kgb18
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Post by kgb18 on Apr 22, 2013 21:50:24 GMT -5
There are certainly people who drink and make disastrous choices. There are people who are alcoholics. But there are a lot of people who can drink socially and occasionally and leave it at that. I know people that causally smoke pot and leave it at that.
Other drugs, like heroin, have a different effect on people. I don't know of any casual heroin users. We have a terrible problem with heroin in my area. It's a drug that grips people so fast. They start off using a little and within a few months they're using a lot, and then they go from snorting to shooting because they need it to work faster. Going by what a doctor from our local treatment center said, so many people go from first time users to complete addicts within six months. It's scary. I could never support legalizing it.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 22, 2013 22:24:54 GMT -5
Can you explain to me how that differs from drinking yourself into a stupor and getting behind the wheel of a car, Virgil? Can you explain how it differs from showing up at the hospital nearly dead from alcohol poisoning and not being able to pay your bill because you haven't worked in years because ... guess ... you're a drunk? As I've said to DJ, I omit alcohol because it can be consumed responsibility and in moderation. The same cannot be said for any of the drug classes I listed as "hard drugs" earlier in the thread. They have no use besides messing with people's brain chemistry, and they do an extremely good job of it. If I felt there was a reasonable way to ban convicted drunk drivers and self-destructive alcoholics from consuming alcohol, I'd support that too. And before DJ brings it up: Yes, I realize that opiates, etc. have legitimate medical uses. You'll also note that their use isn't prohibited in contexts where they can be safely used as medicines. And also before DJ brings it up: Marijuana is not among the "hard drug" classes I listed. Marijuana users are fools to use it without a medical reason to do so, but I don't oppose legalizing it for medicinal or recreational use. If people want to spend their God-given days getting stoned out of their minds, we might as well tax the industry that enables them.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Apr 22, 2013 22:27:26 GMT -5
Alcohol has no use, when imbibed, other than messing with people's brain chemistry, Virgil. It also does a very good job of it, and a good job of messing with every other organ system while it's at it. Sorry, but there's no difference between it and "hard drugs". They're all drugs.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 22, 2013 22:37:27 GMT -5
Alcohol has no use, when imbibed, other than messing with people's brain chemistry, Virgil. It also does a very good job of it, and a good job of messing with every other organ system while it's at it. Sorry, but there's no difference between it and "hard drugs". They're all drugs. Alcohol is a culinary staple. A good wine can complete a meal. A cold beer on a hot day can quench thirst better than any other beverage. Liqueurs can be sipped and savoured. The alcohol in coolers gives them a unique tang and allows them to be served at sub-zero temperatures without freezing. There's absolutely no rule that states you have to drink to the point of getting a 'buzz' off your drink in order to enjoy it. A glass or two of wine, a bottle of beer, a wine cooler--for most people, no perceptible change at all. If you're drinking to get the buzz, I agree you're using alcohol as a drug like any other.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Apr 22, 2013 22:38:44 GMT -5
Virgil, you come talk to me about how benign alcohol is after you've treated a few of its victims and tried to comfort those who loved them when treatment was not successful. Frankly, I don't want to hear it.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 22, 2013 22:39:56 GMT -5
Virgil, you come talk to me about how benign alcohol is after you've treated a few of its victims and tried to comfort those who loved them when treatment was not successful. Frankly, I don't want to hear it. I'm not saying it's benign. I'm saying that it can be consumed responsibly.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Apr 22, 2013 22:42:03 GMT -5
Marijuana can be used responsibly. So, to a degree, can cocaine, or morphine, or demerol, or any number of others. That doesn't mean they are used responsibly. There is no difference.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 22, 2013 22:48:22 GMT -5
In a crade-to-grave society where I inherit the costs of managing the adverse consequences of your risks? It's my business.. you are assuming a lot in that sentence, but it fails logically on at least two counts. the first is that smashing my head with a brick is perfectly legal, but also has cradle to grave consequences. smoking will in all likelihood kill me. it is perfectly legal too. but we don't prohibit people from doing those things. why? the second is that you would have a hard time finding ANY "hard drug" that compared to those two examples. the health/medical/harm argument to drug use is all wet when the two most dangerous commonly used drugs are legal.
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Post by mmhmm on Apr 22, 2013 22:52:16 GMT -5
In honesty, dj, having dealt with all this over many years, I'll take the opiate addict 9 times out of ten over the alcoholic. I've got a chance with the former. The latter is gonna die on me, and I know it.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 22, 2013 22:52:28 GMT -5
.....shooting yourself full of a toxic, addictive substance for a fleeting rush of euphoria, predictably eating away your mind and body--I draw the line there. forgive me for saying so, but that is totally arbitrary. there are a thousand behaviors that eat away at mind and body that are perfectly legal, and even encouraged.It's not acceptable, unless you want to sign a waiver granting hospitals the right to shoot you full of potassium chloride and your body in a mass grave rather than admit you if you can't afford treatment.. that is an interesting argument, but i am not sure how that works in a society that treats smoking with about the same amount of concern as eating candy bars.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 22, 2013 22:57:49 GMT -5
In honesty, dj, having dealt with all this over many years, I'll take the opiate addict 9 times out of ten over the alcoholic. I've got a chance with the former. The latter is gonna die on me, and I know it. the main problem with most illegal drug use is not the drugs themselves, but what they are cut with. i know that most people don't know it, and that many more still don't believe it, but there are many high functioning opiate addicts out there in the medical field that, because of the fact that they can control the quality of the illegal drug they are ingesting, can function without serious ill effects for DECADES. when you compare this to something even as benign as chronically over-consuming soda pop, the former wins, hands down. the harm argument is absolute rubbish at the proximate level anyway, because most "hard drugs" are not consumed habitually, anyway. if you let people experiment with them, most are going to get bored of them or scared of them in very short order. those that will NOT end up gravitating toward legal alternatives that are far more harmful, ime. but i know i am not really the best person to talk, since i don't think that the legal status of a drug should have anything to do with it's potential harm or benefit, unless no benefit whatsoever can be shown for the user.
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Post by billisonboard on Apr 22, 2013 22:59:44 GMT -5
... I don't see how legalizing drugs will solve the problems with addiction, adverse reactions and associated crime. Having it illegal has no impact on addiction, adverse reactions, and associated crime. Having it legal would help bring it into the open from which people could get help without risk of criminal prosecution. Having a legal source would assist in adverse reactions by have quality controls on the product. Having it legal would cut down on the crime of drug dealing and would allow for pricing programs which would help with addicts not needing to resort to crime to support their habits.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 22, 2013 23:08:18 GMT -5
... I don't see how legalizing drugs will solve the problems with addiction, adverse reactions and associated crime. Having it illegal has no impact on addiction, adverse reactions, and associated crime. Having it legal would help bring it into the open from which people could get help without risk of criminal prosecution. Having a legal source would assist in adverse reactions by have quality controls on the product. Having it legal would cut down on the crime of drug dealing and would allow for pricing programs which would help with addicts not needing to resort to crime to support their habits. having it legal would also make easily grown and "manufactured" drugs like pot basically of no value. prices would plummet, and "addicts" could grow their own for next to nothing.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 22, 2013 23:47:44 GMT -5
Which is why I'm fine with legalizing it.
And they're already legal in all the contexts where they can be administered responsibly. If my doctor needs to give me a shot of cocaine to stop my heart from exploding, he has the right to do so.
We don't prohibit head smashing because a) no statistically significant number of people do it, and b) anybody that does do it is likely already confined to a mental institution.
We don't prohibit smoking because tobacco is an established industry. Between the economics, the belief that smoking kills off society's undesirables, and the public's aversion to adding more prohibitions to the books, cigarettes remain in that "hated but tolerated" gray area just short of prohibition.
Commonly. used. drugs. have. legitimate. uses.
Hard. drugs. do. not. except. in. contexts. where. they. are. already. legal.
For cigarettes, see above.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 22, 2013 23:55:26 GMT -5
Which is why I'm fine with legalizing it. And they're already legal in all the contexts where they can be administered responsibly. If my doctor needs to give me a shot of cocaine to stop my heart from exploding, he has the right to do so. We don't prohibit head smashing because a) no statistically significant number of people do it, and b) anybody that does do it is likely already confined to a mental institution. sorry if you can't see the validity of the reducio ad absurdum argument, but there is nothing illegal about Russian Roulette, either, until the gun goes off, Virgil. there are a LOT of examples of things like this. some people like to strangle themselves during sex, for example. some people die from it. the list goes on and on and on. how many of these things which PEOPLE DO TO THEMSELVES should be made illegal? We don't prohibit smoking because tobacco is an established industry. thank you for arguing in favor of legalizing all drugs. you realize that is what you just did, right?
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 22, 2013 23:57:25 GMT -5
Commonly. used. drugs. have. legitimate. uses. smoking. has. no. legitimate. use.Hard. drugs. do. not. except. in. contexts. where. they. are. already. legal. heroin would make a very good sedative. qed.For cigarettes, see above. for my response, see above.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 23, 2013 0:27:53 GMT -5
You're arguing that smoking is worse than hard drugs, and I'm not contesting that.
I'm telling you that smoking is legal because it started out as legal and became entrenched. The same thing would happen with hard drugs. Even if a million people per year were keeling off from heroin use a decade from now, heroin would remain legal.
If you're asking me whether I'd support a ban on smoking, my answer is: I wouldn't have a problem with it. I might ask why you'd want to ban smoking, considering you believe a ban wouldn't reduce its prevalence. And I might point out that arguing why smoking should be banned is a rather unorthodox way to argue that hard drugs shouldn't be banned.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 23, 2013 1:10:16 GMT -5
You're arguing that smoking is worse than hard drugs, and I'm not contesting that. I'm telling you that smoking is legal because it started out as legal and became entrenched. The same thing would happen with hard drugs. Even if a million people per year were keeling off from heroin use a decade from now, heroin would remain legal. we are in perfect agreement.If you're asking me whether I'd support a ban on smoking, my answer is: I wouldn't have a problem with it. I might ask why you'd want to ban smoking, i wouldn't. i am using it as a counterargument against the "harm argument". based on our discussions, i think you understand that argument well enough without me having to spell it out in painstaking detail.considering you believe a ban wouldn't reduce its prevalence. And I might point out that arguing why smoking should be banned is a rather unorthodox way to argue that hard drugs shouldn't be banned. agreed. i have no intention of making that argument. i am sure you could have guessed that.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 23, 2013 7:48:15 GMT -5
You've succeeded in moving me from the "slightly opposed to" column to the "slightly in favour of" column vis a vis a smoking ban.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 23, 2013 9:32:15 GMT -5
You've succeeded in moving me from the "slightly opposed to" column to the "slightly in favour of" column vis a vis a smoking ban. that puts us further apart, but at least you are more logically consistent. congratulations.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 23, 2013 9:58:26 GMT -5
You've succeeded in moving me from the "slightly opposed to" column to the "slightly in favour of" column vis a vis a smoking ban. that puts us further apart, but at least you are more logically consistent. congratulations. I find the two conditions usually go together.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 23, 2013 10:12:07 GMT -5
that puts us further apart, but at least you are more logically consistent. congratulations. I find the two conditions usually go together. i know you were joking, but both positions in this debate are logically consistent. you either think that all drugs should be banned on a harm basis or you think that all drugs should be legal on a libertarian basis. there are also logically consistent arguments that can be made for partial legalization, but they are a LOT tougher to articulate than either the prohibitionist or the libertarian positions. but since you didn't let it drop, i will also add that i am leaning more toward total legalization than i was at the beginning of this thread.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 23, 2013 10:39:27 GMT -5
If you consider decriminalization to be "partial legalization", Ham made a good argument that it worked well in Portugal. As I told him, if I saw some hard numbers proving that rehabilitation programs were comparable in cost to incarceration, I'd support decriminalization. I'd rather have drug users coming clean than rotting in jail forever. It isn't logically inconsistent to hold an intermediate position. For example, if smoking was currently illegal, Joe Blow might not want to legalize it, but given the reality that it is legal (and has been forever), might reasonably also not want to ban it. He acknowledges that correcting the mistake comes with a high price--too high for him to support a ban. But in Joe's perfect world, smoking would be illegal. We must acknowledge that there is value in sticking with a status quo. Change is expensive and risky, and even a positive change can justify or precipitate many other negative changes. I consider "I want to keep things just the way they are." to be a perfectly logical argument, even if there are inconsistencies in which vices appear on which side of the legal/illegal divide. And the joke's on both of us, because what we think should and shouldn't be legal means less than a fart in a windstorm. The same is true of LEAP (and NAMBLA, fortunately). There are powerful interests that benefit from the status quo, and making life easier for drug users has never been particularly high on the public's take-it-to-the-man list.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 23, 2013 11:53:00 GMT -5
If you consider decriminalization to be "partial legalization", Ham made a good argument that it worked well in Portugal. As I told him, if I saw some hard numbers proving that rehabilitation programs were comparable in cost to incarceration, I'd support decriminalization. I'd rather have drug users coming clean than rotting in jail forever. It isn't logically inconsistent to hold an intermediate position. i said that. i also said it was more difficult to straddle. you have to overcome objections from libertarians and prohibitionists.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 23, 2013 11:55:35 GMT -5
We must acknowledge that there is value in sticking with a status quo. Change is expensive and risky, and even a positive change can justify or precipitate many other negative changes.. must? no. we don't have to do that. i am all for challenging standards that are logically and ethically compromised. as an absolutist, it is worth it to me.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 23, 2013 11:58:19 GMT -5
I consider "I want to keep things just the way they are." to be a perfectly logical argument, even if there are inconsistencies in which vices appear on which side of the legal/illegal divide.. i'm sorry, but i don't see that argument as logical. ethical inconsistencies should be rooted out, imo. otherwise, law is seen as capricious favoritism. this undermines the legal, ethical, and moral framework of society by positing that what is right for Peter is not right for Paul. i am adamantly opposed to such capriciousness in the name of tradition.
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 23, 2013 12:07:27 GMT -5
but since you didn't let it drop, i will also add that i am leaning more toward total legalization than i was at the beginning of this thread. And the joke's on both of us, because what we think should and shouldn't be legal means less than a fart in a windstorm. you have made this argument before, and i still disagree. just because an argument is not popular does not mean it is not worth making. 200 years ago, the idea that women should vote and own property was unpopular and radical. slavery was considered normal, and was preserved with the sort of casual support of "tradition" that you are making for cigarettes in this thread. things change. typically in the direction of greater liberty. which is why i think that this argument is relevant now, and likely to become more so.The same is true of LEAP (and NAMBLA, fortunately). NAMBLA fails on ethical grounds. i don't believe that LEAP does.There are powerful interests that benefit from the status quo, and making life easier for drug users has never been particularly high on the public's take-it-to-the-man list. agreed. but i am of the mind that powerful interests that fail to pass EITHER challenges to ethical consistency, or are found to be arbitrary, should be dismantled and replaced by PUBLIC interests.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 23, 2013 15:46:08 GMT -5
If drugs are ultimately legalized, it won't be because two guys talked it over on a message board somewhere. It will be about whose money and political influence talks the loudest. Your 'ethical grounds' are your personal views on right and wrong. Given you've condemned NAMBLA and promoted LEAP, you're basically telling us you're not a sadist. Good for you. I don't trust that your views on the public's best interests would turn out any better than the powerful interests'. ...as were the people who brought in prohibition, which turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. And the people who brought in the Financial Modernization Act, which turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. I'm sorry, but just because the electrical sockets in my house are poorly located doesn't mean I'm going to tear it down and rebuild it with better wiring. Especially when I don't know that the new wiring will be any better than the old. I place a very heavy premium on sticking with the devil we know. Perhaps that's the root of why I identify as a conservative and you identify as a liberal. And besides that, if the US government decided to ban smoking in the name of "ethical consistency" (and you've claimed that banning cigarettes would be more ethically consistent), suddenly "consistency" wouldn't mean a hill of beans to you. It's completely overridden by what side of the law "consistency" ends up on. Correct me if I'm wrong. Would you support banning cigarettes on the grounds of "ethical consistency"?
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Post by djAdvocate on Apr 23, 2013 16:15:34 GMT -5
If drugs are ultimately legalized, it won't be because two guys talked it over on a message board somewhere. It will be about whose money and political influence talks the loudest. we all influence as much as we can. in my own case, i am likely to donate my considerable resources to the cause should it ever emerge. our discussion will have played a part in that decision, by hardening my conviction.Your 'ethical grounds' are your personal views on right and wrong. i meant again that NAMBLA's position is ethically invalid. you have already agreed with that.Given you've condemned NAMBLA and promoted LEAP, you're basically telling us you're not a sadist. no, i have not told you that. but i would like to think that i have worked out my positions a little better than to think molesting boys is reasonable.Good for you. I don't trust that your views on the public's best interests would turn out any better than the powerful interests'. you are making everything personal, Virgil. this has nothing to do with me. nothing at all....as were the people who brought in prohibition, which turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. And the people who brought in the Financial Modernization Act, which turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. agreed. I'm sorry, but just because the electrical sockets in my house are poorly located doesn't mean I'm going to tear it down and rebuild it with better wiring. Especially when I don't know that the new wiring will be any better than the old. you don't need to tear down your house. you can just peel back the sheetrock. and you will find, at the same time, whether your wiring is dangerous at the same time. but to get back to your analogy, if the law can be tweaked so as to be more fair, i am all for it.I place a very heavy premium on sticking with the devil we know. Perhaps that's the root of why I identify as a conservative and you identify as a liberal. indeed. i am kind of a new devilry sort. i have no qualms about changing things up.And besides that, if the US government decided to ban smoking in the name of "ethical consistency" (and you've claimed that banning cigarettes would be more ethically consistent), suddenly "consistency" wouldn't mean a hill of beans to you. It's completely overridden by what side of the law "consistency" ends up on. Correct me if I'm wrong. Would you support banning cigarettes on the grounds of "ethical consistency"? of course not. i was saying that YOU should. you are on the prohibition side of the argument, after all.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Apr 23, 2013 18:20:16 GMT -5
In a perfect world, smoking would be illegal wherever shared responsibility existed for healthcare.
But tobacco growers established their businesses in good faith, kicking them to the curb would divest them of their livelihoods, and banning cigarettes won't have enough of a positive effect to offset that. And whether this view is "ethically consistent" in your eyes: don't know; don't care.
Moreover, I'm not the "prohibition side of the argument". I'm the side of the argument that considers drug use unacceptable. I'll consider any reasonable, non-experimental proposal for reducing drug use whose costs are comparable to what we spend on dealing with drugs now.
I don't want to open Pandora's Box.
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