Why The USA Must End Drug Prohibition

a reply to: CloneFarm1000

Yep. Go ahead n kill yourself. We 're..always saving your life so you can go ahead n kill yourself anyway.

Pointless, wasted resources, and costs the city response $$$.

Narcan costs a bunch. 1 guy it took 5...FIVE..NARCANS to bring him back.....

1week later, he succeeded in killing himself. Why do we bother? Because there's always hope.

Thanks to everybody who has replied so far. This issue is of utmost importance in my opinion, and is never discussed enough, and so I am pleased to see it being discussed and argued.

Okay g-men, thanks for your input. This poisoning of the government class against the loadies by the propaganda of our times is a big part of the problem contributing to the cultural divide that has intensified over the last hundred years here in the USA. We need to work on this as a nation. I urge you folks to attempt to evaluate these issues with an open mind.

This cultural divide that has been thrust upon us is one of the most effective mechanisms by which many well meaning patriots are pitted against one another. We really should put an end to this, so that the nation can begin to heal from this wound.

Ask yourselves what the founding fathers might have thought about these issues. Numerous books have been written to document the fact that alcohol was very much a part of early North American colonial culture, and its economy. The founding fathers spoke highly of some of the drugs that many of you have condemned and stated should be banned outright, or remain illegal in perpetuity. Cannabis and tobacco, most notably.

Rather than search out quotes of such material for this post, I thought instead that a look at some of our earliest founding documents would be very enlightening as to what they thought government's role in the regulation of such intoxicating substances should be.

From the Declaration Of Independence:

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

www.archives.gov...

The Preamble of the US Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

www.archives.gov...

From the Bill Of Rights, the Fourth Amendment:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

www.archives.gov...

We hold these truths to be self evident...endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...

secure in their persons...against unreasonable searches and seizures...

Spin it however you like. These enumerations of rights in our earliest documents are pretty unambiguous. It's pretty easy to see what the founding fathers would have thought about these issues, if you are honest with yourselves within your hearts.

If you take that oath to support and defend the Constitution seriously, then please, support and defend these parts, as it pertains to this issue. Drug prohibition must end!

a reply to: TheBadCabbie

Yeah, ummm. . . . just look at Portland.

It's done wonders for our state!






/s

a reply to: Irishhaf

Again, I am very skeptical that this sort of scenario would play out very often, or at all, in the way that you think, in a post-prohibition USA.

How did this two 8-balls an hour user get past the hiring and orientation process to become a full time postal carrier? In your hypothetical scenario, he can't even control himself long enough to deliver a day's batch of mail. How would he even get to that point if he were as irresponsible as you say?

Believe it or not, there are occasional users of these hardcore substances. "Weekend warriors" is my euphemism for that type of user. It typically does evolve into something more serious over time, but not always.

Believe it or not, I share your distaste for these drugs, I really do. That doesn't change the fact that imprisoning people for these sorts of behaviors(possession and use) is so wrong, and is something that needs to end.

a reply to: DBCowboy

An anecdotal example that, respectfully, proves nothing. A couple years of decriminalization does not suddenly undo a century's worth of the toxic cultural evolution that has occurred on both sides of this issue.

originally posted by: TheBadCabbie
a reply to: DBCowboy

An anecdotal example that, respectfully, proves nothing. A couple years of decriminalization does not suddenly undo a century's worth of the toxic cultural evolution that has occurred on both sides of this issue.

Of course not!

I'm sure the increase in thefts, gun violence, OD's, deaths, the disappearances of businesses will all settle down.



/s

a reply to: DBCowboy

Perhaps. Perhaps not, if we continue on as we have to date. Oregon is one of the few places in the USA with this permissive environment, so I would expect those numbers to run high, as it is a magnet to those types of thrill seekers.

Have reasonable quality control standards been established, and legitimate distribution systems and methods qualified? If not, then the drug using populace is still required to socialize with criminal elements as a matter of course...

a reply to: TheBadCabbie

We could also look at Seattle and San Fransisco.

They are also glorious examples of free drugs.

Just don't step in the human poop. (they have maps to avoid it now)

a reply to: mysterioustranger

Yeah it costs alot.

Y'know what else costs alot?
The prison system.

How many Americans are in prison?
Somewhere between 1 and 2 million.

How many locked up are for drug offenses?
44.5%

What's the average yearly cost per prisoner in America?
$45,771

You want to talk about wasted resources?

And we're not even talking about the potential tax revenue of these substances and the blow it would deal to the drug cartels.

Our provincial government recently decriminalised pretty much everything..in amounts under a certain amount. They don't allow use in public though, I'm a bit on the fence. We are having 5-7 OD deaths a day, this has pretty much been the case for years before before the decriminalisation, I'm not thinking there has been an increase, definitely not a decrease. What I find puzzling is, there was no resources put towards rehab..seems bizarre to me.

The U.S. fed, is a long ways from doing any of it.

originally posted by: EternalShadow

originally posted by: putnam6

originally posted by: EternalShadow
a reply to: TheBadCabbie

Our society isn't mature enough to handle legalized drugs. It would only sink us further into the abyss. Alcohol is one thing, but narcotics are a different story.

Legalizing only normalizes societal rot.

My opinion is fk no.

I used to do drugs, I still do but I used to too. Mitch Hedberg

Me too, but before it was completely recreational, somewhere along the way it became medicinal. Still, I'm legal just D8 and it does me just fine, but I'm on board with the medicinal benefits of D9 and shrooms.

No, respectfully alcohol is worse a lot worse, just because it's been packaged and served to you by slick advertisers, in a lot of ways it is worse.

Alcohol is definitely worse than reefer, ganja, or whatever your favorite term is for the wildwood flower. Alcohol is infinitely more physically and psychologically addicting.

I've lived with alcoholics and I've lived with extreme stoners, A stoner doesn't lose their chit, like alcoholics do.

I agree with the hard stuff coc aine, crack, and heroin need to be regulated but hell fentanyl has no place in society and it really should be hospice-type care stuff and it's not. It's prescribed too often and now we have a fentanyl problem where there was none 15-20 years ago.

It took a while but I thought drinking and drug use, in general, was on the decline in teenagers, does it mean it's the boomers getting a buzz?

I was comparing alcohol to narcotics, not alcohol to "jazz cabbage".

Use amongst older folks who never used is actually trending. The "pay now play later crowd" that stayed the path and we're successful are now spreading their wings in their 50's and 60's. I say more power to those folks.

It's a different story for those who haven't and probably never will accomplish anything but spending their miserable lives getting high.

Now I'm all for letting people spend that life as they see fit. However, I'm not for those people and groups bringing down the standards of living and existing for everyone because they gave up.

Just look around, if it looks like this while it's illegal, how do you think it's going to be when it goes mainstream??

We need CLASS and sophistication to return to society, not the freedom to do drugs.

Geezus christ....how about raising the bar instead of making the hole bigger??
🙄SMH.

Give me a break. jeez the Fentanyl epidemic exploded well after the war on drugs campaign reached 30 years old

Legal and regulated fentanyl and oxycodone etc. among a plethora of other prescribed drugs direct from Big Pharma are just as dangerous if not more so. They are easily available, even more than previously

But I believe addiction isn't stopped by temperance either. Some people are just addicts, some people aren't. Addiction very well might be partially genetic, damn sure there is evidence it's genetic as much as availability and environment.

Not to mention some people do crap because it's illegal and it gives them a thrill. Perhaps if some drugs were mainstreamed they would lose that allure.

On top of that, it's possibly generational too, it takes time, Look how long it took for alcohol, and tobacco to be legal and both seem less popular than they used to be.

Again not saying free heroin or coc aine, but in some countries, semi-legalization has knocked down the number of addicts, and consequently, the crime associated within.

Hell, it's not just legalization it's decriminalizing it for the end user, that is enough to curb sending addicts or users to prison that helps nobody and just creates career criminals

Both meth and crack are illegal as hell, and yet cities, towns, suburbia, and countryside are full of meth heads and crack addicts, and we spend billions to stop just these 2 and it isn't working.

There are enough success stories where addicts got help and turned their lives around. Where a more robust rehab program might be successful for those qualified

The majority of people chose to drugs for one very simple reason; they enjoy it.
And the majority of those people can handle their drugs and are functioning and contributing members of society.

Prohibition does not work, as has been evidenced in the past and is clearly evident today.

Those who advocate just carrying on with the 'drugs are bad, lets punish those who use them' mantra are simply burying their heads in the sand and/or are seeking to impose their own personal opinions on others.

I don't profess to have the answers - I have my own thoughts, ideas and beliefs but I'm no expert - yet I do know that something has to change because what 'we' have at present simply isn't working.

a reply to: CloneFarm1000

I am pro drug. Pot legal here, psychedelics you hv home delivery here in Ann Arbor Mi.

I've ALWAYS said..." Make every drug legal, just tax the hell out of it.

Michigan has 3-5 pot stores around each other all over. And Michigan is KILLIN It with $$$$$$

Be careful what you ask for because it may contain lead and cadmium.

Because the cannabis plant is a known scavenger of metals, we hypothesized that individuals who use marijuana will have higher metal biomarker levels compared with those who do not use.

Our results suggest marijuana is a source of cadmium and lead exposure. Research regarding cannabis use and cannabis contaminants, particularly metals, should be conducted to address public health concerns related to the growing number of cannabis users.

ehp.niehs.nih.gov...

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: TheBadCabbie

We could also look at Seattle and San Fransisco.

They are also glorious examples of free drugs.

Just don't step in the human poop. (they have maps to avoid it now)

Okay, wait a minute. Let me get this straight. Are you trying to claim that some of these people, using drugs in a permissive environment, are actually behaving badly?!? Lies! Vicious rumours, all of it!!!

I kid, I kid. Look, I don't think anyone in this thread who has posted in favor of my arguments has tried to argue that drugs couldn't possibly ever have some negative consequences.

Just to be clear, I want to fully acknowledge the ravages that drug addiction can inflict on an individual, while making this argument to end the heinous practice of drug prohibition. I have seen these negative consequences play out in real time, in the environment, day in, day out, for years. I have watched the street grind people up.

Regardless, we need to end drug prohibition. In attempting to address these social problems, we're doing it completely wrong as far as I can tell, if we actually wish to fulfill those promises of "promoting the general welfare", "insuring domestic tranquility", and "insuring the blessings of liberty" for ourselves and our posterity.

Some people behaving badly while using drugs doesn't diminish the validity of that argument in the least from my point of view. Last time I checked, people can mess up pretty badly while using legal drugs, like beer, whiskey, and legally prescribed pharmaceuticals. No illicit drugs required for that bad behavior, though some might consider it to be drug induced. Plenty of people engage in that sort of bad behavior without any drug related activity whatsoever to "inspire" or "enable" it.

Pretty sure that bad behavior that you and I both acknowledge and find distasteful is all illegal. If those cops in the decrim zones wanted to do some work and clean up the streets a bit, they wouldn't have to look around that hard to find some people messing up, whether they're on formerly illicit drugs or not.

That raises the important point that in a post prohibition nation, stealing cars would not suddenly become legal. Neither would vandalism, rape, other forms of theft, child endangerment, kidnapping, murder, reckless driving, indecent exposure, attempted murder by poison, or any of the other things that supporters of prohibition would say that drugs lead to.

How about arresting and prosecuting those crimes? I'm pretty sure that everyone here who speaks out against the horrible practice of imprisoning drug users would fully support the prosecution of these other illegal activities. I certainly would.

A victimless crime like drug use or possession though? Imprisoning an individual for such activity is wrong, always has been, always will be. I'm echoing the thoughts of millions of Americans at the least with my arguments here. More likely that number is in the tens, or hundreds of millions though. Stiff penalties for drug use or possession will never occupy the moral or ethical high ground for any of those people, or myself.

Let's have a look at this abomination, this thing that should not be, called the war on drugs. Sometimes a fresh perspective can be beneficial and enlightening. Sometimes it's just what you need to figure out how to solve the problem. Anslinger's monster, this ugly, many tentacled beast.

On the one tentacle you've got prisons for profit, only too happy to jail all of the inductees they can take. Why wouldn't they? They're making lots of money for running those prisons. I'm pretty sure they'd be just fine with stiff drug penalties. Powerful incentives to want to imprison as many folks as possible. Whether for profit or not, few are willing to advocate for the imprisoned. Regardless, the prison industry seems to be doing just fine. Thanks Anslinger.

Over here you've got the government class, well indoctrinated with Anslinger's brand of propaganda. Such propaganda has flowed freely for almost a century. This drug war type government activity certainly fills many pockets, so it's easy to see powerful incentives there as well for preserving the status quo of needlessly harsh drug penalties. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid guys, you're ruining my country!

Oh look there's the pharmaceutical industry, the best drug dealers around as far as I can tell. Protected by law, happy to sell as many legally prescribed pills and tinctures as the public might desire. Somehow that is all okay, even though individuals are regularly imprisoned for activities that are strikingly similar. Their poisons shouldn't be prohibited either in my opinion, though I can't say I'd recommend any of that swill to anybody who would ask.

Moving on, here's the CIA and goodness knows how many other government agencies, smuggling those same drugs that we imprison regular people for into the country, providing a steady stream of intoxicants to any would be user. They need to fund all of those black projects somehow, so apparently they get a pass too, even though countless others are imprisoned for those same drugs that the CIA and various unofficially sanctioned agencies introduced to the environment in the first place.

The various assorted drug cartels. Only too happy for things to remain as they are for the most part I'd guess. All of that risk involved with their chosen trade makes charging hefty prices perfectly justified from their perspective. These are professional, career criminals. They engage in lots of other professional criminal activities too, well funded by drug smuggling and distribution activities. Drug prohibition ensures continuing healthy profits for these organizations.

Those imprisoned by drug laws bear consideration as well. Career criminals? Some perhaps. Many are not however. Those poor saps are there for drug charges alone. Victimless crimes. We take away their right to vote, to own a gun, their freedom, destroy their families, and make it much more difficult for them to find gainful employment once they are released from prison.

Let's not forget those who don't go to prison, but whose lives are seriously affected by drug charges. How many live below the poverty line because of a drug charge in the family history, that was a victimless crime?

Those imprisoned and financially neutered don't live in a vacuum. Their families and friends see these events play out. Some undoubtedly will carry a lasting resentment to the institutions that have preyed on these individuals, especially when those persons were known to be good hearted individuals. Even more so when the substances they are jailed for are mostly harmless, or may even have generally beneficial side effects. If the drugs were harder stuff, that still doesn't really nullify this disenfranchisement. These are subjective situations. The meth or crack user who wasn't a bad guy is just as much a victim of the system as the cannabis user, in the eyes of those so disenfranchised.

Millions of disenfranchised third parties, who have lost faith in a system that preys on their kin for victimless crimes. It's really no wonder that they resent the establishments that presume to govern them, if you sit back and think about it. Can't say as I blame them.

Anslinger's misbegotten beast...truly a terrible sight to behold! God save this nation! Soften the hearts of these foolish leaders! Drug prohibition must end!

a reply to: TheBadCabbie

Agreed.
All prohibition has ever achieved is empowering criminals.

Substance abuse is better treated as health issue.
Not criminal.

a reply to: datguy

I thought Texas had passed such a law, but on looking into it I found that I was mistaken, or if they had passed such a law, it has since been repealed.

According to this article, Washington state has passed this law reducing penalties:
mrsc.org...

Colorado:
www.avisolawllc.com...

www.urban.org...
According to the article at this last link:

Since 2014, five states—California, Utah, Connecticut, Alaska, and Oklahoma—have reclassified drug possession offenses from a felony to a misdemeanor. People in those states can no longer be sentenced to prison for drug possession, and they will not bear the collateral consequences of a felony conviction for the rest of their lives.

There may be others, but this is what I could find with a brief search.

a reply to: Degradation33

Not really. Poppies or Coca trees only need the right conditions to be cultivated. It doesn't have to happen in Afghanistan or South America. No cartels need be involved in this process.

As to oversight, the FDA could do that if they didn't have their heads all up their patoots. In a Libertarian utopia type situation, the FDA would no longer exist. Such standards could easily be established by ANSI or any number of private institutions or universities.

As to the rest of your post, I honestly share your distaste for the use of hard rugs. That being said, having a disgusting habit shouldn't merit a prison sentence. Those people are born with rights, too. Who are we to say what they can or can't put into their bodies? It's wrong.

No compassion...no problem with your judgement and hypocrisy...you should work on that.

As to the OD deaths, I completely agree in seeing no problem with that. People should be free to make their own choices. While I do have compassion for those folks, I respect their right to choose their own fate.

originally posted by: nugget1
a reply to: Pluginn

Drugs ain't expensive when you regulate it and where profit isn't important, a government can control prices, can make it cheap very easy!

The government always increases the cost of products; that's why users still buy their MJ on the streets or grow their own.

Not necessarily.
www.cannabisbenchmarks.com...
Apparently weed is very affordable in Oklahoma, even when buying it from the weed store.

I know from talking to people that this is not the case in every state. I am told that Arizona prices aren't much cheaper than they were when it was illegal, unless you're buying it on the black market.