All drugs should be legal, and why

[Deep Dish]

5string :
In my case, meth has affected many more people than just the user, in a very bad way. Marriages are broken, kids are split up and other family members and friends are harmed.

Be that as it may, there is no concrete reason to think that legalization would be any worse. Despite decriminalization of all drugs, Portugal's rates of hard drug use have slightly dropped, with less petty thefts and larceny, less sexually transmitted diseases, which you may argue is spurious, but the fact is that rates have not gone up. The sky did not fall.

Look at it this way: there is High Times magazine for marijuana enthusiasts, but no corresponding Heroin Times or Methamphetamine Time magazine. There is no supporting subculture for it, not enough people are interested. If all drugs were legal then there may be more people who are curious enough to try the hard stuff, but they would, by and large, quit because they don't like the effects. Even for heroin, a relative minority of people proceed towards regular use.

Here is Jeffrey Miron appearing on CNN wherein he addresses some of the concerns of legalizing all drugs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx214J0PpA8

 

[5string]

bradd80

Would rep you if I could. Kudos.

 

[Deep Dish]

Brad, you are on my ignore list and I'm only replying to your comment because I wasn't logged in when I saw your comment.

The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

...Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.

The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html​

If rates are now on the rise, it only shows that trends are cyclical, regardless of legal policies. Hardcore drug users are unpursuaded by whether something is legal or illegal. It is far better to treat public health as public health rather than a criminal justice issue (other crimes notwithstanding). Now that Portugal has decriminalized, there is more funding to treatment.

 

[Married Buried]

Honestly bro, I think you need to stop using so many drugs. As for synthetic drugs, I think people should stop polluting their bodies with harmful substances.

Why did you have to put 3 pounds in bold? It is not that much. Why not? It's legal and I want to stock up for research.

 

[Quiksilver]

The moderation of this board is relatively lenient. That puts some responsibility on members to refrain from public discussion/reference of topics such as race and abortion, regardless of relevance.

If you want to continue that line of discussion, take it to PM where I won't bother you.

 

[Bible_Belt]

They're exhuming Yassar Arafat's remains right now to see if he was poisoned with polonium. I didn't know what that was, so I read the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium

It had an interesting part about tobacco:

The presence of polonium in tobacco smoke has been known since the early 1960s.[93][94] Some of the world's biggest tobacco firms researched ways to remove the substance—to no avail—over a 40-year period but never published the results.[41]

Radioactive polonium-210 contained in phosphate fertilizers is absorbed by the roots of plants (such as tobacco) and stored in its tissues.[95][96][97] Tobacco plants fertilized by rock phosphates contain polonium-210, which emits alpha radiation estimated to cause about 11,700 lung cancer deaths annually worldwide.[41][98][99]

So that's why smoking cigarettes gives people cancer! It's the uptake of that radioactive element in the tobacco plant. It's not the act of smoking - it's the act of smoking a radioactive plant. That's why in a place like Belize or Jamaica, where everyone smokes pot, they don't have any higher of a rate of cancer. Pot isn't radioactive.

And if they could just find the gene responsible for up-taking the polonium and breed tobacco without it, which is what the tobacco companies were trying to do, that would suddenly make cigarettes just as harmless as pot, and save countless millions of lives.

 

[Deep Dish]

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but I stumbled across one piece of information which proves my point.

The White House had the National Research Council examine the data being gathered about drug use and the effects of U.S. drug policies. NRC concluded, “the nation possesses little information about the effectiveness of current drug policy, especially of drug law enforcement.” And what data exist show “little apparent relationship between severity of sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of use.” In other words, there is no proof that prohibition—the cornerstone of U.S. drug policy for a century—reduces drug use. National Research Council. Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us. National Academy Press, 2001. p. 193.

http://current.com/community/91113022_top-10-marijuana-studies-that-the-government-regrets.htm​

This drives the nail into the coffin.

 

[Married Buried]

No, what we concluded was that the 2001 study you said was great, the author himself admitted was wrong.

I really don't care what you think anymore, because it's becoming legal and there is nothing you can do about it. I think we have the right guy in the White House for it to happen.

So I am just going so sit back and wait. Smoking makes me happy. It makes me sick? That is idiotic.

 

[Married Buried]

Yes and no.

Obama has already said he will change the drug war in his second term.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/02/obama-drug-war_n_1643483.html

Let's see some Change Obama! Legalize it.

 

[Married Buried]

Obama has said he favors some form of decriminalization, not legalization. And only of marijuana, not of the others like heroin, meth, cocaine, crack etc. So the drug war will continue, just as intensely as it ever has before.

Not only this, but he's been talking about reform for four years and has done nothing. I doubt much will change over the next four years.

Who cares about the hard drugs? I don't want to do those. So you think Obama is going to stop the legalization in WA and CO? Because it's only going to spread from there.

 

[Married Buried]

Oh Malice, I have to admit when you talk so passionately about wanting to smoke your weed no matter what the hurdles are, I am impressed. Kind of like watching a four year old constantly fall off his bike, but determinedly dust himself off and get right back on that bicycle!

In any event, allow me to introduce you to perhaps the single most basic principle of American constitutional law:

According to the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, clause 2) of the United States Constitution,

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

As the Supreme Court stated in Altria Group v. Good, 555 U.S. 70 (2008), a federal law that conflicts with a state law will trump, or "preempt", that state law:

"Consistent with that command, we have long recognized that state laws that conflict with federal law are “without effect.” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 746 (1981).

Obama has a very uphill battle to fight. He has done nothing in this area in the last four years, but claims he will suddenly make things happen in the next four. Good luck to that.

It's his second term he can do whatever he wants. I will still smoke regardless.

 

[Married Buried]

Oh Malice, I have to admit when you talk so passionately about wanting to smoke your weed no matter what the hurdles are, I am impressed. Kind of like watching a four year old constantly fall off his bike, but determinedly dust himself off and get right back on that bicycle!

In any event, allow me to introduce you to perhaps the single most basic principle of American constitutional law:

According to the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, clause 2) of the United States Constitution,

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

As the Supreme Court stated in Altria Group v. Good, 555 U.S. 70 (2008), a federal law that conflicts with a state law will trump, or "preempt", that state law:

"Consistent with that command, we have long recognized that state laws that conflict with federal law are “without effect.” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 746 (1981).

Obama has a very uphill battle to fight. He has done nothing in this area in the last four years, but claims he will suddenly make things happen in the next four. Good luck to that.

One more thing, it's not an uphill battle. With a flip of his pen he can reschedule Marijuana.

 

[goundra]

bs, I used to SELL dope, and believe me, it's MORE common today, by FAR than in the 70's, all types of it, and more users, of course.

 

[goundra]

prez CAN do anything with executive orders, but THEN congress can refuse to let him do ANYTHING else. prez's never push any issue that far.

 

[Deep Dish]

Malice:
Obama has already said he will change the drug war in his second term.

PairPlusRoyalFlush:
youre stuck on election year propaganda sadly.

I agree Obama's "coming out" to Rolling Stone magazine with the suggestion of a second term evolution, along with featuring Harold & Kumar at the Democratic convention, was probably intended as a publicity stunt. It should also be noted that when Obama talks about changing the drug war, he's actually talking about budget priorities and strategic balances. In other words, to keep the drug war going. His drug czar, Gil K., says the drug war is over because they don't call it that anymore, but meanwhile, the budget balances between interdiction/incarceration and treatment has remained exactly the same. The shift is rhetorical.

It's true that Obama's administration has been the most hostile towards marijuana, with more raids, threats of asset forteiture, and IRS agents, but it's plausible that it didn't come from Obama himself. The president is involved only on a few issues and other issues are delegated to lower-level staff. His administration is chock full of prohibitionist hard-line ****roaches, especially from law enforcement and the Department of Justice. I have speculation from Ethan Nadelmann, citing insider beltway connections, the pressure for the crackdown came from law enforcement and the US Attorneys (source - scroll to 1:10:30). When Obama appointed the clueless Michelle Leonhart as DEA adminstrator, it's plausible there were no senior White House advisors on the issue. In other words, Obama was sleep walking on autopilot.

So the federal policy has been very mixed with some of the federal U.S. attorneys being very aggressive in places like Montana and California and trying to shut everybody down, and other states like New Mexico or Maine or other parts of New England really holding back, right. And then you look at a place like Colorado which legalized medical marijuana back in 2000 and then adopted a statewide regulatory approach a few years ago -- through the legislature, signed by the governor. And even there you have hundreds of dispensaries operating above ground, being taxed, regulated, law enforcement, government officials oversee them. There's a medical marijuana enforcement division. So you have in Colorado a very good model for regulating above ground marijuana. And you have in Washington state and some other states a very good model for regulating alcohol above ground.

So I'm very curious to see what the White House and the Justice Department do. You know, two years ago when the marijuana legalization issue was on the ballot in California in 2010, a month before the election, Holder, the Attorney General, said to Californians, "You better watch out because if you do this the Feds are not gonna allow this." This time in 2012, Holder did not say a word, notwithstanding the fact that all the former heads of the DEA and the former heads of the drug czars office all banded together appealing him. But I think what happened was the White House and other people in those states looked at the polling, they saw, for example, Colorado was a swing state. They saw this issue was very popular, especially with young voters and independents who could be swing voters in this election, and they decided the better course of action was not to say anything.

You also have the fact that the governors and attorneys general of these two states, Colorado and Washington, are saying, "Look, we want to implement the will of the people in good faith." I mean, you have the fact that the Colorado legalization initiative got more votes on election day than Obama did. And in Washington state the initiative got more votes than either of the candidates who became -- or got elected governor and attorney general. You have -- and all of them are saying they want to implement these initiatives in good faith. You also have the fact that Obama has in his private discussions with people about drug policy, both with foreign presidents and with wealthy democratic donors and key political people, all of whom I've spoken with -- they all say that Obama and Biden are indicating a willingness to move in a somewhat new direction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h732OBUGTY​

Colorado and Washington has changed the game.

Despite all the posturing of federal supremacy, the feds don't actually have clear unambiguous authority. It's noteworthy that the feds have never directly challenged any medical marijuana law, even though there is no medical exemption to the Controlled Substances Act. It's also noteworthy that the Controlled Substances Act does not fully "occupy the field." "Perhaps because it's not just that the feds can't force states to criminalize drug possession... It's also the case that they probably can't directly force the states to criminalize sales either. The Controlled Substances Act in fact leans against federal preemption of state drug policy, as pointed out in a law professors brief on preemption submitted in a California case this year... Raich established that federal police agencies can use their powers in medical marijuana states to continue to criminalize marijuana federally, justified by the Interstate Commerce Clause. But that is not the same as having the power to forbid states from granting exceptions to the states' own anti-marijuana sales laws, which in legal terms is what the regulatory frameworks do, and plenty of smart lawyers are skeptical that they can do that. This is not a slam dunk either way." (source).

I'm predicting federal prohibition of marijuana will be down within 4-6 years. Any aggressive action against the will of the people will be incredibly unpopular and unwise. We may have three or four more states by 2016 and it may only take a few states for the whole charade to collapse. When people think a rule is absolute, they rationalize how it's a good thing, but when they think the rules can be changed, they are motivated to fight.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Obama had a rather Clintonian answer when asked about why he went back on his promise to end the med pot raids. He said, "Well that's the law and I don't have any other choice." And the TV news interviewer just dropped it there. And then they cut away to an ad for a prescription drug.

The interviewer failed to point out that there are thousands more Federal laws than can possibly be enforced. It's illegal to tear the tag off a mattress, too, but I don't see any swat team raids over that. There are also states like Illinois who have passed a med pot law long ago, but the state police simply refuse to recognize it. Arizona just recently passed a med pot law, and the state government is doing everything they can to ignore it.

All law enforcement is very selective, and there are policy goals behind which laws we enforce and which ones we don't. "Just doing my job" is bs excuse.

 

[Deep Dish]

For anyone interested, the Cato Institute released a new report, ”On the Limits of Federal Supremacy: When States Relax (or Abandon) Marijuana Bans”, and one passage struck me as worth sharing:

Moral Obligation to Obey Law. Some people refrain from behavior because they feel morally obliged to obey a legal prohibition. In this sense, people are prone to obey law not because they think it is in their self-interest (narrowly defined) to do so, but because it is the right, the moral thing to do; it is what people should do, even when they disagree with the law. In his seminal work on obedience to law, Tom Tyler found that “[c]itizens who view legal authority as legitimate are generally more likely to comply with the law.” Tyler explains that “citizens may comply with the law because they view the legal authority they are dealing with as having a legitimate right to dictate their behavior; this represents an acceptance by people of the need to bring their behavior into line with the dictates of an external authority.”

In theory, a lawmaking body can draw upon its legitimacy to goad compliance with laws the people (or some portion thereof) deem foolish or unwise. To the extent Congress can oblige people to follow its marijuana ban, it may have more practical (de facto) authority than the story sketched out earlier suggests, for it would not need to hire more federal agents, build more federal prisons, or buy more television ads to curb marijuana use. Indeed, as noted above, some scholars have dismissed state medical marijuana laws as ineffectual and largely symbolic measures because they believe most people are unwilling, on moral grounds, to defy Congress’s ban.

Nonetheless, in spite of the generalized obligation to obey law that many people feel, the obligation to obey the federal marijuana ban is probably quite weak, for two main reasons. First, violations of the ban are commonplace, thus undermining its moral influence. When everyone knows a law is not being observed, the moral obligation to obey that law is weakened and compliance suffers. As Dan Kahan explains:

Most individuals regard compliance with law to be morally appropriate. But most also loathe being taken advantage of. The latter sensibility can easily subvert the former if individuals perceive that those around them are routinely violating a particular law. When others refuse to reciprocate, submission to a burdensome legal duty is likely to feel more servile than moral.​

Congress’s ban may have lost its moral influence because so many people flout it, and federal authorities have done little thus far to punish them. In other words, the lack of enforcement of the federal ban may have undermined not only the deterrent effect of the ban’s sanctions, but also the deterrent effect of the generalized moral obligation to obey the law.

Second, people may feel relieved of the obligation to obey the federal ban because state law permits marijuana use. It is, of course, possible to obey both state and federal law by not using marijuana at all, but citizens may dismiss the obligation to obey federal law when they deem the state—and not Congress—as having the “legitimate right to dictate their behavior” regarding marijuana use. Congress’s perceived right to dictate behavior may be even weaker in the states where medical marijuana laws were passed by voter referenda. In such states, people may see themselves collectively as having the exclusive right to dictate marijuana policy, in which case the federal ban will command very little moral authority.​

Thus, one reason to legalize marijuana is to restore the moral weight of respect for the law of the land.

 

[Deep Dish]

Obama had a rather Clintonian answer when asked about why he went back on his promise to end the med pot raids. He said, "Well that's the law and I don't have any other choice." And the TV news interviewer just dropped it there. And then they cut away to an ad for a prescription drug.

The interviewer failed to point out that there are thousands more Federal laws than can possibly be enforced. It's illegal to tear the tag off a mattress, too, but I don't see any swat team raids over that. There are also states like Illinois who have passed a med pot law long ago, but the state police simply refuse to recognize it. Arizona just recently passed a med pot law, and the state government is doing everything they can to ignore it.

All law enforcement is very selective, and there are policy goals behind which laws we enforce and which ones we don't. "Just doing my job" is bs excuse.

Bill Clinton just appeared in a documentary called Breaking The Taboo and said, "We could have fighting and killing over cigarettes if we made it a felony to sell a cigarette or smoke one, so we legalize them. If all you do is try to find a police or a military solution to the problem, a lot of people die and it doesn't solve the problem." Jimmy Carter has now come out in support of marijuana legalization and this adds a significant dimension to the debate. For years it was only intellectuals who spoke out on the issue, but now we have former presidents of foreign countries, which evolved into sitting presidents of foreign countries, which has now evolved into two former US presidents arguing on our side.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012...nt-carter-favors-states-legalizing-marijuana/

 

[Deep Dish]

In the words of Tenzin Gyatso (Dalai Lama XIV), “To defy the authority of empirical evidence is to disqualify oneself as someone worthy of critical engagement in a dialogue.”

 

[jammer]

this thread needs some... strippers!!!!