Discussion Drug legalization

[thegreenhand]

Alright i’m kicking off the subforum name change with the classic drug policy debate, legalization.

Do you think drugs should be legal? If so, what sort of regulation (if any) would you like to see on the industry? If you think they shouldn’t be legal, can you elaborate why? Perhaps decriminalization is more up your alley? Maybe certain drugs and not others?

I’m curious to see what bluelight has to say.

tgh

 

[ions]

Legalize drugs.

End the drug war. Make treaties with leaders to attain drugs from other countries i.e. coca. Use drugs as a peace offering to countries we go to war with. For instance, drop a haybail of pot in Russia and let Putin make the next move.

 

[Opi_Kid_Rock]

I would tend to think that decriminalization following the Portugal model would be a softer jump than fully legalized sales of drugs. The idea behind decriminalization is to use the government funds that would usually go into the Justice system, to go into rehab, mental-health, and trauma counselling services.

 

[jasperkent]

Legalize ALL drugs.
Regulate for quality and purity.
Set an age restriction: 18? 19? 21?
Driving under the influence should be strictly prohibited.
Tax 'em. Use funds for rehab.

 

[thegreenhand]

Legalize drugs.

End the drug war. Make treaties with leaders to attain drugs from other countries i.e. coca. Use drugs as a peace offering to countries we go to war with. For instance, drop a haybail of pot in Russia and let Putin make the next move.

for some reason i feel like Putin is the kinda guy to have a panic attack after smoking weed and never touch it again

I would tend to think that decriminalization following the Portugal model would be a softer jump than fully legalized sales of drugs. The idea behind decriminalization is to use the government funds that would usually go into the Justice system, to go into rehab, mental-health, and trauma counselling services.

iirc some countries with decrim have forced treatment. how do you feel about that?

Legalize ALL drugs.
Regulate for quality and purity.
Set an age restriction: 18? 19? 21?
Driving under the influence should be strictly prohibited.
Tax 'em. Use funds for rehab.

this is pretty much where i stand on the issue too

 

[Opi_Kid_Rock]

for some reason i feel like Putin is the kinda guy to have a panic attack after smoking weed and never touch it again


iirc some countries with decrim have forced treatment. how do you feel about that?


this is pretty much where i stand on the issue too

I don’t think Portugal forces treatment on to people.

 

[thegreenhand]

I don’t think Portugal forces treatment on to people.

from drug policy alliance:

"...ordered to appear before a local 'dissuasion commission' – comprised of one official from the legal arena and two from the health or social service arenas – who determine whether and to what extent the person is addicted to drugs. The commission can refer that person to a voluntary treatment program, pay a fine or impose other administrative sanctions."

having trouble posting the link for that^ but it's titled Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: A Health-Centered Approach (February 2015) on drugpolicy.org if you're curious

so maybe forced treatment isn't the right phrase but there is still the potential for some unwanted consequences...

oregon's model i believe has the choice of a fine or treatment. so if you have money you're good to go but if you're e.g. homeless it's forced treatment.

so it's not unheard of to have forced treatment in a decriminalization model. i don't personally agree with it, but it is out there.

 

[Opi_Kid_Rock]

from drug policy alliance:

"...ordered to appear before a local 'dissuasion commission' – comprised of one official from the legal arena and two from the health or social service arenas – who determine whether and to what extent the person is addicted to drugs. The commission can refer that person to a voluntary treatment program, pay a fine or impose other administrative sanctions."

having trouble posting the link for that^ but it's titled Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: A Health-Centered Approach (February 2015) on drugpolicy.org if you're curious

so maybe forced treatment isn't the right phrase but there is still the potential for some unwanted consequences...

oregon's model i believe has the choice of a fine or treatment. so if you have money you're good to go but if you're e.g. homeless it's forced treatment.

so it's not unheard of to have forced treatment in a decriminalization model. i don't personally agree with it, but it is out there.

Yes perhaps full on legalization is fundamentally better than decriminalization. When we are making the comparison between the War-on-Drugs model versus Portugal’s decriminalization model, the distance to arrive there isn’t as far as going from the War-On-Drugs model to the essentially untried full legalization model. Governments are fearful and very slow to effect change. It will always be more likely for a Country to see decriminalization than legalization of ALL drugs any day.

 

[thegreenhand]

Yes perhaps full on legalization is fundamentally better than decriminalization. When we are making the comparison between the War-on-Drugs model versus Portugal’s decriminalization model, the distance to arrive there isn’t as far as going from the War-On-Drugs model to the essentially untried full legalization model. Governments are fearful and very slow to effect change. It will always be more likely for a Country to see decriminalization than legalization of ALL drugs any day.

agreed. whenever i talk to someone irl about decriminalization i've been able to convince them that it would be good. and that's regardless of their political leanings.

everyone knows somebody who has faced addiction and they generally come around and agree that prison time wouldn't do them any good

but legalization i've rarely been successful at convincing your average middle american of.

as an intermediate, decriminalization should probably be where efforts are focused

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Preferably full legalization w/ regulation, but I'd be willing to compromise with a decriminalization approach to start with.

 

[skipjames]

It depends on the drug
Cannabis and opium : full legalization, with age limits like booze (coffee shops and opium dens! can you imagine?
Heroin : Swiss model (pharma grade smack for free or at really cheap prices in clinics)
Coke , crack and especially crystal meth : i´VE NO IDEA! Give an opioid user the amount of substance he needs when he needs it, he-she will not be a problem and might live a fulfilling and useful life (probably more than hardcore stoners). On the contrary Coke: the more you take the more you want, even I am not a particular fan of the thing but I´ve been snorting three days straight, and coke-crack-meth heads tend to become kinda paranoid and dangerous, a friend of my dealer was convinced that I was from INTERPOL because of my accent , never mind the fact that I use drugs with them from them and more than them all the time , and they are not exactly a big operation....

 

[S.J.B.]

I always thought this was a simple question. Do you, personally, choose what drugs you put in your body, or do you delegate that choice to someone else? If you make the choice yourself, do you think that is wrong, that somebody else should be making the choice for you? And if, indeed, you think think it is correct that you should be making that choice for yourself, how could you deny the right to make that choice to another? I strongly believe that anyone who consumes an illegal drug that they think should remain illegal is a hypocrite.

In the realm of policy, however, I'm a realist, and completely support efforts toward intermediate measures such as decriminalization.

 

[skipjames]

I always thought this was a simple question. Do you, personally, choose what drugs you put in your body, or do you delegate that choice to someone else? If you make the choice yourself, do you think that is wrong, that somebody else should be making the choice for you? And if, indeed, you think think it is correct that you should be making that choice for yourself, how could you deny the right to make that choice to another? I strongly believe that anyone who consumes an illegal drug that they think should remain illegal is a hypocrite.

Of course, but generally speaking, as we live in a society we have a prima facie right to ban a substance that´s affecting negatively our society. Think the Opium Wars (this particular argument goes also against my interest, I would love to LIVE in an opium den, still I can see why the Chinese tried to ban opium)
Coke heads- crackheads- meth heads are prone to violent behavior whether or not are using, and especially when using? Yes
Alcoholics : they can be even crazier and nastier than the aforementioned crazed coke heads-crack heads-meth heads. Still alcohol is legal, and weed (and many opioids) not.Therefore:
Point taken @S.J.B. , thanks. So how would you regulate crack coke and meth?

 

[skipjames]

Also, I see you are from Canada ; what do you think of these guys ? https://www.dulf.ca/

I always thought this was a simple question. Do you, personally, choose what drugs you put in your body, or do you delegate that choice to someone else? If you make the choice yourself, do you think that is wrong, that somebody else should be making the choice for you? And if, indeed, you think think it is correct that you should be making that choice for yourself, how could you deny the right to make that choice to another? I strongly believe that anyone who consumes an illegal drug that they think should remain illegal is a hypocrite.

In the realm of policy, however, I'm a realist, and completely support efforts toward intermediate measures such as decriminalization.

I´ve seen your edit just now, sorry, so realistically your plan is : decriminalization ( of use a la Portugal? of selling? both) leading to legalization?

 

[S.J.B.]

So how would you regulate crack coke and meth?

Fundamentally, I think it should be available in any form to any adult. I have nothing against purity/packaging standards or moderate taxation. From a more practical perspective, I would support a formulation-focused market, since formulation tends to be a primary driver of harm much more significant than the substance's identity itself. So: allow the selling of coca tea, methamphetamine pills, and opium/laudanum and restrict pure cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and heroin to prescription, etc. Essentially what Canada has been doing with cannabis, and it's been working fine.

 

[S.J.B.]

Also, I see you are from Canada ; what do you think of these guys ? https://www.dulf.ca/

They are brave and I commend them. It does bring up uncomfortable questions about selective enforcement, however. But that's always been an problem with the Drug War.

 

[thegreenhand]

Do you, personally, choose what drugs you put in your body

I think the argument that many opponents of legalization make is that an addict, in the throes of their affliction, does not have the mental ability to choose. The disease/illness fundamentally alters the brain in such a way that the free will to choose no longer exists. Over time, the drugs (or the drug seeking behavior) lead to the disappearance of the ability to choose, and this altered brain circuitry simply has no other result than to ultimately end in taking the drugs.

I personally don’t subscribe to this model of addiction, but it does seem relatively common even among experts in the field. The “disease model” is probably the term that best sums it up.

Proponents of this model would simply reject the premise of your argument before you can even reach it’s conclusion.

Personally, I think the prominence of this model is a result of hyper “neuroscienceifying” our drug research and policy. When neurobiology is the only lens through which you view the problem, it’s only natural that you end up with this strange form of determinism

 

[skipjames]

Fundamentally, I think it should be available in any form to any adult. I have nothing against purity/packaging standards or moderate taxation. From a more practical perspective, I would support a formulation-focused market, since formulation tends to be a primary driver of harm much more significant than the substance's identity itself. So: allow the selling of coca tea, methamphetamine pills, and opium/laudanum and restrict pure cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and heroin to prescription, etc. Essentially what Canada has been doing with cannabis, and it's been working fine.

Once I made a post " if pure, farmaceutical cocaine was available in farmacies, would you still use, black market meth instead? and many people said enthusiastically YES. I´m kinda a newbie in the world of stims, but I am studying the subject ( doin a line of coke right now , saude)

They are brave and I commend them. It does bring up uncomfortable questions about selective enforcement, however. But that's always been an problem with the Drug War.

they also live in Canada, the land of the polites & the sensibles. If they were trying something similar in say, the US or Brazil or even my native Italy, not so sure who will have assaulted them first, wether the mafia the police or the addicts.themselves...

 

[S.J.B.]

I think the argument that many opponents of legalization make is that an addict, in the throes of their affliction, does not have the mental ability to choose. The disease/illness fundamentally alters the brain in such a way that the free will to choose no longer exists. Over time, the drugs (or the drug seeking behavior) lead to the disappearance of the ability to choose, and this altered brain circuitry simply has no other result than to ultimately result in taking the drugs.

I personally don’t subscribe to this model of addiction, but it does seem relatively common even among experts in the field. The “disease model” is probably the term that best sums it up.

Proponents of this model would simply reject the premise of your argument before you can even reach it’s conclusion.

Personally, I think the prominence of this model is a result of hyper “neuroscienceifying” our drug research and policy. When neurobiology is the only lens through which you view the problem, it’s only natural that you end up with this strange form of determinism

Yeah, I reject the disease model of addiction. From a neurobiological perpsective it's always a continuum with no easy answer, but from a legal/moral perspective I think it's important to ascribe as much autonomy to every person as possible. It goes back to the Golden Rule, really. Would I like autonomy ascribed to me liberally or restrictively? Obviously there are situations, e.g. acute psychosis, where society is and should be willing to set aside this ascription, but I think this should be avoided whenever possible. The choices I make regarding my drug use are mine and mine alone. I have this attitude not only about drugs: I'm also, for example, very apprehensive about the use of not-criminally-responsible verdicts in criminal cases. In the end autonomy is mostly just an idea -- we do what we do because of our environment, our genes, how we're programmed -- but autonomy, at least as a concept or feeling, is an important aspect of being human and we shouldn't dilute it, especially if that dilution just causes more harm than it attenuates.

 

[skipjames]

argument against legalization :legalization means more availability and availability leads more people to try the drug. I always despised coke and benzos, but that´s what basically I am using kinda no satop the last three days, because where I live coke is both good and available anytime . When I was in Europe I would not have used that much coke, or no coke at