[Proculation]

There would still be black market if synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and MDMA were legalized.
It's so easy to manufacture that the supply would drop the prices to 50¢ a pill.

That would be much worse.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

commanderkai commanderkai:

That's the point. The FDA approved it, so therefore no lawsuit happy lawyer can say "Oh you mislead everybody by saying this was safe to use blah blah blah"

And the same argument can be made if the FDA approved the use of recreational narcotics.

commanderkai commanderkai:

Now, move this to cocaine, or easy access to heroin, and does anybody really believe that the FDA will approve for over-the-counter access to heavy narcotics? Will companies want to take that risk, knowing the risk to their reputation and those who will be using said narcotics.

Both the FDA AND the pharma companies took that risk with acetaminophen.
It's been shown time and again that acetaminophen is potentially a very lethal drug

commanderkai commanderkai:

And I assume many of those painkillers can't just be bought next to the advils in your local pharmacy, right? I haven't trolled around pharmacies to look for my next high, nor have I had much experience with the medical field, outside of what I have dealt with.

I'll assume the more risky painkillers can only be received through either prescription or through hospital supervision, right?

With the opioids yer right. Prescription only. Acetaminophen however is found in products both over the counter and right off the shelf.

commanderkai commanderkai:

You never heard of a story of a bar getting sued for a drunk driving case? They happen. I'm sure I can see pharmacies being sued for whatever reason you can think of in relation to selling narcotics.

Fallacious argument. The bar is responsible just as I would be if I allowed you to drink in my house and let you drive home. What you DON'T see is the Beer Store and the Liquor store being sued for the same thing. Or breweries or distilleries. The ONLY way the pharmacy could be sued is if they allowed the users to remain on the property whilst partaking. If I go to the liquor store, crack open the bottle as soon as I get back in my car and get busted a bit later for impaired driving, whose fault is that? Mine or the liquor store's?
If someone ends up getting hurt as a result, should the liquor store or distillery that made what's in my bottle be sued? If the liquor store let me stay on their property to drink it first, THEN I'd say they'd be in trouble.

$1:

And "bad drug doses" come from idiot dealers stepping on the product to increase their profits. By "stepping" I mean, they cut the drug by adding shit to it, which stretches the amount out. Kinda like adding rolled oats to raw hamburger to make the meat "go further".

commanderkai commanderkai:

But it also comes from idiot users who shoot too much, pop too many pills, pop the wrong pill, etc.

You'd be AMAZED at the number of idiots that wind up in the emerg with alcohol poisoning across this country. And again, if a drunk driver kills my wife, I'm not gonna be suing Seagram's, just like if the person was hopped up on prescription pain killers, I'm not gonna be suing Pfizer or whoever.

commanderkai commanderkai:

All I'm trying to express is that legalization won't just instantly lead to decriminalization of narcotics, by decriminalizing, I mean the removal of gang and organized crime elements from narcotics. There are huge issues to resolve before we even consider legalization. Nothing is black and white.

I'll admit I'm sitting on the fence when it comes to legalizing the more serious drugs, and of course legalization isn't going to have an instant effect, but the measures being used right now are having ZERO effect. SLow is still better than not at all.

[andyt]

The latest I read in the paper was that high levels of alcohol was the only substance known for sure to be present. ETOH kills way more people than all other drugs combined. Legalizing and controlling drugs would at least ensure consistent potency and quality, that not a lot of other crap is mixed in with them. MDMA should definitely be legalized for psychotherapeutic use, as should LSD. Making these drugs illegal doesn't really do anything - it's too easy to manufacture them. The reason we don't have people running stills everywhere is because booze is relatively cheap and easy to get - same would apply to legalizing and regulating drugs.

[Proculation]

andyt andyt:

The latest I read in the paper was that high levels of alcohol was the only substance known for sure to be present. ETOH kills way more people than all other drugs combined. Legalizing and controlling drugs would at least ensure consistent potency and quality, that not a lot of other crap is mixed in with them. MDMA should definitely be legalized for psychotherapeutic use, as should LSD. Making these drugs illegal doesn't really do anything - it's too easy to manufacture them. The reason we don't have people running stills everywhere is because booze is relatively cheap and easy to get - same would apply to legalizing and regulating drugs.

That's exactly my point. Those synthetic drugs would be very cheap if legalized.
You go to the nearest mall and buy 10 exztasy pills for 5$ and you decide to take all of them that night and die of dehydratation or arrhythmia. Wow ! much better !

[commanderkai]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

And the same argument can be made if the FDA approved the use of recreational narcotics.

I'm going to make this clear. If you're arguing just on the basis of weed, stop. I'm not even factoring in weed right now. I'm talking about highly artificial and more dangerous drugs like cocaine, heroin, and whatever else. I don't see the FDA making approvals for cocaine, heroin, X, meth, or any other drugs I'm leaving out, if they haven't already. I don't see the US government, after fighting the war on drugs, making approvals for these drugs.

Maybe I'm too inside the box. I don't know. But I don't see it.

$1:

Both the FDA AND the pharma companies took that risk with acetaminophen.It's been shown time and again that acetaminophen is potentially a very lethal drug

And that's why there's instructions on use on half the bottle. So pray tell, what exactly are they going to say on the heroin package? Are we going to have heroin studies to see the effects of heroin on those with potential medical issues to find the right dosage?

I have to sign pages upon pages of papers just to get an "experimental" psoriasis medication. The drug is even ON the market, they're just testing it, or were, on kids. I was just grandfathered in due to my age when I started. If you think this is that simple, fine. I just don't see it at all.

$1:

With the opioids yer right. Prescription only. Acetaminophen however is found in products both over the counter and right off the shelf.

Okay. I get the fact that if you pop a bottle of advil, you might die. You really believe that acetaminophen is as dangerous as heroin? That's great, but that ends this discussion. I honestly don't see people addicted to acetaminophen, and I don't see the large death counts to those who properly use the painkiller. You might think so, but I really just don't see it.

$1:

Fallacious argument. The bar is responsible just as I would be if I allowed you to drink in my house and let you drive home. What you DON'T see is the Beer Store and the Liquor store being sued for the same thing. Or breweries or distilleries. The ONLY way the pharmacy could be sued is if they allowed the users to remain on the property whilst partaking.

That's IF you can even get it at a pharmacy. You might have to go to those specialty facilities you see in Vancouver for heroin addicts to be able to continue their habit cleanly. I don't see pharmacies damaging their reputation by selling cocaine like it was cough syrup (and yes, I know chugging a bottle of cough syrup can kill you too) or X like it was condoms.

$1:

If I go to the liquor store, crack open the bottle as soon as I get back in my car and get busted a bit later for impaired driving, whose fault is that? Mine or the liquor store's?

It's yours. Though in your perfect world of completely legalized and decriminalized drugs, should you have free access to your narcotics like you do with condoms and candy bars at the local drug store? Should they be some sort of behind the counter situation? Available only in specific injection/snorting sites to monitor any dangerous side effects?

I don't know. However, things like this still need to be answered.

$1:

If someone ends up getting hurt as a result, should the liquor store or distillery that made what's in my bottle be sued? If the liquor store let me stay on their property to drink it first, THEN I'd say they'd be in trouble.

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's probably easier to conceal using meth, cocaine, or something else, compared to opening up a bottle of Jack Daniel's and chugging it in the middle of the store. However, in the end, I still see a lot of legal issues needing to be resolved before any major steps forward can be made

$1:

I'll admit I'm sitting on the fence when it comes to legalizing the more serious drugs, and of course legalization isn't going to have an instant effect, but the measures being used right now are having ZERO effect. SLow is still better than not at all.

I have absolutely no idea what we should do. I just see a big number of legal clusterfucks they'll need to resolve before this becomes a reality...if it does.

[andyt]

Proculation Proculation:

andyt andyt:

The latest I read in the paper was that high levels of alcohol was the only substance known for sure to be present. ETOH kills way more people than all other drugs combined. Legalizing and controlling drugs would at least ensure consistent potency and quality, that not a lot of other crap is mixed in with them. MDMA should definitely be legalized for psychotherapeutic use, as should LSD. Making these drugs illegal doesn't really do anything - it's too easy to manufacture them. The reason we don't have people running stills everywhere is because booze is relatively cheap and easy to get - same would apply to legalizing and regulating drugs.

That's exactly my point. Those synthetic drugs would be very cheap if legalized.
You go to the nearest mall and buy 10 exztasy pills for 5$ and you decide to take all of them that night and die of dehydratation or arrhythmia. Wow ! much better !

Booze costs almost nothing to produce - the cost you pay is almost all taxes. The same would be true with legal drugs - the price would be inflated by taxes. Still, just as with booze, people wouldn't bother making their own, because it's much easier to just go to the store. Well except for numbnuts like my buddy, who used my place to cook up potato gin because I was the only guy in high school that was living on his own. But none of us would drink it - it was much better to hang out in front of the liquor store and get some adult to buy the stuff for us. Or just go to bars where they didn't check for ID.

So you'd get the same dynamic by legalizing drugs. Taxes would flow to the govt to spend on healthcare, instead of to gangsters to buy bling and guns while our healthcare cleans tries to clean up the damage. Just as with booze, kids would probably find it harder to get legal drugs because the market for the illegal stuff would shrink drastically.

Nobody who's arguing for legalized drugs is arguing against regulating them the same way booze is now. Nobody sane, anyway. Probably even more stringent controls for heroin etc, where you would need a prescription.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Proculation Proculation:

andyt andyt:

The latest I read in the paper was that high levels of alcohol was the only substance known for sure to be present. ETOH kills way more people than all other drugs combined. Legalizing and controlling drugs would at least ensure consistent potency and quality, that not a lot of other crap is mixed in with them. MDMA should definitely be legalized for psychotherapeutic use, as should LSD. Making these drugs illegal doesn't really do anything - it's too easy to manufacture them. The reason we don't have people running stills everywhere is because booze is relatively cheap and easy to get - same would apply to legalizing and regulating drugs.

That's exactly my point. Those synthetic drugs would be very cheap if legalized.
You go to the nearest mall and buy 10 exztasy pills for 5$ and you decide to take all of them that night and die of dehydratation or arrhythmia. Wow ! much better !

Your explanation though is exactly part of the problem. You're assuming that just cuz someone can, they will. If I buy a 40 ouncer of rye and wind up in the hospital, or worse, because I got stupid and drank it all on one night, whose fault is that? And just cuz I CAN drink a 40 ouncer in one night, doen't mean I'm GOING to. Although, to be fair, I've never experienced E, don't wanna either, so I don't know what, if any noticable effect it has on one's perceptions.

[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Your explanation though is exactly part of the problem. You're assuming that just cuz someone can, they will. If I buy a 40 ouncer of rye and wind up in the hospital, or worse, because I got stupid and drank it all on one night, whose fault is that? And just cuz I CAN drink a 40 ouncer in one night, doen't mean I'm GOING to. Although, to be fair, I've never experienced E, don't wanna either, so I don't know what, if any noticable effect it has on one's perceptions.

I've never taken E, ie MDMA, but back in the day we took MDA, which is apparently very similar. If you get clean stuff, it's beautiful - you love everybody, feel like an Aero bar. By itself, and at a regulated dosage, it's not that dangerous. But with street drugs you never know what you're getting, and looking back I'm glad I'm around to talk about it. But I'm glad I'm around to talk about racing around town with 11 people in the car, pissed out of my mind too. Even more glad that I didn't kill anybody else. Young people do stupid things, and making them illegal didn't deter us, and seems no more effective on todays yout.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

commanderkai commanderkai:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

And the same argument can be made if the FDA approved the use of recreational narcotics.

I'm going to make this clear. If you're arguing just on the basis of weed, stop.

To be honest with you, I'm not even factoring in what I believe about weed in this debate.
And keep in mind, I'm also coming from a POV as someone who has tried some of the harder drugs from the "good" old days, knows what they are like and what they can do to a person, doesn't do them AT all anymore and hasn't for almost 20 years, and would certainly NEVER recommend that anyone try ANY of them, ever.
I'm arguing from the point that, it's never going to to go away and to approach it the same way this country(or at least Ontario) approached prostitution. Legalize it, regulate it and everyone will be that much safer for it.
As far as any litiginous ramifications, it's real simple. You go to the drug store or wherever they'd be available, and you sign your life away acknowledging that you are aware of the risks, and any problems that arise that can't be shown to be from contamination of the drug, are your own problems.
And like a good drugstore, they'll provide you with a list of stuff you shouldn't take with whatever you've just purchased.
I'm also arguing from the POV that drugs provide the majority of funds to organized crime and other gangs. Yes, they have other sources of income but why not take away their most lucrative source of income while at the same time, reducing the need to kill each other(and innocents) over turf to sell drugs on, in, at, whatever.
I'm sure there will still be problems after they get legalized, but I think it'll be a good trade off compared to the problems associated with them now.

[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

To be honest with you, I'm not even factoring in what I believe about weed in this debate.
And keep in mind, I'm also coming from a POV as someone who has tried some of the harder drugs from the "good" old days, knows what they are like and what they can do to a person, doesn't do them AT all anymore and hasn't for almost 20 years, and would certainly NEVER recommend that anyone try ANY of them, ever.
I'm arguing from the point that, it's never going to to go away and to approach it the same way this country(or at least Ontario) approached prostitution. Legalize it, regulate it and everyone will be that much safer for it.
As far as any litiginous ramifications, it's real simple. You go to the drug store or wherever they'd be available, and you sign your life away acknowledging that you are aware of the risks, and any problems that arise that can't be shown to be from contamination of the drug, are your own problems.
And like a good drugstore, they'll provide you with a list of stuff you shouldn't take with whatever you've just purchased.
I'm also arguing from the POV that drugs provide the majority of funds to organized crime and other gangs. Yes, they have other sources of income but why not take away their most lucrative source of income while at the same time, reducing the need to kill each other(and innocents) over turf to sell drugs on, in, at, whatever.
I'm sure there will still be problems after they get legalized, but I think it'll be a good trade off compared to the problems associated with them now.

(All of it, including the just say no part. For many people that should include alcohol.)

[Proculation]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Proculation Proculation:

andyt andyt:

The latest I read in the paper was that high levels of alcohol was the only substance known for sure to be present. ETOH kills way more people than all other drugs combined. Legalizing and controlling drugs would at least ensure consistent potency and quality, that not a lot of other crap is mixed in with them. MDMA should definitely be legalized for psychotherapeutic use, as should LSD. Making these drugs illegal doesn't really do anything - it's too easy to manufacture them. The reason we don't have people running stills everywhere is because booze is relatively cheap and easy to get - same would apply to legalizing and regulating drugs.

That's exactly my point. Those synthetic drugs would be very cheap if legalized.
You go to the nearest mall and buy 10 exztasy pills for 5$ and you decide to take all of them that night and die of dehydratation or arrhythmia. Wow ! much better !

Your explanation though is exactly part of the problem. You're assuming that just cuz someone can, they will. If I buy a 40 ouncer of rye and wind up in the hospital, or worse, because I got stupid and drank it all on one night, whose fault is that? And just cuz I CAN drink a 40 ouncer in one night, doen't mean I'm GOING to. Although, to be fair, I've never experienced E, don't wanna either, so I don't know what, if any noticable effect it has on one's perceptions.

You forget that it is almost impossible to drink a large amount of spirits. You will just throw up.

It is very easy to absorb too much pills before realizing you have stepped the line of no return.

And I'm not assuming "that just cuz someone can, they will [produce it]". I've made moonshine. It's more like a hobby. I can get some 40oz without much trouble but it takes some times for all the step, you have to have the equipment and it's not that productive in the end.

However, once you have the equipment, you can make thousands of pills or grams of crystal meths within some hours. It is NOT comparable.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Proculation Proculation:

You forget that it is almost impossible to drink a large amount of spirits. You will just throw up.

Nope, I haven't forgotten my 2 friends that died of alcohol poisoning. Not that uncommon really.

Proculation Proculation:

It is very easy to absorb too much pills before realizing you have stepped the line of no return.

Can't argue with ya there, but again, it's my choice to take those, not anyone else's. Just like my friends that got stupid and decided to see just how much they could drink in a day.

Proculation Proculation:

And I'm not assuming "that just cuz someone can, they will [produce it]". I've made moonshine. It's more like a hobby. I can get some 40oz without much trouble but it takes some times for all the step, you have to have the equipment and it's not that productive in the end.

However, once you have the equipment, you can make thousands of pills or grams of crystal meths within some hours. It is NOT comparable.

Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't referring to the production, I was saying that JUST because someone can buy 10 pills after legalization for the same price as 2-3 costs now doesn't mean they're gonna take them all at once.
Just like, because I CAN buy a 40 ouncer, doesn't mean I'm going to drink it all in one night.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

(All of it, including the just say no part. For many people that should include alcohol.)

Maaaannnnnnn, do you ever have that last sentence right.

[andyt]

It's supply and demand. Lemmy might have something useful to contribute here, tho it's really more about psychology, and what's that new discipline - neuroeconomics?

Demand isn't going to drastically increase just because drugs are legalized. For every person who's holding off because they're illegal, there's another doing them because they are illegal. (Especially true with later stages of heroin addiction say, the whole scene is as much an addiction as using the drug). There might be a bit more use, because drugs would be safer and easy to get, but not much.

But demand for illegal drugs would go waaaaay down, because of the legal supply.

Meanwhile, illegal production and distribution of drugs would not become legal - it's not legal to make or sell your own booze either. So the cost/benefit ratio would go way up - costs (ie risk) remains the same, but the benefits would shrink dramatically.

Legalization ain't no panacea. We'll still have people impairing or even destroying their lives - same as they now do with booze and cigarettes. But at least a large part of the profits of the drug trade would now go to the govt, which could spend them on ameliorating the damage.

[Proculation]

I consider myself to be very liberal on social issues, specially drugs. But your POV is almost radical-liberal, voire, libertarian. "Let everybody decides what's good for them".

You really think we should liberalize synthetic drugs like MDMA, Meth, GHB, or even prescription drugs like Ritalin, steroids, etc ?

I take Ritalin for a fatigue syndrom. There's a reason i'm handed only a certain amount a month: I would always want to be on the 'high' side and be more productive.