I don't agree on the "reduce crime" part because more people are going to use them since they are legalized. The drugs will still cost money, and hardcore addicts will still go to any length to obtain them.

Not really, think about how many drug busts are going on right now! Drug culture is a lifestyle in itself which brings more crime! IF we legalize drugs then bye bye drug lords and everything associated with them...

Plus if we legalize drugs less chances of people getting laced stuff which stops people from getting into hardcore drugs.

I think the government would take a huge hit if drugs like weed and meth were legalized. All the criminals that are in jail would appeal their case. A major percent of criminals in prison are there because of substance abuse. Money the government get from bailing and bonding drug dealers would be cut short.

Alcohol is a drug, far more deadly than weed. It was prohibited in the 20's but was later permitted. Sooner than later, weed will be legalized. I'm sure of it.

Sorry, had to.

Alexia wrote:

I think the government would take a huge hit if drugs like weed and meth were legalized. All the criminals that are in jail would appeal their case. A major percent of criminals in prison are there because of substance abuse. Money the government get from bailing and bonding drug dealers would be cut short.

Alcohol is a drug, far more deadly than weed. It was prohibited in the 20's but was later permitted. Sooner than later, weed will be legalized. I'm sure of it.

Are you joking? The government would make a fortune if it legalized weed and then taxed it.

As for bail, the money is generally payed back. Not to mention the millions of dollars in legal fees the government and states pay on a yearly bases to prosecute drug offenders.

All for drug legalisation.

Weed, yes...hardcore shit like meth, no.

I go to school, work, and take care of a household everyday. I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to relax and enjoy a bowl at the end of the day, just like one does with a beer.

Studies have shown that alcohol is worse than marijuana for your health, yet alcohol is legal and weed is not.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

Weed, yes...hardcore shit like meth, no.

Why not? All the reasons pot should be legalised apply to harder drugs, and then some. I mean better quality control isn't going to be a huge issue with pot, but could concievably save many lives that would otherwise have been lost to overdise in the case of stuff like heroin.

This.

Alcohol-related accidents are a leading cause of death, and it is still pretty much legal...

The problem is that meth is far different...it has a profound effect on one's mental health and leads to bizarre, paranoid, dangerous behavior, heightened aggression and permanent short-term memory loss...and yes, it is deadly. I'm aware that tobacco is also potentially deadly, but tobacco smokers are capable of leading normal, productive lives, whereas meth addicts are not. It's one thing to smoke tobacco for 40 years with the risk of maybe possibly getting lung cancer (and many people don't) but meth is just bad news.

well i know in amsterdam before the legalized weed they had like thousands of hardcore drug addicts (i think it was around 50000, but i can be to sure on the exact figure) and the government were able to use the money from weed to rehabilitate these junkies which had no prospect and were basically living on the streets, and now there are only a few 100 junkies left in the city and theft has dramatically decreased because people with serious addiction problems didnt have to steal to get their fix, i think its would be good to legalize softcore drugs but definitely not the hardcore stuff cause it just seriously messes with your head and you could end up killing someone or yourself, not to mention the long term effects it has on your mental heath, like the worst we got with weed was some paranoia.

If not cancer, then emphysema, but yes there are lifelong smokers who never develop cancer.

To be 100% honest, I have no idea what the exact statistics are, but I was mainly going by the fact that I've had a few relatives who smoked for years and ended up dying of old age rather than cancer, and other people I know personally have relatives with the same backgrounds. Not really proof by any means, but it does show something.

Then again, my maternal grandfather smoked for 48 years and died of lung cancer, so ya know. :p

Honestly, as libertarian as I come off as being when it comes to a lot political issues, I don't know how I feel about the harder drugs being decriminalized or even legalized. Being someone who's going into the healthcare field, I look at it from that perspective.

Sure, economically, we would reap a lot of benefits from taxing the use of these drugs. Or will we? Always question your best assumption. In my search to find some statistics, I ended up only finding very old statistics. Nevertheless, I think may be helpful in my arguments. The information that follows was taken from the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and some DAWN survey on hospital visits. According to this, 7.1% of the US population had used an illicit drug of any kind in the month prior to the survey. I think we need to break this down a little bit, that's hard to work with:

-76% of those people were marijuana users
-"Approximately 56 percent of current illicit drug users consumed only marijuana, 20 percent used marijuana and another illicit drug, and the remaining 24 percent used an illicit drug but not marijuana in the past month. Therefore, about 44 percent of current illicit drug users in 2001 (7.0 million Americans) used illicit drugs other than marijuana and hashish, with or without using marijuana as well." (Didn't feel like paraphrasing that one)
-1.3 million were users of hallucinogenic drugs, maaaaan
-0.1% shot or smoked dope. (Heroin)
-0.7% snorted cocaine

Ouch my brain! So what does this all mean? I told myself to question the notion that I think the legalization of harder drugs would increase healthcare costs. I did, and with a little search through my Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders, I found some juicy information. When you diagnose someone with a mental disorder, there are five Axis's that you fill out. Axis I are your clinical disorders and Axis II are personality disorders and intellectual deficiencies (mental retardation). Those are the only two you need to know. Oh and Axis V which is your global assessment of functioning (Don't quote me on this, but the lower your GAF score, the easier it probably is to be covered). Basically, only Axis I is covered by insurance (most of the time). Substance Abuse-Related Disorders are Axis I. Meaning they're covered by most peoples' insurance plans. So, do the hospitals and rehab centers actually pay all that much? You can do your own research and dispute that, but I don't think they do. You do have to take into consideration the uninsured, so I'm acknowledging that now.

I'm also pretty sure mental treatment isn't as costly as physical treatment. You could argue for people who actually hurt themselves because of these, but if you have health insurance, you should be good to go.

What my main point is, it could go either way. From what was listed above, drug abuse doesn't seem as prevalent as most people would have you believe. Which also points out that there might not be as much of a financial incentive to legalize harder drugs as there would be to legalize marijuana. I'm also a firm believer that people won't just jump on the hard drug abuse bandwagon and start shooting heroin. I don't think it would happen that way. Most people know what's up.

At this point, I choose to stay on the fence.

It's not just a case of letting people do things to themselves if they want to because we're liberal-and-all-that. What about the families of drug users?


Oh yes. Carcinogens cause cancer, but they don't have a 100% success rate.

risk of contracting lung cancer based soley on a long-term smoking pattern is highly relative. i remember reading a study based on cross product probability, in class. they studied 10,000 smokers over a period of time and of them, only 1500 actually had or got lung cancer, and 8500 were completely healthy.

personally, i think it's completely related to how vulnerable you are to getting cancer, all depending on your genes and how susceptible you are to the disease.