Drugs: A moral decision, a matter of choice, or a national health risk?

[MusicLovingAtheist]

I was in a secular community called secular sevens on a website called bungie.net that developed the Halo series for Xbox. It seemed like everyone in that community was supportive of complete legalization of all drugs, because "a person should have control over what they put in their body", as they say. I was just reading an interview with an artist called Brethren, an extremely racist and antisemitic power electronics artist who makes music I like. I don't agree with a lot of the things he said in this interview [click for the interview]. Obviously this guy's political views are messed up, if you actually feel like reading it (which I don't expect you to). He briefly touch on the issue of drugs, saying that it's a moral issue and that the government should butt out (if you ctrl-f the word moral you might find that part of the interview).

I am for the legalization of marijuana and that's it. I have heard from so many people that marijuana has very little harmful effects and actually can help cancer patients and has other great stress relieving effects. It seems like a strange drug to be trying to criminalize. I have been told that the drug is criminalized as an artificial crime to help give money to the government and prisons. I have no idea, but artificial crime sounds like bullshit if that's the case.

My personal reason for being against legalization of drugs is because I don't want to live in a world with junkies. Imagine how bad poor neighborhoods are now. Now imagine them with everyone out of their mind on drugs. How scary would it be if we lived in a world with violent psychotic people with impaired cognitive ability? There are so many negative health effects for using drugs. I looked up some effects of a drug on arrowid called DXM. There was a gigantic list of side effects for that drug. Drugs are addictive, dangerous to health, can cause permanent brain damage and schizophrenia; there are so many health risks for drugs, it would take an encyclopedia to list them all. I think it's more of a matter of health than it is morality. Maybe some people have religious reasons for not doing drugs (you can have a faith reason for doing anything). My positions I hold are not unchangeable. I just need someone to give me a good persuasive argument to change my mind (if such an argument exists).

[CapnAwesome]

I used to be a hardcore libertarian who believed that all drugs should be legal. Now I'm torn on the issue largely for the reasons that you say and because of the nations Meth problem. I'm not really sure that many of the libertarianesqe arguments make sense. Keeping drugs illegal definitely reduces the use and some of the effects of Meth and other hard drugs are not just harmful to the individual but harmful really to everyone. It's not just a matter of individual choice. I agree that we should all have the right to put what we want in our body but the next time you are in a major city and some crazy homeless person who's brain has been addled with meth gets in your face or steals some of your shit, you just can't say that the only effect is on that person.

However that's only what one side of my brain tells me. The other says that the only real way to end the drug war, which quite possibly is even worse for society than drug use, is to legalize drugs. So I don't know. I guess count me as an agnostic on this issue.

[ShaMan]

All medicinal plants should be legal. Any plant that helps a person or community achieve a measure of balance, health, and healing, and is offered in its natural state, should remain available for people to choose for themselves whether or not it is beneficial to consume.

(Images are hidden for space consideration)

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Cannabis

Peyote

Coffee

Cocoa

Coca

Ayahuasca (3 plant recipe)

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There are sooooo many more

[Jackalope]

I don't know about complete legalization. However, putting addicts in prison for simple possession is a disservice to society. From that angle, we sought to treat addiction as a public health issue rather than a legal one.

I am definitely in favor of full legalization of cannabis - and live where it happens to be so. It remains to be seen what happens in the long term, but so far, it does not appear to negatively impact society.

[MusicLovingAtheist]

I don't know about complete legalization. However, putting addicts in prison for simple possession is a disservice to society. From that angle, we sought to treat addiction as a public health issue rather than a legal one.

I am definitely in favor of full legalization of cannabis - and live where it happens to be so. It remains to be seen what happens in the long term, but so far, it does not appear to negatively impact society.

I think that putting addicts in prison is wrong. We should prosecute the people who sell the drugs. The people who are addicted to them should be sent to rehabilitation clinics. I think that to a degree, there has to be punishment as a deterrent for some things. If someone committed a crime and you sent them on a retreat, everyone would commit crimes. So that may be the purpose for deterring people from committing crimes. I personally don't go out and try to find a weed dealer because I don't want to get arrested by a NARC or something and ruin my life with a criminal record.

I have a councillor that used to work as a prison councillor. She said that there's some prisons that try to teach the guards empathy that deal with the prisons because prison is really just one big mental institution. The problem specifically with addicts is that they need the drugs in order to prevent withdraw. So the fact that we criminalize these people seems wrong to me. Perhaps we should pink slip them to rehabilitation institutions instead of prison. Trust me, mental health institutions are not fun what so ever. I even heard some people say that it's worse than prison when I was in one. If it benefits the person in a more positive way than prison does then perhaps rehabilitation would be a better alternative than prison.

[The Grand Nudger]

@ the thread title

-All of the above?

[MusicLovingAtheist]

@ the thread title

-All of the above?

Smart ass. Did you read the OP?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, but I don't think that I can really separate all of the options listed from any given drug. Drug use of any kind (like eating - anything) can be approached as a public health issue either directly or in a roundabout way. Plenty of things are a matter of "choice" - but not all choices are equal - and just about anything can be said to contain a component of a moral decision.

Speaking -strictly- to marijuana. Whether or not it;s a moral decision (in my estimation) largely concerns where you source your ganja from. Feeding criminal organizations or producers with no health and human safety standards is immoral (imo criminal organizations anyway - so maybe a bit redundant). It's a choice regarding whether or not you want to smoke it, and where you get it if you -do- smoke it.....but just calling it a choice wouldn't give free license to anyone for making -any given choice-. Finally, tied to it production, post harvest handling, and intended use or circumstances of it's use it's as much a health hazard as chocolate could be at the least - and at the worst, as much as any intoxicative inhalant -could be-.

I doubt that any single argument will give you the knockdown power you required to change anyones mind - no matter where their starting position is - and if a person did refer to any simplification of the entire spectrum of possible arguments I'd call their position very poorly thought out indeed.

I'm for legalization, btw, for "reasons"...lol- but even under my position some use, some production methods, some handling, some operational structures would be either immoral or illegal -even if they were all "choices" that we made -same as any agricultural commodity.

[MusicLovingAtheist]

I removed this post

[Jackalope]

I think that to a degree, there has to be punishment as a deterrent for some things. If someone committed a crime and you sent them on a retreat, everyone would commit crimes. So that may be the purpose for deterring people from committing crimes.

I don't know - the simple fact that we have prisons bursting at the seams with drug users suggests to me that in general, illegality is a poor deterrent.