re: Why are drugs and prostitution illegal?

quote:

---

Yea and cars kill more people that heroin, but thats a function of how many people use cars.

---

that's the point. it's social acceptance (which is declining, and so is cigarette use). that exciting, taboo nature of drugs (due to the illegality) makes it appealing, ESPECIALLY to younger kids in their rebellious stage. i understand what you're saying, but as a person who has been around drugs a great deal for over half his life, i believe if we had a real discussion/view on drugs that removed this taboo, you'd see fewer addicts.

quote:

---

i think it's something like 95% of people who have used heroin don't get addicted. it's really high

---

No. It's way higher than that

quote:

---

It is estimated that about 23 percent of individuals who use heroin become dependent on it.

---

I know people that have tried and said they didn't like it but they simply stick to other drugs so they are addicted to something just not Heroin. IMO, you have to be an addict to even want to try that nasty shite.

Would you be for decriminalizing the use and possession of all drugs and aggressively targeting actual drug dealers?

quote:

---

I never said that doesn't happen but why would you be for increasing the amount of dangers that are out there?

---

I believe in freedom, personal responsibility, and non-governmental involvement in my private life until i affect another person. Not before.

I also believe legalizing drugs would overall decrease the amount of danger out there. Just legalizing alcohol curbed the danger associated with it. Like criminal empires built on bootlegging.

quote:

---

You already run the risk of drunk drivers at night getting loaded at a bar and driving home. Do you really want to double that up?

---

You currently already run the risk of people on all kinds of drugs. And doubling it up? There is a 0% possibility that if you legalized drugs suddenly a large swath of the population would start mainlining crack and heroin and driving around.

quote:

---

I am not for endangering innocent people so Johnny can get his quick fix.

---

People are already endangered.

quote:

---

You can't act like the drugs didn't have any hand in altering their mental state.

---

Homeless people and mental patients who commit crimes did not do so because of drugs. They may have been on drugs, but the drugs did not do those things.

quote:

---

t's very easy to argue that an incident may not have happened if the person wasn't on drugs.

---

I don't know how easy that is.

quote:

---

that exciting, taboo nature of drugs (due to the illegality) makes it appealing, ESPECIALLY to younger kids in their rebellious stage.

---

I agree.

Also, because they are illegal, the only way to get them is by going through a criminal. Which leads to other problems.

Back when i was in college, if you went to buy some pot, that guy that sold it to you had to get it from a bigger fish.

That big fish got from bigger fish. And because of that, he was also into other drugs, and so those drugs trickle back down the line.

And because they are illegal, those who do them, are forced to hang out with others who do them and ovoid people who don't. Which only ensures they are around other drugs more often.

quote:

---

and I have always heard its one of the few drugs that first time users can get addicted to

---

opiates are really easy to get addicted to. i will bet the number of families "destroyed" by opiate usage is dominated by those who were initially legally prescribed opiate usage...probably by a rate of 100:1 (if not more)

i'm not dismissing the dangers of opiates

i'm saying how we view drugs as a society leads to both the rebelling addict AND the ignorant addict via prescription

people don't realize what they're getting into on either account because we preach ignorance about drugs. the illegality of the drugs and our views via the WOD are major factors in this.

addiction is a really weird thing. it differs by person (both in genesis, cause, and form) a great deal and has biological, mental, psychological, and physiological components. we're still very ignorant to it, and that is largely due to our culture of abstaining

quote:

---

Think to yourself, what is a politician's job? It is to get reelected. That is how a politician's success is measured. This is the flaw of democracy.

---

First of all we are a republic. A democracy is a vote by the people. We elect representatives to vote for us.

Second of all, this is why i am firmly a believer in mandatory term limits for all political offices. No one should hold the same political office for more than a decade for any reason.

Political office is supposed to be a civil duty and service to the country not a career path.

The trend of political office as a career is the root of many of our issues.

You have people who have never run a business or held an actual job or had any experience in the medical field writing legislation that regulated businesses and the medical industry.

It's insane.

quote:

---

addiction is a really weird thing. it differs by person (both in genesis, cause, and form) a great deal and has biological, mental, psychological, and physiological components. we're still very ignorant to it, and that is largely due to our culture of abstaining

---

This is a huge problem. We can't treat it because we don't fully understand it.

I think the war on drugs should be shifted to treating and research vs just throwing people into jail but that will never happen because cops would be out of jobs and jails would lose money.

Privatizing jails will only make it even more impossible to end the war on drugs.

quote:

---

Come one, man. You can't act like the drugs didn't have any hand in altering their mental state. That's exactly what drugs do in fact and it's very easy to argue that an incident may not have happened if the person wasn't on drugs.

---

I watched a NatGeo documentary the other night about meth. This it was one of those "Drugs Inc". They were talking to this neurosurgeon or scientist who's studied the affects of meth on the mind. Two of the main things she found was that prolonged use of meth damages the dopeamine receptors in the brain which is why addicts need ever increasing amounts of the drug to just feel like living. The other thing she has found in her studies it meth users over time damage the part of their brain that governs impulse control. Basically, the longer a person uses meth, the less control over their actions they have. They become more apt to commit crimes or harm themselves or others as this condition worsens. They also said in this show that in many areas where meth use is high, something like 60% of the people arrested are testing positive for meth.

I think for just this reason alone, because it makes a person far more likely to commit crime, meth should never be made legal.

Since abstinence clearly doesn't work for sex, why would it for drugs? I never thought about it that way.

Eta: this sort of goes along with my belief that the vilification of pot results in kids developing drug problems when they discover smoking weed isn't a big deal.