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Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

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Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#241

Post by II2II »

chewz wrote: post #235
otakucode wrote: post #201

Drugs were not made illegal because they're bad for your health and they don't remain illegal because they're bad for your health. Poisons are generally not illegal. Drugs are illegal because they make people feel good or make them happy which offends the Protestant Work Ethic. The Protestant Work Ethic says that the only legitimate route to happiness is through physically difficult labor which causes you to suffer.…

Exactly. But Protestant Work Ethic doesn't make sense anymore when work is scarce and there are millions of unemployed without any prospects. So how do you avoid revolution and keep voters happy? Legalize drugs, supply computer games and VR, provide UBI.

Which may be a good reason to not legalize drugs. My meager understanding of the issue is that happy people are less likely to grow dependent upon drugs.

(Don't take this the wrong way. I support legalizing drugs. The social costs of the war on drugs are to high to believe that there is a net benefit.)

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#242

Post by Zigurd »

slamdance wrote: post #161
piva00 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a follow-up, even though Nixon expanded treatment shouldn't we still blame him for the rhetorics that aggravated the "war on drugs" for the rest of the planet? It's after Nixon "war on drugs" stance that we begin to see harsher and harsher penalties for possession, criminalisation of usage (and this still applies here in Sweden, it's not only illegal to buy, sell or possess drugs but also to take them, if it's det…

why does it have to about who we 'blame'? Why not go back to the CIA and how they wanted to undermine the social & political revolutions of the 60s & 70s? why not go back to 'reefer madness' and the how it was based almost solely in fear and racism, or how William Randolph Hearst's paper & publishing 'empire' was threatened by hemp? does any of that matter? Not really. We have a problem now that we need to fix. We do…

Some measure of blame and exposing the dark motives is useful if only to counteract lots of Drug War propaganda.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#243

Post by sethrin »

nafey wrote: post #214
otakucode wrote: post #201

Drugs were not made illegal because they're bad for your health and they don't remain illegal because they're bad for your health. Poisons are generally not illegal. Drugs are illegal because they make people feel good or make them happy which offends the Protestant Work Ethic. The Protestant Work Ethic says that the only legitimate route to happiness is through physically difficult labor which causes you to suffer.…

Wow really explains why China bans drugs. This kind of reductive reasoning is a mere rationalization of a complex socio-political issue.

China bans drugs because the US exported their drug laws via the UN. Perhaps you could find a better example.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#244

Post by heavenlyblue »

RobertoG wrote: post #125
machiaweliczny wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extensive use of cannabis has such effects from my observations. While at University I knew some people who were smoking weed everyday and they exposed psychosis, acted weird and were lazy. Maybe it's from some other substances that could be mixed with it...

I have observed that people that I knew many years ago and that use weed daily, now have psychological problems. I know it's not a scientific study, but it have changed my mind. Years ago I though that weed was mostly inoffensive. Interestingly, I heard an expert to comment that the weed of now it's not the weed of then, but many times more powerful because the plants have been selected for it.

I have observed that many people who had never smoked weed (or did drugs, on that matter) have missed on many opportunities to grow up emotionally. They act "normal", but they are boring and immature in many things that are related to how they feel.

They would be a great example of a person who acts "too safe" all of his life not realising that it's his own fear that basically keeps him in his sandbox, when there's a whole world out there (BTW, I am not speaking about anything related to the New Age, as that could be interpreted - just the risks one could possibly take in general).

Two of my smartest friends are one who doped every day for a few years and the other one who practically never did drugs. Both are considered quite weird by the general population, and both know that and they know how they could manage others (but not vice-versa).

Now quite frankly I find that most of the people will never realise that drugs work well when they're done in balance with the other things in life. And the fact that occasional stressing of your body is quite beneficial in the long term, simply because it works just like training your physique.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#245

Post by aianus »

microcolonel wrote: post #208
majewsky wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that made climate change controversial is the interests (and deep pockets) of the fossil energy lobby. Science communication can be improved, but you can't reasonably blame it for this.

I actually think they're one and the same. Al Gore is literally being paid by Al Jazeera, the state media for the world's largest oil exporter pretending to be a country. I suspect that the biggest influence big oil has had is in making overblown, unconvincing, scaremongering communications which ultimately make people more suspicious than convinced.

Al Jazeera is the state media of Qatar which exports natural gas, not oil.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#246

Post by heavenlyblue »

dood wrote: post #198
heavenlyblue wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting though how informally liberal UK is about drugs, at the same time.

The drug system in the UK is quite funny - the politicians pretend drug use needs to be treated criminally, the police pretend to enforce drug laws, and the voting public are satisfied with the status quo because if they dislike drugs they can buy into the pretense, if they like drugs they can mostly use them without much bother, and if they are indifferent to drugs they have better things to worry about.

Yes. Exactly.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#247

Post by II2II »

While I support the decriminalizing of drugs, I also have to question how effective it would be if all drugs were decriminalized and became highly regulated.

Example 1: prescription drugs are highly regulated, yet their legal availability has not stopped criminal activities surrounding the illegal trade. Legalizing may solve some social issues relating to the war on drugs, but not all.

Example 2: alcohol is legal, easily available, and has a (proportionally) low amount of illegal trade. On the other hand, a lot of people do illegal stuff when impared by it. Perhaps some drugs should not be legal, particularly since there is worse stuff ou there.

On the other hand, you have example 3: tobacco. Reasonable precautions taken, its main issue is self harm due to the impact on health. While there are obvious reasons to regulate its use (e.g. people frequently smoke in environments where it can harm others), do we really want to regulate self-harm?

Perhaps we should be regulating based upon the drug, keeping some illegal, rather than pursuing blanket legalization and regulation.

Edit: an occurance of legal should have been illegal.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#248

Post by shihching »

abakker wrote: post #236
shihching wrote: post #226

Perverse, plentiful incentives to addict and sell -- or invest in the manufacturer who does so -- act quicker than panels of doctors, and dodge responsibility too easily. Living long lives as a beacons of philanthropic humanism on top of your legal drug empire (or profits gained through accompanying ownership) counteracts much stigma accrued from the deaths of your customers. > On Tuesday [July 17, 2017], OxyContin m…

A bit ad hominem, right? Do we complain about Alfred Nobel having invented dynamite, which has been used to kill people?Pain medicine especially seems like a place where we can't rush to judgement. Even if he acted badly, the drug has done good for some people. Billionaires acting philanthropically is probably better than them not acting that way.

The Huffington Post article is written by an anti-corporate former heroin addict who, yes, clearly holds animus against those who profited off of opiates.

> By convincing doctors that OxyContin was “safer,” offering financial support and special perks to family physicians who were willing to push the drug, and investing millions in a marketing campaign that claimed OxyContin was not only harmless but beneficial, Purdue Pharma cornered the pain pill market. By 2003, Purdue was selling $1.6 billion of the pill annually.

The crux of his condemnation is the incentivization of doctors to prescribe -- which one could call bribery. Also, the misrepresentation of known addictive and deleterious long term health effects, which I believe could likely be demonstrated through internal company documents.

Wealth allows the purchase of goodwill at a discount price -- the ultimate destination of Mr. Sackler hinges on both the wilfulness and premeditation of his capitalist technique and the breadth and compassion of his philanthropy.

Collecting and displaying Oriental artwork appears to be at the center of his humanism -- the other side of which is biomedical research. I have not scrutinized the publications emerging from the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, but for the sake of his soul and millions of prescription opiate addicts, I hope the papers reveal cures proportionate to his profits.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#249

Post by sethrin »

yodsanklai wrote: post #156
anythingnonidin wrote: post #21

Some reasons for decriminalization of use and possession, summarized: (i.e., removing criminal penalties or making it no jail time possible, but not government supplied) - War on drugs has failed. Criminalization has consequences on community - in many cases, most of the negative effects come from the criminalization, not the drug. - Consensual crimes that don’t harm others shouldn’t be crimes. - Drug prohibition doe…

I think you're missing the most important reason. As an informed adult, I should be free to grow and smoke (or vaporize) weed in the privacy of my home because I don't hurt anyone. Freedom should be the default and interdiction should come with very good reasons (and not the other way around).

You may be interested to know that the 1975 Alaska Supreme Court ruling which legalized cannabis in that state used more or less your exact reasoning. The court found that as long as cannabis use was not a public health issue, the State had no right to infringe the privacy of one's home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravin_v._State

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#250

Post by coleifer »

rublev wrote: post #240
coleifer wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dope costs money. When you've got a habit and no job, how are you going to pay? People steal to support their habits. Little children have their childhood stolen because their parents were addicts. People crash cars and kill people. That's why drugs are illegal.

Video games costs money. When you've got a habit and no job, how are you going to pay? People steal to support their habits. Little children have their childhood stolen because their parents were always gaming. People crash cars and kill people because their attention is on their little screen. That's why video games should be illegal. You can do this with literally anything.

That's patently absurd. You're not likely to see a gamer out there ripping and robbing to support a habit. Do people get addicted to games? Food? Sex? Whatever? Yeah sure. But by far drugs lead to more crime.
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