Posted on 02/06/2009 11:02:54 AM PST by ellery
Well you should find out, and write a book. People would kill to find out how to beat the physical and psychological effects of long term cocaine addiction.
Agreed. Same with other artists. Plenty of musicians peaked during cocaine and heroin addiction as well. But like you said, the long term addiction will destroy them if they don't get help and break out of the cycle.
The last thing I want to do is defend people that use drugs. I don't do them, and I don't want that reputation. However, I do have good friends with professional careers that do use the drug in party type atmospheres. Clubs and on vacations (especially to Vegas) mainly.
Do they use it during the week too? I don't really know, but most of them have random drug testing at work. Maybe that's the only thing that keeps them from doing it habitually. Or maybe they are the type that can do it "responsibly" like the advertisements say to do with liquor and beer.
I say that because I seem to be impervious to the addictive affects of cigarettes. For six years in the navy everyone and their brother tried to make a smoker out of me. Can't even tell you how many of them I smoked, but they never got a hold of me. It makes it difficult for me to relate to people that "need" a smoke. I just did it to fit with the atmosphere. Perhaps some of the friends I know are the same way with cocain.
cocain = cocaine
I guess it’s not that bad of a word not to be able to spell...
That you know of.
You see, you have anectodal evidence of people who are usually lying. A person might be fired who you do not know is an alcoholic.
But I get the inside information. In the 12-step rooms, people get gut-level honest, and I am here to inform you that alcoholics have a vastly harder time keeping their jobs.
Also, define alcoholism before we proceed further. The ones you saw keep their jobs may be drinkers, but alcoholism is a different animal entirely.
Let me demonstrate by example: One alcoholic I heard speak told me about how he would start his day with a fifth of vodka, a cup, and some cheesecloth. Since his body violently rejected alcohol, he would vomit immediately upon drinking. He would vomit into the cup, covered with the cheesecloth, to strain out the vomit chunks. Then he would re-drink the vodka. Of course, he would vomit it out again, but back into the straining cup it would go. He repeated this until finally his body would keep the vodka down.
He didn't keep his job(s).
I, and I think most other people, consider cocaine and heroin addiction to be more dangerous than alcoholism.
Most other people, and you, are dangerously incorrect. ALL addictions are EQUALLY dangerous.
Do you believe that cocaine and heroin should be legal?
No. However, I might emphasis forced treatment more than incarceration.
Do you believe that alcohol should be illegal?
No. However, I might demand that those who are found to be alcoholic in their drinking habits to go to forced treatment. Alcohol is very dangerous when used addictively.
People do not have to kill for that. They can simply come to the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and we will show you what we did.
Wow a “substantial” amount of drugs! Hooray for the boys in blue. So NOW have we won the drug war?
Maybe it's both? I don't see any justificiation for the shoot em' up tactics if not protecting life and limb.
Why not arrest them when they leave and then go back with a warrant to do a search. Home invasions of this kind are not necessary.
Letting states decide intrastate drug policies is not a "legalize everything" position. Please don't be dishonest.
P.S. Ron Paul is a stupid old kook.
15 posted on 02/02/2009 12:54:25 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Like I said, it's a union shop. If anyone gets fired, I know exactly why and I know all surrounding details. I receive all of this information from at least seven different sources before lunch. And that's when I don't ask anyone about it.
and I am here to inform you that alcoholics have a vastly harder time keeping their jobs
Not from what I've seen. The coke heads couldn't even maintain their rent payments or car payments. They would require more and more cocaine to reach the same results, and this would drive them deep into debt. Alcoholism is dirt cheap compared to cocaine addiction.
Also, define alcoholism before we proceed further.
People who get drunk everynight after work. People who are both physically and psychologically addicted to alcohol.
Most other people, and you, are dangerously incorrect. ALL addictions are EQUALLY dangerous.
I've never seen any evidence to support this assertion. Even you concede that cocaine and heroin should both be illegal and alcohol should be legal.
There is no way to beat the physical and psychological effects of cocaine addiction for those who continue to use.
You are claiming that people who support federal bans of substances like cocaine and heroin aren't true conservatives, but 'LBJ Commerce Clause "conservatives"'. Note that you used quotations to indicate that people who share this view aren't true conservatives. And you never explained why my interpretation of the commerce clause is invalid. You just compared me to LBJ and left it at that. Like I said, since Congress has the power to regulate commerce among the states, and since both cocaine and heroin are controlled substances, the federal government has a right to intervene.
I don't like Ron Paul's stance on the war, but on this issue...
You took JimRob's quote out of context. That was from a thread relating to the stimulus package. I'm guessing JimRob doesn't support legalizing heroin and cocaine.
Seriously? All right then, here is the best source I found on the original meaning of the Commerce Clause. Read everything by James Madison, especially his second letter to Joseph C. Cabell.
When you have time, also read Gibbons vs Ogden, and Willson vs the Blackbird Creek Marsh Co.. These are two cornerstone cases in which J. Marshall brilliantly explains the meaning of "to regulate commerce among the several states":
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/a1_8_3_commerce.html
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LBJ and FDR were the worst thing that hit this country since it formation. And Obama is the worse thing since LBJ and Jimmy Carter.
I pretty much agree. Most of their domestic agenda was/is made possible due to the "substantial effects" test for interstate commerce, which has been in force since SCOTUS issued its decision in Wickard.
The really nasty legislation of the New Deal/Great Society - Medicare, Medicaid, the EPA, the Education Dept, etc. - depends upon this FDR/LBJ view of the Commerce Clause.
All I am saying is that drugs are bad and sometime we have to give a little leewway to uphold drug laws.
Does that leeway include ignoring the Constitution when necessary to uphold drug laws?
In other words, you remain closedminded to my observations of people who get honest in the rooms of recovery.
That's fine. I meet people who refuse to modify their opinions, every day. It doesn't matter to me.
Agreed. I would also add that there is no way to beat the physical and psychological effects of alcoholism for alcoholics who continue to drink.
People who get drunk everynight after work. People who are both physically and psychologically addicted to alcohol.
People who get drunk every night after work are not necessarily alcoholics yet. They are certainly on that path. The second definition is closer, but the AMA definition is best: "Alcoholism is a primary, chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, most notably denial. Each of these symptoms may be continuous or periodic."
Fair enough. Here is Madison on the regulation of commerce among the states:
James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell, 13 Feb. 1829
For a like reason, I made no reference to the "power to regulate commerce among the several States." I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it.
Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_3_commerces19.html
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You just compared me to LBJ and left it at that. Like I said, since Congress has the power to regulate commerce among the states, and since both cocaine and heroin are controlled substances, the federal government has a right to intervene.
But where does the fedgov claim authority to make them controlled substances in the first place, and then institute a national prohibition? If Congress can use the Commerce Clause for that purpose, why not for any other article of commerce, like... "assault weapons"? Here is an excerpt from John Marshall's decision in Gibbons:
They [inspection laws] form a portion of that immense mass of legislation, which embraces everything within the territory of a State, not surrendered to the general government: all which can be most advantageously exercised by the States themselves. Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.
No direct general power over these objects is granted to Congress; and, consequently, they remain subject to State legislation.
-J. Marshall, Gibbons v Ogden, 1824 (link in post #130)
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I'm guessing JimRob doesn't support legalizing heroin and cocaine.
I'm sure he doesn't within the borders of his state, but from the FR Mission Statement, I'd say he does not support the constitutionality of the federal WOD:
-snip-
A return to a strictly Constitutional form of federal government will automatically repeal and abolish all unconstitutional federal involvement in states issues such as: crime, health, education, welfare and the environment. The Tenth Amendment will again be in effect, which will bar all federal attempts at legislating social issues.
-snip-
argh. Make that... "link in post #134"
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