Can you explain drug laws?

[Tipsy Giant]

I would love for someone to be able to explain why I need to be protected from my OWN choices.
I just read about the Sony Hacker dude who got arrested for possession of weed and for the life of me I can't think of one valid excuse for it's illegality.
But I want to throw the net a little wider, why are any drugs illegal? are we not consenting adults who can make these decisions for ourselves?
The same question applies to prostitution as well!

 

[Tipsy Giant]

If you live in a country who has legalised drugs (first of all congratulations) i'd be really interested to hear your opinion too

 

[Lust]

Perhaps they can't regulate and profit off of it without it costing a lot of money.

But, honestly, I don't know.......

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

When it comes to pot, it's because it's too easy for the average person to grow, so the tax revenue isn't there. With actual hard drugs, it's because they really are dangerous, addictive life wreckers. That said, I can't for the life of me understand why they focus on criminal punishment, instead of rehabilitation. The way they're going about it currently just encourages organized crime, not to mention helps to propagate nasty diseases like AIDS and Hepatitis, which are easily transmitted through dirty needles.

 

[geK0]

For things like marijuana, I can agree; the effort put into cracking down on marijuana far outweighs any social or economic benefits that might be gained from keeping illegal.

Things like crack, meth, heroine and the like have no business being legalized though. I'd like to see different policies for the treatment of drug users in the legal system though; tossing them all in jail isn't all that helpful for anyone.

 

[Dejawesp]

When it comes to pot, it's because it's too easy for the average person to grow

That is rubbish. People wont be growing their own pot any more then people grow their own tobacco. Pot, like all other drugs are illegal due to old fashioned morality that is still with us today. Its the same reason that porn was illegal a few decades ago.

Regardless. Disagreeing with a law is no reason to rage when being hauled away by police. They knew it was illegal in the first place.

 

[isometry]

Originally cannabis was outlawed because of racism and special interests. Now it continues to be illegal because of miseducation and appeal to tradition.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

When it comes to pot, it's because it's too easy for the average person to grow

That is rubbish. People wont be growing their own pot any more then people grow their own tobacco. Pot, like all other drugs are illegal due to old fashioned morality that is still with us today. Its the same reason that porn was illegal a few decades ago.

Regardless. Disagreeing with a law is no reason to rage when being hauled away by police. They knew it was illegal in the first place.

I would definitely grow my own weed if it were legal in my backward country. I love horticulture and it bugs me I can't grow my favourite plant

 

[geK0]

Originally cannabis was outlawed because of racism and special interests. Now it continues to be illegal because of miseducation and appeal to tradition.

Racism? I don't think I've heard that one before, could you explain this? : \

I would definitely grow my own weed if it were legal in my backward country. I love horticulture and it bugs me I can't grow my favourite plant

Might want to be careful what you say if you don't want to be subject to mod wrath

 

[Tipsy Giant]

I would definitely grow my own weed if it were legal in my backward country. I love horticulture and it bugs me I can't grow my favourite plant

Might want to be careful what you say if you don't want to be subject to mod wrath

Can I really get in trouble for saying I would grow a plant if it were legal to do so?

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I can certainly see why some drugs are illegal, namely addictive drugs where the user swiftly loses control, but I'd have to agree that marijuana should really be legal. Perhaps it's for the best that most drugs are illegal, as it prevents a lot of people from taking them (and they're not all that hard to get hold of really), and a lot of people would kill themselves pretty quickly because they don't know what they're doing if they were legal.

 

[Dejawesp]

I would definitely grow my own weed if it were legal in my backward country. I love horticulture and it bugs me I can't grow my favourite plant

Yeah but you would be no thread to the pot industry. If pit was legal then it would be grown in enormous green houses by private corporations and the prices would drop to below that of even ordinary cigarettes and the only reason people would grow it would be for the fun of it. Not to save money.

Can I really get in trouble for saying I would grow a plant if it were legal to do so?

No you can't We had a whole thread where people got to say they would kill people if they could and that one was fine.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

I can certainly see why some drugs are illegal, namely addictive drugs where the user swiftly loses control, but I'd have to agree that marijuana should really be legal. Perhaps it's for the best that most drugs are illegal, as it prevents a lot of people from taking them (and they're not all that hard to get hold of really), and a lot of people would kill themselves pretty quickly because they don't know what they're doing if they were legal.

By that logic should we make alcohol illegal?

 

[Tipsy Giant]

I would definitely grow my own weed if it were legal in my backward country. I love horticulture and it bugs me I can't grow my favourite plant

Yeah but you would be no thread to the pot industry. If pit was legal then it would be grown in enormous green houses by private corporations and the prices would drop to below that of even ordinary cigarettes and the only reason people would grow it would be for the fun of it. Not to save money.

I don't know, a lot of the cost is associated with transportation and shop mark up, free is always cheaper.
Plus it would grow without much attention, not as if you would need to tend to them regularly

 

[geK0]

I would definitely grow my own weed if it were legal in my backward country. I love horticulture and it bugs me I can't grow my favourite plant

Yeah but you would be no thread to the pot industry. If pit was legal then it would be grown in enormous green houses by private corporations and the prices would drop to below that of even ordinary cigarettes and the only reason people would grow it would be for the fun of it. Not to save money.

I can grow just about any vegetable I want hydroponically, and the agricultural industry is doing fine.

Can I really get in trouble for saying I would grow a plant if it were legal to do so?

fair enough, I've seen mods give suspensions and bans for less though.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I can certainly see why some drugs are illegal, namely addictive drugs where the user swiftly loses control, but I'd have to agree that marijuana should really be legal. Perhaps it's for the best that most drugs are illegal, as it prevents a lot of people from taking them (and they're not all that hard to get hold of really), and a lot of people would kill themselves pretty quickly because they don't know what they're doing if they were legal.

By that logic should we make alcohol illegal?

Not quite. The first time people drink, they are unlikely to drink so much they die. In fact, it's quite difficult to drink so much you die in one night, the worst a new drinker is likely to get is throwing up and a hangover. However, a drug like mdma is very easy to overdose on, especially as it takes about half an hour to come up so people take extra thinking it's not working. The risk is much higher for inexperienced users than for inexperienced drinkers.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

I can certainly see why some drugs are illegal, namely addictive drugs where the user swiftly loses control, but I'd have to agree that marijuana should really be legal. Perhaps it's for the best that most drugs are illegal, as it prevents a lot of people from taking them (and they're not all that hard to get hold of really), and a lot of people would kill themselves pretty quickly because they don't know what they're doing if they were legal.

By that logic should we make alcohol illegal?

Not quite. The first time people drink, they are unlikely to drink so much they die. In fact, it's quite difficult to drink so much you die in one night, the worst a new drinker is likely to get is throwing up and a hangover. However, a drug like mdma is very easy to overdose on, especially as it takes about half an hour to come up so people take extra thinking it's not working. The risk is much higher for inexperienced users than for inexperienced drinkers.

Surely that highlights the issue with education rather than the drug itself.
We have a project in the UK called FRANK, where anyone can call up or visit their website for honest information on drugs. If this were part of school education people would be informed of the risks and benefits and if they overdose they would have noone to blame but themselves! Plus making these drugs illegal has not solved those issues

 

[isometry]

Originally cannabis was outlawed because of racism and special interests. Now it continues to be illegal because of miseducation and oappeal to tradition.

Racism? I don't think I've heard that one before, could you explain this? : \

Sure. In 1930 the US government established the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, headed by director Henry Anslinger. The bureau was created to enforce the Harrison Act, which was one of the nation's early drug laws that targeted opiates and cocaine with federal tax penalties.

Anslinger campaigned for federal laws against cannabis using factual distortions and racial prejudice, and his influence is considered to be a major factor that led to the 1937 tax act which effectively made marijuana illegal. Ronald Reagan even gives him credit:

The first Federal law-enforcement administrator to recognize the signs of a national criminal syndication and sound the alarm was Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics in the Treasury.

Here are some of Anslinger's statements:

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."

"the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."

"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."

"Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy"

"Two Negros took a girl fourteen years old and kept her for two days under the influence of hemp. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis."

Anslinger was not the only one, these were common arguments from the anti-cannabis people. This is all standard mainstream history, and people have gone through much more effort collecting all of the information about it than I have in just this post. Wikipedia and the references within are a good place to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_marijuana_in_the_United_States

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

When it comes to pot, it's because it's too easy for the average person to grow

That is rubbish. People wont be growing their own pot any more then people grow their own tobacco. Pot, like all other drugs are illegal due to old fashioned morality that is still with us today. Its the same reason that porn was illegal a few decades ago.

Regardless. Disagreeing with a law is no reason to rage when being hauled away by police. They knew it was illegal in the first place.

You're kidding, right? Tobacco is a resource intensive crop, it takes a certain type of soil which it uses up the nutrients in pretty quickly, requiring huge amounts of intensively cultivated land. Pot grows pretty much wherever the seeds fall.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

Not to mention how much PUBLIC money is wasted on police, courts and prisons on drug related crime. It pisses me off every time I read about someone who is given a short jail sentence for sexual assault and they claim "not enough room in prison" who's fucking fault is that!