Drug dealers kill each other each year by the thousands. Innocent people are very often caught up in these gunfights. By eliminating the need to kill another man for drug turf, you drastically lower the murder rate. This makes Americans safer, not at more risk.
I'm not a big proponent of the "legalize and tax" argument, but it makes sense in response to your statement. Detroit is filled with people who are already buying this crap every day. Legalize and tax and all of a sudden the city has some income.
Wow DM, I see you don't mind taking advantage of people who have no choice but to buy drugs. This people are addicted DM. The government could charge them however much they want to on tax, and you know what? These people will still buy. Eventually guess what will happen though? The government, like always, will get greedy and they will set the tax too high, and when that happens, guess what?!? We are back to where we started, there will be dealers selling it illegally cheaper than what you can buy legally. There are some who are severely addicted to these drugs, and they have to have them, and cannot stop without the proper treatment, if the government taxes these people it would be equivalent of the government taxing essentials such as milk or bread. It is a very dirty way for a city to earn extra income.
You wouldn't be at any more risk than you are now. You are supposing that by legalizing hard drugs, thousands of people are going to say "What, heroin is legal now? Well, then I need to try it!" If someone is going to do heroin, the illegality of the drug isn't going to stop them.
That is a stupid argument, you can't deny the fact that there are many people who haven't tried any sort of drugs on the account of them being illegal. Just think of the masses of people who have goals and aspirations to be something special in life, who are too afraid of getting caught doing something illegal that will close doors of opperitunity for the rest of their lives. I know if I was a dean to a Medical school or Law school, I sure as hell wouldn't want someone as a student who has a history of illegal drug use. Now if it weren't illegal...people wouldn't fear for their futures, they will fall into the trap of, oh I'll just try it once just to see how if feels, and then they will most likely enjoy it, becuase that is obviously what they are designed to do, and try it again and viola, you have addiction, and their life is going to be screwed until they can break the addiction, which so you know, is very difficult, or die.
Also: legalizing these drugs removes the stigma attached to doing them. Addicts cannot get help right now because they know admitting to use of these drugs will only land them in jail/rehab facilities. When we are able to treat the addict instead of the addiction, we can remove the necessity to engage in harmful behavior to feed that addiciton.
This is another flawed argument, I am tired of hearing ridiculous excuses to back up drug use, they are bad for you, shouldn't be used, get over it. Drug users deserve to go to jail and to rehab. There it forces them to overcome their problems that they might not have the will or the ability to do on their own. The threat of jail, prevents people from trying the drug to begin with and rehab saves lives. The whole treat the addict, not the addiction thing, is also very flawed. When you think about it, really think about it, doctors treat and cure ailments, not the patients, and it is the same for rehab treating addictions and not addicts, it is the way it should be.
The way I look at it, it's all or nothing. They might try to say one drug is "worse" than another, but in the end they all do the same thing, and to try to legalize some and not all is just a slippery slope.
Honestly, everyone realizes it is a slippery slope, but is better than the avalanche that would befall everyone if every drug was legalized. It is impossible to make evey drug illegal, becuase that would promote crime, but if you legalized them all, that would promote mayhem, which is just as bad. There is an equilibrium point to be reached, in theory it would be best if all drugs were banned, but that just isn't feasible at this time, so we must do the best we can with what we got. With better drug prevention programs and increased general knowledge someday it will get to the point where drugs will be rare and it will be ok to ban them all. Unfortionately that day is far off but we must never give up the fight.
Quite right. (Ugh, it makes me reply in green.) Driving while high is no different from driving while intoxicated (although, from personal experience it's much easier and safer). They should carry the exact same penalties.
I agree, they should carry the exact same penalties, no one deserves the right to put another's life in danger. No one.
You can't really differentiate like that. All drugs are recreational. No one starts doing meth because they want their teeth to fall out, they do it because it feels good.
You can diferentiate. Meth is much more harmful than nicotine and more addicting than alchohol. It has a higher potential to cause someone damage in the short run. Nicotine while being highly addictive, is only damaging in the long run, which leaves alot more time for the person to quit and get proper help. Alchohol is not as addictive and therefore easier to quit before serious damage has been dealt. The drugs that are illegal today, are illegal for a reason, and that is becuase of their potential to do harm and cause addiction, and the speed at which they can do so.
Drunk driving aside (you can't really compare the two in that regard, there isn't sufficient data for high driving), alcohol is much more harmful to the human body than marijuana.
While this may be true marijuana is illegal and can cause serious damage to your reputation and future. Alchohol's damaging effects to your body is also only a little more severe than marijuana, so in reality both shouldn't be used. Alcohol though has been a part of human society since the dawn of civilization so don't expect it to go away anytime soon. Marijauna on the other hand, has alway been looked down upon and it is the easier of the two evils to combat. If we are going to tackle the two beasts, lets save as many lives as we can with the resources available, and those resources are better spent fighting the use of weed.
You're making the same argument that Caelum made, that everyone and their mother will do crack because it's all of a sudden legal. Number one, that's just silly, but number two... why do you care? If those people want to slowly kill themselves, that's their prerogative, and it isn't for you or me to tell them not to.
The fact that you have such little regard for human life sickens me. If you saw a man bleeding in the road with severed artery, would you try to save him? He is dying... People addicted to drugs are dying too, a little everytime they use a drug and cause damage to their body. They are damaging their bodies in ways that can never be repaired, and you suggest to stand idly by and watch them waste away? Your argument is parallel to letting a kid drown in a pool becuase it was his choice to get into the water, and it wasn't up to you to him not to.
Why not? Prohibition has been demonstrated to not only have no effect on the use of the illegal substance, but also to create MORE crime. (Think back to the 1920s.)
It is true, that is why we have to be patient and work effeciently in the fight against drugs as I previously stated.
But don't you think it's silly that they've criminalized something that grows on cow poop? And if all those other things in nature are harmful to humans, why aren't they illegal too?
Maybe because people don't intentionally get mualed by tigers and trampled on by stameding elephants. Maybe it is becuase people don't go to beaches during hurricanes or try to swim in volcanoes, maybe it is becuase most people wouldn't try to wrestle a bear or fight with a gorrilla. Maybe it is becuase people don't try to fly kites in tornadoes and to catch hail stones with their teeth. Maybe becuase there is no need to illegalize every harmful event that can occur in nature, becuase most of us are intelligent enough to avoid these kind of dangers. I know I am. Are you?
The law also attaches a taboo to the drugs which draws kids into them anyway. If you don't think kids take up smoking just because they're not supposed to, you're kidding yourself. Kids are drawn to what they shouldn't do, it's just their nature.
Not true, I am sure more people avoid doing bad things becuase they are wrong than people who do bad things becuase they are wrong. Just think, if children were attracted to what they shouldn't do, then why does 94% of the United States Juvenile population have no record of crime?
By not fighting the futile war on drugs, we'd have billions of dollars at our disposal. Dollars that could be used to educate not only children, but also adults on the effects of drugs. DARE just isn't cutting it.
