Drugs and alcohol

[natedogg]

I was discussing drug prohibition with a friend the other day and we were stumped by this mutual challenge:

Formulate an argument for/against legal booze that does not apply equally to all drugs.

I can't do it.

natedogg

[nothumb]

Not too difficult, unless I'm missing something. All one has to say is that whatever drugs are prohibited pose a significant threat to social wellbeing and the safety of users or their peers. And that alcohol doesn't.

Now, whether or not such an argument would be true is another matter.

NT

[arabie]

can you make true a statment?

[mmcd]

Alcohol companies donate lots of money to politicians well drug dealers generally do not. Also politicians generally like drinking more than somking pot or snorting coke or whatever.

[bholdr]

The political contributions made by alcohol and tabbacco companies have more than one purpose,
-they promote their product and seek to keep it legal, as mmcd suggests.
-and, they seek to keep their competition illegal.

Also, the drug war is big business. the companies that supply the equiptment, training, logistical support and advertisments (propaganda?) that are the meat and potatos of the drug war also have an intrest in the continuance of that war, and they donate accordingly.

The reasons that were stated when marajuana was made illegal no longer apply, and/or were false in the first place. the reason that it is still illegal is that it's prohibition has taken on a life of it's own, and it is easier to let that snowball keep on rolling than it is to stop it, especially when it is making everybody involved money.



and from a completly diffrent angle:

laws that are unenforcable should not have been created in the first place. this crystalizes the problems faced by marajuana prohibition. since so many people can clearly perceive that such a ban is unjust and unnessacary, they do not obey. it's like laws against sodomy. Or, to use a more accurate metaphor, its like a thirty mile per hour highway speed limit, you can hand out all the tickets in the world, increse the fines, hire a million more cops, and people are still gonna speed. why? they don't respect the law. and why should they, it's silly at best, opressive in the worst cases. to extend the metaphor, a 100 MPH limit is, to most people, clearly too dangerous, which is why drugs like methamphetimine, crack and heroin, IMO should continue to be illegal. maybe coke and painkillers would be about 80, too fast but not really reckless and out of control. And it's always certian kinds of cars that are getting pulled over and tickeded, just as certian demographics are unfairly, or at least disproportionally, prosecuted. maybe this metaphor is getting a little thin.
Anyway, laws that are impossible to enforce are by nature unjust and more often than not unfairly enforced. we're better off without 'em.

[natedogg]

[ QUOTE ]
to extend the metaphor, a 100 MPH limit is, to most people, clearly too dangerous, which is why drugs like methamphetimine, crack and heroin,

[/ QUOTE ]

Your metaphor is offbase. Driving 100 MPH is a threat to everyone else on the road.

If I want to sit on my couch and smoke heroin on Saturdays, how is this a danger to anyone?

natedogg

[natedogg]

[ QUOTE ]
Not too difficult, unless I'm missing something. All one has to say is that whatever drugs are prohibited pose a significant threat to social wellbeing and the safety of users or their peers. And that alcohol doesn't.

Now, whether or not such an argument would be true is another matter.

NT

[/ QUOTE ]

Oops, I forgot to add that part to the challenge. It has to be demonstrably true.

natedogg

[PhatTBoll]

Alcohol is, and has been, accepted by our culture. Other drugs, not so much. That's really the only argument.

[jesusarenque]

[ QUOTE ]
Alcohol is, and has been, accepted by our culture. Other drugs, not so much. That's really the only argument.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what counts as "our culture," but hard drugs were legal in the U.S. until the early 20th Century. So they have been accepted at one time.

[nothumb]

Sure, hard drugs were legal. But alcohol has a long history of cultural and social significance that other drugs do not even begin to approach. Just because something was obscure enough not to be prohibited, or poory understood, does not mean it had widespread significance.

Now, granted, cocaine and opiates were more widely used than most people know, but they still don't approach the suds.

NT