Will it ever be legal?

Question

What are your thoughts on legalizing drugs? The war on drugs seems to be a pointless waste of money that can not be won. check out this discussion here for more info - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArM7vsg_knGy225Y.wWiDF3sy6IX?qid=20070721035209AAh9ofr

So, my question is, are you for or against the legalization of various drugs and why and why not? Are they really any worse than tobacco or alcohol? It seems to work fine in the Netherlands. Is there a chance of this ever happening? (I personally doubt it, I think the country is too conservative for it to happen)

caution: the truth may hurt- you say that drugs may be illegal if suicide is illegal, but it really makes no sense to make suicide illegal, how are you going to punish someone for committing suicide? And just because you use drugs does not mean you will die. Take a look at all the legal drugs you can get from the pharmacist, these rarely kill if take as directed.

Answer 1

I think the goal should be to minimize the harm. We should think of drug use and addiction as a public health problem, not a police problem.

The problem is that it's become a political football. No candidate wants to suggest backing off on drug laws because he'll immediately be jumped on by his opponents as 'soft on drugs'. Consequently every candidate tries to outdo the others on tough-on-drugs and we never hear a discussion of more rational, more enlightened alternatives.

I have another thought about the War on Drugs. I think from the beginning one of the real (but hidden) reasons for the War on Drugs was to give the government more control over our lives, to wear away at our privacy and constitutional protections. Before the War on Drugs, police couldn't knock down a door! They couldn't stop a person on the street and ask for ID without some good reason.

And these subtle changes in our relationship with our government have led, inexorably, to a president who declares himself able to snoop without warrants, 'disappear' people into foreign prisons, and suspend habeas corpus. And who has written an executive order allowing him to take over the entire government in case of an 'emergency'--which he himself declares! None of this would have been possible without the War on Drugs being declared 35 years ago.

Answer 2

Alcohol is a different story. I think alcohol is acceptable in moderation, but I am against drug use (tobacco included). I am tired of seeing people get hooked on drugs then turn to stealing to feed the habit. If suicide is illegal, so should be drug use. You are still killing yourself, just not as quickly.

The drugs given out by pharmacists are designed specifically to help you heal from whatever ailment you have. Drugs of the illegal kind are taken for pleasure. You see the difference? Also, the high you get off drugs is usually the side-effect of them harming you, not helping you.

I will say that I do support MEDICINAL marijuana use, but I also believe that with legalizing that, should come harsher penalties if the prescriptions are abused.

There is no productive reason to do drugs. It is either a way to escape your problems (or make you feel like you are), to try to fit in, just because you have nothing else to do, or to feed the need that you created while occupying one of the other reasons.

Also, drugs don't make you happy, they only increase the mood you are already in. I'm a psych major, don't BS me with that old lie.

As a caveat to above, even if it still occurs, making it illegal does reduce it at least.

Answer 3

The War on Drugs is failure for several reasons. The thing is we can win a war on a particular drug cartel but another will rise in its place. Still it would be nice to say we have crushed several drug cartels but still this gets no where. So what are the alternitives. For all intents in purposes we as a nation have 2:
option A- Make all drugs legal and zone it away from the cities. This has obvious failures.
option B- Think of the drug trade as a business. Supply and demand if you will. For the past 30 years we have tried to eliminate the supply. This is not ever going to happen. So you have to make any drug crime a capital offense. If you exacute the demand the supply will go away.

Answer 4

I think that perhaps we should legalize all but the worst drugs, they can then be taxed and regulated, much like alcohol and tobacco are. Some of this tax money could then be funneled into social programs that need relief, like health care!

Answer 5

I think we have better things to spend our time and money on than stopping people from hurting themselves.

Sadly, we live in a society with an ever increasing desire to protect us from ourselves, and to cut down on our ability to choose how we want to live our lives.

So, I doubt it -- largely because if we ever start trying to fix the problems with the country, and repair the damage to our civil liberties, legalizing drugs will be very low on the priority list.

Answer 6

Well, just because we can't enforce it properly doesn't mean we should legalize it. We can keep it illegal, that way we are not sanctioning it, and cut back on the enforcement in order to save money.

Answer 7

I doubt it considering how they are cracking down on tobacco and alcohol. Who knows though it wasn't really that long ago that marijuana was in candy and that cocaine was used as a local anesthetic.

Answer 8

Against. We don't need any more legal vices. Anything that can be done to deter their use is a good idea.