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Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

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Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#341

Post by hvindin »

adrusi wrote: post #152
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So heroin isn't clinically addictive and one can't overdose on it?

Heroin isn't significantly more addictive than cigarettes. You can also easily overdose from nicotine, its just that this is mitigated by the relatively slow delivery mechanism, which makes it so that you get terribly sick before you could consume lethal quantities. If we can come up with an effective delivery method then heroin would be no more dangerous than cigarettes (sort of, you still can't, for example, drive…

While I enjoy the concept that heroin might be in some way similar to nocotine beyond both of the substances being tangible psychoactive, it does frighten me that this is actually an opinion people legitimately have.

Given that when the supply chain of heroin is disrupted the most statistically significant cause of eratic behaviour in users is that it just hurts so much I suspect its a little different to nicotine.

If you are interested in understanding drivers of addiction I would recommend looking at cases where people are forced into withdrawals.

For example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395915...

Although I recall another article published ages ago (early 80s) which had an interesting economic analysis of the elasticity of heroin prices, to paraphrase, resulting from what is essentially inflicting pain on users until they will pay yur asking price.

I would love someone to draw the connections to nictonine withdrawals

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#342

Post by jessaustin »

winter_blue wrote: post #329
rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government persists with the drug war because Americans have a moral opposition to drug use: http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/study-public-fe... . When I was a kid in the 1990's, 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal. For drugs aside from marijuana, that's still the case. Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you kno…

> women's' suffrage happened when it did so they could vote for prohibition Woman's suffrage happened after the prohibition. The prohibition was the 18th amendment (taking effect on January 16, 1920), and woman's suffrage was the 19th amendment (ratified on August 18, 1920).

You're right about the timeline of amendments, but keep in mind that in western states (as well as in Michigan and New York) women had complete voting rights before 1920. In most other states they had partial voting rights. And since divorce was uncommon at the time, voting "dry" was a big priority for women voters.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#343

Post by jessaustin »

ktRolster wrote: post #313
wfo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug prohibition is a direct effect of the lift of alcohol prohibition: officials and LE officers needed something to do after there was no more alcohol smuggling to go after, so a new target was invented. Public opinion does not drive policy in this case, it is driven by policy. The public has been whipped up into a frenzy about drugs for years using various fear tactics, primarily racism to scare them into havi…

> Public opinion does not drive policy in this case, it is driven by policy. If that were true, then marijuana wouldn't have been legalized in various states as soon as public opinion favored it.

Public opinion already favors it in nearly every state. The only states that have even mostly legalized it are Washington and Colorado.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#344

Post by jessaustin »

dragonwriter wrote: post #326
ktRolster wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>t has no effect on participant's attitudes toward (or propensity for) drug use Which is really crazy, if you think about it. Multiple years of training and indoctrination have no effect. In some ways, that gives me hope for America.

The cynical view is that DARE is pro-law-enforcement training and indoctrination, where the anti-drug focus is simply window-dressing to sell the program to parents and the public.

Even if it doesn't trick kids into thinking police are cool (which, honestly, I don't believe it does), running a DARE course is easier than most other police work, and pulls in federal subsidies too. So it benefits police even if it doesn't convince anyone of anything.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#345

Post by saidajigumi »

rayiner wrote: post #210
soneca wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The history said, in this case, that money and power did not win the dispute, not that their influence does not exist or should be considered negligible. So, if in the case of drugs, society moral standards, money and power are all at the same side; what's the chance of grassroot movement changing the laws? That question was not rethorical, but giving my own answer, I think the path is changing the perceptio…

You're ignoring a morally significant dimension to the problem. Nobody becomes a drug addict by accident. They choose to do drugs and take the risk not just of bodily harm, but of becoming unable to support their families and becoming a burden on society. And your suggestion is that society should spend money to treat them of an illness that was their fault to begin with. I happen to agree with you that treatment, no…

But there's legitimate moral reasons to oppose the idea.

No. First, your assumptions around choice, etc. encode a whole panoply of privileged thinking. That all people have the same information, peer support, life context, apparent access to life paths and choices, etc. But let's just let that go. The other replies re: accidental addiction and a whole host of other information out there contradicts this position well enough.

The real problem with this conclusion is that it is morally illegitimate to allow a social and humanitarian problem to persist, intensify, and spread because of any so-called moral position. "Morality" that creates a set of decisions (punish drug users!) but ignores the ultimate moral fallout of those decisions is itself a position bereft of actual morality.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#346

Post by nowrongstop »

hvindin wrote: post #341
adrusi wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heroin isn't significantly more addictive than cigarettes. You can also easily overdose from nicotine, its just that this is mitigated by the relatively slow delivery mechanism, which makes it so that you get terribly sick before you could consume lethal quantities. If we can come up with an effective delivery method then heroin would be no more dangerous than cigarettes (sort of, you still can't, for example, drive…

While I enjoy the concept that heroin might be in some way similar to nocotine beyond both of the substances being tangible psychoactive, it does frighten me that this is actually an opinion people legitimately have. Given that when the supply chain of heroin is disrupted the most statistically significant cause of eratic behaviour in users is that it just hurts so much I suspect its a little different to nicotine. I…

Absolutely.

Symptoms of nicotine withdrawal - agitation, anxiety, difficulty concentrating.

Without access to heroin or opiates, you are in for 7 days of anguish, intense feelings of guilt, shame, darkness, self recrimination, horrible introspection, and if given the chance to end the suffering you will take more heroin, putting you back at square one.

If you soldier on, you are in for at least 3 weeks of not feeling yourself.

Best bet is to detox with suboxone, then taper suboxone, do not stay on suboxone more than 30 days or you will just be addicted to that.

Gabapentin will really help the process, you will feel almost normal after stopping the suboxone.

If you have friends addicted, this is the most pain free way to get them off.

Heroin -> suboxone 30 days -> gabapentin 30-60 days.

That recipe can get anyone with a habit off heroin almost painlessly.

Depending on the length of your habit, you might still not feel great after all that. Cannabis and tianeptine are your best friends in that case. That will get you back in shape.

After this you will see that heroin, while beautifully seductive and glorious, is a dead end in prohibitionist america.

I believe it only would have a place for someone elderly and infirmed, who could take it without interruption for the rest of their life. For those cases I think it is underused.

If you are young and healthy, it will only make your life worse than it was before you started.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#347

Post by DanBC »

ufmace wrote: post #331
DanBC wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The illegality of drugs means that criminal organisations use the manufacture and supply of drugs as one way to make money. Terrorist organisations need to smuggle things into and out of their target country (weapons, money, people) and so they have expertise that they can use to smuggle drugs. This link between terrorist groups and drugs is not new. Even groups who are strongly anti-drugs end up having connections t…

This reminds me of an article I read where somebody recommended abolishing the $100 note, as it was too associated with crime, and it would inconvenience criminals to have to carry bigger bundles of $20s. I wonder if/how often criminal organizations use drugs as a substitute for money for being easier to transport, verify, etc. I wonder how much that would increase if they did abolish the $100.

It might help, but drug dealers are pretty resourceful.

England has seen people using Fixed Odds Betting machines to launder money.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/08/gambling-mach...

> James, 24, looks like just another lost soul in the high street, shuttling between the six betting shops in an east coast seaside town. It's a weekday morning and if you catch up with him inside a bookmaker, you'll find him peering intently into the green glowing screen of an electronic gambling machine – feeding in £200, "a score at a time".

> But this is not a young gambler blowing his meagre wages. James is a drug dealer and his interest in the bookmakers – and the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) in each shop – is all about laundering money. "That's what turns dirty money clean," he says. Dealers feed their drug money through the machines, losing a little and then cashing out with the vast majority of their stake, James says. They can then collect a printed ticket showing they have gambled that day – meaning that if stopped by police, they can answer questions about why an apparently unemployed young man carries hundreds of pounds in rolled-up cash.

> Earlier this month the Gambling Commission, the industry regulator, fined Coral bookmakers £90,000 in profits it made from one drug dealer who had laundered almost £1m in its shops.

I don't think the gamblers care. It's unlikely he was feeding £50 notes into the machines, but £20s and £10s.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#348

Post by rqebmm »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #109
jfmfhhdkdkd wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Japan and Hong Kong and many others still have far lower drug use and crime rates despite their very tough laws on drug use, when compared to Portugal.

The article states that research shows no correlation between severe drug penalties and usage levels. There's a few people offering anecdotes to counter that, but obviously actual research wins, the difference between Portugal and Japan are therefore likely to be cultural differences outside of strict drug laws.

> cultural differences outside of strict drug laws

It's also worth noting that a culture that discourages drug use would likely be more accepting of strict drug control laws.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#349

Post by gbog »

mmmBacon wrote: post #212
gbog wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, too, have a far lower drug use rate. Not sure for Japan and Hk, but for China I think there are two main reasons. One, she was "locked in turmoil" during the 70s and the 80s, so did not get the influence from this period. Two, most young people are busy making their life, and have actually good hope to have a much better life than their parents (which is not that difficult).

With over 1B people you can bet China has drug problems too. You just don't hear about it because there's no free press there. See: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/world/despite-a-crackdo... China and HK have long histories of drug use and opium was widely used there prior to 1949. The Opium Wars were fought in China.

China certainly has drug problems, but it is not like in West: i'd have to search carefully to find one French guy of my generation or below that never tried hash. In China most Chinese I know never tried. It's just not the fashion yet. Only a very thin slice of the society is in contact with drugs.
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