When recreational drugs are legal...

[Tez3]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/04/man-spared-jail-ian-brazier-muslim-woman-veil-shopping-centre-solihull-farhana-chughtai_n_1648794.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cuk-ws-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D116144


His defence was that the drugs made him angry. It's certainly saved him a custodial sentence.
"He said: "He had been taking cannabis and it had made him angry."

 

[Makalakumu]

Because smoking weed is better for your lungs than tobacco?

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Yes, actually. You don't actually have to smoke much marijuana now days. The quality is such that it only takes a hit or two to feel the effects. It's nothing like smoking a cigarette.

 

[Makalakumu]

It seems from the link Makalakumu posted that we are all searching out ways to alter our brains? I am not.. you are not.. other people on here are not...

There are healthy ways of altering your brain chemistry and unhealthy ways. Some involve chemicals that have huge risks and some don't involve chemicals at all. For example, after meditation, yoga, or martial arts, I tend to feel content and happy. I come home, I'm calm, and I truly put aside the stress of the day. There are no chemicals involve in that at all.

Do you ever use caffeine? How about herbal tea? Chamomile?

 

[Makalakumu]

How's the price going to go down I thought the plan was to tax the crap out of it like they do beer and cigarettes. We will still need to pay the terrorist for the dope only now it will be legal payments and legitimize these terror groups.

The tax won't be anything close to how much being forced onto the black market runs up the price. Illegality causes substances to rise 10 to 50 times in price, depending on how easy it is to produce. Also, I think you're missing the point that the government is balls deep in the drug trade. Whether it's terrorist groups or violent Mexican drug gangs, or American street gangs, the government ships in the drugs and uses the high price to fund all kinds of illegal activity. Another example is "Fast and Furious" it looks like this ties back to drugs as well. So, now we have the government shipping the drugs in AND arming drug gangs that do it's bidding. Legalization tremendously drops the price and puts a stop to that.

Legalization also puts a stop to this corruption...

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Forfeiture

(asset forfeiture - corruption of law enforcement) "During the past decade, law enforcement agencies increasingly have turned to asset seizures and drug enforcement grants to compensate for budgetary shortfalls, at the expense of other criminal justice goals. We believe the strange shape of the criminal justice system today—the law enforcement agenda that targets assets rather than crime,[SUP]20[/SUP] the 80 percent of seizures that are unaccompanied by any criminal prosecution,[SUP]21[/SUP] the plea bargains that favor drug kingpins and penalize the “mules” without assets to trade,[SUP]22[/SUP] the reverse stings that target drug buyers rather than drug sellers,[SUP]23[/SUP] the overkill in agencies involved even in minor arrests,[SUP]24[/SUP] the massive shift towards federal jurisdiction over local law enforcement[SUP]25[/SUP]—is largely the unplanned by-product of this economic incentive structure."

Source:
Blumenson, E. & and Nilsen, E., "Policing for Profit: The Drug War's Hidden Economic Agenda," University of Chicago Law Review, 65: 35-114 (1998, Winter).
http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=suffolk_f...

And

1. (2002 - asset forfeiture - amounts by sheriffs' offices and officers) "Fifty-two percent of all sheriffs' offices received money, property, or goods from a drug asset forfeiture program during 2002 (table 32). These sheriffs' offices employed 76% of all sworn personnel. More than 8 in 10 of the sheriffs' offices serving populations of 500,000 or more had drug asset forfeiture receipts.
   
   "During 2002 the overall median amount received from drug asset forfeiture programs by sheriffs' offices was $10,000. By population category, the median amount received ranged from about $1 million among sheriffs' offices serving a population of 1 million or more to $5,000 among those serving fewer than 10,000 residents.
   "Overall, sheriffs' offices received an estimated $178 million in money, goods, and property from drug asset forfeitures during 2002. Including both sheriffs' offices with receipts and those without, this was the equivalent of $992 per sworn officer employed. Sheriffs' offices with 1,000 or more officers received the most — nearly $1,700 per officer (figure 11). Next highest were agencies with 250 to 999 officers which received about $1,100 per officer and those with under 25 officers which received about $1,000 per officer. Sheriffs' offices with 25 to 49 officers received the least — $449 per officer."
   Source:
   Hickman, Matthew J. and Reaves, Brian A., "Sheriffs' Offices 2003" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May. 2006), NCJ 211361. p. 16.
   http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/so03.pdf
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. (2002 - asset forfeiture - amounts by local police departments and officers) "Local police departments received an estimated $298 million in money, goods, and property from drug asset forfeitures during 2002. Including both departments with receipts and those without, this was the equivalent of $642 per sworn officer employed. Departments with 100 to 249 officers received the most — $990 per officer (figure 11). Next highest were departments with 250 to 999 officers with $928 per officer. Departments with fewer than 50 officers received the least — about $400 per officer."
   Source:
   Hickman, Matthew J. and Reaves, Brian A., "Local Police Departments 2003" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May. 2006), NCJ 210118, P. 16.
   http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/lpd03.pdf
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. (2002 - asset forfeiture - percentage of local police departments engaging in forfeiture) "Thirty-six percent of all local police departments received money, property, or goods from a drug asset forfeiture program during 2002 (table 32). These departments employed 78% of all local police officers. At least 80% of the departments in each population category of 25,000 or more had drug asset forfeiture receipts."
   Source:
   Hickman, Matthew J.. and Reaves, Brian A., "Local Police Departments 2003" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May. 2006), NCJ 210118, p. 16.
   http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/lpd03.pdf
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. (1991 - profitability of forfeiture to government) "There can be few components of law enforcement programmes which actually cost nothing. The asset forfeiture provision of the federal law for crop suppression (relating mainly to cannabis in the State of Kentucky), proved to be such a case, costing the United States Government $13.7 million, but yielding a return of $53 million in 1991, or almost $4 in assets seized for every $1 invested by the Drug Enforcement Administration."
   Source:
   United Nations International Drug Control Program, "Technical Series Report #6: Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking" (New York, NY: UNDCP, 1998), p. 38.
   http://www.unodc.org/pdf/technical_series_1998-01-01_1.pdf
   
   
   
   
   

This whole article is worth reading, the sources in it are revealing because they detail just how corrupt Law Enforcement has become because of the drug war. And it's another example of why I think a lot of people in the government have a vested interest in keeping drugs illegal.

 

[Jenna]

There are healthy ways of altering your brain chemistry and unhealthy ways. Some involve chemicals that have huge risks and some don't involve chemicals at all. For example, after meditation, yoga, or martial arts, I tend to feel content and happy. I come home, I'm calm, and I truly put aside the stress of the day. There are no chemicals involve in that at all.

Do you ever use caffeine? How about herbal tea? Chamomile?

Yes funny I drink coca leaf tea.. it is mitigation that I drink it not for chemical interactions and but because it taste nice? I eat chocolate for the same reasons.. You make good points and make me think..

 

[Makalakumu]

One of the biggest problems with relying on law enforcement to fix addiction is that it never actually gets to the root of the problem of addiction. This, I fear, is actually going to be much much harder then locking people up and actually is probably the reason why people support the latter beyond all reason.

There are lots of chemicals out there that people use and they have very few side effects. These chemicals have varying effects on the brain, but typically, as we move into chemicals that affect the brain more and more, the chances that they have been made illegal rise. Also, correspondingly, the negative effects on the person rise.

What this tells me is that their is something going on in the brain that makes a decision that basically puts the benefits of mind alteration before the negative effects. Some change has occurred that I don't think science has pinned down yet.

Or has it?

We know that when children are raised with irrationality and violence changes to the brain can occur that actually predict drug addiction. What if milder forms of irrationality and violence in child rearing predicted a lower level of chemical use? In other threads, I've pointed out that this has actually been studied and this relationship is being supported as we speak.

Therefore, I think a real solution to chemical abuse is within our grasp. If parents raised their children peacefully, without violence - including spanking, and with reason, by taking the time to explain what is happening to the child and why and attempting to recognize the child's individual take on things, we could actually markedly reduce chemical abuse. This means that we need to have a revolution in parenting. We need more parent education and we need to do everything that we can to build reasonable, peaceful, and strong families.

That is a better solution then the corruption, the reduction in human rights, and the over all costs of the drug war. So, I say stop the madness and focus on the real issue. Stop hitting your kids and start reasoning with them, show love through your adherence to virtue, and the problems of chemical abuse will wither away.

 

[Makalakumu]

Here's another solution that preserves individual liberty and fights chemical abuse.

As it stands now, the US has turned it's LEOs into the health police. Like every other industrialized country where the costs of health care are collectivized (in the US we do this through a leviathan of regulations and middle men) the government makes laws against behaviors that cost it more money. Drug use, cigarettes, alcohol, and now junk food are undergoing varying stages of government control...aka illegality. Imagine a world where a policeman can arrest you for having too many sodas? That's where all of this is heading, btw.

Now imagine that the government gets tired of being the Nanny or it simply collapses under the weight of trying to do to much. Which is exactly what the end result of this failed policy will be, btw.

People will be forced to pay for their decisions up front. People will be charged for making poor health decisions by paying for their effects. I can see new kind of insurance system springing up to deal with this. I can see policies that require people to exercise regularly, limit weight gain, and curtail dangerous chemicals. These policies would be cheap and relatively risk free for the company offering them. Other policies would spring up that would be more liberal and because they allowed more risky behavior, they would be more expensive. For example, if you wanted to smoke tobacco or have no weight restrictions, you are really going to charged. If you wanted to consume alcoholic beverages, you'll pay more. If you want to smoke pot, you'll pay more up front for potential problems later. And some behaviors will never be insured. No company in their right mind is every going to give a policy that allows you to smoke crystal meth, for example.

The end result is that the behaviors that are the riskiest, will be the most expensive. We'll actually have good data on this. There will be a simple way of seeing exactly how bad something is for you because you'll be able to look up how much this behavior will cost you. And I'm pretty sure that it will cost you more to be fat, more to smoke cigarettes, and more to drink alcohol, then it will to use other chemicals like marijuana.

With technology, we could accomplish testing for all of these substances. If you've proven yourself to be honest by occasional testing by company approved doctors, you won't need a lot of intervention, but if you need to be more closely monitored (which will be more expensive) you can use computers, cell phones, and cheap instruments to find out if someone is keeping their word. If you intentionally defraud the business, you're insurance is cancelled and that information could be shared with other insurance companies so everyone would know that you just ruined your reputation.

In this way, the free market actually encourages people to be more honest, more responsible, more virtuous. It's not like the system that we have now where if you can get away with it, you just do it, because you're shielded from the costs.

So you see, there is no need to sacrifice individual liberty in order to fight chemical abuse. We don't need to turn cops into health nazis. We don't need to create chemical abuse gulags. We could actually have a more virtuous and honest society by respecting individual liberty. This, IMO, is what our Founding Fathers wanted for us when they wrote our Constitution. This is how a red blooded liberty loving American should tackle this problem.

 

[pgsmith]

If parents raised their children peacefully, without violence - including spanking, and with reason, by taking the time to explain what is happening to the child and why and attempting to recognize the child's individual take on things, we could actually markedly reduce chemical abuse. This means that we need to have a revolution in parenting. We need more parent education and we need to do everything that we can to build reasonable, peaceful, and strong families

Isn't utopia a wonderful idea? Unfortunately, it has proven to be unworkable countless times throughout human history. Your platitudes have absolutely no basis in reality. Wishes are terrific, but they don't actually do anything, or solve any of the myriad problems in our society.

P.S. How many children do you have?

 

[Tez3]

The police force in any country reflects that country, as has been said before the police don't make the laws, they are paid to enforce the laws the politicians make on behalf of the citizens. No point in blaming the police, they don't particularly want to be chasing people down for personal use of relatively harmless drugs but it's what the country wants. How do we know it's what the country wants? because they voted in the politicians that brought these laws in! You want marijuana legalised? vote in the politicians that will do it for you, don't blame the police.
On the other hand it doesn't matter to the police whether some drugs, all drugs or no drugs are legalised because they are the ones that have to pick up the pieces after people have used substances including alcohol. They are the ones that have to tell relatives their loved one's dead because they were hit by a driver under the influence of a drug or drink, they are the ones who have to get the bodies out of the vehicles, the ones who have to deal with the bodies and families of those who OD. They also deal with the violence that erupts because of people taking things they can't handle, they deal with all the nasty things associated with drugs and alcohol, never ever the 'nice' things that people say substances like marijuana can give you, no for them it's the blood, snot, vomit, deaths and the battered, the bereaved, the helpless and the lost. Legalise everthing and they will still have to deal with all this.

 

[Makalakumu]

Isn't utopia a wonderful idea? Unfortunately, it has proven to be unworkable countless times throughout human history. Your platitudes have absolutely no basis in reality. Wishes are terrific, but they don't actually do anything, or solve any of the myriad problems in our society.

P.S. How many children do you have?

Two.

Would you care to identify the unworkable platitudes that you think I'm putting forward?

You know, there were plenty of people with fresh ideas in the past and sometimes they actually created something cool...like the Constitution.

 

[Makalakumu]

After you watch this video, you will never look at the world the same way again.

Series References: http://www.fdrurl.com/tn_abuse1
http://www.acestudy.org
http://www.freedomainradio.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRaNwIdrKuc&feature=relmfu

An interview with Dr. Felitti, the director of the Adverse Childhood Experiences project. The ACE Study is an ongoing collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente.

http://acestudy.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIDvdzjzSto&feature=relmfu

Why people become violent.

Series References: http://www.fdrurl.com/tn_abuse1
http://www.freedomainradio.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S16EHfKRLfc&feature=relmfu

The scientific evidence underlying the near-universal resistance to reason and evidence. If you want to change the world, you first must understand the unconscious barriers to thinking.

References: http://www.fdrurl.com/tn_abuse4

It's all related to substance abuse. Peaceful parenting would help. Parent education would help. If that's a platitude that is unworkable, well, it's working well for me as a parent.

 

[Makalakumu]

Legalise everthing and they will still have to deal with all this.

Perhaps if we legalize drugs, we could double LEO pay. It's a damn tough job no matter how you slice it.

 

[Tez3]

So how come the children of nice, liberal ( in the American and British sense) well brought up, loving, polite non spanking parents take drugs and drink, why do they become alcoholics and drug addicts? The people who take drugs and drink aren't all the children of abusive parents. What about the children who do have abusive parents and grow up to be kind, loving people non drug taking teetotal people?

Too much intellectualisation and not enough common snese I'm afraid.

 

[Makalakumu]

So how come the children of nice, liberal ( in the American and British sense) well brought up, loving, polite non spanking parents take drugs and drink, why do they become alcoholics and drug addicts? The people who take drugs and drink aren't all the children of abusive parents. What about the children who do have abusive parents and grow up to be kind, loving people non drug taking teetotal people?

Too much intellectualisation and not enough common snese I'm afraid.

Statistics show that children who are abused have higher rates of substance abuse. Statistics show that children raised in strong families, by loving parents, and without violence, have lower rates of substance abuse. There is a direct correlation between child abuse and drug abuse.

Therefore, encouraging better parenting skills and supporting families will lower the rates of substance abuse. This isn't intellectualization, IMO, it's common sense.

 

[Steve]

The police force in any country reflects that country, as has been said before the police don't make the laws, they are paid to enforce the laws the politicians make on behalf of the citizens. No point in blaming the police, they don't particularly want to be chasing people down for personal use of relatively harmless drugs but it's what the country wants. How do we know it's what the country wants? because they voted in the politicians that brought these laws in! You want marijuana legalised? vote in the politicians that will do it for you, don't blame the police.
On the other hand it doesn't matter to the police whether some drugs, all drugs or no drugs are legalised because they are the ones that have to pick up the pieces after people have used substances including alcohol. They are the ones that have to tell relatives their loved one's dead because they were hit by a driver under the influence of a drug or drink, they are the ones who have to get the bodies out of the vehicles, the ones who have to deal with the bodies and families of those who OD. They also deal with the violence that erupts because of people taking things they can't handle, they deal with all the nasty things associated with drugs and alcohol, never ever the 'nice' things that people say substances like marijuana can give you, no for them it's the blood, snot, vomit, deaths and the battered, the bereaved, the helpless and the lost. Legalise everthing and they will still have to deal with all this.

I'm not sure, but I don't think anyone blames the police. We just happen to have some LEO on this forum who are arguing strongly their position, and have used their experience as LEO to argue that they know best what policies should be implemented.

I understand that the police "pick up the pieces" and some of our friends here on the boards have direct experience with some very bad situations that involve drugs, alcohol and some pretty strong chemical addictions.

But, in a discussion about policy, as you and also ballen have pointed out, the police are the tool of enforcement and not the policymakers. In a discussion about whether some or all drugs should be legal or illegal, their opinions carry no more or less weight than anyone else's. They have specialized experience, and that has to be respected. But the idea that they are cops, have seen one side of the issue and so must be right is an innappropriate appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy.

Because they have seen the fallout of criminal abuse of drugs doesn't mean they understand the larger issues any better (or worse) than anyone else. It's a different subject. A different side of the issue in which they admittedly have no specific expertise.



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[Steve]

Statistics show that children who are abused have higher rates of substance abuse. Statistics show that children raised in strong families, by loving parents, and without violence, have lower rates of substance abuse. There is a direct correlation between child abuse and drug abuse.

Therefore, encouraging better parenting skills and supporting families will lower the rates of substance abuse. This isn't intellectualization, IMO, it's common sense.

I don't know the statistics, but I can tell you that in my family of 4 boys, we had a strong family, raised by loving parents, without violence, all with IQs hovering around 150 and one of my brothers is a recovering meth addict (clean now for about 20 years) and another is a recovering alcoholic who drank about a case of beer every day. He's been sober since he had a heart attack before the age of 40.

I was addicted to cigarettes for 14 years before I could kick that habit and am thoroughly addicted to caffeine.


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[Tez3]

Statistics show that children who are abused have higher rates of substance abuse. Statistics show that children raised in strong families, by loving parents, and without violence, have lower rates of substance abuse. There is a direct correlation between child abuse and drug abuse.

Therefore, encouraging better parenting skills and supporting families will lower the rates of substance abuse. This isn't intellectualization, IMO, it's common sense.

It's stating the obvious in many ways, better parenting skills should be encouraged for it's own sake not necessarily because it may lower substance abuse rates.
There's many reasons people start taking substances whether it's cigarettes, alcohol or drugs, there's the theory of addictive personalities, that it could also be inherited as well as other thoughts on why people take drugs and alcohol, not least because they like taking them! There's peer pressure, curiosity and taking things to help with the pressure of exams and/or student life as well as work, there's a lot of reasons people start taking, drinking or smoking things.

It's simplistic to say better parenting would stop addictions, better parenting would stop a lot of things however peoples ideas of good parenting differ, look how many arguments we've seen on here about whether to smack children or not! Look at the so called tiger mums prevalent among Chinese families. Hot housing children in private schools etc. It's a far broader subject than just saying we need better parenting.

Steve I wasn't saying so much that people were blaming the police more that whatever society decides the police seem to end up picking up the pieces or enforcing unpopular laws.

 

[Makalakumu]

If you read what you've quoted, I've said that it would help lower the rates. There is no magic bullet. Society is going to have to shift in lots of ways in order to really tackle substance abuse...and even then, I doubt it will totally go away.

 

[Makalakumu]

I don't know the statistics, but I can tell you that in my family of 4 boys, we had a strong family, raised by loving parents, without violence, all with IQs hovering around 150 and one of my brothers is a recovering meth addict (clean now for about 20 years) and another is a recovering alcoholic who drank about a case of beer every day. He's been sober since he had a heart attack before the age of 40.

I was addicted to cigarettes for 14 years before I could kick that habit and am thoroughly addicted to caffeine.


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Just as with anything, there are always exceptions, but the ACE studies are clear. Child abuse and substance abuse are statistically linked.

 

[Tgace]

Just as with anything, there are always exceptions, but the ACE studies are clear. Child abuse and substance abuse are statistically linked.

But there's no evidence that a significant number of addicts are addicts due to abuse.

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