Political Crossfire Forums

[Norrin Radd]

lovebush wrote: Norrin Radd wrote: [

Results The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435 000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400 000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85 000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75 000), toxic agents (55 000), motor vehicle crashes (43 000), incidents involving firearms (29 000), sexual behaviors (20 000), and illicit use of drugs (17 000).

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/291/10/1238

NOw, if you look at the above statisitcs, you will see that over 25 times as many people die from tobacco compared to illicit drug use.

Over 4 times as many people die from alcohol as compared to deaths from illicit drug use.

Should we ban alcohol and tobacco?

If no, why not? They kill way more people than all illegal drugs combined.


this really cuts to the core of the argument. this was touched on earlier. the # of people who drink alcohol and smoke is far higher than all illicit drugs combined. So here we have leading causes of death and misery in our society being two addictive substances that are legal and readily available. Why would we want to add meth or crack to the list?

Meth and crack are the two drugs I do not want to see legalized, mostly because of the dangers in manufacturing for meth and because if cocaine was legalized, then people who wanted to could make their own crack, but I doubt this would be necessary if drugs are legalized in a correctr manner. If coke was legalized then the quality shold be much better and there would not be the need to make crack. Of course I know some people still would, as addiction is very powerful.

I would like to see possesion for all drugs legalized and I would love to have an open discussion on how we could legalize drugs. I don't belive any drugs, even pot, should be availabe at gas stations. I belive if drugs were legalized they should be sold either at drug stores, with the prescription medicenes, or at state stores, like some states do with alcohol.

I would even consider needing a prescription for some of the hardest drugs like heroin, but this is just a suggestion, as I would ove to see this debated.

I would love to see all people, even those who are against legalization, discuss how we could legalize drugs, if we decided to do so.

You asked why I would like to add meth and crack to a list of two legal drugs which already kill hundreds of thousands of people and cause considerable harm to society, but this is the wrong question. The drugs are already here. People are already dying. The war on drugs has caused as much suffering, if not more, then the illegal drugs themselves have caused.

I read a great quote from a book titled, America's Longest War:Rethinking the War on Drugs, this quote went.........

"If the reason to make some drugs illegal is to keep people from harming themselves and others, then it is clear, the wrong drugs are illegal."

I don't recall the author, but that quote says it all. Why are drugs illegal?

[sparsely]

perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: Quote:
"A study prepared by The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated the total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse to be $245.7 billion for 1992. Of this cost, $97.7 billion* was due to drug abuse."


the score would be:

alcohol - $148 billion

all illegal drugs combined - $97.7 billion

alcohol is always conveniently ignored.

However, if we change those figures to per capita users, alcohol is not nearly as bad as the illegal drugs.

From the CDC:Fastats table on Substance use

According to the table, 51% of the population 12 and over drank alcohol in the past year. 8.3% had any illicit drug use at all.

Let's compare the per person cost for people who have used alcohol with those that have used illicit drugs.

Yes, alcohol costs $148 billion, but that's due to it's consumption by over half of the population. That's 2.9 billion for a single percent of population.

Illicit drugs cost $97 billion, but only 8.3% of the population tried illicit drugs in that time period. That's 11.7 billion for a single percent of population. If as many people used illicit drugs as used alcohol, we could extrapolate that the cost would be $596.7 billion. If on the other hand, as few people used alcohol has use illicit drugs, we could extrapolate the alcohol cost as $24.07 billion.

Now which is REALLY more expensive?

Concerning those figures, I would ask: Why does the alcohol user pool draw from those who are ineligible to drink (12 and up? :? ) and how many drug users do you think would decline to give out such information simply because the drugs are illegal?

In other words, it makes nice debate, but I can't see how those figures are worth anything.
Still, it fails to respond to the fact that, free of prohibition, many drugs would pose little or no cost to the consumer. Cultivating marijuana, mushrooms, coca, and many other drugs have very little investment requirement, other than ones own work and time.

[lovebush]

Sukoi wrote: lovebush wrote: Norrin Radd wrote: [

Results The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435 000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400 000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85 000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75 000), toxic agents (55 000), motor vehicle crashes (43 000), incidents involving firearms (29 000), sexual behaviors (20 000), and illicit use of drugs (17 000).

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/291/10/1238

NOw, if you look at the above statisitcs, you will see that over 25 times as many people die from tobacco compared to illicit drug use.

Over 4 times as many people die from alcohol as compared to deaths from illicit drug use.

Should we ban alcohol and tobacco?

If no, why not? They kill way more people than all illegal drugs combined.


this really cuts to the core of the argument. this was touched on earlier. the # of people who drink alcohol and smoke is far higher than all illicit drugs combined. So here we have leading causes of death and misery in our society being two addictive substances that are legal and readily available. Why would we want to add meth or crack to the list?

Actually, what cuts to "the core of the whole arguement" is the question in the original post: Quote: Does congress have the constitutional power to tell the citizens of the United States that they cannot posses drugs for their own personal use? And the answer is a resounding NO, THEY DO NOT!!!

But to add to your question, why would we want cars on the road that are less safe than Mercede's and Volvo's? I mean, those Chevy's and Ford's kill thousands every year, so why should we allow those vehicles that are proven to be less safe? Perhaps the people can decide for themselves when it comes to substances as well as vehicles eh? What's wrong with that?

cheap cars have become a necessary evil that is apart of the economy, most of the risk of choosing a less safe vehicle is born by the people who choose to get into that vehicle. when a vehicle model has problems that make it excessively dangerous to its occupants or it is a hazard to other cars on the road. there is a recall on those cars.

If you cant get a case before the supreme court, and get it to decide in your favor, then you first need to sway massive public opinion.

I asked my brother (the cop) what he thought about this debate. He says hes had this argument plenty of times and it mainly boils down to the fact that drug use is not victomless. If people just got high and stayed home,that would be one thing .but that is not what happens.

[perdidochas]

Norrin Radd wrote: perdidochas wrote: Norrin Radd wrote: perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote:
bottom lines:

it costs three times as much to try to stop people from using drugs than the cost of said use,

and,

alcohol all by itself still costs more than the costs of both drug abuse and the pricetag for the drug war.

Alcohol also has about 6 times the number of users that illicit drugs have. I'm not saying that alcohol doesn't cause major problems, or that drugs shouldn't be legalized, those are different issues. My point, that you chose to ignore is that the primary reason for the increased cost of alcohol problems is the bigger user base of alcohol. It's a simple concept. More alcohol users than illicit drug users. If alcohol is equally bad to illict drugs, we would expect the cost of alcohol abuse to be greater than the cost of drug abuse.

I'm honestly agnostic on drug legalization, it really doesn't matter to me if legalization occurs or not. Some problems will be resolved by drug legalization (the drug war costs), but drug usage (including alcohol) does cost society.

Question: Did I read your link correctly? Do you conclude that in 2002, the "true cost" of drug use is $40 billion?

Let's assume that is true. Let's also assume that the cost of alcohol abuse is $148 billion (do you have a better figure?).

$148 billion for 51% of the population is the cost of alcohol abuse.
$40 billion for 8% of the population is the cost of drug (ab)use.

Any problem with that comparison? If so, it shows that alcohol, per capita, isn't as much of a problem as illicit drugs.


As I've said, I don't doubt at all that alcohol has a greater cost to society. However, half of the population consumes alcohol every year. Of course something that 140 million people consume is going to cost more to society than something that 22.4 million people consume. It's common sense.

You are right, to an extent, but I was wondering, if only 8% of Americans do illegal drugs, what is the percentage of teens that do illegal drugs?

I already showed that prescription drug abuse has tripled in teens since 1992, so what is the total percentage of teens who use illegal drugs, and/or who abuse prescription drugs?

Also, do you know what percentage of teens have bought, or been offered drugs on school grounds?

Common sense says the drug war is a complete failure when the easiest place to buy drugs is any public school.

Well, according to the fastats link above (see one of my earlier posts), its 12–13 years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2
16–17 years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.8
18–25 years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.2
26-34 years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5
35 years and over. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6

I'm neutral on the drug war. It doesn't affect me much. If it ends, I'm fine. If it keeps up, I'm fine. The drug war is one set of problems. Drug legalization would cause another set.

At least it would stop masked police officers from kicking in doors in the middle of the night and shooting innocent Americans at the wrong address.

At least it would stop tainted supplies from killing people like happened recently with the tainted heroin. At least maybe schools would not be the easiest place to buy drugs, at least we won't be spending 30,000 a year to take drug addicts and turn them into bitter, hardened convicts.

True, but on the other hand, we'd have a lot of ruined lives due to an increase in addicts. As I said, I think the net product of legalization woudl be zero. Some problems solved, others caused.

[brian bennett]

lovebush wrote: I asked my brother (the cop) what he thought about this debate. He says hes had this argument plenty of times and it mainly boils down to the fact that drug use is not victomless. If people just got high and stayed home,that would be one thing .but that is not what happens.

the problem though is that the vast majority of drug users do indeed stay home and cause no harm to any other. but all drug users are treated as though they actually do those things.

i'm tired of the "it isn't victimless" bullsh!t -- 99.9 percent of drug users are not leaving "victims" in their wakes.

punish people who actually do things to others -- leave everyone else alone. what a concept!

the issue is not "do we have the right to do drugs?" (clearly, we do -- how else can you explain all the drug stores), the issue is this: "how are any us empowered to punish someone for using drugs?" we aren't.

the users aren't allowed to blame the drugs for what they do -- and neither are we. it isn't the drugs -- it's the people.

we won't make any real progress until people figure out that none of us possesses a "right" to punish someone over what they choose to do to themselves.

that's called tyranny -- and it's not acceptable in an allegedly "free" society.

we all need to dig down to the truth: and the truth is that the drugs and drug users aren't really causing much of a problem. the problems caused by trying to stop them, however, are limitless.

[brian bennett]

perdidochas wrote: True, but on the other hand, we'd have a lot of ruined lives due to an increase in addicts. As I said, I think the net product of legalization woudl be zero. Some problems solved, others caused.

where are all these new "addicts" going to come from? do you think people are sitting around waiting for heroin to be legal so they can start spiking up?

here is the longitudinal data from the monitoring the future studies compared and contrasted in a variety of ways. you tell me how this mayhem of addiction is going to unfold given that hardly anyone who likes to use drugs is using the "dangerous" ones?

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/big-pic/index.htm

i see clear cut trends in drug use patterns: people don't like heroin, or meth, or pcp, or crack. so where are the legions of "addicts" going to come from?

[Norrin Radd]

lovebush wrote: Sukoi wrote: lovebush wrote: Norrin Radd wrote: [

Results The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435 000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400 000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85 000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75 000), toxic agents (55 000), motor vehicle crashes (43 000), incidents involving firearms (29 000), sexual behaviors (20 000), and illicit use of drugs (17 000).

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/291/10/1238

NOw, if you look at the above statisitcs, you will see that over 25 times as many people die from tobacco compared to illicit drug use.

Over 4 times as many people die from alcohol as compared to deaths from illicit drug use.

Should we ban alcohol and tobacco?

If no, why not? They kill way more people than all illegal drugs combined.


this really cuts to the core of the argument. this was touched on earlier. the # of people who drink alcohol and smoke is far higher than all illicit drugs combined. So here we have leading causes of death and misery in our society being two addictive substances that are legal and readily available. Why would we want to add meth or crack to the list?

Actually, what cuts to "the core of the whole arguement" is the question in the original post: Quote: Does congress have the constitutional power to tell the citizens of the United States that they cannot posses drugs for their own personal use? And the answer is a resounding NO, THEY DO NOT!!!

But to add to your question, why would we want cars on the road that are less safe than Mercede's and Volvo's? I mean, those Chevy's and Ford's kill thousands every year, so why should we allow those vehicles that are proven to be less safe? Perhaps the people can decide for themselves when it comes to substances as well as vehicles eh? What's wrong with that?

cheap cars have become a necessary evil that is apart of the economy, most of the risk of choosing a less safe vehicle is born by the people who choose to get into that vehicle. when a vehicle model has problems that make it excessively dangerous to its occupants or it is a hazard to other cars on the road. there is a recall on those cars.

If you cant get a case before the supreme court, and get it to decide in your favor, then you first need to sway massive public opinion.

I asked my brother (the cop) what he thought about this debate. He says hes had this argument plenty of times and it mainly boils down to the fact that drug use is not victomless. If people just got high and stayed home,that would be one thing .but that is not what happens.

That is true, drug use is not victimless, but the war on drugs has not made it better, it has made it worse. Illegal drug money has helped fuel gang violence, drug cartel violence, terrorism, as well as make Columbia the murder capital of the world, per capita. People often steal and rob in order to support habits which help scumbags get rich from over inflated prices due to the insane, unethical, immoral and unconstitutional war on drugs.

You are right, drug use is not a victimless crime, but the war on drugs has resulted in more victims related to drug use, not less.

Drug use is a victimless crime for most users, just as alcohol use is a victimless crime for most users, but just because some people can't handle their booze, or their drugs, does not mean that the substance should be made illegal.

NEWSFLASH: The War on Drugs is a SCAM!

If the war on drugs was not a scam, then the poppies from US OCCUPIED Afghanistan would not be supplying 50-70% of the world's heroin production.

If the war on drugs was not a scam, then our borders would have much better security.

If the war on drugs was not a scam, then we would not have three former DEA agents willing to testify that the CIA is directly involved with drug trafficking and helpes protect some of the cartels.

Are you familiar with Mike Levine, Cellerino Castillo and Dennis Dayle?

Do you know anything about Jack Blum?

How about Michael Ruppert, ever hear of him?

OPENING REMARKS OF
MICHAEL C. RUPPERT

for the

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ssci.shtml

MIKE LEVINE DEA agent for 17 years said..........

# "For decades, the CIA, the Pentagon, and secret organizations like Oliver North's Enterprise have been supporting and protecting the world's biggest drug dealers.... The Contras and some of their Central American allies ... have been documented by DEA as supplying us with at least 50 percent of our national cocaine consumption. They were the main conduit to the United States for Colombian cocaine during the 1980's. The rest of the drug supply for the American habit came from other CIA-supported groups, such as DFS (Mexican CIA), the Shan United Army in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, or any of a score of other groups and/or individuals like Manual Noriega." (The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic, 1993)

# "I personally hit the top of the drug world, dealt with the top traffickers in the world posing as a criminal ... and in every case found these traffickers in bed with our Central Intelligence Agency. Exactly as Senator Al D'Amato said, 'We're in bed with these guys.' ... We still are. But its worse than that." (From a 1995 radio interview)
"..[W]e penetrated what was about to become the biggest drug dealing corporation on the face of the earth and the case was killed by Central Intelligence. I documented that. They supported ex-Nazis like Klaus Barbi, Argentine mass murderers in the take-over of Bolivia."



Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit said..........

"In my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA." -- FROM: Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Berkeley: U. of CA Press, 1991, pp. x-xi.

Celerino Castillo stated that together with 3 other ex-DEA agents, they were willing to testify in Congress regarding their direct knowledge of CIA involvement in international drug trafficking. Castillo estimates that approximately 75%(!) of narcotics entered the U.S. with the acquiescence or direct participation of U.S. and foreign CIA agents. (August 13, 1996 San Diego Union-Tribune, regarding Rep. Robert Toricelli's proposed subcommittee on the intelligence community and human rights violations in Guatemala and Central America).

Despite the fact that the 1986 "Kerry Report," the Senate Committee Report on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, skirted as much as it investigated, what evidence the Kerry Report found is astonishing enough. A synopsis of the Kerry Report highlights the drug-related findings.

Ten years later, Jack Blum (former Chief Counsel to John Kerry's Subcommittee on Narcotics and Terrorism in 1996 Senate Hearings), supplied a prepared statement and testified before Sen. Arlen Specter's Senate committee. Jack Blum was generally careful in what he said, and where he directed blame. Blum maintains that he found no evidence that the CIA directly trafficked drugs during Iran-Contra, only that the CIA protected those who did traffic the drugs. Even so, what he did say was astonishing in its implications and scope.

"If you ask: In the process of fighting a war against the Sandinistas, did people connected with the US government open channels which allowed drug traffickers to move drugs to the United States, did they know the drug traffickers were doing it, and did they protect them from law enforcement? The answer to all those questions is yes." (Jack Blum, chief investigator for the Kerry Senate subcommittee, after years of investigation and access to classified information.)

http://ciadrugs.homestead.com/files/outline.html

[perdidochas]

brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: True, but on the other hand, we'd have a lot of ruined lives due to an increase in addicts. As I said, I think the net product of legalization woudl be zero. Some problems solved, others caused.

where are all these new "addicts" going to come from? do you think people are sitting around waiting for heroin to be legal so they can start spiking up?

here is the longitudinal data from the monitoring the future studies compared and contrasted in a variety of ways. you tell me how this mayhem of addiction is going to unfold given that hardly anyone who likes to use drugs is using the "dangerous" ones?

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/big-pic/index.htm

i see clear cut trends in drug use patterns: people don't like heroin, or meth, or pcp, or crack. so where are the legions of "addicts" going to come from?

People like me. I don't use pot because it is illegal. I've never even tried the stuff. A certain percentage of people like me are going to have addiction (whether psychological or physical) problems. I didn't say "legions" I said an increase. I don't see pot as any more benign (or less benign) than alcohol. You yourself said that alcohol causes a lot of problems. Would legal drugs, such as hallucinogens, cause any fewer problems?

[brian bennett]

perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: True, but on the other hand, we'd have a lot of ruined lives due to an increase in addicts. As I said, I think the net product of legalization would be zero. Some problems solved, others caused.

where are all these new "addicts" going to come from? do you think people are sitting around waiting for heroin to be legal so they can start spiking up?

here is the longitudinal data from the monitoring the future studies compared and contrasted in a variety of ways. you tell me how this mayhem of addiction is going to unfold given that hardly anyone who likes to use drugs is using the "dangerous" ones?

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/big-pic/index.htm

i see clear cut trends in drug use patterns: people don't like heroin, or meth, or pcp, or crack. so where are the legions of "addicts" going to come from?

People like me. I don't use pot because it is illegal. I've never even tried the stuff.


so if it were legal, you would use it? that question has been asked of high school seniors in the annual "monitoring the future" study since 1975. here's the latest version:

http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol1_2005.pdf (5 meg)

there is no html version of the pertinent data table, but if you look in the pdf file the data is in table 8-8 on pages 362-3

in response to the question: "If marijuana were legal to use and legally available, which of the following would you be most likely to do?"

the answer "try it" was the response of 8.2 percent of people in 1975. that figure declined to a low of 6.0 percent in 1981, and continued to rise steadily in the intervening years to a total of 10.6 percent in both 2003 and 2004.

thus, at most, 11 percent of people who have not yet used marijuana are waiting in the wings for it to be legal before they will try it.

another interesting piece of evidence regarding the impact of illegality on drug using behavior is provided by the numbers for alcohol use. i have them conveniently graphed out on my site already:

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/nsduh/age21-percent.htm

the trend is for an average of 13% of people to wait until it is "legal" to drink, to do so.

this suggests that naked obedience to law is of importance to less than 15% of the population.

what do you suppose the numbers for heroin would be? think many people would use it simply because it became "legal" to do so?

opium probably -- but heroin???? no way.

perdidochas wrote:
A certain percentage of people like me are going to have addiction (whether psychological or physical) problems. I didn't say "legions" I said an increase.

people with addiction problems are mostly already addicted. it is more a property of desperation in the lives of its victims than in the properties of the drugs themselves.

if alcohol were truly the only drug in the world, meth heads would be alcoholics.

perdidochas wrote:
I don't see pot as any more benign (or less benign) than alcohol. You yourself said that alcohol causes a lot of problems. Would legal drugs, such as hallucinogens, cause any fewer problems?

pot is way more benign than alcohol. indeed, the vast majority of drugs are way more benign that alcohol.

as to the question of hallucinogens -- yes, hallucinogen use would absolutely cause fewer problems than the use of alcohol. indeed, until the feds prohibited doing so, there was a great deal of research that indicated hallucinogen use could be extremely effective in treating addictions such as alcoholism.

alcohol is simply one of the worst possible choices of intoxicant. our society would be well served by admitting that, and allowing people the opportunity to find the drugs that they find right for themselves.

[perdidochas]

brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: True, but on the other hand, we'd have a lot of ruined lives due to an increase in addicts. As I said, I think the net product of legalization would be zero. Some problems solved, others caused.

where are all these new "addicts" going to come from? do you think people are sitting around waiting for heroin to be legal so they can start spiking up?

here is the longitudinal data from the monitoring the future studies compared and contrasted in a variety of ways. you tell me how this mayhem of addiction is going to unfold given that hardly anyone who likes to use drugs is using the "dangerous" ones?

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/big-pic/index.htm

i see clear cut trends in drug use patterns: people don't like heroin, or meth, or pcp, or crack. so where are the legions of "addicts" going to come from?

People like me. I don't use pot because it is illegal. I've never even tried the stuff.


so if it were legal, you would use it? that question has been asked of high school seniors in the annual "monitoring the future" study since 1975. here's the latest version:

http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol1_2005.pdf (5 meg)

there is no html version of the pertinent data table, but if you look in the pdf file the data is in table 8-8 on pages 362-3

in response to the question: "If marijuana were legal to use and legally available, which of the following would you be most likely to do?"

the answer "try it" was the response of 8.2 percent of people in 1975. that figure declined to a low of 6.0 percent in 1981, and continued to rise steadily in the intervening years to a total of 10.6 percent in both 2003 and 2004.

thus, at most, 11 percent of people who have not yet used marijuana are waiting in the wings for it to be legal before they will try it.

another interesting piece of evidence regarding the impact of illegality on drug using behavior is provided by the numbers for alcohol use. i have them conveniently graphed out on my site already:

http://www.briancbennet.com/charts/nsduh/age21-percent.htm

the trend is for an average of 13% of people to wait until it is "legal" to drink, to do so.

this suggests that naked obedience to law is of importance to less than 15% of the population.

what do you suppose the numbers for heroin would be? think many people would use it simply because it became "legal" to do so?

opium probably -- but heroin???? no way.

perdidochas wrote:
A certain percentage of people like me are going to have addiction (whether psychological or physical) problems. I didn't say "legions" I said an increase.

people with addiction problems are mostly already addicted. it is more a property of desperation in the lives of its victims than in the properties of the drugs themselves.

if alcohol were truly the only drug in the world, meth heads would be alcoholics.

perdidochas wrote:
I don't see pot as any more benign (or less benign) than alcohol. You yourself said that alcohol causes a lot of problems. Would legal drugs, such as hallucinogens, cause any fewer problems?

pot is way more benign than alcohol. indeed, the vast majority of drugs are way more benign that alcohol.

as to the question of hallucinogens -- yes, hallucinogen use would absolutely cause fewer problems than the use of alcohol. indeed, until the feds prohibited doing so, there was a great deal of research that indicated hallucinogen use could be extremely effective in treating addictions such as alcoholism.

alcohol is simply one of the worst possible choices of intoxicant. our society would be well served by admitting that, and allowing people the opportunity to find the drugs that they find right for themselves.

Alcohol has a few good points. The main one is that, being water soluble, it clears the body quickly. The same can't be said of most other drugs. Anybody that demonizes alcohol the way you are is as foolish as the "reefer madness" people.

[lovebush]

perdidochas wrote: [

People like me. I don't use pot because it is illegal. I've never even tried the stuff. A certain percentage of people like me are going to have addiction (whether psychological or physical) problems. I didn't say "legions" I said an increase. I don't see pot as any more benign (or less benign) than alcohol. You yourself said that alcohol causes a lot of problems. Would legal drugs, such as hallucinogens, cause any fewer problems?


there you go. As I stated before. there are people who prefer not to break the law. they dont try drugs because they are illegal. It would be a very interesting survey to find out how many people would be willing to try the various drugs if they were legalized.

[Norrin Radd]

lovebush wrote: perdidochas wrote: [

People like me. I don't use pot because it is illegal. I've never even tried the stuff. A certain percentage of people like me are going to have addiction (whether psychological or physical) problems. I didn't say "legions" I said an increase. I don't see pot as any more benign (or less benign) than alcohol. You yourself said that alcohol causes a lot of problems. Would legal drugs, such as hallucinogens, cause any fewer problems?


there you go. As I stated before. there are people who prefer not to break the law. they dont try drugs because they are illegal. It would be a very interesting survey to find out how many people would be willing to try the various drugs if they were legalized.

What percentage of teens have tried alcohol? Is it legal for them to do so?

Drug laws breed contempt for the law, as teens realize that what they are told is basically lies and they then decide to not believe any information they are told from the establishment.

You seem quick to use one person's admission that they would try pot if it were legal as proof you are right.

Seems to me you are anxious to prove that you are right.

Even if drugs killed 50% of the people who used them, it would still be inconstitutional to ban them. The government's job is to protect people from others. It is NOT the government's job to protect us from ourselves.

btw, I was hoping you might comment on some of my other points.

Do you agree that the war on drugs has created more victims than the drugs themselves cause?

[Norrin Radd]

perdidochas wrote:

Alcohol has a few good points. The main one is that, being water soluble, it clears the body quickly. The same can't be said of most other drugs. Anybody that demonizes alcohol the way you are is as foolish as the "reefer madness" people.

Alcohol causes many times more deaths than all illegal drugs combined. Alcohol causes more pain and suffering, than all illegal drugs COMBINED.

PERIOD.

[lovebush]

Norrin Radd wrote: [

Quote: What percentage of teens have tried alcohol? Is it legal for them to do so?


dont know. and No

Quote: Drug laws breed contempt for the law, as teens realize that what they are told is basically lies and they then decide to not believe any information they are told from the establishment.

many teens dont give a rip about the establishment but survey after survey has shown that many kids will listen to their parents. but they will copy their parents before they will listen to their parent. So many kids will drink or smoke because they see their parents do it in spite of prohibitions. I think there is an assumption that if its legal, it wont hurt me. you make that assumption when you buy most products. You assume that because drug laws breed contempt in your mind that that is true of most people. I disagree.

Quote: You seem quick to use one person's admission that they would try pot if it were legal as proof you are right.

Seems to me you are anxious to prove that you are right.

Out of the 4 people engaged in our discussion, one fits the category that I suggested exists. now I realize a much larger group is needed for an accurate random sample, but that does give us 25%. As for me being "right" Its not about you and me we are discussing things that would effect millions of people for good or for evil. It should be vigorously debated from all angles. Out of time . more on the rest after work.

Even if drugs killed 50% of the people who used them, it would still be inconstitutional to ban them. The government's job is to protect people from others. It is NOT the government's job to protect us from ourselves.

btw, I was hoping you might comment on some of my other points.

Do you agree that the war on drugs has created more victims than the drugs themselves cause?

[brian bennett]

perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: True, but on the other hand, we'd have a lot of ruined lives due to an increase in addicts. As I said, I think the net product of legalization would be zero. Some problems solved, others caused.

where are all these new "addicts" going to come from? do you think people are sitting around waiting for heroin to be legal so they can start spiking up?

here is the longitudinal data from the monitoring the future studies compared and contrasted in a variety of ways. you tell me how this mayhem of addiction is going to unfold given that hardly anyone who likes to use drugs is using the "dangerous" ones?

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/big-pic/index.htm

i see clear cut trends in drug use patterns: people don't like heroin, or meth, or pcp, or crack. so where are the legions of "addicts" going to come from?

People like me. I don't use pot because it is illegal. I've never even tried the stuff.


so if it were legal, you would use it? that question has been asked of high school seniors in the annual "monitoring the future" study since 1975. here's the latest version:

http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol1_2005.pdf (5 meg)

there is no html version of the pertinent data table, but if you look in the pdf file the data is in table 8-8 on pages 362-3

in response to the question: "If marijuana were legal to use and legally available, which of the following would you be most likely to do?"

the answer "try it" was the response of 8.2 percent of people in 1975. that figure declined to a low of 6.0 percent in 1981, and continued to rise steadily in the intervening years to a total of 10.6 percent in both 2003 and 2004.

thus, at most, 11 percent of people who have not yet used marijuana are waiting in the wings for it to be legal before they will try it.

another interesting piece of evidence regarding the impact of illegality on drug using behavior is provided by the numbers for alcohol use. i have them conveniently graphed out on my site already:

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/nsduh/age21-percent.htm

the trend is for an average of 13% of people to wait until it is "legal" to drink, to do so.

this suggests that naked obedience to law is of importance to less than 15% of the population.

what do you suppose the numbers for heroin would be? think many people would use it simply because it became "legal" to do so?

opium probably -- but heroin???? no way.

perdidochas wrote:
A certain percentage of people like me are going to have addiction (whether psychological or physical) problems. I didn't say "legions" I said an increase.

people with addiction problems are mostly already addicted. it is more a property of desperation in the lives of its victims than in the properties of the drugs themselves.

if alcohol were truly the only drug in the world, meth heads would be alcoholics.

perdidochas wrote:
I don't see pot as any more benign (or less benign) than alcohol. You yourself said that alcohol causes a lot of problems. Would legal drugs, such as hallucinogens, cause any fewer problems?

pot is way more benign than alcohol. indeed, the vast majority of drugs are way more benign that alcohol.

as to the question of hallucinogens -- yes, hallucinogen use would absolutely cause fewer problems than the use of alcohol. indeed, until the feds prohibited doing so, there was a great deal of research that indicated hallucinogen use could be extremely effective in treating addictions such as alcoholism.

alcohol is simply one of the worst possible choices of intoxicant. our society would be well served by admitting that, and allowing people the opportunity to find the drugs that they find right for themselves.

Alcohol has a few good points. The main one is that, being water soluble, it clears the body quickly. The same can't be said of most other drugs. Anybody that demonizes alcohol the way you are is as foolish as the "reefer madness" people.

you have missed the point entirely.

p.s. -- nearly all intoxicants clear the body quickly. why do you think addicts need to keep getting another dose? the effects of very few intoxicants last more than 6 hours.

[brian bennett]

lovebush wrote: perdidochas wrote:
People like me. I don't use pot because it is illegal. I've never even tried the stuff. A certain percentage of people like me are going to have addiction (whether psychological or physical) problems. I didn't say "legions" I said an increase. I don't see pot as any more benign (or less benign) than alcohol. You yourself said that alcohol causes a lot of problems. Would legal drugs, such as hallucinogens, cause any fewer problems?


there you go. As I stated before. there are people who prefer not to break the law. they dont try drugs because they are illegal. It would be a very interesting survey to find out how many people would be willing to try the various drugs if they were legalized.

they only ask that question about marijuana:

brian bennett wrote:
that question has been asked of high school seniors in the annual "monitoring the future" study since 1975. here's the latest version:

http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol1_2005.pdf (5 meg)

there is no html version of the pertinent data table, but if you look in the pdf file the data is in table 8-8 on pages 362-3

in response to the question: "If marijuana were legal to use and legally available, which of the following would you be most likely to do?"

the answer "try it" was the response of 8.2 percent of people in 1975. that figure declined to a low of 6.0 percent in 1981, and continued to rise steadily in the intervening years to a total of 10.6 percent in both 2003 and 2004.

thus, at most, 11 percent of people who have not yet used marijuana are waiting in the wings for it to be legal before they will try it.


and their data shows quite convincingly that even people who like to use drugs, simply do not find heroin attractive:

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/big-pic/heroin.htm

something tells me that legalizing heroin is unlikely to alter its usage patterns much.

[perdidochas]

brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: True, but on the other hand, we'd have a lot of ruined lives due to an increase in addicts. As I said, I think the net product of legalization would be zero. Some problems solved, others caused.

where are all these new "addicts" going to come from? do you think people are sitting around waiting for heroin to be legal so they can start spiking up?

here is the longitudinal data from the monitoring the future studies compared and contrasted in a variety of ways. you tell me how this mayhem of addiction is going to unfold given that hardly anyone who likes to use drugs is using the "dangerous" ones?

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/big-pic/index.htm

i see clear cut trends in drug use patterns: people don't like heroin, or meth, or pcp, or crack. so where are the legions of "addicts" going to come from?

People like me. I don't use pot because it is illegal. I've never even tried the stuff.


so if it were legal, you would use it? that question has been asked of high school seniors in the annual "monitoring the future" study since 1975. here's the latest version:

http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol1_2005.pdf (5 meg)

there is no html version of the pertinent data table, but if you look in the pdf file the data is in table 8-8 on pages 362-3

in response to the question: "If marijuana were legal to use and legally available, which of the following would you be most likely to do?"

the answer "try it" was the response of 8.2 percent of people in 1975. that figure declined to a low of 6.0 percent in 1981, and continued to rise steadily in the intervening years to a total of 10.6 percent in both 2003 and 2004.

thus, at most, 11 percent of people who have not yet used marijuana are waiting in the wings for it to be legal before they will try it.

another interesting piece of evidence regarding the impact of illegality on drug using behavior is provided by the numbers for alcohol use. i have them conveniently graphed out on my site already:

http://www.briancbennet.com/charts/nsduh/age21-percent.htm

the trend is for an average of 13% of people to wait until it is "legal" to drink, to do so.

this suggests that naked obedience to law is of importance to less than 15% of the population.

what do you suppose the numbers for heroin would be? think many people would use it simply because it became "legal" to do so?

opium probably -- but heroin???? no way.

perdidochas wrote:
A certain percentage of people like me are going to have addiction (whether psychological or physical) problems. I didn't say "legions" I said an increase.

people with addiction problems are mostly already addicted. it is more a property of desperation in the lives of its victims than in the properties of the drugs themselves.

if alcohol were truly the only drug in the world, meth heads would be alcoholics.

perdidochas wrote:
I don't see pot as any more benign (or less benign) than alcohol. You yourself said that alcohol causes a lot of problems. Would legal drugs, such as hallucinogens, cause any fewer problems?

pot is way more benign than alcohol. indeed, the vast majority of drugs are way more benign that alcohol.

as to the question of hallucinogens -- yes, hallucinogen use would absolutely cause fewer problems than the use of alcohol. indeed, until the feds prohibited doing so, there was a great deal of research that indicated hallucinogen use could be extremely effective in treating addictions such as alcoholism.

alcohol is simply one of the worst possible choices of intoxicant. our society would be well served by admitting that, and allowing people the opportunity to find the drugs that they find right for themselves.

Alcohol has a few good points. The main one is that, being water soluble, it clears the body quickly. The same can't be said of most other drugs. Anybody that demonizes alcohol the way you are is as foolish as the "reefer madness" people.

you have missed the point entirely.

p.s. -- nearly all intoxicants clear the body quickly. why do you think addicts need to keep getting another dose? the effects of very few intoxicants last more than 6 hours.

yes, but their byproducts can stick around for a while. Why else can pot use be picked up in the hair?

[brian bennett]

perdidochas wrote: yes, but their byproducts can stick around for a while. Why else can pot use be picked up in the hair?

the byproducts are not active -- they are what's left when the drug has been used up. all drugs can be picked up through hair testing -- hair grows, and if you had any drug metabolites in your system when the hair cells were developed, they can be trapped there and subsequently detected.

in no case does that indicate that a person is currently under the influence.

p.s. you are drifting farther and farther away from the topic at hand.

[perdidochas]

brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: yes, but their byproducts can stick around for a while. Why else can pot use be picked up in the hair?

the byproducts are not active -- they are what's left when the drug has been used up. all drugs can be picked up through hair testing -- hair grows, and if you had any drug metabolites in your system when the hair cells were developed, they can be trapped there and subsequently detected.

in no case does that indicate that a person is currently under the influence.

p.s. you are drifting farther and farther away from the topic at hand.

I've lost interest. I really don't care either way. I just don't like any side making outrageous claims about the other. Basically, you're attempting to defend drugs by demonizing alcohol. Your claims about the evils of alcohol are very similar to claims the "Reefer madness" people made about pot. In moderation, neither of them causes much problem.

[lovebush]

[quote="Norrin Radd"][
Quote: Even if drugs killed 50% of the people who used them, it would still be inconstitutional to ban them. The government's job is to protect people from others. It is NOT the government's job to protect us from ourselves .

Ive been thinking about the fact that there is no constitutional authority to ban drugs. I think if the courts ever did rule in your favor, the Congress would waist no time in passing a by-partisan amendment to the constitution giving themselves that power. the public would overwhelmingly support it and they would have no trouble getting it ratified by the states. I am as certain about that as I am about most anything . So the constitutional issue is really rather a mute point.

Quote: btw, I was hoping you might comment on some of my other points.

Do you agree that the war on drugs has created more victims than the drugs themselves cause?

That would would depend on how you define victim. I dont consider anyone who has been arrested and rightly convicted to be a victim.(that includes myself) I think there are going to be victims whether they are legal or not. I think the most unfortunate of all the victims are the children of the addicts especially the babies born addicted. I think that # would go up without prohibition.

I have tried to consider and comment on each of your points. please remind me if I missed any.