Should we legalize (ill.) drugs and use the tax revenue to fund drug education?

[dead0man]

For pot, sure. But otherwise no. Heroin/Cocaine/LSD etc. are legitimately dangerous and should never be lefal.

Cocaine and LSD are not as dangerous as you've been lead to believe.  Much more dangerous than weed, sure.  Probably less dangerous than alcohol though.


But yes, most recreational drugs should be legal (weed, coke, acid, x(mdma), a few others I'm sure) or decriminalized (everything else)....especially for the user.

[dead0man]

If by decriminalization you mean replacing prison time with mandated treatment, I can support that for non-violent offenders as long as there is a clear 'red line' after which (part of) the present prison sentence is applied.

No, I don't think people that can't stop doing heroin should be put in prison, unless they're doing violent sh**t or robbing people, but then only for those things, their addictions shouldn't play a role in the length of their stay.

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I don't know about massive increase, maybe for the "lighter" drugs like mdma and weed (and even then, not massive increases...if you want to get high now, it's not hard at all to find it....despite putting millions in prison, the war on drugs has done NOTHING to stop the accessibility of drugs), but you're not going to have regular folk going out and becoming coke heads because they can suddenly go downtown and buy some at the store.

[dead0man]

No. People who sincerely believe alcohol normalization and legalization would sap rumrunners and erase the phenomenon overnight don't have their fingers on the pulse of reality. There is no fundamental distinction to be made whether one purchases booze from a seasoned criminal or a licensed vendor; the social costs remain very much the same. I am convinced, if intoxicating liquors are made legal, we will be reminded of why they were made illegal. A bootlegger in a suit and tie is a bootlegger nonetheless.

I didn't write the above parody because I think drug legalization is a panacea. Indeed, legalization alone may well be worse than the current situation. However, redirecting the money and effort currently spent on using law enforcement to curb drug use would be much better spent on treatment.

The long-term consequences of prolonged alcohol abuse can and, in many cases, do eclipse those of marijuana. However, I believe it is important to recognize not everyone who drinks alcohol does so to get drunk. The same observation can't be made about marijuana and, in that manner, it is linked with more lethal drugs not unlike heroin more so than it is alcohol and tobacco even if it results in fewer deaths (which would change if it were commercially available).

Dude, you are totally talking out of your ass.  Not everyone that smokes weed does so to get stoned.  And no, it can't be "linked" (whatever that means) to heroin easier than alcohol.  And yes, of course if more people are getting stoned, a few more people will fall off hotel balconies and die from being stoned (about the only way people die from smoking weed), but the lives saved by people that would have got drunk, but got stoned instead will be statistically noticeable.

[dead0man]

I for one can't wait for these links.....<Google Fu>

So, there was a poorly done study that came out in 2007 that said 1 joint is equal to 20!!!!omg!!111one cigs.  There is another study (oddly by the same guy, Richard Beasley, in the same place, NZ...this time with many more people in the study....several hundred even!) that says it's a 1:2.5 to 1:5 ratio.  Both of those are more than 7 years old.

But lets, for the sake of argument, say it's 1:5 (it's not, but whatever).  How much do you think most pot smokers smoke?  I don't know, but one would assume they aren't smoking as much weed as cig smokers smoke cigs.  Some, sure, but not most.  Also, these are joints the study is referring to, and that is a common way to smoke, but it's obviously not the only way.  Any device that uses water as a filter is going to be MUCH safer than cig smoking, you can't game a study enough to show otherwise.  Vaporizers are even safer.  Consumables even more so.


and the fact that you said "The "medical marijuana" strawman has been discredited." is enough to mark you as someone that doesn't know what they're talking about on the subject.  You might as well have said Bigfoot is real, the CIA killed JFK or GMOs are bad for you.

[dead0man]

However, medical marijuana is already legal in all 50 states. It's called Marinol and clinical trials have demonstrated it to be as effective as natural cannabinoids.

Except it makes people that take it feel like crap, it's hard to dose properly and it's only fake THC, there is a lot more going on in weed than just THC.

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If the evidence is inconclusive, why ban it in the first place?  Shouldn't the onus be on the ones wanting to ban something to prove that it needs to be banned?