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If there was one illegal thing you would legalize...

Started by Cheka Man, April 22, 2010, 04:38:17 PM

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Will

Marijuana getting laced?  That doesn't make much sense.  And speaking of those dealers, do they really make up a large enough percentage of the population that they can affect the outcome of an election?
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

Oniya

Some people used to lace it with PCP - but as a whole, it's one of the drugs least likely to be tampered with.  (Unless you cut it with oregano or catnip, or something.)
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
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Will

It just doesn't make sense for a supplier to add other drugs to marijuana, and then sell it as if they hadn't done so.  You're taking a loss on whatever you added.

The only sources I can find that talk about marijuana being laced with PCP don't refer to it being sold that way to unknowing buyers, so I don't see how legalizing marijuana would fix it.
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

Oniya

To my knowledge, the dealers didn't market it as plain marijuana.  There are slang terms for it in '60s literature like 'superweed', and they probably did charge more.  They may or may not have disclosed what made it 'super', and that's where a casual user could run into problems.  It's like not telling people what's in the 'deluxe bridge mix'; you could run into someone who has a bad reaction to Ingredient X because they don't know that it's present.  Now, with legally available products, the FDA requires that the ingredients be available in some manner, so the dealer of hypothetical legal marijuana would have to put down 'marijuana with phencyclidine (0.1%)' or something like that. 
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Sandman02

My answer to this question is marijuana, 100%. And it's not because I want to freely smoke it - it's because drug busts are the number one reason why people are committed to lengthy jail/prison terms, and out penitentiary system has reached a breaking point in terms of overpopulation. Oh, and it will also help to defuse the frequent slayings in Mexico.

Stop people from being from be jailed for pot, you save money. Tax the legal sale of marijuana, you *raise* money. Everybody wins. Except for the Prison Lobby, who knowingly reap the rewards by committing an excess number of people to jail while never truly rehabilitating them (it's no surprise that this lobby sponsored the Arizona immigration law). The only way to truly to this right is to legalize pot nationally, however, not at a state by state basis.

AtlasEros

O/O

Bayushi

Quote from: Kate on December 25, 2010, 07:56:32 AMFair comments all.

Please though dont believe the US, or Australia (not sure about candana) trumpets true speech.

We do more than some countries... it doesnt mean its free.

Speech itself is not free - there are condictions an "else" imposes that puts regulation options on it brutally.

Why ?

Because it threatens a something, someone "else" with a vested interest it in being muted or deed "an else" can not manage with other means. An act of desparation from an "authority".

Claiming doing so puttting lives at risk.... makes me think one thing.

Why are lives at risk if a secret stops being secret ? Is their position or objective necessary ? Is their nature of operations right ? Justified ? True ? What my tax I want to be supporting ? What I voted for my tax to support ?

Many people who support the ideas you support (which are respectable on their own merits, ignoring real world implications) do not understand a very simple concept.

Words (speech) has consequences. Insult the school bully? Prepare to get your ass handed to you. Share secret military plans with the enemy? Soldiers die.

Your words (speech) will not always have consequences for yourself, but could possibly have consequences for others. As a Libertarian(ish) American, the concept is simple: Your rights end at the tip of my nose. You forfeit your right to do or say something when your actions or words cause harm to another.


On topic now...

If there was anything I'd "unban", it would be homosexual marriage. Yes, I'm a lesbian. But no, I have little-to-no interest in getting married.

My only issue with the states where it is allowed is that the voters said 'No', but an activist judge ruled 'Yes' by fiat, invalidating the will of the people.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Will on January 08, 2011, 07:20:30 PM
Marijuana getting laced?  That doesn't make much sense.  And speaking of those dealers, do they really make up a large enough percentage of the population that they can affect the outcome of an election?

I had a friend in high school who had some marijuana that had been laced with PCP. It was a terrible ride for him and he came out of that weekend a very different person. He was a language buff but after he got out of the hospital he just.. tuned out and never had any drive for any of the things he did with. (He was hurt pretty bad when he repeatedly slammed his head in a wall.)

AtlasEros

I'd make prostitution legal.  It would be a great way to rasie money.  If it were carefully gov regulated, it would be safe for the sex workers, decrease the spread of STDs, and be helpful to the mental state of people who weren't able to get sexual satisfaction otherwise; which is likely to decrease a good amount of other social problems.
O/O

Serephino

Yeah, I'd vote to legalize prostitution.  If I want to sell myself for money, it's nobody's business but mine.  It blows my mind that it's legal to be a porn star, but not a prostitute. 

AtlasEros

Quote from: Serephino on January 10, 2011, 09:43:22 PM
Yeah, I'd vote to legalize prostitution.  If I want to sell myself for money, it's nobody's business but mine.  It blows my mind that it's legal to be a porn star, but not a prostitute. 
I've used that point before when making this case.
O/O

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Serephino on January 10, 2011, 09:43:22 PM
Yeah, I'd vote to legalize prostitution.  If I want to sell myself for money, it's nobody's business but mine.  It blows my mind that it's legal to be a porn star, but not a prostitute. 
Oddly enough, though I have no moral issue with prostitution if it was regulated and legalized, I'd never made the cognitive jump between it and porn being legal.

Serephino

If you think about it, both prostitutes and porn stars are having sex for money.  The major differences are that a prostitute does it in a hotel room or the back of a car, and a porn star does it in a film studio in front of a camera crew and the producer. 

TheGlyphstone

Y'know, I think I've actually read about a court case or two where the defendent was charged with soliciting prostitution, but argued (can't remember if it was successful or not) that because he had filmed it, it counted as pornography instead.

AtlasEros

Quote from: Serephino on January 12, 2011, 09:02:22 PM
If you think about it, both prostitutes and porn stars are having sex for money.  The major differences are that a prostitute does it in a hotel room or the back of a car, and a porn star does it in a film studio in front of a camera crew and the producer. 
The biggest difference there is just safty, making it legal would make it so much safer.
O/O

Kira Kimaru

Legalize all drugs for several reasons.

1) Because the way things are now if you're caught with an illegal drug it will be on your record forever and you can't ever leave the country. This is a huge issue if it was a mistake of youth... Imagine in your youth did something stupid and are going to be paying for it for the rest of your life.

2) Eliminates a lot of income for the underground market.

3) So citizens who are doing the drugs can be safer. When you buy drugs illegally you don't know for sure what's in them, it could be laced with other drugs or chemicals or whatever. Either way it's not safe.

4) So it's easier to get treatment for those who are struggling with their addiction. (More openness will result in more people confessing and more treatments sold in every day pharmaceutical companies like what's going on with tobacco. )

Silverfyre

Quote from: Kira Kimaru on January 16, 2011, 11:55:51 AM

1) Because the way things are now if you're caught with an illegal drug it will be on your record forever and you can't ever leave the country. This is a huge issue if it was a mistake of youth... Imagine in your youth did something stupid and are going to be paying for it for the rest of your life.


I am curious what nation you live in where a drug conviction prevents you from leaving the country.  Or am I just blind to this?


TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Kira Kimaru on January 16, 2011, 11:55:51 AM
Legalize all drugs for several reasons.

1) Because the way things are now if you're caught with an illegal drug it will be on your record forever and you can't ever leave the country. This is a huge issue if it was a mistake of youth... Imagine in your youth did something stupid and are going to be paying for it for the rest of your life.

2) Eliminates a lot of income for the underground market.

3) So citizens who are doing the drugs can be safer. When you buy drugs illegally you don't know for sure what's in them, it could be laced with other drugs or chemicals or whatever. Either way it's not safe.

4) So it's easier to get treatment for those who are struggling with their addiction. (More openness will result in more people confessing and more treatments sold in every day pharmaceutical companies like what's going on with tobacco. )

All drugs might be overkill. Simple stuff like marijuana, sure, maybe even 'harder' drugs like heroin (someone mentioned that earlier). Stuff like crystal meth or crack cocaine will seriously screw a person up though - even on the first dose, and shouldn't be openly available.

Kira Kimaru

I live in canada and we have that law... if you have any charge on you, you can't leave the country...




As for the hard drugs well i guess your right but at the same time if we allowed it we could be able to have more research done on those hard drugs and try to make there effects less severe.

Star Safyre

Quote from: Kira Kimaru on January 16, 2011, 05:13:00 PM
As for the hard drugs well i guess your right but at the same time if we allowed it we could be able to have more research done on those hard drugs and try to make there effects less severe.

The lovely irony of that (at least in the US) is that all those up to and including marijuana are Schedule I substances.  Schedule I substances are considered by the government to have "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and it is further undisputed that the drug has at least some potential for abuse".  These drugs cannot be used for testing because of this, and because they cannot be tested, we cannot discover any medicinal value.  Yes, this is a Catch-22.



On-topic: I'd legalize nationwide emergency involuntary commitment.  It's ridiculous that authority figures and concerned family members cannot ensure the safety of their loved ones suffering from dangerous mental illnesses in times of emergency.  Knowing how often my own family has needed to invoke the Baker Act, I pale to think of what might have happened if in our greatest times of family crisis we had not had the ability to get them the help they needed but refused.
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Trieste

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on January 16, 2011, 03:10:48 PM
All drugs might be overkill. Simple stuff like marijuana, sure, maybe even 'harder' drugs like heroin (someone mentioned that earlier). Stuff like crystal meth or crack cocaine will seriously screw a person up though - even on the first dose, and shouldn't be openly available.

Not always.

I think it would be much more humane to implement something like a hostel system (or small clinics). You go in, and you pay for your drugs/stay. You are seen to by a nurse, or a CNA, or an otherwise trained professional, and shown to a small room similar to the napping rooms they have in airports. Said trained professional administers the drugs you've paid for - a single, nonlethal dose - and leave you in peace in the room to doze away your downer. Or you can head into a socializing area where you can party with others on uppers. Condoms are made easily accessible, as is the morning-after pill. If something goes wrong - if your heart stops, if you dehydrate yourself, if you start to hallucinate - there would be people there trained and ready to help. It would have a similar insurance plan or liability setup to a mental hospital or some such. In essence, it would be an outpatient facility.

I haven't sat down and thought of every detail. I'm sure that you could pretty easily punch holes in my quick sketch. However, it's worlds and worlds preferable to the current system where drug addiction is shameful, illegal, and a stigma that keeps you from getting the help you need. Considering most 'hard' drugs were criminalized due to propaganda in the first place, it's paternalistic and overbearing for them to remain illegal. I think they should be not only legalized, but sanctioned.

And there you have it.

mystictiger

Simple stuff like canabis?

You mean the stuff that gives you a statistically significant risk of increased lung-cancer and psychiatric complications? The study to support these conclusions was done on Danish Army conscripts. Best job ever.
Want a system game? I got system games!

Jude

I think a lot of drug abuse stems from the fact that using drugs is a rebellion in and of itself.  People who tend to not trust authority to begin with are largely the same people who take these potentially damaging substances, and I think that has something to do with the fact that they don't trust the medical and social establishment enough to believe that drugs have negative consequences that are as pronounced as is constantly claimed.  And there's a good reason they don't:  a lot of the information people are exposed to are outright lies (based on old cultural notions and bunk science that has since been discredited).  Marijuana is no where near as dangerous or harmful as authority figures constantly parrot to our youth, and the moment they try it for themselves and see, that the trust is broken.

I for one think it seems incredibly suspicious from the perspective of a child who is well versed in history that lots of substances that were legal not too long ago (cocaine for example was made illegal in 1970) and widely used are now regarded as instant death and addiction chemicals.  Add on top of that the fact that it is illegal to see for yourself if cocaine is as damaging as is often claimed, I think drug policy in the United States is practically conspiratorial from some perspectives (not my own, nor do I think this is true objectively, but I can see how some people may feel that way).

I really do believe that if we legalized drugs and told people the straight up truth about what happens with them the rate of use would probably climb for the safer substances, but the problem of the harder substances would largely solve itself.

EDIT: To Mystic's point, I don't disagree that Marijuana is harmful to one's health, but so is alcohol, and that's completely legal.  Overeating is harmful to one's health and the state of being overweight probably has negative psychological associations, that doesn't mean we should control behavior in those people.  I just don't see how a free society has any business controlling behaviors that do not hurt anyone but the individual partaking in them.

Serephino

Yes, alcohol is legal, and I've been told by some people that it's actually more harmful to your health than marijuana.  Whether or not that is true, I don't know.  I do know that alcohol is abused by many people, my own mother included.

Nicotine is also legal, and very addictive.  I don't smoke myself, but I know a lot of people who do, and I don't want to be around any of them when they're out of cigarettes. 

It just makes no sense to me.  Many of the arguments people use against other drugs can also be said about alcohol and nicotine. 


Silverfyre

Quote from: mystictiger on January 16, 2011, 08:33:35 PM
Simple stuff like canabis?

You mean the stuff that gives you a statistically significant risk of increased lung-cancer and psychiatric complications? The study to support these conclusions was done on Danish Army conscripts. Best job ever.

So kinda like cigarettes and nicotine, eh?  Yeah, nicotine addiction is just as devastating, yet they are perfectly legal.