Anyway, someone seemed to think that Guns are the problem and that if they were illegal, the people would somehow be safer. They are entitled to a response, so here it is...

The guns that you see being used in crimes do NOT come from gun stores, shows, private registered sales, and legal outlets. No, they come from the streets, the black market, and illegal off-the-record sources. These type of guns will ALWAYS be here, ALWAYS. You cannot eliminate the black market resources for guns. Just look at drugs as an example. They have been trying to eliminate and control the drug for 100s of years, but instead they haven't even contained 10% of the market! Drugs are everywhere and in higher and better supply each year.

If you made guns illegal, this would never keep guns off the streets, and would most certainly not keep guns out the hands of criminals. Instead you would see a HUGE surge in black market sales... We would go from something like 75% of guns being registered, to 100% of guns NOT being registered, and completely untraceable. Now you would also have a society where these criminals who still have their guns, know full well that law-abiding citizens are likely to be unarmed. The criminal is now no longer afraid to break in, rob you, and even rape your family. ALL without the fear of being stopped or shot by you, protecting your family from the intruder.

Is that the kind of society you want? You are not going to feel any safer at home without a gun, knowing full well that every criminal who wants one, now has a huge and booming black market to supply that demand.

Prohibition always turns the black market into a bigger cash cow than you can imagine. Just as it did with Alcohol in the 1920s and has done with drugs today. It is a dangerous, out of control, and irresponsible option. It means you lose ALL control the government once had of the supply, and put it ALL in the hands of criminals. If the government wants to control something, drugs, guns, alchohol... you decriminalize and regulate it. That is the only way to maintain control without losing lives, destroying lives, and causing further chaos. This is the land of the free, and the home of the brave. Prohibition is the anti-thesis to America. It's amazing we've endorsed drug prohibition for so long.. (it's more disgusting and shameful than amazing).

Guns are not the problem. That's like looking at the drug "problem" and saying that since minorities and poor people are more likely to use and sell drugs, then if you eliminate poor people, you will end all drugs. It's just simply not the case. Even if you eliminated guns from existence, you would still have to deal with all manner of other weapons. There are no guns in jail, but there are plenty of murders there.

To the person who brought up the idea of resisting the government in the case of a tyrannical sweep to imprison the nation in labor/death camps. I'm suprised you think this would be so futile. Yes it is true that things like riots and the shooting of the officers who are coming to take you away, would give more excuse for them to move in and declare martial law. But it has been documented many times, that if even something as low as 10% of the nation's gun owners resisted, the government would fail in any attempt to enslave us. The country is too vast, the population too huge, the human will to survive is too great, and there are not enough resources for the United States or even a global merged empire to enslave us... at least not permanently.

I do not want to kill people. I personally do not even own a gun yet, nor even have any experience. I've never shot a gun in my life. But I understand the necessity to have the freedom to protect your life and love ones with one, in today's world. You have to accept reality when making laws and changing the world. You cannot create an impossible fantasy utopia with no guns, no drugs, no crime. You have to do what you can to reduce, contain, and control it. History has shown that prohibition is not a working or viable way to do that.. and does far more harm than could ever do good.

Perhaps you should just read the other thread again. /thread

Hahaha, that's cute. A moderator/admin decided to change the subtitle of the subject to "more ranting" instead of "since talking about Obama is a No No"... very cute.

if i've learned anything from warhammer forums, it's that moderators sure do like to use their power to manipulate things to their own opinion or point of view...

but I didn't post this to talk about that.

@ dark lord. i'm well familiar with what the other thread says.

I saw an article just yesterday that was about a 20-something boy in ontario canada, who had a photo of himself holding a very fake toy gun on his facebook. The police came to his house, without a warrant, and raided the place in a frantic search to find the toy gun... which they somehow thought was real... and somehow thought what they were doing was legal or justified.

The photo had been up for more than 3 years, and the toy gun had been thrown away years ago. But this didn't stop the police from acting like the god powers today's society tells them they are, that they can do whatever they want.

Then my dad pointed out to me that, no wonder this happend, it's Canada. Home of the "we leave our doors unlocked and don't have guns in our houses in the city"...

That got me thinking... I wonder how many people got robbed after michael moore decided to announce to the world that canadian city folk leave their doors unlocked and are gun-less. I can easily imagine an addict who is desperate for money to feed their expensive (because it is illegal) habit, realizing they can just walk right in and take whatever they need. Good one michael!

Firstly, on the criticism of the name change, were we actually talking about Obama? Eh, no. Though I don't see why they locked it instead of just told us to start a new thread. :huh:

I agree with The Dark Lord; you should re-read the other thread. Oh well, I can rewrite it all. :rolleyes:

Funnily, like I said, where I live there is no huge black market for guns. Not like in the U.S. anyways. Pick a fight in the street or resist a mugger and you might be beaten to death or stabbed, sure, but you won't get shot. Now, how come the country which has constricting gun laws has little guns on the streets and the reverse is true for the U.S.?

And the thing about Canada, reminds me of the Weird Al song; "Never even bring their guns to the mall"...

Do you honestly think that a statement like "we leave our doors unlocked and don't have guns in our houses in the city" change the crime rates? We have jokes about people getting shot when they "intrude" on other peoples property in America to fetch their dog for example. If we "announce them to the world", would the crime rates in U.S.A. drop? Do you not think the criminals who live in Canada know the country better than one lame quote could account for?

Also, I believe they have strange things called "social structure" and "police" in Canada. Quite nice things, actually. I believe it is the social segregation in the United States that has led to this "race of arms".

As for the police incident, that is a very real crime (committed by the police of course :D) where I live (unfortunately I don't know the name in English) which can lead to prison for several years. Of course police must be subject to the law as well as everyone else.

And do people really just get a gun, keep it under their pillow, and if a criminal comes, just pick it up and shoot him/her? If all the criminals were armed with knives, would you carry one? You say you don't have a gun yet. I suppose you want one, but do you really need one? Have you ever in your life felt the need for a gun?

Actually, in a society as dangerous as yours, I can imagine that you drawing a gun on the criminal might just push him over the edge to shoot you. Unarmed = not a threat; gun = very big threat. I do not believe that all the petty, gun-armed criminals in America would execute an unarmed person just for the sake of it. If that's the case, I sure am happy I live somewhere else...

Resistance is futile. Either you will not want to resist (a la Hitler), or you will be incapable. It will be psychological, not physical. The physical part will come later, when you will not resist. OR it will not happen at all! What a strange notion!

Think of all the countries that are dictatorships. Countries where guns are easily available are in the majority, I would say.

People in the United States are truly fundamentally different from us Europeans.

I'm sure it happens all the time in Canada. I mean it's not like the police would ever mess up in America? Or perhaps even shoot said person with a toy gun? Or even civilians plugging one just because they thought it was real?

And for a person being so suspicious against the government and police, can you really trust the media to give you the whole story? The ones that most of us trust very little to none?

:huh:

If you didn't want to talk about that then why did you?

That you apparently have such vast experience with having posts edited says more about you as a poster than anything else.

By the way, most Candian lock the door and most have a gun. A hunting rifle that this. Locked away in a basement with the ammo in a different place.

People pretty much only leave things unlocked in smaller village. In any sizeable city people will lock the door. Finally I remeber always being told that if anyone robbed me or actually treathened me with a weapon. The best course of action was to comply because my life is more precious then anything else. What I have to do is remember the most about my agressor so that he can get arrested.

Whenver you go in a safe defense course it's also the first thing they tell you.

Why? did you edit something so it now reads differently? i'm not so sure there is something i am going to gain by reading the same thing twice, unless it has somehow changed. if there is something specific you think that i missed, why don't you just post it here instead.

The american black market for guns is mostly a reflection of it's ridiculous amount of gang violence and organized crime. Since we've decided to put drugs in the hands of criminals and surrender all control of drugs (by making them illegal), we have a booming industry for organized crime to make a assload of money selling drugs. These same organized criminals have all sorts of turf wars and have to constantly watch their back, this is largely why we have such a big black market for guns in the US. This is also perpetuated through our "gangster" culture, that makes the organized crime lifestyle "cool", and thus makes owning a gun a desirable thing. Then you also have all the impoverished who are effected by drug prohibition in the inner city that might wish to obtain a gun to help them obtain money to feed their habit or their family. America's crime rate, violence, and organized crime is directly linked to drug prohibition.

Now if you took away drug prohibition, you'd be able to look at those statistics from a more leveled viewpoint, and really see how gun prohibition can cause more violence and crime, just like drug prohibition.

It was a hypothetical situation. It's an irresponsible thing to go around announcing that households are unprotected. It's like saying "all the banks in our city have no cameras and no alarms, but we have no crime here!"..... wonder how long that would last........

Well let's put it this way... I was driving in the city and I had a gun pulled on me at my car window. I was unarmed and I complied. Now I have bullet holes through my arm and leg. I was able to ID the shooter to the cops from a photo lineup. The cops told me I was the 1st of 3 unarmed complying victims who'd been shot by him within that week. Still think they won't shoot you if you are unarmed and comply to their demands? The gun was unregistered and illegal. The shooter was a 15 year old boy (I think maybe younger even).

Like what? That I think outside the box? Look for the truth? Try to educate? and don't always go with the most convenient public opinion?

You are right. I am very careful about what I read and what I believe. I try my hardest to look at everything from all sides, and gather multiple sources. I also try my best to only put any trust in the news that list their sources and are continually proven to be accurate and honest. Because of this I knew about this US recession and impending collapse of the dollar, and the real reason why it is happening, for many years now. I've warned many people who thought our economy couldn't have been better. They aren't talking like that anymore, and have a lot more trust in my research.

Problem is, here in the US, our police are being trained to act like thugs, bullies, and to violate the constitution and rights of the people at will. That doesn't make for quite nice things over here. The same pattern is beginning to happen overseas... Like in England where they just made videotaping or photographing the police, A CRIME. You may as well call that "the Police Brutality Protection act". It is well known that watchdog groups will use video to record human rights abuses and illegal police conduct. Now it is illegal to have proof of police misconduct. You don't see how this is another push toward criminal government?

If my forefathers believed that... I would be living in an underprivileged and abused colony of the United Kingdom. There would've been no American Independence/Revolution. And the words "Freedom" and "Liberty" would have had less significance to the mass human consciousness.

Thank god they didn't!

Resistance is absolutely NOT futile. NEVER GIVE UP.

Hahaha, drug prohibitation causing problems!
Yes, I'm sure 99.999% of all clerks would agree with you after a year of "selling" drugs. I mean who doesn't want a gun in their face cause they can't afford to actually buy them.

I tell you to read the other thread because you're obviously missing the bigger picture and how things will fall into place in a country without guns in every household.

And as for trusting the media - where is the police version of what really happened? You only get half the truth from that article, if even that.

A story like that must've made the news. Got a link to the story? At least tell us the city where you live so the rest of the forum knows to stay away.

I can only smile at your complaints about your society while praising its "freedom", considering that this excessive freedom is why everything has gone this far. Of course, this argument is truly worthless. You will never, or rather are incapable of, accepting my views and the same is true for me.

As for you being a British colony, is India a British colony? Is Australia? And I think the revolution would go quite differently today. Riots, even armed ones, can be subjugated if enough force is used. Like someone said in the other thread; "Tanks and air strikes trumps determination and courage."

Do you honestly think it would matter? :wacko:

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, or maybe do both. I can, however, ask about what you would've done if you were armed. Obviously you were at least somewhat caught unawares. Would you have reached for it? Would you have dared? If this person was ready to shoot you in the arm and leg (for what, exactly?), don't you think he would have been ready to do even worse?

And Qrab, that story won't have made the news, because it seems like it is a very common occurrence... <_<

Well then, perhaps you need someone who will make sure that the police will act like they should. "Hey, the police aren't working, so let's just deal with everything ourselves! Vigilante forever!"

What happens against organized crime? Do you really want to fight against organized crime, alone with your handgun? Who will be organized on your side? Oh, but you think organized crime will disappear if guns and drugs are legal? Are that the only criminal ventures possible? How about extortion, money laundering etc.?

And finally, about you as a poster, it may mean several things; that you post provoking posts on purpose, that you don't really get when to stop, that you post without thinking through and so on. I don't think that thinking outside the box, looking for truth and educating are prohibited on this forum, but it may be another freedom thing that nobody except you really understands.

I haven't seen the article on my own shooting and I highly doubt there ever was one beyond a small police report mention in the crime bust section. The reason is that it happened in Camden, New Jersey. 15 year olds running around with guns and sticking up people is an EVERYDAY reality there.

Why? because the area has a booming black market for guns because of the large ammounts of gang activity. Why gang activity? Because gangs are the most profitable and efficient way to sell illegal drugs in the inner city. Why drugs? because they are illegal and fuel their crime ring with massive profits. Why a kid? Because the children are neglected by the parents who are living in an undereducated, underprivileged, oppressed, and dilapidated society. Why? because drugs are all over their neighborhood, and many of the parents become addicts. The temptation is great when your life is hell and you have dealers on EVERY street corner, shouting out brand names like it's the hottest thing on the block! (AND YOU HAVEN'T HAD THE EDUCATION TO KNOW WHY TO STAY AWAY... Even we have only had grade-school brainwashing mis-education riddled with lies and distortions. Other than what we've learned from experience and experimentation, and real research with our own time and resources.) This all serves as a destructive mechanism that rots the American inner-city from the inside out. The police get corrupt and violent, the children get neglected and raised by the streets with violence, the death toll piles up.

If you don't think drug prohibition causes problems than you don't even have the slightest drop of education about the world drug economy and problem. Your grasp on the subject is limited to the brainwashing mis-education of gradeschool health classes that never get any more profound than "drugs are bad mmkkk cause they are illegal and they KILL YOU!" and serve as misinformation that sews distrust, rather than providing a real education based on fact.

Even the cops (who see the problems FIRST HAND on a daily basis) say that drugs NEED to be legalized (SEE: www.leap.cc)

You honestly think that drug store clerks are going to have guns pulled on them MORE if they are legally selling drugs??? That was a joke right??

Drug stores are constantly being robbed NOW by addicts who CAN'T GET controlled drugs BECAUSE THEY ARE ILLEGAL. NOT because they can't afford them. If drugs were legal and taxed and regulated like alcohol and tobacco, you would have LESS stick-ups and no more than you get with any store that sells alcohol and tobacco. The only reason an addict can't afford their drug now, is because of how ungodly expensive it is.. The only incentive they have to stick someone up with a gun for their drug, is that they CAN'T GET IT LEGALLY and for a REASONABLE PRICE.

Please do some actual research on the matter.

.nick

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."

-- Albert Einstein, My First Impression of the U.S.A., 1921

“We believe that the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself…U.N. agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $400 billion…This industry has empowered organized criminals, corrupted governments at all levels, eroded internal security, stimulated violence, and distorted both economic markets and moral values. These are the consequences not of drug use per se, but of decades of failed and futile drug war policies.”

-- Open letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, June 1, 1998, signed by, among others: Walter Cronkite, Joycelyn Elders, Milton Friedman, Kweisi Mfume, Kurt Schmoke and George Shultz

“Have we failed to consider the lessons of the Prohibition era? Now is the time to fight on the only terms the drug underground empire respects - money. Let's take the profit out of drug trafficking.”

-- Former Baltimore, MD Mayor Kurt Schmoke

“The role of government should be to prevent the most chaotic drug users from harming others – by robbing or by driving while drugged, for instance – and to regulate drug markets to ensure minimum quality and safe distribution. The first task is hard if law enforcers are preoccupied with stopping all drug use; the second, impossible as long as drugs are illegal."

-- The Economist, editorial, June 28, 2001

I'm sorry, but if think this quote supports the statement that "even the cops say that drugs need to be legalized", then you need to utilize some more source criticism. Maybe it justifies the statement "8 police/law enforcement/whatever people support legalization of drugs" or "even a few cops...", but to generalize and say that they as an organization claim that, based on that source, is ridiculous (if you have other sources, please share). And I just happened to notice that site doesn't post any sources... <_<

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."

-- Albert Einstein, My First Impression of the U.S.A., 1921

This quote in itself doesn't say that prohibition laws per se are bad, but they become so (along with any other law) that can't be enforced (a whole lot of laws in the U.S.A. can't be enforced it seems like, or is it legal to rob, rape and kill?). So since you can't enforce the laws against these things successfully (the rates of all these crimes are ascending, right?), why not legalize them?! No wonder you don't have any respect for the government. It seems like a quite pathetic institution, but maybe that was the way it was intended to be? :huh:

After reading that I think you need to do some actual research on the subject.
You do know how much problems LEGAL alchohol causes?
You know how much MORE problems there would be all over the place if drug abusers became even worse abusers?

Why do you think they are illegal in the first place?
Drugs are bad and if you get addicted it will not only kill you (assuming you don't get help), but everyone that carries cash/drugs might be a potential victim.
You think ANY price is a reasonable one for a drug addict?
They shoot up till their broke, then they need to get either cash or drugs. And if drugs where everywhere - guess where'd they go...

If the drugs were even more expensive so only the rich and famous could afford them, there would be no problems either. Just isolated incidents in their huge mansions, which everyone can live with.

I suggest you do an IQ-test to get an indication of where your line of thought lies.
Perhaps you're just too smart for us.

A 15 year old kid shooting three people in a week will make news regardless of where it happens in the US. That's the kind of sensational story that is raw meat to hungry news hounds.

That's the cliche perpetrated by TV, movies, and a certain genre of music. For a different look at things, I suggest you read this: http://www.newsweek.com/id/182534

Legalizing drugs is truly one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. The nature of these drugs (the harm they cause the body, the addictive nature) will always cause more problems than any issue you hope to solve by making them easier to get (legal). Never gonna happen. Common sense will prevail on that issue.

It's not a cliche unfortunately. It is a reality in the inner city of biggest cities, at least on the east coast. Take a look at Camden NJ, Baltimore MD, New York NY, Philadelphia PA... The gang activity is a cliche because it is such a reality.

From that newsweek article you just linked:
(it's a great article by the way, thank you!)

Holy crap! so they learned that arresting drug dealers solves nothing, and that instead helping them find legitimate jobs and eliminating the lure to selling drugs (no better job & poor quality of life), solved the problem! Oh my godness... so they found that if you don't arrest the victim-less non-violent "criminals" and instead take the approach of HELPING THEM, you can make REAL CHANGE. Hmmmm... seems to be the way to go. (This is what I've been saying this whole time).

At first glance, it may seem like that experiment was a threat. But look closer at that.. Without arresting, without aggressive law enforcement. But instead by positively influencing and taking action to help their lives by finding them legitimate lines of work, they were able to reduce the drug trade and severely reduce the crime rate of the area.

If drugs were decriminalized and regulated, you would no longer have an (severe crime causing) illegal drug trade in the impoverished areas of the country. Drug dealers instead would have to turn to legitimate work, that does exist (well increasingly less nowadays with the US going broke from corrupt and incompetent government actions), but societal factors have pushed them into the drug and gang economy.

I think it's pretty obvious that I've dedicated a good deal of time to researching the subject of drug law, the world's drug problems, and the root causes and results of our poilicies.

Yes, and those problems are absolutely MINISCULE compared to the crime that was caused by making alcohol illegal in the 1920s. Quite simply, we outlawed Alcohol in the 1920s and a criminal industry BOOMED. Murders everywhere, organized crime was more profitable than ever before, and police resources were completely helpless to the epidemic of crime. The logical and common sense solution was to legalize it and regulate it with an age limit to licensed sellers. When alcohol prohibition was repealed, the crime rate dropped severely back to the lower numbers it had before, and police now could dedicate their time to stopping real and violent crimes.

Do some research on 1920s alcohol prohibition, and get back to me.

Do some research on that question. You will find that most drug laws were put into place as a part of racial discrimination and white america's original resistance to the heavy amounts immigration that was coming in. Marijuana laws were used against the Mexican immigrants, Opium against the asians, and Cocaine against the blacks. I kid you not. Do the research. You will find that nearly always drug laws were instituted by a racial prejudice, a politician with ulterior motives, or as a complete spasmodic over-reaction to one case/small amount of the worse cases (like is the case with the latest "Bret's law" against Salvia Divinorum over in Delaware).

Yes, that is what you have RIGHT NOW with our current drug laws. Right now you have drug abusers who have to commit crime and scavenge the depths of their moral inhibitions to find and pay for their high. Those same addicts have had no productive education beyond the destructive misinformation that is encouraged as a part of drug prohibition, and thus don't know how to overcome, control, and get help for their addiction. Those same addicts are hunted by the law and thrown into jail where they become worse addicts, worse human beings, and worse criminals.

Drugs are everywhere now. You have them all over the streets in the cities, and it is spreading rapidly to the suburbs. Alot of the time, they are broke because they are paying exorbitantly high prices to organized crime to get their drugs. Cigarette and Alcohol addicts can smoke and drink themselves to death, but you don't hear about someone having to commit crime just to afford a pack of cigarettes!

The problem is, you have criminals controlling the prices. They sell the drugs for what they believe people will pay. Until you put the responsibility of selling and regulating drugs into the hands of the government and licensed sellers (rather than street dealers and gangs) then you will never be able to control the prices.

On top of that, there is a high demand for drugs. Without actual proper education in harm reduction (rather than "drugs are bad mmk" abstinence), people don't know the truly damaging effects of addiction and drug abuse. They don't know the real reasons to stay away. Instead they will learn that they've been lied to in school about drugs... that drug education was severely exaggerated and borderline crazy... they now effectively lose ALL warning and fear/respect of drugs, that would be generated by learning the REAL reasons to stay away or USE SAFELY (beyond because you can go to JAIL and DIE!).

You cannot curb the demand without proper education. Proper education cannot happen in an environment where you scare children with jail and law enforcement, and then they grow up to see all the lies, hypocrisy and destruction caused by those very drug laws.

You cannot keep the prices anywhere at all, when crime/not the government, controls the supply. You cannot keep the prices high when the demand is high. You cannot keep the demand low without proper education. You cannot properly educate with the current drug laws. Notice, this all goes full circle back to drug laws being the destructive factor here?

Not in the Camden NJ/Philadelphia PA area. But I will look for an article nonetheless, cuz now I'm really curious. Plus I need to call the cop for an update on if the boy has been tried yet (haven't in a while...). Things were going real slow for the case, but the boy was locked up, and paperwork was being processed, last I checked.

The mere fact that none of the shooting victims are going to have to appear or testify during the boys trial should be an indication of either how common this kind of shooting is, or the corruption of the city's court system, or both.

Not true. The nature of drugs combined with today's drug policies has caused far more problems than we could've imagined when creating the idea of prohibition. The lessons of prohibition have proven that. Seems you haven't read anything I've written. Common sense will prevail, just like it did in the 1920s when they repealed alcohol prohibition. You should never underestimate the power of an idea whose time has come.

Students for SENSIBLE drug policy : http://ssdp.org/index.php

Also, this claim someone made about the LEAP (law enforcement against prohibition) website not posting sources, is completely absurd. That website (and many more anti-prohibition groups) has so many sources at your disposal, you could spend months learning and exploring it.

They can be enforced, but not enforced properly when too much of our resources are going into a failed drug war that cannot be enforced. Drug laws however have been proven to be un-enforceable. Statistics are always showing for every one drug area/house/dealer that gets shut down, 2 more balloon up in it's place. This is not the case with rapists and murder. However rape and murder continue to grow in areas where the quality of life is deteriorating due to the high tide of criminal economy going on in those areas. If you want to reduce the crime rate, you can end the illegal economy. To end the illegal economy, you must end drug prohibition.

If I didn't respect and love my government, I wouldn't be so concerned for it and eager to change and fix it for the better. I care about my country and the people of earth, and wish for the best solutions to end our problems. Our founding fathers believed that dissent was one of the highest forms of patriotism. It is when you give blind trust and faith to your rulers/leaders, that the people will be manipulated.

.nick

Complete bullshit. What the article talks about is very far from legalizing drugs.

Yeah well, heroin is how many more times addictive than nicotine? Ten? More? But maybe that's just brainwashing too?

What exactly does your "drugs are bad mmk" mean? What sort of drug education do you get in the U.S. Essentially, we are told where I live (as a part of the education system I had this "lecture" only a couple of weeks ago) that abuse of the heavier drugs can have two outcomes: it leads to you going broke, then to crime, then to jail and then to either quite a long time (our prison sentences are not near to yours, but I consider 10+ years to be quite a long time) in jail, or a very long, painful and unpleasant rehab treatment. Alternatively, it leads to a premature death. How is that information wrong or "not proper education".

Because, face it; there is no "moderate" (as an example) heroin abuse. Either you're stuck, which essentially means that you're screwed, or you've never touched the stuff.

That someone would be me, and I still believe it isn't legitimate to make a statement such as: "Even the cops (who see the problems FIRST HAND on a daily basis) say that drugs NEED to be legalized" based on about what six cops (some of them were even retired) of different rank had to say on the matter. Have they as an organization gone out and said what you say? No? Then you are definitely misquoting and trying to pull us behind the curtain to lend your arguments weight...

Really? I doubt it. Perhaps you should change your crime fighting methods (like the excellent article suggested) instead of just abandoning the entire notion? Besides, you cannot slack the laws because you fail at upholding them. What's next, make wife abuse and rapes legal because it is estimated that the majority of these crimes do not get reported?

Respect is not a part of patriotism.

I am sure you are a thousand times more patriotic and love your country a thousand times more than I do, but you simply do not have any respect for the GOVERNMENT. This has been made clear during your series of posts (and the adjacent Obama thread). I'm sure you respect your country until you turn blue, but you do obviously not have too much faith in the leaders of it. Perhaps you should turn politician and try to change things instead of arguing with a European who is 4000 miles away (perhaps you already are politically active and in that case please ignore this last sentence :P).

Considering there are politicians who are currently serving that I respect quite highly and have a lot of trust and faith in, as they have proven for the many years they have been serving that they are in office to be fully committed to the constitution and the people of their country. I am quite involved in promoting, supporting and campaigning for them, so I will ignore your last paragraph.

no, not quite. It talks about the things I just mentioned. Like helping addicts, dealers, and users to fix their lives, rather than destroying their lives further with the fist of the law.

not quite. addiction potential is not measured by how powerful a drug is. addiction is a mental and physical affliction that varies from person to person and can't be measured by numbers. It is hard to find reliable scientific data showing what is more addictive. However Jack Henningfield, of the John Hopkins Addiction Research Center, has officially concluded that Cigarettes are more addictive than BOTH heroin AND cocaine. It is also true, measurable, and proven that cigarettes and alcohol are FAR MORE DEADLY and destructive to your body than heroin. YES EVEN CIGARETTES.

Heroin does not rot your body out from the inside by blacking your lungs or destroying your liver. It is a powerful opiate pain-killer much like the same prescription drugs that are prescribed out everyday to people who are suffering from pain. Those pain patients take heavy doses of pain killers that are JUST AS POTENT and nearly chemically identical in effect to your mind and body as heroin. These do not kill those patients, nor do they hurt, nor do they destroy them.

On top of this, there are thousands, probably millions of people all around the world that have done heroin, crack, cocain, meth at a party, or once or twice for fun. These people do not die, they do not get hurt, and they don't become addicted or desperate. These are the people you do not hear about. And sometimes these people become addicts because they just realised that you CAN be a casual or moderate user of these drugs, WITHOUT DIEING, without destroying your life, and YES WITHOUT BECOMING ADDICTED.

It is possible to avoid and control addiction, and still use a drug. HARD DRUGS ARE NOT AN EXCEPTION TO THIS. You just tried to tell me about this wonderful education of yours, but they completely lied to you, and you are sitting here telling me complete misinformation.

"that abuse of the heavier drugs can have two outcomes"

FALSE. there are literally an infinite ammount of outcomes for a human being using heavy drugs. Some outcomes are more likely, but they are certainly not guaranteed to happen.

"it leads to you going broke, then to crime, then to jail and then to either quite a long time (our prison sentences are not near to yours, but I consider 10+ years to be quite a long time) in jail, or a very long, painful and unpleasant rehab treatment"

FALSE. These are all only possibilities of things that can happen to you. They can easily happen to you without ever becoming addicted. Just by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. What if you got arrested the first time you ever touched heroin? You are not an addict because of it. You might not even go to jail. They could just fine you. But you COULD go to jail... but none of those things you listed are guaranteed for ANYONE. Drugs are not that easily generalized, nor are the people who use them. Drug users range from casual, to occasional, to heavily compulsive addiction. All of them live different kinds of lives, and are from all different levels of social class and culture. There is no guarantee that they are broke or will go broke. Nor that they will go to jail or rehab. And it takes A LOT to make a person die from drugs. An overdose is not as easy you think, and it usually takes YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS of using to make an addicts body shut down from too much drug usage.

The #1 reason people die from drugs is the drug Overdose. A drug overdose is not going to happen easily. It happens by taking LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of drugs. There are people who are very careless with their drugs for any number of psychological reasons, and they may take way too many drugs to the point where they can go into cardiac arrest. However, another main reason for overdose is that street drugs are UNRELIABLE in purity. You never know for sure if what you are getting is the same ammount of drug, or if it's even drugs AT ALL. This happens because you are buying from a street dealer, and not a licensed professional. Because of this, an addict could need 5 bags of heroin to get his fix for the day (cuz he might have a tolerance that high)... he could take that same ammount for years, and then one day he gets a bag that has 5 times the power that his usual bag has (this happens alot when fentanyl is sold as heroin... fentanyl is alot stronger! but it is legally prescribed for pain!)... When he does that extra powerful bag... and does 5 of them... He can die.... Would this have happened if he'd bought a drug that he knows the EXACT mg dosage of it, because it is sold from a licensed pharmacy/professional? NO!

By legalizing drugs you would cut drug deaths (overdoses) at least by half! (probably MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE)

I know people who use heroin once or twice every month and never become addicted. They even shoot it!

A main thing to remember about hard drugs is that, they don't necessarily do damaging things to your body. Heroin itself is not messing up the users veins and putting bad chemicals in their arm... BUT it is the method of using, and how unclean the dosing can be, that CAN be harmful to the body. You can snort hard drugs, you can eat hard drugs... but alot of people will inject them, which can do a number of bad things to your veins. Then there are even people who inject with lots of cleaning products and safety precautions... There are even safe injection groups and needle exchanges dedicated to reducing the harm of injection.

Did you learn any of the stuff I just mentioned in your education? NOPE... instead they fed you LIES. Complete LIES and HALF TRUTHS!

I promise you that 90-100% of the people of the world who have received a "drug education" from an education institution, received lies and misinformation. I also promise you that 100% of people who have used drugs learned 90% of what they know about the drugs they use, on their own. Is that safe? You have to wonder why that is?

You also have to consider how destructive it is to have NO EDUCATION at all about drugs... When a child learns that they have been LIED to at their drug education class... It doesn't matter if SOME of what they were told is actually true... Instead it becomes ALL LIES to the child... Now they are left COMPLETELY UNEDUCATED about drugs, and could even think they are completely safe and harmless now!

You know, honestly... I really can't help you at all if you are convinced that drug usage is somehow equated to spousal abuse and rape.

First off, LEAP has over 500 current police officers and chiefs in it's membership. That's quite a bit more than 6... Secondly the quote "Cops Say Legalize Drugs... Ask Us Why!" comes from LEAPs own buttons and promotional material!

.nick

p.s. to the person who said common sense shall prevail... LEAP is sponsored by COMMON SENSE FOR DRUG POLICY

I'm sorry. We would have more OD's, more crime and a lot more addictive people with legalising drugs.

You cannot compare it to the lame attempt to control alchohol simply because it had been legal for so long, and has a very strong grip on the majority of the population, that it cannot be restricted without making the situation worse for a long period of time.

That you make such a comparison only suggest you need to do more research on the subject. And I don't mean finding articles stating what you want, I mean actually meditate on how things would progress using real-world parameters and not the glorious days of the 70's.
(Like figuring out how all parties with 16-18 year olds would handle a legal substance compared to an illegal one.)

I'd gladly make alchohol and smoking illegal as well, if it weren't for the fact that it isn't practically viable in the world we live in.

EDIT: I cannot get the quote mechanism to work. Stupid me. :wacko:

But I'm sure you all understand...

[QUOTE]
no, not quite. It talks about the things I just mentioned. Like helping addicts, dealers, and users to fix their lives, rather than destroying their lives further with the fist of the law.
[/QUOTE]

You did not talk about that. You talked about taking the profit out of drug dealing. Only that.

[QUOTE]
Heroin does not rot your body out from the inside by blacking your lungs or destroying your liver.
[/QUOTE]

No, but it does other things:

http://www.drugfree.org/portal/drug_guide/heroin

Perhaps you do not wish to accept a source called drugfree.org, but it was the site that explained it the best.

On the other hand, I admit that I was a bit rash about the heroin and tobacco addiction comparison.

Still, I have sources that claim the exact difference from what you have to say about the matter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational...e_harm_of_drugs
_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg

(link broken in two to keep from horizontal scroll)

I know that Wikipedia in itself is not the most reliable source, but the page links on to other reports and web pages.

And on your information against mine, I have no reason to believe what you say since I have loads of sources that says the complete opposite. I generalized too roughly, but that doesn't make what you say correct.

Do you honestly believe that drug abuse would drop if people were told "it's okay, really there's no danger"?

[QUOTE]
You also have to consider how destructive it is to have NO EDUCATION at all about drugs... When a child learns that they have been LIED to at their drug education class... It doesn't matter if SOME of what they were told is actually true... Instead it becomes ALL LIES to the child... Now they are left COMPLETELY UNEDUCATED about drugs, and could even think they are completely safe and harmless now!
[/QUOTE]

Fortunately people who react like this are rare? But perhaps you are one of them? And we at least do not receive drug education as "children" (at least I consider myself to not be a child any more, and I definitely do not think as the example provided).

[QUOTE]
And sometimes these people become addicts because they just realised that you CAN be a casual or moderate user of these drugs, WITHOUT DIEING, without destroying your life, and YES WITHOUT BECOMING ADDICTED.
[/QUOTE]

This is a paradox, but I think it is not really what you meant to say. The general content of the sentence is correct though, people think "it won't happen to me" (and almost everybody thinks like that), and guess what, it does happen to you!

[QUOTE]
You know, honestly... I really can't help you at all if you are convinced that drug usage is somehow equated to spousal abuse and rape.
[QUOTE]

Your help would do more harm than help, I'm afraid.

Obviously I do not equate the two, but the principle is the same. The problems at hand remain: if you cannot enforce a law, is that an excuse to abandon it?

And I need to question your ulterior motives. You say that a legalization of drugs would make organized crime drop (however, organized crime was ironically almost even more spread before the drug era). However, drug use would increase (this fact is inevitable). And with it, the problems that come with them. Imagine all the problems caused by legal alcohol. How many % of traffic accidents have to do with alcohol? A lot. Imagine adding the problems that the drugs would cause. You have to admit that people who have used drugs usually are not completely alright/clear in the head for the moment (of course there are varying levels of seriousness and duration).

[QUOTE]
First off, LEAP has over 500 current police officers and chiefs in it's membership. That's quite a bit more than 6... Secondly the quote "Cops Say Legalize Drugs... Ask Us Why!" comes from LEAPs own buttons and promotional material!
[/QUOTE]

How many policemen does the United States have? More than 1000 I suppose? Otherwise, that may be the problem...

I still don't believe it is justified to claim what they claim.

[QUOTE]
p.s. to the person who said common sense shall prevail... LEAP is sponsored by COMMON SENSE FOR DRUG POLICY
[/QUOTE]

Well, if there was a website called Common Sense For Donkeys As Leaders, would that mean it really WAS common sense?

As a final word on this discussion, it has (d)evolved into a battle of facts and sources, which is very confusing and extremely time-consuming. Also, if you refuse to believe any information provided by the state, there is nothing I can do to make you trust your state more (but obviously your reaction to this will be the same as mine towards your offer of "help" <_< ).

Additionally, I think we've worked through the subject quite clearly, and we're sure as hell not getting anywhere (the very notion of accepting each others views is 100% alien). I would just like an answer to this question: honestly, why do you believe drugs are illegal? Is it because you consider your government (or whoever is responsible for these laws) is incompetent? Or is it because they do it on purpose for some unfathomable reason?

There's no doubt that the gang activity occurs and that gangs do sell drugs, but the people selling drugs on the street aren't getting rich by doing so. That is the cliche that you based your argument on. And that's why the Newsweek article blows your argument out of the water (though curiously you've now attempted to co-opt it).

I'm still waiting for a link to the 15 year old shooter from Camden, NJ.

Ok that's just absurd... I just told you that the majority of ODs are caused by foreign substances and issues of potency (things that would not exist if it were sold through a pharmacy). It would also open up the opportunity for a real education which would also severely reduce the rest of ODs.

More crime? I really should ignore that one... considering all drug related crime happens because people are unable to obtain drugs for an affordable price, because people are buying/selling drugs ILLEGALLY, because gangs fight over drug selling turf and maintain a network of selling via organized crime, and because people haven't had the proper education about what drugs can do to them.

...and more addictED people is what I think you meant... and that's absurd as well. First off, there's nothing to suggest such a thing. You have no way of knowing how many more people would use if it were legal unless you try legalizing it. But most importantly there would be proper education to teach people the real reasons they should avoid overuse of drugs, because they no longer need to focus on the legal aspect and scare tactics.

That is completely untrue. All drugs were legal before they became legal. There weren't problems from drugs like there are today before they were illegal. THERE WERE HEROIN COUGH DROPS FOR GOD SAKES! Cocaine was in Coca-Cola! People casually and medically used an opium drink called Laudanum for years! LSD is one of the least toxic and most physically harmless chemicals on the planet! STRONG Amphetamines are prescribed to KIDS in an overabundance (you don't see them becoming broke addicts)! Mushrooms and Marijuana are also extremely harmless. Every drug had been legal for decades before ever becoming illegal, and they did not cause the societal problems they cause now until they became illegal. They were not outlawed because they were causing problems.

Sounds like you'd gladly also like to be a dictator.

Completely wrong. I didn't even talk about taking the profit out. You need to read it again... This is what I said. Only this.

Once again... Like I said before... almost ALL of those "other" things from your sources, are all related to the METHOD of taking the drug, and the foreign impurities (that wouldn't be there if it was legal).

Firstly that wikipedia thing is including harm from methods of taking the drug as if it was harm from the drug itself, and also that chart is based on the tolerance a drug creates in the user. That's a whole different subject.

Secondly, you're telling me that the sources that claim differently are going to be more well researched and credible than the leader in addiction research at the John Hopkins University's Addiction Research Center?? Keep in mind, there is plenty of incentive on behalf of huge tobacco companies to put out propaganda leading you to believe that cigarettes are less addictive than they really are. I think you should stick with the leader in Addiction Research.

No one ever said that. There are lots of dangers within drug abuse. But they are highly exaggerated, fantasized, demonized, to the point where REAL education on the REAL dangers are completely lost.

What class have you ever taken that has taught you about what really happens during Withdrawal?

What class have you taken that explained to you how heroin essentially is an alternate and rather potent version of the LARGE variety of prescription pain killers out there? And has all the same dangers and pain killing medical benefits.

What class have you taken that told you ANYTHING about prescription pain killer abuse, and the dangers of it. (Prescription painkillers are one of the main things being abused by the youth. And your telling me they are going to have more access when they are legal? They can get any drugs they want right now. They think they are COOL and BADASS because they are so forbidden and demonized, but have NO REAL EDUCATION on the ACTUAL dangers!)

There are hundreds of examples of things that are extremely important to teaching children and adults the dangers of drug misuse, but none of them get covered, and instead all the attention is shifted to scare tactics and heavy doses of misinformation.

Your class may have been taken as an adult, but as I pointed out to you, it was STILL chock full of misinformation and that is one of the most dangerous things you could ever tell someone about drugs.

That is so ridiculously untrue. 99% if not 100% of all drug education given to students is loaded with false information or misleading information. MOST of these children are still going to use illegal drugs (of some kind) despite this brainwashing (ask yourself why?), those children are guaranteed to learn they have been lied to in some way, even if it was just through exaggeration of something as harmless as marijuana. Those kids are then left to assume that if they were lied to about marijuana, then they were probably lied to about heroin, cocaine, mushrooms and lsd. I promise you this kind of disintegration of their education is the constant NORM and NOT the exception.

No. It CAN happen to you. It isn't guaranteed. What I was saying was that when you realize that you CAN do the drug, even something like once every week, without becoming addicted (mostly dependent on how strong your will is)... you might naturally think... 'well DAMN'.. 'they lied to me about how you supposedly instantly and always get hooked'... 'I guess it's not that big of a risk afterall'... When it actually IS a risk. A serious risk, that should have been taught to them REALISTICALLY and not with lies saying they will instantly or always are guaranteed to become addicted.

Me helping you to understand how much harm is being caused by drug policy and how much it can be severely reduced by changing it is somehow going to cause more harm than help...... That's a bit backwardzzz.

That's was Einstein's quote, not mine, and you took it out of context. His point was that when you create a law that cannot be enforced (saaay... like banning smoking within people's own home) you jeopardize people's respect and obedience to the law. They will see so many people breaking it and feel mixed feelings about the necessity of law and whether or not it's actually there to help people and society.

You're right. I do have something to gain from drugs being decriminalized. WE ALL DO (except maybe dealers). More freedom. Less crime. Less death. Less disease. Less poverty. More police resources to fight real crime. Better education. Better resources to help addiction and rehabilitation. These are just SOME of the THOUSANDS of ways this small change would improve society in HUGE ways.

The amount of organized crime before and after prohibition doesn't change the fact that the illicit drug economy is one of the biggest funding and fueling factors for organized criminals around the globe. It is absurd to think that by taking away one of their absolute biggest areas of profit, they aren't somehow going to be underfunded, less powerful, and reduced.

VERY Wrong. That is a total myth.

First off, how many people do you know that would go out and get some heroin or cocaine because it is now legal? I'm promise you'll find that most people wouldn't.

Secondly, there have been many surveys where they ask people 'would they be more likely to use or buy drugs if they were legal'. The results are always the same, and astoundingly one-sided to the NO side.

Thirdly, the decriminalization of drugs would now place the responsibility on society to properly educate it's people. Not only would this destructive pattern of scare tactics and "IT'S ILLEGAL SO IT'S BAD!" completely dissipate, but people would finally have the incentive and reason to be truly and properly educated through and through about how to not become addicted... How to combat addiction... How to not use drugs to excess... Just like society is today about alcohol and tobacco.

Compare the education that people receive about alcohol and tobacco to the education they receive about heroin and cocaine. It is way disproportionate, and that is because society has recognized the need to properly educate people on the real dangers of misuse and excess of these drugs, and they understand that people are free to try them if they wish. The idea that some kind of harm is now going to come to society if people decide they'd like to try some harder drug once or twice, is completely ridiculous. What you don't realize is that adults AND kids are prescribed equivalents in potency and effect of the main illegal hard drugs ALL THE TIME, and they rarely are somehow addicted and destroyed by it. The danger in using them at all for whatever personal reason has been HIGHLY exaggerated, but the REAL dangers in abusing them to excess and becoming addicted, are nearly untouched, merely brushed upon and skewed by education today.

Thing is... there isn't one... and that group's hundreds or thousands of members seem to have all thought it reasonable or necessary to call the group Common Sense for Drug Policy.

The idea that street level dealers are getting rich off of drug sales isn't a heavy part of any of my points, however, it is untrue to think they aren't. That article focuses on one specific area that is obviously no where near as dealer heavy as a city like say Camden or New York City. Those cities have so many dealers (thousands) that they could NEVER shut down the HUNDREDS of OPEN-AIR DRUG MARKETS that operate 24 hours a day. The business there is BOOMING.

This is an actual conversation I witness by 2 street level dealers.

CORNERBOY 1: "I'm doing this to save up for a big screen TV"
CORNERBOY 2: "Yo, I'll sell you mine! I got another you can buy!"

Another thing to consider is that I was told by people who live in the ghetto that one of the most common sites you will see is Rims on cars that cost more than the actual car itself.

I also knew a cornerboy who was able to afford expensive lawyer in several days by getting through just a few "packages".

Working at an inner-city open air drug market rakes in hundreds of dollars in a day, so please don't tell me they aren't making a load of money. Regardless, I see little relevance of that argument to any of my points.

Suburban dealers I've met always have the best cars, and were always buying extra expensive toys like motorcycles.

If you want, I'll give you a rundown of a history lesson on it. But I do implore you to do the research on it. I've seen many documentaries on the subject and read several books on why and how drugs became illegal. It nearly always boiled down to the same thing. RACISM. Sound crazy? Look it up.

.nick

p.s. I forgot to talk about the driving thing... People drive all the time on pot. The impairment effects are minimal... People drive all the time on any kind of opiates and stimulants... the impairments to driving are ALSO minimal... No one drives on LSD or mushrooms and other psychedelics.. they are a spiritual experience meant to be done responsibly, and are almost always done as such (and if not, it's a mistake you don't repeat). The point is... NOTHING out of all the main illegal drugs (that someone would actually drive on), impairs your senses and your ability to drive like alcohol. Drug-related accidents are 99.9% caused by alcohol. This factor is very unlikely to change.

Afterall 16 year old kids smoke pot and drive all the time... It's easier to drive on a stimulant or an opiate than it is on pot, but you don't hear about some epidemic of inexperienced drivers crashing because they are pot-drunk.

CheChalfara.. Interesting conversation.. Coming from an area that Per Capita had the EARTHS largest Meth usage.. I can say that Drugs are bad in ALL their forms..

Sure Heroin is an Opiate. But you seem to forget that many versions are processed with chemicals which are known to degrade chemical bonds in your DNA. Saying they dont rot your body is pretty idiotic.. as so does Codeine.. which is a Legal though controlled Medicine.

Painkillers in of themselves and indeed all chemical medicines have side effects.. We are just lucky that most LEGAL Chemical Medicines dont may you pawn all your belonging to buy more and commit crimes to support the habit..

On the whole Legalizing issue.. Go live in Amsterdam for a week and take a GOOD look around.. Sure theres alot of nice and normal people.. now leave the tourist areas.. go to the old parks and see all the doped out folk under the bridges shooting up heroin and the multitude of other drugs. Legalizing does nothing to stop it.. Though it doesnt Hasten it.. All regulation will do is put warning labels on drugs naming sideeffects.. and warnings... Like ....Cigarettes and Alcohol! Do that actually change anything... Nope... Teen Usage of both is actually higher.

I think that the story you put up about the police giving a second chance is good.. and they should get the book thrown at them for it if they get caught again.. But saying its a Victimless crime? Your even more convoluted.. Ever hear about people having children while they were under the influence of drugs such as heroin? I guess the Baby isnt a victim as it much be some sort of blessing to not be able to read until your 12 or properly control a pencil until your 10. What about the Family members harmed by the actions people commit while under the influence.. I have seen perfectly normal nice good hearted people get addicted to meth after a single use. and get to the point of Beating their wife or girlfriend as they tried to intervien on their habit.. Are they not victims in your book? They are MIND ALTERING drugs. They change your attitudes, temper, thought processes. And in many cases not for the good.

Sure drugs often were TRIED to be made illegal for the valid reasons.. but Judges (which were usually using them (take Laudinium)) were unwilling to make them illegal. so they pulled the Race Card.. It worked.

Now, I disagree that Legalizing it will change anything.. I doubt it will make it worse.. If you want drugs. you can get them.. its not like finding a dealer is rocket science or requires some underworld secret connections to do. Most people dont want the drugs to begin with. Why would making them legal change that?

I agree that Tobacco and Alcohol can easily be placed in the same context as narcotics.. they are harmful. Tobacco.. Your harming yourself and those around you.. If you have kids and smoke around them you should be taken out and shot in my opinion.. Other Folk.. they can leave the area without problem. so i see this less valid to the topic.. Alcohol.. Thats a tough line.. our society is enamoured with drinking.. Its a harder thing to just throw to the wind.. I could though.

Your whole Victim-less Criminal is a crock of sh*t and you know it. If you don't.. Your an idiot and shouldn't be allowed to exist. You are a vile creature from the depths of the earth expelled to bring Stupidity to the masses.

And regardless of your idiotic banter and source calling. The idea of legalizing Narcotics and Other Elicit drugs has been put down numerous times in many states, counties, and municipalitied by PUBLIC vote. So regardless of what you yourself want. is irrelevent unless you intend to take a course to change it.. Are you? Is that what all your political ranting on these limited target market message board is all about? Are you going to start a vote for change?

Or are you just being a troll, spouting our an opinion you dont even really care about just to get people to talk to you? If so.. I pity you, you are a very sad and decrepit person from my viewpoint then.

So you're telling me that with making drugs legal, any attempts to sell drugs outside of the controlled environment would disappear?
I mean it's not like people would want to keep on trying to make cash by selling it cheaper (and of questionable quality).

It's funny how all drug related crime all of the sudden comes down to not being able to afford drugs. I mean it's not like anyone commits crime due to the influence of alchohol either...

Proper education about alchohol and smoking seems to have a huge effect on people... Why do you think education on drugs would work better?

Perhaps you could fill in the other parameters yourself. Like the spread and depth of the alchohol issue. If drugs had the same grip on the general public when trying to make it illegal, it would have been met with the same strength/opposition.
As for the mushroom part, I think they even made those illegal in the Netherlands as of sometime 2008.

I want everyone to have a free mind and not be slaves to some drug. ;)

FALSE. You claimed that "we have a booming industry for organized crime to make a assload of money selling drugs" which is what fuels the black market gun industry. What's more, you state it again at the end of the paragraph I've quoted. The Newsweek article proved your claim false.

If you're going to tell tales, at least keep your story straight.

The relevance is that your claims of "open air drug markets" making dealers rich is fiction. Newsweek is just a more reliable source than you are. Which makes the entire basis of your argument fiction. You've provided no proof to support your claim, just some unverifiable anecdotes like:

What were you doing hanging out with drug dealers?

Why are you meeting suburban drug dealers?

By the way, we're still waiting for a link to the 15 year old shooter story.

Firstly, I apologize profoundly for misquoting you. You wanted to take the profit out of illegal guns, not drugs, right? However, I still hold to my claim that the method the article mentions is quite different from simply making everything legal.

Really? Where does it say that?

I'm not exactly claiming that you confabulate research, but if you're going to throw big names at me why not back them up with quotes and such?

Huh?

I think it makes it quite clear that these things mentioned are only caused by the drug itself (as there is another paragraph explaining what the "method" of taking the drug results in).

On the other hand, would downplaying these risks make things better? Don't say that you aren't downplaying the risks but being honest, because comparing heroin to prescription painkillers is making it seem less than it actually is. Prescription painkillers are not very safe either (I was at a hospital recently, and they refused to give me morphine for more than 1-2 days because they said there was a chance I might become addicted, and whatever you say I simply won't believe that the hospital was feeding me evil lies to make me afraid of drugs).

You may (and probably have) much more experience with drugs than I do. You are older and apparently live in a much more drug-infested area (though the area I live in is quite bad, there aren't a lot of drug dealers or users), but I have seen people under the effect of drugs several times, and it's not particularly pleasant. I don't know what they had taken, but it had messed up their heads pretty badly (for the time being at least).

Also on the dangers of abusing painkillers, people are assumed to be intelligent enough to understand that a drug sanctioned by a doctor is still a drug and should be treated as such. Additionally you get a dosage, and how often and how much to take it. Obviously when these precautions are taken immoderate use would be dangerous. Besides, I am quite distrustful of prescription painkillers as well (probably just paranoia, but hey!)...

You cannot know what the course contained (what I have told you is certainly not enough and it doesn't even all come from the course, which was mainly about alcohol), so statements like that don't do any good.

Why is it exactly untrue? And you say most of these children are going to use drugs? That may be true for the U.S., but not for the majority of Europe as an example. Besides, cannabis is hardly "harmless". It is worse than your vaunted cigarettes (and if cigarettes are as bad as you say cannabis must be truly horrible!). It may or may not have correlation with psychosis and suchlike problems, but it still "rots your body from inside".

Also, why do you assume that I think cannabis is something horrible? Honestly I think that it could be legalized (I don't care very much for it either way). If you are taught that cannabis is very dangerous then I agree with you, it should not be compared with the heavier drugs. We are not taught about cannabis as dangerous (except some **** about the gateway theory, and I agree with you on that one; it's mainly nonsense).

I agree again. However, I don't really see the alternative. If you told people "it's okay to use it once in a while, BUT NO MORE", I'm not sure it would do any difference. If you use it once every week though, I suspect there is a real chance you might get addicted, albeit it would a longer time (depends of course on the drug and on the persons willpower).

Not exactly, but I do not believe that your political beliefs (i.e. legalize drugs and make guns more readily available) would lead to a better society, and would even cause harm. That's my reasoning.

Yes and no. It talks about passing laws which you cannot enforce, while I am talking about the reverse process, abandoning laws because you cannot enforce them. It is connected. The question still stands; if you cannot enforce a law, is that an excuse to abandon it?

Is it? I am still pretty convinced that drug USE would increase. I'm not too sure, but ABUSE (in my opinion there's a distinct difference) would at least stay the same.

Firstly, I'm not too sure how valid your promise is. I think I have a few friends that would do just that. Additionally, if someone (like you ;) had convinced them that drugs aren't really dangerous) even more people might. I do believe that the result of these surveys have something to do with the scare tactic. It works somewhat well, because I and most people around me are completely terrified of drugs and would as a consequence would not take them...

Yeah, and like said before we all know that information about smoking and drinking really affects the (young) people who do it (and I have lots of experience regarding alcohol and young people)?

Doesn't matter one whit. It's a name. They can name the organization whatever they want. It would still have hundreds or thousands (not really a lot :unsure:) of members if it was called "Organization for legalization of drugs" or somewhat like that. A name is a name and just that. Is what everyone names things the truth?

And if I made the donkey thing a web domain, would that change anything because there would exist some called "donkeys as our leaders"?

Yes, I read your enlightening summary on it and I believe it 100%. However, why is it illegal EVERYWHERE (except Holland lol) and why has it been kept illegal everywhere?

I'd also like to add that I don't do drugs, and have never taken drugs (excluding alchohol), but I would surely had done so if they were legal.
Cause then they would be present at every party, and passed around like there was nothing to it. I might be sitting on a corner somewhere right now begging for cash or crashing into an empty house in hope to find some, had that been the case.
Thankfully drugs are illegal, and I never got in contact with them.

Though I don't agree with CheTralfara, you should probably watch the hyperbolic overstatement and borderline trolling, Servius. While I don't agree with him, I'm not sure that statements like these are warranted: "Your an idiot and shouldn't be allowed to exist. You are a vile creature from the depths of the earth expelled to bring Stupidity to the masses" or "Your whole Victim-less Criminal is a crock of sh*t and you know it. If you don't.. Your an idiot and shouldn't be allowed to exist. You are a vile creature from the depths of the earth expelled to bring Stupidity to the masses.".

It's great that this site has a place to discuss off topic things with fellow gamers, so let's try not to give the mods headaches by school yard name calling. It's a passionate argument about something that very much affects people's lives, so let's give it the respect that it deserves by not lowering ourselves to name calling. Flame wars are easy to start on an anonymous internet site, but they can ruin otherwise great communities.

- Ken

Well, My comments were honest.. Someone that thinks that a child who has no choice being effected because some weak-willed drug user was able to get their drugs. and not considering that child a victim and calling the dealer a "Victim-Less Criminal".. Well I put it pretty clearly.

Lets see... Che is saying the following.

1: Drugs are harmless as they USED to be in common items and perfectly legal.
2: Drugs and their Dealers have no Victims.
3: Drugs if made legal would be cheaper and safer.

Hrm... The only people who I have met and know who have this opinions and are willing to defend them this strongly are drug users. Sorry, but its the gods honest truth..

This is and INFORMED position based on the fact of how you are defending.

Honest or not, I don't think insults like that have a place here... I can't say it as well as Finnigan, but you should keep it in mind.

Personally, I apologize for any insult, perceived or real. Keeping it civil is important.

Pedro,

I can and am more than willing to apologize to Che in the case he was using a poor choice of words in his post, We are all human and prone to error. I commonly use the wrong words and can realize the possibility. If this is Indeed the case.. I apologize.

If Che truely believes that Drug Dealers are indeed "victimless criminals"... I don't know what to say... I know it isn't an apology. In my opinion, Apologizing in that manner would be like Police apologizing to a convicted serial murderer for catching him just before he is given lethal injection... but again that is my opinion..

[QUOTE]You're right. I do have something to gain from drugs being decriminalized. WE ALL DO (except maybe dealers). More freedom. Less crime. Less death. Less disease. Less poverty. More police resources to fight real crime. Better education. Better resources to help addiction and rehabilitation. These are just SOME of the THOUSANDS of ways this small change would improve society in HUGE ways.


Do you seriously believe that drugs being decriminalised will cause all of these things?

More freedom- for what ? to take drugs? i guess thats cool?

less crime? - so when your friend goes to the local drug stand that im sure will open up once drugs become legal and an addict sneaks up and stabs or shoots him to death cecause he needs his fix i guess the crime rate will drop coz that will be a rare thing to happen?

less death... see above. not to mention OD's which foreign substance or not if you take enough of anything it can kill you.
less disease well when some ecstasy can cure cancer ill pop as many as you recomend doctor... provided i dont kill myself from OD'ing

Less poverty - well now those old corner dealers who are out of business are going to have to find real jobs or even better a new means of doing something illegal. (Perhaps leach off of government funding somehow?)

More police resorces to fight real crime? 1. at present this is real crime 2. drugs often are causes of further crime dont tell me you've never heard in the news about some junkie shooting someone? how will decriminalizing drugs solve that - i mean alcohol is legal but hell drink driving sure isnt. while there certainly are worse things than a person taking drugs its what happens once theyve taken the drug that can lead to "real crime"

Better education/resources to help rehabillitation - so we legalize drugs to educate people on why they shouldnt take drugs?

I understand the concept of rehabilitation but legalizing drugs is a far cry from that.

Btw wasnt this about gun control ?

Servius, I am sorry but I do not understand your post completely (not a native English speaker :D)... :wacko:

However, I get the gist of the post, enough to tell you what I think.

You are fully entitled to think that what Che is saying is a load of dung. I simply do not agree with you voicing such comments as; "Your whole Victim-less Criminal is a crock of sh*t and you know it. If you don't.. Your an idiot and shouldn't be allowed to exist. You are a vile creature from the depths of the earth expelled to bring Stupidity to the masses." and "Or are you just being a troll, spouting our an opinion you dont even really care about just to get people to talk to you? If so.. I pity you, you are a very sad and decrepit person from my viewpoint then."

These are personal insults, and do not lend any strength to your arguments or anything. In fact, it destabilizes your position (at least in my eyes) and it is unpleasant to read (not a lot since it isn't directed at me, but if I dislike it, Che probably dislikes it too). Finally, it is simply not polite...

I am sure you are a good person who has a great fervor for this subject, but that doesn't excuse those comments. I am not trying to upbraid you or come across as patronizing in any way, but am just giving you a friendly comment on your choice of language.

Have a nice day! :P

Fortunately we're all such good people that we can deviate slightly from the original purpose of the thread. ^_^

edit: it appears the quote function has stopped working...

---begin post---

[quote]Coming from an area that Per Capita had the EARTHS largest Meth usage.. I can say that Drugs are bad in ALL their forms..[/quote]

While I wouldn't be suprised if you have seen the destruction meth addiction can cause on the body, and the crime that comes with organized crime selling drugs, and the crimes that come with trying obtain hard to find high-priced drugs. To much of anything is a bad thing and can cause serious problems. Even water can poison you in high quantities, and many people cause massive self destruction from the quantity and quality of food they eat, but you don't see us illegalizing these things. You're not going to achieve anything by throwing a person suffering for excess or addiction into a jail cell, this is only going to thicken their addiction by increasing the depression or pain that likely turned them toward addiction. Instead I am suggesting that we treat the problem of addiction and excess as a health problem instead of a criminal problem.

[quote=Servius]Sure Heroin is an Opiate. But you seem to forget that many versions are processed with chemicals which are known to degrade chemical bonds in your DNA. Saying they dont rot your body is pretty idiotic.. as so does Codeine.. which is a Legal though controlled Medicine.[/quote]

Ok that right there is a load of dung (as pedro puts it). I challenge you to prove to me that any drug degrades the chemical bonds in your dna, particularly heroin or any other painkiller. Codiene definitely does not rot your body, that is lunacy to proclaim such a thing that all research points to otherwise. There not going to prescribe a chemical the rots your body and degrades your DNA to people who are already suffering with pain from something being rotten or degraded in their body. Furthermore, just because a "chemical" that used to "process" a drug is harmful or toxic, does not outright make the drug have the properties of that chemical. You should also consider that if illegal drugs were made in professional laboratories with legal requirements of a sanitary environment, instead of being made in shady clandestine laboratories with probably dirty and probably hard to acquire equipment, you wouldn't see harmful chemicals and adulterants getting into the mix. You wouldn't have the potentially harmful impurities that you see in today's street drugs.

[quote] Painkillers in of themselves and indeed all chemical medicines have side effects.. We are just lucky that most LEGAL Chemical Medicines dont may you pawn all your belonging to buy more and commit crimes to support the habit.. [/quote]

Every chemical has SOME side effects, but they vary for chemical to chemical. In many cases the benefits of the medicine or drug can outweigh these side-effects. I don't see any reason to demonize someone who wants to safely use a chemical to releive some anxiety or just have a good time by "getting high", as long as it's done responsibly and doesn't effect the freedoms of other people.

As stated many times, the main reason you have people pawning their belongings in desperation to get money is because of the ridiculously high cost of a fix from an illegal drug. You don't often hear of people pawning their belongings to buy a pack of ciggarettes or bottle of alchohol, now do ya?

[quote]Go live in Amsterdam for a week and take a GOOD look around..[/quote]

I don't know why you're bringing up Amsterdam. The main recreational drugs we are talking about aren't legal in Amsterdam. Yes the police turn a blind eye on marijuana and mushrooms (which are NOT legal in Amsterdam, contrary to popular myth), but the rest of the drug world is under criminal jurisdiction, just like the rest of the misguided world. However, there has been many successes in harm reduction amongst the heroin using community because of the clinics in Amsterdam that administer pure (un-adulterated) heroin to you in a safe and clean way... thus detering the spread of disease, infection and drug-dealing related crime. The world is starting to wake up afterall! (on this subject at least)

[quote]Legalizing does nothing to stop it.. Though it doesnt Hasten it.. All regulation will do is put warning labels on drugs naming sideeffects.. and warnings... Like ....Cigarettes and Alcohol! Do that actually change anything... Nope... Teen Usage of both is actually higher.[/quote]

I agree with you that legalizing does not stop drug abuse, however it will reduce any harm caused by drug use siginificantly by...

A. reducing our over-crowded inmate population (In California they are now releasing captured illegal aliens because the prisons are too crowded. With over 50% of American prisoners being "drug offenders" SEE: California Prisons won't hold some Illegal Immigrant Offenders),

B. reducing the amount of disease that is spread (most commonly HIV and Hepatitis), by removing the restrictions on access to clean needles (we have drug-dealers charging 5 dollars for a clean needle that you can buy for pennies on the dollar at a drug store with the proper authorization), removing the rampant criminal drug trade in the ghettos, and removing adulterants and impurities in the drugs.

C. reducing the amount of overdoses which 90% of the time are caused by unpredictable strengths/purity of the drug, not knowing what drug you are actually getting (fentanyl, a MORE powerful opiate than heroin, is largely responsible for most heroin overdoses), and impurities and adulterants in the drugs...

D. reducing the amount of crime that is caused by addicts who can't get enough money to buy their expensive illegal drugs, or addicts that can't find their drugs and have to resort to extremely desperate measures (like maybe robbing a drug store).

E. reducing the amount of people suffering from addiction by offering to them the proper treatment that is needed to deal with the psychological and sociological factors that can lead to addiction, as well as offering methods of detox and rehabilitation FREE OF CHARGE (thanks to the newly acquired resources that were formerly used to arrest and imprison "drug offenders").

F. reducing the huge homicide rate within your local city, by completely snuffing out the criminal drug trade. A major source of profit and gain for the gangs that bring guns to the streets and are required to enforce ALL of their business disputes by murder (as they are living in constant fear of being snitched on, being arrested, and cannot take their problems to any kind of legal outlet for resolution).

G. creating a significantly safer environment for police officers who are faced with enforcing laws that increase the profit of a criminal economy (On one undercover tape-recorded conversation, a top cartel chief, Jorge Roman, expressed his gratitude for the drug war, calling it “a sham put on for the American taxpayer” that was actually “good for business”.) and risking their lives and jobs with raids that turn out like this one, and have to deal with ARMED criminals on their cities streets ALL thanks to the criminal drug economy.

H. reducing the amount of armed robberies and crime that is committed on people who wouldn't otherwise be in the bad parts of town, except that they are forced to go to high crime areas and interact with criminals in order to obtain the drugs they want. A huge part of the traffic that comes in to buy drugs in city ghettos comes from people who live in suburban and well off communities. These are not all deteriorating drug addicts, but are just as likely to be someone who is looking for the only pain relief they can obtain without a prescription (herion being an opiate painkiller not unlike many prescription drugs ), or people who just want a one time party with a little cocaine.

I. removing the horrible reputation that has been generated on the black and minority communities against the police. crimes go unsolved and "un-witnessed" thanks to the reputation brought by "snitching" to the police, and many times the fear of violent repercussions from gangs for talking to the police.

J. replacing the extremely flawed drug education system that is created by law enforcement and teachers telling children that drugs are bad because they are illegal, instead of than emphasizing the real dangers that are caused by a drug. The majority of drug education is focused on alcohol and cigarettes, and this is because the education system recognizes it has an important RESPONSIBILITY to teach children the REAL dangers of the drugs that are available and used by society, as well as the safe and responsible usage of these chemicals. There is also the coolness factor that is created by telling a child he can't have a drug because it is illegal. The illegality perpetuates an environment where misinformation and exaggerated claims (which could likely be the cumulative result of the teacher's being badly educated and the lack of proper research on illegal drugs that is prohibited by the law) are given to children instead of truthful and realistic warnings and information. When these people eventually discover they were lied to, their entire education will become distrusted and dismantled, effectively leaving the person with ZERO drug education, despite any of truthfulness and legitimate warnings that might have been in their education.

K. improving our economy DRAMATICALLY, by giving us a new source of taxable merchandise. Marijuana is America's number 1 cash crop, and places like California are finally realizing this. Thanks to our rapidly self-destructing economy states like California are now realizing and turning to the legal regulation, sale, and taxation of Marijuana in attempt to boost them out of this financial crisis that has them issuing official "IOUs" in place of social security checks. Have you heard the term, never underestimate the power of an idea whose time has come? That was what happend with the abolition of slavery, and many other important advances in human civilization... Well today amidst the biggest financial crisis of our time, humankind is finally beginning to wake up to the harm reducing and profitable opportunities provided by legalizing and regulating the production and sale of formerly "illegal drugs". One can only hope California passes this legislation successfully and acts as an experimental and successful beacon that leads the way to across-the-board legalization, so that the drug problem can finally be properly healed and taken out of the hands of criminals.

[quote]Ever hear about people having children while they were under the influence of drugs such as heroin? I guess the Baby isnt a victim as it much be some sort of blessing to not be able to read until your 12 or properly control a pencil until your 10.[/quote]

See this is where we reach compromise. Now I'm not sure what the reasons for it being legal to drink alcohol while pregnant are, it is actually perfectly legal to do so. Even legal to drink your baby into total retardation. I have no idea why such child abuse is legal, but I would definitely agree that it shouldn't be. This is one of the only examples where the use of a drug can infringe on the freedoms and health of another human being, and it should be properly addressed. I'm not sure I would be opposed at all to making it illegal to use any drug that inhibits healthy childbirth while pregnant (including alcohol, which IS a drug. There is no Drugs & Alcohol, ONLY Drugs.).

[quote]What about the Family members harmed by the actions people commit while under the influence.. I have seen perfectly normal nice good hearted people get addicted to meth after a single use.[/quote]

What you are referring to are people who were irresponsible with their behavior and drug use, and are directly infringing on the health and liberties of another human being. These ARE victims that should normally be able to call the proper outlet for help with the situation, but are instead forced to deal with the destructive behavior because they are terrified that their family member will be put in jail (and they know that would be a HORRIBLE and destructive anti-solution). If drugs were legalized, and no longer a crime, and the resources that were formerly used for drug-law enforcement were directed to treating people with a drug problem, then the family and victims would have a place to call for help on the matter. No longer would they be too afraid to call the social worker for help, for fear that their relative is going to be jailed.

Furthermore, it is literally impossible to become addicted from a single use of a drug. Let's stick to facts instead of myths and propaganda.

[quote]I doubt it will make it worse.. If you want drugs. you can get them.. Most people dont want the drugs to begin with. Why would making them legal change that?[/quote]

Thank you. You are absolutely right about that. In fact, there are polls where an overwhelming majority states that they would not be any more inclined to use drugs if they were legal.

[quote]If you have kids and smoke around them you should be taken out and shot in my opinion..[/quote]

Anyone who says someone "should be taken out and shot" is going way overboard and acting extremely crude and barbaric. The idea that if someone does something you disagree with they should be killed is the philosophy of fascism. I heard a cop once say he wishes they could shoot drug users on the spot. He couldn't have sounded more like a nazi. Let's try and keep things civilized and evolved. That kind of attitude achieves nothing and only serves to justify murder. It is that kind of attitude that has people thinking... "it's ok if israel bombs a terrorist leader's infant child and entire immediate family, as long as we kill the terrorist too"... It is that kind of thinking that has the American people allowing genocide in Iraq, killing in the name of "freedom". Guess what, unless you are fighting in self defense (ON YOUR OWN SOIL) you are not fighting in the name of freedom. You cannot offensively bomb in the name of righteousness and liberty unless you are directly under attack on your soil. I really hope we someday evolve past the death penalty, and discontinue to enable people to believe that we can kill with meaning and justification beyond self defense.

[quote]Your whole Victim-less Criminal is a crock of sh*t and you know it. If you don't.. Your an idiot and shouldn't be allowed to exist. You are a vile creature from the depths of the earth expelled to bring Stupidity to the masses.[/quote]

As everyone has been saying to you, this comment is extremely vile and stupid in itself. Please cut it out and keep it civil. It sounds like your trying to get the topic closed so you can get the last word and discontinue our conversation. Is that what you're trying to do? That would be really pathetic and desperate. Passion is good, but your statement isn't passionate. It's angry and fascist.

[quote]The idea of legalizing Narcotics and Other Elicit drugs has been put down numerous times in many states, counties, and municipalitied by PUBLIC vote. So regardless of what you yourself want. is irrelevent unless you intend to take a course to change it.. Are you? Is that what all your political ranting on these limited target market message board is all about? Are you going to start a vote for change?[/quote]

Firstly you should ask yourself why this idea keeps coming up. Why it's on the table RIGHT NOW in California. What you are seeing is a mass awakening that is the next step in the evolution of human consciousness and the betterment of civilization.

Secondly, I'd think it's pretty obvious to see that I am an anti-prohibition activist, but it seems like you are directly belittling the significance of the people on this forum by claiming they are a limited target (market??? whose buying things?) as if their opinions and beliefs mean nothing.

[quote]I pity you, you are a very sad and decrepit person from my viewpoint[/quote]

How are you gonna accuse me of trolling when you are literally doing exactly that??

[quote]So you're telling me that with making drugs legal, any attempts to sell drugs outside of the controlled environment would disappear?
I mean it's not like people would want to keep on trying to make cash by selling it cheaper (and of questionable quality).[/quote]

Gimme a break, who buys homemade underground questionable alcohol or ciggarettes. The answer is NOBODY. The entire underground market would be snuffed out completely by across-the-board world-wide legalization. The most you'd have is some adults getting convinced by some curious kids to buy drugs for them. That can be enforced a hell of a lot better and easier (without causing harm to society and individual health).

[quote]It's funny how all drug related crime all of the sudden comes down to not being able to afford drugs. I mean it's not like anyone commits crime due to the influence of alchohol either...[/quote]

You're always gonna have some problems when dealing with people who are intoxicated. You are also gonna have problems from people who are completely sober. Life has problems. Life has crime. But the VAST MAJORITY of drug-related crime (by addicts) is in pursuit of money to purchase an extremely expensive and hard to obtain substance.

[quote]Proper education about alchohol and smoking seems to have a huge effect on people...[/quote]

I understand this is a sarcastic statement. The problem is that alcohol and tobacco education is completely undermined by drug education. I've explained how this works many times already. You also have to consider that there will obviously be a high concentration of experimentation with a substance if those 1 or 2 substances have been heavily ingrained in their culture as the only legally available recreational drug. With legalization you would see a higher responsibility and seriousness taken with drug education that would very likely be taken a lot more seriously when you remove the propaganda and jail threats.

[quote]I want everyone to have a free mind and not be slaves to some drug.[/quote]

I totally agree. That's why I want to live in a society that doesn't put dangerous chemicals in the hands of criminals that flood our society with all the problems that come with an illicit unregulated black market and a society that doesn't treat the health problems of substance abuse as a criminal issue, forcing our prisons to let out violent criminals and illegal immigrants who actually hurt our economy and society.

[quote]You claimed that "we have a booming industry for organized crime to make a assload of money selling drugs" which is what fuels the black market gun industry. What's more, you state it again at the end of the paragraph I've quoted. The Newsweek article proved your claim false.[/quote]

Yes I do claim both. The illicit drug industry DOES fuel the black market for guns as drug dealers/gangs are forced to use guns as a method of enforcing order and settling disputes within their industry, rather than having legal outlets to settle money/theft/cheating problems. Since the majority of street level drug dealers are between the ages of 15 and 25, it definitely doesn't quell the black market of guns to have that many kids armed and perpetuating a culture where guns are cool and a sign of power and illicit wealth.

And this whole concept of drugs not making money is completely nuts. The drug economy is one of the world largest markets. If you are curious to read a debate amongst people who've read on the subject and personally have experience you might want to read this thread on the bluelight forum. While the lowest street level dealers may not make much money, drugs can be an almost absurdly profitable business depending on how high up your are.

[quote]By the way, we're still waiting for a link to the 15 year old shooter story[/quote]

You can wait all you want. I've decided it's not worth my time to dig through past newspapers that I don't even know how to acquire, to find a police report of multiple shootings in one of the highest shooting crimes area in the world. Is it that you need some kind of confirmation that this actually happend to me? I'd be happy to photograph my bullet-hole scars for you, if that's what you'd like. I'll hold a daemon of chaos model in my hand to prove it's actually me.

[quote]if you're going to throw big names at me why not back them up with quotes and such?[/quote]

Google "john hopkins university addiction research center" and look into their findings. You'll find what I was talking about.

[quote]Huh?[/quote]

I'm saying that very often, when estimating the harm caused by a drug to your health, people get the METHOD of taking the drug, confused with the actual effects of the drug itself. The methods of taking a drug can include snorting (which can potentially hurt your nose) and injecting (which can potentially **ck up your veins). However, these are not harm caused by the drug itself. If it were taken orally or in a safer way, there wouldn't be as much harm. Then as I've said many times, there are impurities in street drugs that can make them dangerous, however, these impurities are not the drug itself. The chemical that the users are attempting to obtain wouldn't have these dangerous impurities if it were legally provided by a pharmacy.

[quote]
Long-term effects of heroin appear after repeated use for some period of time.Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, cellulites, and liver disease. Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health condition of the abuser, as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration. In addition to the effects of the drug itself[quote]

The above quote from the site you gave me, is definitely referring to the health problems and infections that happen from regular and uncleanly injection of a drug that is cut with impurities and adulterants, and not from the effects of the pure drug itself. The poor health of the user is very likely to be the result of the depleted income of the user thanks to the ridiculously high price. How many smokers and alcoholics do you see lookin all scummy and shitty. Not very many except for a homeless person? Those addicts usually maintain relatively good hygeine, albiet may be a little stinky (with ciggs) or fat (with alcohol)...(yes I'm stereotyping.)

About the only thing on that list that is actually caused by the drug itself, would be the depressant effect on respiration. That itself is rarely a problem when the user is tolerant to the drug and is taken the same amount on a regular basis. However, because you have an illegal market, that addict could get a product that is EXTREMELY PURE, or a different and more powerful depressant altogether! That is when you suffer breathing problems that could lead to overdose. This is known as cardiac arrest (when you forget to breathe, because you took too many opiates).

[quote]Don't say that you aren't downplaying the risks but being honest, because comparing heroin to prescription painkillers is making it seem less than it actually is.[/quote]

No, comparing the actual chemical molecule of heroin to prescription painkillers is EXTREMELY accurate and honest, and no less harmful than it actually is. Prescription painkillers can be very dangerous if used in large excess, however many people depend on prescription painkillers to live life without pain. I am one of those people who suffer from incredibly delibilitating pain and wouldn't be able to walk (would be bedridden) and would likely kill themself, if they were forced to live with the excruciating pain that is being caused by something wrong in my back. Because of the drug war, I am a victim of our current policy, because not only am I treated like an addict by nearly every doctor I've seen, but I am rarely if ever given enough pain killer to eliminate all of my physical attacking pain. It's not easy living with the feeling of Knives digging into your back. For me, that is everyday life, and because of narcotic painkillers. I can sleep at night, get up in the morning and live a fully functioning life. THIS IS A CONSTANT BATTLE however to keep myself from being cut off from my medication because the doctor is terrified that they are going to be a target of the DEA. Chronic pain sufferers and the African American community are the biggest victims of Drug Prohibition. Today there are more African Americans in prison for drugs than there were slaves in America.

Exaggerating and lieing about the dangers of a drug will ALWAYS backfire when the person realizes they were lied to. This effectively erases ALL of their education. Honesty is the best policy. Why would you need anything more than honesty? To lie is to control. To control is to enslave, and directly infringes on a person's freedom.

[quote]I was at a hospital recently, and they refused to give me morphine for more than 1-2 days because they said there was a chance I might become addicted, and whatever you say I simply won't believe that the hospital was feeding me evil lies to make me afraid of drugs[/quote]

What the hospital meant was that you would be at risk of becoming dependent (not addicted). to be "Dependent" on a drug is a physical dependency, where as addiction is a mental dependency. They are roughly the same thing, however a person who is dependant but not addicted will not have to deal with things like mental "cravings" or the psychological need to self-medicate... (at least not to the same degree).

In any case, the hospital it seems was just looking out for your health. I never said that you can't become dependent or even addicted from using a drug for more than 3 days in a row.. cuz you definitely can. But in all honestly and from personal experience you probably could've handled at least 1 more day. 3 is generally said to be the limit. I wouldn't be suprised at all if there was so kind of legal pressure motivating their decision to cut off your pain killer. If you still needed it for pain relief would they still be so terrified of a cure-able dependency? This situation more or less illustrates my point about chronic pain sufferers being a casualty of the war on drugs.

[quote]I don't know what they had taken, but it had messed up their heads pretty badly (for the time being at least)[/quote]

I'm not gonna lie. Drugs are powerful and need to be taken responsibly. The illegality however fosters an environment that makes it hard for anyone to be responsible when obtaining and using drugs. A person should be more worried about their health and their surroundings than law enforcement officers.

[quote]I am quite distrustful of prescription painkillers as well (probably just paranoia, but hey!)[/quote]

I'm not suprised. There are a lot of myths and propaganda out there that does alot of damage to the reputation of pain patients. Here's a website that can help you dispell some of those myths.

[quote]Besides, cannabis is hardly "harmless". It is worse than your vaunted cigarettes (and if cigarettes are as bad as you say cannabis must be truly horrible!). It may or may not have correlation with psychosis and suchlike problems, but it still "rots your body from inside".[/quote]

Cannibus does not "rot your body from the inside", that is completely ridiculous. I don't need to go into the details of how silly that claim is. You should do the research for yourself to find out how ridiculously harmless cannibus actually is. As far as drugs go, cannibus is probably the safest of all time. Any harm that is caused to the body from cannibus is caused by the smoking part. Once again we are talking about the METHOD of TAKING the drug, and NOT the drug's effects itself. There have been several studies on the harm in smoking cannibus, and the results are that YES smoking cannibus can be harmful to your lungs as you do not have a filter on the smoke and can also inhale lighter fluids and such... However, not only are you not getting all the gun powder and carcinogens they put in cigarettes, but smoking Marijuana is not done on a daily or even nearly as frequent basis as cigarettes are. Cannibus itself does no physical harm to the body what-so-ever and can be taken via baked buttered goods or vaporized and inhaled safely. It is often the only source of pain relief for people suffering from a number of debilitating diseases. But of course the federal government likes to raid and attack these victims and their drug dispensaries (their only hope for relief). If 1 thing good comes out of Obama's Administration it is their announcement that they will now respect state drug laws. This provided the floor for California to introduce legislation to legalize cannibus.

[quote]I do not believe that your political beliefs would lead to a better society, and would even cause harm.[/quote]

There is no harm in discussing opposing viewpoints. This is how people learn and become cultured. It is through debate and discussion that real evolution and change is made. Change that can lead to a better society.

[quote]if you cannot enforce a law, is that an excuse to abandon it?[/quote]

from my perspective I believe Einstein's point was that to create a law which cannot be enforced serves as a mockery of law, and causes disrespect of the rule of law. It discredits and makes government look bad on all fronts. That is a totally accurate description of what has happened with drug prohibition.

[quote]Is it? I am still pretty convinced that drug USE would increase. I'm not too sure, but ABUSE (in my opinion there's a distinct difference) would at least stay the same.[/quote]

I agree with you there. Responsible and casual use would probably increase, but abuse would possibly stay the same. However I would argue that abuse would decrease as we'd be dismantling the massive addiction pit that is in our city ghettos and providing real solutions and alternatives to drug addiction.

[quote]if someone (like you) had convinced them that drugs aren't really dangerous[/quote]

I've NEVER said drugs aren't really dangerous, they most certainly CAN BE! Please don't misquote me. I completely disagree with your statement that the scare tactic works well, as I've said many times now, it usually backfires as you learn you been lied to. It is dangerous and irresponsible to lie and exaggerate.

[quote]if I made the donkey thing a web domain, would that change anything because there would exist some called "donkeys as our leaders"?[/quote]

The difference is that Common Sense For Drug Policy has a very large membership that agrees with the name. That at least gives it some credibility.

[quote]However, why is it illegal EVERYWHERE (except Holland lol) and why has it been kept illegal everywhere?[/quote]

In many cases countries have been forced to enforce international drug policy due to UN treaties. That is the United Nations, a world government entity that should not be deciding world policy. This is the same group that came up with the slogan "A Drug Free World - We Can Do It" in 1998 and said by a 2008 we would be living in a drug free world. Now, thanks to all the statistics that show that the drug trade has ballooned and increased dramatically and is one of the world's largest economies, the UN is so embarrassed by their propaganda war, that they DENY they ever even said it!!! (we have it on video) You can learn more about that specifically by watching War Without End. Right now, with global bankers and the world's leaders working in collusion to establish a new "bank of the world" (as gordon brown is here trying to sell to America right now) and members of the elite like Henry Kissinger calling for a "New World Order", a one-world government admist this engineered global economic crises.... It is VERY important for us all to remember that, the SMALLER your government is, THE LOUDER your voice is heard... The BIGGER your government is, your voice is drowned in a sea, and your life is in the hands of an elitist leadership. There is a reason the American Revolution happend. There is a reason we established the constitution. There is a reason the founding fathers made sure the right to bare arms shall not be infringed.

Alternatively, there is also a reason why they are training the military to deal with civil unrest in America despite it being illegal to use the military as law enforcement. There is a reason why FEMA is on video training police that the founding fathers are terrorists. There is a reason why the FBI "Joint Terrorism Task Force" pamphlet lists those who "Make Numerous references to US Constitution" and "Defenders of the US Constitution" as suspects to report to their hotline. There is a reason why they are giving armoured tanks to county police chiefs with .50 caliber machine guns mounted on top. There is a reason why they have already built but have [url=http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-legislation-authorizes-fema-camps-in-us.html]just now legalized FEMA detention centers. Why they are testing "pain ray"-guns on people dressed up (and with signs) to look like American anti-war protesters. There is a reason it is illegal to videotape police in NYC and soon England. There is a reason why a massive state's rights movement has sparked up in response to the Federal Governments massive power grabs. A reason the Federal Government under Northcom is federalizing the National Gaurd. A reason in Iowa they are trying (thankfully met by resistance from hundreds of angry phone calls from patriots) training the national gaurd to infiltrate civilian homes in search of guns. A reason the military went door-to-door to confiscate LEGALLY OWNED guns in dry suburban new orleans neighborhoods, tackling old ladies and raiding houses like criminals. THERE IS A REASON why photos like this are now surfacing.

THAT REASON IS NOT GOOD.

This financial crisis was created by the bank known as The Federal Reserve. There is NOTHING federal about The Federal Reserve. They are NOT a government entity. They are a private bank that the US Federal Government has surrendered to it's constitutional authority to print and regulate it's national currency. When a private bank controls the nation's money supply and controls the money the government can borrow, the private bank OWNS the country. If you are wondering what was snuck into the first bailout bill besides massive amounts of spending on things like nascar, the Federal Reserve achieved a massive power grab. It now impossible to audit the Federal Reserve Bank. To learn more about the fed's creation and the history of this problem, watch Aaron Russo's Freedom To Fascism for free. You can also read more about the Feds most recent power grabs in this article.

Now back to our subject:

[quote]Thankfully drugs are illegal, and I never got in contact with them.[/quote]

OK this type of thinking right here is what's fundamentally wrong with politics and is the root of how people lose their freedom. Your basic idea is, 'the government needs to protect me from myself'. 'The government's function is to create laws that punish everybody for the mistakes of the few'.

This type of thinking is all wrong. This is how you become a pampered baby slave. This is entire ideology of the nanny state. The government as a protective entity that saves you FROM YOURSELF.

I am not responsible for your inability to control yourself around drugs. Neither is anyone else. None of us want or expect to be punished or have our freedom removed to be around drugs or any other activity, place, event, or substance, because YOU can't control yourself from becoming self destructive. NO, laws are there to protect YOU from the few occasions where anOTHER person might infringe on YOUR FREEDOMS. Currently the federal government is infringing on our IN BORN right to be responsible for ourselves and our own behavior around and on drugs. Let's change that and eliminate the massive disaster that has resulted from this infringement... this WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE.

[quote=Servius]The only people who I have met and know who have this opinions and are willing to defend them this strongly are drug users. Sorry, but its the gods honest truth..[/quote]

This right here says more about yourself and the people you "know" and have "met" than the viewpoints I am sharing with you. The mere fact that THOUSANDS of law enforcement officers have UNITED behind these core beleifs, should tell you how real your "god's honest truth" is...

[quote]Do you seriously believe that drugs being decriminalized will cause all of these things?[/quote]

No, I believe that drugs being legalized will cure these problems. Decriminalization would only solve SOME of the problem. Decriminalization only lowers the penalties of possession. Legalization is the end of prohibition altogether, and the welcoming of regulated taxed product. It is a common misconception that Decrim and Legalization are the same policy, when in fact they are 2 different things.

[quote]less crime? - so when your friend goes to the local drug stand that im sure will open up once drugs become legal and an addict sneaks up and stabs or shoots him to death cecause he needs his fix i guess the crime rate will drop coz that will be a rare thing to happen?[/quote]

ok, that is ridiculous. first off, where do you see local alcohol stands anywhere? no, it is a regulated substance that is ACTUALLY controlled by the government (unlike drugs that are completely OUT of control and in the hands of crime lords). It requires a liquor license to sell and serve and has a specific age limit for purchasing. Now when have you EVER heard of someone stabbing a liquor store owner for their fix of a bottle of alcohol... It's a completely ludicrous scenario that is planted in your brain by the very myths and propaganda that keep the criminal drug trade alive, and the crime rate soaring higher than ever. alcoholics and smokers need their "fix" just as much as any other drug addict, but somehow you see them maintaining civility. You need to seriously sit down and ask yourself "WHY!?". I'll give you a hint, the answer is NOT that alcohol and cigarettes are less addictive or powerful. In fact the withdrawal symptoms of alcohol are so powerful they can cause seizures (this is unique to alcohol and far more severe than other drug withdrawal symptoms).

[quote]not to mention OD's which foreign substance or not if you take enough of anything it can kill you.[/quote]

yeah your absolutely right, which is why when it is legal you will finally actually be able to tell HOW MUCH you are actually taking. And no one will ever have to worry about dieing because they didn't know how powerful their drug was. As I've said the most common OD has to do with the power of the drug. Yes a user who buys a bag of heroin isn't asking to buy Fentanyl, but considering it's almost the same drug yet MUCH more powerful, they can hardly complain that their not getting "good" product. The problem though is that the addict has no idea that he has bought a bag with extremely good or pure product, and could very well be used to what is known on the street as "dog sh*t". Say he needs 4 bags of dog **** to feel anything at all... He gets a new bag with higher purity or commonly fentanyl, and he does 4 bags all at once, assuming that it's going to be the same strength. THIS is how people overdose. THIS is the most common type of overdose, and accounts for the overwhelming majority of overdoses. This is a problem that would be COMPLETELY eradicated by legalizing drugs. Overdoses would then be limit to suicide attempts, which won't increase with the legalization of drugs.

[quote]less disease well when some ecstasy can cure cancer ill pop as many as you recomend doctor[/quote]

I'm not sure what the heck you mean by e curing cancer... but it is worth mention that because of prohibition, many people who think they are buying MDMA which is the chemical that was originally called "Ecstacy", are actually buying any number of drug combinations. E pills have a reputation for being the biggest grab bag of the drug world. This accounts for numerous drug horror stories as taking drugs that you don't know where they came from or what's in them, is NEVER safe. Wait a minute, weren't drug laws there to keep us safe??? think again!

Also, MDMA was recently approved in the US for legitimate medical use in the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder, so I wouldn't be joking so soon about it.

And finally the most important point of this response is that needle sharing in the city ghetto accounts for a massive spread of disease throughout the US. Just take a look at the HIV and Hepatitis rates in US cities. Access to clean needles for cheap is regulated differently from state to state, but is usually very restricted to only people with diabetes. This is a direct result of prohibition policy and thinking. It's also a perfect example of how prohibition hurts spreads disease, is directly destroying the black community, and the harm of the american (and every country's) people.

To counter this problem, many cities have started "needle exchange programs", or needle wagons, where clean needles and injection supplies are passed out to the public for free. While this has had successful results, is this really an appropriate solution for impoverished communities? to accept that drug injection is so deeply rooted in their culture thanks to drug prohibition, that we have needle wagons driving through their neighborhood. Don't you think these kind of materials would be much more appropriate if dispensed without these harmful restrictions to the public from a pharmacy instead. Wouldn't getting the drugs and needles OUT of the ghetto be a better solution. Well we've tried drug prohibition for decades now and it has only made the problem far worse than we could have ever imagined. The streets are rife with crime, disease, and drug addiction. Are we ready to finally fix this problem responsibly or what?

[quote]Less poverty - well now those old corner dealers who are out of business are going to have to find real jobs or even better a new means of doing something illegal. (Perhaps leach off of government funding somehow?)[/quote]

I actually agree with you on that. Welfare is horrible idea. It works off of this principle that blacks and poor people are less capable than everyone else so they NEED the government to give them money for them to survive or achieve anything. They achieve the same thing with laws that force employers to treat women a certain way and other races a certain way. In my and many others opinion, this is one of the most blatant forms of racism/sexism today. The other most blatant form of racism would be drug prohibition. (see video: "drug prohibition and it's link to human slavery")

[quote]More police resorces to fight real crime? 1. at present this is real crime 2. drugs often are causes of further crime dont tell me you've never heard in the news about some junkie shooting someone? how will decriminalizing drugs solve that - i mean alcohol is legal but hell drink driving sure isnt. while there certainly are worse things than a person taking drugs its what happens once theyve taken the drug that can lead to "real crime"[/quote]

I can and will tell you I have never heard in my entire life a new story involving a junkie shooting someone. However I HAVE heard of people robbing pharmacies at gunpoint for their narcotic medications. Ask yourself, would this happen if they were available over the counter at a reasonably low price? The answer is absolutely not. It doesn't happen for alcohol. It doesn't happen for cigarettes. And it would never happen for anything else. The whole need and reason for an addict rob at gunpoint was created by drug prohibition.

As for this idea that people go on crime sprees after taking drugs... That's total myth. However you can go into states of temporary psychosis or insanity from overdosing on drugs like psychedelics or dissociatives. There are cases of people goin buck wild and runnin around naked punching things because they went looney from taking way too much drugs. Fortunately, these cases are rare, and are dealt with swiftly by taking these people to the hospital and hopefully charging them appropriately only for infringing on other peoples rights (by causing violence and damage or disrupting decency and what not...). Once again, this type of thing is only more likely to happen when people have no idea what chemical they are taking. It is entirely possible and DOES HAPPEN that someone could take 1 pill sold to them as "ecstacy" and end up on a hallucinatory subconscious rampage... That's one possible scenario of many.. but of course that specific scenario would be completely eliminated with the end of prohibition. It's important to remember that these people are rarely fully conscious or aware that they are doing something disruptive and are usually in that state because they took something that wasn't what it was said to be, or they hadn't been properly educated about (and how to take it safely).

[quote]Better education/resources to help rehabillitation - so we legalize drugs to educate people on why they shouldnt take drugs?[/quote]

bingo. this way the public recognizes that they have an actual responsibility to treat students with the respect and education that they deserve, by providing actual honest information about how to avoid the problems that are caused by drug misuse, and how to safely use drugs with the least harm possible. we all deserve this as human beings, the responsibility for this kind of education is already there.. however we are DENIED this treatment, and instead given brainscrambling propaganda based on fear and lies and threats of incarceration, that only serve to backfire and erase any piece of truth that may have been buried beneath the lies.

[quote]I understand the concept of rehabilitation but legalizing drugs is a far cry from that.[/quote]

Not at all, in fact it's the best thing that could ever happen for rehabilitating and curing drug addiction worldwide. the resources that would be available and fear of arrest removed... these and many more factors would all serve to create a safer and more accessible environment for an addict to get help. You need to remember that drug courts and forcing people into rehabilitation is not going to help anyone. You cannot overcome an addiction unless you want to. This is a psychological fact.

[quote]Btw wasnt this about gun control[/quote]

It was about gun prohibition, drug prohibition, and all other forms of prohibitions that violate the freedoms of humankind.

.nick

p.s. I'd like to thank Pedro and Finnigan for rescuing our conversation and making sure it doesn't get reduced to ugliness and insults. We all lose when that happens. I am actually extremely thankful that you guys have maintained interest in discussing and debating this issue and have desire to keep it friendly. That is really awesome. Thank you!

I guess you just aren't listening to anything other than what you want to hear.:P

And "Welfare is horrible idea." ... I'm still waiting to hear from your reality-check test.

Che, your trolling is done here. The naiveté on display in your latest screed is beyond the pale.

I've opened this thread briefly to add a post script rebutting Che's oft repeated claim that drug use is a victimless crime. Here are three links that tell the story:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Some google searches on the names of the individuals involved tell a larger story. By my reckoning the victims of this so-called victimless crime include the not only the person who lost his life, but the families of all parties involved. The details of this story are much more grim and heart breaking than you'll get from the links and some internet searching.

However, this one incident just highlights the fallacy that drug use is a victimless crime. Unlike Che, I'm willing and able to provide links to an actual event that supports my position.