Drug Laws as Cultural Lobotomy

Liberty Magazine ^ | 9/1995 | John Dentinger

[The FRugitive]

You're arguing the wrong argument. I'm not going to disagree with you on the point that drug abuse takes one away from God. I agree with that.

My question, however, is does drug prohibition bring anyone closer to God? My question is not 'does preventing drug abuse bring anyone closer to God?' - certainly the answer to that is yes. But those are clearly two seperate issues.

[_Jim]

My question, however, is does drug prohibition bring anyone closer to God?

Well, then you actually have the wrong argument, as far as I am concerned, since we *don't* actually have a 'drug prohibition' in effect.

We have *controls* in effect. Drugs are availble, when needed and when necessary. It will take a physicians signature to get the stronger 'drugs', but such simple drugs as aspirin and cold/flu aids like NyQuil *are* freely availble over the counter without any 'prohibition' in effect ...

[RJCogburn]

BTW, diphenylhydantoin is an anticonvulsant medicine. Toxicology: Toxic. Human carcinogen, neoplastigen, teratogen, mutagen. Experimental carcinogen. May cause systemic effects. May case reproductive defects.

Thanks for the pharmacology lesson, Bob.

Fact is, if you are pouring through your PDR, you will find dire warnings for just about all the drugs listed. Read the listing for Zyban, an FDA approved drug for smoking cessation....sounds pretty scary, doesn't it?

Additional fact is that Dilantin, is an effective and frequently used drug for some cardiac arrythmias. It is used in some chronic pain syndromes. There are a lot of 'off-label' uses for it.....as for many drugs.

The FDA does not approve the use of a drug without application for its use, along with lots of data....which means money. Since the patent for Dilantin is long expired, there is no economic benefit to applying for another use.

We can disagree about the War on Drugs but your comments concerning diphenylhydatoin are simply the product of, in the best case, bring uneducated about the facts.

[RJCogburn]

Right you are. I certainly did not to try to hide the source, as I provided a link.

While the source of any article is of interest and may help with understanding any bias of the writer, it is the ideas in any article, not the source, upon which we should focus, IMO.

[coloradan]

Your dissembling and disingenuousness continues to astound and amaze.

Saying we don't have a drug prohibition in effect, because some drugs are legal or even OTC, is like saying the Nazis weren't racist, because there were some races (for example, Aryans) who were not sent to the gas chambers as a matter of national policy.

Obviously, some drugs are prohibited, and if any are, then there is a prohibition in effect, specifically pertaining to those drugs.

Duh.

[_Jim]

Obviously, some drugs are prohibited,

Which ones - THC perhaps?

Nope. It's availble via prescription (Marinol) ...

Maybe it's more a problem that *your* drug of choice is regulated (which you automaticlly then translate into 'a prohibition against') ...

[coloradan]

Many drugs have no accepted medical use and are prohibited under all circumstances for manufacture, possession, sale, transportation, and use.

According to your own dishonest definition, there was no alcohol "prohibition" in America during the 1920s, because it was still permissible in communion wine.

Is that what you are arguing? (Depending on the meaning of 'is,' no doubt?)

[coloradan]

Come to think of it, there were *some* Jews who weren't gassed to death at all - so who can argue that Nazi Germany had an institutionalized system of racism against Jews?

As I said, your dissembling and disingenuousness continues to astound and amaze.

[Eagle Eye]

Why is it that you NEVER want to comment on the part that licensed doctors play in addicting and killing people?

There was an article posted on FR about a year ago that showed that in Florida in 2000( I believe) more people died from prescription drugs than from illegal drugs.

Calling people 'druggies' is simply a convenient way to divert attention from the FAILED WoD to a personal attack on those that realize the extreme hypocracy in the WoD AND those who support it.

[Roscoe]

"Hyperbole on Drugs"

Or "Hyperventilating on Drugs"

[Kevin Curry]

I finally went to the student health service, which referred me to a psychiatrist, . . .

I.e., taxpayer subsidized medical care--mentioned in passing almost as an afterthought.

Doper socialism. Pro-dopers are closet marxists.

[RJCogburn]

taxpayer subsidized medical care

How so?

[LadyDoc]

"Why is it that you NEVER want to comment on the part that licensed doctors play in addicting and killing people? There was an article posted on FR about a year ago that showed that in Florida in 2000( I believe) more people died from prescription drugs than from illegal drugs."

So if I give a dangerous medication to kill a cancer, (which has a 100 percent mortality but a 30 percent mortality if treated with anti cancer medications) and the man dies of pneumonia, I've klled him?

So if I treat patient with overwhelming sepsis with an antibiotic and he dies of an allergic reaction because his body is weak, I've killed him?

So if I give a person a pain medication for a broken leg, and they take ten tablets and wash it down with beer and stop breathing, I've killed him?

If I give narcotics to a patient dying of metastatic cancer, and it requires 300 mgs an hour of morphine to keep him pain free, then I am to be condemned because he's "addicted"?

And if a person steals this gentleman's MSContin from his medicine cabinet and takes six tablets and dies of an overdose, I guess you'd say I killed her too.

Get real. Most "medication related deaths" are in sick people where the risk/benefit ratio is acceptable. You can die of Tylenol, which is one of the safest medicines we have. But most of these "medication" deaths are based on statistics from hostpitals where very very sick people are treated, (i.e. major medical centers) then the statistics are expanded as if the figures were true for community hospitals where mildly sick people are treated. It's a statistical exaggeration, and ignores the fact that many of these patients were critically ill or dying to begin with.

Druggies take drugs to feel good.

Medications are given by doctors so patients can cure their disease and get back to health, or at least to be able to live like a normal person.

Druggies don't want to be normal, they want to be high. That's why druggies kill their souls: They want to feel good, and their lives get twisted around to feel good, not to DO good, i.e. be responsible hard working human beings. They manipulate those around them to get drugs, they lack insight that they are hurting themselves and those around them, and they increase the types and dosages of whatever they take to get the desired high.

[Roscoe]

Get real.

That's a tall order. Advocating illicit drugs and reality don't go together.

[William Terrell]

When you expound on your aversion to drugs, you inevitably lean getting high, or having an altered state of consciousness. This seems to be your base position when the people here scrub away your reasoning with published facts.

Kindly tell me, what's intrinsically wrong with being "high", euphoric or having an alterered state of consciousness? God says not to? Where does He say that?

If you can't answer that question, how in the world are you able to hold your position?

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"Do you understand how utterly bankrupt such an argument is?"

One of the most profound epiphanies of my life was when I read a book on Ted Bundy the serial killer and I realized that he had made a rational argument to justify his murdering. There is the whole Marxist system that justifies taking from those who work to give to those who are lazy. I'm sure that the Marxists use profound arguments too.(In the last century 100 million were killed by reasoned arguments to protect the state.)

What do I think God thinks about taking acid over marijuana? Both are sins. The nature of Man since Adam has been to rebel and the rationalizing of sin.

[Roscoe]

scrub away your reasoning with published facts

http://www.theantidrug.com/news/dd_facts.html

[Kevin Curry]

In the last century 100 million were killed by reasoned arguments to protect the state.

Marxist theory holds the state in utter contempt, labels it an oppressor of the people. In a perfect marxist society the state withers away to an anarchist nirvana.

Sound familiar? It should. It's the libertarian mindset, too. Marxists and libertarians, especially pro-dope libertarians, are siamese twin zealots. Like all zealots, they would destroy (liquidate is the more neutral term used) the "misfits" who stand in the way of their heaven on earth.

Pro-dopers are marxists. They are sympatico to a perfect degree.

[Conservative til I die]

Is your real last name "Strawman"?

[Conservative til I die]

Well -and I'm a pro-legalizer- it's not so much that specifically drug abuse is addressed in the Bible, but it's sinful to do things that damage your body. Having a drink is OK, but being a drunkard is not. Same would go for drugs.