America's War on Drugs

[thesummerqueen]

I want to take this step by step. These are all Kilic's quotes, unless otherwise indicated.

People who want to speak of heavy taxation and revenues for the government from the drug money are fools, who put short term "benefits" without thinking of long term damages, like true capitalists.
Drugs have been fought in many countries before the US war on drug was fought. China, with it's multitude of people was struck by opium, which led the government to seize opium and destroy en masse, while the imperialist Britain sought to re-establish this lucrative trade.

I'm sure if marijuana sale(and with it, sales of harder drugs will follow) and production is made legal, I'm sure we'll see a lot more opium wars in the future.

This doesn’t follow: having a government GET money from drugs does not produce the same results as a government trying to destroy drugs. China sought to destroy opium, creating a black market niche that Britain filled. In a (hopefully) more enlightened age, decriminalizing the use of such drugs but instead taxing those who sell it and buy it, as well as demanding standards of purity.

Taxed, you say. Meaning you think of allowing the production and sale of marijuana, and perhaps other drugs in the US for recreational use, to turn this willing poisoning of your people legal by the state, to "profit" from it.
I'm not really sure how well you profit from the existing taxt revenues, and how the people here tell me that the rich are not taxed enough.
I'm sure the big drug barons of today will turn into emperors of their own right in the future, if you actually want to legalize the production, sale and import of these drugs. And I'm certain with the vision of your free market economy, you will force other countries to legalize marijuana and other drugs in their respective countries, and declare war upon them if they don't.

As I said, legalization for personal use is fine, but the selling and and production of such things should be stricly prohibited, and those who still continue to violate international laws should be punished in the most severe means possible, including death.

1) People are already willingly poisoning themselves. Prescription drugs are an excellent example. So is glue. People want to get to altered states of being. Or poison themselves by getting morbidly obese with fatty foods. It hits the pleasure center of the brain. Criminalizing ANY of those things isn’t going to solve the problem: educating people on how the brain works and what the substances do WILL.
2) Rich people being or not being taxed enough doesn’t have anything to do with additional revenue from controlled substances. Personal income tax is not the same as tax on trade.
3) The drug barons are already emperors because they know people want their hooch/blow/etc and thus can charge whatever they want. Legalizing drugs merely legalizes the supply for a demand, and competition to provide the best quality vs price value helps, not hurts.
4) I have no idea how you jumped to us forcing other countries to legalize anything. Keep your shit illegal – I’m sure we have better things to worry about at the moment. Until you can back up your western conspiracy mongering, quit boring us all with it.
5) Death? Really?

How nice, really. Grand-uncle and nephew smoke such things together. I'm sure it's a sign of how well your nation developes, eh?
I see this as a sign of depravity and destruction of family virtues. Family members are not ashamed of eachother anymore. Soon, the people on the streets will not be ashamed of eachother anymore, and the streets will turn into a pile of every depraved vice and lawlessness.
Way to go in destroying your society, friend.

Your opinions of morality are subjective. I’m not sure how enjoying a joint together rips apart the fabric of society – but don’t bother to explain…I’m quite certain it will be much like all your other explanations of society’s ills.

What you say should be illegal is "prescription drugs". Well, obviously these drugs are sold via prescriptions, and are there to help the people. What is this marijuana that you so glorify? What makes it so much better that medicine, produced by pharmacists and approved by doctors, should be illegal and this plant you use to escape the world be legal instead?
Well, I think you people are demented, and should be put on serious prescription drugs.p

Here’s the crux: no one who has read the literature on marijuana, a plant with both medicinal AND practical applications (it’s not just a hallucinogen, you know – hemp is extraordinarily useful as a fiber), would say something so pathetically stupid. You, as I’ve already stated, are going based solely on your own biases, not on actual science. You think prescription drugs are always the safest things? They’re prescribed and always have instructions on them because if used in ways OTHER than their instructions state, they are at best ineffective and at worse life-threatening. Marijuana has proved time and again to be extremely beneficial for a variety of medical uses.

It's just a better alternative to using "Prescription" drug's which are not meant to fix the problem but slightly make it a little better so you continue to need them and never go back to 100% health.

Please tell me you’re joking – I didn’t go through a UTI and the course of treatment I just went through to get only “slightly better”. Prescription drugs do not exist to cause dependencies. Big Pharma is not out to “get” people.

Alcohol is one thing, but we all know our limits. Besides, we do not partake in excessive alcohol in front of our elders.

Hahahaha, maybe you don’t. Maybe you’ve never seen others do it. I highly doubt your whole country consists of such squares. Humans are humans, despite your implications otherwise depending on nation of origin.

We do, but alcohol is one thing, and marijuana is another. Let's compare a family dinner with raki to a family bong party. Right, they are similar. Besides, our elders always tell us to abstain from bad things, whereas this man's elder has no objections of his grand-nephew smoking a hallucinogenic drug before his eyes, which is something I deem to be an unabashed form of behaviour.

LMAO. I can’t take this statement seriously: I’m pretty sure if they tell you not to use the bad things, it’s so there’s more for them.

Our family is a family of well-behaved, well-mannered and well-educated people with a good reputation. Religious taboos were never a too strictly enforced thing in our family, yet our customs and culture(even during the times when opium was commonly eaten) does not allow for such psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs to be used within the vicinity of family members, or within generic society.
Even if a person of my family were to use drugs, we would have no knowledge of it, for he'd hide it out of his shame, and once we'd learn it, we'd active seek to free him from this vice of his, not tell him "That's okay, lemme take a hit.".

Taking a hit off a joint doesn’t have anything to do with being well-mannered, well-behaved and well-educated with a stellar reputation. Since you’re basing everything off your own experience and not off anything objectively viewed by science and psychology, let me give you another personal anecdote: my boyfriend, the first official boyfriend I’ve had in 5 years because my standards demand I don’t link myself to someone who is less than the excellent individual he is, makes good cash, drives a very nice car, is saving great sums of money to buy a house hopefully before the year is out, has a high IQ level, dresses like a guy out of the swank 50’s with manners and behavior even YOU would approve of, manages his own photography studio AND guess what? He LOVES taking a hit off a joint now and then. I’m not ashamed of him in the slightest – nor is his mother, who is deservedly proud of how he turned out.

That's due to the rightful stigma attached to marijuana use, and the fact that it's not easily available in stores. If it were to be legalized, I'm sure that we'd have another ban coming for it right away.

“Rightful”? What EXACTLY does marijuana do to deserve its reputation? Here in the prudish US, its only problem is that conservatives would rather you be lazy in a church pew rather than lazing around watching cartoons.

I'd like to have a world where no one would have to resort to things like marijuana to have an artificially induced dopamine release, but I guess we don't live in such a world, and some people are desperate to find happiness in small things like drugs.

Some people need artificial means to create a dopamine release, and also “happiness” is not the only reason for drugs – although you seem to waffle back and forth on whether or not it’s okay for marijuana to exist at all because of its medical benefits.

Lol as much as you want to. I'm just giving you and your grand-uncle as an example of how drugs and drug users have become shameless as to do their thing in front of their fellow family members.
Like if you two were of the same age, and like cousins or something, I'd probably had not given the same reaction. But this behavour of yours transcends all elder-youth relations and limits, especially those within family.

Values change over time. “Drug use” was not “shameful” at one point.

Does that change the fact that it's a socially destructive drug?

How? Because of the wars fought because of its legality? What makes it destructive when legal?

And during that time, opium usage was strictly banned in England, Scotland and Ireland, with harsh punishments while the poison was sold elsewhere.

We lacked the science and facilities needed to care for people who wished to indulge. Hang-gliding’s pretty dangerous too – want to outlaw it? No, of course not – it’s not “mind-altering”.

Why I am so harsh with you is because the way you behave about drugs is a dangerous way to behave.

I happen to think your attitude is what keeps these drugs dangerous.

Parents shouldn't be mad when they catch their children smoking marijuana in their rooms, they should instead smoke along with them. Because marijuana is better than cigarettes, right?

No, they should smoke along with them for the same reason my dad and I sit down and have beers together.

Constructive my ass. Like what, writing song lyrics?

Boyfriend takes a break from difficult studio issues to light one up and gain fresh perspective. Friend of mine was just named Division Manager for the homebuilder he works for – he lights one up before he writes all his reports, reviews and many other things. And those song writers? Even Penn & Teller, who hate the Grateful Dead and don’t do drugs, admitted that they were some of the hardest working “song-writers” – incredibly successful. Bill Maher – active advocate for pot, also has his fingers in many media outlets and works hard every day. I know artists who smoke up and produce their art. What do you do sober that sets you apart from the successful people who smoke up?

If you need a drug to become a calm, sincere, non-violent, happy and constructive person, you don't need marijuana, you need a shrink, friend.
You need to be on medicine, if that drug is all that keeps you from being deceptive, angry, violent and sad person. Really, I think you're seriously fooling yourself. You only smoke marijuana to become happy or do something with your excessive free time, for people only resort to drugs if they are either physically/emotionally addicted, or if they're so fucking bored due to the large amounts of empty leisure time, that they need something that makes time go faster, or more enjoyably. Constructive, I bet you finish your homework in an hour after smoking a blunt, yes.

Marijuana IS medicine, you waffling child.

Well, alcohol is a beverage, friend. Not a "drug". You speak of it as though it were the same as marijuana, which makes you giggle at pictures at the wall, what a thing, that you'd like to partake with your business co-workers in an official meeting, instead of a glass of wine or a few beers.

Alcohol is a drug. It is not the same as marijuana. Not all drugs were “created” equal. Alcohol happens to be worse. Get a grip.

The quantity of alcohol you need to impair your judgement as to liken the effect of marijuana is obviously a high amount. Besides, it doesn't really matter whether you get your THC from bongs, tea or vaporizors.
Maybe it's better if we had made THC into pills or nose sprays, as to provide you people with better alternatives to get high, but I'm sure that those, although a lot lot more potent than the grass you smoke now, will be on par with cocaine and other hard drugs in terms of expense.

Heh – so you’re completely ignorant of what you’re talking about: we DO have different ways of distributing THC into the body, you moog, and it doesn’t put it on par with cocaine.

To me, anything that clouds the mind is the same.

Oh, so alcohol IS the same as marijuana, but it’s NOT a drug? It’s a mind-altering substance, you know.

I also fully support 100% legalisation for personal use and personaly use only. Because it's just you.

Several “personals” make up a society. I don’t understand how personal legalization doesn’t link up with societal legalization. I can personally enjoy alcohol – so can the rest of society. Where on earth did you learn to lay out an argument?

And since you propose that it should be taxed, you're practically suggesting that the government should disregard social order and stability for simple monetary gain which will in turn, be used to probably clean after the mess of what these drugs, after becoming legal, have done to society.

No, actually, I want regulation from government agencies because despite cries from some of our other members, government regulation IS better than private regulation – therein lies the difference between public and personal gain. Don’t turn this into a government conspiracy now.

In whole, that doesn't concern anyone. It's not me who is going to tell people how to get over their psychological issues. They can use marijuana or any other drug if they wish to do so.

Right – legalize them.

However, marijuana, like all drugs, cause you to focus on yourself alone. You just sit there, in thoughts, laughing to yourself, or dreaming about something for how long the drug takes it. If you have a steady supply, who's going to stop you?

Who on earth have you been hanging around? My boyfriend has no problem having a steady stash on hand for whenever he feels like using it, and yet he takes the time to worry about not just himself and his girlfriend (granted, I make a great incentive) but his family AND an extended network of friends. Same with the last guy I dated. Same with a lot of my friends. If those people you’ve seen get caught up in themselves, my friend they are ridiculously selfish people PERIOD – the drug merely enhanced what was already there.

But in my country, gambling is now forbidden by law, and casinos have been closed to stop the ever growing numbers of gamblers, people who have been blinded by the promise of "easy money", but instead end up losing, but never giving up hope...

I know plenty of people also who gamble but don’t have a problem holding back. That’s a personal problem – not a “societal” problem. You can’t seem to decide whether you like government intervention or not.

Yes, many have quoted things from different websites. I'm already familiar with this. In the same way, coffee, can also be classified as a "drug" perhaps, it does not have the same effect as alcohol, but it certainly soothes you, and is quite addictive, and I ought to admit that I'm a caffeine addict.
However, I'm not sure what kind of an influence my caffeine addiction has on my life, or the people that live around me.

On the other hand, alcohol does not share the same public acceptance as alcohol, and never did.
And it was not used by the people under the same context, either.
It being classified as a "drug" doesn't mean it's the same as ilicit drugs.

Advil and morphine are both pain relievers, but one is controlled and the other isn’t because of the strengths and effects. They’re still both drugs. When I’m ‘high’ on caffeine, I have decreased coordination, increased agitation and many other symptoms. When I’m on alcohol I have much worse symptoms that are actually dangerous. What we’re trying to say is that of the drugs still listed as illicit, marijuana is like the coffee portion – if there’s symptoms, they’re certainly not dangerous. As for public acceptance, this has nothing to do with its validity as a ‘dangerous’ substance or not – public opinion does not equate to science. In fact, public opinion is dangerously changeable.

But I could certainly say that the numbers of stoners are a lot higher amongst the lower stratas of society, which I attribute to the higher stress that these people face and the lack of other recreational activities that these people can participate in, due to their lack of funds.

What does that have to do with anything beyond a prejudice against poor people? Do you think people who can afford more drugs don’t do other drugs that cost more instead? Get a grip – Lindsey Lohan has enough money to make most of those people blush for shame at her bank account and she continues to fall back into rehab.

People who are chronic marijuana users are rarely people who are of middle class(i.e. better education, better familial values, better social standing overall).

Wrong, as I’ve already stated. I strongly expect, if it were legalized, that you would find it was pretty evenly distributed amongst the economic strata.