Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug Possession 640
Professor_Quail notes an AP story that begins, "Mexico enacted a controversial law Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency. The law sets out maximum 'personal use' amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution when the law goes into effect Friday." An official in the attorney general's office said, "This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty... for a practice that was already in place." In 2006, the US criticized a similar bill that had no provisions for mandatory treatment, and the then-president sent it back to Congress for reconsideration.
It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Insightful)
Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:3, Insightful)
Calderon is a conservative politician who hates the drug business. He hates it so much that he actually unleashed the Mexican army against the drug cartel. Unfortunately for him, the cartel has tremendous firepower (
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that Columbia used to have worse problems with drug violence, but it's largely been eliminated (and pushed into Peru and Venezuela, but that's a different story). There will always be drug trafficking as long as it is illegal, but violent powerful drug cartels are not a necessary part of that (there is nowhere in the US that we have drug violence at that level, for example).
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that most of the profits (thought to be more than 75%) that the drug cartels make are not from narcotics, but from cannabis. The only real way to seriously cripple the Mexican drug cartels and minimize the violence is to completely legalize cannabis (better yet, all soft, nonaddictive drugs) in the United States (where the vast majority of their market is in), and let the legal, taxed, free market steal the cartels' business. After all, what stoner would want to buy crappy Mexican schwag from shady dealers when he can get high-quality product from the local coffeeshop, or just grow it in his back yard?
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Except that most of the profits (thought to be more than 75%) that the drug cartels make are not from narcotics, but from cannabis.
Do you have sources and stats for this? I'm seriously interested, because it's the first time I've heard that these same cartels are responsible.
From where I come from (albeit from personal experience) the majority of weed in circulation seems to come from 2 groups. Personal connosieurs that have decided that they may as well grow an entire basement full, and turn a dollar or
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd go a step further and make hard drugs prescription drugs. Go to a doc, get a receipt telling you're addicted and get your dose in the next hospital. Sure that works easier with social healthcare, but according to Obama the US are gonna get that soon anyway, can as well append that to the deal.
Yes, a lot of addicts want to get out, but we don't have enough rehabiliation centers and drug withdrawal clinics, and since there's no money in that and it's not really something you can sell to your voters if you make it public funded ("why should I pay for their addiction"), we won't see many come into existance. So why not do the next best thing and at least hurt the ones that profit from it?
If you want to win the war against drugs, you first of all have to cut off the bigwig dealers from money. You can't fight against the addicts and trying to weed out the little dealers isn't going to work out either. Locking up addicts and small drug dealers only makes your prisons even more to places where drugs are dealt and pushed. And small dealers are easily replaced, for every small dealer locked up 10 are stepping up and hoping to move in on their turf. And of course you can't lock up the big dealers because they are almost untouchable, either not in your country or so far removed from the actual deals that you can't pin the drugs to them.
You want to win that war? Hit where it hurts, at the wallet of the bigshots. To do this, all you have to do is offer the addicts a cheap, reliable and clean alternative to the expensive, uncalculable and usually adulterated drugs they have to get in a shady back alley. What addict would not use your government issue drugs? Drugs aren't expensive to make. Especially if you can manufacture them in a wholesale fashion. They get expensive due to the risk associated with them and the amount of middlemen involved.
Cut their money supply. Bleed them dry. And you'll see that war is over before long. Instantly you will see a sharp drop in money related crimes because addicts no longer need huge amounts of money to supply themselves. At the same time a lot of the resources currently wasted on monitoring and fighting drug trafficking and dealing will be free to be used in other, more beneficial ways. In the end we might even have enough money to put more addicts that want out on withdrawal and give them a chance to find their way back into society.
The current 'war' will only lead to more crime, more people in prison and more money being wasted to fight those crimes and monitor those prisoners. How the hell does that help me, make me safer or protect me from drugs? Because so far, I can't see a shortage in any kind of drugs, even after decades of 'war'.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Insightful)
This brings up a point that the self-proclaimed "drug warriors" don't like to think about: essentially every street drug is available to people IN PRISON. Read another way, it means that even if the entire country was run like a prison - there would still be a drug "problem". Just exactly how far are people willing to go to enforce these laws?
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:4, Informative)
>Not all "soft" drug users are addicts, but pretty much anyone doing anything but marijuana are addicts as most recreational drugs are almost as addictive as nicotine.
No, not really. Most drug users, even heroin users [reason.com], are casual users. For every tweeked out meth head, there are 10 people that just use it occasionally. I know quite a few people who have used all sorts of drugs without ever developing a problem. Quoting the linked article:
"A 1976 study by the drug researchers Leon G. Hunt and Carl D. Chambers estimated there were 3 or 4 million heroin users in the United States, perhaps 10 percent of them addicts. "Of all active heroin users," Hunt and Chambers wrote, "a large majority are not addicts: they are not physically or socially dysfunctional; they are not daily users and they do not seem to require treatment." A 1994 study based on data from the National Comorbidity Survey estimated that 23 percent of heroin users ever experience substance dependence.
The comparable rate for alcohol in that study was 15 percent, which seems to support the idea that heroin is more addictive: A larger percentage of the people who try it become heavy users, even though it's harder to get. At the same time, the fact that using heroin is illegal, expensive, risky, inconvenient, and almost universally condemned means that the people who nevertheless choose to do it repeatedly will tend to differ from people who choose to drink. They will be especially attracted to heroin's effects, the associated lifestyle, or both. In other words, heroin users are a self-selected group, less representative of the general population than alcohol users are, and they may be more inclined from the outset to form strong attachments to the drug."
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When I was stationed in Thailand in the USAF in 1974, there were three groups (with some overlap, of course) -- the white first termers, who mostly smoked the killer Thai stick, the black first termers, who smoked "rails" (Kool cigarettes with the filter split down the middle and half discarded, half of the tobacco shaken out making it loose, then dipped in the 99% pure heroin powder and smoked). The career men were almost 100% alcoholics who lived at the NCO club when they were off duty.
I ran across a few
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I disagree with your assessment of socialized medicine, but your analysis is essentially sound. Instead of the government manufacturing drugs, though, I'd propose that you simply decriminalize the drugs completely. If you get Merck and GSK turning out high-quality (read: lower risk) drugs, available by prescription, you've solved the problem without expanding the power of government.
From my perspective, the "war on drugs" has been one of the biggest mistakes in American history. Many of our essential fre
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That's what happened after alcohol prohibition. You don't see ganng wars over alcohol any more, you don't have people going blind or dead from drinking wood alcohol like you did during prohibition, you don't see violence in the alcohol trade, and you don't see the bribery and corruption that is always present with victimless crimes.
The laws against drugs (and other victimless crimes as well) actually cause the problems they're supposed to solve.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Interesting)
Or maybe he thinks that decriminalization will reduce the street prices for the drugs. Decriminalization means that the lower tiers of the distribution network and the using individuals carry less risk, which means easier access, which should mean lower street prices and more competition based on quality. In the end, that's going to mean less money for the cartels.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:4, Interesting)
Possession was already defacto legal. But you could get hauled in to pay a bribe. No more bribes with the new law. I think he is trying to reduce police corruption.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:4, Interesting)
Decriminalization in Mexico won't help Mexico much, since their main drug business is involved with bringing them to the US. The US doing anything to make it easier for local growers than smugglers would actually help Mexico more, since the cartels would lose their economic incentive to do their business.
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Decriminalization in Mexico won't help Mexico much, since their main drug business is involved with bringing them to the US. The US doing anything to make it easier for local growers than smugglers would actually help Mexico more, since the cartels would lose their economic incentive to do their business.
Absolutely. It is interesting to note that this huge increase in violence in Mexico corresponds pretty well with the federal regulations restricting the purchase of pseudofed in the USA. For those of you haven't had a cold in the last few years if you want to buy pseudofed its now semi-behind-the-counter, you don't need a prescription but you do have to give up all kinds of personal information to the pharmacy who will report it to the feds and stash it away in their own databases for who knows what uses
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Insightful)
I have read a post some time ago detailing how legalizing some drugs can effectively stop criminality. I think it was mostly about cannabis. Think about it, drugs finance huge businesses:
- Gangs
- Terrorist cells, Al Kaida
- dictatorships such as North Korea (I read some days ago)
Imagine the huge effects that it would have if these would run out of money -> No new weapons -> Losing importance -> Dictatorships can be overthrown.
Maybe I am thinking too blue-eyed, but it is a lot of money. Stopping the money flow at the source could have global consequences. We tried stopping the drug users from using.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Informative)
The firepower the cartels wield is not smuggled in from the US. 87% of the firearms Mexico asks the ATF to locate, are traced to the US -- but they only request that sort of thing on a small percent of the firearms they seize, 10%-ish I believe. Basically, they only request it when they have reason to believe the guns came from the US.
The M16s? The grenades? Those aren't being smuggled across the border unless the government is doing it. They're not, incidentally, most those sorts of things are sold to the cartels from the Mexican army (yay for corruption!). AKs and other soviet weaponry obviously is a lot easier to find on black markets, and that's not smuggled from the US either.
When you're making the kind of money the cartels were, you're not going out and buying semi-autos or hunting rifles, you're buying military hardware. And you don't buy that sort of thing in the US.
Other than that, though, yep. Clearly has something to do with the violence that's been going on down there, whether or not it works I think depends on how splintered the cartels actually are. Honestly would not be surprised if only certain cartels were targetted -- it's happened before, but I believe that involved police and not the mexican miltary.
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You can certainly make those statements without being racist, but you do need to back it up. Example of such statements that arn't racist:
Beliefs as well as cultural factors may affect utilization of drug abuse treatment. Significant differences in rates of treatment entry have been documented among African Americans and Latinos compared to Whites in the United States (Lundgren et al., 2001; Shah et al., 2000). In a study of ethnic minorities in Los Angeles, Latino drug users were less likely than Anglo or
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Insightful)
A race is where people see it and racial divisions are certainly not a universal concept. Closer to a social construct if you ask me.
So we need to accept all of that "it means whatever you think it means" bullshit, merely because words like "race" and "ethnicity" and "nationality" and "religion" and the differences among them are too hard? Really?? How about we instead decide that if someone doesn't have a working understanding of what those terms mean, then perhaps that person is not qualified to speak about them. That's so much better than lowering the standards and this is one area that has a particularly low signal-to-noise ratio.
It's time for SANE drug laws. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Insightful)
Puritanical moralists and Bible Thumpers ensure that the current punitive drug laws will be kept on the books. They regard it as a moral obligation to implement punitive social control systems without regard to actual outcomes.
Any pleasure not got from grovelling before their imaginary celestial friend is sinful, and must be fought no matter the cost. (Externalizing the "costs" of being "righteous" is easy, ask the Taliban.) Damage mitigation isn't even on the table.
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So we can name a million reasons why it shouldn't be illegal, but until it is actually
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. Why can't we be more like Mexico in every way?
No way! That would require bringing our prison population levels down from 4% to something negligible. This is the USA. We can't have those levels of freedom here! What do you think this is, some kind of democracy?
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt Mexico achieves this admirable statistic by ensuring they house their criminals *outside* of prisons. These upstanding citizens use the freedom you've described to shoot police execution style, sometimes going north of the border for variety.
What a country!
I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of our American prison population would not go around executing police after being released from prison.
I know you were going for funny, but the foundation of your joke is not only false, but bolsters the notion that keeping 1 in 25 Americans in prison is a *good* thing.
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Informative)
bolsters the notion that keeping 1 in 25 Americans in prison
That's 1 in 100 adults [washingtonpost.com], or about 1 in 130 Americans. Not that this is a good number, but it's not nearly so high as 1 in 25.
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that the point ? if less activities are criminal , you should end up with less criminals
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What exactly still makes a pot user a criminal if using pot is not a crime? Your sarcasm got in the way of your logic.
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I'd like to know why, exactly, using ("possessingh" for he pedants) pot is a crime. Potheads aren't violent or dangerous like niccotine addicts are when deprived of their drug, nor like alcoholics often are when under the influence of theirs. You can die from alcohol withdrawal, you can die from an alcohol overdose, but not marijuana. Tobacco kills almost all of its users, pot never killed anyone.
We know why alcohol is legal -- they tried prohobition and it was a dismal failure. Seems that all prohibitions
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A person commits X act. He is determined to be "criminal" or "not criminal" based on Government definitions. Being "criminal" or "not criminal" affects what you can do, such as getting a decent-paying job.
Is this really such a difficult thing to understand?
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't propose your straw man, you did.
What you said was:
"These upstanding citizens use the freedom you've described to shoot police execution style, sometimes going north of the border for variety."
In response to the notion that we should lower our incarceration rate. While, technically you didn't say that that is what would happen, the implication is clear. This is the standard Bushian bullshit tactic, like saying "Iraq" and "9/11" in the same sentence, but being careful not to state that they are actually related.
And here you do it again:
Shooting police is a bad career move if you reside in a nation of laws. No doubt they'd stick to easier prey and send the crime rates back up to the days when the criminal justice system didn't understand recidivism and that career criminals commit most crime. In Mexico, they send the Army to quell violence.
Are you saying that the bulk of our prison population is notably violent? If not, then why do you keep bringing up the parallel of violence to the level where the military is needed?
If you're *not* saying that releasing a significant percentage of our prison population is going to result in the need for calling in the army to deal with them, and you don't want people to think that's what you're saying, then quit bringing it up.
You're trying to scare people into supporting tossing people in jail who don't belong there. Attitudes like yours is responsible for ruining the lives of otherwise innocent people. How can you live with yourself?
I concur that having that rate of incarceration is not optimal. Any sane person desires less criminal activity.
You're begging the question. You're assuming that everyone in prison actually belongs there.
The point being made here is that the laws themselves are flawed, and that there are a *lot* of people in prison right now who don't belong there. How can you support such an atrocity? It's unconscionable.
What's your suggestion for lowering it without having them commit new crimes?
Three things:
1. Education
2. Reduce poverty
3. Repeal all laws which send people to jail without a reasonable amount of harm to an innocent third party
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*Finally* a *sane* person. Thank you for using proper logic. It's a rare sight nowadays, but it's nice to see.
I second your statements.
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BS.
People drink and drive, an act of poor judgment caused by a legal addictive substance coupled with poor judgment. Until booze is illegal, the whole war on drugs is hypocritical.
Many people exceed the speed limit just for the thrill of going fast, an act of poo
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Irregardless of whatever view we might have on the future legal status of drugs. We have to conceed that it is currently illegal. Per accepted legal standards, people who break a law that dictates a prison sentence do belong there. Yes, people who break laws should be punished.
And now we don't. Those people should be freed.
What's more, many of us didn't believe they should be in jail back when all this started. Just because a majority of my fellow Americans believed that something was wrong, that does not make it wrong, it just makes it (if laws were passed) illegal.
It is legal to put these people in jail, and in some fucked up states, it's even mandatory (mandatory sentences and three strikes laws are also horrendous atrocities). But it's still wrong. It's still evil to ruin a p
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Insightful)
What's your suggestion for lowering it without having them commit new crimes?
ooh, ooh! I got this one.
How about we QUIT MAKING THEM CRIMINALS in the first place, by repealing BULLSHIT LAWS like the ones that send people to prison over growing/smoking/selling a FUCKING PLANT?
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He didn't say we should repeal laws about driving while intoxicated.
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Many people that favor decriminalization and even legalization do not use them, they just find that the current "war" on drugs is a waste of money and resources that does more to increase criminal activity than decrease it. I noticed you didn't mention the open bottle of alcohol that was found in her car. Why is it people are so much more tolerant of far more addictive and destructive substances simply because the government gave up on a similar "war" years ago?
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if the laws are just and reasonable. For example, during the Prohibition, quite a few presumably sane people desired more criminal activity, as that helped drive down the price of alcohol. Similarly, a sane person might desire more abandonware sites, since they help preserve the history of our digital culture by breaking copyright and distributing otherwise unavailable material. And finally, to stop beating around the bush, I'd imagine that most sane people would be rooting for the horrible criminals who hid Jews in their homes in Nazi Germany.
Not to mention the rather famous British traitor George Washington, who's legacy of violent crime - indeed, even shooting at British officials - still casts its shadow on modern world.
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:5, Insightful)
50% of the prison population is there for non-violent offenses. Start there. If you believe that being in prison has turned them violent, that's all the more reason to keep as many non-violent offenders as possible out of prison and to reform the prison system immediately before we make matters even worse. If you don't believe that then it's highly unlikely that they'll suddenly take up shooting cops.
As for avoiding having them commit new crimes, perhaps some of the 'crimes' being committed shouldn't be crimes at all. Beyond that, balance the economy so people don't feel (somewhat justifiably) that they're stuck as a permanent underclass and they'll probably commit less crime.
That includes allowing the punishment to be over when the sentence is served. If it carries a permanent stigma and makes them a permanent member of the underclass, there WILL be recidivism.
The more society threatens your ability to have a nice living, the more rational going to war against that society becomes.
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Yes doubt. Doubt yourself.
US prison statistics show a systematic problem in the US. On average they have about 5x as much prisoners per capita than most other 'normal' places.
E.g. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita [nationmaster.com] (I didn't verify their source).
And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:3, Insightful)
Prohibition II may soon be over.
Re:And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:5, Insightful)
Canada already turns a blind eye to small time Pot. (Check out the documentary The Union [theunionmovie.com])
USA has the highest rate of incarcerated people per capita of any country other than possibly China. (who doesn't release stats like that)
I can come home and destroy my liver after a long day at work, but I can't sit down and enjoy some THC?
Re:And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:5, Interesting)
Except our new government (Conservatives) have lost their minds and are pushing mandatory minimum sentences.
The Union discusses the extradition of Marc Emory. At this point and time Marc is going to jail. Further failings of Canadian sovereignty and our failtard government.
We need to take charge as people and raise this issue. It's broader than simply people getting to ingest their drugs. It's about the corrupted War On Drugs mentality that fuels the legal monster which eats hard working and law abiding citizens in the name of meeting a quota.
Re:And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point and time Marc is going to jail.
This is rather absurd, isn't it? The world economy is in the shitter, the US debt out of control, violent crime rises as does unemployment... yet these moronic, relentless conservatives in the Justice Dept. somehow believe they deserve a pat on the back for spending ?millions battling Canada for extradition of a single man that sold... seed. And our taxes will be paying to board him for a few years.
I'd like to ask these idiots: "in what way has the pursuit of prosecution of Marc Emory NOT hurt America?"
Re:And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:4, Insightful)
The majority of the Republican base are anti-authoritarian. The leadership of the party is authoritarian, though, and the voters typically go along with it when faced with the choice of that or an out-and-out socialist.
Wake up!
The majority of the Republican base are pro-authority. The Democratic Party leadership is so far from socialist to suggest otherwise is nothing but a declaration of your complete ignorance of political terminology and actual Democratic policies.
NEITHER wing of the single, informal, unified Party that runs the United States cares a tithe for your values or your vote.
Congress has a 10% approval rate and a 90% re-election rate of incumbents. That tells you how little they care for votes or values.
Both wings of the Party are dedicated to increasing their own power, and nothing but. They use slightly different tactics to do it--the Republicans pushing the "America the terrified" button and the Democrats pushing the "America the poor and stupid" button, but in both cases the Party is trying to sell you protection from phony threats, while taking your freedom left and right.
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It failed because we the people threw a royal hissy fit.
You could call it a manifestation of popular sovereignty bucking big gov off it's back. You could use it as proof of how well we have been taken hostage by alcohol's addiction.
The party hardies in us all will never listen to proof of how bad booze is, so it obviously has to be the former.
We the people want our booze and we ultimately don't give a shit what it does to anyone but Number One.
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We the people want our booze and we ultimately don't give a shit what it does to anyone but Number One.
But it only affects number one directly. Alcohol is not itself responsible for people's actions who are under the influence. If it were, you'd have to find murderers innocent because they were drunk at the time and could not control themselves. You'd have to find repeat offenders innocent because alcohol, according to the mindless 12 steppers, makes people "powerless" (without god) to avoid taking another drink. It's just good sense to hold individuals responsible for their actions and to ignore what *m
Re:And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:5, Insightful)
That is all
Re:And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:4, Insightful)
It always bugs me when people use this argument, I would be all for banning alcohol as well, it does far more damage then other drugs, but unfortunately they tried at already and it didn't work
There's nothing wrong with the argument AFAICT. They ended Prohibition because it didn't work -- too many people drank anyway, all making it illegal did was drive everything underground and encourage crime -- and they should lift "Prohibition on Marijuana" for the exact same reasons.
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My point is that if you legalize cannabis, what prevents the situation from becoming as bad as it was in Sweden in the mid 19th century? Instead of alcoholics you'll have a large segment of the population being high on pot all the time.
The difference is that THC doesn't make you violent. It turns you into a carpenter [youtube.com].
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I'd agree with you if it wasn't for one thing. alcohol has been shown to be beneficial for people post heart attack in reasonable quantities. Cannabis also is useful for pain control for MS sufferers.
Thats not to say there are no negative effects if you over use either of these substances.
Lets look at a bigger problem heart disease
http://www.cdc.gov/heartDisease/statistics.htm [cdc.gov]
In 2005 Heart Disease was responsible for 27.1% of all American deaths.
In 2009, heart disease is projected to cost more than $304.6
we need to end drug prohibition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:4, Insightful)
Surprisingly, the man survived
Not surprising at all - no one has ever died of an overdose of LSD. Not to mention the link between LSD use and long-term psychosis is tenuous, at best. I would take that physics teacher's story with a big grain of salt.
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly, though there are no documented cases of it actually occurring, LSD can kill... the same way water can kill. You can drown in it.
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to nitpick, but the cutting accuracy issue is with drugs that have a close effective and lethal dose. LSD's high potency has little to do with it.
Actually, at least in the case of MDMA, the adulterants are, in fact, the issue:
"Testing kits are needed because many pills sold on the illicit market as "ecstasy" are fake and do not actually contain MDMA. Fake pills often contain drugs more dangerous than MDMA, including dangerous drug combinations, or drugs that are especially dangerous when mixed with MDMA (as often happens if someone takes more than one pill in a night)." ----from http://www.dancesafe.org/testingkits/ [dancesafe.org]
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:5, Insightful)
The nanny state stuff is getting to be real nonsense. A state the values it citizens and attempts to preserve their lives is not nor ever was a nanny state. If fact the whole nanny state nonsense came about as a result of limits placed upon private interests and their ability to exploit the citizens of a nation.
Prison for drug users is not a nanny state solution, how could anyone consider the idea that preventing someone from using drug by imprisoning them for thirty years or more in harsh, violent and dehumanising institutions is what a nanny would recommend.
Destroying drug users was blatant knee jerk politics, peoples lives were destroyed so hard on crime arse holes could get elected. The war on drugs straight from hollywood movie scripts to real life, a fantasy becomes a real life nightmare, brought to you by what was nothing but a shallow self serving actor, who acted the part and used the best PR techniques and mass media to created an illusion that did not preserve the lives of millions of people but destroyed them and in the process sent billions of dollars up in smoke.
Not only was this not bad enough but, via threats of economic and military punishments this stupidity was forced on other countries, literally billions of peoples lives affected, so that some of the most worthless scum on the planet could empower and enrich themselves. Instead of throwing drug users in prison, they should have been throwing corrupt politicians and corporate executives in prison, what a different world in would be now if the last thirty years had not be blown on greed and stupidity.
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:4, Insightful)
Now now, let's not blow things out of proportion. The Mexican drug gangs aren't terrorists, they're organised criminals. Organised criminals will kill thousands of people for money and power and for getting in their way. Terrorists will kill dozens of people to make a political point. So you see we don't have to be afraid of the Mexican drug gangs because they have perfectly rational, evil, criminal reasons for what they do. Hooray!
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:5, Insightful)
You already do. Drugs, both legal and illegal are everywhere. From the wild cocaine parties of the rich and famous to the rampant use of pretty damned near everything by the 'middle class' and of course, the 'druggies'. If you think your neighbors aren't partaking of something you are either deluding yourself or living out with the sheep.
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If I don't know they're doing drugs, then everything is just peachy. Or if I do know and it doesn't affect me.
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The concept underlying "gaydar" applies much more broadly than to just gay people. Humans naturally broadcast extremely subtle, ambiguous social signals indicating their membership in whichever subculture(s) they belong to, often through the use of word choice or references to common subcultural touchstones. Because each signal is ambiguous, they individually mean nothing and are normally tuned out as noise by non-members. However, a person who shares membership in one or more subcultures will spot the a
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ironically i had a drug test at work today and it came up positive for opiates, good thing i told them about the cold and flu medication i'd been taking (swine flu i'm sure of it)
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You know what they called hemp clothing in the old days? Sackcloth. As in sackcloth and ashes. Yes, you can get decent clothing out of it, but try cotton of the same fibre quality level as those trendy hemp clothes (for instance fair trade organic cotton, it's usually ridiculously high fibre quality) and tell me there would be competition.
Hemp fibre would NOT kill cotton, any more than bloody terylene did. Lots of things you can blame cotton farmers for, banning cannabis isn't one of them.
Gangs are the root. Legalization is the pesticide (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the drug trade is legalized, the gangs and drug cartels will always hold a monopoly on its sale. Decriminalizing minor possession does nothing but keep users on the street where they can continue to fund the gangs.
Mexico is in the middle of a huge drug war. The fighting is real and assassinations and kidnapping are frequent occurrences. This step seems to be a way of curbing the violence by letting users stay out of the prisons.
You aren't ever going to win the battle against weeds by cutting the leaves off. You need to pull the plant out by the root.
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The problem will likely be that they won't legalize the sale. If they only allow enough for personal use, the traditional dealers are out, and if they don't let people get licenses to sell or let doctors prescribe it (what doctor would prescribe meth? coke maybe.. but meth?) then the point of allowing possesion is sort of like DVDs and DECSS. "Sure, you can make backup copies! But no, sorry, you can't sell the software that can make them."
Re:Gangs are the root. Legalization is the pestici (Score:5, Interesting)
For another interesting datapoint, MDMA (aka ecstasy) is FDA approved for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Both were easily obtained, legally.
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I don't know why I bother replying, but...
First, "Drug cartels" is not a monopoly. There are more than one.
Second, look at the tobacco industry. Tobacco has always been legal, but people who profit from human suffering at that scale have always been, and will always be, scum. Sure, legal drug cartels might finance fewer gangs, but they'd finance more lobbyists instead.
Re:Gangs are the root. Legalization is the pestici (Score:4, Insightful)
Decriminalisation is no substitute for legalisation. In fact, in my view, it is actually worse than putting resources into enforcing the law, both from the perspective of society and from the perspective of drug law reform.
Instead of creating a legal industry of suppliers, decriminalisation keeps all supply in the black market. For gangsters, decriminalisation is a license to grow money, because users won't be harassed by the police. All of the problems of the black market continue to exist and get worse. This means more crime.
In turn, this means that prohibitionists* can point to "failed decriminalisation experiments" as evidence that drugs should not be legalised. I have heard Alaska, the Netherlands and Portugal used in exactly this way; if the drugs had been fully legalised, the prohibitionists might not be able to point to increases of certain social problems, objections of local people, etc. Far from being a stepping stone towards legalisation, decriminalisation is a step backwards.
* I am not one of these people.
Next slashdot article: (Score:2, Funny)
How to build and support a R.A.I.D. (redundant array of independent (drug) dealers).
Now dealers will have backups and if one gets taken down, don't worry! There's another one that can be brought 'online' to do his workload. And it's all legal since they each only deal in small amounts!
Just remember: RAID != BACKUP!!
40mg of methampetamine? (Score:2, Informative)
Portugal has been doing this... (Score:5, Informative)
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He might not have, but it's implied. Are you saying the courts can make this distinction?
Firstly, it's not up to courts. Since possession of drugs for personal use was decriminalised, the courts are no longer prosecuting people for this crime. Instead, people with large quantities for personal possession go to a "dissuasion commission panel" rather than court. They can rely on medical evidence and amount of drugs on person to decide appropriate response (possibly a fine, possibly an offer of treatment). Treatment is not mandatory.
The treatment option is an alternative to a fine for possession o
legalization (Score:3, Informative)
Legalization is necessary; our society simply can't keep paying for prosecuting and incarcerating non-violent drug users, or the criminal activity resulting from the drug trade. However, full legalization is going to be tough: both drug dealers and drug enforcement agencies (including the UN) have a strong financial interest in keeping drugs illegal. And the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs [wikipedia.org] makes it hard for any single nation to change the status quo. That's one of the reasons why it's been hard for any nation to legalize drugs.
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there's enough problems with legal drugs like alcohol
Prohibition didn't work for alcohol and it clearly isn't working for drugs.
why do you people keep insisting the answer is MORE drugs?!?!
You must have "rocks in your head" if you think that making drugs illegal stops people from using them.
Legalization would reduce the price of drugs and reduce crime. It would allow maintenance and treatment. And it would probably not increase drug usage any more; anybody who wants to use drugs is already using.
The war on drugs is over... (Score:5, Insightful)
The war on drugs is over. Everybody lost.
Re:The war on drugs is over... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Pfizer, the CIA, and others won the drug war. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the early part of the 20th Century, you could not corner the market for pain relief. People had access to opiates and cannabis and coca products, which were cheap, natural, and if you weren't an addict, perfectly effective.
Since the prohibition of these drugs, there has been a network of businesses that have profited immensely. Pharmaceuticals, who effectively eliminated competition, profited early on. They get to sell pain relief with products which are still derived from the same natural source, but have the benefits of being riddled with horrible side effects and hundreds of times more expensive for the consumer.
Then the CIA discovered a fantastic way to fund their unconstitutional undercover operations. They could use the US military to transport the drugs they bought for peanuts in Columbia to fund all kinds of insane bullshit around the world, and they wouldn't have to consult any committee because they didn't need their money.
Now, private prisons are all over the country, and all of the sudden we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the known world. (We also have the highest per capita health care cost in the world. Get the picture?) Prison guard unions, manufacturers of certain products, and I'll bet even commercial building lobbyists make damn sure the politicians deliver on promises to "clean up the streets," which is code for throw undesirably poor people in jail. Of course, we do need somewhere to throw our mentally ill citizens, why not mix in the schizophrenics with non-violent drug offenders and murderers and rapists and white collar criminals and see what happens?
So, the winners in the drug war are huge corporations that make a profit when someone is punished, when someone needs pain relief, and also the unconstitutional CIA.
As Plato said, "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
Already been tried in Portugal (Score:3, Interesting)
Total decriminalization of drugs has been tried in Portugal since 2001, and by all accounts has been a raging success by just about any metric you care to use. I'm happy to see other countries jumping on board the clue train, not that I expect to see something similar in the US for the foreseeable future.
For more on the Portuguese experience, see: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/14/portugal/ [salon.com]
An opinion from mexico (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, all of yours like to legalize drugs. You see this law with the light of US law enforcement, where things are always "perfect". I live in Mexico, and this will be just another excuse for cops avoid to do their work and let people sell drugs on streets, as it happens now. This only will encourage drug groups for sell more and more drugs always under the "dangerous size" and with time to not fear cops or any law enforcement groups . Like happens in Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and the rest of the country.
It's easy for you say "bring me the drugs", you don't fear everyday to end in middle of a gun shooting for drug wars. Or a stoned dude does a silly thing like jump in the subway or harm you for money for get the "personal share" of drugs. You live so far of those troubles and of course is easy to say that, so you need drugs to "spark" your mediocre lifes. Bunch of hypocrites.
I'll surprised if this won't be cut off of the site. :P
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I live in Mexico, and this will be just another excuse for cops avoid to do their work and let people sell drugs on streets, as it happens now.
You are right. Get the drug sellers off the streets and put them behind counters. Make the cops do their jobs enforcing regulations, not prohibitions. This is the road to drug peace.
It's easy for you say "bring me the drugs", you don't fear everyday to end in middle of a gun shooting for drug wars.
When have you feared being shot by alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine ca
Re:An opinion from mexico (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at America - during prohibition organized crime in the form of the Mafia became rampant. It was a bad time. The solution? Legalize alcohol. This, of course, didn't make the Mafia go away, but stealing their most lucrative trade and giving it to the business world was the first step. Things are worse in Mexico, of course, but the first step remains the same.
Ineffective dose of LSD (Score:3, Informative)
AP piece says 0.015 mg of LSD, or 15 ug, a ineffective dose of LSD. 60-100 ug is common for street doses. Perhaps the AP misread the law and its 150 ug, a more realistic number compared to the other amounts.
Legalize THC/marijuana and psylocibin/mushrooms (Score:4, Interesting)
Both THC and psylocibin are known to NOT cause addiction. Also, users of these drugs do NOT show aggressive behavior (unlike with other drugs, especially alcohol (yep, that's right, that's one of the worst)). In light of this, I think it's high time to completely legalize the production, sale and consumption of these drugs. If that happened, I would expect that the consumption of the "harder" drugs would decrease as well, for two reasons:
1) Some people won't need the harder drugs, if they can access these other two aplenty.
2) By legalizing these drugs, of which marijuana is a very popular one, we reduce the contact between users and illegal dealers, who have a vested interest in encouraging the use of harder drugs such as cocaine, heroine etc.
I was quite depressed a couple of years ago, and the psychiatrist wanted to prescribe me an anti-depressant. Instead of using the prescription, I decided to educate myself on anti-depressants, and what I found was, well, depressing: not a single anti-depressant on sale is safe to use. They all have side effects that are either nasty or very nasty. But psylocibin and THC are both excellent anti-depressants (practically the most effective ones), and have NO side effects. This is when I started to become a supporter of legalization of these drugs.
Prohibition parallels (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's something that amazes me about the war on drugs. The USA learnt the hard way that prohibition couldn't work. Yet even after learning their lesson they still tried the same fucking thing over again. It's been a continuous failure for decades, but it's still going on. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", but everyone remembers the prohibition. Everyone knows who Al Capone is, and everyone knows who Manuel Noriega or Pablo Escobar are, yet we fail to draw the parallels.
Well the problem is that in order to do the necessary changes you need the public opinion to back you strongly, and an administration with the political capital to make that happen. So it's no wonder it didn't happen before when political campaigns made the war on drug seem like a desirable thing, but for all we know the American public opinion may be soon ready for that to happen.
Re:News for nerds? (Score:5, Informative)
As a fellow nerd I have to tell you that some critical parts of our computer technology these days was built with the help of these 'drugs', or more clearly psychedelics and more precisely LSD. See: http://open.salon.com/blog/hal_m/2009/07/09/lsd_inventor_hofmanns_letter_to_steve_jobs [salon.com] and http://heroux.blogspot.com/2006/03/this-is-your-computer-on-lsd.html [blogspot.com] for a couple of good starting points for you too look at.
What I hear from it's a great way to boost you way of analytic, mathematical and engineering way of thinking. Now, I'm not saying we should promote use of any of these substances, but I'm saying we should aknowledge them and use them in a controlled way for the benefit of human kind. Psychedelics can unlock huge potentials in human beings, why are we denying this still ? The native people of different regions of the world have known this for centuries. Too bad we are still being led by medical companies and other huge colloborations of humans who like their materialistic ways of lifes too much to really let the human race take off.
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Re:Oh yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
I usually roll with the slashdot crowd on liberty issues but not here. There's a reason medicine is locked up in pharmacies behind a prescription. People are stupid; very stupid.
Generally speaking, I agree with you -- heroine is a much more dangerous drug than, say, marijuana, and it should be kept out of peoples' hands to the extent possible.
The tough question, however, is how do we go about doing that? The current method -- making heroine illegal to sell or possess -- had had limited success, to put it diplomatically. Heroine junkies can still get heroine whenever they want it and can pay for it; their only problem is raising the cash to pay for their addiction, which is often done through petty crime.
So making heroine illegal has made heroin expensive, and thereby encourages heroine junkies to become criminal heroine junkies. Not exactly the result we wanted. (It may have kept some unknown other number of people from trying heroine in the first place -- but it's impossible to know how many. Personally I would imagine that heroine's reputation is a more effective deterrent than law enforcement in that regard, but that's just a guess)
I don't have a solution to the problem; I wish I did.
Re:Oh yeah, right (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that Switzerland has heroin injection sites. People with existing addictions can buy a dose of heroin at a reduced price and have it injected by a nurse. The clinics sell heroin on a sliding scale to eliminate the need to steal to pay for drugs. Because getting drugs from the government is cheaper and safer than on the street, drug dealers don't sell heroin.
In this situation, heroin is easier for addicts to get, but harder for new users to get. Because heroin users don't have to hide from the government, they are less afraid to seek treatment. The injection centers even offer referrals to treatment programs. I believe that overall heroin use is down since the program started.
If people were less uptight about drugs, we could do the same thing here. Unfortunately, a program to give free heroin to addicts wouldn't pass here. It doesn't matter that keeping addicts from robbing citizens to pay for their addictions is better for everyone.
Re:Oh yeah, right (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Oh yeah, right (Score:4, Funny)
I was going to point out a spelling error in multiple posts in this thread, but instead I'm going to choose to consider it spelled correctly, and read the entire thread as if it were talking about a female hero.
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This will increase demand, while not allowing legal supply to increase. It WILL be filled by gangs.
Probably... BUT...
It will reduce the number of cases police and the courts have to deal with, reduce the load on the jails, and reduce the corruption among the police (when it is no longer a crime to posses a small personal quantity, drug user can't be blackmailed by a corrupt police officer when it is found on him/her).
In short... this will create a better police force and also provide better crime statistics.
It is a small step, but a step in the right direction.
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The legality of something never prevents people from partaking in it.
Honestly, if the reason you avoid doing something is because it's forbidden / you don't want to be caught, you've got some maturing to do.
I'd love to link to the Wikipedia article, but essentially, children display a few levels of maturity:
#1 - They don't do something because they'll be punished
#2 - They don't do something because they're told they shouldn't
#3 - They don't do something because they believe it is wrong.
Honestly, without bei