The drug thread

Invest in a testing kit, kids. There worth their weight in gold if you do ecstasy with any sort of regularity. At the very least, if you get pills rather than MDMA powder/crystals, check them out on something like http://www.pillreports.com.

Also, as far as what doctors say about drugs, I asked a psychiatrist last year what he thought of my drug use and he said as long as its in moderation it's probably fine. Just stay away from crystal meth and PCP, he said those really fuck your brain up.

Also stay the fuck away from needles.

 

I know it's pure MDMA because I have tested it. It's always coming from the same source, and no my friend doesn't make it himself. I also don't assume it will be pure just because it has been in the past, and will always test the powder before I do it.

 

Seriously? Was his name Dr. Feelgood?

 

Yeah, its pretty sad going to music festivals and seeing tons of kids high on "10 pills of e man!". That's something I really like about the music festival that I go to annually, Shambhala. They have tons of really good first aid staff, testing stations, pamphlets. They at least try to get people educated.

 

Well since the Marijuana thread currently on the idiot board is about only legalizing Marijuana I'll pose this question to you people:

How does everyone feel about legalizing or decriminalizing drug? Do you think only soft drugs should be legal? Do you think all drugs should be legal? Do you have a list of legals and not legals that you'd like to see?

I think this thread is much better suited for this discussion.

Personally, I'd like to see them all legalized or decriminalized. I don't support all drug use. No. But I do support the end of prohibition and the right to choose to take whatever drug you want.

What do you guys think?

 

I believe that weed should be legal and most of the rest decriminalized. I would keep Heroin, crack and meth illegal but with the penalties reduced. I used to work in store right next door to a homeless shelter. Crackheads are fucking dangerous when there fucking mind is gone. I have walked by a crackhead attacking a parked car, one fighting invisible shit in the middle of the street and was hounded constantly for money going to or leaving work.

Shit that destroys the users lives and their families lives should not be legal.

 

So using your logic, we need to make booze illegal since it destroys the users lives and their families.

Edit: And while we are at it we need to make cigarettes illegal because they cause cancer, thereby destroying a life.

 

Fair enough. Let me ask you this: How do you feel about the pharmaceutical equivalents to these drugs?

Such as Heroin and opiate based pain killers. Many legitimate pain patients use these when they need them and the stop after the source of their pain is healed or operated on. A lot don't. But a lot do.

Or

Meth and amphetamine salts used to tread ADD and ADHD? Tons of American children take these drugs when their young and stop when they "grow out" out of their adhd. AKA stop being normal children and develop.

I know they might not be as bad as their street drug cousins, but still...

Do you think Cocaine should be legal/decriminalized but not Crack? I mean if you take a walk down Wall Street you'll see a lot of successful cocaine users.

 

I have tried Oxy a few times and can tell that can be an addictive drug. A friend of my brothers got on those and lost his job and eventually committed suicide a couple years ago. I don't think people should be jailed for using them but I wouldn't let anyone have those without a prescription.

I also used to do Coke everyday for about a year. It is one drug I am glad I stopped using because I actually do enjoy sleep and having more money. If someone wants to use coke I don't care but I would never do it again.

 

I can tell you first hand you're 100% right about the oxy. I've also done it before too. I still do actually, when I'm with someone who has it or whatever. But I can tell you that I'm certainly not hooked. You've done it before and as far as I can tell from your last post, neither are you. Neither are the people who are on it daily for years and go through something like suboxone therapy to get off it (physical dependence is not the same as addiction). I've seen people in both camps and I'm sure you have too. So why should we base these laws around your brother's friend because he got hooked? You could become an alcoholic too. But that's no reason to make alcohol illegal.

As for cocaine and an icon we're all familiar with, look at a guy like Philalawyer and millions like him. Why should we make cocaine illegal and hurt people like that because crack addicts go out and fight cars?

 

I believe the government has a legitimate right to control a substance that could do substantial damage to society. Crack and meth serve no practical purpose other than to rot one's teeth out. Heroin could be restricted to practical medicine. Trying to say that there's a legitimate reason to legalize crystal meth is fucking stupid.

 

I might just be being ignorant here, but do you really think drugs being illegal stops people from doing them? I'm pretty sure people who do drugs would do them regardless of whether they were legal or not, and I don't think that if cocaine/heroin/etc were legal random people would say "hey, before it was illegal and I wouldn't do it...but now its accepted!". I really don't see the point in having them be illegal..

 

You're wrong. You'll see very few people supporting the use of Crystal Meth. But that's not the point here. Don't blur the two very different arguments. Legalization of Meth would evaporate the under belly of society that produces and sells this drug. It would cut out many violent crimes and even help the people who have a problem with it. People are going to use Meth regardless of it's legal status and you damn well know it. Legalizing would help all of society for the reasons I just stated above. Not just the ones who use it.

 

I guess I'll put my 2 cents in because I think this is an interesting debate. And I'll preface it by saying that I find it hard to believe that any changes in drug law will happen in the next 30 years, not nationally anyway. So this discussion isn't a whole lot more than wishful thinking and pipe dreams.

Given my (mostly) libertarian views on the government keeping the fuck out of people's lives unless someone is harming someone else, then I find the legalization/decriminalization of all drugs to be pretty appealing. And logically, it makes the most sense to me and my philosophy on the government's roll in society. With pot, it seems like a no-brainer, for reasons everyone's already discussed. I've done it a lot a few years ago, but never really got into it as much as other people. I like the drink a lot more. But I hesitate when it comes to the harder drugs, because I think that they naturally bring people to commit crimes against others, or at least bring some level of harm to them. Whether it's robbing someone at gunpoint to get money for their next fix or domestic abuse or generally being a drain on society (reducing them to welfare and other government run programs that are funded by responsible members of society).

The natural argument against this line of thinking is that alcohol does the same thing. People get drunk, drive and then kill people. A lot actually. Plus alcoholism ruins relationships and families and brings a lot of emotional and psychological harm to people. And plenty of alcoholics are a drain on society because of alcohol. But I think the distinction I have in my mind (right or wrong) is that with alcohol these things happen at a much lower rate than with the harder drugs. I'm guessing that the percentage of regular drinkers that have committed a violent crime (because of alcohol) is much lower than the percentage of regular hard core drug users that have committed a violent crime (because of [drug]). Other than pot, the only thing I've ever done is coke, so admittedly I don't really know what I'm talking about when it comes to the actual effects most drugs have on people. But from what I can tell from simple observation, the percentage of drinkers who harm others/society is far lower than the percentage of drug users who harm others/society.

Obviously, I have no evidence or proof or numbers to point to, so I could be completely wrong and an absolute moron who buys into the media's skewed portrayal of street drugs. I do know that it would be nearly impossible to get an apples to apples comparison on things like this, so I've got to go with my gut I guess. Either way, my line of reasoning still stands: if 5% of people are gonna be fuck ups, it's not a big deal. No need to make that shit illegal. But if 40% of people are gonna be fuck ups, then I'm sorry but the right of the general population not to deal with your shit is gonna trump your right to get totally blasted, dude. I'm sticking with the utilitarianism rout on this one.

Obviously this issue if far more complicated than a couple paragraphs can cover, but it's a really interesting conversation.

 

With regards to oxycontin, I know a pharmacist who works in a methadone clinic who thinks that it should be pulled off of the market because it's so addictive. This is someone who treats, on a daily basis, people that range from from full blown addicts to people who were taking opiates for a legitimate injury and took a bit too kindly to it. While I generally support drug legalization, I think the government absolutely does have a legitimate interest in banning (or at the very least, controlling) certain chemicals and medicines that are flat out dangerous. At the same time, I have a counter-example: the whole Vioxx scandal cast a very bad light on the pharmaceutical industry, and yet many patients said that they wanted to keep taking Vioxx because it worked for them and relieved their arthritis pain, regardless of their increased risk of cardiovascular events. I think those people should be able to keep taking Vioxx; they understand the risk, and far too many people with inadequate pain control have chosen the option of killing themselves rather than to keep on going in agony. At the far end of the spectrum, there certainly is a legitimate role of government in banning/controlling DDT and CFCs and so forth, and I think under no circumstances should anti-microbials be available without restriction to anyone who wants them (for obvious reasons).

The more I think about the issue, the more complex it becomes, and the harder it is for me to pinpoint one or two principles that could be used to set out a comprehensive set of drug laws that go beyond alcohol and marijuana. Do we legalize street drugs but keep proper "medicine" behind a pharmacy counter and only available by prescription? How do you differentiate between someone who needs codeine because they broke their ankle and someone who wants it for the buzz? Drugs like amyl nitrate, Viagra, and nitrous oxide all have recreational uses and legitimate clinical uses; where does one draw the line between a drug with recreational uses that ought to be de-regulated and a purely clinical drug that needs careful dosing and monitoring for the sake of safety? There are anti-depressants that cause spontaneous orgasm upon yawning, and who wouldn't want to try that to see if it's fun? And at the same time, who wants to run the risk of serotonin syndrome or tyramine toxicity from eating the wrong kind of cheese with that anti-depressant?

I'm sorry to have bunged up this thread with all my book learning. Carry on with your regularly scheduled programming.

 

I know a guy who owns a substance abuse rehab facility that thinks alchohol should be illegal, and he treats people on a daily basis who have done all the same things with alchohol.

If we made meth/crack/heroin legal tomorrow, a small percentage of the population would try it because it was legal, a percentage of those would become addicted, commit crimes, and die horrible deaths and destroy their families. Most would not try it because they understand the risk and they have no desire to be a part of it.

According to the justice department we are giving the DEA pretty close to 3 billion dollars in 2009 to fight the war on drugs in addition to that we are giving the people who run the prisons about 5.5 billion to house some of the people who are involved in the drug trade.
We could save ourself a lot of money by treating the addicts that want treatment, and spending that huge amount of money elsewhere. There is a lot of way cool stuff going on in the addiction field, new drugs and treatments that are helping addicts or abusers recover. If we spent the money on learning and treating addiction to drugs that we spent on fighting drugs we would be better off.

Just because you have a personal belief that something serves no practical purpose for society ie. meth does not mean you should say no one else can have it if they so chose.

If you think the government should be allowed to tell us what we can and can't put in our or do to our bodies would you support them imprisoning obese people because they abuse food and suffer from 100% preventable ailments, of course not. What about people who smoke cigarettes and get cancer, should we throw them in jail because they were killing themselves on purpose, that would be stupid as well.

Food and cigarettes are not street drugs, but what you don't like about street drugs is that people get addicted to them and do stupid stuff, so again we are back to addiction.
People who are addicted to meth obviously committ more crimes than those who are addicted to food, but would drug crime go up if meth were legal, no it would go down, and if offered a rehabilitation option the recovery rate from meth abuse would be significant.

Legalize it all and treat those who have issues, we are going to pay to put them in prison and prosecute them or we can pay a small part of that to rehab them.

 

Are you fucking serious with this nonsense? It sure as fuck won't stop meth heads robbing people for meth money, since it will be cheaper and more accessible. And who the hell is going to pay for these rehab facilities? As far as I know, everyone who uses crystal meth and crack have a fucking problem with it, it's nasty shit. I'd love for you to show me a way in which rehabbing the poorest and most degenerate sect of society is somehow profitable. What would happen in reality is that for those type of facilities to exist, the people who are least likely to use them, the taxpayers, are going to have pay for them.

The government has a legitimate interest in controlling a substance that could do substantial damage to society. That is an argument having to do entirely with the concept of legalization. You might as well be advocating the mass production and distribution of a vitamin designed to give the user Down's Syndrome. Sure, almost no one would take it, but that's not the argument here. Just because the government makes it, does not guarantee complete safety. Obviously if the effects of use will be harmful to the individual, and if there is potential for serious harm to others that can't be controlled, then the government should step in and control the substance for the good of the people who enabled the government.

I'm all for legalizing substances for research purposes and opening up to legitimate scientific exploration, but to suggest that you should be able to go down the street and pick up some meth from 7-11 is ludicrous.

 

I was more confused than I thought.