Jarad said:
alright guys i have a plan!
[email protected]
send emails to that address, let them know that they are talking shit!
Yeah that’s a start, but really...we need to be contacting the journos if anyone. Politicians will respond to the media and public opinion far more readily than people attempting contacting them directly.
I have been planning on starting a site that covers this and other misconceived political issues for a while now. My plan is for a news site with an active forum. I have talked to some of my political science lecturers about getting some articles written from people with expertise on the subject. Having been involved in the online advertising/marketing industry for a few years has given me plenty of experience in ‘getting a site out there’.
Obviously discussion would have to be somewhat limited, in so far as debating the political issues would be the primary focus and while harm minimisation would play a big role in said discussion, more detailed drug information and discussion (pill reporting etc) would be better left for sites such as bluelight.
I guess the main reason why I think the other side of the argument needs to get more press (it gets virtually none through the commercial channels, which is unfortunately where the masses swamp to for their news) is because, well it’s simply a better way to handle the issue.
One argument leads to misinformation, less education about safe use, lack of quality control (where there is no need for this to be lacking) and, of course, more deaths and injuries.
The other side leads to better education on the topic, the ability to control supply and give out mandatory information packs at point of sale (image the difference this alone would make) and of course the quality control issue (read: dodgy guy in anti-drug ads putting household chemicals into the meth mix) becomes, well, a non-issue.
Every single negative issue that these ads are conveying about illicit drug use could be either reduced significantly or removed completely by simply rendering recreation drugs legal and dispensing them in an appropriate and responsible manner.
The first knee jerk reply to anyone arguing in favour of keeping said substances illegal is something along the lines of 'the government cannot be seen to be condoning
drug use'. Well, this is an interesting argument and takes all of about 30 seconds to debunk. To put it simply, there are endless amounts of activities, products, services etc that if looked at from an objective standpoint are far more dangerous, unhealthy and ‘immoral’ than recreational drug use, yet remain perfectly legal; smoking, alchohol (the two obvious ones), fast food, legalised brothels, base jumping (for the health and safety parrellel), Driving (many times more likely to kill than a rec drug).
A good excercise I like to practise is to strike up a conversation with someone you know is anti-legalised drug use. Don't mention the ultimate topic at hand and start talking about some dangerous activities that are known to have a stastically high mortality rate (base jumping, motorbike riding, etc). Then mention something along the lines of "don't you think we should ban people from doing this?" - almost everyone will respond with something along the lines of 'of course not', with the reasoning that people know the risks and can choose to take part. Then bring up the issue of drug use and point out the obvious similarities with the conclusion they just reached - I know its seems obvious to you and I, but I have found this an effective way to break down much of the propaganda-bread misconceptions people have, in a very
short space of time. I find, at least with people of reasonable intelligence, that it gets them thinking about the subject with a much more open mind, which can then lead you talking to them about the benefits of harm minimisation etc.
Another obvious, yet rarely addressed by politicians or the commercial media,
is the simple fact that supply and demand are forces fundamentally beyond the reach of the law. A great example - if people are willing to risk their lives importing and exporting drugs into countries that impose the death penalty for such activities, do you really think our government has a chance to in any way stop this overwhelming force?
There are so many benefits that would result from legalised distribution and I certainly do not have time to go into them all now (I am sure most people reading this thread have stopped reading my posts a few paragraphs ago). Suffice to say that the revenue recovered from taxes/excise on this now massive, taxable industry would be enough to write serveral thousand words on. I also started writing a paper about the befefits of being able to control the supply, using some simple macroeconomic theory, but yeah…a work in progress.
Basically, I struggle to understand how anyone that wants to protect our kids (hey, I didn’t even go into the issue that illegal drugs are often are easier for minors to obtain that legal substances such like alcohol) and reduce the negative effects of can possibly argue that keeping them illegal is in anyway anything but irresponsible and quite frankly an unnecessary danger being imposed onto society.
Things can change, but education is the key. If people are not aware of the flaws of the propaganda they are being fed, they will continue to believe it. If enough people get behind a website aimed at politcal changed and it is marketed in the right way, than progress can be made. There are politicians that are actually do not share the views and or are at least of open mind enough to listen to reason.
However they will not stand up to the leading core of the main parties, unless there was a signifanct movement, which would require a concerted effort to unite and actually get a voice in the public arena (lets face it, those of the opposite view have managed to attain this position).
It may be slow, but in my opinion at least, change is possible, but it all comes down to educating people with the truth, which requires both a mechaism to do so and a decent amount of exposure.
