What changes would you support to our narcotics laws?

[Prince Cobra]

Eating a pizza, unhealthy yet pleasurable
Riding a motorcyle, risky yet fun (I believ 16x more likely to die)
Drinking coffee, a stimulant, unhealthy

So being "unhealthy", "risky" or "a drug" is fine. But obviously the goverment has some responsibility.

About 5,000 people a year die in motorcyle accidents, and you are about twice as likely to die if you take a bike compared to a car. So that's 2,500 deaths a year the government could prevent by banning motorcyles. And all the extra injuries as well, probably 99% of motorcyle accidents result in injury. The rate of death is 66.7 per 100,000.

So if you support motorcyles being legal, should you support any drug being legal that has a death rate of 66.7 per 100,000 or less?

Some drugs have other concerns besides death, but I left the amputated arms and smashed in faces out of the motorcyle equation too because I didn't want to take the time to look it up.

Many owners of motorcycles are responsible people. Motorcycle is meant to be a transport vehicle.The example you gave is a simple abuse. Some drugs are used in the medicine and that's not illegal. Using your example, legalisation of the drugs is abolishing the speed limit.

Ooops, Sasaki, I thought you voted for full legalisation...

[Furunculus]

By what rationale is alcohol not a hard drug?

by the rationale that we don't accept it as one.

[Pannonian]

Interesting that no-one has supported the current policies and next to no-one supports 'more of the same only worse'.

It does leave the question of who our politicians are appealing to with their moribund approach?

People who don't read the Org? In the UK at least, people who are most likely to vote in numbers aren't really the kind of people I'd associate with playing TW games.

[Idaho]

by the rationale that we don't accept it as one.

But do you agree with laws based on cultural and emotional responses or do you think there should be some method or evidence behind such decisions?

But as long as things remain the way they are, I'm not touching that stuff. If the situation changes, and it's sold by government outlets, for example, then the situation changes, of course(though I still doubt that I will try it, I love my beer).

I wouldn't touch heroin and cocaine if it was legal. I'm just not interested.

Many owners of motorcycles are responsible people. Motorcycle is meant to be a transport vehicle.The example you gave is a simple abuse. Some drugs are used in the medicine and that's not illegal. Using your example, legalisation of the drugs is abolishing the speed limit.

Not so at all. Most drug users are responsible people. Do you think everyone you see sat in a pub or stood outside smoking a cigarette is a wild and dangerous person?

[Louis VI the Fat]

I voted 'Decriminalise use and supply'.


Hmm, I'm the only one who did so. Two concerns are behind my vote:

1) Frustration over criminalization of drugs and the effect this has on law and order.

Notably:
- the strain on law enforcement,
- the huge profits. Unsolvable. The more drugs are interecpted, the higher the price becomes.
- the trickling upwards of these billions and billions, which undermines the legal economy. This effect must not be underestimated.
- the destabilising effect on producing countries. See: Colombia and Afghanistan.
- crime, and the formation and perpetuation of sensitive urban areas / ghetto's.


2) Drugs are bad.

Much worse, I think, than many proponents of legalization argue. This includes alchol, which I think comes at the highest social cost of all drugs.
Drugs are explosive goods, and need to be tightly monitored by the government. I am not in favour of the somewhat arbitrary division of alcohol legal and cannabis illegal. Both need to be monitored closely.

[Idaho]

I voted 'Decriminalise use and supply'.


Hmm, I'm the only one who did so. Two concerns are behind my vote:

1) Frustration over criminalization of drugs and the effect this has on law and order.

Notably:
- the strain on law enforcement,
- the huge profits. Unsolvable. The more drugs are interecpted, the higher the price becomes.
- the trickling upwards of these billions and billions, which undermines the legal economy. This effect must not be underestimated.
- the destabilising effect on producing countries. See: Colombia and Afghanistan.
- crime, and the formation and perpetuation of sensitive urban areas / ghetto's.


2) Drugs are bad.

Much worse, I think, than many proponents of legalization argue. This includes alchol, which I think comes at the highest social cost of all drugs.
Drugs are explosive goods, and need to be tightly monitored by the government. I am not in favour of the somewhat arbitrary division of alcohol legal and cannabis illegal. Both need to be monitored closely.

It seems that you rationale doesn't match your vote. You want close montoring and control - but have elected to leave drugs in a totally uncontrolled market.

Personally I think decriminalisation is perhaps the worst answer. It refuses to stop, control or take any responsibility for a criminal market.

[HoreTore]

People who don't read the Org? In the UK at least, people who are most likely to vote in numbers aren't really the kind of people I'd associate with playing TW games.

Every single statistic shows that the higher your education is, the more likely you are to vote.

So.... It's the smart, educated and successful people doing the voting.

[Beskar]

The thing is, it is a similar situation with "legal alternatives" which is weed killer, packaged with names like "snowball" with on the side have written "not safe for human consumption".

I think drugs should be decriminalised for use and I have no problems in other drugs being used for other things. However, I wish people would stop trying to smoke their maths text book as a spliff because it is hemp paper.

[Furunculus]

But do you agree with laws based on cultural and emotional responses or do you think there should be some method or evidence behind such decisions?

both, but principally the first, and regardless i have little interest in drugs, only the problems caused by their criminalisation.

[rory_20_uk]

Every single statistic shows that the higher your education is, the more likely you are to vote.

So.... It's the smart, educated and successful people doing the voting.

Thank God! Still leaves too many of the others with the vote, or at least are viewed as enough of a threat that they might vote elsewhere so money is still showered upon them.

I'm for legalised, controlled drugs.

But IF you want them illegal, release batches with impurities and switch what the impurity is: blood thinner one week, maybe some insecticide the next... Make drugs really playing with one's life.

[Pannonian]

Every single statistic shows that the higher your education is, the more likely you are to vote.

So.... It's the smart, educated and successful people doing the voting.

In the UK, especially among the younger sections of the population, they're more likely to be apathetic. It's the suburban conservative middle class who can be relied on to vote, hence New Labour's periodic reactionary policies directed at their approval. They favour more CCTV, more police, more cars, strict enforcement of current cultural norms even as they privately ingest assorted substances, etc. They may be educated, they may have some liberal views, but they're not likely to be liberal across the board. Tory probably best describes them, albeit solidly Thatcherite economically.

[AlexanderSextus]

I'm assuming that this isn't JUST for cannabis, which is why I put "Legalize and let business operate market" instead of Full Legalization, IF it was just cannabis I would've put the latter.

[Idaho]

The difference I intended between the "Full Legalization" and the "Legalize and let businesses operate market" options is a litttle unlcear - my apologies.

My intention was that full legalization means that they are marketed, advertised and sold just like any other product whereas the business operate and state operate were meant to suggest that they would be legal but the market would not be so deregulated (authorised clinics, etc).

My model would be something like this:

Clinics attached to General Practitioner surgeries staffed with nurses, drug counsellors and a doctor.

You get your clinic card which shows which drugs you are authorised to buy. You become authorised by attending education sessions about a particular drug. You are told the safer doses, methods of consumption, risks, etc. Once you have your ticket you can buy a maximum amount of that drug each day. If you buy it frequently the system flags you as a potential problem user and you have to go and see a counsellor/medical practitioner to discuss your use. They will only stop your supply if you don't go and see them. You can elect to carry on taking the drugs after this session - that's your choice.

Habitual users of certain drugs go into an advanced programme where they get increased support to get clean if they choose.

I wouldn't include weed/mushrooms in this system of prescription, but the advisors, etc would be trained to give guidance about it too.

[Idaho]

Bump this for an interesting article in the Economist:

Basically saying that most nations have effectively adopted decriminalisation without stating it openly. The vast majority of drug offences are met with administrative rather than custodial punishments:

Virtually legal
Nov 12th 2009
From The Economist print edition

In many countries, full jails, stretched budgets and a general weariness with the war on drugs have made prohibition harder to enforce

THE Green Relief “natural health clinic” in a bohemian part of San Francisco doesn’t sound like an ordinary doctor’s surgery. For those who wonder about the sort of relief provided, its logo—a cannabis leaf—is a clue. Inside, in under an hour and for $99, patients can get a doctor’s letter allowing them to smoke marijuana in California with no fear of prosecution. In a state that pioneered bans on smoking tobacco, smoking cannabis is now easier than almost anywhere in the world.

California, with its network of pot-friendly physicians, offers the most visible evidence of a tentative worldwide shift towards a more liberal policy on drugs. Although most countries remain bound by a trio of United Nations conventions that prohibit the sale and possession of narcotics, laws are increasingly being bent or ignored. That is true even in the United States, where the Obama administration has announced that registered cannabis dispensaries will no longer be raided by federal authorities.

From heroin “shooting galleries” in Vancouver to Mexico’s decriminalisation of personal possession of drugs, the Americas are suddenly looking more permissive. Meanwhile in Europe, where drugs policy is generally less stringent, seven countries have decriminalised drug possession, and the rest are increasingly ignoring their supposedly harsh regimes. Is the “war on drugs” becoming a fiction?

Reformers are in a bold mood. Earlier this year a report by ex-presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico called for alternatives to prohibition. On November 12th a British think-tank, Transform, launched a report* setting out ideas on how drugs could be legally regulated. For every substance from cannabis to crack, it suggests a form of regulation, via doctors’ prescriptions, pharmacy sales or consumption on licensed premises.

That world is still some way off. But a debate about regulation is increasingly drowning out the one about enforcement. Take America, where 13 states let people smoke marijuana for medical reasons. Most set somewhat stricter terms than California—where insomnia, migraines and post-traumatic stress can all be reasons for a spliff, if you see the right doctor. “There’s never been a person born who couldn’t qualify,” says Keith Stroup, the founder of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a lobby group that has been around since 1970. “In California, the system of medical use they have adopted is in fact a version of legalisation.”

Elsewhere in the United States, there are many signs of prohibition ebbing away. Some 14 states have decriminalised the possession of marijuana for personal use (medical or otherwise), though most keep the option of a $100 civil penalty. Three states—New Mexico, Rhode Island and Massachusetts—license non-profit corporations to grow medical marijuana. Most radically, some states are considering legalising the drug completely. California and Massachusetts are holding committee hearings on bills to legalise pot outright; Oregon is expected to introduce such a bill within the next couple of weeks.

One reason for the sudden popularity of cannabis is financial. Tom Ammiano, the California assemblyman who introduced the bill to legalise marijuana earlier this year, points out that were it taxed it could raise some $1.3 billion a year for state coffers, based on a $50 per ounce levy on sales. As an added benefit to the public purse, lots of police time and prison space would be freed up. California’s jails heave with 170,000 inmates, almost a fifth of them inside for drug-related crimes, albeit mostly worse than just possessing a spliff.

In Europe, the authorities face similar pressures: the difficulty of enforcement, and bursting courts and prisons. So the tough sentences recommended in the laws of many European countries are seldom handed out. London’s police chief said last week that law-breakers of all kinds were escaping with cautions or on-the-spot fines, because of pressure on the courts.

...

Source:Virtually Legal

[Fragony]

Pretty surprising to me that out of these countries we are the harshest. I know from experience that the Spanish and French police are pretty tolerant, they just take it from you.


Basically saying that most nations have effectively adopted decriminalisation without stating it openly.

Looks like I was on to something

[rory_20_uk]

Obama has helped this creep into many South America countries - in essence by not throwing a hissy fit when it is mentioned.

It's an ugly fudge, but I'm enough of a pragmatist (in fact, almost wholly a pragmatist) to see it as the first steps on the path of a sensible policy on the subject.

[Idaho]

Pretty surprising to me that out of these countries we are the harshest.

I wonder whether the open policy of tolerance has distorted the result on that one. Because only the serious, persistent and large scale cases get police intervention.

Any German orgahs comment on the German stat? It looks like there are no "other" policies being applied - cautions, rehab orders, etc.

[Idaho]

Obama has helped this creep into many South America countries - in essence by not throwing a hissy fit when it is mentioned.

It's an ugly fudge, but I'm enough of a pragmatist (in fact, almost wholly a pragmatist) to see it as the first steps on the path of a sensible policy on the subject.

Internally I think he has decided to let the states take the lead and just not let the federal thingies (sorry US internal politics confuses me) get in the way or oppose what they do.

Not so sure about the South America thing. The US have recently set up a large military base in Columbia with the stated aim of combatting drugs. Personally I think this is almost certainly about securing oil access a decade or so down the track.

[Fragony]

I wonder whether the open policy of tolerance has distorted the result on that one. Because only the serious, persistent and large scale cases get police intervention.

Are we talking about weed or all drugs, that could explain it, never heard of someone going to jail for growing marihuana, but there is also XTC and the trade is pretty damn big. It's a pest to the enviroment because the chemicals are dumped and when something explodes it's usually an XTC-lab, these are not recreational users but hardline professional criminals. I think that is what we are dealing with here.

[Pannonian]

Internally I think he has decided to let the states take the lead and just not let the federal thingies (sorry US internal politics confuses me) get in the way or oppose what they do.

Obama = State Rights?

[Idaho]

Obama = State Rights?

I imagine that like all politicians he would be keen to be all in favour of some high principle when it meets a practical need.