Hard Drugs should be legal

[Fragony]

Mushrooms are also legal here, sometimes a tourist believes he can fly but apart from that little problems, but I do hear story's of people getting pretty messed up in the head pretty bad, but I know of no study of it's effects.

[rory_20_uk]

If you take a load of LSD you'll go absolutely crazy. If you take a load of paracetamol you will be dead in roughly 4 days. If you drink too much water you'll die...

Smuggling cigarettes is profitable. They might have what? 10% of the market! Currently criminals have 100% of the market, and they set the price. Knock off cigarettes are cheaper than those on the shelves.

The Triads started out in Hong Kong. They smuggled opiates to the island, both high class stuff and low cost, raw opium. The British gave them the biggest boost and criinal gang has ever gotten: they banned the substance. Suddenly the margins shot through the roof. Now as we may all know the Triads are a massive multinational organisation with their tendrils all over the world.

[drone]

Touche' Sir. And well-played. We have to yield some of the "it'll reduce crime" argument. Legalization may eventually reduce local crime by elevating the mfg & distro systems into more transparent climes, but the knock-off industry, both local and international, will still thrive, especially in the era of interwebs.

Maybe more aggressive postal and customs regulations could put a dent in such industries. But the track record so far = not so hot.

The tax-avoidance crime is generally determined by how greedy the government is with it's sin tax. For tobacco, the tax is being used as a overt usage deterrent as well as a steady revenue stream, and is probably too high as a result. Simple economic analysis should determine the tax level where smuggling becomes cost-ineffective.

[Tribesman]

The Triads started out in Hong Kong. They smuggled opiates to the island, both high class stuff and low cost, raw opium. The British gave them the biggest boost and criinal gang has ever gotten: they banned the substance. Suddenly the margins shot through the roof. Now as we may all know the Triads are a massive multinational organisation with their tendrils all over the world.

Well at least your last line is OK , it is true that the groups known as triads have legal and illegal business interests anywhere in the world where there is a chance for them to make some cash...but the rest of your post

[rory_20_uk]

What part are you deriding? Their existence, or that the UK banned the drugs? I'm at work. I'll get some references from home.

[Tribesman]

What part are you deriding? Their existence, or that the UK banned the drugs? I'm at work. I'll get some references from home.

Their origins , their early criminal activities and the nature and timing of Britains and Chinas changes in the opium trade and those changes relation to changes in the triads business practices .

[rory_20_uk]

I did not allude to their origins, I said what had given them their boost. I am aware that they had been around for several hundred years previously.

I was referring to the period after Japanese capitulation in 1945 in Hong Kong, when not only had the Japenese destroyed most criminal records regardingt he Triads, but the British military administration banned narcotics, that the Triads had been importing under the Japanese. Sure, they were involved in most other crimes, but the British gave them an entire market, that they then exploited to the full.

[Goofball]

I disagree.
While they are illegal, their prices are significantly higher and they are available only on the black market via dealers. Once they become legalized, the prices drop and you can sell them openly on the street. I would imagine especially young people who can then afford it will give it a try and possibly end up seriously harmed or dead as a result, costing the taxpayers healthcare because in current society we care for the ill and don't just leave them to die as we used to.

Viking: Hard drugs have a lot more negative effects in comparison to alcohol. You'll end up with a lot more harmed newborns (who did not ask to be harmed while in the womb of an addict or someone who gave the drugs a try), kids who happen to see it on the kitchen counter and similarly, a larger number of addicts (hard drugs are more addictive than soft drugs like alcohol, hence the name) that go through the taxpaid health system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome

Your argument holds no water (nor vodka for that matter).

Alcohol is a scourge on western society. It is just as bad (if not worse) that "hard" drugs. It certainly has more negative societal effects that marijuana.

[Goofball]

Strike sorry but...
1) drugs makes addiction
2) they costs much and addicted junkie pay everything he has to buy them
3) addicted finally has no cash, so he uses cash of his family, friends and similar
4) family, friends and similar stop giving cash to addicted, so he is starting stealing
5) when strong addicted, he starts commiting serious crimes and generally is dangerous

All in all - community has problems because
1) man became junkie
2) junkie is not paying cash but we have to pay big cash to heal him or to prevent him from commiting crimes
3) junkie's family became poor and we have to pay them
4) junkie spread aids and similar

With drugs legal, it would be dangerous for whole community, because we would have to pay for that junkies.

Sorry Krook but...

1) Booze makes addiction
2) they (booze) costs much and addicted boozer pay everything he has to buy them
3) boozer finally has no cash, so he uses cash of his family, friends and similar
4) family, friends and similar stop giving cash to boozer, so he is starting stealing
5) when strong boozing, he starts commiting serious crimes and generally is dangerous

All in all - community has problems because
1) man became boozer
2) boozer is not paying cash but we have to pay big cash to heal him or to prevent him from commiting crimes
3) boozer's family became poor and we have to pay them
4) boozer spread aids and similar

With booze legal, it is dangerous for whole community, because we would have to pay for that boozers.

That people who have no problem with legal alcohol but think "drugs" should stay illegal are blind to the sameness of the two is sublime in its ridiculousness...

[CountArach]

$4 Billion Well Spent

Across the Andean region, the size of the coca crop has increased 18 percent in the past five years, a period during which the United States has spent $4 billion on anti-drug programs. With farmers turning to pesticides and modern irrigation to improve crop yields, the amount of cocaine produced in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia -- source countries for nearly all of the global supply -- hovers at 1,100 tons a year, according to a recent U.N. report.

Here in the lush Yungas region of western Bolivia, farmers are allowed by law to plant a total of nearly 30,000 acres of coca -- leaf that is then sold in the domestic market for tea or to be chewed to ward off hunger. But production here far exceeds that threshold, and much of the surplus feeds a cocaine trade thriving in part on the new regional demand of a rising Latin American middle class.

The Andean cocaine supply now exceeds the amount produced in the 1990s, when U.S. policymakers pushed anti-drug aid to the region to counter powerful Colombian cartels. In 1993, when a U.S.-supported police unit shot dead the drug lord Pablo Escobar in his home town of Medellin, the Andes produced 200 fewer tons of cocaine than it did last year.

[CrossLOPER]

Clearly, the only solution is to outsell the drug dealers.

[Xiahou]

From 2006 to 2007, cocaine use among adults ages 18-25 decreased 23 percent to 1.7 percent, the annual report found, and methamphetamine use fell by a third to 0.4 percent.

link

The 50-59 year old set still seems to be loving their drugs, but the younger kids seem to be getting it based on this. Interestingly, abuse of prescription drugs are also up- so we should legalize them.

[Fragony]

Drug problem is virtually non-existant here, here we have traffic jams. A very wise politician said that he can't fix it we will just have to deal with it and get up earlier to make it in time. When it comes to drugs other politicians should have the same honesty and just admit that it just cannot be solved.

[LittleGrizzly]

As far as im concerned alcohol is a class A drug, just it isn't illegal, it is certainly worse than most recreational drugs, and if those drugs were legally produced and supplied they would be safer again, my argument isn't that alcohol is more harmful than other drugs so they should be allowed too, my argument is that look at all the fun and good times people who responsibly use alcohol have, why should we restrict other people because there are idiots that abuse these kinds of things....

I think of it as almost similar to driving, there are idiots that take substances well driving or just drive like idiots, but we don't ban everyone from using cars, just the idiots who put others in danger, although obviously cars can be considered more important most people take drugs (from alcohol to pot to H) to have a good time, which i consider just as.... or even more important....