The original drug prohibitions had a moral rationale rather than a practical one. It began with the American prohibition of opium, which was primarily motivated by a moral objection to white people smoking in Chinese-run opium dens. This began a prohibition movement in the United States. In 1913, marijuana — which was used almost exclusively by Mexican and Indian immigrants — was prohibited for the first time by the state of California.
Today, when new drugs are added to the long list of illegal substances, it is because they are judged to be “addictive”, not because they are harmful. The United States’ Controlled Substances Act calls for a drug to be prohibited if it has “a high potential for abuse” and if it “may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence”.
The drug does not have to be harmful in any other sense. According to US government statistics, paracetamol (acetaminophen) is involved in nearly five times as many emergency room visits as MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine, often referred to as “ecstasy”), and it remains available in supermarkets around the world.
So the main reason that drugs like alcohol and caffeine are legal, but cocaine and MDMA are not, is that the latter are judged to be “addictive”. (Suspend for a moment the true belief that alcohol and caffeine are addictive.)
Addiction does harm the addict, to be sure. But self-harm cannot provide grounds for prohibiting a substance. As philosopher John Stuart Mill famously put it, the sole legitimate reason for interfering with a person’s liberty is when he risks harming others.
Yea, verily.
Ohhhhh…. you’ve opened a fine kettle of fish now, my friend…
Meanwhile, liberals go after big corporations for selling foods that are addictive.
Non sequitur and untrue. Must be a Republican or christian or both.
And so the sewage flows from the mouth from the people who like to throw LIBERAL at whomever disagrees with them!! LIBERAL LIBERAL LIBERAL BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
Just make sure we don’t punish an individual for breaking the law – punish EVERYONE!
This is what happens when crazy ass religious types are given a little bit of power.
Now, can anyone pick up a history book and find out just WHO started the prohibition movement which lead to alcoholic beverages being outlawed from 1920 to 1933? Sound anything like the pot/drug legalization movements of today?
And you “Christians” have the kahonees to call Muslims crazy?!!! (If people weren’t dying, this would be the worlds best joke.)
Now, I’m sure Muslims also have their problems. Just look at the news! I’m sure many more Muslims are also crazy – they’re religious! But if you go to church, synagogue, temple, mass, etc. or even if you believe in a magic man controlling everything from a white cloud somewhere, I hardly think that makes YOU an authority on what’s crazy – YOU’RE CRAZY!
So when I see these crazy assholes talking about outlawing drugs, abortions, or even books it just makes me want to get an egg beater out, stick it in the ear of every asshole protesting and turn it on! Hopefully, a few rearranged neurons will bring them to their senses.
Prohibition movement was very successful. It lowered deaths and disease rates due to alcohol substantially. That alone would be reason for modern day liberals to push a ban. We already see it in how they go after junk food, albeit led by a Republican.
If drugs were legalized, the tax money would not materialize because high tax rates would lead to evasion, while legalization would lead to price drops by a factor of 10. The damage would skyrocket.
huh?
The note/emphasis that the drug need only be addictive without regard to it harm/damage is a new detail to me. I just assumed that the “Class” (or is it “schedule”) of the drug took into account its negative long term effects?
Well, I would q
The note/emphasis that the drug need only be addictive without regard to it harm/damage is a new detail to me. I just assumed that the “Class” (or is it “schedule”) of the drug took into account its negative long term effects?
Well, I would quibble with JS Mill –items should be regulated for a variety of legitimate reasons not limited to only harming other people. Poison should be labeled as such for instance. Tobacco, a legal product, should have very limited advertising if any and so forth.
The whole point of drugs is slightly different: yes they do harm to the user and consequently to those around the user==but the anti-drug laws summed up do even more harm==to the user and to those around the user, even to the point of destroying an entire society. I ain’t going to Mexico anymore because of the anti-drug laws.
People not being able to think past the label.
Ain’t gonna say it.
…might as well add, I’ve read that marijuana is not addictive by way of the definition used for the other addictive drugs. I think something else commonly abused is also not addictive.
Being well intentioned but causing more harm than good is never a sound social policy. Its ok to give it a try, but when a fair review 20 times over shows it doesn’t work—time to try something else.
Thats what the religion of science would provide us as opposed to being a Christian Nation, founded on certainty and dogma with the facts ignored.
Yea, verily.
>Being well intentioned but causing more harm than good is never a sound social policy. Its ok to give it a try, but when a fair review 20 times over shows it doesn’t work—time to try something else.
Tell that to the liberals and the welfare state and their crime policies.
NewfornatSux says:
4/5/2012 at 6:41 am
>Being well intentioned but causing more harm than good is never a sound social policy. Its ok to give it a try, but when a fair review 20 times over shows it doesn’t work—time to try something else.
Tell that to the liberals and the welfare state and their crime policies.
///////////////////////// Why do you counsel for me to act as an idiot? Only an idiot takes a generally applicable truth and then pare it down to apply to only a segment of the affected population.
Stop being an idiot. If your condition is not inbred, it should only take a bit of practice. For the next week, omit referring to any classification of people. Try the generic approach and if you can’t say anything that sound right, then forgo posting.
Just a week. Everyone will benefit.
Weren;t you going to take two weeks and then leave?
That is the majority of the population, as it is liberal policies that are causing so much of the damage including the drug problem right now. The Wire was about legalizing drugs, but it really revealed the damage caused by liberal policies. Time after time, they are shown to fail, yet they continue to push for them. When analyzed, liberals fail to grasp at it, exhibiting crimestop
Orwell’s definition: “The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short….protective stupidity.”.
“Prison population rises despite fall in crime” New York Times headline
Come with me to juvenile court every day to see how destructive cannabis, crack, meth and heroin really are to our teens. The cannabis grown now is addictive just like the other drugs. All of these damage the brain, especially in young people. The brain is still growing until age 25. These brain damaged people have a very negative impact on the rest of us.
These drugs are creating a whole new underclass in our society who drop out or are expelled from school, have no education or job skills and will be a drain on society for the rest of their lives by stealing, hurting others, needing health care and being in jail.
The best solution is drug treatment not jail, but the funding is drying up due to the recession and because so much money is spent on prison.
Those who are so adamant that cannabis should be legalized are very foolish or addicted to it, that is the reason they are so zealous.
The article cracked me up…no politics intended. Nice twist, hadie har har har. Good belly laugh.
Mike from Illinois your spot on. I have yet to see a kid or adult commit a crime from thief to mass murder ( Manson Family, and other gangs to petty crimes), kill themselves via O.D., ruin their lives or careers – um.. Bobby and Whitney, Amy Whinehouse to every pan handler and crack whore and drunk on the street – Not to mention all the medical problems from the result from the use and abuse of Caffeine.
Who pairs alcohol with Caffeine, chemically two different substances. They did call it dope for a reason.
Yea, Texas is number one in the drug treatment not jail policy.
It is foolish to think that everyone just gets their drugs even though it’s illegal. That’s true for some people, but not the majority. Because it is illegal, because it is enforced, because people are punished for using drugs, a large majority of potential users stay away, as does the higher prices caused by the war on drugs.. Prohibition actually reduced alcohol usage substantially. Legalizing drugs would increase the supply, and the demand, while also causing the prices to crash.
Clearly, the war is a failure. Legal or not, people will always find a way to find their substances. Those billions could have been spent on treatment programs (for those who recognized the need for it in themselves) in light of the fact that rehab is often prohibitively expensive. Surely, many addicts can not and will not admit they have a problem. But, it’s also true that many people operate functionally within society and hold down jobs. The choice always rests with the individual about what to do with their lives and no amount of govt. intervention will save people from themselves. What we choose to focus on always makes the difference.
By the government’s same definition of addiction, most forms of gambling should be outlawed. But they only are, if the state isn’t collecting any revenue from it. Indeed, politicians are lobbied to permit more and more forms of gambling in their states, with the promise of increased revenues. At least, that’s the excuse every politician has had for changing the law, to allow it. In Maryland, we’ve gone from merely having horse racing. To having the Lottery, the 3 & 4 number picks, Kino, slots, and now they want casino table games. And they’ll probably get them. Because there’s always the justification of getting more revenue, from more legalized gambling, to cover the state’s budget deficit.
What’s being ignored of course, is the addictive nature of gambling, that effect some people more than other. By the drug war’s standards, even if only a few people exhibit some form of addiction, the drug in question must be banned. But this doesn’t seem to apply to state approved vices it profits from. So it’s not a health concern at all. It’s a political one. Just as the 1920s Alcohol prohibition was. Until the Depression cost the states too much in income tax revenue, that they repealed it in order to tax alcohol sales.
Concerns over money always drives the government’s sense of “morality”. It just dresses up its reasoning, to sound as if it’s the right thing to do, for our own good. The reason MJ sales is banned, more likely has to do with preventing competition with tobacco sales. Which the states profit from taxing. MJ could be grown by practically anyone, in their own backyard. And sold privately, as produce often is. But not taxed, as food is exempt.
The states simply don’t want to try selling the idea that they now accept the “addictive nature” of MJ, to the older voters, in order to tax its legal sales. They know their carriers would suffer from that decision. Getting legalized gambling approved, in small stages, has been tough enough for them. They can’t approve the legal sales of weed, in small stages, without appearing to have lost all morality. So they’re rather loose tax money policing it, and jailing offenders.
Even though alcohol sales is prohibited to young adults and teens. This never seems to stop them from getting all they want during “spring break” and sporting events like college basketball games. One might suspect a big reason for these events, is counting on underage alcohol sales. Because they don’t shy away from advertising to minors. Or sponsoring the games. And yet when the events are over, and the alcohol fueled riots break out. The state officials act as if they didn’t see it coming. They were in fact gambling, that it wouldn’t. By relaxing their vigil of teenage alcohol sales and possession.
Just don’t smoke any weed! You might get mellow and not care about the damn game, to riot over its outcome.
Mike from Illinois conflictingly says:
4/5/2012 at 7:51 am
……The best solution is drug treatment not jail, but the funding is drying up due to the recession and because so much money is spent on prison. /// Yes…now why don’t you recognize that treatment not jail is tantamount to legalizing the drug?
Those who are so adamant that cannabis should be legalized are very foolish or addicted to it, that is the reason they are so zealous. /// I smoked MJ 2-3 times in college. Made me cough, got a headache. Didn’t drink beer until traveling in Europe. I would like to try it again, for as you say, its not your Daddy’s weed.
Still–you are only looking at the harm drugs do. What about the harm the drug laws do? If you only look at only half a problem, you never make a valid judgment.
Indeed==why not outlaw every bad thing there is??? Whither Prohibition?
C’mon Mike===USE THAT BRAIN, for more than a door stop.
I can’t believe how many people believe legalizing drugs is a viable option. We already have a major drug problem in this country. How about how many more people will be driving stoned? With the amount of accidents that result in deaths being caused by drunk driving, do we really need more impaired drivers?
Yes, it is what the trial lawyers need. Right now they can’t sue the drug dealers like they sued tobacco.
Actually the per capita rate of drug use was much higher in the years prior to and after the civil war.
When doctors were prescribing opium pills to even children.
But still the appetite for drugs of all kinds from booze ro caffeine and all is still great amongst most monkeys.
But what can you expect when they think it is great to walk on four legs not on two.
Cursor_
How about we outlaw Rush Limpdick as he’s probably the biggest buyer of illegal drugs in the country!!
Seems to me that legalization would result in an even more mentally impaired, non-productive society.
With so many low esteem people already dependent on the “liquor store method” of drowning their sorrows, how can this help?
And won’t the next “logical step” be to get these legalized drugs covered under health care?
We do have a drug problem in this country, don’t we have enough stoned, and drugged up people in the country as it is? It one thing to deal with a drunk. That is a pain in the ass. But it is another real pain in the ass to have to deal with someone high/drugged out. Worse of all is when they are coming down from their high.
Yea, legalize drugs….it would be so beneficial to the world. Can’t wait to have a stoned lawyer when am fighting for my life, or a crack head second responder handling my emergency. On second thought, I’d want my banker stoned on pot or any Hallucinogen all the time, “Dude will loan you the 50,000 dollars, at no interest. Then forget about it.
Banker dude takes a “smoke” break and breaks the bank. LOL.
Doctors, pilots, Mr. president… smoke ’em if you got ’em.
OK breathe into a paper bag now, it’ll help stop the hyperventilating.
Do you have a drunk lawyer now, or a drunk second responder handling your emergency? A drunk banker?
If you do, you sue and/or they’re arrested and they’re out of there. It would work the same way with any other legal drug.
Simple: No mood altering drugs on the job. Period.
What is it about the War on Some Drugs that makes so many people lose their ability to reason???
The Police, like the Pentagon, will find “reasons” to have this “war” or that “war” against whatever – only to PERPETUATE AND INCREASE THEIR FUNDING !!! We are the FOOLS WHO KEEP FALLING FOR IT !!! Time for a “War on War” and get the U.S.
The Police, like the Pentagon, will find “reasons” to have this “war” or that “war” against whatever – only to PERPETUATE AND INCREASE THEIR FUNDING !!! We are the FOOLS WHO KEEP FALLING FOR IT !!! Time for a “War on War” and get the U.S. OUT OF THE WAR “BUSINESS” !!! (Sorry for the mis-fire !)
To me the government should have no say in what I put into my body. It should be as simple as that.
If someone gets sick from it. Heal them. This could mean malnutrition from stimulant binges, overdoses and addiction. There doesn’t need to be a blaming game.
How many know there is an antidote for acetaminophen? Not many. But so many lives could be saved if they just include it with every package of it.
There are so many drugs out there and a majority of them are legal. This includes molecules and ethnobotanicals (plants that induce feelings). For the smart user laws and regulations have no effect in stopping them. 100 substances can be banned tomorrow with no concern because 200 new analogues are made every day. This last year the “bath salts” going around usually consisted of safer alternatives to street cut junk. And simply because it was pure but for other reasons too such as less neurotoxic.
Yes there were screw ups and people were injured from them but that’s with anything. Turn on the TV or look at your local news site. How many stories are about DUI’s, car accidents and gun violence? Some people are just stupid and do stupid things. It’s not the drug causing the stupidity, it’s the person using the drug.
So instead of putting our fingers in our ears and stomping around like a bunch of little girls who just don’t want to hear it we need to research them. Tell everyone everything there is to know about them. The more that is known and available for everyone the safer everyone will be. Most people are scared and think even looking at a drug will make you instantly go to the gutter and start doing sexual favors for just a taste. Sorry that’s simply not the case. The ones usually in those places started in those places.
I think I need to stop for now but to whoever read this look up these books and this person.
Alexander Shulgin. His books PiHKAL and TiHKAL have changed the world and could make it a warm welcoming place if we all just opened our minds.
“To me the government should have no say in what I put into my body. It should be as simple as that.”
Then when your addiction becomes an issues to your health, wealth and the loved ones in your life and public safety; please don’t ask the government for any help with medical or legal measures.
Thanks.
Cursor_
Good point Cursor_, on the one hand we want our “freedom” but on the other hand we want someone to pay when our freedom gets us in trouble.
Why do you think that using immediately leads to all those things?
What you’re shown on TV on how drug users look like and act is far from the truth.
The most addictive substances are the ones that are currently legal. Caffeine, alcohol and tobacco and most users of these aren’t the drain on society you think drug users are.
So again your logic of addiction being the worst thing for you is flawed. Everything is addicting, it’s just how you perceive it. Whether you want to enjoy it or not.
If you enjoy it your brain releases dopamine and makes you feel really good. This is the feeling you get when you listen to your favorite song, drink a cup of coffee, take ecstasy or meth.
Much like pavlov’s dog we are merely controlled by our own dopamine bell.
You THINK that your desires will have no affect on others but it will.
No man is an island.
When you do drugs it affects your body and over time that means more doctor visits than you would IF you had abstained from using them as toys.
Your pocket also suffer, which means less money to pay your bills on time or take your stunning wife and great kids out on a vacation.
And outside of caffeine, save if you over do it, all of them affect motor skills and impairs judgment. Which puts you as a danger to the public on the streets.
So when you are low on dough, up for reckless endangerment, get a divorce and never allowed around your kids because of your pleasures and wind up in the health care system more than you should by age 60; PLEASE don’t ask the government nor us to help you out.
I do not like having to pay for all you self-medicating monkeys now. I would hate to see my bill when the per capita rate goes to the civil war levels. I won’t be able to afford all you selfish beasts.
Cursor_
So a base jumper, stock car driver, lion tamer, snake fancier, unicyclist or other persons that pursue a hobby that has an element of risk should also be denied public access to health services?
“The United States’ Controlled Substances Act calls for a drug to be prohibited if it has “a high potential for abuse” and if it “may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence”.
So why is marijuana illegal again?
Ahh, hypocrisy.
Cannabis is still illegal because of the war on drugs.
For them to unschedule anything would make other think about the reality of it. As in “We were told for years how dangerous and deadly weed is and now it’s the new general well being plant. If that’s the case with marijuana than what about everything else the war on drugs is fighting? And is the war on drugs and the DEA worth my tax money?”
While now we see many more voicing up about it; the government is simply ignoring it. Just look at how the states are taking action on the new research chemicals hitting the market while the Fed side is pretending it’s not happening.
They don’t want to be wrong and the drive today is based on morality not science. Under the schedules cannabis is still a schedule 1 while meth is a schedule 2. Which one destroys more lives? And no matter how much we point that out the facts are simply being ignored because “think of the children!” mentality.
Ok fine I’ll think of the children. My thoughts on them are this. My science are the stupid. Oh but it’s never their fault according to the parents so my science are parents stupid!
Most of them have tried some recreational drug in their life time. Last I checked they were still alive and had the capabilities to produce off spring so why can’t they teach their children responsibility?
I’ve done more than my share and I’m not exactly old but I was taught that just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s safe. (talking about “bath salts” aka research chemicals) And those who do push it to the next level and take their use too far usually have some other underlying mental disorder about them. Whether it be anxiety issues, depression or manic depression they are crying for help or worse, are trying to die but haven’t reached the tipping point so are self destructing.
Those colors, thoughts and euphoric feeling is not somehow embedded in the molecule. No, it is in all of us. In our minds. In our subconscious which we silence more and more through our evolution. All it does is unlock what we have been conditioned to bury in our society.
Tobacco is insidiously addictive. Alcohol is the most dangerous drug. We need to stop calling weed a “narcotic,” for starters.
Just a tokey a day
keeps Alzheimer at bay
Come on this is all about MONEY and has nothing to do with “a high potential for abuse”.
The only reason marijuana is illegal is because the alcohol industry, the drug companies and the prison industry are scared sh_tless that people will grow there own and cut them out of the profits.
As for the police…. if they didn’t have all those easy marijuana arrests to make, they would have to do real police work like preventing and solving crimes.
A good friend of mine has a brother in the state police; they love the drug war, full employment for cops!
“What is it about the War on Some Drugs that makes so many people lose their ability to reason???”
Because many of the people that want the stuff are weak and irresponsible.
You know drugs have no redeeming value or positive effect for the general population.
“You know drugs have no redeeming value or positive effect for the general population.”
I suppose the same can be said of most hobbies or watching TV or overeating or just sitting around doing nothing…….
These cops are holding it as “drug money” because the law says that police department gets to directly keep 90% of any found drug money.
In other words, the cops literally just stole that money for themselves.
Civil forfeiture is the euphemism the justice system uses for looting and pillaging.
Bwahahaha…
Don’t you <b<see what’s happening here?
The PTB (PowersThanBe) are legislating how you can have fun.
That may not be how medicinal cannabis would be used, (I have MS so I’m interested because pain could/should/would be used for treatment,) but since you can have fun with it, basically, you’re fucked.
I have no pain, but I’m loosing sensation below the neck so I am an exception. (jab me with a needle in my arm and I may not be aware of it. [Makes checking myself for bruises every morning a necessary evil, {and I often do find some.}])
The PTB don’t care if I am writing in agony.
Why should they? I’ll die at some point.
The PTB will still be in power and their rules don’t apply to themselves because they know that rules without enforcement aren’t rules, they aren’t even suggestions.
John Stuart Mills be damned, 1%ers all seem to feel that they’re:
1) immortal (unbelievable hubris,)
2) above any law (including the ones against murder.)
Pederasty rules don’t apply to them either.
They could chow down on your first born for sex, for lunch or to use him for extracting stem steels.
WE don’t matter worth a damn to these psychopaths.