DEA "Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization" Claim 3 - a rebuttal

(self) | March 26, 2012 | (self)

[JustSayNoToNannies]

The DEA Web pages on "Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization" are linked with some regularity on FR. They're full of errors in fact and logic; since I couldn't find a comprehensive rebuttal online, I've started creating one. Here's my rebuttal to their "Fact 3;" more to come as time permits. ("Fact 1" rebutted at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2858443/posts; "Fact 2" rebutted at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2861557/posts.)

Claim 3: "Illegal drugs are illegal because they are harmful."

Fact: The legal drugs alcohol and tobacco are legal despite being harmful.

• Claim: Drug use can be deadly, far more deadly than alcohol. Although alcohol is used by seven times as many people as drugs, the number of deaths induced by those substances are not far apart. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), during 2000, there were 15,852 drug-induced deaths; only slightly less than the 18,539 alcohol-induced deaths.

  Fact: Because the drug alcohol is legal, it can be and is effectively regulated for concentration and lack of contamination. Because other drugs are illegal, they are forced into the black market where no such effective regulation is possible — so the illegality of drugs makes them more deadly than they would otherwise be.

Ecstasy

• Claim: Ecstasy has rapidly become a favorite drug among young party goers in the U.S. and Europe, and it is now being used within the mainstream as well. According to the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, Ecstasy use tripled among Americans between 1998 and 2001. Many people believe, incorrectly, that this synthetic drug is safer than cocaine and heroin. In fact, the drug is addictive and can be deadly. The drug often results in severe dehydration and heat stroke in the user, since it has the effect of “short-circuiting” the body’s temperature signals to the brain. Ecstasy can heat your body up to temperatures as high as 117 degrees. Ecstasy can cause hypothermia, muscle breakdown, seizures, stroke, kidney and cardiovascular system failure, as well as permanent brain damage during repetitive use, and sometimes death. The psychological effects of Ecstasy include confusion, depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, drug craving, and paranoia.

  Fact: Ecstasy can be deadly — as can cocaine and heroin (and alcohol). The DEA comes less than halfway to supporting their claim that the belief that "this synthetic drug is safer than cocaine and heroin" is "incorrect." Those considering using Ecstasy should know the risks ... but the DEA insures that it won't be listened to by 'crying wolf' with its claim that Ecstasy is as unsafe as heroin.

Cocaine

• Claim: Physical effects of cocaine use include constricted blood vessels and increased temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure. Users may also experience feelings of restlessness, irritability, and anxiety. Cocaine-related deaths are often the result of cardiac arrest or seizures followed by respiratory arrest. Cocaine continues to be the most frequently mentioned illicit substance in U.S. emergency departments, present in 30 percent of the emergency department drug episodes during 2001.

  Fact: That an emergency-department patient mentions something says nothing about whether that something was a causal factor in their emergency; does the government track "mentions" of techno music or pizza? This profoundly silly statistic is used to artificially inflate the numbers on the harmfulness of drugs.

Marijuana

• Claim: Drug legalization advocates in the United States single out marijuana as a different kind of drug, unlike cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. They say it’s less dangerous. Several European countries have lowered the classification of marijuana. However, as many people are realizing, marijuana is not as harmless as some would have them believe. Marijuana is far more powerful than it used to be. In 2000, there were six times as many emergency room mentions of marijuana use as there were in 1990, despite the fact that the number of people using marijuana is roughly the same. In 1999, a record 225,000 Americans entered substance abuse treatment primarily for marijuana dependence, second only to heroin—and not by much.

  Fact: Regarding "mentions," see the previous bullet point. As for substance abuse treatment admissions: Curious how the DEA mentions comparative usage statistics in the first bullet point, but not here. Since in 2008 there were 71 times more past-month users of marijuana than of heroin (http://www.samhsa.gov/data/nsduh/2k8nsduh/tabs/Sect1peTabs1to46.htm#Tab1.1A) the DEA's statistic actually indicates that marijuana is much less addictive than heroin. And regarding the "record" admission number, note that many substance abuse treatment admissions come through ever-multiplying "diversion programs" from the criminal courts, such as California's Proposition 36, under which "all offenders charged with nonviolent drug-related offenses are potentially eligible to receive treatment services" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64143/#A80751) ... which means that many of those admitted to these treatment programs have no substance abuse problem but only an aversion to jail.

• Claim: At a time of great public pressure to curtail tobacco because of its effects on health, advocates of legalization are promoting the use of marijuana. Yet, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per week may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day.” Marijuana contains more than 400 chemicals, including the most harmful substances found in tobacco smoke. For example, smoking one marijuana cigarette deposits about four times more tar into the lungs than a filtered tobacco cigarette.

  Fact: Because tobacco is legal, its sellers have motive and unfettered opportunity to make tobacco less harmful, for example, by developing lower-tar cigarettes. Again we see that the illegality of drugs makes them more harmful than they would otherwise be.

[GraceG]

Drug War = Assured Government Employment.

We need to just let the states decide on this matter the whole “federal drug war” needs to stop as it gives the feds too much power.

If they want a Damned Drug war they need to actually declare an actual WAR as defined in the constitution.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Or pass a new Prohibition amendment.

[GraceG]

[ Or pass a new Prohibition amendment. ]

Amendments should always be of the:

“Government Shall not do this to the people” type

And MOST Certainly NOT: “The People are not permitted to do X”

[GraceG]

When alcohol was illegal there was a lot of “cutting” involved in illicit alcohol and crappy quality control on what was put in alcohol things like methanol were put in.

When you take any product or service into the black market the quality and thus the safety of the product goes way down as people selling it don’t give a crap about your safety because the producsers are far more disconnected from the users. Because if the users know who was smuggling/making the drug the supply would be quickly cut off.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Amendments should always be of the:

“Government Shall not do this to the people” type

And MOST Certainly NOT: “The People are not permitted to do X”

The 18th was of the latter type - and it turned out to be a terrible idea.

"the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."

[Mechanicos]

The Conservative Argument against Federal Drug Prohibition: There exists no Constitutional Amendment authorizing a 2nd prohibition.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

The DEA won't touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

[autumnraine]

BFL

[JustSayNoToNannies]

http://www.google.com/search?q=BFL - first hit:

“www.flwoutdoors.com/bassfishing/bfl/
“FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) - Weekend Bass Tournaments - News, Results, Photos - FLW.”

[jmacusa]

When your job depends on locking people up you’re going to do what it takes to keep your job. The Drug War is a failure and the government just won’t admit it. Here’s a question for the prohibitionists : If the drug war is such a success why don’t you add alcohol and tobacco to the list of prohibited substances?

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Here’s a question for the prohibitionists : If the drug war is such a success why don’t you add alcohol and tobacco to the list of prohibited substances?

That one always brings out the fancy footwork (call it the Prohibitonist Polka).

[Wolfie]

Ha. It usually starts with “The government can’t tell ME what to do!”. Oh, yes it can.

Followed by “We tried to ban alcohol and it didn’t work. We had crime, violence, poisoned hooch, people still drank anyway...”. Oh, the irony.

[AlmaKing]

What is the most powerful drug known to mankind?

Government Money.

[muir_redwoods]

If, through inaction we allow the government to outlaw a vegetable, please don’t complain if they outlaw a meat like beef or lamb.

There are studies to show that beef and lamb contain harmful substances so the government could ban them (for our own good, of course) under the same sort of legal reasoning by which they ban marijuana.

Butter, bacon anything could be banned.

[jmacusa]

LOL!!

[Secret Agent Man]

The war on drugs keep a lot of people across many different fields, employed.

It wastes a lot of taxpayer money that either would not have to be confiscated from taxpayers.

I say we let the government and pharma make safe synthetic drugs, pure, clean. If people get addicted, and commit crimes, they are placed into centers they cannot get out of but they can have as much drugs as they want, and they can either overdose eventually, or they can have a momoent of clarity and ask to get clean.

If they get clean and relapse, they go back into the locked building center, get their drugs, and they never get let out alive.

Simple as that. The people who want drugs will get them. The people that want to get clean, can get clean (once). If they backslide they really didn’t want to get clean. The rest of society who wants to be safe from being killed or robbed by drug addicts, will be.

[Secret Agent Man]

It’s flawed nanny-state big brother logic.

There are plenty of legal things that are harmful that are legal.

More people die from alcoholism and smoking than illegal drugs. More people kill others driving under the influence and texting /talking on cell phones than illegal drugs.

Yet government makes a ton of money from alcohol taxes, tobacco taxes, gas taxes.

Government just can’t figure out how to legalize drugs after spending so much money and time on “the war on drugs” and really would be afraid so many people on drugs would be dangerous to others if they drove or were armed or out in public and they freak out. Which is legitimate. Which is why my prior solution to drug users would have to be employed.

Companies can be allowed to make pure synthetic safe drugs. If you could handle drugs fine. If not, and you steal or commit crimes on drugs, you’d be locked into a govt drug facility where you’d get as much drugs as you wanted. Either you eventually overdose or you ask to get clean. You get one time at being rehab’d. You get put back into society after becoming clean. IF you stay away from drugs you’re fine. You fall back into drugs again, you’re back in the locked facility and you don’t get out. You get all the drugs you want and eventually you overdose because you made the choice drugs were what you really wanted.

That’s how people can choose or not to do drugs, but not be a danger to society at large. THe ones that can handle drugs have no reason to be removed from society. The ones that can’t and commit crimes on drugs get removed from society.

And personally I would not mind using the same model for dangerous alcoholics.

[Secret Agent Man]

Yes but a lot more people also knew how to make various alcoholic beverages safely too, because they learned from their parents who learned from their parents how to make certain alcoholic beverages from the old country. Wines, brandies, other certain liquors were often made by families as just part of something the family did.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Followed by “We tried to ban alcohol and it didn’t work. We had crime, violence, poisoned hooch, people still drank anyway...”. Oh, the irony.

What irony?