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What's your view on drugs such as Marijuana, LSD, MDMA, Crystal Meth, Cocaine etc.

I've always been very open to illegal drugs. (I smoke pot occasionally) In my opinion, some of them can be used in a responsible, mature way.

Personally, my interest has always been in LSD and Crystal Meth. Some one time users of LSD have reported new insight on the mind and the way it works, as well as a whole new perspective on life. It must be a truly incredible experience to do that. Although LSD is less toxic than Marijuana, it can cause "bad trips" which, could really mess someone up.

Cystal Meth, on the other hand.. I have no idea why I'm so curious about it. I feel like it must truly be "something else" for so many people to become addicted to it. Imagine what an amazing feeling you must get from it if you're willing to give up your job, your family, friends etc.

I've never tried anything but Marijuana... I'm afraid of addiction, and in the case of LSD, a bad trip. But I was wondering about others' experiences with these as well as their opinions.

Whatever works for you, works for you.

Just don't force it into the lives of anyone else.

-AC

Really, I don't care as long as it's not majorly addictive... stuff like meth, heroin is rightfully banned imo because it can't really be justified from a "personal choice" perspective after a while.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Really, I don't care as long as it's not majorly addictive... stuff like meth, heroin is rightfully banned imo because it can't really be justified from a "personal choice" perspective after a while. But obviously banning it creates huge problems, no?

Originally posted by allofyousuckkk
Cystal Meth, on the other hand.. I have no idea why I'm so curious about it. I feel like it must truly be "something else" for so many people to become addicted to it. Imagine what an amazing feeling you must get from it if you're willing to give up your job, your family, friends etc.

meth is nothing to write home about

the whole allure of it is like E in the late 90s-early-00s, the media made such a big deal about it that it became the most popular drug of choice

I've taken it a couple of times. It burns and you get really amped, but I got really anxious and uncomfortable. Depending on where you are and what type of buzz you want, there are much better choices.

Originally posted by allofyousuckkk
I've never tried anything but Marijuana... I'm afraid of addiction, and in the case of LSD, a bad trip. But I was wondering about others' experiences with these as well as their opinions.

LSD can be amazing, but I wouldn't recommend going straight to it.

Maybe try a gram or two of mushrooms to sort of get used to the feeling, then just make sure you are in a comfortable place where nobody is going to get mad at you or you don't have to hide how intoxicated you are, and take a single hit.

It does allow you new and weird insights, but imho this has less to do with the drug and more to do with the people taking it. People who like strange perspectives are drawn to things like acid, so they can sort of "maximize" that potential from it, however, lots of people just take it to feel wacky.

Many people will tell you to mix it with E, or MDMA if you have the chance, DO NOT DO THIS. There are few things I would advise so emphatically, its just that the same serotonin pathways are activated by both drugs, and you are basically exponentially increasing the dangers of use (though with pure mdma and clean acid, risks are very low). The benefit of mixing them is you reduce the danger of a negative acid experience, but the long term risk is very great, imho. Also, my personal thoughts are that the high from the MDMA might sort of reduce the psychedelic experience of the acid. The world might get weird and stretchy, but you might not be as "tripped".

Originally posted by King Kandy
Really, I don't care as long as it's not majorly addictive... stuff like meth, heroin is rightfully banned imo because it can't really be justified from a "personal choice" perspective after a while.

where do you draw that line though?

I'm allowed the personal choice to go out and drink gasoline.

Its only with certain drugs that the government has decided that the best way to deal with them is to not deal with them at all. Certainly heroin use shouldn't be encouraged, but criminalizing it would be like, I don't know, using 200 000 troops to occupy a huge mountainous nation when you only need to eliminate 200 or so fanatics. The policy doesn't match the goal, and actually makes every problem you can name with drug addiction worse in the process.

The big thing around my home town just now is called "Bubbles"....pretty good fun as it happens.

Mostly mephedrone (which is actually legal and available as a plant food ingredient)

Legal or not people will get high no matter what

So many of these threads already exist.

Originally posted by inimalist
where do you draw that line though?

I'm allowed the personal choice to go out and drink gasoline.

Its only with certain drugs that the government has decided that the best way to deal with them is to not deal with them at all. Certainly heroin use shouldn't be encouraged, but criminalizing it would be like, I don't know, using 200 000 troops to occupy a huge mountainous nation when you only need to eliminate 200 or so fanatics. The policy doesn't match the goal, and actually makes every problem you can name with drug addiction worse in the process.
Banning them is fine, it's enforcement where we go over the top.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Banning them is fine, it's enforcement where we go over the top.

But there are so many issues with banning them, I really don't see how you can support it, especially since it is unlikely that it even has any great positive effect.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Banning them is fine, it's enforcement where we go over the top.

so what do you do with the people (most of which ARE NOT addicts and live functioning and productive lives) who will use heroin regardless of the ban?

Looking at a small percentage of users who have compound issues of socio-economic status and likely mental health problems as if it is representative of the general population of users is fairly problematic.

Originally posted by Bardock42
But there are so many issues with banning them, I really don't see how you can support it, especially since it is unlikely that it even has any great positive effect.

strict regulations of drugs is correlated to higher frequency of use among the population and greater frequency of use within those who use the substance.

Though, marijuana has somewhat fallen off of this cart, as Canada, where the prohibition is enforced in a very lax manner, has a use rate over 3x higher than other developed nations, including both America and the Netherlands. However, comparing NL to USA, iirc, the trend still holds.

Originally posted by Bardock42
But there are so many issues with banning them, I really don't see how you can support it, especially since it is unlikely that it even has any great positive effect.
Well by that logic you might as well not ban anything ever.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Well by that logic you might as well not ban anything ever.

given that the use of drugs is not related to their legal status (or if they are, it is not that there is less use when there is a ban), what possible benefit is there from banning the substance, if we assume there are no negative consequences?

However, there are negative consequences, and most, if not all, of the reasons for drug prohibition are made worse by the prohibition itself.

But banning does change things. For instance it's pretty obvious LSD use went down after it was banned.

how would you substantiate that?

Originally posted by King Kandy
Well by that logic you might as well not ban anything ever.

The logic of looking at the pros and cons of an issue and then decide based on that? I'd disagree, I'd say there are some things that are perfectly rational to ban with that approach.

Originally posted by King Kandy
But banning does change things. For instance it's pretty obvious LSD use went down after it was banned.

LSD was made illegal in the mid 60s, around the same time that Tim Leary became "The most dangerous man in America"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/LSD_annual_new_use_USA_1967-2008.png

Use was SKYROCKETING

now, there is a significant dip in the early/mid 70s, which is almost certainly better explained by events like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Free_Concert

the rise again in the early 90s is interesting, and may be attached to the rave seen and the anti-drug propoganda of the 90s (temporary tattoos laced with acid anyone?), and I'm sure the huge drop in the early 2000s is associated with the media coverage of E and the surge of 10 cent pills on the market.

The scene in which LSD was used changed, so use changed. The law, largely irrelevant

Originally posted by Bardock42
The logic of looking at the pros and cons of an issue and then decide based on that? I'd disagree, I'd say there are some things that are perfectly rational to ban with that approach.
Yeah, but your logic of "people would still do it" as a reason not to ban can be applied to anything from stealing pencils to murder.

blah its a drug topic, so I'm a post machine

looking at the chart more, there are some additional things that need saying.

The "War on Drugs", as opposed to just prohibition, was in main effect in the mid-late 70s, early 80s, not to mention there was a democrat in the whitehouse between 77-81 and 92-...2000ish. This does seem to illustrate that the policy of enforcement has some effect, but conservative enforcement is also associated most with the negative consequences of prohibition.

The period of Clinton's reign also coincides with the adoption of "three-strikes" laws around the states, so it would be hard to categorize those years as being more tolerant of drug use. Also, going by this explanation, one would need to explain how the simple election of GW Bush (who, as far as I know did very little on the drug front) caused the largest drop in LSD use ever recorded.

Further, when looking at other nations, it does appear that draconian penalties for use can curb it, though it took the Taliban boiling users in oil for them to eliminate the marijuana trade.

Just sort of looking at all this, it makes more sense to me that drug use is driven primarily by social forces rather than legal forces. I think dadudemon is the only person I've ever heard of who doesn't use a substance specifically because it is illegal, and it generally holds that for most people that the law is not the most important deciding factor in their choice to use or not.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Yeah, but your logic of "people would still do it" as a reason not to ban can be applied to anything from stealing pencils to murder. That was not my logic though. My logic was that too few people would not do it as compared to the many bad consequences.

I thought that was pretty obvious, too, since obviously "if we make laws people will break them, therefore we shouldn't make laws" is an extremely silly argument, which was nowhere even remotely implied by me.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Well by that logic you might as well not ban anything ever.

Ban murder, ban things that infringe upon the lives of others.

You can't/shouldn't ban someone from destroying their own body if it makes them happy, or if they want to.

If they ask for help, then they can get help. If they infringe on others in a negative and directly harmful way by breaking the law, then call them a criminal.

Until they do any of this, it's literally none of your business. If I'm sitting on a wall in public, injecting heroin into my cock, I should be arrested for indecent exposure before any kind of drug use. As long as I'm not jabbing anyone with the needle, what's the problem?

-AC

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Ban murder, ban things that infringe upon the lives of others.

We should ban laws. Especially ones that infringe on my right to bash open the head of anyone too weak to stop me.

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Ban murder, ban things that infringe upon the lives of others.

You can't/shouldn't ban someone from destroying their own body if it makes them happy, or if they want to.

If they ask for help, then they can get help. If they infringe on others in a negative and directly harmful way by breaking the law, then call them a criminal.

Until they do any of this, it's literally none of your business. If I'm sitting on a wall in public, injecting heroin into my cock, I should be arrested for indecent exposure before any kind of drug use. As long as I'm not jabbing anyone with the needle, what's the problem?

-AC
The problem is when you're addicted to something, whether you "want to" or not is a very blurry boundary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanning_addiction

"addiction" would be a terrible line upon which to allow the state to ban things

nevermind

Originally posted by King Kandy
The problem is when you're addicted to something, whether you "want to" or not is a very blurry boundary.

If you don't want to become addicted to heroin, you wouldn't inject it. It's not something you casually try.

By the time you've decided "I want to inject this.", that's your decision. Everyone knows how addictive heroin is.

Whether or not you end up enjoying the addiction is another matter, but that's consequences we have to let people deal with.

-AC

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Ban murder, ban things that infringe upon the lives of others.

You can't/shouldn't ban someone from destroying their own body if it makes them happy, or if they want to.

If they ask for help, then they can get help. If they infringe on others in a negative and directly harmful way by breaking the law, then call them a criminal.

Until they do any of this, it's literally none of your business. If I'm sitting on a wall in public, injecting heroin into my cock, I should be arrested for indecent exposure before any kind of drug use. As long as I'm not jabbing anyone with the needle, what's the problem?

-AC We don't ban things that people don't do anyway.

Imagine no murdering signs.

Ban drug use is actually for those who need it. Of course the whole idea of banning things is ridiculous, even for murder and rape.

For the courtesy of others, don't rape them.
These are anti-violence premises.
Paedophilia. Just say no.

legalize it