Thoughts on Drugs
- Thread starter Genghis Khan
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Genghis Khan
Ancient Mariner
American government and society, in general, seem too conservative to me to allow a legalization of drugs -- of any kind. Unfortunately, many are thinking in the puritanical, absolutist sense -- if drugs are bad for everyone then drugs must be illegal no matter the fact that the war on drugs is making the matters worse.
On Canadian news today I have heard that Ontario premier[sup]1[/sup] Dalton McGuinty wishes harsher sentences for those peddling marijuana, in light of recent increase of discovery of grow ops in Ontario. Here is another problem that could be resolved with legalization and taxation.
Great posts, everyone!
[sup]1[/sup] Think of premier like a governor of the whole province of Ontario.
On Canadian news today I have heard that Ontario premier[sup]1[/sup] Dalton McGuinty wishes harsher sentences for those peddling marijuana, in light of recent increase of discovery of grow ops in Ontario. Here is another problem that could be resolved with legalization and taxation.
Great posts, everyone!
[sup]1[/sup] Think of premier like a governor of the whole province of Ontario.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Shadow said:
So they all go to Denmark to get pissed
@Prodigal Son: I think you might be right about that one. Although apparently the Norwegians come over to Sweden for the exact same reason.
Anyway, I think Iron Duke is right. This is why the taxes on cigarettes are so high. It's in the governments best interest to keep the tobacco industry alive and their people smoking since they make huge profits off the inelastic demand for cigarettes. True, in the long term they haveto worry about health costs, but since parties only stay in office for a few years, they don't really haveto worry about it.
So, why not do the same thing for drugs like weed? Why not indeed?
Anyway, I think Iron Duke is right. This is why the taxes on cigarettes are so high. It's in the governments best interest to keep the tobacco industry alive and their people smoking since they make huge profits off the inelastic demand for cigarettes. True, in the long term they haveto worry about health costs, but since parties only stay in office for a few years, they don't really haveto worry about it.
So, why not do the same thing for drugs like weed? Why not indeed?
Natalie said:
That wasn't really my point, but you are correct (as usual). If this happened in Canada, you can bet the only legal distributors of it would be the government itself! They love monopolies! Not only can quality be regulated, they can also inflate prices (every provincial government does it with alcohol)
My original point was this: The biggest problems associated with drugs are not the health side-effects. It's the violence of the drug lords..
If drugs are legal, there will be no more drug lords or dealers. It's really that simple!
The government of a country is the drug lord, or is cooperating with drug lords to gain money for letting them go on with their business. A drug addict(especially the one on the hard stuff) is a drug addict, and if it is necessary evil, than the government can may as well take the money that junkies waste on drugs for herself and maybe even put it in to good use. For every kilogram of drugs intercepted by the police on the border you here on the news about, there are 3kg. allowed to be dealed away.
There are reasons to believe that one of the reasons the USA goes on campaigns in the middle east is to take away the drug trafficking business from the hands of the countries they fight with, and by doing that cut one of their enemies's biggest source of finances. And of course deal the stuff themselves afterwards.
If you want not to have junkies(in this I don't include people on marijuana, unless they let it go too far) than one of the the quickiest solutions is to shoot them in the head on a public square.
Since democratic countries don't resort to that, they have junkies and so, it's better for that drug money to go in to government's hands than the hands of that countries enemy or some independent drug lord.
Legalising drugs... well, you would still had your own state selling you the stuff. No one can tell for sure what effect, in terms of degree of the use, would legalising(complete legalising)had, and I don't see any big country gambling with that really, even though such action would if the drug use wouldn't increase dramatically by it, be a step forward for mankind maybe. You could say- here, we have the right to take any drug we want , and even though we are smart enough not to, we enjoy in the sheer freedom of the possibility. The question is, I think, how smart are we? Can we cope with such almost absolute freedom? Too many choices, for many people mean confuse.
There are reasons to believe that one of the reasons the USA goes on campaigns in the middle east is to take away the drug trafficking business from the hands of the countries they fight with, and by doing that cut one of their enemies's biggest source of finances. And of course deal the stuff themselves afterwards.
If you want not to have junkies(in this I don't include people on marijuana, unless they let it go too far) than one of the the quickiest solutions is to shoot them in the head on a public square.
Since democratic countries don't resort to that, they have junkies and so, it's better for that drug money to go in to government's hands than the hands of that countries enemy or some independent drug lord.
Legalising drugs... well, you would still had your own state selling you the stuff. No one can tell for sure what effect, in terms of degree of the use, would legalising(complete legalising)had, and I don't see any big country gambling with that really, even though such action would if the drug use wouldn't increase dramatically by it, be a step forward for mankind maybe. You could say- here, we have the right to take any drug we want , and even though we are smart enough not to, we enjoy in the sheer freedom of the possibility. The question is, I think, how smart are we? Can we cope with such almost absolute freedom? Too many choices, for many people mean confuse.