Poll: Do you agree with the criminalisation of drug use?

[CrystalViolet]

What are your general feelings on the legality of drug use?

I personally believe that all drugs should be legal to use recreationally, but that production and distribution should be tightly regulated. In such a system the production of drugs would have to undergo stringent quality control with severe penalties for a breach of regulations. Distributors would have to be trained and licensed vendors with strict controls on packaging, advertisement and to whom the product can be sold. Products would have to be sold in child-safe, plain-label vessels with clear dosage and safety information along with supporting materials on safety, emergency protocols and everything that would normally be found on a particularly controlled pharmaceutical.

I cannot fathom how a person in this day and age could be in favour of criminal prosecution of mentally healthy adults with the ability to choose for themselves. The War on Drugs has caused so many problems for so many people. It baffles me how people can support it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

If a substance is addictive, it removes the ability of people to decide for themselves if they want to use it.

Secondly, the effects of drugs aren't confined to the person taking them, though I can understand the argument that you should be able to wreck your own life, and the government only intervenes once you cross a certain threshold of harming others.

OTOH, that is not to say I approve of the way any given nation that criminalises it deals with the issue. The US has done a terrible job of its War on Drugs, not because prohibiting various substance is an inherently bad idea, but because they've done a terrible job, to the extent that many people are saying it's been done intentionally badly. Other nations don't have anywhere near the same problems with how their legal system deals with drugs.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I go for legalisation of everything, but controlled via something like the current prescription system, at least for the heavier stuff. Go see a doctor, he/she explains the various issues, gives you a repeat prescription and there you go. Plenty of little details to work out, but I'm too lazy to go into them.

 

[tippy2k2]

I go for legalisation of everything, but controlled via something like the current prescription system, at least for the heavier stuff. Go see a doctor, he/she explains the various issues, gives you a repeat prescription and there you go. Plenty of little details to work out, but I'm too lazy to go into them.

I'm one of those cowards who sits back and watches these internet arguments because I don't have time to look into everything I'd want to but I do have a question for you...

What possible need would something like Meth or Cocaine have that a prescription would be even considered? Maybe there are benefits that I don't know of (see my first sentence) but what medical benefit would there be to prescribing those kind of hard-core drugs to someone?

 

[Kopikatsu]

I agree with Thaluikhain. I don't think any reasonable person could consider drug use a 'choice'. Addiction removes choice by definition. Sometimes people need to be protected from themselves.

Consider just how many people are in prison for years because of marijuana convictions. Is a few minutes of getting high worth decades of incarceration? Is smoking that blunt really worth more than your freedom?

These people are too irresponsible to be left to their own devices.

 

[Nukekitten]

I think that all drugs should be legalised and taxed at a reasonable level. I think that recreational drug use is your own business, and that drug abuse - allowing it to become such a major part of your life that it totally controls you - should be looked upon as a mental health issue.

I think that society has largely dis-involved itself when it comes to conversations about drugs by virtue of making them illegal. That there are serious warnings about drugs and how to use them without getting messed up that are very difficult to transmit when they're illegal. That people with very serious mental health issues are being sent to jail for no good reason. That the harms of the war on drugs have been some of the biggest mistakes of the 20th and 21st centuries.

That's the sparknotes version anyway. Legalise it, warn about it, treat the damages as mental health problems. The current approach I don't think is working.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

What possible need would something like Meth or Cocaine have that a prescription would be even considered? Maybe there are benefits that I don't know of (see my first sentence) but what medical benefit would there be to prescribing those kind of hard-core drugs to someone?

No medical benefit, it's medical mitigation, it's just for keeping track, so your doctor could occasionally give you a little "whoa...might wanna cut down there fella" or if you seem to be buying an ounce or 2 a day they might well want to investigate your ass to see if you're selling it on.

EDIT: Also, as an aside, you can get meth on prescription. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Medical

 

[CrystalViolet]

If a substance is addictive, it removes the ability of people to decide for themselves if they want to use it.

So why make that a criminal offence? It's possible to use even addictive drugs without becoming addicted as long as there are services available, the correct purity controls etc. There are plenty of people who choose to drink alcohol.

Secondly, the effects of drugs aren't confined to the person taking them, though I can understand the argument that you should be able to wreck your own life, and the government only intervenes once you cross a certain threshold of harming others.

This just isn't true. You only hear about the people effecting the lives of others. There's far more damage and harm done by the actual criminalisation of the act. If someone takes drugs they should be making a choice to take responsibility of their subsequent actions while high - this should be a very well defined aspect of the law. If their drug use affects someone else, then prosecute them for that. Don't prosecute someone because they *might* do something.

I agree with Thaluikhain. I don't think any reasonable person could consider drug use a 'choice'.

I'm a reasonable person and I consider drug use a choice.

Addiction removes choice by definition.

Drug use does not equal drug addiction much like chocolate/alcohol/pornography/video game use does not equal addiction. People get addicted to WoW. Should that also be criminalised?

Sometimes people need to be protected from themselves.

So what about people like me who don't need protecting from ourselves?

Consider just how many people are in prison for years because of marijuana convictions. Is a few minutes of getting high worth decades of incarceration? Is smoking that blunt really worth more than your freedom?

The question is, why should there even be marijuana convictions? Criminalisation is just creating the problems. I could see the logic, even if I don't agree with it, in criminalising the production of illegal drugs but the criminalisation of users is just inherently stupid to me.

These people are too irresponsible to be left to their own devices.

"These people" include people like me: an ethically minded, educated adult who contributes more to society than most.

Captcha: skynet knows

Relevant.

 

[Nukekitten]

I agree with Thaluikhain. I don't think any reasonable person could consider drug use a 'choice'. Addiction removes choice by definition. Sometimes people need to be protected from themselves.

Consider just how many people are in prison for years because of marijuana convictions. Is a few minutes of getting high worth decades of incarceration? Is smoking that blunt really worth more than your freedom?

These people are too irresponsible to be left to their own devices.

How is destroying their current life and sending them to a concrete box for decades, where their chance of getting raped is not insignificant[footnote]factoring in prison rapes, more men than women get raped in the United States:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449454/More-men-raped-US-women-including-prison-sexual-abuse.html[/footnote], followed by a lifetime with a criminal record and a crippled work history an act of protection? To me it seems like an act of utterly horrifying abuse exacted against an already vulnerable person.

 

[Hoplon]

If a substance is addictive, it removes the ability of people to decide for themselves if they want to use it.

Secondly, the effects of drugs aren't confined to the person taking them, though I can understand the argument that you should be able to wreck your own life, and the government only intervenes once you cross a certain threshold of harming others.

OTOH, that is not to say I approve of the way any given nation that criminalises it deals with the issue. The US has done a terrible job of its War on Drugs, not because prohibiting various substance is an inherently bad idea, but because they've done a terrible job, to the extent that many people are saying it's been done intentionally badly. Other nations don't have anywhere near the same problems with how their legal system deals with drugs.

If the drug laws where about addiction and abuse i could support that, but clearly it isn't. Mostly because on that basis Cigarettes and Alcohol would be illegal too, yet they are not and most people agree it would be stupid to ban them out right as it just engenders massive criminal activity.

 

[Greg White]

Some I think should be medical-only(see cocaine, opiates, and a few psychedelic drugs in their current legal state), some should be legal, though taxed and restricted(marijuana and a few lesser drugs), while other should be banned outright(meth and most others that don't fit into the first 2 categories).

Fake weed is as bad as most illegal drugs in its current state, see the guy in Florida that ate another guy's face while on the stuff(no, that wasn't bath salts as originally reported), and I honestly can't see much reason the real thing shouldn't be legal, though there are some incredibly irresponsible growers causing massive amounts of erosion and water drainage in their attempt to cash in before people who actually know what they're doing(big tobacco most likely) step in and take over the industry.

 

[vledleR]

Marijuana is one hell of a medicine, and should be used as such.

As for other drugs, I do think their needs to be some type of control, but making it outright criminal doesn't solve anything. It only allows violent criminals to make a lot of money, which puts law enforcement in a dangerous position (especially in America, where firearms are easily accessible on the both the open and black market).

It also forces the victims (addicts) into a worse place than they already are. Is it the taxpayers job to keep people off drugs and add arbitrary punishment to people in an already helpless position? I don't think it is. We've seen decriminalized drugs in other parts of the world, and it seems to work much more efficiently.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I just want to get high. Who cares if anyone gets hurt by it, all I care about is me and what I want!

Basically all I got out of that.

I agree with Thaluikhain. I don't think any reasonable person could consider drug use a 'choice'. Addiction removes choice by definition. Sometimes people need to be protected from themselves.

Consider just how many people are in prison for years because of marijuana convictions. Is a few minutes of getting high worth decades of incarceration? Is smoking that blunt really worth more than your freedom?

These people are too irresponsible to be left to their own devices.

How is destroying their current life and sending them to a concrete box for decades, where their chance of getting raped is not insignificant[footnote]factoring in prison rapes, more men than women get raped in the United States:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449454/More-men-raped-US-women-including-prison-sexual-abuse.html[/footnote], followed by a lifetime with a criminal record and a crippled work history an act of protection? To me it seems like an act of utterly horrifying abuse exacted against an already vulnerable person.

It protects society from their poor choices. They've already shown a gross neglect for their own wellbeing by actively going out of their way to destroy it. Who cares about them, when they clearly don't care about themselves?

If a substance is addictive, it removes the ability of people to decide for themselves if they want to use it.

Secondly, the effects of drugs aren't confined to the person taking them, though I can understand the argument that you should be able to wreck your own life, and the government only intervenes once you cross a certain threshold of harming others.

OTOH, that is not to say I approve of the way any given nation that criminalises it deals with the issue. The US has done a terrible job of its War on Drugs, not because prohibiting various substance is an inherently bad idea, but because they've done a terrible job, to the extent that many people are saying it's been done intentionally badly. Other nations don't have anywhere near the same problems with how their legal system deals with drugs.

If the drug laws where about addiction and abuse i could support that, but clearly it isn't. Mostly because on that basis Cigarettes and Alcohol would be illegal too, yet they are not and most people agree it would be stupid to ban them out right as it just engenders massive criminal activity.

They tried making alcohol illegal. People literally started murdering each other over it. The Government started poisoning alcohol and people kept drinking it until they died. 'X is terrible and legal, so X should be legal since it isn't as terrible!' is a poor argument.

Also, you might want to do some more research on cigarettes. Cigarettes are legal, but black market smuggling is an multi-million dollar industry. Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian terrorist, makes about $15 million a year from smuggling cigarettes into the US. The idea that legalization will stop criminal enterprises is laughable at best, woefully ignorant at worst.

 

[Batou667]

I think restricting hard drugs is legitimate as the social costs associated with them are just too high to justify.

Also, drugs cartels/gangs aren't the only type of criminality associated with drugs. Legalise heroin and you'd have junkies committing burglary and mugging to get money for their perfectly legal drug.

Prohibition proved to be futile, sure, but alcohol culture was, and is, (in the West) socially engrained. Class A drugs don't have the same kind of societal permeation and I think it's for the best that it stays that way.

 

[Lilani]

I think marijuana should be legalized for recreational use and taxed, but I'm a bit torn on other drugs.

On the one hand, they're much more immediately addictive and harmful than marijuana. They aren't just addictive to people with addictive personalities like alcohol, they directly alter and deteriorate brain chemistry and hormonal balance. As others have said, they essentially take away free will, and something like that should not be allowed to be given to people. The same could be said of cigarettes I suppose, but cigarettes don't make people erratic the way these drugs do and don't ruin lives as quickly.

On the other hand, in the past they weren't so harmful because they weren't so refined and mixed up with other shit. The reason they have been further concentrated and mixed up with other shit is because they were made illegal and drug dealers were forced to take actions to make their substances more addictive so people would be willing to brave the law in order to get more. And because it's illegal anyway and thus unregulated, they put basically everything they want into it and will never tell you what it actually is.

The question I don't know the answer to is, would legalizing cocaine, heroin, and the like at this point reverse that? I would like to think with regulation it would, however the less refined versions of these drugs are extremely different from what the market today is used to. I'm sure many would start selling the legal and less refined versions, but there would still be a market for the more refined versions, so the problem would still exist. But is that worth the benefit of people having a less harmful version to go to? I don't know.

The one thing I know for sure I want in regard to the other "hard drugs" is an end to the pitiful war on drugs. It's been a clear failure and has severely damaged the US prison system, and how law enforcement in general is gone about. Even if other drugs aren't made legal, the very least we need to do is stop chasing our tails so much and find a better way to go about it.

 

[Nukekitten]

It protects society from their poor choices.

How does someone using drugs necessarily constitute a harm that society needs to be protected against? If someone smokes weed every weekend for a couple of hours, in much the same way that some people watch television, how is society harmed to such a great degree that the person needs to be imprisoned for decades (and that at a not insignificant cost) to prevent it?

They've already shown a gross neglect for their own wellbeing by actively going out of their way to destroy it.

A life worth living and health/number of life years are not the same types of thing, for all that the latter often overlaps with the former. Nor does it follow that because someone uses drugs on a moderate basis that they are causing any significant harm to their health.

Addiction and the underlying problems that makes someone vulnerable to addiction are problems, sure. But again I don't see how prison really improves matters for someone addicted.

Who cares about them?

They're human. They're members of society. They're someone's son or daughter. They're not infrequently people's friends and employees or bosses. I care. Whether you are cold blooded enough not to care about their being humans, members of your society, peoples sons or daughters, friends or employees, plenty of other people care too. If they didn't we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place - there'd be the economically simple solution exercised instead: where everyone who's ever tested positive for a drug was taken out back and shot in the head.

 

[CrystalViolet]

-snip-

Very well said. I fully agree with you.

I just want to get high. Who cares if anyone gets hurt by it, all I care about is me and what I want!

Basically all I got out of that.

Wow, dude, disagree with me if you will but it's bad form on your part to just dismiss me like that. Had you actually considered my arguments you would know that one of the primary factors in my supporting decriminalisation is the negative impact criminalisation has on people and their families. If "fuck you, I want what I want" was all that you got from my post then I'm afraid you've got a very warped perspective.

Legalise heroin and you'd have junkies committing burglary and mugging to get money for their perfectly legal drug.

The data suggests that the legal availability of a drug doesn't drive up the number of consumers. It's reported in some countries that many people try heroin for the first time while in prison for example. Besides, all of the proposed road maps published for legalisation include ways to drive down addiction even with hard drugs. Regulating it is so much better than criminalising it.

 

[Frission]

I'm for the criminalization of the harder drugs, due to the damages a strong drug lobby could do, since drugs aren't safe substances. The level of misdirection companies can spin on substances like sugar and fat is mind boggling. So I'm for the criminalization of distribution, but I would argue for more leeway on those who use them, since they're addictive. Cannabis/Marijuana isn't exactly harmless either, but in this case it wastes more resources to criminalize that then to just legalize it.

I'm hesitant on letting anyone distribute drugs, even legally. That would give too much power over the consumer.