Legalize heroin?
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Ar...203768,00.html

The thesis is: 'the death and sickness and moral collapse which are associated with class A drugs [heroin, cocaine, et al] are, in truth, generally the result not of the drugs themselves but of the black market on which they are sold as a result of our strategy of prohibition'

The problem with this thesis is that even if heroin was legalized, there would still be huge social costs in terms of family disruption, lost productivity, and social resources diverted to addiction treatment. Alcohol and Cigarettes are legal but they cost society millions every year in cancer- and emphysema-related health care.

Ever read Junky by Burroughs?

Ever watched a friend kick?

"There is no drug known to man which becomes safer when its production and distribution are handed over to criminals."

Exactly

Yup & the only reason they needed to kick the habit was because they spent their life savings on it. Money is always the problem, not the drug itself. The money is what causes the family problems, stealing, robbing & violence. Not the drug itself.

Legalize drugs & watch half of all crime dissapear within months.

You are correct [Example: Amsterdam's leniency re drug use]. Unfortunately, there were so many political fortunes made on the "Get tough on crime" posture here in the US that legalization [outside of the medicinal legalization movement] would have a tough time seeing the light of day.

The drug issue is an "easy" bogeyman for politicians. It is like kissing babies or sampling homebaked apple pie at campaign stops. Unfortunately, it is easier to throw money at this problem [for the voters to see] than to engage the nation in actual honest analysis about the assumptions fueling the "war on drugs."

Money is the root of all evil, but what are u going to do without it:2 cents:

legalizing doesnt do much... heroin is not on a "oh i want some heroin basis" its on a "I have a dollar in my pocket, lets get some heroin".. so let's say heroin is legalized then it becomes 10x's cheaper,it then will be done 10x's as much... You can actually say heroin,coke etc etc don't harm your body? be for real ... with heroin comes diseases because no matter how cheap something is there are always people who dont follow procedure(condoms and aids)...think people will buy clean needles when they dont even buy condoms?... think logically... half the country would be near death while the other half of the country is paying their medical bills...

case and point... my uncle was making mid 6 figure income with his own business,got hooked on crack...He could afford it so he didnt steal or do any crimes...but 5 years later his family doesnt speak to him and he has no money to his name.. even if crack was $1 a rock,the same shit would have happened... who cares about crime,what about the indivdual lives?

There are people that can enjoy a few lines of powder and walk away, and there are those who become addicted and let it destory their own life.
I always thought marijuana should be legalized, but everything else should remain illegal for the best interest of the public in general.

In the UK, the money raised from the taxation of cigarettes alone is enough to pay for the healthcare of every UK citizen 5 times over (no matter what the illness or how it is caused) and still have enough left over to pay for every schoolchild's education.

Look crack is just a cheap way of ingesting coke. Used because coke is so damn expensive.

Your arguments make sense, but you need to see the root of the issue to understand it.

whats the root? money your saying, right? when somebody doesnt have the money,they contribute to crime...thats the only downside of hard drugs?... I could give you 10 million dollars and a never ending supply of heroin and crack... 3 years later you will be on your death bed with 10 million dollars sitting next to it... People stealing to support their habit isnt the problem with drugs... the effect of drugs is whats wrong with drugs ...

Kinda like saying if they legalized CP on the net,less people would be fucking little kids...doesnt make much sense

With all respect, crack by volume costs more than cocaine, and in fact is a habit that will run an addict out quicker than cocaine.

The high from crack is only minutes, and seconds for the initial rush, cocaine at least lasts longer and is pure.

Crack isnt a cheap alternative to cocaine, they are total diff drugs really. Although based from the same chemicals.

:winkwink:

Few games with heroine and you are addicted for life until you die at the age of 30 having lived the most pathetic moments you could ever imagine. I personally know kids younger than 20 y.old that died from heroine. It's near impossible to escape from the fake world heroine provides you and the very few that managed to did it are real heroes in my eyes. You need to have ALL THE STRENGTH on earth to do escape from it. These people are capable to achive everything in life.

Legalize pot? Sure, smoking is 100 times more harmful, there's not a single official death from pot smoking and the results from it are minimal

Legalize heroine? It's like legalizing murder. The majority of heroine users start at the age of 14-15. These kids do not know what they will face soon. Their lives will be destroyed.

Some times I feel so mad when I see that people that are familiar what heroine will cause them still try it and after a while they are addicted for life.

Stupidity is a human characteristic very common among us.

So legalise heroin and according to Darwin's theories, in a few generations stupidity will be eradicated... et voila, no more heroin addicts!

I've always been of the opinion that it is "misuse" of drugs that kills. Misuse comes about naturally at the moment due to the current black market situation where profit always over-rides concern for the consumer and quality control is non existant.
Regulation of supply and quality would have benefits for the community as a whole for numerous reasons in my opinion. Firstly the actual cost to the community would be absorbed through reasonable levels of taxation applied to the drugs as with any other consumer item. Tobbacco and alcohol are already taxed and these drugs are known killers. I am sitting here legally killing myself with drugs that provide revenue.
The price of heroin, cocaine and amphetamines would be drastically reduced if it was legally manufactured to controlled concentrations and purity even once it was taxed.
The main benefit to the community would be the reduction in theft and violent crime that is currently associatedwith the organised crime aspect of the drug trade. No junkie can provide for his habit through legal means of employment under the current supply situation.

The underlying logic behind my opinion is that no matter what the legality of a drug may be, there are always people who will want to use it, either as a continuous thing or a passing fad. Isn't it more socially responsible to make it as safe as possible for our kids to experiment and hopefully get over the curiosity than to allow them to be exposed to the dangers of unsolicited drug use and possible poisoning or worse still a life of crime to provide for their habit?

Lots of people may think my philosophy is irresponsible, but i have lost friends to drugs and crime and i believe that in a lot of cases this could have been avoided through responsible regulation and control. The ppl i have lost may have just been junkies to the cold hearted anal retentive moralists amongst us, but even they would feel differently if it was their kids and friends dying.

Go to egypt & sit down in a opium bar. Ask those guys if its destroyed their life. NOPE!

I've never used herion, never will. But i support its manufacture & supply to addicts, so they wont break into my home & steal my shit.

miss^behaving, i agree with a lot of your thoughts but I know that:

- There are some drugs we can't just use the word "experiment" since addiction is very close and all the victims of it failed to realise it soon or thought they are stronger that the rest victims.

- Most of "bad" things start at young ages. The majority of smokers started at young ages. There was a huge campaign for decades promoting smoking. They were tv commercials with small kids smoking and telling how great it is. Let's accept that back then people didn't know the results of chronious smoking. OK. Do you think that if they did know that the number of smokers in our days will be way smaller? Probably not because curiosity made them to try. This is going to happen with young kids. They will give a try to drugs and things there are way more dangerous. After all they are legal, how bad can the things be?

Very often we consider we are strong and we can do everything we want.....everything is easy if there's the will and blah blah. Just watch the millions of overweight people. People are not capable to reduce calorities and do some exercise to loose weight and return to normal and they will manage to control a potential experiment with drugs? How many of you gave up the attempts to stop smoking and how many of you managed to stopped smoking?
And don't tell me for personal freedom borders. I have already enough attempts from junkies to robber me in streets. Although near them i look like a mountain and the most possible result is to end up with a broken neck they try. Drugs like heroine control body, soul and spirit.

Ok before you even have a fucking discussion like this, you need to narrow your subject field.

For instance

Are we talking about the mass public legalization?

Or are we talking about providing the product to junkies?

Personally i would rather give the already hardcore junkies their dose.

While at the same time, spending the money they spend locking people up on Health Programs teaching people about the dangers of the drug. And maybe trying to rehabilitate the junkies.

Locking people up is not the answer to a HEALTH issue.

that's very good point and it's not necessary to legalize heroine to achive it. In my country and several other countries there are programs for drug users that receive methadon instead of their drug. It's some sort of an alternative drug with less harmful effects that helps addicted people through time to escape from them. It is provided for free and works very good. The addicted people do whatever they can to get in to this program and save their lives. For some odd and "strange" reason such programs do not become immediately available to all major cities but they keep been under "research" for decades. At the end of the tunnel we see that $$ speak louder.

i think we agree in everything

"Are we talking about the mass public legalization? "

Laws for drug dealers should stay as it is.

Or are we talking about providing the product to junkies?

Government can provide them for free to addicts or alternative drugs under treatment programs. Using drugs is not illegal as far as i know in many countries unless you get caught under an exact amount of drugs.

"Personally i would rather give the already hardcore junkies their dose. "

me too

"While at the same time, spending the money they spend locking people up on Health Programs teaching people about the dangers of the drug. And maybe trying to rehabilitate the junkies. "

yes

"Locking people up is not the answer to a HEALTH issue."

I dont understand this. Locking them to programs it's not a solution. They are not prisoners, this is a personal decision.

if you mean send them to prison like some goverments do HELL NO!

Cutting the benefits to drug dealers to earn money from drugs will reduce the problem. Drug users would be able get their dosage from free.

I support give it for free to drug addicts. No punishments for drug users, they are not criminals neither should be treated like this. Keep the law as it is for all blackmarket drug dealing activities.

Well the article from the Guardian pretty much focuses on "hard drug" legalization.

My position is that although there is some merit to the legalization argument and it APPEARS to work in some areas of the world [Amsterdam], it is an impossibility in the US....given the political climate and the culture. The article was very eye opening because it hits most of the issues raised by the folks who support the continued criminalization of drugs.

the price of drugs is so damn high because it's illegal, otherwise a ton of coke would cost cheaper than a ton of canadian beer :glugglug

I don't have problem my taxes to go for health programs and free drug supply to drug users.


enough said for today,back to work :)

the more things that are legalized, drug wise the better..

spend all those trillions of dollars on stopping murders and shit that helps people out.

like george carlin once said "bring back crucifictions and you'll see a lot less crimes being committed"

LEGALIZE POT

LEGALIZE POT

No problem at all, i said it earlier and i was reffering even to commercial legalization :-)

You see at the MAJOR social problems in reality the solution can be very simple, but there's one more MAJOR thing that stop things. MAJOR dollars, the drug dealing industry is HUGE. We are talking for many many many billion dollars. Some times all these thoughts and researches and doubts etc are keeping the current fucked up situation to stay as it is.

Legalize Goat sex

All that glitters is gold :)

Kenny is really Richard Simmons

I posted "all that glitters is gold" because back when I was involved with herion everybody associated with it would say it turns everthing into gold.
I done it a few times in the past and I understand the saying well, sorry if I confused some people.