Posted on 09/16/2003 7:09:14 AM PDT by Wolfie
Scientists retract second drug study
Mislabeled vial used again in new Ecstasy research at Johns Hopkins lab
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have retracted a second study linking the drug Ecstasy to a certain type of brain damage - because once again, the wrong drug was given to lab animals.
Dr. Una D. McCann, a neuroscientist involved in both experiments, said a letter of retraction was sent yesterday to a medical journal, which she declined to identify until editors there decide how to handle the matter. Scientists discovered the mistake after they checked lab records to see if methamphetamine - a variety of "speed" - from a mislabeled vial used in the first experiment had been used elsewhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at sunspot.net ...
So it isn't really about culling the weak at all.
That doesn't follow. One may desire an end yet rule out certain means of achieving it.
And by the way, people who are high (either by drugs or alcohol) can and do harm others through the things they do while high. So shooting them is better than just allowing them to take drugs until they kill themselves.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise, since people who are high (either by drugs or alcohol) also can and do REFRAIN FROM harming others.
If drug costs are low, these costs will not be any higher than those from winos today.
Saying take them out and shoot them is cute, but unless you are seriously proposing to ammend the constitution, its silly
The latest figure I saw from the DEA (from 1999) showed 980,000 heroin addicts in a population of about 280,000,000. That works out to about a 0.34% addiction rate.
After 80 years of prohibition, and more than a decade of drug czars, anyone who so desires can get all the top quality heroin they want at historically low prices.
Which is, of course, why those things in and of themselves are illegal. After all, people who own guns can and do harm others through the things they do while holding a gun. Which do you prefer to be illegal: the holding of guns, or the harmful things that some gun owners do while holding them?
I think that is unfair to the original poster. Liquid Draino, Automobile Anti-Freeze, Gasoline, and Paint are all extremely poisonous, abusable, and are available to anyone. The individual is to blame for misusing poisons to harm themselves. The government is not to blame for making poisons "legal". If it's poisonous, don't intentionally eat it, smoke it, inhale it, or drink it. If you do, it's your fault.
I'm not sure I follow you on that point. My fear is that if the market is flooded with USDA stamped marijuana or even amphetamine and cocaine, many kids on the borderline might be more willing to give it a try.
Is there evidence that the rise in oral sex didn't begin until Clinton/Lewinski? I suspect the trend was rising even before and was unaffected by that event.
I know of no research on this. It is just my observation and I could be wrong on the cause and effect. It might be that MTV, movies, and no parents at home in the afternoons caused the wave of teen and pre-teen oral sex. The principle is the same, though. If those in charge send a message to the young that drugs are not as serious as we were saying, in the current climate that might initiate a wave of new child drug abusers.
Perhaps after a generation the evils of these substances would be better appreciated and it would all sort itself out. In spite of the logic for legalization,though, I am afraid for this generation of young people if it were implemented.
I am assuming you agree that these drugs are very dangerous to young people. If I am wrong on that, we don't have much basis for the above discussion.
Even worse for the drug barons, the glamour of doing something illegal would be gone for the teenagers, and there would be no reason left for the drug gangs to hire them to push the stuff in school yards and keep the list of customers multiplying. No more knife fights and gun battles for market territory. No more no-knock raids on innocent people. No more dealers standing on neighborhood street corners. No more confiscated property.
Legalizing and licensing knocks out the profits. Politicians who support the War On Drugs are doing so for one reason only, they have a lobbyist funded by a drug baron slipping large quantities of cash into their pockets to keep the drug profits flowing. Their interest is in keeping the War On Drugs alive, well funded, and managed with the same bungling incompetence that has filled the prison system with bottom-level dealers and users, and left the big operators untroubled and the price of cocaine and heroin profitably high.
The advertising campaigns currently used to combat drug use are part of the problem. Teenagers who have tried drugs compare the advertising to their personal experiences with the drugs and decide the government is feeding them a pile of B.S. From that point on they view anything the government tells them as propaganda no matter what the subject. This leads to serious erosion in their faith in our political system and the intelligence and honesty of our politicians. Intelligently educating people on the dangers of drugs such as crack, cocaine, PCP, heroin, crystal methedrine, etc. would be much more effective than the current system.
Part of the tax money raised from the sale of the drugs can go into the general tax fund. That combined with the hundreds of billions of dollars of savings from eliminating the War On Drugs and the hundreds of billions of dollars of savings from reducing the number of people currently incarcerated in our prison system for drug use combined with the income taxes paid by the drug users who would be working and paying taxes instead living off our tax dollars in jail would make a tremendous difference in reducing our overall tax burden.
I'm not sure I follow you on that point.
Once two teens decide to have sex, they don't need to acquire any illegal-for-teens merchandise, whereas once a teen decides to use drugs he does need to acquire illegal-for-teens merchandise.
My fear is that if the market is flooded
Why would the market be "flooded"? 70 million Americans have tried marijuana, but most of them chose not to become regular users.
with USDA stamped marijuana or even amphetamine and cocaine, many kids on the borderline might be more willing to give it a try.
But sellers would have a new economic incentive to not sell to kids---namely, the risk of losing their legal adult business.
If those in charge send a message to the young that drugs are not as serious as we were saying,
Relegalization need send no such message.
Sounds good in the abstract, but when I think about the kids in my community,I'd rather try and save them. Can't we postpone the Darwinian heard thinning until they are adults?
When heroin was banned in 1924, federal officials estimated that there were 200,000 heroin addicts in the US. The population was about 105,000,000, so the addiction rate was around 0.2%.
The latest figure I saw from the DEA (from 1999) showed 980,000 heroin addicts in a population of about 280,000,000. That works out to about a 0.34% addiction rate.
You legalize it and you will make it more socially acceptable, cheaper and more easily available. So use of all these hard drugs will greatly increase. Your statistics (if accurate and I doubt it) also don't account for non addicted dopers. You stats have nothing to say about methedrine use which is today's' plague and did not exist back in your golden age of legal dope. Nothing to say about crack which did not exist. Nor ecstasy nor LSD.
Do you have more reliable data to offer than this federal figures? Or do you simply reject any facts that don't fit your biases?
also don't account for non addicted dopers.
Why are they a problem any more than nonaddicted drinkers?
That seems to argue that legalization would indeed make it easier for teens to use these substances.
Why would the market be "flooded"?
I don't know the sociology of it, if there is some I would be interested. It's just common sense telling me that without fines and jail terms, it would be more available everywhere and therefore more available to young people.
But sellers would have a new economic incentive to not sell to kids---namely, the risk of losing their legal adult business.
That's a good point. However, teens, I believe, have an easier time getting alcohol from adults than illegal drugs. It's hard for me to imagine it would not be around more if there were legal marijuana and/or cocaine stores in every community.
Relegalization need send no such message.
Wouldn't the fact of relegalization itself send that message, regardless of how it was packaged? Kids with great parents might not worry, but many kids are not astute on these topics. I think they would get a message, "It's not all that bad, after all they legalized it".
I am curious if you believe that these substances are, in general, dangerous to young people.
Unfortunately most of the losers will have bred by then and it will be too late. We need to eliminate them before they whelp for the first time.
Well, I grew up in the sixties, and most of my friends who abused drugs later saw the light and stopped, and went on to productive lives and raised good children. I'm glad they weren't culled from the herd. And I wish the evils of these drugs had been more widely understood then.
Stretching your analogy, why not offer $1000.00 to any teenager who is willing to take a blow to the head with a hammer?
I grew up in te sixties too. I tried everything. I also had the brains and will to quit it all and grow up. A lot of my friends did the same. Others melted their brains and went down. That is what life is all about.
I think offering $1,000.00 to any teen willing to take a shot in the head with a .45 is a good idea. The hamer might no do the job.
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