Judge - I am the law and I'll do as I please.

[Magilla]

Drugs will never go away but people who get hooked on them do go away and in a nasty way into the bargain. Say hello to Whitney Houston again.

 

Getting hooked isn't the problem, the problem is overdosing because you have no idea of quality, purity and potency. Just like it used to be with alcohol.

 

Once drug free with a voice that was god's gift. Drugs didn't do anything to expand her mind into even greater creativity did they?

 

You'd have to ask her. I wouldn't know. The reality is though, she most likely wouldn't be dead if drugs were legal.

 

Have you stopped to look at what drugs have done to the most vulnerable in society, the young and the poor? Crack cocaine, the choice of the inner city youth. Deadly in that it can become very quickly addictive. Addicts who no longer care about their responisbilities as parents or the necessity to earn a living going around breaking into cars, shoplifting, doing anything, even murder to get the money to pay off the dealer for another fix.

 

All of which are largely because the drugs are unregulated, adulterated and of unknown potency. The same thing happened with alcohol until it was legislated for and supply regulated.

 

You could write volumes about the damage, destruction and misery that drugs have done to the post 1950s generations.

 

The explosion of which only started *after* drugs were prohibited and left in the hands of interested, criminal third parties.

 

So you think it's a good idea to legalize drugs because it's " radical chic" that freedom of choice should be a "natural given" in our modern soiphisticated 21st century society?

 

It's a good idea because the vast majority of users use responsibly, aswell as removing the cost of prohibition, the cost of the war on drugs, the costs for locking up people who've done very little wrong.

 

Not to mention the mixed messages a nonsensical system gives youngsters... "Here, this drug is OK becuase it's legal, advertised on TV and it's use encouraged. This other, less potent drug, that's bad (but don't ask me why)"

 

Clear as mud then!

 

Tell that to the police, the social workers, the victims of crime and the untold thousands whose lives have been destroyed as a result of drug use.

 

Most social workers I know (which isn't many I'll agree) seem to think the system is broken.

 

Still, if the drugs weren't illegal there may be no reason not to seek help when needed and those lives may not have been destroyed.

 

How would you regulate the use of drugs in a society where they were legal?

 

Restrict them for the use of the yuppies who drive around in Porsches and Lamborghinis? The "responsible" middle class living in their nice comfortable suburban semi-detached homes? The creative and succesful who bemefit from them in "mind expansion" ? In short those who would only indulge in a joint or two and a snifter of coke on Saturday nights

 

Now you're just being childish and silly. There is already a perfectly good system for regulating legal drugs, there has been for generations.

 

Wouldnt work work would it?

 

It would and has for generations.

 

You couldn't deny the use of drugs to the poor or lesser privileged could you? That wouldn't be democratic at all would it? Sooner or later some lawyer would come along and say that it was unfair and discriminatory

 

Meanwhile, back in reality.....

 

I dont know if we'll ever win the war on drugsr. It's an ongoing battle without any clear end in sight but legalizing the stuff would be just plain madness.

 

Every example you just sited is as a result of prohibition, or could have been alleviated if drugs weren't prohibited!

 

What's madness is trying to justify a legal system that has clearly failed, while at the same time costs a fortune in both lives and resources! Utterly illogical.

[Harleyman]

Are you seriously putting single mothers and AIDS on the same level of threat to society?

 

As for Dylan, you've obviously missed the liberal aspect of his songs and the fact that he did more drugs than a joint. The rubbish music of today is not generally down to wannabe gangsters but to the corporate nature of the music industry that churns out formulaic rubbish for idiots rather than the innovative stuff Dylan was doing in the 60s and 70s. That's down to corporatism not to a decline in moral values. Go back 50 years and the reactionaries were saying rock music then was a sign of moral decline.

 

Drugs were not part of the scene when rock and roll first appeared. Presley may have wiggled his ass around on stage and the WW2 generation parents of teenagers thrown up their hands in outrage and shock as did their parents when the Flappers, dancing the Charlston in short dresses in turn outraged their parents in the 20s and 30s. Such reactions among successive generations were always the norm since the days of Homer.

 

Those who did do drugs were traditionally musicians in the pre rock era.

Jazz and "reefers" were part of the scene, others were some in the movie industry who were also known alcoholics but it's widespread use was very limited in size.

 

All that changed with the Beatles generation. Their fans were the younger siblings of those who were the fans in the 1950s Rock and Roll era. I should know i was there.

As the 60s progressed so did drug use and knowing that John. Paul. George and Ringo smoked a joint or three along with Mick Jagger and the Stones and how may other 60s groups? Dozens of them. This didi much to influence the use among their teenage fans and lets face it kids go through the "stupid years" from around 15 to 20 as most parents know from experience. It was only a matter of time before drug use became cool among the over indulged kids of the Depression and WW2 generation.

Therefore in summary I place much of the blame on the icons of the 60s who were universally adored among kids all over the world, who could have made that a force for good but instead were responsible for what happened afterwards.

 

It's a strange world. Adolf Hitler seduced a whole generation and so did the Beatles. Look at any old news reel and the adoring, joyful expressions and hysterical outbursts among their adorers are eerily similar.

[Phanerothyme]

Godwin.

 

The Beatles = Hitler - you win - I won't argue with that, it's a killer punch for drug legalisation.

[Harleyman]

Getting hooked isn't the problem, the problem is overdosing because you have no idea of quality, purity and potency. Just like it used to be with alcohol.

 

 

 

You'd have to ask her. I wouldn't know. The reality is though, she most likely wouldn't be dead if drugs were legal.

 

 

 

All of which are largely because the drugs are unregulated, adulterated and of unknown potency. The same thing happened with alcohol until it was legislated for and supply regulated.

 

 

 

The explosion of which only started *after* drugs were prohibited and left in the hands of interested, criminal third parties.

 

 

 

It's a good idea because the vast majority of users use responsibly, aswell as removing the cost of prohibition, the cost of the war on drugs, the costs for locking up people who've done very little wrong.

 

Not to mention the mixed messages a nonsensical system gives youngsters... "Here, this drug is OK becuase it's legal, advertised on TV and it's use encouraged. This other, less potent drug, that's bad (but don't ask me why)"

 

Clear as mud then!

 

 

 

Most social workers I know (which isn't many I'll agree) seem to think the system is broken.

 

Still, if the drugs weren't illegal there may be no reason not to seek help when needed and those lives may not have been destroyed.

 

 

 

Now you're just being childish and silly. There is already a perfectly good system for regulating legal drugs, there has been for generations.

 

 

 

It would and has for generations.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, back in reality.....

 

 

 

Every example you just sited is as a result of prohibition, or could have been alleviated if drugs weren't prohibited!

 

What's madness is trying to justify a legal system that has clearly failed, while at the same time costs a fortune in both lives and resources! Utterly illogical.

 

 

In a society where drugs were legal how would you go about distributing them?

What laws would be put in place? Would it be acceptable to see your kids using them? Would you have any control as to the quantity they used?

 

Go on. Paint me a picture of Drug Utopia

[LeMaquis]

Therefore in summary I place much of the blame on the icons of the 60s who were universally adored among kids all over the world, who could have made that a force for good but instead were responsible for what happened afterwards.

 

It's a strange world. Adolf Hitler seduced a whole generation and so did the Beatles. Look at any old news reel and the adoring, joyful expressions and hysterical outbursts among their adorers are eerily similar.

 

I don't think you can put widespread drug use down to copycat tactics. I bet a lot of public drug use pre-dated rock musicians' use. Blues and purple hearts were common among mods and others. LSD wasn't made illegal in the USA till 68. There was loads of other stuff - barbs, quaaludes, etc - that people got into without waiting for Barrett or Hendrix to write them a prescription. I think you're deliberately downplaying general public demand for drugs and falsely blaming others for creating a wider demand that otherwise you state there wouldn't be.

 

Hitler didn't seduce many people. He tended to rely on terror.

[Phanerothyme]

In a society where drugs were legal how would you go about distributing them?

What laws would be put in place? Would it be acceptable to see your kids using them? Would you have any control as to the quantity they used?

 

Go on. Paint me a picture of Drug Utopia

 

Utopias don't exist.

 

But answer this question if you can - under a system where access to drugs is permitted but regulated and restricted, do you think it will be easier or harder for younger children to obtain drugs, compared to the situation today?

[Magilla]

In a society where drugs were legal how would you go about distributing them?

 

Some drugs are already legal, so in ways that are largely similar to the way legal drugs are already sold.

 

What laws would be put in place?

 

Ones similar to the ones already in place.

 

Would it be acceptable to see your kids using them?

 

Is it acceptable to see kids using legal drugs now?

 

Would you have any control as to the quantity they used?

 

How do people control the quantity of legal drugs they consume now?

 

Go on. Paint me a picture of Drug Utopia

 

Did anyone claim it would be a utopia?

[ferno]

In a society where drugs were legal how would you go about distributing them?

What laws would be put in place? Would it be acceptable to see your kids using them? Would you have any control as to the quantity they used?

 

Go on. Paint me a picture of Drug Utopia

 

I already did, the Portuguese experiment article I posted and that you ignored, as you ignore any/everything that refutes your asinine opinions.

[Harleyman]

I don't think you can put widespread drug use down to copycat tactics. I bet a lot of public drug use pre-dated rock musicians' use. Blues and purple hearts were common among mods and others. LSD wasn't made illegal in the USA till 68. There was loads of other stuff - barbs, quaaludes, etc - that people got into without waiting for Barrett or Hendrix to write them a prescription. I think you're deliberately downplaying general public demand for drugs and falsely blaming others for creating a wider demand that otherwise you state there wouldn't be.

 

Hitler didn't seduce many people. He tended to rely on terror.

 

Were you a child of the 40s and 50s? I was. I spent my early years in Parson Cross. People smoked a lot, even kids sneaked a drag or two and people drank, some getting ***** faced on Saturday nights but no one knew what drugs were except for headaches and rheumatism relief. It was a completely different world. I keep saying that drug use for pleasure and widespread addiction came about at the time that such groups as the Stones and the Beatles appeared on the scene.

 

Hitler did seduce a generation, even a whole nation BTW. Until the war turned against him he was the idol of an overwhelming majority of Germans. How else could a single man mobilize a whole nation and create an army who conquered most of Europe and who were quite willing to die for him.

 

The only people in terror from Hitler were the Jews and others who did not fit in with his new order

[ferno]

Were you a child of the 40s and 50s? I was. I spent my early years in Parson Cross. People smoked a lot, even kids sneaked a drag or two and people drank, some getting ***** faced on Saturday nights but no one knew what drugs were except for headaches and rheumatism relief. It was a completely different world.

 

Heroin was prescribed in the fifties in the UK. It was controlled, regulated, legal. Acquisitive crime levels were lower. The policies you defend create the rampant criminality addicts carry out to buy drugs on the black market.