BlueHues
Bluelighter
^Yes, you're right! Spending billions of dollars to prevent people from using recreational drugs and throwing them in prison has worked splendidly! And all the statistics prove this!
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DPMC Moderators: tryptakid
War on Drugs a Success
- Thread starter pmoseman
- Start date
theWhiteLarryBird
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2013
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Why should they?
Quote from source 5: "There is growing evidence that nicotine might actually benefit some people as long as it isn't delivered by smoking." Gee, thats swell.
4: First line, first paragraph: "The tobacco plant, Nicotiana, has probably been responsible for more deaths than any other herb. At present, tobacco smoking is causing over 3 million deaths a year worldwide, and if current smoking trends continue the annual mortality will exceed 10 million by around 2030.1 Add to this the mortality from cancers caused by oral uses and the death toll becomes still higher." But I've heard on the internet that tobacco is anti-cancer!!
3: This is a joke.. mybudget360? ok, i looked at it. i read nothing about prison or drugs, its just statistics about iraq and about welfare.
2: Here's a quote I liked: " Little is known, however, about the antioxidant characteristics of tobacco, another commonly ingested plant product." Probably because there is little about that statement that is valid. It goes on to explain these antioxidants are also found in fruits and vegetables. I'm sure there are people that still choose to get their antioxidants from tobacco though!
1: That was an abstract. Broad statements with no cited evidence or anything that seemed remotely relevant to US-Latin American relations.
Quote from source 5: "There is growing evidence that nicotine might actually benefit some people as long as it isn't delivered by smoking." Gee, thats swell.
4: First line, first paragraph: "The tobacco plant, Nicotiana, has probably been responsible for more deaths than any other herb. At present, tobacco smoking is causing over 3 million deaths a year worldwide, and if current smoking trends continue the annual mortality will exceed 10 million by around 2030.1 Add to this the mortality from cancers caused by oral uses and the death toll becomes still higher." But I've heard on the internet that tobacco is anti-cancer!!
3: This is a joke.. mybudget360? ok, i looked at it. i read nothing about prison or drugs, its just statistics about iraq and about welfare.
2: Here's a quote I liked: " Little is known, however, about the antioxidant characteristics of tobacco, another commonly ingested plant product." Probably because there is little about that statement that is valid. It goes on to explain these antioxidants are also found in fruits and vegetables. I'm sure there are people that still choose to get their antioxidants from tobacco though!
1: That was an abstract. Broad statements with no cited evidence or anything that seemed remotely relevant to US-Latin American relations.
pmoseman
Bluelighter
Heroin ODs had been in decades of decline while cocaine use also had more recently declined. Making the ODs caused by opiod painkillers greater, which have increased 3-fold in the same 20 years.
Scary stuff.
Then we take one step into the light and see the medical use of these opiod drugs has increased by 10-fold (10... 3... hm) in those same 20 years. This was intentionally misleading people and warping opinions. The increase is because of a more aggressive treatment of pain, not the war on drugs.
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pmoseman
Bluelighter
Read the words. What did I even say? Can you read that: ineffective.
Statistics aside, the common sense of the article is that punishment does not deter crime because people do not weigh that into their thinking and I also get this from talking with criminals. They do not connect punishment to their crime, ala Pavlov's Dog.
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pmoseman
Bluelighter
I'm not going to help you put these pieces together Larry.
BlueHues
Bluelighter
The aggressive treatment of pain made them more available to everyone, including to whom those they weren't prescribed, but for many people, they started doing them because they happened to be the only thing available to get "high" on due to the fact that everything but alcohol is illegal in most places! In many rural areas, prescription painkillers were the only thing around, and so people became addicted. If drugs were legalized and available to the people who wanted to use them, many people never would have had to resort to using painkillers...
Now, they've regulated opioid pain medications to the point that they're much more difficult to obtain, and we have this huge number of people still addicted to them! So now, many of those people are turning to heroin, or having to commit crimes to feed their pill addiction because the prices have gone through the roof!
Oh well, let's just hire more police to chase those people around and throw them in prison too!
Also....saying that the number of fatal heroin ODs have decreased as a good sign is ridiculous, given the fact that more people are dying from opioids than ever before in history.
It would be like saying: We're winning the war on drug! Fatal methamphetamine ODs have gone down from 300 in 2010 to only 150 in 2011! Of course, Dextro-amphetamine related deaths went up from 50 to 500 over the same years, but that's different!
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theWhiteLarryBird
Bluelighter
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You dont need to. And you can't. Its biased science at best. Your veil of ignorance must be very overpowering. Tobacco causes cancer. Marijuana does not. Tobacco has killed someone in the time its taken me to type this sentence. Weed has killed 0 people in 3 billion years.
Tobacco: Causes emphysema, lung, mouth, throat, and skin cancer. Weed: Used by the very same cancer patients to relieve nausea.
Alcohol and perscription pain killers: Responsible for thousands of deaths a year. Regulated, advertised and glorified in our culture. Illegal drugs: Mortality rates are lower than that of licit substances, and are mainly byproducts of problems caused by an absence of treatment.
Our country convicts and labels as opposed to treating and healing. This is supported by the FDA, the DEA, the CIA, and what's essentially the entirety of the US Justice system. Prohibition lines the pockets of drug and insurance companies, ensuring employment for tens of thousands by profiting off a hypochondriacal society.
Tobacco: Causes emphysema, lung, mouth, throat, and skin cancer. Weed: Used by the very same cancer patients to relieve nausea.
Alcohol and perscription pain killers: Responsible for thousands of deaths a year. Regulated, advertised and glorified in our culture. Illegal drugs: Mortality rates are lower than that of licit substances, and are mainly byproducts of problems caused by an absence of treatment.
Our country convicts and labels as opposed to treating and healing. This is supported by the FDA, the DEA, the CIA, and what's essentially the entirety of the US Justice system. Prohibition lines the pockets of drug and insurance companies, ensuring employment for tens of thousands by profiting off a hypochondriacal society.
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theWhiteLarryBird
Bluelighter
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- Dec 29, 2013
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- 229
Yes. This. moseman, your battle is lost. retreat to your fantasy world of magic tobacco and progressive prisons.. People like you are the reason the war on drugs still exists.
PowerFarts
Bluelighter
So, I suppose smoking weed is more harmful than that smokestack over there?
Perhaps we should throw the captains of industry in prison, obviously they cause more harm than a few people smoking doobies.
And don't get me started on the crap they put in our food, none of that shit causes cancer?
Some folks cause more harm than drugs ever did, but they don't go to jail, they live opulent lifestyles without the fear of punishment and incarceration.
Perhaps we should throw the captains of industry in prison, obviously they cause more harm than a few people smoking doobies.
And don't get me started on the crap they put in our food, none of that shit causes cancer?
Some folks cause more harm than drugs ever did, but they don't go to jail, they live opulent lifestyles without the fear of punishment and incarceration.
I saw that trap you set pmose from the get go.. cant belive people are falling into arguing your side for you..
drug_mentor
Bluelight Crew
Prison might help rehabilitate some criminals but it certainly is not where drug users belong, one could make an argument that drug addicts belong in rehab, but what about casual drug users? It is pretty hard to argue that going to prison for an occasional habit that has little to no negative impact on their lives will give them any benefit whatsoever, and since it is intended as a punishment and by its nature takes away a persons freedom it therefore becomes difficult to argue that sentencing these people to prison is anything but a negative thing.
I am aware of some of the potential health benefits of tobacco as well as the fact it has been considered to be more beneficial in the past, it is still hardly a fair comparison when tobacco smoking is known to be a leading cause of cancer and death yet neither can be linked directly to cannabis that I am aware, it is entirely misleading to quote meaningless statistics like cannabis smoke containing 60% more carcinogens in an attempt to portray cannabis as a more harmful drug without mentioning the harm tobacco is doing and the lack of harm being linked to cannabis use.
Also, if you think that prescription drug abuse isn't related to the war on drugs you are deluded. Why do you think opioids are prescription in the first place? Because they can get you high! (obviously there is more to it than that but that is a big part of the reason) If heroin were still OTC I really don't see that people would need to go to the doctor for an OxyContin script, it would just make no real sense. Painkillers are scheduled the same way illicit drugs are, just because it is available by prescription doesn't really make it different, you can get a prescription for methamphetamine! The fact of the matter is that the majority of these deaths are occurring due to people making a decision to abuse the drugs, they aren't OD'ing on their scripted dose. The lack of availability of other drugs in certain places due to the war on drugs, as well as increased social acceptability for using them due to the perception they are less harmful than outright illicit drugs which is also caused by the war on drugs are two obvious factors in the prevalence of prescription drug abuse and to claim otherwise is just naive imo.
bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
Yes, well, that's kind of the point - your DEA hack has cherry-picked a figure that best suits his purposes. I'm saying you can present the same data and it tells a very different story. Your DEA hack, among no end of other fallacies in that piece, is - borrow from the famous quote - using statistics like a drunk uses a light-post, for support rather than illumination. You can cheery-pick data, misrepresent statistics, withhold your references and any other number of intellectually bankrupt practices that would see you hauled before an ethics committee if you tried it in academia all that you like - but don't sit here and pretend that this laughable op-ed from an agenda-pedlar is some kind of final word on the subject.
pmoseman
Bluelighter
"But researchers warn that even if THC lessens the effects of these cancer-causing ingredients, cannabis smoke remains carcinogenic."
"Marijuana smoke contains about 50% more benzopyrene and nearly 75% more benzanthracene, both known carcinogens, than a comparable quantity of unfiltered tobacco smoke."
And from my own memory and research I know smoking a few cigarettes a week never killed anybody. That is why in my view second-hand smoke never killed anybody. Like Fart said, it is just smoke filled air; a lot different than directly pulling the heated smoke into your lungs, getting the heavy gunk stuck in there. If the conditions are bad enough it is clearly possible, but passing by the smoker's outside work is not giving anyone cancer, just little "I'm a wuss" coughs.
Some people still argue about whether cancer is even caused by smoking cigarettes. People will argue about anything.
"Marijuana smoke contains about 50% more benzopyrene and nearly 75% more benzanthracene, both known carcinogens, than a comparable quantity of unfiltered tobacco smoke."
And from my own memory and research I know smoking a few cigarettes a week never killed anybody. That is why in my view second-hand smoke never killed anybody. Like Fart said, it is just smoke filled air; a lot different than directly pulling the heated smoke into your lungs, getting the heavy gunk stuck in there. If the conditions are bad enough it is clearly possible, but passing by the smoker's outside work is not giving anyone cancer, just little "I'm a wuss" coughs.
Some people still argue about whether cancer is even caused by smoking cigarettes. People will argue about anything.
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what about vaping it.. or eating it?
Even if not related to the war on drugs, it is a better explanation to the sharp drop in heroin related deaths than that the war on drugs is a grand success. People are still dying from the same class of drugs, but its not heroin so they can make it sound like some kind of victory.
I mean what is the point of the WoD, to protect the public or to fill up the prisons and flaunt statistics?
Show me the statistics that prove it is the people who are being prescribed the medication for pain that are the majority of OD deaths from prescription painkiller and then maybe this argument holds some weight,
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bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
My. How authoritative.
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/14/5/315.full
Why do you think "your view" means anything? Opinions don't stand for shit without evidence
"Some people", huh? Well, let me be the first to pop that bubble for you - opinions are like arseholes, unless "some people" have hard data that supports a hypothesis then they can opine all day long, it doesn't make something any truer.
Have you ever smoked it pmose?
Let's see:
1: In 1978, the U.S. population was 223 million.
2: "Prior to 1979, data were not totaled for overall drug use and instead were published by specific drug type only." So where is he getting that 25 million figure?
3: (EDIT: this is correct, I misread the data.)
4: In 1971, there were 898 deaths in the United States caused by overdoses on all painkillers (including heroin) and fever-reducing drugs. In 2010 (latest CDC data available), there were 3,094 heroin overdose deaths.
5: In 1976, there were 1,067 deaths caused by painkillers (including heroin) and fever-reducing drugs.
6: As my previous numbers show, the number of heroin overdose deaths in 2010 was roughly three times the number of all painkiller and fever-reducing drug deaths combined in 1976.
Anyway, I'm tired and had to re-search some of these numbers after I noticed that the article was from 2011, so I'm stopping there for now... but do I get the beer? The guy's got some numbers right (21 million illicit drug users, 200,000 heroin users - although it's jumped up to 335,000 since then) but some of them are evidently bullshit.
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psood0nym
Bluelighter
Yeah, why post an op-ed from 2011? If the argument is that the drug war has been successful we should have seen a steady and predictable decline in use year after year from its inception until now. That would be evidence of it working. Instead we have a sharp decline throughout the 1980s and a modest increase since the turn of the century:
