of small quantities, are also on the right track, IMO.

I defy anyone to provide a good argument proving that marajuana is in any way more harmful to society and the state than alcohol. I believe that the default condition of any substance, idea, or object should be legality, and that, lacking a good, objectivly quantifiable reason, those substances, ideas and things should be legal.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand the argument that since weed is potentially only as harmful as alcohol then it should be illegal. Alcoholism is not a good thing and neither is substance abuse, including weed.

Granted not everyone that drinks or everyone that smokes are addicts, not even close. However, increasing the amount of available vices for society is typically not a good idea. Having more people driving around high is not a good thing, period. And if you think that legalization of things doesn't make it more likely that people will bend their uses more is ridiculous.

[dr. klopek]

Prohibition creates a dangerous black market and prevents drug addiction from being properly treated as a health issue.

[bholdr]

First off, the core of my argument is that, lacking a GOOD reason to make anything illegal, it should be legal. the burden of proof as to the detrimental effects of weed is on those that want it to continue to be illegal, or it should be.

second, i don't really understand your second pharagraph. it looks like you're saying that more people would smoke weed if it was legal. I disagree. In amsterdam, where it IS legal, they have about the same ammount of users as in the U.S. Additionally, legalizing a drug makes it EASIER to police, making it easier to keep those drugs out of the hands/ bodies of minors (and it is use of drugs at a young age that creates most problem users). all this is dependant on the belief that marajuana use has a negitive effect on society. i do not believe that this is true.


I personally believe, from personal experience, research into the subject, and anecdotal evidence, that marajuana is FAR less harmfull to society in general than alcohol.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
And if you think that legalization of things doesn't make it more likely that people will bend their uses more is ridiculous.

[/ QUOTE ] I do not think that if it was legal more people would use drugs and more pople would "bend" their uses. In fact, I think your statement that more people would "bend" the use of drugs more ridiculous. Perhaps reading up on the topic from educated sources would help to show the error in your thinking.

[[censored]]

I used pot a few times a couple of years ago when I was going through a tough time. I decided it just wasn't me.

[bholdr]

Sack Up, you are misunderstanding the effect of supply and demand on the prices, and thus incentive for involvement of the criminal element, when it comes to illegal drugs.

when alcohol was made illegal in the early part of this century in the U.S., the price of it skyrocketed, while the demand remained stagnent. this resulted in artificially high prices for booze. when the mob saw that there was a lot of profit to be made producing and distributing alcohol, then they and their violent methods became involved in the drug economy.

When a drug is legalized, thoes economic factors contributing to criminal involvment with that drug disappear, and are unable to compete with legal producers and supply outlets. This has been going on for decades with weed, coke, etc. as long as they are illegal, the cost of those drugs will remain artifically high, encouraging, rather than detering, criminal involvment.

Also, by taxing those drugs after their legalization, the responsible, non-problem users would be easily able to generate enough revenue to provide good care to addicts and problem users. currently, we are unable to afford the level of care needed to solve those probllems, and the money that would be going to those solutions is now going to line tha pockets of druglords and other orginized crime.

decriminalization is the ONLY long term solution, IMO.

[bholdr]

you were obviously using it for the wrong reasons. drugs, even most antidepressants, are a poor substitute for solving the problems behind the symptoms (a tough time) of the problems in one's life.


Weed is great fun, but not used as an escape from bigger problems. just like alcohol.

[ThaSaltCracka]

you make a great point in regards to treatment. What kind of PSA's do we see during the Super Bowl? We see commercials paid by many large beer manufacturers telling people to not drink and drive. What kind of commercials do we see during the WSOP? Commercials paid for by a large gaming corporation informing people to call a hotline and get help if they are a complusive gambler. What do we see for pot heads? Commercials from the federal goverment telling them they are supporting terrorism. If you can't see the absurdity of this all, you are a blind fool.

[rmarotti]

I'm one of the apparently self-contradicting voters you talked about. I think drugs have a negative effect but that they should be legalized to enact a sort of pharmaceutically generated social Darwinism.

[SackUp]

[ QUOTE ]
First off, the core of my argument is that, lacking a GOOD reason to make anything illegal, it should be legal. the burden of proof as to the detrimental effects of weed is on those that want it to continue to be illegal, or it should be.

second, i don't really understand your second pharagraph. it looks like you're saying that more people would smoke weed if it was legal. I disagree. In amsterdam, where it IS legal, they have about the same ammount of users as in the U.S. Additionally, legalizing a drug makes it EASIER to police, making it easier to keep those drugs out of the hands/ bodies of minors (and it is use of drugs at a young age that creates most problem users). all this is dependant on the belief that marajuana use has a negitive effect on society. i do not believe that this is true.


I personally believe, from personal experience, research into the subject, and anecdotal evidence, that marajuana is FAR less harmfull to society in general than alcohol.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please show me some productive uses of weed (other than maybe for some limited medicinal uses). I've had lots of experience with people who get high. And no it doesn't always lead to problems in the slighest. However, it will often lead to unproductivity and can be very habit forming and ultimately very harmful on the body. Negative health effects are true.

As to my second paragraph, I fully believe that drug use would increase if it was legalized. Your one comparison is Amsterdam. Give me a break. EVerything there is legal. There is a greater percentage of hard core drug use than anywhere else in teh world...most people don't bother messing with weed while there when they can do so many other things. That was just sad.

Further, if you want proof that illegalization of substances decreases there use then look at cigarettes. Smoking in buildings has been made illegal in California and smoking use has dramtically decreased. Increasing the taxes on cigarettes has aided as well. In any case, making things not as accepted in society makes them go away, period.

If you want another analogy, look at illegal file sharing. The only reason there isn't a bigger crackdown and there is such widespread use is b/c of the copynorms. Society has accepted it as ok. the only way to prevent the use is not just by making it illegal, but by changing the view society has on it. We could put a great dent in the use if the government stepped in and started putting college kids in jail, but there is no way our society would support this, b/c it's not thought of as a big deal.

This was a bit of a tangent, the point it there. Acceptance in society increases the prevelance and use (file sharing). Non acceptance and illegality of things in society decreases their use (cigarettes, drugs, crime).

Please show a stat to the contrary.

The only support most people who want weed legalized can come up with is "it's not that bad" or "alcohol is just as bad" How about come up with some positive reasons why society should accept it? Esepcially when there are many potential negative ramifications.

[ThaSaltCracka]

your entire post contradicted itself when you started talking about file sharing. Sorry, but you lose.

edit: and furhtermore, how the [censored] can you be against weed with a name like "SackUp"???????

[bholdr]

sry, sackup, but you display a very basic misunderstanding of A: the nature of drugs and the reasons behind their use, and B: supply and demand.

I won't get into this with you. take some economics and sociology courses and then maybe i will.


and as far as positive effects of weed: SOME PEOPLE ENJOY IT! what more do you need?

[bholdr]

very good, TSC. glad to dee you're back.

[AEKDBet]

I enjoy pot because it allows me to view things from a different perspective.

that and the fact that it makes a protein shake taste like a mcflurry.

I hate pot because it makes me cobwebby the next day (depends on the weed) and it kills my productivity

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
very good, TSC. glad to dee you're back.

[/ QUOTE ] meh, I lurk.... you are right on bholdr in regards to this topic, so I had to say something.

[eric5148]

You're totally missing my points. The casual drug user would be only slightly affected by the legality of drugs.

The difference the legality makes mainly affects the people who produce and sell it. When it's illegal, the only people interested in producing and selling it are professional criminals who don't give a crap about going to jail.

If the production and sale of drugs was a legal and govt regulated industry, then only legitamate businesses would produce and sell it. Thus, putting a lot of organized crime out of business.

The amount of people using drugs would probably not change at all if it were legalized. The prohibition of alcohol hardly affected people who drank a beer or two after work every day.

[SackUp]

[ QUOTE ]
sry, sackup, but you display a very basic misunderstanding of A: the nature of drugs and the reasons behind their use, and B: supply and demand.

I won't get into this with you. take some economics and sociology courses and then maybe i will.


and as far as positive effects of weed: SOME PEOPLE ENJOY IT! what more do you need?

[/ QUOTE ]

Please then explain to me what you think the reasons for drug use are? There are definitely a lot of reasons to go around, so to say i misunderstand them is very curious. Please explain to me which use I misunderstand.

Secondly, there is more to drug use than simple supply and demand. Economics is a very theorectical topic in deed and there are just as many varying beliefs with it as their are the value of drugs. If you want to debate this, then explain to me why we have a two party system right now...much of the division comes from the different ideas behind how supply and demand works.

People who say "get smarter on the subject and then I will talk to you" are typically hiding behind their own ignorance of the topic. You merely give conclusory statements with minimal if no factual support behind them...this doesn't bode well for your knowledge or support of the topic.

Finally the last statement "some people enjoy it! What more do you need?" is absolutely the worst defense of allowing someone to do something. I'm sure you can come up with something better than that. Some people like touching little boys (NAMBLA), yet we don't allow that to go on. Come on!

[SackUp]

[ QUOTE ]
your entire post contradicted itself when you started talking about file sharing. Sorry, but you lose.

edit: and furhtermore, how the [censored] can you be against weed with a name like "SackUp"???????

[/ QUOTE ]

Apparently analogies are over your head.

And the sack in my name is for nut sack - to sack up: to step up to the plate, get her done, etc.

Not a dime sack /images/graemlins/smile.gif But that was funny!

[AEKDBet]

Check out refer madness. Good book, and only 1/3 about drugs.

On that note portuagal was plauged with drug problems and increased # of deaths per year. Their solution - decriminalization.

[sin808]

From yesterdays NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/05/national/05bud.html?pagewanted=1&th)

Violent New Front in Drug War Opens on the Canadian Border
By SARAH KERSHAW

SEATTLE, March 2 - The drugs move across the Canadian border inside huge tractor-trailer rigs, pounds and pounds stashed in drums of frozen raspberries, tucked in shipments of crushed glass, wood chips and sawdust, or crammed into hollowed-out logs, in secret compartments that agents refer to as "coffins."

Kayakers paddle them south from British Columbia across the freezing bays of America's northwest corner, and well-paid couriers carry up to 100 pounds at a time in makeshift backpacks, hiking eight hours over the rugged mountainous terrain that forms part of the border between the United States and Canada. Small planes drop them onto raspberry fields and dairy farms in hockey bags equipped with avalanche beacons to alert traffickers that the drugs have landed.

The contraband is called B.C. bud, a highly potent form of marijuana named for the Canadian province where it is grown, and it has become the center of what law enforcement officials say is an increasingly violent $7 billion cultivation and smuggling industry.

On Thursday, four officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were shot to death in Alberta, British Columbia's neighboring province, as they were searching a marijuana-growing operation, one of many on the rise there. The killings stunned a country that has apparently not lost that many officers at once since the mid-19th century.

Leigh H. Winchell, special agent in charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle, which investigates border crimes and is part of the Department of Homeland Security, said the police killings in Alberta were stark evidence of "how serious the B.C. bud issue is getting, how much money is involved and the lengths to which these criminals are willing to go to protect it."

He added, "It's getting worse and worse, and we need to address it at every level. The funding needs to be there, and the resolve of law enforcement to address it needs to be there - on both sides of the border. It's a very dark day for all of us."

This new wave of drug trafficking, with Northwest Washington and Seattle a major transit point, comes as an enormous challenge to United States law enforcement agents stationed along the often invisible northern border. They are already dealing with the threat of terrorism, the flow of immigrants and new human smuggling operations - some run by some of the Canadian criminal organizations that move the marijuana south and cash, cocaine and guns north, American and Canadian law enforcement officials say.

The situation is also spotlighting sharp differences in the way the two countries deal with drug crimes, with some officials and experts on both sides of the border saying Canada's less stringent drug laws have made it harder to stem the flow of contraband moving north and south.

In British Columbia, a once-quiet province in a country that has long enjoyed a low crime rate, the murder rate has soared in the past two years, Canadian officials say, because of killings linked to warring drug gangs.

Now law enforcement officials here fear the violence will migrate south. Mr. Winchell likened Seattle, with its currently low crime rate, to "Miami before the drug wars" because of what he said was an impending threat of drug-related violence. Vast amounts of drugs and money are now flowing through Seattle and other West Coast cities, he said, along the heavily traveled Interstate 5 corridor from California to the Canadian border. In many cases, law enforcement officials from both countries say, traffickers are smuggling cocaine north from California to Canada in exchange for B.C. bud.

Inspector Paul Nadeau of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who runs the Coordinated Marijuana Enforcement Team in British Columbia, estimated that in his province alone, 3.7 million pounds of B.C. bud is produced annually, in up to 20,000 marijuana-growing operations, with as much as 50 percent of it smuggled into the United States at points as far east as Michigan.

Efforts to combat the flow can be seen vividly in places like Blaine, Wash., a tiny border town along the shore in the northwestern part of the state, where agents patrol the waters, mountains and airways in brand-new boats and planes. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, agents have seen their manpower and technological resources double or triple, helping them seize growing amounts of B.C. bud. Along the Washington border alone, agents seized 20,500 pounds in 2004, worth more than $60 million, up from 4,000 pounds in 1998.

But with possibly more than 1.5 million pounds coming south, according to the Canadian estimates, many acknowledge they are making a mere dent in what is coming across.

B.C. bud is grown in indoor nurseries stocked with sophisticated lighting and ventilation equipment. Growers use a system known as hydroponic cultivation and carefully control the temperature, lighting and nutrients in a way that allows a succession of crops to be grown throughout the year. The process yields a drug that is far more potent than marijuana coming in from Mexico and other countries, giving B.C. bud an almost mythic reputation on the street.

Wholesale, B.C. bud sells for about $3,000 a pound, though the price rises the farther from Seattle it is sold - $3,500 a pound by the time it reaches California. Marijuana smuggled across the southern border sells for $400 to $1,000 a pound in the Southwest United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In the past year, agents in and around Blaine have also begun to seize an increasing amount of Ecstasy and chemicals used to make methamphetamine headed for the United States. As the agents in the Blaine area have caught on to the imaginative ways that smugglers sneak their contraband through, more drugs are being transported farther east along the border - which, including Alaska, stretches more than 5,000 miles - to places in Idaho, Montana and North Dakota, law enforcement agents say. This has prompted lawmakers from many of the northern border states to complain that the Canadian border is receiving less attention than the Mexican border.

"I think the southern border just has the attention of the media, and with the northern border, people just assume it is far more secure than it is," said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who, among others, is lobbying the Bush administration for more agents on the Canadian border.

The drug-trafficking situation is also one more potential strain on the already tense relationship between the United States and Canada, its top trading partner, experts say. Canada, which is debating decriminalizing personal marijuana use but is also considering stiffer penalties for marijuana growers, tends to mete out much lighter sentences than the United States courts for drug-related offenses, a situation that has American law enforcement officials - and even Canada's own police force - increasingly frustrated.

Officials on both sides of the border say that because Canada has tended not to pursue growers aggressively, it is difficult to move up the chain and crack down on the larger criminal organizations controlling the large-scale drug trafficking, although Canadian prosecutors said they have recently been arresting and building more cases against the higher-level criminals.

"The U.S. takes a sterner attitude on these things - more of a prohibition mode," said Christopher Sands, an expert on Canada at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. "Our philosophies are out of whack, and this increased flow is freaking out the Americans while the Canadians are more blasé."

That could well change after Thursday's killings, said several officials, including Inspector Nadeau.

Inspector Nadeau, who said he was deeply frustrated by his own country's greater tolerance of drug crimes, said he thought the deaths on Thursday were already sending an alarm throughout the country.

"Because of a tragedy we may actually see people try and address the issue in an effective manner," Inspector Nadeau said.

Inspector Nadeau said he was irked by what he cited as low rates of arrested marijuana growers serving jail time. He said in 2004, only 8 percent of growers arrested were ordered to jail, down from 19 percent in 1997. He was citing a statistics gathered by the Canadian police, he said.

"The courts are lackadaisical," he said. "I think we've created a generation of homegrown criminal organizations involved in this activity. They see themselves as untouchable."

But Robert Prior, director of the Canadian Department of Justice's federal prosecution service for the British Columbia Region, said the courts were taking the marijuana problem seriously and that prosecutors were aggressively pursuing the larger organizations smuggling both B.C. bud south and cocaine and guns into Canada. Still, he acknowledged there were fundamental differences between judicial systems in the United States and Canada.

"Canada just has a different philosophical view to the use of jail than the United States," Mr. Prior said. "The only offense we are completely agreed on is murder. Otherwise, it's very different."

The major criminal organizations moving the drugs and guns, law enforcement officials say, are outlaw motorcycle gangs, particularly the Hells Angels, who have denied involvement but who law enforcement officials say do everything from growing to smuggling the drugs. Vietnamese and other Asian groups tend to specialize in growing, and Indo-Canadians have a niche is transporting the drugs, according to Mr. Winchell, of the United States Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency, and Inspector Nadeau.

Canadians caught smuggling drugs into the United States, many of them mules for the major Canadian criminal organizations, are prosecuted and serve their sentences here. But typically after a year they can request a return to Canada, and if the request is granted, they may end up serving a much lighter sentence because of the differences in the two countries' drug penalties, said prosecutors on both sides of the border. United States agents have complained that they see some of the same Canadian smugglers soon after they were returned to Canada to face reduced sentences.

Meanwhile, in and around Blaine, Border Patrol and other law enforcement agents are using every tool they have, including motion detectors, giant X-ray machines and cameras placed around easily crossed and unmanned border entries. The 32 cameras in the Blaine area, beaming into a control room at Border Patrol headquarters in Blaine, alerted technicians to a kayaker attempting to smuggle 104 pounds of B.C. bud in late January.

It is, as the agents in Blaine describe it, a constant game of cat and mouse with the smugglers, who have lately taken to using BlackBerries and cellphone text messaging to transmit information about drops and pickups. It is a constant race to stay one step ahead, said Joseph W. Giuliano, deputy chief patrol agent for the Blaine sector of the United States Border Patrol.

"Both of our jobs - the good guys and the bad - is to stay one step ahead of the curve," Mr. Giuliano said. "Just as we're doing our darndest to hold that position, they're doing their best to reacquire it."

[dr. klopek]

[ QUOTE ]
People who say "get smarter on the subject and then I will talk to you" are typically hiding behind their own ignorance of the topic. You merely give conclusory statements with minimal if no factual support behind them...this doesn't bode well for your knowledge or support of the topic.

[/ QUOTE ]

You have brought nothing factual, or even rational, to this thread, period. You seem to be in favor of vice-laws, which is simply absurd, and you leave gaping holes in your analogies.

I can simplify this for you, for correct answer: see bholdr's posts.

[cnfuzzd]

Wow. Its rare to find someone continually displaying such a large degree of ignorance and lack of critical thinking, but you are almost proud of your superficial arguments that lack depth, relevence, and clash. Congrats sir, for you are truly behind on what most of the civilised world thinks, but at least you seem to like it that way.

peace

john nickle

[[censored]]

I think it is silly how worked up people get over making pot legal. That alone makes me think it should stay illegal. But mostly I wouldn't care as long as the penalties for driving high or drunk were inceased to mandatory jail time of atleast one week minimum. Additionally employers should be free to fire anyone who came to work high as they can for someone showing up drunk. I would also want stiff penalties for those who provided pot to minors.

Basically I want people to act responsibily and if they don't I want life to suck for them.

[The Stranger]

I didn't read all the posts, but I think there is some fundamental misunderstanding out there about the nature of alcoholism and drug addiction.

When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous two and a half years ago, I thought alcohol was my problem. I figured if I could just stop drinking, everything would be okay. I wouldn't come out of blackouts in jail or under cars anymore, I wouldn't be hurting friends and family around me, driving them away while drifting from couch to couch. I might even be able to keep a job and pay my bills. If only I could stop drinking.

But after I made a start in AA, I learned that alcohol was not my problem. It was only a symptom of the real problem--feeling so out of place and alone in the world that I need to use a chemical to change the way I feel. Alcohol wasn't the problem, it was the solution, until it nearly killed me physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually.

Its like the old man who was afraid of dogs. He couldn't figure out why he had been afraid of dogs for his whole life. Thinking back as hard as he could, he remembered that he was bitten by a dog when he was seven years old. But then he remembered why the dog bit him. Because he was chasing around a little girl. He exclaimed, "I've been chasing after women and getting in trouble my whole life. I never did have a problem with dogs!"

I don't know whether legal changes would effect the number of drug addicts and alcoholics out there, but I do know that for me and most of the alcoholics I know, when the obsession to drink or use hits, there is nothing that will stop it. In LA there is no alcohol sold between 2AM and 6AM. So if you run out, just go buy some Listerine, or Nyquil or something. Point being, a addict or alcoholic will find a way to catch a buzz, legal or not, moral or not, convenient or not.

I don't know much about what's good for society or anything like that, but I can honestly say that I'm happier and more productive than I've ever been.

If you enjoy getting drunk and/or high, go for it.

But if these things are causing problems in your life, it is possible to change.

[Tosh]

Drugs are too dangerous to be illegal IMO.