Drugs! Drugs! Drugs!

[LittleGrizzly]

I thought the weed prohibition was more profit and immigrant related.. or did alcohol prohibition show 'it can work' so made it more likely.... (or are you on about some other drug altogether ?)

[drone]

There were a lot of reasons for the 1937 Tax Act. One of the theories is that a decent percentage of potential booze hounds switched to weed during prohibition, and didn't go back after the repeal. The recovering beverage industry wanted their customers back, and pushed for the ban. Alongside the anti-Mexican sentiment and the fear that pot would force hip black jazz musicians to violate white girls and kill their boyfriends.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

There were a lot of reasons for the 1937 Tax Act. One of the theories is that a decent percentage of potential booze hounds switched to weed during prohibition, and didn't go back after the repeal. The recovering beverage industry wanted their customers back, and pushed for the ban. Alongside the anti-Mexican sentiment and the fear that pot would force hip black jazz musicians to violate white girls and kill their boyfriends.

Sadly we did have a small percentage of loons who truly believed that last point -- and far more who were willing to use it as an excuse.

[Fixiwee]

See I think drugs have done good things for us, I really do.
And if you don't believe that drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor.
Go home tonight, take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cds and burn them.
'Cause you know what, the musicians who made all that great music that has enhanced your lives throughout the years?
Real ******* high on drugs.

-Billy Hicks

[Scienter]

Another vote for legalize and tax.

My drugs of choice are coffee and wine. I've been down to one (large) cup of coffee a day for a few years now, but I'd die without it. I've been on Vicodin (made me nauseous) and Percoset (really ed up dreams) and hated both, I'd never take them for fun! I had IV Dilaudid when I had my appendix out and let me tell you, it was awesome. If that stuff came in pill form, I'd probably have a problem.

[naut]

Drugs? Almost everywhere here, if you know where to look.

I thought the weed prohibition was more profit and immigrant related.. or did alcohol prohibition show 'it can work' so made it more likely.... (or are you on about some other drug altogether ?)

To cut a long story short it's to do with the timber industry at the turn of the 1900s. Hemp can be used for paper, but the timber industry obviously didn't want that to happen, and lobbied for the ban of all species of cannabis. So much for free market.

[Idaho]

Lots of coffee and tobbacco addicts on the thread. I can't tolerate the former (gives me the jitters) and I quit the latter after 15 years of tickling myself and scratching the same itch.

I have tried pretty much everything over the years. Opiates would suit me just fine if I was daft enough to take them again. Stimulants are always fun on the way up, and horrible on the way down. Cocaine is very similar to the nicotine tickle-and-scratch cycle. I don't do any of them any more.

Alcohol and cannabis are my vices. Never on a school night, only in moderation, and always of the highest quality. Drugs are important to us humans. They are part of who we are and what we like. But as we all know there are all kinds of issues and problems to do with dependance, side-effects, self-destructive behaviour. It's a shame we have to add criminalisation, high prices, and money-for-drugs crime to the mix.

Here in the UK the crappier tv channels have a lot of 'real life cop' programmes. Reportage of police going about their daily duties. What's telling about it is that 95% of their work is about drugs - and the majority being the side effects of alcohol (fights/people passed out/noise and disorder). The non-alcohol drug work they do is usually to do with arresting otherwise orderly (but often sad and hopeless) people for possession or low level dealing.

[Crazed Rabbit]

From News of the Weird:

More Texas Justice: In March, juries in Smith County and Matagorda County sentenced Henry Wooten and Melvin Johnson III to 35 years and 60 years in prison, respectively, for possessing small amounts of drugs (but enough under Texas law to allow jurors to infer an intent to distribute). Wooten, 54, had 4.6 ounces of marijuana (same penalty as for 5 pounds), and Johnson had 1.3 grams of crack cocaine (about half the weight of a U.S. dime). (Wooten's prosecutor actually had asked the jury for a sentence of 99 years.) [Tyler Morning News, 3-5-10] [Houston Press, 3-11-10]

Insanity.

CR

[Myrddraal]

An aside about cop shows: we get both the UK cop shows and the US "Wildest police chases" here in the UK when Channel five are running out of stuff to fill the schedule. The contrast is hilarious. In the US you film high speed pursuits down the wrong side of the motorway with tyres being shot out by machine guns. Each clip ends with some wise crack "This man thought running from the cops would be fun, now he'll learn the fun you can with two gunshot wounds and 15 years behind bars!" In the UK we get to watch PC Plod pull over Ryan (who he knows well) for driving without his licence again. Each clip ends wih an interview with the copper involved "We know Ryan well, this is the fith time we've stopped him for driving despite his ban. We keep warning him that if he keeps being a naughty boy he'll have to spend the night at the station, but he never learns"

[rory_20_uk]

But he has learnt - that laws are all but optional: odds of getting caught having nicked a car are relatively low, and getting caught means the downside of an uncomfortable bed. Hardly a massive deterrent, is it?

[Idaho]

But he has learnt - that laws are all but optional: odds of getting caught having nicked a car are relatively low, and getting caught means the downside of an uncomfortable bed. Hardly a massive deterrent, is it?

That's because the deterrent theory of punishment is nonsense on a number of levels, but appeals to home-counties curtain-twitchers.

[Myrddraal]

That's because the deterrent theory of punishment is nonsense on a number of levels, but appeals to home-counties curtain-twitchers.

I guess it depends on the severity of the crime. I don't know any studies on this, but I would theorise that for petty crimes it can be effective, but for anything remotely serious it fails to be a deterrent on the basis that in the psychology of the criminal they believe they won't be caught anyway, if they did they wouldn't go ahead. However for petty offenses like speeding, combine effective average speed checks on motorways with a hefty fine and I'm sure you'd see speeding disappear overnight.

[Pannonian]

An aside about cop shows: we get both the UK cop shows and the US "Wildest police chases" here in the UK when Channel five are running out of stuff to fill the schedule. The contrast is hilarious. In the US you film high speed pursuits down the wrong side of the motorway with tyres being shot out by machine guns. Each clip ends with some wise crack "This man thought running from the cops would be fun, now he'll learn the fun you can with two gunshot wounds and 15 years behind bars!" In the UK we get to watch PC Plod pull over Ryan (who he knows well) for driving without his licence again. Each clip ends wih an interview with the copper involved "We know Ryan well, this is the fith time we've stopped him for driving despite his ban. We keep warning him that if he keeps being a naughty boy he'll have to spend the night at the station, but he never learns"

Don't laugh at routine policework just because it seems so homely. This is proof that trying to break up a domestic row can turn tragic. Warning: footage of civilians being shot by officers.