Narcotics and Marijuana

[ShinyUmbreon189]

Whats your guy's stance on narcotics and marijuana (not just medical, marijuana in general)?

Do you guys believe marijuana should be legal for recreational or medical use? Or do you believe it shouldn't be legal at all?

Do you believe illegal hard narcotics; cocaine, heroin, metch, etc should be legal or no?

Do you believe hallucinogenic drugs; LSD, mushrooms, DMT, ayahuasca, etc should be legal or no?

Whats your thoughts on alcohol and tobacco being legal while other narcotics aren't?

What's your thoughts on synthetic drugs; spice, bath salts, flakka, etc?

What's your stance on pharmaceutical drugs vs medical marijuana?

I'm interested in seeing everybody's opinion. Usually someone just makes a marijuana one but I want to discuss all drugs illegal or not all in one.

 

[Somewhere_]

No one has the right to my body, and so they do not have the right to stop me from putting anything in it. And I dont care what it is- legalize all drugs.

no, I dont take any illegal drugs.

 

[Kanzler]

No one has the right to my body, and so they do not have the right to stop me from putting anything in it. And I dont care what it is- legalize all drugs.

no, I dont take any illegal drugs.

The reason that you're not putting a sniper rifle in your body isn't because the government is stopping you from putting it in - it's because the government doesn't let you have the sniper rifle. The government isn't stopping you from putting things in your body, it's stopping you from owning it.

 

[Somewhere_]

The reason that you're not putting a sniper rifle in your body isn't because the government is stopping you from putting it in - it's because the government doesn't let you have the sniper rifle. The government isn't stopping you from putting things in your body, it's stopping you from owning it.

Sorry. I phrased that poorly. Yes you are right. What I meant was no one has the right to prevent me from owning any drugs.

 

[Kanzler]

They do when you could potentially go insane and harm other people during your drug haze.

Interesting.

If you could put something into your body that will turn you into a blood-crazed berzerker, do other people have a stake in that? Do other people have a say in your decision?

 

[Somewhere_]

They do when you could potentially go insane and harm other people during your drug haze.

I would agree with you if this wasnt contradictory. It takes violence to seize drugs to prevent violence. It is taking the property of peaceful people.

So either way you have violence:

1) lets assume unregulated drugs somehow cause a great increase in crime: there is violence

2) lets assume drugs are tightly regulated: there is violence taking the drugs and hurting the people who do them

Both lead to violence, but the first example allows for the chance of less violence. And it does not require taxing the drug users to steal from them, or other peaceful citizens.

 

[Kanzler]

I would agree with you if this wasnt contradictory. It takes violence to seize drugs to prevent violence. It is taking the property of peaceful people.

But BadSheep, that sentence you quoted isn't contradictory. She made a statement where she asserted that people have a say in your decision to put something in your body that turns you into a blood-crazed berserker when you could potentially go insane and harm other people. There's a sufficient condition (when you could potentially go insane...) and a necessary condition (other people have a say in your decision). It's not internally inconsistent, it doesn't contradict itself. I don't think you're using the word contradictory appropriately to the effect of myself (and perhaps others) not understanding what you mean.

 

[Nah]

Just gonna say it now so we don't have a repeat of the gun thread, please don't start (another) conversation about property rights since that's not what this thread is about. You can make a thread specifically for that if you wish though.

Also I'm not sure why anyone would think that meth and heroin should be made legal, since like, don't those destroy your health pretty quickly?

 

[Somewhere_]

The application was contradictory. Either way, there is violence. Using violence in the name of preventing violence. How is this not...?

I am not talking about police brutality or anything because its not usually considered police violence when they violate property rights (stealing drugs, arresting people with drugs).

Actually, I really need to stop posting here. I can't make proper sense of any of my points without context. I have had this problem before. Ill limit my posts when I can think of a clear, concise way to make my points. I think I am not delivering these points and making them understandable.

 

[Her]

Marijuana should be legalised and regulated, government-approved strains should be made available and used as a way to gain revenue. At the same time, if people want to grow their own marijuana for personal use, that should be legal as well. However, they should only be allowed to grow it to a certain point. If people want to sell the substance commercially, or grow more than let's say three plants, then they should be made to apply for a grower's license.

I believe in decriminalisation of possession of hard drugs, with a focus on rehabilitation when necessary. I'm not sure how I feel on people being caught dealing drugs - on one hand, preying on people more often than not caught in the throes of poverty, crime and addiction is very hard to write off on a legal scale. On the other hand, many of those people are caught in the exact same traps as the people they sell to. Overall, I'm focused much more on empathy and attempting to cure a problem than putting people in prison for that problem. If I saw an argument that better detailed my thoughts, I'd be inclined to support it.

In any case, the war on drugs disproportionately affects people of colour and feeds into the prison-industrial complex. It's a lesser statistical problem in New Zealand than it is in America, but it very much exists here. Any attempt to fight back against that is something I welcome.

 

[Kanzler]

The application was contradictory. Either way, there is violence. Using violence in the name of preventing violence. How is this not...?

I think I get what you're getting at. How can you use violence to prevent violence? And how is that justified?

Clearly, it's an open question. One contentious example of using violence to prevent further violence is the atomic attacks on Japan at the closing of World War II. Kill 250,000 civilians in a deliberate attack vs. extend the war and have millions slaughtered, albeit non-deliberately. In such an example, there are arguments for both sides and there's a lot of debate.

I think the issue is that you're using 1) terms unconventionally and 2) presenting contentious ideas as if they were self-evident.

1) The vast majority of people could consider the atomic attacks as an example of using violence to prevent violence, after all, there's a lot of killing and physical violence involved in both alternatives. I strongly believe that a (much) smaller proportion would consider the example of taking property to prevent some other harm as using violence to prevent violence. I believe that you wouldn't disagree with me here.

I think the vast majority of people would describe violence as something that injures the person or is evocative of such injury. We can have physical violence that damages the integrity of one's body, and we can have emotional violence that damages the integrity of one's dignity and emotional well-being. One's body, dignity, and emotional well-being are all things that most people identify with one's personhood. If we talk about violence against women, then we're talking about all kinds of abuses and it's implicit that it includes physical and emotional acts of violence. We don't qualify it with "physical" violence against women or "emotional" violence against women, if we say violence against women we understand that it includes all of the above.

Most people see a distinction between personhood and property. The integrity of your property can be harmed by its being damaged or taken away, but because of the distinction, most people wouldn't call such acts violent. Your person isn't being injured (or isn't the subject of some evocation) but your property is.

2) I think it's clear that some of the ideas which you subscribe to are contentious. You wouldn't really find violence being referred in the way you're doing so in the mainstream news, for example. That's going to confuse a lot of people.

I think you've got to make that clear. There are a lot of assumptions in your thinking that most people probably don't hold and that you're not making obvious. That's probably why most people are expressing their difficulty in understanding your POV.

Like Nah said, you'd probably need a whole thread to do justice on your ideas since it seems that there are some fundamental differences that most people are not getting. But moving forwards in this thread, I think it'd be helpful if you make your basic assumptions or principles explicit, for example "I believe that it is inappropriate to use violence to prevent violence" so on and so forth.

 

[Somewhere_]

I think I get what you're getting at. How can you use violence to prevent violence? And how is that justified?

Clearly, it's an open question. One contentious example of using violence to prevent further violence is the atomic attacks on Japan at the closing of World War II. Kill 250,000 civilians in a deliberate attack vs. extend the war and have millions slaughtered, albeit non-deliberately. In such an example, there are arguments for both sides and there's a lot of debate.

I think the issue is that you're using 1) terms unconventionally and 2) presenting contentious ideas as if they were self-evident.

1) The vast majority of people could consider the atomic attacks as an example of using violence to prevent violence, after all, there's a lot of killing and physical violence involved in both alternatives. I strongly believe that a (much) smaller proportion would consider the example of taking property to prevent some other harm as using violence to prevent violence. I believe that you wouldn't disagree with me here.

I think the vast majority of people would describe violence as something that injures the person or is evocative of such injury. We can have physical violence that damages the integrity of one's body, and we can have emotional violence that damages the integrity of one's dignity and emotional well-being. One's body, dignity, and emotional well-being are all things that most people identify with one's personhood. If we talk about violence against women, then we're talking about all kinds of abuses and it's implicit that it includes physical and emotional acts of violence. We don't qualify it with "physical" violence against women or "emotional" violence against women, if we say violence against women we understand that it includes all of the above.

Most people see a distinction between personhood and property. The integrity of your property can be harmed by its being damaged or taken away, but because of the distinction, most people wouldn't call such acts violent. Your person isn't being injured (or isn't the subject of some evocation) but your property is.

2) I think it's clear that some of the ideas which you subscribe to are contentious. You wouldn't really find violence being referred in the way you're doing so in the mainstream news, for example. That's going to confuse a lot of people.

I think you've got to make that clear. There are a lot of assumptions in your thinking that most people probably don't hold and that you're not making obvious. That's probably why most people are expressing their difficulty in understanding your POV.

Like Nah said, you'd probably need a whole thread to do justice on your ideas since it seems that there are some fundamental differences that most people are not getting. But moving forwards in this thread, I think it'd be helpful if you make your basic assumptions or principles explicit, for example "I believe that it is inappropriate to use violence to prevent violence" so on and so forth.

I will take your suggestions and formulate a method to properly portray my philosophy better. and I do use them as they are automatically true, without trying to back them up initially (i believe I defended them deeper into the debate, but not early enough to make a strong stance). I am on a break from school now, and I can write some essays explaining self-ownership and property in a way that makes sense, and then applying this philosophy to real-world examples like we have reviewed: gun rights, drugs, and I also want to include taxation because that is very central.

I define violence as the threat of force or the initiation of force on one's body or property.

So throwing thousands of people in jail, seizing their property, or even killing them has outweighed the violence of the actions of drug users. In addition, this has required massive theft among millions of peaceful americans to fund all of this. To use your atom bomb in WWII example: it is justified by the fact that it would have prevented many more deaths. I know this doesnt make sense, so you dont have to reply lol.

And the reason why I stress property rights in every argument is that I believe that they are at the core of every human interaction- conversation, war, trade, economy, everything. So maybe Ill make a thread about it on a later date after I have written my ideas down.

 

[Mobile Tsk]

Do you guys believe marijuana should be legal for recreational or medical use? Or do you believe it shouldn't be legal at all?

Marijuana should be legal for use among adults for any reason. Clinical studies have demonstrated it is an incredibly safe drug with few adverse effects on the user or those around them. The only exception is when parents who use drugs do so in a way that is neglectful or abusive to their children. But child abuse/neglect is already illegal, so barring this I have no issues with marijuana whatsoever.

Do you believe illegal hard narcotics; cocaine, heroin, metch, etc should be legal or no?

Well, the only narcotic on that list is heroin, but they are all very similar in that they are very dangerous, addictive and life-altering (for the worse). They should be decriminalized IMO, but not legalized. Addicts are already incredibly disadvantaged in life, there is no compassion in ruining their lives further by jailing them. Being an addict is for many a surmountable obstacle, but being an addict, incarcerated and unemployable is not.

Do you believe hallucinogenic drugs; LSD, mushrooms, DMT, ayahuasca, etc should be legal or no?

It's difficult. For in their purest forms these drugs are non-toxic and relatively safe. But people often underestimate the power of the delusions they will face while on these drugs. This is where the true danger lies in using these drugs. I would lean towards them being decriminalized or legalized with regulation. I'm not generally for regulation... but despite being non-toxic these drugs are not as safe as you might think.

Whats your thoughts on alcohol and tobacco being legal while other narcotics aren't?

Ridiculous. Alcohol and tobacco have ruined and ended many lives. It is just another page in the book of our consumer society, where people are encouraged to work all week and drive themselves to an early grave on the nights/weekends so that people won't have to draw out of social services in old age. Alcohol and tobacco are two of the most addictive and dangerous drugs on the planet and their ubiquity are incredibly troubling.

What's your thoughts on synthetic drugs; spice, bath salts, flakka, etc?

All disgusting. Since the latter two can induce uncontrollable bouts of violence, the rights of others can often come into play. While I am an advocate of individual rights, there are some drugs which wade into the individual rights of others. This is an area where I am not really sure what the appropriate policy is.

What's your stance on pharmaceutical drugs vs medical marijuana?

Marijuana is much safer than prescription narcotics, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, anticonvulsants, sleep aids, muscle relaxants and psychostimulants.

 

[baceevee]

Do you guys believe marijuana should be legal for recreational or medical use? Or do you believe it shouldn't be legal at all?

I believe marijuana should be legal for recreational uses among adults and medical uses among those who a medical professional says marijuana is the best treatment/pain management option for said individuals.

Do you believe illegal hard narcotics; cocaine, heroin, metch, etc should be legal or no?

Decriminalized, yes. I also think that people who are addicted to these drugs and are caught with one of these drugs on them should be placed in a rehab facility rather than jail or prison.

Do you believe hallucinogenic drugs; LSD, mushrooms, DMT, ayahuasca, etc should be legal or no?

From documentaries I have seen and articles I have read, I don't see the immediate harm in these drugs in their pure form as others have said. But, the fact remains that a 'bad trip' is always a possibility, and I think we all know how detrimental that could be to someone's mental, and possibly physical health. However, I am really not too sure if I think they should be legalized. I am in favor of decriminalization of these drugs.

Whats your thoughts on alcohol and tobacco being legal while other narcotics aren't?

I have never understood why either of these substances are legal, yet other less harmful drugs, such as marijuana (when ingested any other way besides smoking) are illegal and considered Schedule I substances.

What's your thoughts on synthetic drugs; spice, bath salts, flakka, etc?

Worse than almost any other drug known today, based on information I have read. Definitely shouldn't be legal.

What's your stance on pharmaceutical drugs vs medical marijuana?

Pharmaceutical drugs are generally a lot more harmful and/or risky than medical marijuana. Medical marijuana would be a better substitute for the majority of narcotic pain killers, sleep aids, anxiety medications (if the right medical strain is found), etc.

 

[an illegible mess.]

1. i believe marijuana should be legalized because not only has it proven to be a very safe drug, it would also bring in a lot of revenue that alcohol and tobacco does. i think the fact that it's illegal is such a strange thing to me. there could be worse things i could be doing.

2. as for narcotics, i think they should be decriminalized but still illegal. instead of a jail sentence, people caught should be rehabilitated. jail won't fix them, in fact, it'll make their lives worse and even more miserable. a lot of the people who take these harder, more dangerous drugs are people who are severely mentally ill or just want something in their life to ease their pain, whether physical or mental. throwing them in prison does not help this fact at all.

3. hallucinogens i'm not really sure about. these drugs have the potential to be dangerous to the user with bad trips and whatnot. i think they could be legalized, if not, decriminalized definitely.

4. i'm a bit iffy on the whole legality of tobacco and alcohol. they are both hazardous to one's health and can lead to some pretty nasty addictions, but i don't think they should be made illegal. for one, they bring in a lot of revenue. perhaps this is just my personal bias speaking as i have considered smoking cigarettes and do use alcohol, though. it is pretty ridiculous how they are legal and marijuana, a far more safer drug, is not, however.

5. synthetic drugs are bad, kids. end of discussion.

6. i see no problem with medical marijuana and i think it's a safer and much more effective way to ease pain, anxiety and insomnia than pharmaceuticals. some pharmaceuticals, particularly pain medications, can become addictive, so that's something to think about as well.

 

[Alex]

I think marijuana, relatively, is one of the least harmful drugs and could very well be moderated the same way alcohol is. Prohibition isn't stopping anything. It was easier for me to find weed in high school than get booze. Legal for recreational and medicinal use is my stance on it, and I'm glad to see the US and Canada being progressive about the substance.

I believe illegal chemical narcotics should be legal and regulated by pharmaceutical companies along with the government. If these people are going to use chemical drugs, at least make sure they're using the cleanest, safest possible versions of them. Making them legal, in turn, removes criminal charges from people using these drugs. We can stop treating them like criminals and start treating them like addicts, and try to relieve them of their addiction.

I believe hallucinogenic drugs are amongst the safest drugs there is to society as a whole. You do not get angry and violent when you're tripping on shrooms. You are so far within your mind that it's hard to do anything. So long as you're not driving a car or some other similar way of endangering people's lives, it's fine. Make them legal, and have the state/country distribute them. Make sure we're taking the cleanest versions of these drugs. Not something made in Captain Cook's basement.

Synthetic drugs, once again, should be legal and regulated by the government. I would highly encourage those doing the distributing to warn against consumption and give alternatives that are less dangerous. These provide, by far, the worst experiences I've read or heard about.

I don't think there is a pharmaceutical vs medicinal marijuana. They are both options for relief.

 

[Dusty]

Based on the Prohibition in the early 1900s in America, restricting something will not stop it from being used, it'll probably just make the problem worse. Most of the drugs originally listed I believe have good reasons to be illegal. Stuff like LSD, shrooms, heroine, cocaine, etc, are all extremely unhealthy for you and severely impair your judgement. You can say that as long as you use them responsibly they are fine, but how are you supposed to?

With alcohol, its possible to use in moderation. You can have a beer or two, and as long as you know your limits and can hold you beer fine, you should be okay to drive without causing undue danger to yourself or others. But that can't be said about most narcotics. Most drugs are so strong that even a small amount will severely impair your judgement and warp your senses. So yeah, alcohol is a problem that is also serious and needs to be addressed, but the difference between that and most drugs is that you can't use and enjoy drugs in moderation.

As for legalization, I'm fine with legalizing marijuana. It's such a widespread drug that trying to keep it illegal is more trouble than its worth. What people do with their own bodies is their own choice, and out of all of the drugs one could use, marijuana would probably be the safest to use when it comes to both yourself and others. Not that its good for your body, but better than others. If I were the government, I'd legalize it everywhere and tax the hell out of it. Make it available, but expensive to use for entertainment purposes.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

I don't know if fully legalizing marijuana would be such a good idea because these following scenarios brought by movies and television might happen:

1. Drug lords would try to force government officials to illegalize marijuana again, because they're losing money for their empire, and if the officials refuse, then they'll become targets of the drug lords.

2. People will purposefully try to give themselves cancer in order to get their hands on marijuana, assuming its use is restricted to cancer patients.

3. Everyone will feel too lazy to do anything, causing businesses some of them work for to lose money fast.

As for narcotics, hallucinogenic drugs, and synthetic drugs, I feel the 1st scenario I listed would also apply to them should they be legalized.

Alcohol and tobacco have been around for centuries, and although alcohol is supposedly much healthier than tobacco, tobacco companies aren't as evil as anti-smokers depict them to be, as they're just following demands from people who do smoke.

If a substance is labeled as a drug, be it marijuana or pills, then it's meant for medical uses.

 

[Her]

I don't know if fully legalizing marijuana would be such a good idea because these following scenarios brought by movies and television might happen:

1. Drug lords would try to force government officials to illegalize marijuana again, because they're losing money for their empire, and if the officials refuse, then they'll become targets of the drug lords.

I would say most.... uh.... drug lords would have more sources of far greater revenue than marijuana, given the relative cheapness & widespread availability of it compared to other drugs. The people who would be most directly affected are the small-time dealers trying to make a buck, not some Keyser Söze figure or whatever. Not to mention that if/once marijuana becomes legal, it doesn't mean that the only source of weed will be from the government's hands, lol. It will just be a easier to get strain, taxed to hell and back. There will still be people making money from their own supplies.

2. People will purposefully try to give themselves cancer in order to get their hands on marijuana, assuming its use is restricted to cancer patients.

....yeah, honey, South Park shouldn't be your go-to source of reasoning for, well, anything.

3. Everyone will feel too lazy to do anything, causing businesses some of them work for to lose money fast.

Ah yes, because the legalisation of weed will not only result in the entire populace of the country getting high, but sharing the same attributes and resulting in the complete degradation of the economy.

As for narcotics, hallucinogenic drugs, and synthetic drugs, I feel the 1st scenario I listed would also apply to them should they be legalized.

I think someone else can debate this point better than I can.

Alcohol and tobacco have been around for centuries, and although alcohol is supposedly much healthier than tobacco, tobacco companies aren't as evil as anti-smokers depict them to be, as they're just following demands from people who do smoke.

Alcohol is one thing, tobacco is another. Both can be heavily addictive, but one is healthy/acceptable if taken in moderation, the other is not. The alcohol industry is arguably just as complicit as Big Tobacco, but the effects of alcoholism have been seen for centuries. There's not much they can do to control public perception of that.
But you're a bit naive, honey. We're the first generation to unequivocally know the effects of smoking, because these 'not so evil' companies purposefully buried as much info about the subject as possible, because widespread knowledge about the almost entirely negative effects of smoking is of course dangerous to company profits, ethics aside. We first started connecting smoking with cancer in the '50s and that's when the big anti-smoking campaigns began, but we've only had measurable public knowledge about the addictive potential of nicotine since the '90s. And the whole time the industry profited off the addiction and knowingly increased the amount of addictive chemicals in their product. Even until 2005 (and later I would guess, but I don't have a link on that), nicotine content was increasing.

So I feel quite comfortable calling them evil, yes. Satisfying demand they largely created doesn't erase anything.

 

[baceevee]

I don't know if fully legalizing marijuana would be such a good idea because these following scenarios brought by movies and television might happen:

1. Drug lords would try to force government officials to illegalize marijuana again, because they're losing money for their empire, and if the officials refuse, then they'll become targets of the drug lords.

2. People will purposefully try to give themselves cancer in order to get their hands on marijuana, assuming its use is restricted to cancer patients.

3. Everyone will feel too lazy to do anything, causing businesses some of them work for to lose money fast.

As for narcotics, hallucinogenic drugs, and synthetic drugs, I feel the 1st scenario I listed would also apply to them should they be legalized.

Alcohol and tobacco have been around for centuries, and although alcohol is supposedly much healthier than tobacco, tobacco companies aren't as evil as anti-smokers depict them to be, as they're just following demands from people who do smoke.

If a substance is labeled as a drug, be it marijuana or pills, then it's meant for medical uses.

1) If someone is running a drug cartel big enough to where they feel comfortable threatening a government official, one of the last products they would be worried about is marijuana. With marijuana being as cheap as it is, as Harley Quinn said, that would never happen. Underage people will still buy off of the black market unfortunately, so they will still get business. Also, the government has and would continue to tax marijuana at a high rate, thus some people will still buy off of the black market.

2) No one is going to purposely give themselves cancer to smoke a little bit of weed. Marijuana is one of the easiest drugs to get your hands on. That's a lot of trouble to go through and a lot of money spent on treatments for cancer just to get a prescription for weed.

3) Actually, there are several functioning and contributing members of society who smoke or ingest marijuana. If marijuana was legal, different strains would be easily obtainable, and there are a few strains that actually help with energy level.

I would suggest doing a bit of research online or watching a few unbiased documentaries if you think any of the three scenarios you listed from TV shows/movies would actually happen over marijuana. All three are extremely unlikely and are based off of Hollywood entertainment, which is filmed and scripted to be more dramatic than real life to increase ratings.

As for your fourth point, even if the government legalized all narcotics, hallucinogenic drugs and synthetic drugs, druglords would still have business. The government would tax any drug as much as they could and it would end up being a lot more expensive to buy from a store/pharmacy/wherever any of these three things would be sold than a drug dealer.