synthetic drugs/war on drugs

Started by red g jacks2 pages
red g jacks Restricted

maybe not heroin... cocaine? maybe so. i've tried it before... it's pretty fun tbh

but you really can't assume that if you are responsible and make good decisions, that most people are going to do so. we've seen drug epidemics take over entire communities in this country.. so the idea that people will abstain even if the drugs are freely available and plentiful is pretty silly to me. i also saw you mentioned that people do them cause it's "cool" because it's illegal. however, there's evidence to the contrary in places where drugs are legal. pot use has hardly become less prevalent in colorado, for example.

and then there's shit like this...
YouTube video

Bardock42 Junior Member

Originally posted by red g jacks
maybe not heroin... cocaine? maybe so. i've tried it before... it's pretty fun tbh

but you really can't assume that if you are responsible and make good decisions, that most people are going to do so. we've seen drug epidemics take over entire communities in this country.. so the idea that people will abstain even if the drugs are freely available and plentiful is pretty silly to me. i also saw you mentioned that people do them cause it's "cool" because it's illegal. however, there's evidence to the contrary in places where drugs are legal. pot use has hardly become less prevalent in colorado, for example.

and then there's shit like this...
YouTube video

I don't think the shocking drug epidemics that have taken over entire communities under the war on drugs is a very good argument against legalisation. Basically it's a "maybe it will be as bad under drug legalization" vs. "it's definitely this bad under the war on drugs".

I would also say that Marijuana is a special case. A drug that is less harmful than both alcohol and tobacco, if anything there is a very good chance that it would decrease the use of these other, more dangerous, drugs instead.

At any rate, I have seen conflicting evidence about whether legalization increases or decreases use. Do you have some links to the case of Colorado? I mean three important aspects that a study on legalization has to consider is "did we know the dark number of usage before legalization?", "has legalization decreased the use of other legal drugs?", "has legalization decreased the usage of harder, not-legal drugs?"...again I have seen conflicting evidence for all of these.

red g jacks Restricted

Originally posted by Bardock42
I don't think the shocking drug epidemics that have taken over entire communities under the war on drugs is a very good argument against legalisation. Basically it's a "maybe it will be as bad under drug legalization" vs. "it's definitely this bad under the war on drugs".
i'm talking about whether people are willing to try hard drugs. to suggest you can't use examples from when drugs are illegal (which is basically the only recent examples we have, since these drugs have been illegal for a very long time) is to presume that there is something about illegal drugs that are more appealing to use than legal drugs... which once again seems silly to me.

but if you go back far enough, people were certainly willing to use opium back before it was illegal. and many people today are willing to abuse prescription opiates, which are also often obtained legally.

i know more than one person who picked up heroin after having started out just taking oxy, for example. so the "would you try heroin, as a rational person" argument is not very compelling to me. maybe it is because i have grown up and been around a lot of people who have indeed tried and eventually thrown their lives away on drugs like crack, heroin and meth. maybe your experiences have been different.

I would also say that Marijuana is a special case. A drug that is less harmful than both alcohol and tobacco, if anything there is a very good chance that it would decrease the use of these other, more dangerous, drugs instead.
i agree with the unbolded part... not so sure about the bolded part. marijuana is no substitute for harder drugs imo... depending on your tastes. if you have any data that suggests otherwise, i'll take it into consideration. but just based on instinct.... i disagree.

At any rate, I have seen conflicting evidence about whether legalization increases or decreases use. Do you have some links to the case of Colorado? I mean three important aspects that a study on legalization has to consider is "did we know the dark number of usage before legalization?", "has legalization decreased the use of other legal drugs?", "has legalization decreased the usage of harder, not-legal drugs?"...again I have seen conflicting evidence for all of these.
no... i was basing it on the fact that the legal weed business is being touted as a new booming industry in colorado... where as (as far as i know) colorado was never really known for a robust weed market when it was illegal. cali, on the other hand, was.

but in any case i don't see any evidence for the idea that people use illegal drugs more than legal ones.... and if you have any direct evidence for this then i will once again take it into consideration. i would once again consider things like the K2 video i posted and the fact that alcohol is widely used (perhaps moreso than any illegal drug) as evidence that people just like taking drugs because drugs are fun... whether they are legal or not.