Corlindel> Oh, I do agree with you. The drugs themselves are not the real issue. The reason WHY people start taking them (and getting hooked) is! Ultimately I want society to deal with THAT issue –
To me the current drug-laws are like trying to cure cancer with AIDS-virus. No one tries to find the real cause, the reason why people need to escape reality through drugs. That’s where we should focus, that’s where we could really DO something.
Fire> Weed is basically harmless. I smoke that once or twice a year with some friends, we laugh ourselves half to death, fall asleep and that’s that. I don’t feel compelled to smoke that stuff every day, just like I don’t feel the need to drink every day.
Windancer> Good point! Let me try to make my point crystal clear then in return. We KNOW today of the harm cigarettes cause. Through legislation we’ve banned advertisements and commercials for cigarettes. Naturally such a dangerous things as hard drugs should NOT be open for capitalistic exploitation – I don’t want drugs legalised because I think they’re good for you (or anyone else for that matter). I simply think that people take them ANYWAYS, crime is committed to pay for expensive, illegal drugs, the same drugs are often spiced with dangerous “fillers”, it IS a market that is being exploited now – today. By legalising drugs this market could be regulated and would be subjected to the law.
I’m Fuzzy> Could you point me to a study that shows the number of addicts would rise if drugs were legalised? Or a study that shows current addict would take more drugs?
If drugs were legalised the crime related to obtaining money to pay for them (as they are now illegal and expensive) would be removed. Is that not a good thing? Please answer that question.
Today – now – when drugs are illegal people DO take them, and DO make offences. People drinking alcohol do the same. Do you want to ban alcohol.
Originally posted by The Omega
I’m Fuzzy> Could you point me to a study that shows the number of addicts would rise if drugs were legalised? Or a study that shows current addict would take more drugs?
Originally posted by Storm
The United States experimented with legalization and it failed. From 1919 to 1922, government-sponsored clinics handed out free drugs to addicts in hopes of controlling their behavior. The effort failed. Society's revulsion against drugs, combined with enforcement, successfully eradicated the menace at that time.[1]California decriminalized marijuana in 1976, and, within the first six months, arrests for driving under the influence of drugs rose 46 percent for adults and 71.4 percent for juveniles.[2] Decriminalizing marijuana in Alaska and Oregon in the 1970s resulted in the doubling of use.[3] Patrick Murphy, a court-appointed lawyer for 31,000 abused and neglected children in Chicago, says that more than 80 percent of the cases of physical and sexual abuse of children now involve drugs. There is no evidence that legalizing drugs will reduce these crimes, and there is evidence that suggests it would worsen the problem.[4]
1. Jill Jonnes, "Forgotten History of Legal Drugs," The Baltimore Sun 16 February 1995.
2. . Peggy Mann, Reasons to Oppose Legalizing Illegal Drugs (Danvers: Committee of Correspondence, Inc., September, 1988)
3. Wayne J. Roques, "Decriminalizing Drugs Would Be A Disaster," The Miami Herald 20 January 1995.
4. Don Feder, "Legalizers Plan Harvard Pot Party," The Boston Herald 19 May 1994.Dr. Herbert Kleber, prominent psychiatrist from Yale University, former Demand Reduction Deputy Director at the Office of National Drug Control Policy and currently with the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, stated in a 194 article in the New England Journal of Medicine that clinical data support the premise that drug use would increase with legalization.
He said: "There are over 50 million nicotine addicts, 18 million alcoholics or problem drinkers, and fewer than 2 million cocaine addicts in the United States. Cocaine is a much more addictive drug than alcohol. If cocaine were legally available, as alcohol and nicotine are now, the number of cocaine abusers would probably rise to a point somewhere between the number of users of the other two agents, perhaps 20 to 25 million...the number of compulsive users might be nine times higher...than the current number. When drugs have been widely available - as cocaine was at the turn of the century - both use and addiction have risen."
England's experience with widely available heroin shows that use and addiction increase. Great Britain allowed doctors to prescribe heroin to addicts. There was an explosion of heroin use and by the mid-1980' s known addiction rates were increasing by about 30% a year. According to the Lancet, the respected British medical journal (Lancet, January 9, 1982), 2,657 heroin addicts were registered in 1970 compared with 5,107 in 1980.
This was a program in which heroin users needed a doctor's authorization to get their drug.Legalization was given a lengthy try closer to home when the Alaska Supreme Court ruled in 1975 that the state could not interfere with a person's possession of marijuana in his home for personal use. Enforcement was permitted only when the quantity possessed exceeded four ounces - this in a state that, because of the long, sunny days of its brief growing season, produces extra potent marijuana.
The court's ruling was interpreted by many Alaskans as a signal to light up, and so they did, especially the young ones, even though the ruling was limited to persons 19 and over. According to a 1988 University of Alaska study, the state's 12 to 17-year-olds used marijuana at more than twice the national average for their age group.
"The frequency with which marijuana was used within the current sample," the report on the study said, "suggests that it is not an experimental event for many students, but that it seems to have become well incorporated into the lifestyle of many adolescents."
Although they historically cling to their personal liberties, Alaska residents voted in 1990 to re-criminalize possession of marijuana, demonstrating their belief that increased use was too high a price to pay for increased personal liberties.
DEA (the Drug Enforcement Administration)
Originally posted by Im_Fuzzy
ok what storms point IS is that if we legalize drugs more people might take them OR take them at a higher intake then they already are taking them AND THEN the crime rate might increase because people are REALY REALY stupid when the are druged or stoned SO the might do an offence
Again, I am going to ask you all what The Omega has been asking, but no one seem to have answered, WHAT makes you certain that more people will take drugs if they beome legal? How can you prove this?
Would you all do it? Would you all start taking drugs if they became legal? What makes you think everyone else will?
Alcohol is SO much more dangerous than weed, drunk person is far more capableof doing terrible violent thngs than a person on cocain or heroin!
Originally posted by Storm
It is the experience of many local police officers that crime is committed not only because people want to buy drugs, but more often because people use drugs. There is no denying the fact that drug use changes behavior and exacerbates criminal activity.The experts also believe that legalization will lead to increased availability of drugs, which will, in turn, lead to increased use. The use of drugs, especially cocaine, crack, methamphetamine, and PCP, is often associated with violent criminal behavior.
A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (7/6/94) reports that cocaine use is linked to high rates of homicide in New York City and that "homicide victims may have provoked violence through irritability, paranoid thinking or verbal and physical aggression which are known to be pharmacologic effects of cocaine."
An April, 1994 report titled "Violent Drug-Related Crime" compiled by the Drug and Crime Data Center and Clearinghouse indicates that drugs are used by many offenders committing crimes. In 1991, the following percentages of state prison inmates involved in violent offenses reported that they had used drugs at the time the offense was committed:
Data from the National Institute of Justice (U.S. Department of Justice) Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program underscore the crime-drugs link. Of a sample of males arrested in 23 U.S. cities in 1993, the percent testing positive for at least one drug in the DUF survey ranged from 54% in Omaha to 81% in Chicago. Among female arrestees, the percent testing positive for any drug in 20 cities ranged from 42% in San Antonio to 83% in Manhattan.
A May 1993 Bureau of Justice Statistics report states that "Drug use was common among inmates serving time for burglary, robbery or drug offenses. Among inmates serving a sentence for burglary or robbery, about 6 in 10 inmates had used drugs in the month before the arrest for the current offense, and about 4 in 10 were under the influence at the time of the offense."
The same study indicates that female inmates were more likely than male inmates to have used drugs in the month before the offense (54% versus 50%) and to have been under the influence at the time of the offense (36% versus 31%). Another finding of the study indicated that among 18-49 year old males, those who had used alcohol, cannabis and cocaine at some point during the past year were ten times more likely to commit a violent act (26.1 percent versus 2.7 percent) than those who used none of the above.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police published a report in 1993 titled "Violent Crime in America." It states "Drug abuse and crime, both violent and nonviolent, are linked. National Crime Victimization surveys in 1989 and 1990 revealed over 2,000,000 crimes committed by offenders under the influence of drugs or alcohol...this represented 36% and 34% of total violent crime recorded by the surveys."
Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys indicate that "25% of convicted inmates in jails, 33% of state prisoners, and 40% of youths in state-operated facilities admit being under the influence of an illegal drug at the time of their offense" (BJS, Drug and Crime Facts, 1992)
Data from Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys show that 77.7 percent of jail inmates, 79.6 percent of state prisoners, and 82.7 percent of youths in long-term public juvenile facilities had used drugs at some point in their lives.
Department of Justice statistics indicate a growing number of young arrestees are marijuana smokers. Data from 12 major urban areas showed a sharp jump, from 16.5% in 1992 to 26% in 1993, in teenage arrestees who tested positive for marijuana, the Department said. And this is the modern, high-test marijuana, about three times (sometimes more) the strength of the 1960s and 1970s weed.
DEA (the Drug Enforcement Administration)
Yet, nowhere in this post do i see the evidence of people being violent due to BEING UNDER THE INFLUENCE of drugs.
What you told me here, is people beign tested positive for drugs month before some offence, inmates are tested positive, cocain users more likely to offend (well duuh, they need money to buy cocain) yet you provided NO evidence whatoever of a fight or a violentcrime that was due to the influence of a drug!
All thse statistic you found are the drug rate statisitcs, meaning, they happen because, and i repeat :
People steal, rob to get money for drugs, or drug deal gone bad = violence!
You challanged my view of people under the influence of drugs are dangerous....yet you nowehere procvded me with the evidence.
Originally posted by lil bitchiness
People who want to take drugs will take them reguardless of them being legal or illegal.
Look at my earlier post I mention of a possible scenerio if drugs become legal. Big Corporations will take over the industry, and probably change the chemical compunds of weed to make it more addictive. Just like the Cigarretes Corp did when Tobacco was legislative. Like I mention earlier by allowing drugs to be legal the contents will of weed can be alter to make it more addictive. That's what Big business want to make a product so addictive that ppl can't resist. The same thing that happen to Tobacco will happen to weed if it is legalize.
Originally posted by Storm
Can you please explain me why these statistics show an increase at the time when there has been experimented with legalization?
Where does that say in your statistics or the article?
Did they make drugs legal and then collect this data? I dont remember such an occurance being recorded? How did they ''experiment'' with legalization?