Drugs and Prohibition

[cybercoma]

*Legalization means a system of regulation and government control over drugs. Alcohol in Canada, for example, has been legalized. The government strictly regulates its sale and distribution and levies large excise taxes on it.

**Decriminalization means the complete removal of legal barriers for drugs, except through related laws (ie, safety regulations). For instance, if alcohol were decriminalized, it would not be regulated in the way that it is. It would, however, be subject to food safety laws and general taxes only (HST, GST, PST).

With Stephen Harper's recent comments, I'm interested to see the forum's stance on these questions.

Edited April 17, 2012 by cybercoma

[cybercoma]

I'm surprised to see 'Other' so soon in the second question. I'm curious if it's something I should add to the question poll. I thought I covered all the most common drugs.

[Bryan]

I'm surprised to see 'Other' so soon in the second question. I'm curious if it's something I should add to the question poll. I thought I covered all the most common drugs.

Hormones, steroids, EPO, other performance enhancers?

[BubberMiley]

Glue, gas, Lysol, Pam?

[Guest Manny]

I haven't voted yet. Here's the dilemma. I was going to say all drugs should be legalized, but the problem I see is that it raises certain problems. Aside from drugs, we should rightly ban certain chemicals, for example that are toxic. And some of the drugs like Meth or whatever are made in chemical labs using gross junk like cold pills and battery acid. So they could make a drug out of toxic materials some day, something that just poisons you slightly, but if you took a certain amount it kills. (Sounds familiar?) Yes the irony of that statement is not lost on me. Because we have that drug already.

It's not the drugs I want to see decriminalized or legalized, perhaps those drugs that have the potential to kill should remain banned substances somehow. But the users of these drugs should not be criminalized.

Ok, next problem, what to do with people who use the hard drugs that have the potential to kill or cause serious harm. Harm reduction principle. The harm is in the drugs too, not just in the criminalization of drug users.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Manny

[BubberMiley]

Aside from drugs, we should rightly ban certain chemicals, for example that are toxic. And some of the drugs like Meth or whatever are made in chemical labs using gross junk like cold pills and battery acid.

You think we should ban cold pills and batteries?

[Boges]

I don't understand how removing legal obstacles to hard drugs would make anything better.

Currently Hippy Lettuce is effectively decriminalized unless you're running a grow op. Still if I wanted some I'd have to go to the effort of finding a dealer, paying him cash for some in a seedy drug deal. It's much easier to get my mind altering high on with alcohol or tobacco.

So should weed be legalized? perhaps. I certainly wouldn't oppose it. The only drawback might be the relations between us and the US if we do something like that.

I do, however, grow tired of people saying weed is harmless compared to alcohol or tobacco. You're smoking an unregulated substance into your lungs. A single joint can do the work of like 5 drinks in less than a half hour. It'd say someone who regularly smokes weed would have similar if not more likely chance at getting lung cancer. Plus there's a concern about people burning and driving, so laws would have to be passed to accurately measure someone's exposure to weed if they are stopped for driving recklessly.

People abuse alcohol but the vast majority consume it responsibly. The same can't be said about other hard drugs like cocaine, heroine and meth. Making these substances easier to maintain won't make things. better.

And we can see "legalizing" and "regulating" our legal drugs don't remove a black market. Especially when governments are addicted to the revenue they bring in. Sin taxes are getting prohibitively expensive.

Many people get tobacco off the reserves. I'm sure there are plenty of people that go to the US and smuggle alcohol over the border to avoid the offensive duty we are charged in Canada. I've thought about doing it.

Who's to say that people who aren't afraid of partaking in an illegal act now will suddenly buy in once their drug of choice has been condoned by our federal government?

Just some thoughts.

[Boges]

Double post, My bad. This forum should allow people to delete posts.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Boges

[Guest Manny]

You think we should ban cold pills and batteries?

[cybercoma]

Hormones, steroids, EPO, other performance enhancers?

I don't think of those as recreational, I guess.

[cybercoma]

Glue, gas, Lysol, Pam?

I don't think of these ones as illegal.

Seriously though... if you guys want me to edit the poll I will. What do you think? You always have the ability to go back, delete your votes and fill out the forms again.

[cybercoma]

I haven't voted yet. Here's the dilemma. I was going to say all drugs should be legalized, but the problem I see is that it raises certain problems. Aside from drugs, we should rightly ban certain chemicals, for example that are toxic.

I believe we already do this. Legalization still means there would be a system of regulation, like we have with alcohol. Even if we decriminalized drugs, which means no regulations at all, related laws would still apply. There would be health and safety laws that would apply to anything for consumption. Companies ought not sell a product that they know will kill you.

As I say this though, I'm thinking of one giant counter-example to my argument and yours: cigarettes. Companies are allowed to sell cigarettes now. Maybe it doesn't contradict your argument because you believe cigarettes should be banned. I don't think cigarettes should be banned, but I do think people need to be rightfully informed of its harmful effects. The chemicals they put into cigarettes and the chemicals that are created through smoking them are harmful, however. Yet, we allow them. So it doesn't make sense that we allow them but not other drugs.

Currently Hippy Lettuce is effectively decriminalized unless you're running a grow op. Still if I wanted some I'd have to go to the effort of finding a dealer, paying him cash for some in a seedy drug deal. It's much easier to get my mind altering high on with alcohol or tobacco.

It's much easier and you can still be arrested for buying/selling a baggie of pot.

So should weed be legalized? perhaps. I certainly wouldn't oppose it. The only drawback might be the relations between us and the US if we do something like that.

I've heard this argument before and I don't disagree that it would affect our relationship with the US. However, I also believe we're a sovereign nation that needs to make laws on its own without consideration for what other nations do. We need to set the precedent and nevermind what the Americans are doing.

I do, however, grow tired of people saying weed is harmless compared to alcohol or tobacco. You're smoking an unregulated substance into your lungs.

True.

A single joint can do the work of like 5 drinks in less than a half hour.

Not true. The high from pot is entirely different. I've never heard of someone getting high, starting fights, and being belligerent to others. It's tough to compare pot to alcohol because its effects are quite different.

It'd say someone who regularly smokes weed would have similar if not more likely chance at getting lung cancer.

It depends.

People who smoke weed don't smoke as much as people that smoke cigarettes. If you smoke every day all day, then absolutely. However, if you drank every day all day that would be a serious issue as well. I think most people could smoke responsibility, that is to say a couple times a week like a responsible drinker.

People who smoke weed often times use smoking devices that filter the smoke different. There are things like water pipes and vaporizers that remove a lot of the impurities in the smoke, much more so than a fibreglass filter does on a cigarette. There are studies to show that filtering potsmoke through water actually takes a lot of the really bad chemicals and tar out of it. I'm not sure if this reduces the chances of getting cancer in any significant way, but I suspect that it may.

Finally, having the chance of getting lung cancer isn't a barrier to buying cigarettes, so it's not really a valid argument for pot. It's actually hypocritical of the government to allow one but not the other.

Plus there's a concern about people burning and driving, so laws would have to be passed to accurately measure someone's exposure to weed if they are stopped for driving recklessly.

This is a problem that concerns me as well. However, studies have shown that a significant number of people smoke pot now even with it illegal and with no way to test for it. I'm not sure how many accidents as caused now by drivers that are high, but I'm not sure that it's a huge problem. It's going to be a long time before the develop an accurate test for how high a person is and set appropriate benchmarks. As of right now they can test if you've smoked pot, but they can't test for how high you are at any given moment like they can with alcohol. Police would have to revert to roadside sobriety tests, which aren't incredibly accurate. If they smell pot and the driver's eyes are bloodshot, then they issue roadside sobriety tests and the driver fails, that might have to be good enough unless the driver can defend against it somehow.

Nevertheless, you have people that can enjoy things responsibly and know not to get behind the wheel when they're high or drunk and others who can't. That's a different issue altogether than the legalization or decriminalization of the drug. I think most people would be responsible just as they are with alcohol.

People abuse alcohol but the vast majority consume it responsibly. The same can't be said about other hard drugs like cocaine, heroine and meth. Making these substances easier to maintain won't make things. better.

Those drugs can be consumed without abusing them as well, you just don't hear about it. It's a myth that you do those drugs once and you're hooked for the rest of your life. It takes doing them repeatedly and frequently to be hooked, just like it does for alcohol. Granted it may be a bit easier to get hooked on coke, heroine, or meth, but that's not the point here. You're saying making them "easier to maintain" won't make things better. There's already been numerous arguments about how it will make things better. People won't have to resort to dangerous black markets to get their products, so it will undermine the criminal underworld. The products will be safer because they can be metered doses that meet particular standards. Legalizing or decriminalizing it would hopefully take drug abuse like that out of the hands of the criminal justice system where we punish people that have problems and put it into the medical system where we care for and cure people with illnesses. When it's no longer a crime, people are much more likely to seek help for their problems because they're not incriminating themselves when they do so. So, while you're sitting here looking at it like legalizing and decriminalizing just "increases access" to the drugs, it also increases the access the help, and decreases access to the criminal underworld. It's much easier to make things better for these reasons.

And we can see "legalizing" and "regulating" our legal drugs don't remove a black market. Especially when governments are addicted to the revenue they bring in. Sin taxes are getting prohibitively expensive.

I don't know that sin taxes are "prohibitively" expensive. Some people buy bootleg cigarettes because they're cheaper, but the vast majority of people that drink and smoke would much rather prefer purchasing a product that they know is safe and regulated.

Many people get tobacco off the reserves. I'm sure there are plenty of people that go to the US and smuggle alcohol over the border to avoid the offensive duty we are charged in Canada. I've thought about doing it.

Of course, but that's still buying the products from a regulated and reputable market. You know the alcohol you buy over the border wasn't swished together in someone's bathtub and isn't going to have something toxic in it. Same with the cigarettes on the reserve. You know this because you can turn to the criminal justice system to go after those that have harmed you. You can use the CJS because cigarettes and alcohol are legal. There's a legal way for you to obtain alcohol over the border and there's a legal way to buy cigarettes on the reserves. Very few people buy alcohol and cigarettes that were made in someone's basement.

Who's to say that people who aren't afraid of partaking in an illegal act now will suddenly buy in once their drug of choice has been condoned by our federal government?

I don't know what you're getting at. Partaking in what illegal act? Buy in to what? Are you suggesting that once a drug is legalized and available in the white market that people will still go to the black market?

They've already legalized drugs in places like Portugal and the results say otherwise.

[Evening Star]

*Legalization means a system of regulation and government control over drugs. Alcohol in Canada, for example, has been legalized. The government strictly regulates its sale and distribution and levies large excise taxes on it.

**Decriminalization means the complete removal of legal barriers for drugs, except through related laws (ie, safety regulations). For instance, if alcohol were decriminalized, it would not be regulated in the way that it is. It would, however, be subject to food safety laws and general taxes only (HST, GST, PST).

This is not what I understand "decriminalization" to mean. I've always understood it this way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decriminalization

i.e. the removal of criminal penalties but something milder than legalization: e.g. you could still get fined but you wouldn't get a criminal record.

[Evening Star]

Voted to legalize marijuana only. Seems like an understatement to say it's "a bit" easier to get hooked on cocaine or heroin than on alcohol.

[cybercoma]

This is not what I understand "decriminalization" to mean. I've always understood it this way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decriminalization

i.e. the removal of criminal penalties but something milder than legalization: e.g. you could still get fined but you wouldn't get a criminal record.

There's no set definitions, that's why I posted the definitions that I'm going with for the purposes of this discussion. I just wanted to be clear.

[Evening Star]

There's no set definitions, that's why I posted the definitions that I'm going with for the purposes of this discussion. I just wanted to be clear.

OED gives this definition for "decriminalize":

To reclassify (an activity) so that it is no longer considered criminal in law; spec. to legalize (a narcotic drug, its possession, or use). (Rarely, with person as obj.)

so it seems that you're right that there's no hard and fast distinction! Interesting!

[eyeball]

I don't understand how removing legal obstacles to hard drugs would make anything better.

What you need to understand is that maintaining the obstacles won't change a thing, especially if you remove obstacles from some but not all.

You will not only leave a niche available for criminality to thrive in you will also invite rebelliousness.

[dre]

I don't understand how removing legal obstacles to hard drugs would make anything better.

It makes things better because use goes way down, addiction goes way down, drug related illnesses like HIV go way down, drug related crimes go way down, and the number of people seeking treatment goes way up.

It makes good sense if you think about it. Addiction is a treatable medical condition, so if you incarcerate an addict and immerse them in prison culture instead of treating them, youre going to make the problem worse. Imagine if we threw people who got bacterial infections in prison instead of giving them anti biotics? Bacterial infections would become a much worse problem.

[cybercoma]

I find it very interesting that after 12 responses not a single person said the laws should stay the same.

[Boges]

You will not only leave a niche available for criminality to thrive in you will also invite rebelliousness.

I think that criminality will likely always be there. There'll always be a way to make money breaking the law.

And if you get hooked on Heroine because you're being "rebellious" then you live a sad life indeed.

[dre]

I find it very interesting that after 12 responses not a single person said the laws should stay the same.

I find it very disturbing that Im the only one that voted to end prohibition

[Boges]

I find it very disturbing that Im the only one that voted to end prohibition

You find it disturbing that everyone here but you think drugs like meth and heroine should remain out of the hands of the public?

That says more about you than it says about us.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Boges

[eyeball]

I think that criminality will likely always be there. There'll always be a way to make money breaking the law.

Sure it will but the easiest way to make money from crime will disappear with the end of prohibition and a great number of criminals will disappear with it. They will soon find that tunnelling into banks and hijacking airplanes and so on is really really hard work. They'll probably also find the cops suddenly have way more time to chase them down since they won't be wasting time shaking drug users down for fines.

And if you get hooked on Heroine because you're being "rebellious" then you live a sad life indeed.

I agree but nonetheless the minute you prohibit something is the same minute you create an attraction for it. It's just human nature, that's why catering to our nature is always the easiest way to make money.

[dre]

I think that criminality will likely always be there. There'll always be a way to make money breaking the law.

Sure theres still a small black market around alcohol as well... but its miniscule compared to during prohibition. Prohibition puts huge ammounts of cash in the pockets of criminals, which they then use to branch out in to all kinds of other crimes as well. It built the Cappones, the crips, the bloods, these mexican cartells that are destroying the nation, the hells angels up here in Canada etc.

But fine... if you want to take large and well established industries who produce products and services for which there is large scale demand, and put all that money into building a huge criminal economy instead of having regulated tax paying businessmen earn that money then thats your schtick.

[dre]

You find it disturbing that everyone here but you think drugs like meth and heroine should remain out of the hands of the public?

That says more about you than it says about us.

Yeah, it says that Im against drug addiction and crime, and you are for it. Theres only one western country that decriminalized and within ten years the ammount of drug addicts in that country was reduced by more than half. The ammount of HIV was reduced by nearly 30%. The ammount of drug use in every age group went down. And the ammount of people seeking treatment went through the roof.

The worlds criminals are absolutely in your corner on this, and criminals and trial lawyers are definately hoping we stick with the failed status quo.