Devil, Tell Us about the Drug Problem in the US

Okay, so people here seem to be pro-weed and anti-horse and anti-coke.

What about the middle ground? Maybe marijuana doesn't lead to heroin, but what about ecstasy, LSD, shrooms, etc.? In my own circle of friends growing up there were clearly paths of use starting with alcohol, quickly moving on to marijuana and then on to these other more potent, more dangerous drugs. Dangerous not only because of their intrinsic effects, but also because of the higher stakes for dealers involved with these other drugs. Today you can add meth and prescription drugs from ritalin to oxy as low cost, easy access drugs kids frequently do move up to.

pvolcko wrote:Okay, so people here seem to be pro-weed and anti-horse and anti-coke.

What about the middle ground? Maybe marijuana doesn't lead to heroin, but what about ecstasy, LSD, shrooms, etc.? In my own circle of friends growing up there were clearly paths of use starting with alcohol, quickly moving on to marijuana and then on to these other more potent, more dangerous drugs.

OK...So what is your solution to the problem? Our nation has spent almost 100 years trying to stop drugs via law enforcement & it has totally failed.
No one here is advocating drug abuse but we have to accept the fact that criminalization is not the answer. Stopping the demand is the only answer & I have no clue how to do that.

In the mean time, at least collect some tax money from it & lower it's street price (by legalizing it) so people wont need to kill each other to get the money for it.

I don't have the answer either. I know based on my experience, I did some drugs as did most of my friends. I did coke one time and did not care for it (good for me I guess). I never did heroin, lsd, meth., crack, or anything else other than shrooms and pot.
Was I an addict? In my opinion no but, then again who really knows? I have not used any of that stuff for almost 30 years. I still drink alcohol and use tobacco. Education is crucial as well regarding addiction but again, I am not certain how to make that effective either.

The war on drugs is an excuse to lock up blacks and free thinkers. Do some expensive coka and you get a slap on the wrist. Smoke a little crack and you get a minimum mandatory jail sentence. LSD is the best device out there today to turn a sheeple into a free thinker, so they are real hard on the trippers. I mean come on, a dude on acid isn't harming anyone but himself so why make it a crime? All the arguments against drugs can be solved by legalizing them.

Today's Problem: Drugs bring down property values because of gangs and hookers hanging out. Legalized dope Solution: dopers buy the dope at the store, no need for gangs to be selling them.

Today's Problem: people are on drugs. Legalized dope solution: people will still be on drugs.

Today's problem: kids overdose while experimenting with drugs. Legalized dope solution: they can read the label and safely get blasted.

I am an old school pothead, I'll admit it. I don't do any illegal drugs now, nor have I in the last 10 years since my daughter was born. As much as I would rather smoke a joint than drink a beer I am afraid of getting arrested and having my kids taken away because I can't afford a good lawyer. It's stupid, I would rather be on the highway with a guy on weed or coke than a dude that just guzzled a 40oz malt liquor.

On a side note it was much easier to quit smoking weed than it was to quit cigarettes. Tobacco for me was insanely hard to quit.

Wow, pairing blacks and free thinkers, any other targets we can think of? I say legalize and regulate them all, let the chips
fall where they will. As far as the gate way drug theory, I do not believe it. I personally have never wanted to try anything
somebody"made" in the home chemistry kit. I think if you are inclined to pursue the high, then you will, weather you start
with cigarettes or cut to the chase and go for horse. Truly destructive drugs should be kept illegal. Meth, crack, coke, etc.
Stuff that you can do and die slow, let'm have at it! You can shoot horse and live to be really old! They did not tell you that
in the old drug class!

Paulie wrote: You can shoot horse and live to be really old! They did not tell you that
in the old drug class!

And how much does the "horse" cost? If legal should it be covered by insurance?

I was a freshman in high school in 1971. The previous year they had taken the doors off the bathroom stalls to prevent kids from shooting heroin in there. I was living with my brother who had just taken an engineering job right out of college. He was only 21 and trying to raise me with his new wife. My mother had died and my father was nowhere to be found.
At that time a guy named Owsley was manufacturing high dose LSD in California called Orange Sunshine. He was a colleague of Timothy Leary. I was falling in with a bad crowd, and two of the "cool" kids gave me a tiny "chip" off one of these sacharrin size pills. 45 minutes later I was watching clocks melt off the walls, very profound hallucinations. The next day my friend and I took a much larger dose at our apartment, I suffered a complete psychotic break. There is no way to describe the hallucinations to someone who hasn't been there. The cops came and took me to the hospital where they shot me with Thorazine to calm me down. My brother was angry, detectives came and confiscated the pills. It was all over the place, kids were dropping in the halls from it. It's one of the most potent drugs known to man, producing effects at microgram levels. That was only the beginning of my high school years.

I don't know what the solution is. I'm not even sure what the goal is. Is it to limit use of pot? Is it to stop spending money on enforcement? Is it to save lives of users, dealers, and innocents? I don't see how any of the three will occur through creation of a legal framework for pot manufacture, sale, and possession.

Legalizing pot doesn't end the illegal drug trade. It all still exists, minus one particular drug. And that drug will still be traded illegally for some time to come. And as it's illegal trade is phased out, assuming it will phase out (and I don't believe it will), that will just put more pressure for sale on the other drugs and quite possibly make that trade even more dangerous. Indeed, in order to force people into the legal channels to buy pot (which will likely be more expensive than the illegal stuff) and to force illegal suppliers out of business or into the legal supply chain the DEA level enforcement along with street level enforcement will have to be amped up significantly.

And by legalizing it, you create a whole new layer of bureaucracy involved with its monitoring and enforcement. Manufacturers will need to be inspected periodically, tax stamp programs put in place with enforcement through the entire distribution chain, sale to minor enforcement programs, etc.. Many of these things already exist for alcohol and cigarettes, but they will need to have further investment and staffing to handle the increased load.

Legalizing and taxing sounds good at first, but I believe it is one of those things that will bring about many unintended consequences. Amsterdam's experience with increased organized crime, prostitution, gambling, etc. should be reviewed, for instance.

If there is to be a legalization here, I hope that it is done on an experimental basis in one or two states first.

Devil,

So your saying if your going to do something even though its illegal because everybody else is doing it why not profit from it?
And because somebody has different morals and beliefs they are a problem to people that have your belief their and rights should be violated? So what your truly saying FREE THINKERS are ANTI CONSTITUTIONALISTS and they will pursue all avenues to circumvent it? One example is murder for hire it is more lucrative than drugs it most definitely is a illegal and it happens every day so maybe if its legalized it'll stop. How about adultery it's pretty much legal there's no real consequence when you get caught except a possible divorce and some money but no prosecution. How about stealing usually 1st and second offenders are not prosecuted unless it's political. Now tell me how our society is not degenerating because FREE THINKING people have most definitely affected our laws.


Bill S.

I have to state that I don't believe legalization is the answer to the problem. I really don't feel there is a simple solution to it. There are solutions in my opinion but, then again most of society would not like my ideas. We need to get tough. We used to hang people for stealing cattle.............now we do very little. We have become................numb I guess

BillMarti wrote:Devil,

So your saying

Sorry Bill....I lost you at your first sharp turn in the road???

When my neice was 17 she got involved with a 19 year old guy that came from a broken home and had a lot of problems. They started going to Newark and were able to buy heroin for $20 a bag. Street heroin is close to pure these days, it can be sniffed up the nose. In the old days it was stepped on so much it had to be injected. She got caught and eventually the guy went away. We wanted to kill that guy.
Every year in affluent Morris County, NJ, a few kids die of heroin overdoses. It depresses their central nervous systems to the point that breathing ceases.
They're found in cars, in their bedrooms in the morning.
I could probably travel down RTE. 78 and take one of the Newark exits and find it right now under a bridge, being sold by people with wads of cash and Saturday Night Specials in their jackets.
My neice learned her lesson and went on and completed college. She was lucky.
Doesn't the heroin originate in Afganistan? Doesn't it fund terrorism? Doesn't tons and tons of coke still come up from South America?
American culture- you turn on the TV and get bombarded by pharmaceutical drug ads! You need Fixitall! Ask your doctor about Fixitall! ( May cause intestinal bleeding, headaches, nausea, vomiting, disorientation, tardive diskinesia, and flatulence...)
I've heard marijuana is illegal because hemp itself threatens the cotton industry and other industries due to its versatility and durability. I have no answers, just rambling on.

SuperBeetle wrote:

Paulie wrote: You can shoot horse and live to be really old! They did not tell you that
in the old drug class!

And how much does the "horse" cost? If legal should it be covered by insurance?

The Gov can pick up the tab when it buys every ones booze too. As far as personal experiences with various drugs here,
the one common theme is not only the destructiveness of the various drugs, but that they were all illegal. And THAT did
nothing to deter anybody from using/experimenting/ them. That various personal situations make us vulnerable, that
drugs are destructive, these are given and proven. But what about the law and does it make a difference? My feeling is
it does not.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first10 ... na-policy/

White house is changing policy on medical marijuana but the DEA apparently didn't get the word.

This thread started with Mike asking my opinion about what the drug problem is in this country. We all will have our own opinions & an opinion cannot be either right or wrong.....It is yours to do with what you wish.

In this spirit, here are my opinions:

1. Legal or not, people are going to use drugs for recreational purposes, at least until a "Happy Ray" device is invented.
2. Since almost 100 years of costly law enforcement has failed to put a dent in illegal drug use, I think it only wise to conclude that another 100 years of the same thing will work no better.
3. Legalizing something will always cause a drastic lowering in the price due to greater availability & open competition.
4. Tax the drugs, make them available & safe to all adults, just like alcohol, which is also a drug. (Require an RX from a doctor for it, if that makes you feel better)
5. Think of the savings in anti-drug police efforts, prison space, court proceedings & the drastic reduction in street crime, which is usually drug related.

I think the government has no business telling adult, competent & law abiding individuals what they can & cannot do if it doesn't infringe on the rights of anyone else.

Disagree or agree if you will, but these are MY opinions, speaking as someone with a good deal of experience in this field which I assume is why Mike asked me in the first place .