The drugs debate

[WANDERER]

My response to legalising stuff is what about all the additives that companies will put into their products to encourage addiction, maximise their profits and with very little regard for the health impacts.

Actually my mother agrees with the idea that smoking cigarettes will naturally progress into smoking weed LOL. She means well...I'm going to stick with that theory anyway.

I'm working on giving up the smoking habit. I'm also horrified with the whole nicobate replacement scenario where I gather that people are simply going from one addiction to another...I have started nicobate...but apon reading the statistics I gather that many don't break the addiction cycle using nicotine replacements. Ah well, no one said it was going to be easy.

Wanderer,

I smoked for years. Put it down cold turkey and never picked up another one. However, chewing tobacco.... quiting that was that hardest thing I've ever done. I'm now tobacco free now for years! YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

[Hemidakota]

I'm also horrified with the whole nicobate replacement scenario where I gather that people are simply going from one addiction to another

That was my issue with AA Leadership seminars. Serving in the military years ago, it was a requirement for military leaders to attend AA seminars in receiving instructions with identifying military individuals with alcohol [still considered a drug to me] and hard drug additions. The problem I had to confront in those meetings was hearing how they would take the military person off one drug and replaced it with a weaker. Even after I voiced my own personal opinions, I just keep watching families being destroyed, court martial, and committing suicides, it fell on deaf ears. Disheartening to watch lives crumble.

[DigitalShadow]

This is an interesting issue to me. I don't do drugs, never have, don't really have the desire to. I have known many people who smoke weed though. I do think there are a lot of misconceptions thrown around this thread, so I will speak my opinion based on some personal experience.

Of all the people I've known who smoke weed, I've never known any of them to go on to "harder" drugs. People who are going to do harder drugs have different reasons and would have gotten to those drugs whether pot existed or not. The "gateway drug" mantra is pure propaganda as far as I'm concerned and I have yet to see evidence (personal or emperical) to the contrary.

Also, claiming that marijuana would get all the additives of cigarettes by greedy companies if it were legalized is a rediculous claim. Cigarettes have all those additives because on their own they don't have much recreational value, so they have to use whatever means they can to hook their customers to an otherwise worthless product. Marijuana can better be compared to alcohol, which needs no additives to keep people buying it.

In my opinion, legalizing marijuana would have very little effect on society and it would be regulated, used, and occasionally abused just like all the legal drugs like alcohol. Other drugs like meth and cocaine are not quite as simple though. Unlike marijuana, they create strong physical addictions from the first use and do great harm to the systems of your body in small amounts of time with continued use. Even if the hard drugs were made legal, many people who used them as intended and did quite a bit of damage to their body in a short amount of time would sue any company that produces those drugs into oblivion.

[Iggy]

Originally Posted by WANDERER

My response to legalizing stuff is what about all the additives that companies will put into their products to encourage addiction, maximize their profits and with very little regard for the health impacts.

Actually my mother agrees with the idea that smoking cigarettes will naturally progress into smoking weed LOL. She means well...I'm going to stick with that theory anyway.

I'm working on giving up the smoking habit. I'm also horrified with the whole nicobate replacement scenario where I gather that people are simply going from one addiction to another...I have started nicobate...but upon reading the statistics I gather that many don't break the addiction cycle using nicotine replacements. Ah well, no one said it was going to be easy.

I used to smoke too- and I tried countless times to quit. I used the 3 step patch. Can't remember the brand name. I was very careful using it as I have high blood pressure. It states that one of the side effects is graphic dreams. Yes, I had graphic dreams the entire time I was using this product- but they were not bad dreams.

Unbeknown to me, my entire family had each put my name into their Temples. My family is strung out throughout the US. They were praying for me to lick this nasty habit.

I have been smoke free since my birthday 1998! Each year the Dr tells me my lungs are looking better and better, same with my esophagus! I smoked menthols for nearly 3 decades!

One thing that I urge you to do is find a good habit to replace the hand to mouth habit you get from smoking. Like eating raw veggies instead of eating other foods. Keep the veggies varied too. I only ate carrot and celery. If I were to do it over I would have included every raw veggie that the grocery stores offered and without the dip!

Good luck to you- my prayers are with you.

[Hemidakota]

Now, don't blame me because your addiction , when I enter into the 'energy drink market’ with my "Turbo Patch".

[skalenfehl]

Redbeard, you asked me for proof of the negative effects of legalizing (or loosening the laws of) drugs. Here are a few references for you. Legalization/decriminalization especially affected the teenagers, which gets to the heart of my complaint--drugs reach our youth.

Mr. Andre-Watson was waiting at a bus stop recently when a pair of teenagers lit up in front of an elderly lady. ''I said, 'Do you know that it's actually still illegal?' '' the pastor recalled. ''And they said, 'Everbody's doing it, and no one's doing anything about it.' ''

He and other residents complained so bitterly about drug dealing that after negative newspaper stories, the police finally sent officers this month to clear the streets.

But how long the stepped-up presence will persist is anybody's guess. When London as a whole relaxes its marijuana policy under the new legislation, people in Brixton are predicting that the open-air dealers will be back, at the busy subway station and up and down Coldharbour Lane.

Indeed, until this week, there were dozens of opportunities to buy pot on a Brixton street crowded with families and stores. Few people were under the illusion that marijuana was the sole product being offered.

Easing of Marijuana Laws Angers Many Britons - New York Times

What these legalization advocates do not talk about are the disturbing problems that people in Lambeth lived with every day. They ignore the sad misery of young people addicted to drugs. They ignore the serious problems that countries such as the Netherlands are experiencing -- problems that are leading them to reconsider their own liberal drug laws.

cannabisnews.com: Drug Legalization Doesn't Work

In 1975, Alaska's Supreme Court held that under their State Constitution an adult could possess marijuana for personal consumption in the home.

The court's ruling became a green light for marijuana use. A 1988 University of Alaska survey showed that the state's teenagers used marijuana at more than twice the national average for their age group. The report also showed a frequency of marijuana use that suggested it wasn't experimental, but a well incorporated practice for teens.

Fed up with this dangerous experiment, Alaska's residents voted in 1990 to recriminalize possession of marijuana. But 15 years of legalization left its mark-increased drug use by a generation of our youth.

Never Mind: Alaska's Failed Legalization Experiment

Other countries struggle with the realities of permissive drug laws:

The Netherlands: A Return to Law Enforcement Solutions
Portugal: Decriminalization of all Illicit Drugs
Zurich, Switzerland: Needle Park

The bottom line is that legalizing and decriminalization did not prove to solve the problem. it only created more/different problems.

[Redbeard]

I am getting so fed up with my internet browser.... Twice now I have written up a big long response and it has crashed both times I hit post... GAHH!!!! you get the short and sweet this time.

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Redbeard, you asked me for proof of the negative effects of legalizing (or loosening the laws of) drugs. Here are a few references for you. Legalization/decriminalization especially affected the teenagers, which gets to the heart of my complaint--drugs reach our youth.

Yes they do, they reach the youth now and it is illegal, I am saying that if they were legalized drugs would be regulated and we wouldn't have dealers out on the street trying to push drugs on kids when they could go to a gas station and get it without worrying what the drugs are laced with. Hope that made sense, I'm typing fast...

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Other countries struggle with the realities of permissive drug laws:

Grr, stories didn't quote-

1st story- preacher complaining about the lack of enforcement of drug laws, don't see how that proves your point, marijuna sales are still illegal there...

2nd story- It's a reporters opinion, and it was supported by the DEA... Hmmm... the same agency that would be out of purpose if drugs were legalized?! really!?

3rd story- I lived in fairbanks for 4 years. I loved it, but when I got older my elder brothers told me "It sucked living up there, people our age had 3 options, drugs, drinking, or sex." And that story is old, alaska decriminalized marijuana for personal use again in '99. obviously something worked

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

The Netherlands: A Return to Law Enforcement Solutions
Portugal: Decriminalization of all Illicit Drugs
Zurich, Switzerland: Needle Park

All stories from the DOJ and DEA? These are groups that make financial gain on the fact that drugs stay illegal... these are the same groups that put out the "gateway effect" despite arguments from doctors and sociologists. No thank you.

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

The bottom line is that legalizing and decriminalization did not prove to solve the problem. it only created more/different problems.

I disagree

As it sits right now, there are only a couple countries in the world where cannabis has been completely legalized. Other countries (including the US) have only legalized (in certain areas) the personal use of the drug.

Speaking of the US, do most of you realize that marijuana wasn't even illegal until the late 1930's? Before that time many people smoked and used cannabis all over the country. And here we are today, still alive and breathing Marijuana was sold in pharmacies as a headache cure!

Anyway, I hope I touched on everything, and if this doesn't work I give up

[skalenfehl]

Originally Posted by Redbeard

I am getting so fed up with my internet browser.... Twice now I have written up a big long response and it has crashed both times I hit post... GAHH!!!! you get the short and sweet this time.

Hmm...very interesting.

Originally Posted by Redbeard

All stories from the DOJ and DEA? These are groups that make financial gain on the fact that drugs stay illegal...

Forgive my ignorance. DOJ? Please cite your source. Would it make the documented stories less valid?

Originally Posted by Redbeard

And that story is old, alaska decriminalized marijuana for personal use again in '99. obviously something worked

When you say personal use, do you mean for medicinal purpose only or as personal consumption in the home as was passed in 1975 and failed? Please cite your source.

[Redbeard]

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Hmm...very interesting.

Not so interesting as it is well.... Frustrating beyond all belief

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Forgive my ignorance. DOJ? Please cite your source. Would it make the documented stories less valid?

DOJ= Department of Justice

And not so much of actual support for my side, but it's a little more biased than I prefer, You are talking about the section of our goverment that gets patted on the back for prosecuting and imprisoning the majority of drug users. If drugs are legalized then the majority of the people in our prisons were put in there for reasons we would then see as rediculous, therefore slandering the DOJ and DEA. They have investments in keeping drugs illegal. And our government is already pretty good at making up stories without evidence. The DOJ and DEA have been critizised multiple times by different groups for putting out unverified information.

United States Department of Justice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Go down to the Corruption, Dissent, and Criticism section for more info

Drug Enforcement Administration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That is all my opinion BTW, but I feel it's pretty well supported... Anyway, just my thoughts.

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

When you say personal use, do you mean for medicinal purpose only or as personal consumption in the home as was passed in 1975 and failed? Please cite your source.

No no no, I'm sorry, the 1975 ruling is what allows alaskans to have marijuana plants and carry in small amounts without prosecution, I'm sorry, I totally messed up my sources, thank you for bringing that up!

From Places that have decriminalized non-medical marijuana in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"With the 1975 Ravin v. State decision, the Alaska Supreme Court declared the state's anti-drug law unconstitutional with respect to possession of small amounts of marijuana, holding that the right to privacy guaranteed by the Alaska state constitution outweighed the state's interest in banning the drug.[2] Despite a 1990 initiative statute and a 2006 legislative statute contradicting the Ravin decision, Alaska courts continue to follow Ravin, voiding laws which criminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis.[3][4][5] This allows possession of less than 25 plants in your residence or home"

The Seattle Times: Local News: Judge rules against Alaska marijuana law

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

LOL, you are entirely in the right, If I am going to ask for sources it is only fair that I provide them as well