Kopikatsu said:
Marijuana has an addiction rate of 15-30% with a severe addiction rate of 9% [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-teenage-mind/201012/is-marijuana-addictive]. While this is much lower than most other drugs, it's still not zero. Which is kind of the requirement for something to be called 'non-addictive'.
I actually read the original publication, not the non peer reviewed book or opinion piece in a popular magazine, and it claimed that 9% of users meet the criteria for dependence, not severe addiction. This "severe addiction" was attributed later, not by the author of the paper.
But that's a moot point anyway. It misses the point that a) prohibition doesn't work and b) criminalisation of drug use does more harm than the use of the drugs themselves.
Kopikatsu said:
Pointed this out earlier, but they tried making alcohol illegal and people started murdering each other in the streets. If anything, prohibition proved that people cannot be trusted to be responsible about addictive substances.
So by your logic, prohibition causes people to kill themselves and each other, which shows that we can't be trusted, so we should continue with prohibition? In what kind of world does that make any kind of sense?
Kopikatsu said:
Funfact: The more states that legalize marijuana, the less profitable it becomes for drug cartels. So they move to producing heroin instead, because that's the next big cash crop. Heroin use in the US has increased by over 50% in the last few years because more of it is being shipped in now to replace weed. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26672422
Except that if you read the article you just posted you would find that there's not a single mention of any link between cannabis decriminalisation and the increase in heroin use. You extrapolated that one yourself and tried to sell it off as a fact. You would also find that the article is based on heroin use in Chicago where non-medical use of marijuana is still a criminal offence.
But let's pretend for a second that your "fun fact" is actually a fact: that cartels move away from the distribution of a drug following its legal instatement would actually be an argument in favour of decriminalisation. Unless I'm missing the point of your argument and you actually want people to take more heroin and overdose.
Kopikatsu said:
If anyone remembers, widespread heroin abuse is the reason that the War on Drugs started in the first place.
Actually, the US had been attacking drug use since the late 1900s due to the number of women who were frequenting opium dens, supporting Chinese immigrants, and engaging in "physical and moral degeneracy". The War on Drugs was a way to vilify a common enemy post Vietnam. This was convenient considering the counter-culture association of anti war Americans who were regularly using drugs and the fact that such a high number of Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD became addicted to heroin. I won't even bother explaining the anti cannabis crusade and its direct relation to the tension with Mexico since we're all very much aware of that.
Throughout all your posts all you've managed to do is dehumanise drug users as degenerates who can't be trusted to look after themselves but you're yet to make a single argument as to why criminalisation is a good idea. We get it: you think drug users are profligate. Great. Now tell us why you think prohibition is a good idea.
Ravinoff said:
I'm firmly against any legalization, for the simple reason that the last thing the world needs right now is more stoned idiots. Society is dumb enough as-is, no reason to make things even stupider.
Stoned idiots like Carl Sagan, Albert Hofmann, Bill Gates, Francis Crick, Oliver Stone, Maya Angelou, Barrack Obama...?
Fieldy409 said:
If you legalised everything there would be more people doing the drugs as they figure its okay its legal now and thus some of those people become the types who are dangerous addicts, More people that become homeless because all their money goes into getting yet another fix, more people who are so desperate for a fix that they will hold up a person with a knife, then due to their fucked up mental processes just kill the guy for the $20 in their pocket, and instead of spending that twenty dollars on food after having not eaten for days they run to the nearest 24 hour chemist to buy a fix, then go to sleep in an alleyway.
Decriminalisation in Portugal has not led to an increase in usage despite increases occurring in most other countries. Heroin prescription programmes in Switzerland have been associated with a massive decrease in property crime among those enrolled.
lacktheknack said:
I say to leave all recreational drugs as illegal, but instead of tossing addicts in prison for decades, how about a few months of enforced rehab/detox?
So then educated people like who contribute to society should be sent for rehabilitation and indoctrination against an addiction we don't have for a few months, costing taxpayers money and missing out on the tax, good work, and voluntary contribution we regularly afford to the community? I know all people aren't like me but my point is that you can't fit every drug user into the "needs help" box. Drug user is not the same as drug abuser.
lacktheknack said:
No, I don't trust people to choose responsibly and act responsibly. No one should trust people to do that.
So... fascism?
Zannah said:
The damage that drugs (illegal and legal like what goes over pharmacy tables in the us, or smoking or alcohol) do to our society is tremendous. "but it's just so relaxing man" is not an argument to not ban the shit, all of it.
So please offer me a compelling argument for banning "the shit".
Someone Depressing said:
I don't think anyone in their right mind would really consider drug use a valid lifestyle
I consider it a valid lifestyle and I'm in my right mind. Besides, if you use alcohol or caffeine then I guess you also consider it a valid lifestyle to some extent.
Someone Depressing said:
But aside from marijuana, I support the crimilisation of drug use, aside from medical reasons. I think that our blind stigmas against them do prohibit their use as medicine to an extent, but those stigmas are there for a reason.
"There for a reason" is not an argument in favour of prohibition. It means as much as "it has always been that way". What good is criminalising hard drug use? It doesn't discourage use, it puts addicts in a vulnerable position, and it offers the power of distribution to the cartels.
Uriel_Hayabusa said:
Prohibition may have done more harm than good in the long run, but when I read news stories about 13 year-old who are hospitalized because they were holding a drinking contest I can understand what the people who advocated Prohibition were fighting against, as for smoking: I gotta give smokers credit for never defending their habit with excuses like ''medicinal use'' or ''mind expansion''.
So if prohibition has done more harm than good, why support it? That doesn't make any sense.
jab136 said:
if someone who is high does something illegal, then prosecute them, just don't make the actual use itself illegal.
Exactly!
