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View Poll Results: Should the US government give up or relax the drug war?
Yes. Legalize all drugs, Let people decide for themselves
5
10.87%
Yes, But only limited legalization and decriminalization should be instituted
31
67.39%
No, We should just maintain the present course.
0
0%
No, We should increase our efforts and make tougher penalties.
The War on Drugs has been going on for decades now and by any reasonable measure there is no less drug use or abuse going on today.
When you combine this failure with the record number of people in jail and the threats to the privacy and rights of regular citizens is it time to end the drug war?
Is it time to change tactics or just give up the fight?
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Agreed - drugs like Meth are wrecking small towns throughout Tennessee.
I guess the real question is will the same tactics work that haven't worked for other drugs. The problem isn't that we are fighting drugs or that we fight particular drugs, it is how we fight drugs.
You are wondering who wants tougher penalties when you and Krepitch seem to want tougher or the same penalties but for fewer drugs. Does this make sense?
Is meth really as bad as all the hype?
I know how bad Meth is, but is it worse than Heroin or Cocaine?
Quote:
The latest drug crisis, again
Published August 7, 2005
`America's Most Dangerous Drug," blares the cover story in Newsweek. If you haven't been paying attention, you might wonder what drug the magazine has in mind.
Tobacco, which kills more than 400,000 people each year? Alcohol, which contributes to thousands of traffic fatalities? Crack, which spawned a wave of violent crime in the 1990s? Heroin, which was supposedly an epidemic a few years ago?
Answer: None of the above. America's most dangerous drug of the week is methamphetamine, better known as crystal meth. It may sound odd that this new scourge is more hazardous than all those other drugs, which have not gotten any less malignant. But the drug war is sort of like horror movies: A new monster is always needed, and the new monster is never much different from the old one.
Crystal meth is blamed for all sorts of ills. Addicts allegedly neglect their children, beat their spouses, rot out their teeth, ruin their health, commit burglaries and accidentally set themselves on fire in crude home laboratories. All of this may be true. But we've heard similar lurid tales about other drugs--none of which quite lived up to the hype.
Once it was marijuana. Then heroin. Later, the unstoppable menace was cocaine. A 1983 Time magazine story had this passage: "Several times last year Phil stood quivering and feverish in the living room, his loaded pistol pointed toward imaginary enemies. ... Rita, emaciated like her husband, had her own bogeymen--strangers with X-ray vision." A prosecutor said, "An exceptionally violent streak seems to run through the trade." Sound like another drug you've heard about lately?
But drug epidemics are not like contagious diseases. Illicit substances don't infect people against their will--people make choices about whether to use them. When a substance is truly destructive, word gets around, and people turn away. Toothless addicts with horrible burns and oozing sores are not going to seduce hordes of eager young recruits. In time, the meth epidemic will play itself out.
It's not even clear, though, that there is an epidemic. The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which does a huge annual survey on drug use, says that in 2003, the last year for which it has data, there was no increase in methamphetamine use from the previous year. If it's spreading in some places, it's losing ground elsewhere.
Nor is meth all that addictive. SAMHSA reports that 5.2 percent of all Americans age 12 and older have tried the drug at least once. But only 0.3 percent are currently using it. That means the addiction rate is no more than 1 in 17. The addiction rate for tobacco, by contrast, is more than 1 in 3. For alcohol, it's about one in 12.
Maybe that's why even some members of the Bush administration are rolling their eyes. A spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy complained to Newsweek that a lot of people are "`crying meth' because it's a hot new drug."
But when a panic erupts, the government tends to fall back on old weapons, even if they haven't worked very well before. The fight against meth consists mainly of two approaches: seizing home labs where the drug is made and restricting sales of over-the-counter medicines that can be converted into the drug.
Neither holds much promise. If you crack down on production of meth here in America, users will look for sources elsewhere. Already, half of the stuff consumed here comes from Mexico.
Recently, Oregon passed a law requiring a prescription for common over-the-counter drugs, like Sudafed, that contain pseudoephedrine, a primary ingredient in homemade meth. That will certainly inconvenience people with colds and allergies, who spend $1.4 billion a year on drugs containing PSE. Some of them will have to pay for a doctor visit just to get a garden-variety remedy like Claritin-D or Alka-Seltzer Plus.
But will tighter controls curb drug abuse? Not likely. After Oklahoma passed a law requiring that PSE drugs be sold only by pharmacists from behind the counter, it saw a 90 percent drop in lab seizures. Unfortunately, it was a dubious victory. Users didn't go straight but switched to meth smuggled from Mexico.
"Our problem hasn't gone away," Oklahoma City police Lt. Tom Terhune told The Associated Press. "The problem that's gone away is the meth labs."
The government can't save us from methamphetamine. But given the benefit of knowledge gained from sad experience, we can save ourselves.
I guess I should also add that I don't think punishment is the answer, at least for users. I think long term treatment programs can be effective, but 30 day rehab stuff is not going to work.
I've often wondered what it would be like if it was legal to buy drugs, but illegal to sell drugs.
Chaz - as to meth - is it worse than crack or heroin? In many ways, yes, because it is so easy to make in the trailer......
Tennessee just passed a law restricting the sale of over-the-counter ephidrenes - and it seems to be helping. That, along with treatment, and education are the best bets.
Chaz - as to meth - is it worse than crack or heroin? In many ways, yes, because it is so easy to make in the trailer......
Tennessee just passed a law restricting the sale of over-the-counter ephidrenes - and it seems to be helping. That, along with treatment, and education are the best bets.
It helps if you measure the lab busts.
By all acounts if has not affected use.
Apparently, more than half of all Meth now comes from Mexico.
More of the same, rinse, repeat.
__________________
“votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense.” ~H. L. Mencken
Then there are other side effects of drug prohibition.
Quote:
PRISONERS OF PAIN
Why Are Millions Of Suffering Americans Deing Denied The Prescription Drug Relief They Need?
Deborah Hamalainen was feeling more and more agitated by the minute. Waiting to see her neurologist, she was silently rehearsing a confrontation that had been building for months. She planned to look the doctor directly in the eyes and demand that he treat the chronic pain that had invaded her life.
In the two decades since doctors diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis, Hamalainen learned to tolerate numb extremities, tingling sensations, even the weakness that causes her left foot to drag. And it wasn't like her to be confrontational. "I'm much happier in denial," admits the soft-spoken 52-year-old sculptor.
Some physicians fear that if they deliver humane pain care, they'll face prosecution by the DEA.
The symptoms she couldn't ignore, though, were the intense shooting pains that raced across her shoulder blades and down her limbs. By the time she arrived for this doctor's appointment, they were a 24-hour presence. Hamalainen barely slept anymore. Rolling over was an ordeal. When the Medford, New Jersey, resident awoke, stiff and exhausted, she braced her shoulders so they wouldn't move as she rose. Sometimes, her husband had to pull her upright from the bed.
Every three months for three years, Hamalainen saw this neurologist. Each time, she mentioned the pain. Each time, the doctor deftly changed the subject. Each time, she left in pain.
But this time would be different.
Hamalainen waited quietly as nurses wandered in and out of the examination room, taking her vital signs. Finally, she lost it. "My pain is real," she said frantically to one of the nurses. "I need relief. Why does he keep refusing to talk to me about it? What do I have to do?"
The nurse turned to her conspiratorially and lowered her voice. "I should not tell you this," she said. "But he doesn't want to treat your pain because the treatment that works is opioids, and he's afraid to prescribe them."
With that conversation, Hamalainen joined legions of patients who are the victims of a troubling and all-too-common medical practice: the undertreatment of significant and debilitating pain. An estimated 75 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, according to the American Medical Association, and numerous studies have shown that patients often don't receive the medication that could provide relief. Undertreatment runs as high as 50 percent among advanced-stage cancer patients and 85 percent among older Americans living in long-term care facilities.
I think pot should be okay. I mean, you can mess your body up worse with cigarettes and alcohol.
Plus, I can't remember when I heard a news report of "He went on a killing rampage after smoking pot." Usually people just get hungry and mellow out. What's the harm in that?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jersey Girl Cards Fan
I think pot should be okay. I mean, you can mess your body up worse with cigarettes and alcohol.
the difference between pot and alcohol & cigarettes is that you can smoke a cigarette or have a drink and you are still sober. with pot, you are either stoned, or you're not.
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