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Drug Legalization

A forum for discussion of regional topics including oil depletion but also government, society, and the future.

Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby Sixstrings » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 04:26:38

SeaGypsy wrote:Dumb argument. The war on drugs is a fraud, a sham, of no merit. All drugs should be treated as medical issues. Your war just keeps the profits flowing.


Well I won't argue about it, but there's 30,000 people at a Sanders rally saying to "end the war on drugs" and then there's the reality that meth is a scourge and horror.

I have a dental assistant friend.. she tells me about 22 year old kids that come in, all their teeth rotted out, and they look 50 years old. It destroys lives.

It's more of a problem in parts of the South, and the midwest.

Still Breaking Bad: Meth Lab Injuries on the Rise, CDC Reports
http://www.livescience.com/52005-meth-lab-injuries-rising.html




Two arrested in Tulsa after million-dollar meth bust

Police arrested Felipe Sanchez and Veridzanna Carranco-Hernandez Wednesday.
http://www.fox23.com/news/news/local/two-arrested-tulsa-after-million-dollar-meth-bust/nnRgW/


Users shouldn't go to prison, just using drugs doesn't get a prison term -- but dealers? Yes, there needs to be a war on that, no?
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 04:31:40

SeaGypsy wrote:Dumb argument. The war on drugs is a fraud, a sham, of no merit. All drugs should be treated as medical issues. Your war just keeps the profits flowing.
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Magnificently said Sea. Six you really should investigate the War on Drugs and what a corrupt brew that has been. What is worse it has just made the drug problems a thousand times worse. Do you think drug addicts get rehabilitated in jail? They come out less equipped both to deal with life and thus their drug problem. In fact it is the drug problem probably more than anything that has shown me how corrupt our government is. Not that any other governments are less. Frankly I must confess I sort of troll these political topics with mild amused curiosity to see what novel buffoonery the politicians can come up with. As Sea stated this problem could have been dealt with years ago by making drugs legal in a limited way meaning controlling the availability and treating addiction as precisely what it is a health problem. At least Mr. Sanders says the right things.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby Sixstrings » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 05:19:28

Apparently it's a problem in rural Australia, too:

The Breaking Bad Meth Epidemic Crippling Rural Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIh3VCVE8lY


I'm sorry if I'm not cool -- but yes, there needs to be more done about the hard drugs. The problem's gotten worse over the last 7 years.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 05:33:21

Yeah, also in South America I heard it has gotten real bad. Even in a rural province in the Philippines where my wife comes from it has now become a problem. Oh and you are cool in my book 6.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby Sixstrings » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 06:19:46

onlooker wrote:Yeah, also in South America I heard it has gotten real bad. Even in a rural province in the Philippines where my wife comes from it has now become a problem. Oh and you are cool in my book 6.


Thanks, onlooker 8) . I'm just being an archie bunker. Seeing changes happening and I don't like it, and I'm old enough to know that things used to be different. That affects a person, if they've stayed in one area for 20 years, and they literally see the changes with their own eyes. It's not theoretical at that point, it's local.

This meth is a big problem in my area. My dental assistant friend has been telling me about it for a couple years now, she knows what she's talking about, the number of patients is up. Parents bringing in a 20 year old that looks 40 or 50 and their teeth are black and rotted from the meth. It's unreal. So they extract, and can do dentures or, these days, they do implants now (much more expensive).

So then you've got a 20 year kid with false teeth but physically they are wrecked forever (assuming they even stay off the meth for good), it's freaky stuff, someone aged 20 years in a year.

And then, I read my local paper, and I just hear about this issue, and I see the poverty in my town and I see people that are "drug people" on the streets. And yeah I like Sanders but no, I don't like this drug problem either.

Now if somebody lives in Vermont or Oregon and everything is beautiful then I guess they don't think there's a meth or heroin problem in America, and the government could slack off going after dealers and drug runners.

It's the same about the border. People in Vermont and Washington State share a border with Canada, so what do they know about / or care about what's going on with the southern border.

Things aren't a problem with people, until it reaches THEIR town. Like illegal immigration, or meth.

Back to Bernie, I don't like that it sounds as if he'd probably have weaker drug enforcement, but otherwise it was a good speech. This part on min wage was good:

Bernie Sanders on THE MINIMUM WAGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOHeuMSnTmA

[in fairness, I suspect that reducing poverty and there being more jobs would naturally improve the drug problem, poverty and crack / meth go hand in hand. Regardless though, government must always fight these hard drugs, or it would get as bad as the opium dens in old China and can shut a whole country down]

He was good on Wall st, and the banks:

Bernie Sanders on WALL STREET AND BANKS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLT_RYmlYKg
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 06:50:56

The so called war on drugs is all about control and not at all about helping the addicted. Take away the ban on recreational drugs and the street price of every one of them drops to pennies on the current dollar. Meth is so popular for one simple reason, a half competent chemistry student can make it with common chemicals. Make it legal and any big pharma company could turn it out for a dollar a day supply, at which point all the home cooks go out of business because they can not compete. For drugs like cocaine and opiates it becomes about the supply vs demand dynamic, but still guaranteed to be much cheaper and more consistent doses than what addicts get on the street.

Addicts that turn to robbery to get their next fix generally do so because they can not afford the street price. Drop the price to a very low level and that issue goes away.

Addicts who end up brain dead or OD themselves to death, well that is sad but suicide always is sad and very rarely for a noble cause. The truly addicted ones will either learn to control their demons, or die from them, just like the alcoholics. There would be an ugly period while the backlog did them selves in with over indulgence when things went cheap, but those folks are gonna die anyhow. You nor I can make someone give up any kind of addiction, they have to choose to fight against it and all we can do is support their fight, we can not do the fighting for them.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 06:58:11

Thanks for the elaborate iteration summation Tanada. 6 wants more war on drugs because he believes doing something isn't working follows do more of the same thing til it works. The WaD is an abysmal failure all grown ups can admit.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 07:13:55

SeaGypsy wrote:Thanks for the elaborate iteration summation Tanada. 6 wants more war on drugs because he believes doing something isn't working follows do more of the same thing til it works. The WaD is an abysmal failure all grown ups can admit.


It is my fundamental philosophy, adults are allowed to do with themselves what they wish unless it physically harms other persons. That includes free climbing mountains, skydiving or any other risky behavior where all participants are willing.
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To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP

Unread postby Cog » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 07:28:23

Tanada wrote:
SeaGypsy wrote:Thanks for the elaborate iteration summation Tanada. 6 wants more war on drugs because he believes doing something isn't working follows do more of the same thing til it works. The WaD is an abysmal failure all grown ups can admit.


It is my fundamental philosophy, adults are allowed to do with themselves what they wish unless it physically harms other persons. That includes free climbing mountains, skydiving or any other risky behavior where all participants are willing.


Amen Sir.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 07:57:10

Just in dry economics the WoD is enormously wasteful of taxpayers money. Creates a huge black market. Gives a motive to mules & addicts to go to extreme risk. King pins are almost never caught & are instantly replaced. At least legalized ice or coke or smack would be clean, quality controlled, cheap enough to lose any glam appeal, & addicts general health can be managed- recovery assisted as required & emergency assistance would all cost a miniscule fraction.

How the hell does 25 years at 1/4-1/2 a mil a year for what amounts to a petty drug mule help society recover from drugs?

How does alienating ice addicts as total pariahs help society or addicts?

The answer is obvious. End the WoD & start building a justice system more balanced in science than cultural bias & superstition.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP

Unread postby Sixstrings » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 17:27:31

Cog wrote:
Tanada wrote:
SeaGypsy wrote:Thanks for the elaborate iteration summation Tanada. 6 wants more war on drugs because he believes doing something isn't working follows do more of the same thing til it works. The WaD is an abysmal failure all grown ups can admit.


It is my fundamental philosophy, adults are allowed to do with themselves what they wish unless it physically harms other persons. That includes free climbing mountains, skydiving or any other risky behavior where all participants are willing.


Amen Sir.


I noticed in Tanada's post that Tanada specified "recreational" drugs.

So does that mean we are just talking about marijuana, not meth and heroin and crack etc.?

Meth is honestly the worst of them. The war on drugs isn't just marijuana, so if someone is "against the war on drugs" then change that to "the war on marijuana."

You cannot legalize or decriminalize meth / ice / crank or whatever it is, nor the crazy bath salts from China that convenience stores were selling for a while, etc.

If this stuff is legal then all that happens is that a lot people will use it. Just a few hits of meth and they get addicted to it. They can't stop even if they want to. It's a major source of crime, and it destroys lives.

(on liberty issues, there's a line where personal liberty intrudes on society's liberty. It's the "you can be free as long as it isn't taking away your neighbor's freedom" argument. If there are too many people running around on meth and crack and heroin, then it can get to a point where non drug addicts' liberty is affected -- safety walking the streets, safety from home invasion, ability to find employees to hire that aren't all crazy on drugs, and cost to taxypayers for care and rehabs and halfway houses.

Let's get real here folks, having one's town fill up with a bunch of halfway houses and something like meth running rampant, is not "freedom.")
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 21:42:02

Sixstrings wrote:I noticed in Tanada's post that Tanada specified "recreational" drugs.

So does that mean we are just talking about marijuana, not meth and heroin and crack etc.?

Meth is honestly the worst of them. The war on drugs isn't just marijuana, so if someone is "against the war on drugs" then change that to "the war on marijuana."

You cannot legalize or decriminalize meth / ice / crank or whatever it is, nor the crazy bath salts from China that convenience stores were selling for a while, etc.

If this stuff is legal then all that happens is that a lot people will use it. Just a few hits of meth and they get addicted to it. They can't stop even if they want to. It's a major source of crime, and it destroys lives.

(on liberty issues, there's a line where personal liberty intrudes on society's liberty. It's the "you can be free as long as it isn't taking away your neighbor's freedom" argument. If there are too many people running around on meth and crack and heroin, then it can get to a point where non drug addicts' liberty is affected -- safety walking the streets, safety from home invasion, ability to find employees to hire that aren't all crazy on drugs, and cost to taxypayers for care and rehabs and halfway houses.

Let's get real here folks, having one's town fill up with a bunch of halfway houses and something like meth running rampant, is not "freedom.")


In my world view there are only two types of drugs, medicinal and recreational. Medicinal drug use is already legal so no need to change that.

So a lot of people use cheap drugs. So why do you have a problem with consenting adults doing things that you yourself choose not to do? If recreational drugs are legal and you don't like them, don't use them. There is no way half your town would fill up with meth addicts. For one thing your community sounds like a total bore so people inclined to use would not be inclined to live in your neighborhood. Secondly the real hard core times die off in about 5 years so after the demographic bump passes you would hardly notice the difference.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Fri 28 Aug 2015, 21:53:48

One of the most visible differences would be a lot more available cash for authentic business, therefore more tax revenue, far less expenditure, a more cohesive & richer society much less inclined to create the kind of lives which lead to the desire to get all f'd up.
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby yeahbut » Sat 29 Aug 2015, 05:06:09

There's no need to speculate Six. 14 years ago, Portugal- a country with serious drug problems at the time, particularly heroin, decriminalised ALL drugs. For a country that was at the time engaged in a draconian 'war on drugs', it was a radical move, one that many predicted would result in disaster. However, the disaster never came. The anticipated massive increase in consumption did not eventuate. Instead, fatal overdoses dropped to a very low level. Money stopped being wasted on incarcerating people for using drugs and instead was used to help and treat those who needed help and treatment (crazy, right?). And the use of shit drugs like "bath salts" and synthetic highs is lower than anywhere else in the world where reliable studies are conducted, because, well why would you when you can get the real thing at pharmaceutical quality and reliability?

It's strange how little Portugal is ever mentioned in the MSM, I guess because it just doesn't fit the narrative. A real-time experiment in drug decriminalisation has been running for a decade and a half, with none of the anticipated disasters and plenty of positive outcomes, and no one talks about it.

no need to speculate
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Drug Legalization

Unread postby Ibon » Sat 29 Aug 2015, 08:08:59

Moved the discussion here from the Trump thread
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Re: Donald Trump winning primary, GOP "in turmoil"

Unread postby Ibon » Sat 29 Aug 2015, 08:29:26

yeahbut wrote:It's strange how little Portugal is ever mentioned in the MSM, I guess because it just doesn't fit the narrative. A real-time experiment in drug decriminalisation has been running for a decade and a half, with none of the anticipated disasters and plenty of positive outcomes, and no one talks about it.

no need to speculate



I think slowly we will get to where Portugal is. There are too many benefits to be ignored. Imagine if Mexico legalized the growing of heroin, mananged its legal distribution, the US legalized heroin, received the product legally from Mexico, distributed legally in the US. Imagine the tax revenue. (you could build that wall on the border to control immigration :) ) Imagine the prisons being emptied out of costly prisoners, imagine the care that could be given to addicts, imagine the reduction in gang violence on both sides of the border, imagine law enforcement freed up for more serious criminal activity, imagine going to a dispenser and legally buying just a little bit of heroin every once and awhile to take the ease off the insomnia.....

There is a little known fact around heroin. The vast majority of user are not hopeless addicts, but fully functional adults who don't end up in the gutter from their habit. I learned about this years ago when living in Switzerland and following the statistics when they legalized heroin, how many bankers and professionals were steady users for decades and managed this without ending up under a bridge.
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Re: Drug Legalization

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Sat 29 Aug 2015, 08:33:24

onlooker wrote:Yeah, also in South America I heard it has gotten real bad. Even in a rural province in the Philippines where my wife comes from it has now become a problem. Oh and you are cool in my book 6.

You must be a bit naive about the Philippines. Shabu (ice) has been very common & cheap there since the late 1980's.
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Re: Drug Legalization

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Sat 29 Aug 2015, 08:38:18

Portugal has some good statistics but the model is not one which would fly in societies resistant to big brother socialism. Registration of addicts, suspension & cancellation of licenses, travel restrictions, etc. Wiki has a good write up of it. Not where I want to go at all.
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Re: Drug Legalization

Unread postby Ibon » Sat 29 Aug 2015, 09:02:33

Recent article on tax revenue for Colorado and Washington.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/was ... ddcb45e65d


The first two states to legalize recreational marijuana have collectively raked in at least $200 million in marijuana tax revenue, according to the latest tax data -- and they're putting those dollars to good use.

In Colorado, after about a year and a half of legal recreational marijuana sales, the state has collected more than $117 million in excise taxes from both the recreational and medical marijuana markets, according to the most recent data from the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Washington state got a slower start. Its retail shops didn't begin selling recreational marijuana until July of last year, but they are keeping pace with Colorado's. About $83 million in excise taxes have already been collected in the year since sales first began, according to the most recent tax data from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board.
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Re: Drug Legalization

Unread postby onlooker » Sat 29 Aug 2015, 09:04:21

Sea what is Shabu (Ice)? No my wife did not tell me anything about that drug. I wonder though what percentage take and are addicted to this drug and if that has led to much crime in certain areas.
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