Have We Lost the Drug Wars?

Townhall.com ^ | January 8, 2013 | Bill Murchison

[JustSayNoToNannies]

”Of all psychoactive substances, alcohol is the only one whose consumption has been shown to commonly increase aggression. [...] Marijuana and opiates temporarily inhibit violent behavior” - “Psychoactive Substances and Violence”, Department of Justice National Criminal Justice Reference Service

Agreed, WHEN TAKEN TO EXCESS.

But not at all, for some of the drugs you want to completely ban while leaving alcohol legal. Hypocrite.

Drunkenness is basically against the law.

They don’t come into your house to see if you’re drunk - they need probable cause

And if they do happen to have probable cause to enter someone's house, and they find him drunk, can they arrest him for being drunk? If not, it's clearly false that "Drunkenness is basically against the law" as you claim.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

I don't care what government agency spouted this nonsense, but it doesn't jive with my experience.

Your experience is nonrandomly selected and so can't trump research. Did you test those crazies for pre-existing psychiatric conditions?

[Lazamataz]

In the year you have been here as a freeper, have you noticed that flames over typos are a losing strategy? In the year you’ve been here as a Freeper, have you noticed that accusing people of drug use and mental incapacitation is a losing strategy? And lastly, In they year you have been here as a freeper, have you noticed that people that refuse to debate an issue like adults are rarely given credibility?

THE WORD IS NOT "TYPO", YOU STONER JERKWAD RETARD, THE WORDS ARE "TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR"!!! You are probably high as hell on heroin right now, you Special Olympics kid. GOD I hate you!!!!1!! Awwww Hell no

[Lazamataz]

Your experience is nonrandomly selected and so can't trump research.

My experience is repeated over a million times as I attend the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and hear the exact same war stories from veteran after veteran. Crack and meth people are very unpredictable and very dangerous. Dismiss my experience and the experience of my fellows as much as you care too, but you are dead-ass wrong. Period.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Your experience is nonrandomly selected and so can't trump research.

My experience is repeated over a million times as I attend the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous

Still nonrandom.

[CowboyJay]

The WOD is already there. To slam it for pot is, period, the new wave of liberalism.

Not sure I got the secret decoder ring I'd need to make sense out of this.

What can't go on forever, won't. We already have the largest police state in the history of history, and drugs are cheaper, more potent, and more available on the street than ever. I'm not willing to sacrifice my constitutional rights in order to kick the WOD up a notch in a losing effort. Apparently you are. There's nothing Conservative about that, in my book.

[Lazamataz]

Dismiss it all you want, doesn't change the fact that you are dead-ass wrong. Further, you look like an utter fool for asserting that crack and meth heads are not more violent and unpredictable than alcohol users. There may be more incidents for alcohol, because of the prevelance of use, but per-capita, crack and meth heads are far and away much more dangerous.

But hey, look like an idiot all you want. Shit, dawg, it might actually be funny to have someone so whacky that they defend crack and meth use on this basis!

[JustSayNoToNannies]

per-capita, crack and meth heads are far and away much more dangerous.

Now you're making statistical claims (which is progress of a sort); let's see the statistical evidence.

defend crack and meth use

Nobody's doing that - you're hallucinating.

[Lazamataz]

Also note that opium and other drugs were legal in the USA until at least the late 19th century, and we did not see anywhere near China's problems.

Because most of America hadn't discovered it yet. It is with the advent of 'patent medicine' snake oil salemen, that America first started having much more widespread addiction problems. As a result, laws.

[Lazamataz]

I assert that crack and meth users are far and away more dangerous and unpredictable than alcohol users. You say that they are not. Around these parts, that's called 'defending'. You are defending crack and meth use on this basis.

Stop hallucinating.

[Norm Lenhart]

That is simply not true. I am however the world’s foremost expert on reloading ;)

Truth be told I was just watching some porn and got distracted....

[JustSayNoToNannies]

America first started having much more widespread addiction problems.

Drug War mythology.

[Lazamataz]

You like to dismiss things with a wave of your hand.

You say it is 'Drug War Mythology'. Prove your claim.

[CowboyJay]

My experience is repeated over a million times as I attend the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and hear the exact same war stories from veteran after veteran. Crack and meth people are very unpredictable and very dangerous. Dismiss my experience and the experience of my fellows as much as you care too, but you are dead-ass wrong. Period.

I came of age in a trailer park during the 80's where drug use was rampant, and that's pretty much my experience as well. Seems like crack and meth induce psychosis in a higher percentage of users. I've seen people just as whacked-out and violent on booze, but the percentage is definitely lower. With alcohol it's just isolated individuals - but the chance that someone will use and go off the deep end still there. With crack and meth, it seems like the percentage is much higher of people who turn into Mr Hyde when they use.

The real question with the WOD isn't whether or not drugs are bad. They are (including alcohol). The question is whether or not we're prepared to tear up the constitution in an effort to tell people in a supposedly free society what substances they may or may not put into their own bodies. I'm in favor of cracking down hard on the secondary behaviors that do actual harm to others. Let's declare war on violent criminals and thieves. Declaring war on a THING is a road to nowhere.

[Lazamataz]

I came of age in a trailer park during the 80's where drug use was rampant, and that's pretty much my experience as well. Seems like crack and meth induce psychosis in a higher percentage of users. I've seen people just as whacked-out and violent on booze, but the percentage is definitely lower. With alcohol it's just isolated individuals - but the chance that someone will use and go off the deep end still there. With crack and meth, it seems like the percentage is much higher of people who turn into Mr Hyde when they use.

You cannot believe your lying eyes, according to JustSayNoToNannies. You must, instead, believe a (clearly flawed) government report.

The real question with the WOD isn't whether or not drugs are bad. They are (including alcohol). The question is whether or not we're prepared to tear up the constitution in an effort to tell people in a supposedly free society what substances they may or may not put into their own bodies. I'm in favor of cracking down hard on the secondary behaviors that do actual harm to others. Let's declare war on violent criminals and thieves. Declaring war on a THING is a road to nowhere.

I agree with this, however, I would attach consequences to using, so as to propel some who would, to recover. I would also triple-fund recovery institutions and defund prisons.

[A_Former_Democrat]

You can cite all the personal exceptions you wish, I too have known hundreds of dopers and the only one who ever excused it besides the desire to get high, was she “liked the taste” )which in itself was BS.

My point is the motivation to get high, alone, is enough to make drugs abusive, dangerous, and thus illegal, by law and by logic. As a society we have to accept generalizations, and make for exceptions in certain cases (say e.g. medical MJ). The legalization argument falls on its face by trying to comapre it to alcohol or that some users do just fine and there are a host of reasons why that argument fails. We tried banning alcohol, it didn’t work. We did fine as a culture without dope, and it is part of the reason why the culture has degraded in 40 years. Put this crap in front of people as it was with me, and we are dumb enough to try it, to “fit in” or to “escape reality” or to hear the triangle in rock music, whatever. The reality is, this stuff is bad for us as individuals and as a culture and nation. If a few people like your acquaintances can’t sit at home and get high, then so be it. It’s a small price to pay in comparison to the evils that result. And yes, I have plenty of examples of friends who effed up their lives starting with dope and I bet you do too.

End of rant.

[Tublecane]

“As a result, laws.”

You think that’s how it happens? Bad stuff pops up, then the government steps in to solve it? You must get better acquainted with government.

[Tublecane]

What corrupts your experience scientifically, as well as the previous poster’s, is that there are no controls. Firstly, trailer parks and NA aren’t Anytown, USA. You are more likely to be dealing with crazy people to begin with. More importantly, alchohol and crack/meth are unequal, in the sense that one is legal and the others not. Might not people with mental health problems be more likely to take crack or meth than random Americans? Thirdly, I assume you never watched the same people only drink booze one night and only take meth another. Nor, as an alternative, compared a person you knew to be mentally healthy and a person you knew to be demented on the same substance with similar doses.

Anyway, even if meth a.d crack are worse than alchohol the question is are they worse enough to be criminal? Because alchohol is pretty dang bad, and despite all the anecdotal evidence you’ve built up about it over your life you can’t be unaware of its deleterious effects. Maybe, just maybe, the only anecdotes you built up around meth and crack is so because, like during Prohibition, its illegality increases its consumption. We haven’t been able to build up how to be social meth- or crackheads. Also, craziest or addicts are more likely to risk using them than regular people.

Even with thousands of years of social drinking alchohol is a menace to those who abuse it. It isn’t quite fair that it gets a free pass. But such was the terrible price we paid to find out Prohibition was a failure. Would that we shift that knowledge over to the boogiemam drugs, and especially pot.

[Tublecane]

We don’t do fine without dope, though. The War on Drugs is an obvious failure, and is a much more spectacularly wasteful and violent assualt on our rights than Prohibition. It’s just that you won’t admit it, unlike previous generations. That has something to do with how central alchohol is to civilization, and how tertiary opium, amphetamines, marijuana, etc. have been. Moreso we have become a nation of simpering, begging, frightened little sheep.

[Tublecane]

There are already consequences to using. Nature provides those. Especially if they are as dangerous as you say. I don’t know why we don’t rely on them to do our work for us.

Well, we’ve abandoned personal responsibility for most problems in our civilization. Why wouldn’t more funding for “recovery” be our solution?