War on drugs

I'd like to hear your take on that. Is that a good thing? Should drugs be legal? If yes why? If not why not? Should certain drugs be legal and others illegal, if so why? What should be the criteria for a substance to be judge legal? Should the US government put that much attention on the war on drugs? The criticism it receives is legitimate?


I really am indecisive on this issue so I'd like to hear some of your perspective on that

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The war on drugs is a huge joke.

Consider this - Prisons are the most tightly controlled civilian environment in the entire USA.
And yet even in this tightly restricted environment, drugs are still easily accessible.

So what does that say? I think it's always wise to accept reality and to have a pragmatic approach.

Now look at it from another angle - Massive numbers of people in jail.
We are taking fathers away from their family for drugs. We are taking mothers away from their children because of drugs. We're locking these parents up.

Now look at it from another angle - People who go into jail become surrounded by other criminals. They adopt the criminal attitude and culture and come out worse people than they were when they went in.


And finally, I would say this. drug addiction is a mental disease.
If drugs are not available, an addict will go to EXTREME measures to get high. Because drugs are illegal and at times inaccessible, addicts will turn to very poor substitutes. "Synthetic weed" for example.

Or even worse.. mainly in russia, krokodil. Easy to manufacture, it is a substitute for heroin.
The average user only lives two years and it causes flesh to fall off the bone. If you don't mind sickeningly gorey imagery than do a google image search for the term 'krokodil'

Some people say good riddance to the addicts and feel they deserve it, but there are ex-heroin addicts that become good people. They are someones daughter, someones sister or brother.

I don't know what needs to be done but let's get a move on already. My wife works in substance abuse and she comes home crying all the time with her patients passing away. Last week one of my co-workers lost his son, 22 years old wtf.

Yeah, my ex isn't a substance abuse counselor but she worked in child protective services and now runs a domestic abuse shelter. Guess what the common denominator almost always is? I'm not sure what the be all end all answer is. I do know that pretending like the war on drugs is more of a problem then substance abuse itself is not that answer.

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I'll guess. Is it alcohol?

Meth more often then not.

Sounds about right... Not to mention 4/5 violent crime happens under the influence of alcohol.

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I should've been more specific; my wife works with people who suffer from drug addiction.

War on drugs? I thought this was a thread about the Reagan administration...that's before most of your time, but I remember when a War On Drugs was the catch phrase, along with Just Say No. Ha! it didn't work then, it's not working today.

We now have legalized gay marriage and all sort of personal freedoms, but adults can still be put in jail for simply Marijuana usage.

Hard drugs are bad. Alcohol can be bad too when abused. But Marijuana needs to be legalized. My state, Washington has done that and it makes a ton of money from the taxes. And you know what? in a year since weed has been legal, life goes on, the world didn't end.

It's time the US government stops being hypocrites about which substances can be consumed for recreation: alcohol, tobacco and caffeine and which can't...Marijuana.

What is wrong with an adult who decides to take heroin for instance, isn't it his choice? (I'm not saying it categorically, but I don't really hav an objection agains't it)

I don't think it's something people should be put in jail for.
Selling it maybe..

The argument is that the chemical effect of some drugs is so strong that it destroys the critical faculties on which the principle of self-determination you're referring to relies. Taking the drug is their choice, but that choice effectively destroys their ability to choose, as well as their ability to limit the effects of their choice to themselves.

But wouldn't that also apply to alcool if used in a huge quantity?

I don't think so, for a couple of reasons.

First, lots of people get drunk in private and don't really bother anybody. This certainly isn't true of everyone, but a large number of people manage to abuse alcohol without hurting others. I don't believe this is true of heroin.

Second, the very nature of alcohol limits the amount of damage that can be done. Drinking can make people clumsy and belligerent, but it's also partially a sedative. Drinking to excess often leads to simply passing out. Drugs like cocaine and heroin have the opposite effect; they remove critical faculties and energize people, which is a particularly dangerous combination.

it applies to alcohol for certain people.
native americans are particularly prone to alcoholism.

Well, he did say "in a huge quantity," so he's asking about alcoholics. But still, that's part of it: in addition to the fact that there are more relatively harmless alcoholics out there, there are also lots of people who can use alcohol without ever becoming reliant on it. There are lots of casual, infrequent drinkers, but not many casual, infrequent heroin users.

Alcohol kills many either directly, or indirectly (drunk driving)... Though tobacco kills more, it usually only harms that user as it is hard to kill someone behind the wheel of an automobile because they were smoking a cigarette. Other drugs make people sleep, as opposed to aggressive (alcohol)... Politicians don't want to look soft on crime, but when the stock is high (medical marihuana) they start to cool off the idea of total prohibition.

I went out this weekend, and saw PLENTY of people who should not have been driving, but did anyway.

I have known users of heroin... They all sat on a couch, didn't go driving. It's very harmful to the user, but it didn't affect me being near someone who used. I also didn't notice a change of behavior. More education couldn't hurt (needle exchange, testing facilities for drugs in general).

Aye, but drunk driving is already illegal. Which is consistent with the principle I'm describing, because the drinking itself doesn't dramatically increase the odds of someone getting hurt. But drinking and driving does, so that's the part that's a crime.

Well, yeah, dude: they just had their fix. They feel great. The danger of heroin is not just that they'll be violent in front of you (though this is pretty anecdotal evidence, regardless). It's that it's an addiction very few people can effectively shake. It's the things people do for heroin that's particularly dangerous.

the problem i see with certain hard drugs, like heroin, is that they can be used to exploit people.
an interesting film example is The French Connection 2.

I've also heard that pimps get girls hooked on hard drugs to control them but I don't know if that is a fact or just conjecture.