The War on Drugs

[Lon]

Fact is, there is no war to be won. As long as there is a market for drugs, both illicit and legal, there will be profit to be made, and thus the war is not winnable. I don't know what the effect of legalizing and controlling presently popular drugs would be. It seems like it would reduce the huge profits that are made and curtail some of the violent crime. Whaddathink?

[Bryn Mawr]

Originally Posted by Lon

Fact is, there is no war to be won. As long as there is a market for drugs, both illicit and legal, there will be profit to be made, and thus the war is not winnable. I don't know what the effect of legalizing and controlling presently popular drugs would be. It seems like it would reduce the huge profits that are made and curtail some of the violent crime. Whaddathink?

Education before prohibition every time

[spot]

Lon, you have a prior example of legalizing what was previously an illegal drug when Prohibition was lifted on alcohol. Alcohol kills more people than all the illegal drugs added together but it was still considered less harmful to society to take its distribution out of the hands of criminals. Isn't that the same issue that's at stake today? The criminality? There's no criminality associated now with the production or distribution of alcohol other than that associated with tax avoidance which happens in any area of trade, it's not drug-specific. The profits have been brought inside the tax system and declared legitimate, they're part of pension funds just like any other enterprise.

[flopstock]

The war on drugs cannot be won. Young folks are into recreational drug usage.. folks my age think they are above any of those labels they apply to kids, simply because their drugs of choice are of the prescription variety.

And it seems that everyone is taking something for something... if they aren't we usually wish they were..

[spot]

Originally Posted by Galbally

I would consider it won, when as a general cultural rule human beings don't feel the need en masse to view reality through the prism of drink, or coke, or dope or any other recreational drug. However, human beings being weak, foolish, and easily deluded by their own desires will continue to do all these things. So I don't see there ever being a situation where people won't feel the need to get off their heads to be themselves. Sad.

Its an interesting question, but I suppose slightly to one side. What effect would you say it has had that many of the traders, bankers, hedge funders, and other financials are mostly young arrogant men, coked out of their brains most weekends, with as much easy money, sex with numerous young women, drugs and endless opportunities to misbehave (and be lauded for their machismo) had on their totally irresponsible attitude to what they were actually doing with other people's money?

Its a strange time, when all the rock stars are timid vegitarian middle aged men, and the bankers are totally irresponsible, young, crazy drug-fuelled hedonists.

That doesn't really address the War on Drugs though, does it. A general cultural rule of human beings rejecting en masse a view of reality through the prism of drugs includes tobacco and alcohol before anything else, they're the most powerful of the drugs in my opinion. Tobacco's the most addictive, alcohol's the most lethal. There might be exceptions like crack but, let's face it, if there's a shop-ful of legal drugs to be selected from what idiot's going to choose crack? People choose crack when nothing else is on offer when they go out to score and the dealers know they've a monopoly for the night.

On a broader front I'd agree with you, educate people off their dependencies. And I'd start with the lethal ones which happen to be the legal ones at the moment anyway.

[Grizzled_Bear]

Tobacco's the most addictive, alcohol's the most lethal.

I think that this is only true because of their commonality. In much the same way that sparklers are the most dangerous firework and swimming pools accidentally kill more children than handguns.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Grizzled_Bear

I think that this is only true because of their commonality. In much the same way that sparklers are the most dangerous firework and swimming pools accidentally kill more children than handguns.

I'm speaking of individuals, not of total incidents. Minds become addicted to all sorts of things. Opiates can addict certain personalities in certain circumstances. When the circumstances change the addiction's not there - addiction is a psychological dependency, the chemical aspect of it is far less powerful. Anyone can walk away from mere chemical addiction so long as they're not using the drug as an emotional crutch.

Nicotine is as chemical a grip as it gets - other than, as I mentioned earlier, crack, so I'm told. I've never tried crack so I don't know personally. I know quite a bit about emotional and chemical dependence first hand though. The roughest thing I'd face getting off is caffeine and that's purely chemical and not emotional, I get blinding headaches within a day if I go cold turkey, it's far worse than any other addiction I've handled. Similarly, alcohol addiction is shockingly powerful once the body reaches that stage with it, far far worse than mere heroin.

[Lon]

Originally Posted by spot

That doesn't really address the War on Drugs though, does it. A general cultural rule of human beings rejecting en masse a view of reality through the prism of drugs includes tobacco and alcohol before anything else, they're the most powerful of the drugs in my opinion. Tobacco's the most addictive, alcohol's the most lethal. There might be exceptions like crack but, let's face it, if there's a shop-ful of legal drugs to be selected from what idiot's going to choose crack? People choose crack when nothing else is on offer when they go out to score and the dealers know they've a monopoly for the night.

On a broader front I'd agree with you, educate people off their dependencies. And I'd start with the lethal ones which happen to be the legal ones at the moment anyway.

I'd like to pursue this legal/lethal drug thing. Many folks take daily maintenance shots of one kind or another to stay alive and yet many of those drugs can be lethal.
Prescription sleep meds are used extensivley and many people are hooked
big time. I have had chronic sleep problems for years and have been the sleep clinic route and tried all the proposed sleep aids and cures. I limit myself to three pills a month so I can at least look forward to three nights of decent sleep. It's damn tempting to want to do it more often. The problem is that it would take increasing amounts to get the same benefit, and then, I don't like the idea of potential addiction.

Speaking of educating people as to drug usage---------right now, given the plethora of TV ads for one drug or another to solve all erectile, bowel, bladder, anal, oral, optical, mental, vascular, coronary, skeletal problems, the education is championing drug usage. It's no wonder there is a problem.

[Galbally]

Originally Posted by spot

That doesn't really address the War on Drugs though, does it. A general cultural rule of human beings rejecting en masse a view of reality through the prism of drugs includes tobacco and alcohol before anything else, they're the most powerful of the drugs in my opinion. Tobacco's the most addictive, alcohol's the most lethal. There might be exceptions like crack but, let's face it, if there's a shop-ful of legal drugs to be selected from what idiot's going to choose crack? People choose crack when nothing else is on offer when they go out to score and the dealers know they've a monopoly for the night.

On a broader front I'd agree with you, educate people off their dependencies. And I'd start with the lethal ones which happen to be the legal ones at the moment anyway.

You wish to adopt the permissive approach to taking currently illegal drugs, and I understand that argument well, and I symapthize with it, however, it won't solve the misery that is involved in being dependent on any mind altering substance. What it will do is take away some of the economic power of criminal gangs, but it won't stop people making a personal descison to regularly take drugs, far from it.

In my country right now (and for as long as I can remember), the the number one issue in society is alcohol abuse, its crippling us if you ask me. We have one of the highest male suicide rates in the developed world, we have one of the highest rates of domestic violence, our towns become battlegrounds every weekend night, young people are destroying their lives literally and figuratively through massive substance abuse. We have recently removed most of the rules regarding the sale of alcohol, and the result has been an explosion in alcohol spending and consumption and everything that comes with it.

The response to these issues, which essentially centre around concepts of self-respect and self-restraint seems to be to remove the remaining socially imposed restraints, leave it all up to individual choice (a bit like global finance) and hope an educational pep talk will somehow counter the massive cultural pressure people are under to consume drink and drugs and have sex, being barked at them through all the forms of cultural media we posses. To give into this agenda of allowing our populations the right to escape into a dreamworld of drinking, hedonism, drugs, shopping, and sex is a council of despair is you ask me, and indicative of our almost total moral bankruptcy.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Galbally

You wish to adopt the permissive approach to taking currently illegal drugs, and I understand that argument well, and I symapthize with it, however, it won't solve the misery that is involved in being dependent on any mind altering substance. What it will do is take away some of the economic power of criminal gangs, but it won't stop people making a personal descison to regularly take drugs, far from it.

I agree with you absolutely. I do think, though, that the War on Drugs is an immensely negative movement. It empowers criminals - huge numbers of criminals and immense empowerment, none of which exists in (for example) the tobacco or alcohol industries which distribute their profits to legal shareholders and government tax duties. These are criminal profits on the scale of national GDPs, the cartels involved are bigger than some multinationals as far as their annual profit goes. I agree that legalizing the drugs has no effect whatever on people's personal decision to take them or not, but I suggest that's a matter more easily handled once the criminalization of their source is removed and the underground nature of their addiction.