Winning the War on Drugs

[linuxdoctor]

The so-called "War on Drugs" has been of interest to me of late. Many experts and the media have often said that the "War on Drugs" cannot be won and many of them say that it is already lost. As the War is currently being waged I agree with them: it is a hopeless cause.

There is, however, a way to actually win the "War on Drugs" but it requires something that is near impossible to find in the leaders of the so-called Western Democracies: courage and leadership. The solution to the drugs crisis is obvious but few suggest it and absolutely nobody in any political position date even speak of it. That unspeakable solution to winning the "War on Drugs" is ... legalisation.

That's all there is to it. If it were legalised the prices would instantly drop and undercut the price that the criminal organisations currently get for their product. When it is legal the governments can tax it and thus raise huge amounts of revenue. The illegal drugs trade estimated to be about $400 billion dollars (US) world wide with about $25 million people world wide using these drugs. This works out to about $3.2 billion (US) dollars being spent on drugs in Canada and about $29 billion (US) dollars in the United States. Imagine if that were coming into the coffers of legitimate business and government? Add on top of that the tens of billions of dollars being spent annually trying to stop the illegal drug trade that would not need to be spent anymore?

Canada is in dire need of fixing its infrastructure and the health care system. A $3.2 billion annual infusion of cash would go a long way towards helping that happen plus the savings found elsewhere. It's about time that these useless pieces of crap that have been a blight and have caused themselves, their family and friends and almost everybody around them so much pain began to contribute to society rather than be a drain on it. We should let their pain and suffering pay for improving our society. Their addiction would actually help us build a better society rather than be a blight upon it.
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[ClickFanatic]

Exactly.
But legalisation also has advantages for science. Marihuana as a form of medicine or analgesic, "magic mushrooms" or LSD as a cure for cluster headaches. These are just a few things that can be researched at a much faster rate when certain drugs are legalised.
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[Perpetual]

People in the government are involved with trafficking the drugs.

If you want a documentary of how the "war" began, watch one called "Grass" with Woody Harrelson narrating. You can see the multiple attempts at misinforming everyone about risks in hopes to stop everyone from using them. Just an eye opener.

I agree, legalize it.
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God doesn't exist but I do

[LP-Shirl]

The sole purpose I can see in legalizing drugs is that maybe not so many people would want to do them. You know when you were little and your mom says "Don't touch the stove, it's very hot" and the minute she looks away what do you do, you touch it of course. Why? Because you for forbidden to touch it. For some reason it is in the human nature to want things that we are forbidden to have. So, I too agree, legalize them, use them for medical purposes, do whatever you will with them. If people are stupid enough to go down the negative path it is their own fault.
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"You Cant Keep Going to the Chicken Coop with Blah Blah on Your Mind When All You Have is Hot Sauce in Your Glove Compartment."

[Necromis]

Hey and why we are at it why not lower the age for smoking and drinking. After all the only reason kids drink and smoke at a young age is because they are told they can't do it. Oh and lets make murder legal too, that could bring in millions of dollars if we could tax the contract killers since they make anywhere from $5k or more per assasination. These are only a couple of reasons why what was suggested is foolish. Yes, there are SOME drugs, such as pot, that are relatively harmless and making them legal would be a good thing. However, you will never see any such thing ever happen and it has nothing to do with courage. It has to do with greed and also the economy. Too many law enforcement officals would be put out of work. The drug cartels would also not let it happen, and therefor the people they employee, cops, judges, politicians, won't let it happen either. Crack cocaine is instantly addictive. So are many other drugs. You make those legal and you would end up having a majority of minorities and other lower encome segments addicted over night and cause drug related crimes to increas exponentially. It is nice to say what you think will happen, but look at reality and human nature and you know it would not work.

[ClickFanatic]

I don't think LP-Shirl and Necromis completely understand how legalisation of drugs can actually make it easier to fight drugs.

Let's make one thing clear first: drug addicts are not criminals, they're patients. Drugs are generally bad for one's health and an addiction is hardly ever positive (everything can be addictive, from chocolate to computer games). It would be more logical to say: addicts need treatment, rather than punishment.
That said, a (drug) addict can go long ways to get what he needs. Criminal organisations benefit from illegal drugs; there is always a demand (addicts) and due to the low supply (it's illegal) the prices are very lucrative. Additionaly, due to the high price, addicts also get involved in crime. They have to steal so they can continue to buy drugs.

Legalisation and regulation can solve most of these problems.
a) Organised crime no longer benefits from high prices, because it has (legal) competitors.
b) Production and sale of drugs can be monitored. This makes it possible to keep the concentrations of active substances in drugs at a moderately safe level and reduce the risk of overdoses and contaminated drugs.
c) Tax income from drugs cancels out (most of) the costs of the policy. Right now, the war on drugs is paid for by money that could have been spent on education, for example, but no money is made in the process.

In the Netherlands, only the sale of cannabis is regulated (not the production, which is illegal). So the situation here is nowhere near what I just described. Anyway, the philosophy behind this is that separating the sale of soft drugs from hard drugs would reduce the number of hard drug addicts. For example: if a cannabis smoker would have to buy his supply at a dealer, he would eventually be persuaded to try some of the hard drugs. Coffeeshops (shops where cannabis is sold) are carefully monitored to make sure they don't sell illegal drugs.
The usage of cannabis is not excessively high in the Netherlands, it is actually lower than or equally high as other European countries. I am convinced the policy would be even more successful (especially in terms of stopping crime) if neighbouring countries adopted it.
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[LP-Shirl]

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[LP-Shirl]

[linuxdoctor]

[pharmer4]

I'm in two minds about how to respond to this thread - should I respond in a totally theoretical manner, therefore agree wholeheartedly with linuxdoctor, or should I take into account various aspects of reality that make this argument very murky (ie human nature - greed, ethics, stupidity, and the tendency to believe that their own perceptions and beliefs are the most correct).

OK, from a theoretical point of view, prohibition would work unquestionably well. This statement is also true to communism, which is in fact a fantastic theoretical society, but it just does not work.

yes, if all drugs were available at market value (and taxed nicely in the same manner as tobacco and alcohol), then the drugs would be clean, the price would probably be lower (in the short term), and petty crime may well reduce (although I doubt it).

The drugs would be cleaner because they can be manufactured legitimately.

The price would be lower because of the redressing in the balance of supply (which would increase) and demand (which would plateua after a transient increase).

Petty crime would probably not change, because there is still a cost, and there is still addiction, so those who give up everything else in favour of their addiction will still need crime to pay for everything.

Here are some issues though, when you bring this into reality.

1) Legalising drugs now leaves governments open to litigation (unless the legislation is designed to prevent it). Alcohol and cigarettes have been traditionally available in most jurisdictions legally, so the government has not actively decided to make them available. Since governments will be legalising these drugs, people who use them to flush their lives down the toilet could potentially sue based on the governments negligence in making them available.

2) alcohol and tobacco products are directly or indirectly responsible for more health spending that any other factor in western countries. The damage ranges from various cancers, diabetes, heart and lung disease, gangrene, acquired injuries etc etc. Consider the potential for the health system if they cost of methadone programmes etc were no longer needed (minimal cost), but the popularity of these drugs leads to other health concerns.

I say this because while there is a health cost involved with maintaining an addict's abstinence, this is miniscule compared to the health issues that arise whether these drugs are legal are not.

This includes the obvious (blood borne infections), but various other conditions, such as:

• Psychosis from various psychoative drugs, including amphetamines, PCP, LSD, and marijuana (please remember I specialise in drugs, so do not try and argue the psychotic potential of marijuana use)
  
• Liver disease (ingestion of cannabinoids, PCP, mushrooms, bell flowers)
  
• Lung disase (from smoking various narcotics)
  
• dental disease (opioids and cocaine etc reduce production of saliva, leading to the bad teeth you see with chronic drug users)
  
• vascular disease (from chronic IV use)
  
• you get the point
  

So, the benefits to the health system would actually be negative.

3) Crime does not necessarily decrease amongst people on the Methadone programme. This means access to legal narcotics does not reduce the crime rate amongst those who use it.

4) One of the major issues with nartotics are that you have chemicals that cause DEPENDANCE and TOLERANCE. So, you want to keep using it, but you need more to get the same effect. Why is this not a big deal with alcohol and tobacco (which I am not defending - I find both repugnant) - cigarettes do not cause tolerance, so 1 cigarette today will have the same effect today in 10 years. Also, alcohol is bulky - you may need more and more to get drunk or to get a high from endorphins(see note at bottom of post), but you can only physically fit so much in.

With narcotics that are banned (all of them), they are all tolerance forming, but none of them have an issue with volume. You can literally develop such a tolerance to, say, heroin, that you could inject enough to kill 100 people, if you build up to it slowly enough, without dying. the cost of that type of habit would be astronomical.

5) I'm now going to refer to my personal experiences with people who are addicted to drugs. Of the people I have on the methadone programme, 30% arrived there directly from using licit drugs. These are people using narcotics for pain relief etc, and ended up addicted to drugs instead. That's a fairly high proportion, and is a fairly common statistic across other pharmacies I have dealth with. Imagine the extrapolation to the general community if narcotics are legalised for social use.

Anyway, these points are really only here for argument's sake. I think it's unlikely anything will ever change, and I don't have much of an issue with some things being available more openly. I think cannabis is less harmful than alcohol, but won't ever be as socially acceptable. I think amphetamines could have a legitimate use for concentration etc.

Also someone made the point of some drugs having legitimate uses - you need to understand that most illegal drugs are actually CONTROLLED drugs, so they have legal uses, but you can't just access them at a whim. LSD is used in highly specialised psychological areas, cannabis is used in pain and for antiemesis, opiates are obviously used for pain relief, cocaine use used as a local anaesthetic, amphetamines are used for ADD and ADHD etc. Just don't confuse this with the argument that linuxdoctor has posed, ie open use of all drugs for social use.




note on alcohol dependence - being addicted to alcohol is actually an opioid dependance, becuase when you are addicted to alcohol, you are actually addicted to the release of endorphins you receive when you drink. Endorphins are opioid chemicals made by the body to reward you for doing something good, or when you trigger a pleasant sensation. Since being slightly drunk is pleasant for most people, you start getting the endorphins, and off the rollercoaster goes.
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