but you're making a logical fallacy with that statement.

You're basically saying that if hard drugs are legalized, the streets will be filled with people trashing shit looking for a fix.

That's similar to the logical fallacy that if carrying guns is legalized, it'll cause significantly higher murder rates.

It's not necessarily true. The gun one's been proven in fact. As for the drugs...basically, if hard drugs were legalized, right now, who would do them? The people that currently do them, probably. How many others? Probably few...there's a social stigma against them.

If these drugs are legally available (thus guaranteed to be free of various 'additives'), people overdosing goes down. People getting shot in dope deals goes down. In fact, the whole narcotics trade/war on drugs thing goes out the window. It's cheaper and easier to legally ship it than to try and smuggle it. Not to mention safer for the 'dealers'. And the users.

All those savings could be translated into campaigns like the anti-drinking/anti-smoking campaigns we have now, and treatment.

Bleh...anyway, there's no way to say for sure what would happen until it happened, but I don't think your scenario is likely.

Well, you're probably right about there not being a dramatic increase in users and thus robbing junks. And the economic side is definitely a plus.

But I guess the overall judgement depends on your view on to what extent you make your own destiny, you know?

I think in the future, people will realise that drugs are just a load of shit and totally pointless. Besides, they will find some link to cancer or something, somewhere along the lines.

'Smoking is good for you'.

My concern is already proven. How many deaths are related to alcohol? Drunk driving? People being shot because perp has drunken away his common sense? An individuals civil rights should be upheld to the extent that they do not endanger the civil rights and safety of others. IMO, alcohol is worse than the hard drugs because it is socially acceptable and thus more widely used and abused. If alcohol can do so much damage because it is so available, imagine what a serious drug could do?

I'm not worried about people stealing because they need money for a fix. That would be less of a concern if it was legalized. My concern is that once they get high, they are dangerous (through stupidity or aggressiveness) enough to kill people. Just alcohol has caused hundreds of thousands of pointless stupid fucking deaths, and not just for the drinkers. Have any of you had someone killed because of a drunk driver? Imagine losing you girlfriend to some putz that couldn't control his vehicle. This is already a big problem without introducing a bunch of other destructive drugs.

good post pig.

many people hate smoking coz its easy to inhale the smoke yourself, but they forget about drink driving etc. Getting high off pot or whatever is gonna cause a similar thing. What are they gonna do, introduce 'units' of pot that give you a legal driving limit? I don't think that's gonna work somehow...

sure, that could work. They already have a breathalyzer for pot.

The thing is, just because the drugs are legalized doesn't mean people will do stupid shit while on them. It comes down to social responsibility.

In the US, yea, you're probably right, people would abuse them and fuck shit up. Hell, maybe you should have to get a license in order to buy them or something. Require testing, psychological screening, and an annually renewable hardcore drug license that'll get suspended if you get caught doing something stupid.

However, back to the point...why should someone doing something stupid fuck it up for the rest of it? Just because one out of every 100 people drives while drunk, does that mean noone should be allowed to drink? I think group punishment like that is just horrible.

found this chart:

http://www.dui.com/drunk_driving_resear ... dwide.html

The US isn't actually doing that bad. South Korea is really bad. Anyway, I think it's more a social problem. It's legal to drink beer in Germany when you're 16 (and, in reality, when you can reach the counter and ask for it) and they have a smaller death rate than us.

Same here @ drinking laws. Although I think the amount of alcohol-related car accidents is pretty high here...we're not in the chart so can't say for sure. Also legalized marihuana. But I don't think we're off the charts.

Anyway, to me alcohol and soft drugs are still a different matter than truly hardcore dope. If you're gonna forbid those it won't work anyway, because they are -at their core- relatively harmless and will be generally ignored by law enforcement anyway. I mean, you have to go through some serious trouble OD'ing over alcohol and pot. It's definitely possible, but the lethality isn't anywhere near hard drugs and therefore considered less of a threat I guess. Most people don't think in long term, they think short-term. Smoking a few cigarettes definitely won't kill you, smoking a few a day for years can. But ppl can't grasp that. Erh...just trying to make a point why it's socially more accepted. Alcohol usually kills in the long run, hard drugs are much more likely to get you killed all at once.

Back to my point: when I meant junks stealing for their fix, I mostly meant hurting/killing/whatevering people they steal from. The stealing An Sich is not THAT huge a problem, their hurting others is. I don't agree that a legalisation would diminuish this problem...it's not cos it's legal that you can cough up the 100 bucks a day to sustain your addiction.

So what we have is a distinction based on impact of an addiction, I guess. An alcohol addict is still somewhat workable, a heroin junk is barely even able to have a coherent conversation. I think the chances that extra hard drug junks damage society are huge, but I also agree that alcoholists can be equally damaging (in different ways). But....you can ban it, but that doesn't mean it goes away. It's socially accepted, hard drugs aren't. That's much more of an issue here than what the alw determines. (well, unless you're hauling around kilos of coke in your backpack, of course )

i gotta disagree a bit ox. Alcohol addicts are still pretty unworkable from my experience. Just in less of a... my brain is fried kinda way, more in a 'gotta go buy more' kinda way. And yes, alcoholics do get violent if they can't get to the shop/have the money for alcohol, as drug addicts still would. Only difference is they can get it more easily as they don't have to sneak about trying to evade the police. Not to mention how they mentally hurt people around them without realising. They block everyone out unless that person is giving them drink. They don't talk, they get irritable and aside from that, having to try to look after them/live with them is a huge strain for anyone. And thats before you look at the violent alcoholics.

Personally I think the only way to deal with anything that turns into an addiction is to either a) hold people in rehab centres or b) only give such things out as rations. Which then leads back to the smuggling of the goods and/or breaking into the pharmacy's that hold the goods. Either that or you remove whatever it is that is addicting. Which is probably easier said than done, and also would probably leave that item unappealing to most people.

None of the solutions are exactly ideal. Ban everything, and its all just smuggled in. Let everyone use everything, its easier to OD or something stupid. And the current situation is the dumbest. Personally I'd rather that heroine or whatever was legal than cigarettes; at least I don't have to breathe that in from other people like I do their tar-ridden smoke.

bah....all the cars squirting smog into the sky is more harmful in the long run than the occasional cigarette you have to walk near.

Anyway, maybe this'll just be another subject we'll have to agree to disagree.

Thats a good question. Something to think about though. If you apply that standard to drugs, you also need to apply it to cigarettes and alcohol.

Second hand smoke is dangerous to non-smokers and too much alcohol makes anyone dangerous, yet I dont see strong regulations against these.

how about we make SUVs illegal. Those fuckers just increased my likelihood to die in a crash significantly.

And they're fucking ugly.

A distinction between essential products and luxuries needs to be identified before changing the subject from cigarettes to SUV's. SUV's are most probably more of an essential product compared to cigarettes, so with relevance to harmfl consequence, the cigarettes are more important to remove.

SUVs in a world of energy crises and hybrids are as necessary to human existence as testicular cancer.

heh...anyway...I just wanted to use testicular cancer in a sentence. Still, how can someone call SUVs necessary? They're just a consequence of excessive materialism. There's no reason to drive an SUV over a car, except that your chance of dying in an SUV-SUV collision is less than if you get hit by an SUV while driving a car.

Of course, if there weren't any SUVs, we wouldn't have that problem.

But, SUVs are not illegal, and buying one is freedom of expression. So, as long as they're legal, I support people's rights to buy them. However, I don't think they should be legal, since they significantly increase the risk of a fatal accident. Especially for the poor schmuck doing the sensible thing and driving a fuel-efficient vehicle.

Image a Prius getting hit by a Suburban. *shiver*