Drugs: Get a Clue!!

First of all, legal heroin is just a Grim Reaper. Heroin is a killer. Period. To offer some survivor as evidence you can live with an addiction to it, is like offering some survivor as evidence that nobody died in WWII.


Second, all these people in prison on drugs had the option to 1) not deal, or 2) clean up. The only people in prison because of drugs are 1) recidivist violent criminals, 2) greedheads who possessed enormous quantities, and 3) hopeless addicts who were given every chance, and every program, to clean up.


The legal system, for users, has less bite than a McDonald's Playplace. The people who are in prison belong there. Whereas some societies have chosen death to deal with the hopeless, we warehouse them, and let them live.


I don't think you people have any idea how bad it would be if we didn't have prison as an option, as an outlet. The annual harvest of human lives, resulting from legal addictive drugs, would consume every program, and every resource we had. As other societies have learned.


The New York Times ran some silly column on some bright, innocent young kid who accidentally got caught up in a mandatory minimum. Just like when they portray the homeless as innocent victims, the picture they are painting is not the norm, it is not reality.


And of course these idiots with the programs are saying they are working, just like idiots selling any product, whether it be for weight loss, or astrology. In reality, it is all survivor bias. The reason you idiots think drugs are so low cost is because all the highest cost people are locked away or dead, where their cost is minimized.


eLROY

how much costs it to warehouse a person?


who benefits?


also, are you saying people with terminal cancer should have only superficial pain relief?


brad

Which drugs are you referring to? It sounds like your mostly talking about opiates. Do you agree with the current government classification of drugs deemed illicit? Do you think that marijuana is a danger to society? How about LSD and other hallucinogens? In terms of external (to the user) costs, which drug do you think is more expensive for society, cocaine or methamphetamine? How about ecstasy v. marijuana?


"...all the highest cost people are locked away or dead, where their cost is minimized."


This is statement is highly suspect. If it's true, it isn't true by much.

its pretty funny, but once you point out to people that the social costs of alchohol are so much more than than the social costs of maryjuana (which is usually pretty easy) , most people will gladly use their favorite argument, 'im just a slave, i just do what they tell me.'


brad

When you say "they" decided that alcohol should be legal, and marijuana illegal, you act as if some person made an arbitrary decision.


Rather, this distinction is a product of natural selection - which may sort finer than your selection - and of the differential survival and propagation rates among various societies and cultures.


It may just be that people who drink alcohol have way more kids than weed-smokers, dopeheads, and goofballers.


eLROY

The costs of various drugs are sorted out by evolution and natural selection.


How could I calculate the cost of drugs, or red hair, or snowfall, or anything, really?


So far as ecstasy and LSD, there are many people out there teetering with lemon brains. It is a real balancing act, every single day, to provide them with any tolerable semblance of reality. And these hallucinogens don't help.


Really, the neural concept of reality is so fragile as it is - and I offer this forum as evidence - LSD is just one more thing tipping people into idiocy. People who are suckers for dumb ideas to start with are literally helpless after a few acid trips.


I can't remember ever meeting anybody useful who smoked a lot of pot. But I can't say it was the marijuana that did it, and it really isn't for me to decide anyway. Anyway, laws are a part of culture, and pot-smoking is a culture under attack.


There is a clear reason pot should be illegal, I just haven't had any cause to remember it just now.


eLROY

Let me first start by saying that you have definetly watched reefer madness a few too many times. And I don't even know you.


"Really, the neural concept of reality is so fragile as it is - and I offer this forum as evidence..."


still LMAO.

My views on the neural construction of reality can best be discovered in these two books:


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226320944/qid=1019251832/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_67_1/103-3142762-7834234

(The Sensory Order)


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226320669/qid=1019251962/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-3142762-7834234

(The Fatal Conceit)


eLROY

Your opinion smacks of complete uninformed dogma that characterizes all of your opinions.That's why Malmuth permits you to post.


The only reason drugs are a major problem is due to prohibition. The price would drop dramatically, and the profit in drugs production wuould dissapear with legalization. All of those offshore internet gambling laundramats that Mason Malmuth accepts funds from on a regular basis wouldn't be able to launder money on a regular basis. A tenth of the funds spent currently in the departent of corrections could be used for treatment. Organized crime would suffer. Of course the true econmonic reason for running these

offshore cess pools would be eradicated. "Honest People" like Malmuth would cry wolf.


Prohibition has bred nothing but organizrd crime and violence.

thanks. ordered the Sensory Order. passed on the Fatal Conceit for now due to fact that there are only so many hours in a day and I tend to steer away from preaching to the choir type reads. maybe later though.

You said,


"Your opinion smacks of complete uninformed dogma... The only reason drugs are a major problem is due to prohibition."


That is nothing more than a theory, and a crappy theory at that. So when you say "uninformed," you are simply suggesting I haven't been informed of some popular flat-Earth theory or other.


In reality, someone's theory about the cost of "prohibition" does not "inform" one of anything. (Except maybe how bad the average idiot is at economics.)


The way to become "informed" is to look at the experiences of societies where drugs were legal in the past. Such societies were truly "informed" of their actual conditions - and the decisions they made based on their firsthand information was to prohibit drug use.


By your use of the word "uninformed," you simply demonstrate that you are a sucker for just about anything someone has to say. You think the source of facts is theories, rather than actual experience.


You said,


"price would drop dramatically, and the profit in drugs production wuould dissapear with legalization."


So are you saying General Motors would make more money, and sell more cars, if cars were illegal? Or would fewer people drive them?


You said,


"complete uninformed dogma that characterizes all of your opinions.That's why Malmuth permits you to post... All of those offshore internet gambling laundramats that Mason Malmuth accepts funds from on a regular basis wouldn't be able to launder money on a regular basis"


This is a great example of the sad intellectual dementia, the risk of which, I argued to Boris, was a reason a lot of people should probably shy away from hallucinogens. You are an intellectual tricycle wreck.


eLROY

The thing about the Fatal Conceit, is that it argues that people don't actually think or reason as they fancy themselves to, but rather reality is a collage of culture and religion.


If your neural network weren't sculpted by culture amd memetics - if you actually were "thinking" - taking LSD several hundred times might not be a risk. The problem is that tripping too much tends to replace constructed nonsense which works, with constructed nonsense which doesn't work.


People will never know reality. But there is some method to the madness of hallucinations. Specifically, a certain set of hallucinations, and the habits by which they are transmitted, translate into basic survival skills and beneficial habits in an incomprehensible world.


Left to your own "reason" - and without the bank of culture to draw upon, imprinted upon your brain - your efforts to navigate reality will fail. I didn't mean that people who took acid would go crazy, or that non-schizophrenics would become schizophrenics. I simply meant that people who take acid a lot get creative, and end up with a lot of stupid ideas of their own invention.


Acid encourages, even necessitates, doomed attempts at reason.


eLROY

i think the simple fact is that in societies where alchohol is the drug the costs are widely overlooked by policy makers because people tend to work harder (as opposed to say, maryjuana).


brad

'If your neural network weren't sculpted by culture amd memetics - if you actually were "thinking" - taking LSD several hundred times might not be a risk. The problem is that tripping too much tends to replace constructed nonsense which works, with constructed nonsense which doesn't work.'


this just goes to show that you are very educated and intelligent. bravo sir! bravo!


brad


p.s. just so theres no confusion (since i might say something outwardly similiar to moron), im being totally serious. when you look at statements like this, a lot of times someone is just parroting a great thinker. but one of the marks of a great thinker is that they really cant be parrotted without a deep understanding. anyway, i really loved it.

Why don't you just send me all your money. Then perhaps we could cut back on the advertising that you object to.

So are you saying General Motors would make more money, and sell more cars, if cars were illegal? Or would fewer people drive them?


Your ignorance really shines through here. No, GM wouldn't make more money. They'd be put out of business being unable to operate within the law. Crime syndicates would just start cleaning up selling cars on the black market, you dummy. The money would just go from legal concerns to thugs.


How many deaths result from buying and selling a car now? How much of our tax dollars go into the prosecution and incarceration of people who buy and sell cars now? It's all the same money. It would just be in the bad guy's hands.

eLROY:


From reading your posts, I believe that you are knowledgable in certain fields, but it appears that drug (de)criminalization is not one of them. While I have studied drug abuse and debated legalization in the past, I will use an article from a true expert, Thomas L. Wayburn, Ph.D., to offer some important points. The following list is gleaned from his essay, THE CASE FOR DRUG LEGALIZATION AND DECONTROL IN THE UNITED STATES:


"1) Legalization would remove the economic incentive to get people "hooked" and, as discussed below, prevent some people from changing from nonaddictive or mildly addictive drugs to more addictive drugs. (Some people believe that drug addiction is a myth manufactured by society and caused by mass delusion and hysteria. People become addicted to drugs because they believe in drug addiction.)


2) Legalization would make it unnecessary for "addicts" to steal. Of course, some people were thieves first and addicts second. Whether or not they will continue to be thieves is another matter. Others have gotten into the habit of stealing and the habit of stealing may be more difficult to break than the habit of taking drugs. But, in any case, there will be fewer people stealing to pay for drugs and they won't have to steal as much as they do now unless the government levies heavy taxes. A punitive tax on drugs would be unfair and unwise since, under heavy taxation, only the rich could afford legal drugs and the black market would return.


3) Drug legalization would eliminate the violence surrounding the drug business. This is a very important point.


4) It would move a huge segment of the underground economy into the legitimate economy, taking profits away from criminals, keeping drug money, unless it were spent on other imports, in the country, allowing reasonable, but not punitive, taxation of the legal trade, providing alternate crops for tobacco growers, etc. As everyone now knows, some dealers are becoming so rich that they can take control of sovereign states. The laws against drugs are the source of their wealth.


The above four points are the ones usually made by people who favor legalization on practical grounds alone. Many writers and speakers have discussed these points and I shall not elaborate on them further. The next eight items have received less attention.


5) Legalization would remove the thrill of breaking the law. This is especially important if children are going to forget about taking drugs. On the other hand, if enemas were made illegal, some children somewhere would dedicate themselves to taking enemas. Naturally, it would be preferable if children could be taught respect for the law, but there are two important reasons why this cannot be done in general. The first is that children see that many important people break the law without losing the respect of society. In fact, in many important cases, the prestige of the criminal is enhanced. At the very least the criminal becomes famous and children are encouraged by the media to believe that only famous people count. The second reason is that children know that many laws are unjust and are designed either to enhance the wealth, power, and privileges of the ruling class or to satisfy the biases and superstitions of the masses. (Yes! Many children know this.) It is crucial, then, that children, acting on their own, stop taking drugs because drugs no longer interest them, not because drugs are forbidden by their parents or the rest of society.


6) Legalization would end the suffering and death caused by unmetered doses, impurities, dirty paraphernalia, substitutes, and substances that have only a short history of use, e.g., designer drugs. In particular, it would end the deaths caused by AIDS for which the laws against drug paraphernalia, and the sponsors of such laws, are directly responsible. Those who oppose legalization seem to be singularly lacking in compassion. It is not unreasonable to assign responsibility for a great deal of the misery surrounding the use of drugs to the people who advocate and enforce the laws against drugs and drug paraphernalia. Opponents of drugs like to say, "Drugs kill." Yes, sometimes they do, but most of the deaths can be traced to unmetered doses, poorly prepared drugs (impurities), and "drugs" that turn out to be something other than drugs (poison) sold by unscrupulous or incompetent dealers. It makes sense to license dealers and manufacturers, but to require users to register is, again, an infringement of personal liberty and it won't work. Content and strength of all drugs, including coffee, should be labeled clearly.


7) Many users of "hard" drugs began by using "soft" drugs; but, due to the laws against drugs, there came a time when their drug of choice was not available. This is what led them from marijuana, say, to heroin. There are many similar instances of harm resulting from the unavailability of the drug user's favorite and familiar drug. Conversely, many troubled people choose to drink, and have problems associated with drinking, mainly because alcohol is legal and readily available. These people might have been able to select a drug from a larger menu, marijuana say, that would provide the same relief with fewer problems or no problems at all. (Sometimes I find it difficult to believe that there has not been a conspiracy to suppress the use of marijuana, amphetamines, and heroin so that the cocaine business could flourish.)


/images/glasses.gif Legalization of all drugs would eliminate the "drug life", the endless cycle of getting money, "copping", getting high, etc. that constitutes a career for many. Indeed, many addicts are among those who have most to lose from legalization. They would have to give up their entire "lifestyle" with its many positive aspects including good friendships, camaraderie, etc.


9) Legalization would restore many to useful endeavor, even some who continue to use drugs. It would decriminalize an even greater number of people who use drugs properly as discussed below.


10) Legalization and decontrol would allow people to exercise their right to be their own physicians. Many people could do this without deterioration in the quality of medical care they receive. The legitimate medical uses of drugs prohibit punitive taxes such as those levied against cigarets. Moreover, the legalization and decontrol of all drugs is a step toward controlling medical costs, which we all know are spiraling out of control, to some extent because of the greed of physicians.


11) Drug legalization would eliminate the need for controversial and perhaps unconstitutional intrusion into the activities and physical bodies of suspected drug users, although the need to have sober airline pilots, etc. will probably prolong the debate on just how this is to be accomplished for some time, even after legalization.


12) Recently, subsequent to the original draft of this paper, new drug legislation has been enacted by Congress that includes cruel and unusual punishment. Wayne Saums writes in a letter to the Houston Post as follows:


The current drug hysteria is the closest thing to McCarthyism America has seen in 40 years. Draconian penalties, in a drug bill that just passed Congress, include $10,000 fines for a single marijuana cigarette!"


A link to the entire (very long) essay appears below. If you decide to read it, you may want to check out the many other informative essays contained on the site, as well. If you're not careful, you may actually learn a thing or two. Just promise me one thing, read the essay(s) with an open mind, if at all possible.


Btw: You keep mentioning the disasters that result from the decriminalization of drugs in other countries. Can you please provide some hard facts/evidence to back up your claim? Thanks for listening.


~NG

1) People don't get addicted because someone else has an incentive. They get addicted because their brains are pushovers for certain drugs. Legalizing them, of course, would give a GM-sized industry an incentive, and an opportunity, to get people addicted. This is just so dumb! If I could sell someone drugs legally, and advertise a brand name, wouldn't I become like every other company with ads on TV? As it is today, I have never really seen anyone in my life try to get someone else hooked.


2) What the heck is this supposed to mean? The reason addicts steal is to pay their rent, because they are unemployed, and have an unfillable, unbearable, non-empathetic hole in their soul. There would be more unemployed dopeheads, stealing a public handout if nothing else.


I hate to use the word, but both 1 and 2 have so far been simplistic - if not downright cartoonish. These are dumbed-down ad pitches, not intellectual arguments!


3) Legalization of walking up to a bank and taking all their cash might eliminate violence too. So what?


4) Kiddies, when it comes to economics, don't try this at home. And what am I supposed to dislike about the underground economy? The only thing wrong with it is that the products are illegal, other than that it is not clearly inferior. And since when have coca bushes and opium poppies grown in North America anyway?


5) Okay, you just went off the deep end.


Anyway, other than number 6, your points are all such worthless crap that I derive no "thrill" from responding further. Sorry if I was lazy with what I did put up.


Blah.


eLROY

Don't you realize we want drugs to be as expensive as possible for the people who use them, that is the point?


And do you really think parents would stop attaching a taboo to PCP if it were made legal?


And why should anyone worry about violence in the drug business on someone else's behalf? He can easily save himself from this violence by just getting out of the drug business!


11) People don't drug-test because drugs are illegal. They wouldn't want their employees on drugs even if drugs were legal!


7) Number seven is so silly, and such a reach, this guy just has to eliminate it from his essay to have any hope to be taken seriously.


Oh, and I wasn't talking about decriminalization experiences, I was talking about precriminalization experiences.


Anyway, thanks for a good point of view. I'm sure many forum participants will seize on many of your points as plausible. Too bad my disciple (E.M.) can't even do half as well, he as been somewhat of a disappointment so far.


eLROY

"It would move a huge segment of the underground economy into the legitimate economy, taking profits away from criminals"


because there would be less people defined as 'criminals'. the profits would still be that same for the same market.

Although I do not dispute the results of this study, as I have no knoweledge regarding it, I find it difficult to believe that all of these statements can be true... There obviously cannot exist any hard data to prove any of these statements, as there are no areas where all drugs are legal, so I fail to see how it is possible to make so many bold statements..


Drugs should not be completely legalized for the simple reason that once addicted, people will do ANYTHING to get their fix.. It does not matter whether they are buying from the government, or some dude on the street.. The price will not change drastically in either case due to simple economics..

definitely not true. think of supply/demand and how risk (police/turf wars, etc.) affects it.


its like saying being in debt to a loan shark is the same as a cash advance on your credit card.


(externalities or something)


brad

ok, so the former criminals would now be making more profit from the sale of their product?


or does legalization make the price go down?


if it goes down, this gives addicts an entirely new budget, one which could conceivably be spent on other things. this could spur the economy in untold ways. too bad they'd crucify Bush for doing it.

No matter how you cut it with this guy, the more legal and cheap and abundant drugs are, the less people use them.


How obvious!


eLROY

It's already been done idiot. the tobbacco companies were subsidized by the government for years.Let's put them all in jail? I don't think so. they are the biggest drug dealers of death in the world. Maybe you are afraid that if it was legal you'd transfer your comulsive gambling to heroin addiction?