Where Do You Draw The Line On Drug Legality?

[riser4]

Money makes the world go round. It always has and always will.

And we should be doing everything in our power to change that.

[Dantheman]

I believe the distinction needs to lie in what drugs are more likely to make a person react violently toward others. I don't mean by way of simply driving while intoxicated, since that is already quite illegal in every capacity. Whereas alcohol, weed, and even some of the hard stuff can alter ones behavior to a certain extent, there is quite a difference in how one reacts to say, Bath Salts. That stuff's screwed up and can too often cause a person to react with violence.

Shit like bath salts and spice would cease to exist if the regular drugs people really wanted were legal. Also, of all the drugs that increase the probability of violence toward others alcohol is #1 by far.

Why can't these things be decided based on facts?

It's cheaper to put chronic homeless people up in cheap apartments than it is to care for them on the streets.

They go to the ER less. They commit less petty crimes. They aren't pissing in the street, scaring the citizens, pooping in the parks or angering business owners.

They have better access to mental health treatment, medical care. Stability allows some to even improve their lives, hold down jobs, etc etc..

And it costs less money!

Why are we so stuck on punishment... or worried about someone getting something for free?

It fucking sucks to be homeless. It fucking sucks to be an addict. Those people have terrible lives. Nobody just chooses to be that.

So why can't we make policy.. drug policy, social service policy based on what has been proven.. evidence based, like look at the success the heroin clinics have had in Europe for example...

Why are we so stuck in this pseudo-Christian punishment mode?

What is best for society is for the majority to be productive members of society. Let's work on that instead of focusing on the failures of people born with the deck stacked against them...

Ohh and fuck you skicougar.

Because this is America, where everyone can be a Fortune 500 CEO and if you are poor, homeless or an addict it's solely the result of your own shitty life choices. The only righteous path for you to improve your lot in life is to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and not be a sad little leech begging for help. Helping you would only reinforce your dependence and sense of victimhood. Unless your parents are billionaires, in which case it is your birthright to inherit the entirety of their wealth and live a life of leisure and luxury without ever having to work a day in your life.

I kid. Great post, probably your best ever. What really kills me is that we don't apply the warped addict logic to other preventable medical conditions. Yes, someone addicted to heroin made some bad choices in their life. So what? Someone with Type 2 diabetes made some pretty shitty lifestyle choices too, but if they refuse to change their lifestyle we don't refuse to provide them with necessary medical care. Using Drug War logic, insulin and blood sugar test kits should be illegal and possession of them should carry lengthy minimum sentences in Federal prison.

And yes, fuck SkiCouger.

[::: :::]

of all the drugs that increase the probability of violence toward others alcohol is #1 by far

i've heard people say this before
but i haven't seen anything substantive to back it up
you got a link?

[Ski to Be]

This country is really messed up when it comes to drugs (guns too but thats another story) . Like everything else in the USA it is driven by money. My wife who was feeling sad after her mother died was put on anti depressants by a nurse that failed to inform her how addictive they are and was on them for years. I was really pissed that they would loosely prescribe strong meds because she was crying that day (Normal for losing a parent to illness). Fast forward 15 years and I happened to take home some of the space chocolates(cannibis edibles) from the BBI17 last year and she loved it. I don't really drink much or do drugs so we have never had anything like that around the house. So I started buying her edibles and she has completely weened herself off of her anti anxiety sleeping pills and anti depressants and I am thrilled. She takes them at bedtime and some nights not at all. One in six Americans are on antidepressants and pharmaceutical companies probably push doctors to prescribe them. It sucks that we can't travel to other states where she can take her edibles legally. They legalized all drugs in Portugal a while back and drug usage has fallen across the board. I was listening to an interview with Dr. Drew who started as an MD and he was saying that 15 years ago doctors were being sued for causing too much pain and suffering in their patients and were pressured to prescribe opioids and here we are now. He said that some of his patients on Celebrity Rehab had gotten completely clean for months and sometimes longer only go to another doctors office for some sort of pain meds and would get hooked and would be dead within a week. I think it costs $75k a year to keep someone in jail and to put people in prison for marijuana on my dime as a tax payer really pisses me off.

[MontuckyFried]

While I'm not entirely sure how I'd feel about applying their model to our nation since I maintain that every country is unique and thus requires unique approaches to just about everything, but Portugal is a VERY fascinating case study in regard to their handling of drugs.

The drug stats across Europe are really interesting and WILDLY all over the place in regard to the impacts of their various drug laws let alone the roots of their various drug abuses, so its tough to say that what works for this country will work for that country. Still, Portugal's approach is definitely worth seriously examining.

[JimmyCarter]

So why can't we make policy.. drug policy, social service policy based on what has been proven.. evidence based, like look at the success the heroin clinics have had in Europe for example...

Why are we so stuck in this pseudo-Christian punishment mode?

Because we're a country full of pseudo-Christians.

[MontuckyFried]

Shit like bath salts and spice would cease to exist if the regular drugs people really wanted were legal. Also, of all the drugs that increase the probability of violence toward others alcohol is #1 by far.

i've heard people say this before
but i haven't seen anything substantive to back it up
you got a link?

Well, I've seen enough bar fights to say this is likely true. The difference between alcohol and something like bath salts though, is that alcohol lowers inhibitions and thus revealing a person's inner man or current feelings. So if a person is by nature a figher, but societal norms tend to keep him in check, when that person gets drunk, the fighter comes out. If a person is happy-go-lucky by nature, then that tends to get amplified. Same with a depressed person (the WORST to drink with).

Whereas some drugs will ALTER the mindset entirely, like that psycho in Miami for example. Remember the whole "cannibal" zombie attack?

Still. For every bath salts incident, there are probably thousands of alcohol related attacks. Again, it's that inner-man that comes out raging and that is never cool.

What about taking health into account? Hard to say this without being hypocritical since alcohol and tobacco cause a myriad of long term health issues and already cost our system a fortune, BUT I think the brain and other physical damage from some of the gnarlier stuff like meth happens WAY, WAY, WAY quicker and far worse.

This whole topic is a really good one. It's tough to definitively draw a line on drug legality. That's perhaps why my stance is on blanket decriminalization. Offering health and human services to those who need it. Probably cheaper and more helpful in the long run when you can nip something in the bud before catching somebody on the tail end of long term abuse where they're REALLY screwed. Seems more likely that someone will reach out for or even accept help if they're not as scared of getting in trouble. I don't know, though.

[Art Shirk]

We need a test to know if you are stoned now, not if you were stoned sometime last week. Without that there is no way to enforce rules against driving/operating stoned.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using TGR Forums mobile app

Put Chicken in a Biskit in the lunchroom. That'll weed them out.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

While I'm not entirely sure how I'd feel about applying their model to our nation since I maintain that every country is unique and thus requires unique approaches to just about everything,

This kind of thinking is the problem. There are some cultural differences but human nature is the same everywhere. American exceptionalism is bullshit. Every time a logical and humane solution is proffered one group of people shrieks, "That'll never work here!"

[Dantheman]

i've heard people say this before
but i haven't seen anything substantive to back it up
you got a link?

https://www.nap.edu/read/4421/chapter/5

"Alcohol is the drug that is most prevalent in individuals committing violence and those who are victims of violence. This association applies to various types of violent behavior and aggressive tendencies. Experimental studies have repeatedly demonstrated that alcohol causes an increase in aggressive behavior, in both animals and humans. Despite its apparent limitations, laboratory research represents the primary avenue to delineate the causative relationship among alcohol, aggression, and violence.

Alcohol's action on the brain mechanisms for aggressive behavior is modulated by genetic predispositions, learned expectations, social restraints, and cultural habits. Recent progress in understanding the actions of alcohol on brain serotonin and GABA systems may eventually offer diagnostic tools for individuals at risk and therapeutic options for intervention.

The violence associated with cocaine-crack is substantially different in nature and context from the aggression-enhancing effects of alcohol. Violent behavior under the influence of amphetamines, cocaine, LSD, and PCP is rare in the general population, but is considerably more likely in those individuals whose psychopathology predates the drug use. Significantly, most of the violence associated with cocaine and narcotic drugs results from the business of supplying, dealing, and acquiring these substances, not from the direct neurobiologic actions of these drugs.

We need to identify those individuals in whom either alcohol, opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, PCP, LSD, or other hallucinogens promote violent and aggressive behavior by attending to the precise pharmacologic conditions at the time of the violent act; the individual's physiologic conditions; the genetic, developmental, and social background; and the prevailing social conditions. Clearly, alcohol and other drugs of abuse differ markedly from each other in terms of pharmacology and neurobiologic mechanisms, dependence liability, legal and social restraints, expectations, and cultural traditions; no general and unifying principle applies to all of these substances. It should not be surprising that the conditions that promote violence in individuals under the influence of alcohol cannot be simply extrapolated to cocaine-crack or to narcotic drugs. Rational intervention strategies need to be based on an adequate understanding of the specific circumstances, individuals, and pharmacologic conditions that are implicated in any specific type of violent act."

BUT I think the brain and other physical damage from some of the gnarlier stuff like meth happens WAY, WAY, WAY quicker and far worse.

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.o...d-20140218.pdf

"Evidence presented in this report suggests that illicit ATS use, primarily methamphetamine use, has become the new crack cocaine with respect to sensational media reporting about the extent of ATS use and hyperbolic description of the disastrous consequences of methamphetamine addiction. It has taken nearly three decades for the public to come to a superficial understanding that the deleterious effects of crack cocaine were greatly exaggerated in mass media and government statements. The monetary and human costs of our earlier misunderstandings about crack cocaine are incalculable. Today, unfortunately, much of the public information about methamphetamine has little foundation in evidence. Overblown worst case anecdotes are usually disseminated uncritically by the popular press and accepted as sound evidence by an undiscerning public."

[MontuckyFried]

This kind of thinking is the problem. There are some cultural differences but human nature is the same everywhere. American exceptionalism is bullshit. Every time a logical and humane solution is proffered one group of people shrieks, "That'll never work here!"

I never said it wouldn't work here. I just don't know enough about them (or even our OWN drug issues) to know entirely how to feel or what's necessarily what's right or what's wrong. I still maintain that we can't always say what works there will work here or vice versa. I understand that human nature is human nature, but there is more to it all than simply that.

Again, not saying their model couldn't work. Hell, I said that we SHOULD be examining what they're doing. Think, man. Think.

[dunfree]

Drugs, Homelessness, Welfare and Guns. All 4 intimately related to the need for better access to and more affordable mental health care in the US.

[old goat]

Why can't these things be decided based on facts?

It's cheaper to put chronic homeless people up in cheap apartments than it is to care for them on the streets.

They go to the ER less. They commit less petty crimes. They aren't pissing in the street, scaring the citizens, pooping in the parks or angering business owners.

They have better access to mental health treatment, medical care. Stability allows some to even improve their lives, hold down jobs, etc etc..

And it costs less money!

Why are we so stuck on punishment... or worried about someone getting something for free?

It fucking sucks to be homeless. It fucking sucks to be an addict. Those people have terrible lives. Nobody just chooses to be that.

So why can't we make policy.. drug policy, social service policy based on what has been proven.. evidence based, like look at the success the heroin clinics have had in Europe for example...

Why are we so stuck in this pseudo-Christian punishment mode?

What is best for society is for the majority to be productive members of society. Let's work on that instead of focusing on the failures of people born with the deck stacked against them...

Ohh and fuck you skicougar.

Because the oligarchs have us busy fighting each other--white vs everyone else, rural vs urban, men vs women, natives vs immigrants, conservatives vs liberals, working class vs unemployed and homeless poor--so they and their stooges in politics can steal the little they haven't stolen already while we aren't looking. But you already knew that.

[zartagen]

Put Chicken in a Biskit in the lunchroom. That'll weed them out.

Why not cheez-its?

[mtngirl79]

Drugs, Homelessness, Welfare and Guns. All 4 intimately related to the need for better access to and more affordable mental health care in the US.

The issue is actually poverty.

imagine if that 30-70k a year per person that is spent on keeping mostly minorities in prison for mostly drug and other minor offenses was spent on breaking the cycle of poverty?

We need to invest in women and children.

Housing, education and livable wage jobs.

[old goat]

The issue is actually poverty.

imagine if that 30-70k a year per person that is spent on keeping mostly minorities in prison for mostly drug and other minor offenses was spent on breaking the cycle of poverty?

We need to invest in women and children.

Housing, education and livable wage jobs.

Not possible until we dramatically slash the defense budget. So said DDE and it's still true.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron"

[splat]

Here's a line that needs drawn.....

The pharmaceuticals weren’t working. The 15-year-old boy was having several seizures per day, and his parents were concerned his life was in danger. So Suzeanna and Matthew Brill, of Macon, Ga., decided in February to let their son try smoking marijuana — and his seizures stopped for 71 days, they say. The Brills’ decision led to the boy, David, being taken away from his parents, who face possible fines and jail time after being charged with reckless conduct for giving him the drug.

David has now been in a group home for 30 days, and his seizures have returned. He is separated from the service dog that sniffed out his seizures, and he is able to communicate with his parents only during short visitations and phone calls. They maintain they made the right decision for their son’s health, despite their current predicament.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/u...-article-click

[Harry]

^^^ that is so fucked up...

[riser4]

I am sick of all the fucking TV ads for drugs. Movantic especially.

[liv2ski]

Here's a line that needs drawn.....

The pharmaceuticals weren’t working. The 15-year-old boy was having several seizures per day, and his parents were concerned his life was in danger. So Suzeanna and Matthew Brill, of Macon, Ga., decided in February to let their son try smoking marijuana — and his seizures stopped for 71 days, they say. The Brills’ decision led to the boy, David, being taken away from his parents, who face possible fines and jail time after being charged with reckless conduct for giving him the drug.

David has now been in a group home for 30 days, and his seizures have returned. He is separated from the service dog that sniffed out his seizures, and he is able to communicate with his parents only during short visitations and phone calls. They maintain they made the right decision for their son’s health, despite their current predicament.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/u...-article-click

It's the fucking South Splat. I am shocked the parents aren't in prison. And Old Goat, I thought I was the only one saying what your last two posts stated.

[SkiCougar]

seemed appropriate post for this thread and a predictable outcome given that drug use, legal and illegal; becomes more acceptable every day.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-c...s-than-alcohol

"More Drivers Killed Under the Influence of Drugs Than Alcohol"

[jackstraw]

seemed appropriate post for this thread and a predictable outcome given that drug use, legal and illegal; becomes more acceptable every day.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-c...s-than-alcohol

"More Drivers Killed Under the Influence of Drugs Than Alcohol"

Classic article full of facts. Click bait.

[wooley12]

I KNEW that driving drunk wasn't that dangerous.

[jackstraw]

^More factoids without details.

How high or high at all were any of these people at the time of accident?

[SumJongGuy]

Since anyone over 18 with no felonies cal legally buy a gun, take it home, and blow their brains out leaving a wake of despair among their family and friends, why not allow them to buy heroin or whatever else might be harmful to them?