Why We Should Legalize Drugs

[Tarlam!]

The lessions of Prohibition.

I am as Anti-Drugs as you can get. In fact, I only start this thread, because of something 007 wrote on the JJ thread...

The free world is at war with drug lords and, it is not really winning. In Afganistan, Poppy is the main source of agricultural income. Same in Thailand. Same in ´much of LATAM. My guess is, Africa will be next.

So, let's legalize it, industrialize it, make it affordanle. Like cigarettes and and alchohol.

The criminal energy will evapourate and we can begin to erradicate it over generations, just like nicotine consuption, and control it, just like alchohol abuse.

Keeping it illegal only reinvents the Al Caponesqe types of this world. It let's our kids shoot up heroin laced with other ingredients, like battery acid.

Let's sell safe ecxtasy (Spe?). Then we can regulate it.

[MJZiggy]

and control it, just like alchohol abuse.

We control alcohol abuse? We're better than I thought.

[BallHawk]

Places like Spain and the Netherlands have basically made Marijuana legal, and even sell it publicly, in small amounts.

However, the problem with legalizing pot, or any drug, is you are allowing any drug. Cocaine, heroin, Meth, pot, etc.

Smoking a cigerette while behind the wheel isn't going to make you a worse driver. Any other drug can. And I know that there are reports about Pot being no more harmful then (insert item here) but it's just too stupid to risk legalizing it.

[Joemailman]

It would take a change of biblical proportions in our politics for drugs to be legalized. Any elected official who suggests it would be ostracized. We can't even get marijuana legalized to help people to deal with chemotherapy. What we should be doing is moving in the direction of decriminalizing it. Too many people with a drug problem are doing time instead of receiving the kind of treatment they need. In many parts of the country however, to suggest even this would get someone labeled as "soft on crime".

[MJZiggy]

I thought Cali and a few other places on the west coast had already decriminalized pot (any other drugs will face a much tougher battle.)

[Tarlam!]

I never suggested pot/crack/coke/x.t.c/smack behind the wheel was any more acceptible than Johnny Walker behind the wheel.

Indeed, my suggestion permits laws against that type of behaviour without making consumption illegal per sé.

Nobody has benefits from the current situation, apart from the bad guys, including corrupt law enforcement representatives.

The good guys are not winning.

[Patler]

Nobody has benefits from the current situation, apart from the bad guys, including corrupt law enforcement representatives.

The good guys are not winning.

You've got that right!

Generally speaking, criminalizing most personal activities doesn't remove the activity from society, it just makes the activity highly profitable for those who supply it.

Its been many years since I was last in Amsterdam, but at the time there was a park that addicts were directed to at night. The worst of the addicts were simply supplied with free drugs by the state so they would not rob and steal to support their habit. Each morning at sunrise they patroled the park to pick up needles and bodies before the general population arose. The government claimed it was a humane way of handling the problem, and maybe it was. They claimed drug based crime was minimal..

[packinpatland]

The pot of yesterday is not the pot of today, the stuff smoked back 20-30 years ago was mild compared to the 'new improved', most often laced versions out there today. How could that be controlled?

[Patler]

The pot of yesterday is not the pot of today, the stuff smoked back 20-30 years ago was mild compared to the 'new improved', most often laced versions out there today. How could that be controlled?

Government controlled drug shops. The legal drugs would be inspected and content regulated. If the legal drugs were cheaper, the market for street drugs would decline. After all, how big is the market for bootleg liquor these days?

[packinpatland]

The biggest argument I can see, while all alcohol is legal now, how would you determine which drugs to make legal?

[falco]

The biggest argument I can see, while all alcohol is legal now, how would you determine which drugs to make legal?

I agree that is one of the difficult questions. I would pose a plan of action where we begin by making those most prevalent legal (obviously cannabis first), and monitoring the effects.

Not only would it have a great effect here, but making street drugs legal could also change entire countries (ie; Colombia, Afghanistan, etc).

[HarveyWallbangers]

I'd be for legalizing drugs, but I just don't think it's feasible.

[Tarlam!]

The biggest argument I can see, while all alcohol is legal now, how would you determine which drugs to make legal?

Make them ALL legal.

You need to wipe out the black market. Completely.

To do that you need quantity, quality and price advantages.

Then, you control the market. You can tax at will. Yes you will have moonshine drugs, but heck, the law you inforce for dealing with drugs and vehicles/dependants will still grip.

Take the illegal out of drugs and you can control who enters the market to about 98%. Just look at cigarettes and alchohol fpor verification.

[MadtownPacker]

Anyone else who talks down on weed better not drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes or you are a fucking hypocrite!!

When was the last time a stoned driver got arrested for plowing into a families car and killing them all? I have never heard of it but I only have to go back to last week to find a local story about a drunk driver killing a whole family cuz they where driving drunk.

When was the last time a forest fire was started by a joint? Again I only have to go back a few weeks to find one that was started by a cigarettes. Maybe that is because cigs are legal and moron cigarette smokers think it's ok to toss their shitty butts all over the roadway. I can guarantee you weed smokers dont throw their lit roaches away.

As with most subject, people talk out their rear about something they have READ about. Well when you go out and SEE how it really works let me know. Until then continue to victimize bud smokers by putting them in the same category as meth, crack and heroin user.

All while drunk drivers keep killing off people "legally".

[BallHawk]

So, if pot was legalized, it still wouldn't start fires? Is a cigarette more likely to start a fire then a joint? Are cigarettes more of a fire risk? They're both lit by fire. I don't see how there is a difference.